This Woven Kingdom Page 9

  She knew, objectively, that she’d done nothing wrong, but Alizeh lived in this city only because she’d had to escape her own attempted execution. It was seldom, if ever, that she stopped worrying. “Which conflicting stories, sir?”

  “Stories of the prince, of course.”

  Almost at once, Alizeh relaxed. “Oh,” she said. “I don’t believe I’ve heard any.”

  Deen was pinning her bandage in place when he laughed. “With all due respect, miss, you’d have to be deaf not to have heard. The whole of the empire is discussing the prince’s return to Setar.”

  “He’s come back?” Beneath her snoda, Alizeh’s eyes widened. She, who was new to the city, had heard only rumors about the empire’s elusive heir. Those who lived in Setar lived in the royal heart of Ardunia; its lifelong residents had seen the prince in his infancy, had watched him grow. Alizeh would be lying if she said she wasn’t curious about the royals, but she was far from obsessed, the way some were.

  Just then—in a flash of understanding—the day’s events made sense.

  The festivities Mrs. Sana had mentioned—the impending ball. It was no wonder Miss Huda needed five new gowns. Of course Duchess Jamilah had demanded every one of her rooms be cleaned. She was a distant cousin of the king, and it was rumored she had a close relationship with the prince.

  Perhaps she was expecting a visit.

  “Indeed, he is come home,” Deen was saying. “And no small thing either, is it? Already they’re planning a ball, and no fewer than a dozen festivities. Of course”—he grinned—“not that the likes of us should care. I don’t expect we’ll be seeing the inside of a palace ballroom anytime soon.”

  Alizeh matched Deen’s smile with one of her own. She’d often longed for moments like these—opportunities to speak with people in her own city, as if she were one of them. She’d never felt free to do so, not even as a child.

  “No, I expect not,” she said softly, still smiling as she sat back in her seat, absently touching the fresh bandage at her neck. She felt so much better already, and the flood of relief and gratitude was loosening her tongue to an unfamiliar degree. “Though I’m not sure I understand all the excitement, if I’m being honest.”

  “Oh?” Deen’s smile grew broader. “And why’s that?”

  Alizeh hesitated.

  There was always so much she wanted to say, but she’d been forbidden—over and over—from speaking her mind, and she struggled now to overcome that impulse.

  “I suppose— I suppose I would ask why the prince should be so lavishly celebrated merely for arriving home. Why is it that we never ask who pays for these festivities?”

  “Begging your pardon, miss.” Deen laughed. “I’m not sure I understand your meaning.”

  Alizeh thawed a bit at the sound of his laughter, and her own smile grew wider. “Well. Do not the taxes paid by common folk fund the royal parties they’re not even allowed to attend?”

  Deen, who was rewinding a roll of linen, went suddenly still. He looked up at Alizeh, his expression inscrutable.

  “The prince never even shows his face,” she went on. “What kind of prince does not mix with his own society? He is praised—and well liked, yes—but only on account of his noble birth, his inheritance, his circumstances, his inevitable ascent to king.”

  Deen frowned a bit. “I suppose—perhaps.”

  “On what merit, then, is he celebrated? Why should he be entitled to the love and devotion of a public that does not even know him? Does not his distaste of the common people reek of arrogance? Does not this arrogance offend?”

  “I do not know, miss.” Deen faltered. “Though I daresay our prince is not arrogant.”

  “Pretentious, then? Misanthropic?”

  Alizeh couldn’t seem to stop talking now that she’d started. It should’ve worried her that she was having so much fun; it should’ve reminded her to bite her tongue. But it had been so long since she’d had a single conversation with someone, and Alizeh, who was demanded always to deny her own intelligence, had grown tired of keeping her mouth shut. The thing was, she was good at talking, and she dearly missed that exchange of wits that exercised the mind.

  “And does not misanthropy indicate a miserliness of spirit, of the human heart?” she was saying. “Loyalty and duty and a general sense of—of awe, perhaps—might induce his royal subjects to overlook such shortcomings, but this generosity serves only to recommend the proletarian, not the prince. It remains rather cowardly then, does it not, to preside over us all as only a mythical figure, never a man?”

