Emissary (4 page)

She smelled the nauseating fragrance of violets on his breath again, reminding her of the dangerous plot she was designing and the even more dangerous individual she was hatching it with. ‘Boaz, unfortunately, will not be our pawn. As I have said, he has become a man these past thirteen or so moons and he will not be manipulated easily.’

‘He need not know, Valide,’ Salmeo said softly and she recognised his habit of looking down at his fingers, not giving eye contact. This was Salmeo at his best, slippery and cunning.

‘You want to use my son without his knowledge?’ she stated, determined to avoid all innuendo.

Salmeo nodded but still would not meet her gaze. ‘He need not be in on our plan.’

The word
our
was not lost on her. She knew from this moment she had tossed her future in with that of Salmeo. Her grand notion to align Tariq with herself and keep Salmeo at more of a distance, but still under her authority, had not unfolded as she had hoped. The Vizier was now Grand Vizier and far more powerful, and he had so cleverly ingratiated himself with her son, it was sickening. Even now she couldn’t quite grasp how it had happened, under her nose and with such speed. At the old Zar’s death he was a snivelling, obsequious adviser with no-one’s respect and only her lukewarm patronage to save him. Within
weeks of the new Zar being crowned, Tariq was a changed man in many respects. His demeanour, even the way he presented himself, had undergone some sort of transformation. The man was suddenly interesting, pithy, dry-witted and downright clever—aspects she had not once previously appreciated in the Vizier. And, damn him, he looked somehow different. Oh, it was Tariq all right, no-one could claim otherwise, but gone was the stooped carriage and all the vulgar adornments he so favoured, including jewels in his beard and on his sandals. A few moons back she couldn’t spot a single item that sparkled on his person, and his clothes were no longer ostentatious. All of a sudden he was wearing subtle colours and simple lines, more befitting a man of his appointment as Grand Vizier. Herezah could swear he now had a roving eye for women too, something that had never occurred to her before. Tariq had seemed almost sexless in the years gone by and she knew he lived alone, took no women casually and certainly had no long-time lovers. This much Zar Joreb had confirmed directly with her on one of their cosy nights together. But this new Tariq all but flirted with her, winked at some of the serving girls, and, in the rare company of the veiled members of the harem, gave them lingering appreciation.

It was Tariq who was now seemingly closest to the Zar—him and the despised dwarf, of course; how could she overlook Pez? She realised Salmeo
was watching her and drew herself back from those thoughts that irritated her so much.

With her next words she knew she was not just aligning herself with Salmeo rather than Tariq, but also risking her fragile relationship with her son, the Zar. ‘And so now please explain this mystery to me as to how we use my son without his consent,’ she said. ‘But first, I need a fresh brew of my tea. Would you organise it, please, whilst I change out of my silk robe.’

Salmeo gave instructions to a eunuch servant and Herezah disappeared into her sleeping chamber, which led into her dressing-rooms. She emerged at the same time as Salmeo was dismissing the servant who had laid out fresh crockery.

‘You look very lovely, Valide,’ the chief eunuch commented.

She nodded, not really needing to be told this. She knew how splendid she appeared today. There was work to do and she needed to be at her dazzling best.

‘May I pour for you?’ he added.

‘Please,’ she replied, settling herself by the window. As she stared out into the gardens she contemplated, not for the first time, how often she stared at garden or sea, as all in the palace did, with inextinguishable longing to be elsewhere.

‘We’re all prisoners of this beautiful place,’ she said, speaking her thoughts aloud.

‘Privileged prisoners, Valide,’ Salmeo commented from behind as the steaming citrus brew swallowed up a slice of lime that he had slid into it. He lightly stepped towards Herezah and delicately handed her the tall, exquisite cup that stood on an equally beautiful saucer. It was her own design, commissioned by Joreb when she was pronounced wife and Absolute Favourite. Its colours were bold and daring, reflecting Herezah’s personality, Joreb had told her.

She sipped, making a soft sound of pleasure at the warmth. ‘All servants dismissed?’ she checked.

‘We are alone, Valide.’

‘Then I am all ears, Grand Master Eunuch. Tell me your cunning plan.’

