"Does it matter?" Rojire asked. "You warned me not so long ago that it might become difficult to accommodate the Sultan for much longer. I think the time may have come to consider finding—"
"—another place to live?" Sanat Ji Mani finished for him. "What place would that be, do you think? Here, at least, we know what we face, but elsewhere?"
"You say that readily enough," said Rojire, "but you have often put yourself at risk in the name of familiarity." He coughed. "I would not like to see you endure what you did outside of Baghdad again."
Sanat Ji Mani made a gesture of dismissal. "This is different, and well you know it."
"It is enough the same to make me worried," countered Rojire, then deliberately changed the subject. "I have gathered moldy bread for your sovereign remedy."
"Excellent," said Sanat Ji Mani. "Is the anodyne paste finished yet?"
"Yes. I have put it into jars, as you ordered," said Rojire. "I have also refilled the bottles of tincture for coughs and wheezing." He pointed to the shelves where these items stood, all neatly labeled in Latin. "The skin-paste with wool-fat and spider's-breath is in the alabaster jars at the end of the shelf."
"You have been busy," Sanat Ji Mani approved. "Is there syrup of poppies, as well?"
"The first mixture is done, and the second will be done tomorrow," said Rojire.
"That is good to hear. I will devote a few days to making other medicaments before I give orders to the armorers to make breastplates for archers, and instructions to the boyers and fletchers for the bows and arrows that Firuz Ihbal requires in the Sultan's name." His tone was lightly ironic, but there was a sadness in his dark eyes that was more than annoyance at the avarice of the Sultan's deputy.
"You are worried," said Rojire, taking no satisfaction in being right.
"The Sultanate is weak. Many know it, and seek to hide that fact with displays of arms that mean nothing." Sanat Ji Mani sat down on the tall, Roman stool that stood in front of his longest table. "These deputies are more concerned about jealousies among themselves than they are about any enemies that might rise against the Sultanate. They do not understand how fragile their hold has become."
"And you think that they may be tested?" Rojire asked.
"I fear they may," he answered as gently as he could. "And they have no T'en Chih-Yü to hold their borders." He took a long, unsteady breath.
"Timur-i Lenkh?" Rojire suggested.
"He would have to come a long way, if all the rumors about his location are true, which is unlikely, knowing how rumors become distorted and magnified. But the Jagatai are known for their swift movement of troops, so it is not impossible," said Sanat Ji Mani, casting his mind back to his own experience of the troops of Jenghiz Khan, whose uncanny speed had broken the superior Chinese army and made Jenghiz's grandson Kublai the Emperor of China. "It could happen here."
"Yet you will not leave," said Rojire.
"No. Not now," said Sanat Ji Mani, a remoteness coming over him that Rojire knew could not be lifted by anything he might say.
"But you will not rule out the possibility?" Rojire persisted, not at all certain that he would receive an answer.
"I will not," said Sanat Ji Mani as a faint vertical line formed between his fine brows.
Rojire accepted this, unwilling to press for a greater response. He put his mind on preparing the lamps for Sanat Ji Mani's long night of work ahead of him. When he had finished pouring oil into all of them, he said, "It is time for the evening meal."
"Yes," said Sanat Ji Mani remotely. "See that the staff—"
With a sense of relief, Rojire said, "I will. I have issued instructions to the cook already on their behalf. They will all be fed: lentils, lamb, onions, rice, tamarind paste, two kinds of bread, and cheese." It was one of a dozen standard meals Sanat Ji Mani provided his household, but the recitation of this eminently pragmatic concern restored his equilibrium. "Fruit and honey for a finish."
"Very good," said Sanat Ji Mani, the severity of his expression softening. "I did not mean to push you out, Rojire," he went on. "I am apprehensive and I have visited my unease on you. If you will pardon my brusqueness?"
"Certainly," said Rojire promptly. "I should not have pressed you."
"Of course you should," said Sanat Ji Mani. "I have not behaved well toward you, for which I apologize." His quick smile was rueful. "I cannot give you my Word that I will never do so again."
Rojire chuckled. "Wise of you, my master." He put down flint-and-steel. "There. I will see to supper and then visit you again."
"Thank you," said Sanat Ji Mani. "And tomorrow we must go to the House of Service, to care for the injured there."
"Will Avasa Dani come with you?" Rojire asked as he went to the door.
"No; I doubt it. Her husband's family would not like it, and that would bring her trouble. I have authority from her husband, and I can allow her freedom in my own home, but her uncles would not like me to extend the same liberties to her beyond these walls. Nor would her husband, if he ever learned of it." He looked down at his
hands. "They are uneasy enough about the way he has arranged matters in his absence; I do not want to give them any reason to challenge her situation. Her brothers-in-law could go before the magistrate and insist that she be sequestered in her house and receive only female visitors."
Rojire nodded. "She would like to assist you," he said quietly. "She has told me several times she wishes to see how you treat the injured and ill with your medicaments."
"I am aware of that; but it would be folly to put her so much at risk. She is not foolish; she knows this." He went to the wall filled with pigeon-hole drawers and opened one of them. "Go on. I will set to work now."
"Do you want anything from the library?" Rojire was almost out the door.
"Not tonight," Sanat Ji Mani replied with a gesture of obligation.
Rojire closed the door and descended the stairs to the ground floor, where he sounded the clapper to bring the household to their dining room. He then went to speak to the cook, and to carry the first of the large, steaming bowls in to the servants.
Hirsuma was the last to arrive; he took his place hurriedly, as if he hoped not to be seen. When the platter of flat-bread reached him, he tore off half a round and shoved the platter along, his eyes moving furtively as if he had been caught in a crime.