  The dregs of Deen’s smile evaporated entirely at that, his eyes going cold. It was with a horrible, sinking feeling that Alizeh realized the depth of her mistake—but too late.

  “Goodness.” Deen cleared his throat. He no longer seemed able to look at her. “I’ve never heard such talk, least of all from one in a snoda.” He cleared his throat again. “I say. You speak mighty well.”

  Alizeh felt herself stiffen.

  She’d known better. She’d learned enough times by now not to speak so much, or with such candor. She’d known better, and yet— Deen had shown her compassion, which she mistook for friendship. She swore to herself right then that she would never again make such a mistake, but for now—for now, there was nothing to be done. She could not take back her words.

  Fear clenched a fist around her heart.

  Would he report her to the magistrates? Accuse her of treason?

  Deen inched away from the counter and quietly packaged up her things, but Alizeh could feel his suspicion; could feel it coming off him in waves.

  “He’s a decent young man, our prince,” said the shopkeeper curtly. “What’s more: he’s away from home on duty, miss, protecting our lands, not cavorting in the streets. He’s neither a drunk nor a womanizer, which is more than we can say for some.

  “Besides, it is not for us to decide whether he’s deserving. We owe our gratitude to anyone who defends our lives with his own. And yes, he keeps to himself, I suppose, but I don’t think a person should be crucified for their silence. It’s a rare thing, is it not? Lord only knows how many there are who would benefit”—Deen looked up at her—“from biting their tongues.”

  A shock of heat struck her through the heart then; a shame so potent it nearly cured her of that ever-present chill. Alizeh cast down her gaze, no longer able to meet the man’s eyes.

  “Of course,” she said quietly. “I spoke out of turn, sir.”

  Deen did not acknowledge this. He was tallying up the total cost of her items with pencil and paper. “Just today,” he said, “just today our prince saved a young beggar’s life—carried the boy off in his arms—”

  “You must forgive me, sir. It was my mistake. I do not doubt his heroism—”

  “That’ll be six coppers, two tonce, please.”

  Alizeh took a deep breath and reached for her coin purse, carefully shaking out the amount owed. Six coppers. Miss Huda had paid her only eight for the gown.

  Deen was still talking.

  “Some Fesht boy, too—quite merciful to spare him, considering how much trouble we get from the southerners—shock of red hair so bright you could see it from the moon. Who knows why the child did it, but he tried to kill himself in the middle of the street, and our prince saved his life.”

  Alizeh startled so badly she dropped half her pay on the floor. Her pulse raced as she scrambled to collect the coins, the thudding of her heart seeming to pound in her head. When she finally placed her payment on the counter, she could scarcely breathe.

  “The Fesht boy tried to kill himself?”

  Deen nodded, counting out her coin.

  “But why? What did the prince do to him?”

  Deen looked up sharply. “Do to him?”

  “That is, I mean— What did he do to help the boy?”

  “Yes, quite right,” Deen said, his expression relaxing. “Well, he picked the boy up in his own arms, didn’t he? And called for help. The good people came run
ning. If it weren’t for the prince, the boy would surely be dead.”

  Alizeh felt suddenly ill.

  She stared at a glass jar in the corner of the shop, at the large chrysanthemum trapped within. Her hearing seemed to fade in and out.

  “—not entirely clear, but some people are saying he’d attacked a servant girl,” Deen was saying. “Put a knife to her neck and cut her throat, not unlike y—”

  “Where is he now?” she asked.

  “Now?” Deen startled. “I wouldn’t know, miss. I imagine he’s at the palace.”

  She frowned. “They took the Fesht boy to the palace?”

  “Oh, no, the boy is at the Diviners’ in the Royal Square. No doubt he’ll be there a while.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she said quickly. “I’m very grateful for your help.” She drew herself up, forced her mind firmly back into her body, and attempted to be calm. “I’m afraid I must now be on my way.”