The man, hunched like a sack of grain in the chair, stared intently out to sea. Hair, once black as the famous velvet from Shagaire, now curiously golden, blew across his face, unnoticed.

The wind was refreshing rather than cold, for summer had begun to lay its new warmth over the land. Nevertheless the man’s bones seemed to rattle from a constant shivering that had nothing to do with any chill. The goat-hair blanket hung loosely from his hollow frame, ignored and as unwanted by this wearer as any other form of comfort that tried its healing qualities but failed. This one wanted to suffer, for in suffering there was life.

The day itself had been sublime, its brightness almost painful on the eyes, but the man’s gaze was distracted neither by the sparkle of the first season’s sun nor the glistening Faranel Sea it lit and ultimately warmed. Instead all focus was riveted on the far distance and the glowing outline of the city of Percheron, blushing fiercely in the late-afternoon sunlight. High on the hill that overlooked the magnificent horseshoe-shaped
bay was the Stone Palace, and it was to its quiet hallways and chambers that his thoughts fled. And although the twin giants who kept guard over Percheron captured his attention from time to time, as though trying to distract him from the lonely vigil, that gaze was always quickly drawn back to the dominating presence of the Zar’s palace.

‘You should move inside now,’ the old woman who had limped up urged gently. ‘And it’s time for your medicine,’ she added.

‘For whatever good it will do me,’ he replied.

She didn’t mean it to but her tone still came out bitter. ‘It’s no good staring towards the palace, Lazar. She cannot see you but she is safe. Let that be enough.’

They both knew that was simply her opening gambit for an old argument. He bit. ‘Don’t lecture me, priestess. At least you can go into the city freely. I am stuck here, as much a prisoner of this leper colony as Ana is of the harem.’

‘Well, blame yourself! You took too big a risk and set yourself back moons with a journey you were not well enough to make.’ She made a sound of disgust. ‘Attending Horz’s execution was madness.’

‘I told you, I needed to get the note to Pez,’ he replied, his anger stoking.

‘I could have taken the note to Pez, but of course you wanted to see Ana again. What good are you to us if you insist on speeding your own death?’

‘My life is my own,’ Lazar growled. ‘It does not belong to you, not anyone!’

‘Is that so?’ she said in a manner suggesting the opposite, but this time she had heard the fury and could feel only relief, for it was a good sign of his recovery. ‘You can try and fool us but I suspect you can’t fool yourself with such hollow words. Your life is already given—she owns it,’ she said, her crooked finger pointing angrily towards the palace where Ana lived.

It was a cruel jibe but Zafira needed anger from Lazar. Where there was anger there was fight, and where there was fight there was surely life, for if his crushing despair won through—and it still could—they were lost. She hoped there might be something equally cutting spat in reply but there was only an echo of her own sigh. They both knew what she said was true, but they also knew the stakes of this strange battle they were now engaged in were high, and in truth risks were all they had to choose from.

‘I shall be in shortly,’ finally came the response.

‘Let me help you.’

‘No. I will manage.’

‘Lazar, you must forget her,’ she cautioned softly. ‘I suspect—’

‘Just a few more minutes, Zafira,’ he said, cutting her words off.

He didn’t deny that it was the sad memory of the loss of a woman that was so destructive to his healing, and yet Zafira knew it was because of
this woman that Lazar still lived, still bothered to wake each day and breathe, eat if she could get much down him, hobble around keeping his limbs supple, if not strong. It was so ironic. Opposing emotions pulling him apart, both good and bad for his health.

His perilous trip into the city was seemingly to let Pez know that he lived and to summon the dwarf to come to Star Island immediately. This was his pretext for slipping away from Zafira, risking his life just hours after being revived from the unconsciousness that had followed the flogging and poison, when he was not nearly strong enough to make the journey across the water. But the note was his excuse—anyone could have delivered it for him. No, his true motive was that one final glimpse of Odalisque Ana. And that effort had nearly taken what little life had been left to this man.

