A Regrettable Evening in the Maldives
—Jamal... Jamal , stop yelling. Sit down. You’re going to knock over your inkpot ranting and pacing like that, and I am not starting the story
again.
—I did not mislead you! I just... did not offer all information right away. Those were regrettable years and I do not like
to recall them. But if you want the whole sordid affair—forgive me, if you want “a rich contextual backdrop,” as you called
it in fancy scholar-speech—fine.
—Let’s talk about the night I accidentally married a demon.
We were in the Maldives, our cargo hold empty after selling off a dozen trunks of filched Gujarati cloth intended for a princess
in Lanka and the pearls meant to pay for them (the timing is tricky, but if you rob a business deal in progress, you can nab
two prizes for the planning cost of one job). Now, the Maldives are beautiful, one of the most God-blessed places I have ever
visited. The beaches are whiter than the moon, the water a stunning tropical blue so vibrant and clear, it is like a hue out
of Paradise. The local people are gentle and pragmatically accommodating toward travelers of legal dubiousness, and the food
is excellent.
That said, I was not having a merry time in the Maldives.
My third husband, Salih, had left me shortly before the job, pulled by the pleading letters of ailing parents to return home to Srivijaya.
Our divorce was amicable, the only time I had parted peacefully from a spouse, and yet that made his loss more acute.
I had previously selected my husbands more for their ability to raise a sail and their attractiveness while doing so rather than for their personalities.
They were companions for a few seasons, nothing more.
But Salih had a sweetness I found refreshing and endless stories from a lifetime spent traveling farther east than I had ever gone.
I would not call it love, but it was the closest I had come, and though it had been three months, I still missed him terribly.
Which is to say that the night before we were due to depart, I was not feasting on fresh fish with my crew and a band of musical
locals. Instead I had taken a very large cask of what the musicians promised was an excellent wine made from native palms
to the seashore to drown my sorrows alone.
Now, I have a weakness for wine. Even today, when I have been on the path of righteousness for years and not allowed a drop
of that which is forbidden to pass my lips, I still have moments I long for a cup; troubles I know would be eased with its
sweetness. But wine was a luxury for people like me, and I never learned to temper my intake. I was not as dependent upon
drink as some, but suffice to say that when I drank, I drank too much and usually to disastrous effect.
Which was what I was doing that night, drinking and gazing morosely at the tumbling black waves rushing over the moonlit beach.
I cursed the sea, knowing its currents were leading Salih farther away. I cursed myself as well for not following him. The
invitation had been there, unspoken between us, and yet I had not taken it. How could I? I had a crew to pay and knew almost
nothing of the waters beyond Lanka. Perhaps if I had been free like Salih, free to hire myself out to another ship, I might
have dared.
But I was not free. I had a family to feed and a brother starting an expensive apprenticeship. And what law-abiding merchant
would hire an unknown female nakhudha to carry their goods? It was absurd, a dream that would always lay just out of touch.
Sighing pathetically, I threw myself back on the damp sand and trailed my fingers through a line of drying seaweed.
In the distance, strains of music from the party I had abandoned were barely audible against the crashing surf.
The stars spread before me, twinkling and inconceivably vast against the soft velvet night.
It was the kind of view that was crushing, that made one feel overwhelmingly small and insignificant.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t need the reminder of my place in the cosmos.
“Forgive me...” an airy voice interrupted. “But might you be the nakhudha?”
My eyes shot open.
The most beautiful person I had ever seen stood over me.
That should have been alarming—I am not an easy person to sneak up on. But this man had done so, and God forgive me, what
a fine specimen of a man. Fine enough to steal my thoughts, my breath, and my good sense. He looked about my height, tall
as a reed and lean; lean in a strange way, for his body—well displayed in a short wrap that revealed thick, muscled thighs
and a patterned shawl barely clinging to broad shoulders—appeared both solid and insubstantial, as though he were both there
and not.
The stunning fellow dropped to an elegant crouch beside me, long fingers sinking into the sand. Bathed in silver moonlight,
the curve of his neck was as lovely as a willow in a garden.
“May I join you?” he asked with a flash of white teeth.