  Deen said nothing. His eyes went to her throat, to the bandage he’d only just wrapped around her neck.

  “Miss,” he said finally, “why is it you do not remove your snoda so late at night?”

  Alizeh pretended to misunderstand. She forced out another goodbye and rushed for the exit so quickly she almost forgot her packages, and then ran out the door with such haste she hardly had time to register the change in weather.

  She gasped.

  She’d run straight into a winter storm, rain lashing the streets, her face, her uncovered head. It was but a moment before Alizeh was soaked through. She was trying, while balancing an armful of parcels, to pull the sopping wet snoda away from her eyes, when she suddenly collided with a stranger. She cried out, her heart racing wildly in her chest, and through miracle alone caught her packages before they hit the ground. Alizeh gave up on her snoda then, darting deeper into the night, moving almost as fast as her feet could carry her.

  She was thinking of the devil.

  There once was a man

  who bore a snake on each shoulder.

  If the snakes were well fed

  their master ceased growing older.

  What they ate no one knew,

  even as the children were found

  with brains shucked from their skulls,

  bodies splayed on the ground.

  The vision she’d seen, the nightmare delivered by Iblees in the night—

  The signs seemed clear enough now: the hooded man in the square; the boy who’d never turned up at her kitchen door; the devil whispering riddles in her heart.

  That face had belonged to the prince.

  Who else could it be? It had to be the prince, the elusive prince—and he was murdering children. Or perhaps he was trying to murder children. Had he tried to murder the child and failed? When Alizeh had left the Fesht boy earlier today he’d not seemed in danger of killing himself.

  What had the prince done to him?

  Alizeh’s feet pounded the slick cobblestone as she ran, desperately, back to Baz House. Alizeh had hardly enough time to breathe lately; she’d even less time to solve a riddle sent down from the devil. Her head was spinning, her boots slipping. The rain was falling so hard she hardly saw where she was going, much less the hand that darted out of the darkness, clamping down on her wrist.

  She screamed.

  Twelve

  KAMRAN DID NOT LOOK AT Hazan as the latter approached through what was fast becoming a violent storm, choosing to stare instead at a stripe of wet cobblestone shimmering under orange gaslight. The rain had grown only more brutal, thrashing all and sundry while a vengeful wind rattled around their bodies, unseating ribbons of frost from a stand of trees.

  It was unlike Hazan to overlook Kamran’s cold reception, for though the minister knew his place—and knew that he was owed little of Kamran’s attentions—he relished any opportunity to provoke his old friend, as the prince was easily provoked.

  Theirs was an unusual friendship, to be sure.

  The solidarity between the two was real—if varnished over with a thin layer of acerbity—but the foundations of their comradeship were so steeped in the separation of their classes that it seldom occurred to Kamran to ask Hazan a single question about his life. The prince assumed, because they’d been acquainted since childhood, that he knew all there was to know about his minister, and it had never once occurred to him that he might be wrong, that a subordinate might possess in his mind as many dimensions as his superior.

  Still, the general effect of proximity over time meant that Kamran was at least well versed in the language of his minister’s silence.

  That Hazan said nothing as he stepped under the battered awning was Kamran’s first indication that something was wrong. When Hazan shifted his weight, a moment later, Kamran had his second.

  “Out with it,” he said, straining a bit to be heard over the rain. “What have you discovered?”

  “Only that you were right,” said Hazan, his expression dour.

  Kamran turned his gaze up at the gaslight, watched the flame batter the glass cage with its tongues. He felt suddenly uneasy. “I am often right, Minister. Why should this fact distress you tonight?”

  Hazan did not respond, reaching instead into his coat pocket for the handkerchief, which he held out to the prince. This, Kamran accepted wordlessly.

  Kamran studied the handkerchief with his fingers, running the pad of his thumb over its delicate lace edges. The textile was of a higher quality than he’d originally considered, with an embroidered detail in one corner that the prince only now noticed. He struggled to distinguish the details in the dim light, but it appeared to be a small, winged insect—just above which hovered an ornamental crown.