He had barely clung to existence after the poisoning from the whip that opened his back so badly. Blood loss, drezden poison and a deep sorrow all conspired to kill him. But love sustained him. His fragile hold on life was there, Zafira knew, only because it might mean he would see her once more. And so he had fought death this past eleven moons, fought it so hard he was left a living wreck, but mend he would, if he took his rest and medicine.

Lazar now understood that the drezden brought with all its evil intention a dark gift. A
legacy. He knew from the curious woman known as Ellyana, who had effectively saved his life, that this gift could not be given back.

‘It will stay with you forever,’ she had counselled when he was sufficiently recovered to focus on words, and on living. ‘It will lie dormant within you and then like a sickness curse you all over again on a whim.’

‘What is my warning? How will I know when it comes?’ he had asked, when he was strong enough, his throat raspy from lack of speaking for so long.

‘You won’t. It simply attacks when it chooses.’

‘And how can Lazar protect himself then?’ Zafira had asked on his behalf.

‘With the drezden itself. You must always carry a vial of it with you. Put a drop of the concentrated poison on your finger—no more than a single drop, mind—and put that on your tongue. It will take some hours but it will restore you.’

‘But it hasn’t restored me on this occasion.’

‘Lazar, you were as good as dead from the whipping alone. I defy any physician to have brought you back from the brink of the abyss with their modern potions and notions. Trust me. If you were at the palace or under the care of the male doctors, you would have been given up to your god. Drezden saved you. It will again and much faster now that your body can cope with it, but only…’ She stopped, shrugged.

‘For a while,’ Lazar finished what Ellyana had not said.

The woman had simply nodded. Not long after, she had disappeared. Zafira still found it unsettling that the woman had come into their lives at a time of such high drama and then left so soon with no warning, no farewell, and no further instructions…except for a caution; she had told Zafira that Iridor, the demi-god in his owl form, would rise, and once that occurred, then the battle of the gods, which she had spoken about, would have begun. She had counselled that Lazar was integral to the success of the Goddess but wouldn’t, or perhaps couldn’t, explain why. Zafira hadn’t really understood much of it at all but Ellyana was not one to be pressed, and then she had disappeared. They hadn’t seen or heard from her in almost a year.

Zafira had suspected who Iridor might be but had no idea of what his rising meant. She was none the wiser now, although her suspicions of who the Messenger of Lyana the Goddess was had been confirmed on the night after Horz of the Elim had died. It had come as no surprise in truth, but despite her easy acceptance she experienced an intense feeling of awe every time she saw the beautiful snowy owl.

She returned her thoughts to the present, realising that she had remained standing there beside the former Spur.

Lazar reminded her. ‘Please, Zafira.’

His plea tugged at her heart. He had suffered enough, now needed encouragement.

‘You are mending, Spur. I have been hard on you, perhaps not as honest as I should be. I know you feel weak but your back is healed and I’ve watched you exercising. I see you have some strength back.’ He nodded, remained silent. ‘Allow yourself to be well. The medicine can only do so much. Now it’s up to you.’

‘I realise this. Now please, just give me a few more minutes alone.’

There was such a plaintive note in his voice that the old woman could do little more than shake her head and oblige. Turning, she hobbled away towards the small hut that served as home nowadays, wincing at the snag of pain in her hip that constantly reminded her she was well past her best years, and yet never had she needed strength and health more than she did now.

Ana bowed low and gracefully. ‘You wished to see me, Valide?’

‘I did, child. Come, walk with me in the courtyard. This mild weather is too delicious to waste,’ Herezah replied, noting with surprise how different Ana appeared since she had last paid her any close scrutiny. Herezah detested the girl so much she had deliberately ignored her, had in fact had so little to do with the girls these most recent moons that she had allowed Ana—and no doubt
some of the older odalisques—to suddenly blossom into womanhood without noticing. That was a mistake and most unlike her but then no-one understood how the death of Lazar had personally affected her. For all her outward goading of him, her public rebukes and the hardships she could force upon him, this was the one man over her lonely lifetime who had made her otherwise cold heart burn.

