This Woven Kingdom (16 page)

Alizeh frowned.

If Omid had been admitted entry to Baz House on the basis of these papers, did not Mrs. Amina already know about the invitations? Had she not already been informed on the matter, and made her decision? The housekeeper could've easily barred the boy from entering, could've denied Alizeh even a moment to speak with him. Could it be, then, that her fifteen minutes with the child were tacit approval of precisely such an outing? Had Mrs. Amina done her a kindness?

Alizeh bit her lip; it was hard to know.

Still, this uncertainty did not keep her from dreaming. Such an evening would be a rare treat for anyone, though perhaps especially so for the likes of Alizeh, who'd not been invited anywhere in years.

In fact, she'd not done anything purely recreational in what felt like a painfully long time. This would be a singular experience, then, for not only was it an evening of excitement
by any metric, but it would be embarked upon with a friend, a friend with whom she might conspire and share stories. Alizeh thought she'd be content merely to stand at the back of the ballroom and stare, to admire the gowns and glittering details of a living, breathing world so different from the drudgery of her own waking hours. It sounded decadent.

It sounded
fun
.

“And we can eat fancy food the whole night long!” Omid was saying. “There should be all kinds of fruits and cakes and nuts and oh, I bet there will be sweet rice and beef skewers, and all sorts of stews and pickled vegetables. The palace chef is said to be a legend, miss. It's bound to be a real feast, with music and dancing and—”

The boy hesitated then, the words dying in his mouth.

“I do hope,” he said, faltering a bit, “I do hope you see, miss, that this is my way of apologizing for my wrongdoing. My ma wouldn't have been proud of me that morning, and I been thinking about it every day since. You can't know how ashamed I am for trying to steal from you.”

Alizeh conjured a faint smile. “And for trying to murder me?”

At that Omid turned bright red; even the tips of his ears went scarlet. “Oh, miss, I weren't going to murder you, I swear, I never would've done it. I was only”—he swallowed—“I only— I was so hungry, see, and I couldn't think straight— It was like a demon had possessed me—”

Alizeh covered his freckled hand with her own bandaged one and squeezed gently. “It's quite all right,” she said. “The demon is gone now. And I accept your apology.”

Omid looked up. “You do?”

“I do.”

“Just like that? No groveling or nothing?”

“No, no groveling necessary.” She laughed. “Though—may I ask you a rather impertinent question?”

“Anything, miss.”

“Well. Forgive me for how this sounds, for I mean no disrespect—but it strikes me as odd that the king's men agreed to your request so readily. All of high society must be devouring itself for a chance at one of these invitations. I can't imagine it was a small thing to offer you two.”

“Oh that's true, miss, no doubt about it, but as I said, I'm pretty important now. They need me.”

“Oh?”

He nodded. “Pretty sure I'm meant to be there as a trophy,” he said. “Living proof, miss.”

Alizeh was surprised to discover that Omid's tone did not project arrogance, but a quiet wisdom rare for his age.

“A trophy?” she said, realization dawning. “A trophy for the prince, you mean?”

“Yes, miss, exactly that.”

“But why would the prince require such a trophy? Is he not enough on his own?”

“I can't say, miss. I only think I'm supposed to remind the people, you understand, of the merciful empire. To tell the tale of the heroic prince and the southern street rat.”

“I see.” Alizeh's enthusiasm dimmed. “And was he?” she asked after a moment. “Heroic?”

“I can't honestly say, miss.” Omid shrugged. “I was
near-dead for the part where he saved my life.”

Alizeh went quiet then, laid low by the reminder that this vibrant, eager child had tried to take his own life. She was trying to think of what to say next, and faltered.

“Miss?”

She looked up. “Yes?”

“It's only—I just realized you never told me your name.”

“Oh.” She startled. “Yes. Of course.”

Alizeh had managed to live a long time without needing to supply her name to anyone. Even Mrs. Amina had never demanded to know—preferring instead to call her
you
and
girl
. But oh, what harm would it do if she told Omid her name now? Who was listening, anyway?

Quietly, she said, “I am Alizeh.”

“Alizeh,” said the boy, testing the shape of it in his mouth. “I th—”

“
Enough.
” Mrs. Amina snatched the sand timer from the table. “That is quite enough. Your fifteen minutes are up. Back to work, girl.”

Alizeh swiped the scroll with lightning speed, slipping it up her sleeve with the artistry of an experienced thief. She jumped to her feet and curtsied.

“Yes, ma'am,” she said.

She chanced a glance in Omid's direction, offered him a barely perceptible nod, and was already darting into the hall when he shouted—

“Minda! Setunt tesh.”
Tomorrow! Nine o'clock.
“Manotan ani!”
I'll meet you there!