  The prince frowned.

  The heavy fabric was neither damp nor dirty. Kamran turned it over in his hands, finding it hard to believe that such a thing was in fact stained with the girl’s blood. More curious, perhaps, was that as the day wore on, Kamran grew only more interested in its mysterious owner.

  “Your Highness.”

  Kamran was again studying the embroidered fly, trying to name the uncommon insect, when he said: “Go on, then. I take it you’ve discovered something dreadful?”

  “Indeed.”

  Kamran finally looked up at Hazan, his heart constricting in his chest. The prince had only just reconciled himself to the idea of the girl’s innocence; all this uncertainty was reeking havoc on his mind.

  “What, then?” Kamran forced a laugh. “She is a Tulanian spy? A mercenary?”

  Hazan grimaced. “The news is bleak indeed, sire.”

  Kamran took a deep, bracing breath, felt the chill fill his lungs. He experienced, for an extraordinary moment, a pang of what could only be described as disappointment—a feeling that left him both stunned and confused.

  “You worry yourself overmuch,” the prince said, affecting indifference. “Certainly the situation is far from ideal, but we have the better of her now. We know who she is, how to track her. We may yet get ahead of any sinister plotting.”

  “She is not a spy, sire. Nor is she a mercenary.” Hazan did not appear to rejoice in the statement.

  “An assassin, then? A turncoat?”

  “Your Highness—”

  “Enough of your filibustering. If she is neither spy nor assassin why are you so aggrieved? What could possibly—”

  A sudden oof from his minister and Kamran took an elbow to the gut, knocking, for a moment, the air from his lungs. He straightened in time to hear the sharp splash of a puddle, the retreating sound of footsteps on slick stone.

  “What the devil—?”

  “Forgive me, Your Highness,” Hazan said breathlessly. “Some ruffian barreled into me, I didn’t mean t—”

  Kamran was already stepping away from the protection of the awning. It was possible they’d been knocked into by a drunkard, but Kamran’s senses felt unusually heightened, and intuition implored him now to explore.

  Just an hour ago the prince had been convinced of his own ineptitude
, and though he took some comfort in his recent vindication as pertained to the servant girl, he worried now that he’d been so willing to doubt his better judgment.

  He had been right to mistrust her all along, had he not?

  Why, then, was he disappointed to discover that she was somehow duplicitous, after all?

  Kamran’s mind had been thoroughly exhausted from the upheaval of the day’s emotional journey, and he thought he’d rather drive his head into a wall than lose another moment to the dissection of his feelings. He decided right then that he’d never again deny his instincts—instincts that were now insisting that something was amiss.

  Carefully, he moved deeper into the night, fresh rain pelting his face as he scanned for the culprit.

  A blur. There.

  A silhouette struck gold in a flicker of gaslight, the figure illuminated in a flash.

  A girl.

  She was there and gone again, but it was all he needed to be certain. He saw her snoda, the length of linen wrapped around her neck—

  Kamran froze.

  No, he could not believe it. Had he conjured the girl to life with his own thoughts? He felt a moment of triumph, quickly chased by trepidation.

  Something was wrong.

  Her movements were frantic, unrehearsed. She ran through the rain as if she were afraid, as if she were being chased. Kamran followed swiftly, homing in on her before panning out again, surveying the area for her aggressor. He saw a fresh blur of movement, a form heavily obscured by the torrential downpour. The figure sharpened into focus by degrees; Kamran could only make out the true shape of him when he reached out, grabbing the girl by the arm.

  She screamed.

  Kamran did not think before he reacted. It was instinct that propelled him forward, instinct that bade him grab the man and throw him bodily against the pavement. Kamran drew his sword as he approached the fallen figure, but just as he lifted his blade, the cretin disappeared.

  Jinn.

  The unnatural act was enough to sentence the lout to death—and yet, how could you kill a man you could not catch?

  Kamran muttered an oath as he sheathed his sword.