She had never loved Zar Joreb but she had admired and enjoyed him. Without his favour she shuddered to imagine what would have become of her, and Boaz would have suffered the hideous death his brothers had. In truth, love was something she had never experienced, so whether she loved Lazar she could not say. But did her lust overflow for him? Yes! She had never wanted any other man with that kind of intense passion but he had ignored her advances, denied her even simple pleasures—a kind word, a smile. Since Ana had arrived in their lives, his polite shunning of Herezah had crystallised into hatred, she was sure of this. He despised her for denying him access to Ana. Still, Herezah’s heart could jump at the mention of his name after all this time, could also ache when she allowed herself space and time to think about his loss. And so, very unwisely, amidst her most private sorrow and her desire to improve her relationship with her son, she had permitted the harem, her seat of power, to essentially function
without her closest supervision. Here she was paying the price for that error as she watched Ana approach. It was never too late, though; striking woman or not, Ana was still just an odalisque and far beneath the Valide’s status.

‘And how are you, my dear?’ Herezah asked, not at all interested but keen to appear as friendly as possible.

‘I am well, Valide, thank you,’ Ana answered as she followed Herezah into the small, private garden.

‘Come and stand in the light, Ana, so that I may look at you,’ Herezah suggested. She watched the girl glide towards the column of sunlight that cut through the cypress pines and warmed the stone flagstones beneath her sandals. She felt instant envy at the way the girl’s hair blazed brightly beneath the golden rays, glinting as she tossed that free-flowing hair without knowing what effect it could have on the onlooker, particularly a male one. ‘You have changed, Ana.’

‘How so, Valide?’ Ana asked politely.

Herezah considered. ‘You are taller, you have an eye for costume, I see, and fuller of figure too—which is a good thing, for you were on the narrow side.’

‘I try not to eat too many of the sweet dishes that the kitchens tempt us with, Valide,’ Ana replied but not defensively.

‘I don’t think you have to worry too much, my dear. At your age I could eat a camel for a snack
and not put on so much as a sheld. It’s after childbirth that you have to observe new eating habits. You wouldn’t have been acquainted with the old Zar’s harem,’ she said.

‘It was disbanded just prior to my arrival.’

‘Well, you’d have seen a queue of fat women waddling out of the palace, I assure you,’ Herezah said, more viciously than intended.

Ana betrayed no recognition of the insult on her expression, which remained somewhat frustratingly serene under Herezah’s gaze. ‘I was once told that roundness of body meant prosperity, Valide.’

Herezah blinked in irritation. The girl was far too forward in presenting her own thoughts. ‘That may well be, Ana,’ she said, instantly regretting her jibe at the old harem’s women and wives, ‘but no Zar is going to choose a corpulent woman over one whose body is voluptuous but still trim.’

It was as if Ana ignored the Valide’s comment. ‘I was also told that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Valide. Perhaps each Zar has different ideas of what is attractive in a woman. Zar Boaz may find a woman’s mind beautiful and not lay so much store by her figure.’

Herezah couldn’t stifle the gasp of indignation that escaped her.

Ana realised her error. ‘Forgive me, Valide. I meant no offence. I am merely posing an idea.’

‘You offer your private thoughts too easily, Ana, for one so young.’

‘I apologise, Valide Herezah,’ Ana tried again, this time going to her knees. ‘I am trying to teach myself not to.’

Herezah looked at the kneeling figure and it was as though she were looking at herself from fifteen years ago. Elegant, headstrong, beautiful on the outside and a sharp intelligence held within. Herezah had fed the fire of ambition that burned so brightly inwardly—that was all that had got her through the years of destructive boredom. But ambition did not burn in this girl, she deduced. It was something completely different and yet still it gave off the similar heat, simmering constantly but invisibly.

‘What is it that you want?’ Herezah said, the words slipping out before she could stop them.

Ana looked up in surprise. ‘I want nothing, Valide. I just want to be,’ she answered, not explaining anything.

Herezah again felt the twitch of exasperation. ‘To be? Whatever does that mean?’

Ana shrugged. ‘Pardon me, but I’m just not sure how I must respond.’

Again the evasiveness and lack of anything but cryptic responses.

‘You say you want nothing,’ Herezah repeated, clutching at the only thing Ana had said that made sense, ‘and yet you have all the girls in the harem eating out of your palm.’