"What is the matter, Hirsuma?" Rojire asked. "Are you ill?"
"Ill?" Hirsuma echoed. "No. I am well." He plucked a morsel of flat-bread with shaking fingers and bit into it eagerly.
"Then is anything else amiss?" Rojire pursued, aware that Hirsuma was not himself.
Hirsuma coughed and spat out the bread. "You cannot speak to me in that way. You are only a servant, and a foreigner. You are nothing in Delhi."
"Our master is a foreigner," Rojire reminded him. "He is a good and generous man, is he not?"
"He is," Hirsuma allowed. "But he is a foreigner.
You
are a foreigner. I was born in Delhi, as my father and his father were. I do not have to bow to foreigners."
"But you will take the money and the food provided by foreigners," Rojire pointed out. "As a native of this city, should you not uphold its honor and respect the man who employs you?"
"You cannot speak to me so," Hirsuma insisted. "I may do as I think best. You cannot tell me how I am to behave."
"I saw you speaking to a scrawny fellow this afternoon," said Garuda, the under-steward. "You stayed with him for some time."
"He was seeking alms. I said I would need permission to give him any," Hirsuma said, a bit too quickly.
"You spoke to him longer than that," Garuda said, and looked to Rojire. "He is not to be trusted if he will not tell you what transpired."
Hirsuma shoved himself away from the table and got to his feet. "I do not have to listen to this. It is all falsehoods."
Rojire held up his hand. "You are accused of nothing but talking with an alms-seeker. Where is the harm in that?"
Mollified, Hirsuma stood still, his hands bunched at his sides. "You do not know anything. None of you know anything."
"Very true," Rojire agreed at once. "And for that reason, we ask. In our situation you would do the same." He indicated the thick cushion on which Hirsuma had been sitting. "I am only looking out for the household; I would expect the same of all of you."
Garuda swept his arm out, indicating all fourteen men seated around the table. "What our master-steward says is true. It is for the good of the household that we know these things." He grinned encouragement. "What has caused you agitation?"
"It is nothing," said Hirsuma, a note of resentment in his voice now. "They are all being foolish."
Before more challenges could be issued, Rojire said, "If Hirsuma says it is nothing, then we must accept that it is nothing." He got to his feet. "Dine well, and retire content."
The men at the table acknowledged this usual salutation with exclamations of good-will as Rojire departed; alone in the kitchen, Rojire began to cut up a raw chicken, all the while listening closely to the low murmur of conversation from the dining room, hoping to glean some more information than what little he had learned. He was familiar with the complaints of servants, but wondered if this was dif
ferent: he was worried about Hirsuma, for it was obvious that the servant was trying to conceal something— but what? and why? The description of a scrawny fellow alerted him, reminding him of the man who had followed him and Sanat Ji Mani earlier that day. Of course, Rojire reminded himself, there was more than one scrawny fellow in Delhi, and that most alms-seekers were far from robust, but he could not rid himself of the conviction that this was the same man.
A burst of raised voices cut into Rojire's musing, and he set his partially eaten chicken aside to return to the dining room, where he found Hirsuma on his feet again, and Garuda and Bohdil, the head groom, facing him angrily. "What is the meaning of this?" Rojire inquired, taking a calming tone with the belligerent servants.
"He has been telling secrets to enemies of our household," said Garuda.
"I heard him," added Bohdil. "The rascal he spoke to tried to pry opinions from me, but I would not give them." He put his hand to his chest. "I know what my duties are, unlike some others."
"Very good of you," said Rojire. "But what of Hirsuma?" He looked toward the houseman. "Did you do this thing? Were you careless with the truth when you said you only spoke of alms with—"
"He lied," said Bohdil. "He told the man many things."
Most of the servants listened in rapt attention: this was more excitement than they had had in many months, and they were determined to get full value from the confrontation.
"I did not!" Hirsuma insisted, his face darkening with indignation. "The man said he had heard that our master was greedy and lazy, taking advantage of the hard-working people of Delhi; I told him that it was far from the case." He shook his head once, like a lion worrying prey. "I said that our master gives alms at the temples and mosques of the city, and that he goes to the House of Service every fortnight to treat the injured and ill as an act of charity. I said that many others born in Delhi would be the better for doing as our foreign master does."
Bohdil nodded. "That is what I heard."
Garuda pointed at Hirsuma. "You did well to defend our master, but you should not have told that man so much. You should not have lied when you were asked about what you have done. You have made
it worse for yourself." He glanced at Rojire. "How many strokes?"
Rojire held up his hand. "No. He is not to be beaten."
"Then how long will you confine him?" Garuda demanded. "We will keep guard, so that he will not be fed."
"Nor will he be confined and starved," said Rojire.
There was a shocked silence at the table; Garuda muttered something under his breath, and then said, "You must ask our master how many strokes."
"I have no need to ask," Rojire said. "Sanat Ji Mani does not beat his servants, just as he does not keep slaves. He does not confine them to starve them, either." He paused to let the men consider what he had said. "You believe that this man has done wrong to the household, and has slighted our master, and that may be true, but I tell you that he is not to be punished for what he has done, or not punished by beating or starving. It is not our master's way."
"If he is not beaten or starved, why will he not betray our master again, or why would not others among us?" Garuda asked, his words sharp.
"Because if there are any more lapses, on Hirsuma's part or any other's, he will be turned out of the household and another servant hired in his place," said Rojire. "Our master will allow an error in judgment, but not a pattern of untrustworthiness."