Mrs. Amina straightened, her arms pinned angrily to her
sides. “Someone please escort this child outside.
Now.
”

Two footmen appeared in an instant, arms outstretched as if to manhandle the boy, but Omid was undaunted. He was smiling, clutching his scrolls to his chest and slipping out of reach when he said—

“Bep shayn aneti, eh? Wi nek snoda.”
Wear something nice, okay? And no snoda.

KAMRAN TILTED HIS HEAD UP
at the blue mosaic work of the war room, not merely to admire the geometric ingenuity executed upon the domed ceiling, but to exercise his tortured neck away from the stiff collar of his tunic.

The prince had been willing to don this shirt only because he'd been assured by his valet that it was made of pure silk—and silk, he'd assumed, would prove more comfortable than that of his other formal wear. Silk was purported to be a smooth and quiet textile, was it not?

How, then, to explain the atrocity he wore now?

Kamran could not understand why the blasted article was so crisp, or why it made so much noise when he moved.

His valet was clearly an idiot.

It had taken hours, but Kamran's earlier anger had abated just long enough to carry him home. His frustrations still simmered at a low, constant heat, but when the haze of fury had lifted, Kamran looked about himself and decided the only way through this day was to focus on things he could control. He feared he might otherwise spend every minute staring angrily at the clock until he could be certain the girl was dead.

It wouldn't do.

Much better, the prince thought, would be to exorcise
his demons in the pursuit of a known enemy—and he bade Hazan assemble a gathering of a dozen high-ranking military officials. There was a great deal to discuss with respect to the brewing tensions with Tulan, and Kamran hoped to spend the remainder of the day working through strategy in the palace war room. Work, he thought, would calm him.

He had miscalculated.

As if this day hadn't been from its birth an abomination, Kamran seemed doomed now to spend the rest of it accosted by halfwits; imbeciles whose jobs it was to dress him and guide him and advise him poorly in all matters both foreign and domestic.

Idiots, all of them idiots.

He was listening to one of those idiots now. The empire of Ardunia had a redundant, useless defense minister, and not only was the greasy creature present in the war room today, he wouldn't cease speaking long enough to allow a more reasonable person to contradict him.

“Certainly, there are some concerns about relations with Tulan,” the minister was saying, dispensing words at a sluggardly pace so tedious Kamran wanted to throttle the man. “But we have the situation well in hand, and I would humbly remind His Highness—for our esteemed prince had yet to set foot on a battlefield when these provisions were made—that it was covert Ardunian intelligence that brought to bear the promotions of several of Tulan's highest ranking officials, who might now be counted upon to report any information of note to their Ardunian allies . . .”

Kamran briefly closed his eyes, clenching his fists to keep
from boxing his own ears or tearing the shirt from his body. He'd been forced to change into formal wear for the purposes of this meeting, which was one of the more ludicrous customs of peacetime. The near decade they'd spent away from the battlefield had made the once legendary leaders of Ardunia now thick and lethargic, stripping these military summits of their urgency, degrading them all in the process.

Kamran was not only prince of Ardunia, but one of only five lieutenant generals responsible for the five respective field armies—each a hundred thousand soldiers strong—and he took his position quite seriously.

When the time came for Kamran to inherit the throne, so, too, would he inherit his grandfather's role as commanding general of the entire Ardunian military, and there were few who did not resent the prince's impending elevation to the distinguished rank at such a young age. The title should have gone to his father, yes, but such was Kamran's fate. He could not run from it any more than he could reanimate the dead. His only recourse was to work harder—and smarter—to show what he was worth.

This, among other reasons, might explain why his comrades had not taken kindly to Kamran's overly aggressive counsel, and had all but called him an unschooled child for daring to suggest a preemptive attack on Tulanian soil.

Kamran did not care.

It was true that these men had the benefit of age and decades of experience to support their ideas, but so too had they been idle in the last several years of peace, preferring to laze about on their large estates, abandoning their wives
and children to toss coin instead at courtesans; to dull their minds with opium.

Kamran, meanwhile, had actually been reading the weekly reports sent in from the divisions.

There were fifty divisions spanning the empire, each comprising ten thousand soldiers, and each commanded by a major general whose job, among others, was to compile weekly briefings based on essential findings from lower battalions and regiments.

These fifty disparate briefings were then issued
not
to direct superiors, but to the defense minister, who read the materials and disseminated pertinent information to the king and his five lieutenant generals. Fifty briefings from across the empire, each five pages long.

That made for two hundred and fifty pages a week.

Which meant every month, a thousand pages of essential material was bequeathed to a single unctuous man upon whom the king himself relied for critical intelligence and instruction.

This,
this
was where Kamran lost his patience.

