Chapter 28 #3
The guilt swirls in my blood. I remind myself futilely I did not train her for moral reasons but for my own utility. Still, a part of me worries that I will implicate her in my crimes. But the Sepāhbad would not hurt children, would he?
As Yasaman concentrates, I will more nūr beneath the connecting waters until our side of the bathhouse is a swarm of steam so thick, I can no longer see. For the next minute, the Sepāhbad should not notice that his seal has vanished.
A short moment later, the bone-seal emerges through the cracks of the partition, the white beetle blending into the tile.
‘That is not an earring.’ Yasaman’s eyebrows draw together.
I don’t like where this is going.
‘I wove it on to a string.’ I snatch it before she notices my lie. ‘Anyhow, I’ve things to do, student.’
With a wave, I rush out of the baths back into the dressing chamber.
Inside, two Second-Slash women are changing, and I count beneath my breath.
When they depart, I shove the seal beneath my uniform into the clay soap-mould, each excruciating second dwindling by.
A moment later, I tuck the seal into my thin linen robe, leaving the soap under the rest of my uniform to set.
Yanking on the robe, I return through the public corridor, the steam a thick veil. It has been only a minute, if I slip the seal through the partition—
I collide blindly with a warm body; hands grasp my waist, fingers brush my ribs. I mistakenly grab the neck to steady myself against the slippery tiles.
‘Forgive me,’ I breathe, tightening my linen where the seal rests inside, against my heart.
The steam clears between us with a snap of a finger. Only one Za’skar Eajīz can do so, with their Spring of Heavens affinity.
‘Underling.’ The Sepāhbad looks faintly amused, eyes so close that I can see my expression in them, fighting despair from showing.
Tension suffuses the air like piled firewood begging for a spark. His wet cheeks are flushed from the steam, his black curls tousled from the humidity. In modesty, my gaze lowers. I suddenly realise it appears as if I am staring at his bare chest. Now, I lower my gaze to the floor.
‘My vizier,’ I force out. Does one bow their head even in a bathhouse half dressed?
He doesn’t let me consider the question for long, releasing my waist and leaving without a backwards glance, his cloth brushing against me. I swallow the lump in my throat. He must think the seal is still with Adel.
He will not, I remind myself, assume foul play.
In the bathing chambers, Arezu and Yasaman are gone. I shove the seal through the gap in the partition, steam still thick. When the Sepāhbad returns, he will assume the pendant had been beside Adel the entire time.
The celebration of midwinter arrives, my last day at Za’skar before my assignment in Ghaznia.
In my pocket, the Sepāhbad’s replicated seal threatens to burn a hole.
I’d used the clay soap-mould to commission a replica in the bazaar with whatever savings I had from my measly stipend.
Paranoid about the Sepāhbad’s informants tagging me through the city if I went alone, I asked Yabghu to accompany me, pretending to repair my earring.
With tonight’s celebration, there are no classes, for the winter night calls for prayer and charitable acts.
In Sajamistan – unlike Azadniabad – this festivity symbolises the day where companions reflect on the darkness of night eating away the setting sunlight – like a twin of death – by speaking cautionary tales over the hearth to dispel jinn-folk lurking in the eve.
‘Tonight there will be prolific shooting stars,’ Yabghu tells our trifecta. ‘Pray for a peaceful coming spring. The Heavens cause cosmic light to steal through the dusk, the death of darkness.’ But like any celebration, the traditions supersede its intended purpose.
In the lemon and fig gardens behind the Great Library, warriors amass on red kilim rugs with ceramic bowls of ajil laid round with figs, dates and pomegranate paired with roasted nuts, and incense. Piping hot rose kahvah is poured into teacups and distributed.
It’s the brink of sunset, and light scorches the courtyard like red scars.
Warriors and scholars and pazktab students form trinities of groups; some read folkteller scrolls, others battle in poetic odes about the night, and many play saktab – the wind eating away the clamour of their voices.
Adel spots me and waves with other Seven-Slash warriors.
But no one is able to resist the view of the evening, faces tilting heavenward where stardust streams like silver fire against the constellation of the Simorgh.
This eve is my only opportunity to infiltrate the intelligence chambers, while the officers are distracted by festivities.
In the meantime, I follow Katayoun and Aina as they grab saucers of kahvah while I pick up a board game from the Great Library.
They intend to find a spot in the courtyard with Yabghu, Captain Madj and her trifectas.
Cemil and I still do not speak, and shortly after throwing me a conflicted expression across the courtyard, he moves toward Dara and other Third-Slashes.