I made some sort of garbled noise in response. He had a full handsome face, round dimpled cheeks, and a long nose. His head
was uncovered, black hair wound in an uncommonly large knot at the back of his skull. Heavy, graceful brows met over his nose,
winging across his eyes like a bird in flight, like a painting of a celestial being. His beard was well trimmed, with a silvery
russet hue around his mouth.
Large, liquid black eyes, lovely as a doe’s, locked on mine, and then the man smiled, the kind of smile people burrow through
a mountain to reclaim. “You are the nakhudha Amina al-Sirafi, yes? Your first mate, Tinbu, said I would find you out here.”
With the mention of Tinbu, some of my wits returned.
Tinbu had sent this male houri-like creature out to seek me?
And then, as the man tilted his head, a few strands of silky hair falling artfully around his face and smelling of musk, the clues fell more neatly into place.
Of course Tinbu had sent him to me. He, Asif, and Dalila were probably cackling about it right now.
“Listen,” I started regretfully. How did he smell so good ? “I’m certain you are very talented at your job, but I am neither in the mood nor permitted to engage in such matters.” An
ill-timed claim, as the drink in my hand was equally impermissible. But one sin at a time.
His lips quirked in amusement. “What job is it you think I was sent to do?”
I gestured a bit unsteadily at his various attributes. “Surely you know.”
He burst into delighted peals of laughter. “Why, nakhudha, how blunt! Alas, such a tempting pairing is not the reason I sought
you out, though I would not be terribly averse.” His impossible eyes twinkled in amusement. “I am here because your first
mate told me you were down a man, and I was hoping I might replace him.”
My mind went traitorously fast to the ways this gorgeous creature might replace Salih. None of them had anything to do with
boats, though he certainly had the thighs for rowing. But there was an otherwise too-polished look to him, his hands manicured
and free of calluses. He was no youth, but his skin was smooth, lacking the sun damage that accumulates in my trade.
“You do not have the appearance of a sailor,” I remarked.
“Perhaps not, but I have spent time aplenty on ships. I can pull an oar, mend sailcloth, and twist rope well enough.” He paused.
“But more important, I bring another skill, one far more certain to please you.”
From another, this boastful flirtation might have been off-putting. But there was something both unassuming and untouchably
confident about the bizarre man before me. “What is your name?” I inquired instead.
Another bemused smile. “You may call me Raksh.”
“Raksh?” The name sounded both familiar and foreign, and I struggled to place the way he had pronounced it. Struggled to place
him . Like many of us descended from those who’ve spent millennia trekking around the ocean, he looked like he might have hailed
from a hundred separate homelands, and his otherwise flawless Arabic was marked by an accent I could not trace. His skin was
a lighter brown than mine, touched by a strange, almost blue pallor. A trick of the light, perhaps.
“Is that Gujarati?” I asked.
He laughed. “Not quite.”
“Then where are you from?” I pressed, intrigued enough to reveal my own curiosity.
“Here. There. A thousand different places and none.”
I snorted. “Pretensions of being a poet, have you? And what skill is it you think would please me more than a sailor being
able to sail?”
“Why, Amina al-Sirafi...” Raksh’s eyes seemed to pin me to the sand. “I can bring you luck.”
“ Luck? ”
“Luck. It is what sailors rely on most, is it not?” Raksh leaned closer as he spoke, a few strands of his hair falling upon
my shoulder. Their weight and softness reminded me of unspun wool, and I shivered, trying not to reveal how much his presence
unbalanced me. But I must have been drunker than I thought, because as he grinned again, I’d swear I caught a glimpse of fangs.
This close I could see a dappled pattern of dark spots scattered across his cheeks.
Freckles , I decided and took another swig of my palm wine because I’m an idiot. “I cannot argue with the necessity of luck, but I
am hardly fool enough to pay a man who claims he can harness such a slippery thing, Raksh of everywhere and nowhere. Should
you be genuinely interested in joining my crew, come see Tinbu tomorrow morning. My ship is the Marawati .”
“I shall.” But Raksh did not leave. “Where are you headed?”
“Calicut and then up the Indian coast. We shall see what sort of jobs are available. It will soon be the season to bring horses
over and there is always money in that.”
“You do not sound excited.”
I shrugged. “It is work.”
He cocked his head, seeming to regard me. “And where would you go if you could go anywhere?”