The dissemination of key information through a defense minister was an ancient practice, one that had been established during wartime to spare the highest-ranking officials the critical hours that might otherwise be spent poring over hundreds of pages of material. Once upon a time, it had made sense. But Ardunia had been at peace now for seven years, and still his fellow lieutenants did not read the reports for themselves, relying instead upon a minister who grew only more unqualified by the hour.

Kamran had long ago circumvented this impotent practice, preferring to read the briefings in full through the lens of his own mind and not the minister's.

Had anyone else in the room bothered to read the sitrep from these different reaches of the empire they might see as Kamran did: that the observations were at once fascinating and worrying, and together drew a bleak picture of Ardunia's relations with the southern kingdom of Tulan. Sadly, they did not.

Kamran's jaw clenched.

“Indeed,” the minister was droning on, “it is often to our benefit to maintain a sense of rivalry with another powerful nation, for a common enemy helps keep the citizens of our empire united, reminding the people to be grateful for the safety promised not only by the crown, but by the military—to which their children will devote four years of their lives, and whose movements have been so well calculated in this last century, under the guidance of our merciful king.

“Our prince was divinely blessed to inherit the fruits of a kingdom built tirelessly over many millennia. Indeed the empire he is one day to inherit is now so magnificent it stands as the largest of the known world, having so successfully conquered its many enemies that its millions of citizens may now enjoy a stretch of well-deserved peace.”

By the angels, the man refused to shut his mouth.

“Surely there is proof in this, is there not?” the minister was saying. “Proof not only of Ardunia's skillful leadership, but in the collective wisdom of its leaders. It is our hope that His Highness, the prince, will see in time that his experienced
elders—who are also his most humble servants—have worked diligently to make thoughtful, considered decisions at every turn, for certainly we can see how—”

“
Enough.
” Kamran stood up with such force he nearly knocked over his chair.

This was madness.

He could neither continue sitting here in this damned hair shirt, nor could he listen any longer to these insipid excuses.

The minster blinked slowly, his vacant eyes shining like glass beads. “I beg your pardon, Your Highness, bu—”

“Enough,” Kamran said again, angrily. “Enough of your blathering. Enough of your insufferable stupidity. I can no longer listen to another ridiculous word that comes out of your mouth—”

“Your Highness,” Hazan cried, jumping to his feet. He shot Kamran a look of death and dire warning, and Kamran, who was usually in far better control of his faculties, could not summon the presence of mind to care.

“Yes, I see,” Kamran said, looking his minister in the eye. “You've made it plain: you think me young and foolish. Yet I am not so young and foolish as to be blind to your ill-concealed passive aggressions, your weak attempts to pacify my genuine concerns. Indeed I know not how many times I will need to remind you, gentlemen”—he looked around the room now—“that I have only a week ago returned from an eighteen-month tour of the empire, in addition to recently accompanying our admiral on a treacherous water journey, during which half our men nearly drowned after we collided with an invisible barrier near the border of Tulan.
Upon arrival in Ardunia, traces of magic were found on the hull of our ship—”

Gasps. Whispers.

“—a discovery which should concern everyone in this room. We have been at odds with Tulan for centuries, and sadly, I suspect our incumbent officials have grown comfortable with that which has become commonplace. You seem to grow blind when you turn your gaze south,” the prince said sharply. “No doubt our exchanges with Tulan have become as familiar to you as your own bowel movements—”

There were several protests at that, exclamations of outrage that Kamran ignored, instead raising his voice to be heard above the din.

“—so familiar, in fact, that you no longer see an obvious threat for what it is. Let me refresh your memories, gentlemen!” Kamran pounded the table with his fist, calling to order the moment of chaos. “In the last two years,” he said, “we have captured sixty-five Tulanian spies, who even under extensive duress would not reveal more than limited information about their interests in our empire. With great effort we were able to conclude only that they seek something of value here; something they hope to mine from our land, and recent reports indicate that they are nearing their goal—”

More protests broke out at this, and Hazan, who'd gone scarlet to his hairline, looked as if he might soon strangle the prince for his effrontery.

“I say, gentlemen,” Kamran said, shouting now to be heard. “I say I do much prefer this method of discourse, and I would encourage you to direct your anger at me more regularly, so
that I might respond to you in kind. We are discussing
war
are we not? Should we not shed the delicacy with which we approach these hardened subjects? I confess that when you speak to me in circles I find it both detestable”—he raised his voice further—“both detestable and tiresome, and I do wonder whether you hide behind wordplay merely to disguise your own ignorance—”

“
Your Highness
,” Hazan cried.

Kamran met his minister's eyes, finally acknowledging the barely restrained wrath of the only man in the room he marginally respected. The prince took a steadying breath, his chest lifting with the effort.