Before I could join the trifectas, I spot the Keeper of the Great Library at the bone-stone archway.
‘I wonder if I will speak with you again after tonight,’ he says while balancing manuscripts in one arm and holding a hookah pipe in the other, his ivory wings spreading across his back.
I bristle. ‘I live in Za’skar. Of course you will speak with me again.’
He sniffs deeply. ‘Lies. The smell is so potent from you.’ The par? nearly bumps into a shelf jutting out, wheezing through another puff of hashish. ‘Shall I reveal a secret?’ he says, humming.
‘I think the high of hashish is speaking, not you.’
His voice pitches low. ‘Something awful cusps the horizon – a great new era. I have seen it.’
‘This is definitely the hashish.’ I frown. ‘And are jinn not barred from soothsaying the future – from eavesdropping on Heavenly matters?’
‘Live long enough and the cosmos becomes a series of repetitive patterns.’ He yawns.
Then he sobers, pinning me with a dark glare.
‘I tell you this, Azadnian, because many jinn are attracted to your scent from the Unseen world, curious at your feelings in this city. Tread carefully: you veil yourself well, but even an impenetrable veil can be lifted.’ He pauses before casting a wide smile.
‘Consider my words a warning from the Unseen. My price is hashish.’
His chuckles scrape after me like a blade against stone. My hands turn over the board game, but at the sight of the gathered trifectas, my stomach twists.
I recede to the corner of the fig garden, the crowd of warriors thickening as they clink teacups.
I’d forgotten these simple moments shared with kinsmen.
Envy shudders through me as my chin rests on my knees.
No-Name climbs up the mulberry trees and hangs upside down, smiling at something she finds humorous while sticking out her tongue.
The last time I celebrated a festival was with my half-siblings before Warlord Akashun’s invasion. I shouldn’t be here.
‘Is a game of saktab not better with a partner?’
At that voice, a pathetic lick of fear grips me – but I compact it like texts stacked on a shelf. When I fold on my heels, the Sepāhbad holds up a hand, the courtly raven on his shoulder as still as a bone-stone relief.
‘At ease.’
‘Peace of death be unto you,’ I recite coolly.
‘And you,’ he replies.
The way he speaks is both sharp and soft.
In our first encounter, I assumed the hint of warmth was a deceptive tactic, but here his voice reminds me of the monastery, of exchanging words in a gentle thrum between meditations.
No wonder I thought him a monk; he speaks under a mask of peace.
Seeing him here – unbeckoned – rattles the calm of midwinter.
‘Well?’ the Sepāhbad prods.
‘I think so.’
His lips twitch. ‘You think so.’
‘My partner has not arrived.’
‘And if I were to ask to be your partner?’
My thoughts slow. Our encounter at the bathhouse was unintentional. This, here, is not. Yet now he chooses to acknowledge me after all my time in his city? Not with a blade against my neck or in the amphitheatre, but in the open air as if we’re companions? This catches me off guard.
‘You are my Sepāhbad, you may ask of me anything.’
His hazel eyes, as beautiful as the gold sky, narrow. ‘That may be, but we mortals like permission. It lets us feel like we engage as equals. Even if the outcome is the same, the decision is sweeter cloaked as a choice, yes?’
There is something to his words. I keep my expression clear, like wiping a salt tablet clean of engravements. ‘Yes. Permission is an attractive concept.’
‘Assuming honesty, then, underling, would you like to play me in saktab?’ He smiles in such sudden charm that I frown, waiting for a condition. ‘I assure you, there is no consequence if you refuse.’
Any game of strategy allows one to deconstruct an opponent’s mind and discern their tactics. But it works the other way, too – both participants expose their stratagems.
‘Say no,’ No-Name hisses, but I cannot refuse.
To the Sepāhbad, I lie. ‘I am not experienced in saktab.’
‘I harbour no expectations.’
I wave at the lines of grain beneath the sandblasted board as wind rustles between us, my dark curls blowing across my face. ‘Then I accept.’
He sits cross-legged, fingering the kilim.
‘Marble or brass?’ I ask. He spins a brass stone between his fingers.
‘An agreeable choice, my vizier.’
The objective of saktab is to apprehend an opponent’s strategy and anticipate their moves.
For every push, there are a thousand paths; for every steal, a thousand captures.
Saktab is a map of options, not only a path to triumph.
And in our world of emperors, invaders and subjugators, it becomes a game of freedom and conquest.