Chapter 18
Though I was doing it mostly to appease Dalila, there was no denying the rest did me well.
The swollen knot at the back of my skull went down, my limbs felt less battered, and with Dalila’s ministrations, the blisters marring my left palm finally scabbed over.
My mind raced with the empty hours, but I kept myself in prayer as often as possible, wishing I had thought to bring a Quran.
In its absence, I recited as many surahs as I could, pleased to realize I had more committed to memory than I thought.
Against the fog of my mind, it was a sign that a degree of sharpness was still there—and more important, a reminder that my Lord was near.
He would not forsake me, and I would have to hold faith that all this was happening for His reasons.
By the time I returned to the queen’s court, I felt more prepared to assume the role I was to play: one in which I would not overexert myself, according to Dalila’s fretting.
Although there was little risk of that in the first part of each day.
Every morning, Dalila and I attended a court session in which I comprehended almost nothing, followed by language lessons in which I comprehended not much more.
Though I spoke eight tongues—half with easy fluency, as many people of my class did—they had been acquired when I was younger, and it was as though my mind had closed itself off to Khatti Ugalan.
The words were slippery, the sounds garbled in my mouth.
Outside the palace, things were more to my taste.
Arno returned to serve as my translator and typically a person or two among the crowds I was sent to had some Arabic.
I continued to meet with a variety of peoples: from astrologers to fishermen, carpenters to glassmakers.
They wanted to know how we read the stars, how we built our boats, how we made fishing rods, how did we understand the contours of our lands and seas?
Which worked well for me, as I was only too eager to meet their curiosity with my own.
How did they build their houses, tend their animals, knit their clothes?
Perhaps they could show me those homes, those tools?
My questions had yet to result in the discovery of any spindles, but I was careful not to press too obviously.
The one silver lining to being forced to dwell in Khatti Ugal for the long months it would take the Marawati to be repaired was that it gave me a good stretch of time to search for and plot the spindle’s heist. It needn’t be a rushed smash-and-grab operation against a dangerous queen.
And so I threw my net carefully, praying it might catch something.
But all I gleaned were oddities. For however common shipwrecks were said to be, I had yet to meet a single person who had been born outside Khatti Ugal.
Arno did not know where any of the castaways he’d escorted had settled.
Anytime a lead emerged, it was discovered said person had died or was too sick to talk—even the old man who’d briefly spoken in sailor’s creole had vanished.
And though, sure, death was the common end no one could avoid, and it was not rare for people settling in new lands to be struck with unfamiliar sicknesses . . . altogether, it was suspicious.
A suspicion that was bolstered by the damnable visions.
They returned in subtle ways, a fine spray rather than a drenching wave.
No longer did I fall to my knees, vomiting into the dust. Instead, I would glance down a lane lined with whitewashed homes and see a verdant jungle, here and gone before I could blink.
A clever-tongued, finely dressed courtier in amber ornaments would be abruptly garbed in rags, muttering to himself and rending long, ragged hair.
And—most disconcertingly—the group of fishermen I’d been helping drag in their canoes were briefly replaced with distressed goats, kicking and bleating in the surf.
With each vision, I became more determined that they weren’t hallucinations.
There was magic in this peculiar, dreamy place, there had to be.
Whether it was related to the spindle, whether it was of an unknown type that didn’t resonate with my abilities .
. . I did not know. Not yet. But it was one more mystery I had to puzzle out.
To say that Dalila didn’t agree would be an understatement.
I had no sooner told her about the beach goats than she had muttered a curse, rushed to the apothecary, and returned with a potion that made me break out in hives.
She seemed so stressed that I wondered if it was best I start holding my tongue—a decision Dalila’s increasingly busy days might soon make for me.
For my friend had thrown herself into the challenge of settling into Khatti Ugal and proving her usefulness with frightening intensity.
She excelled in her language lessons and was picking up details in the monotony of court that eluded me.
Even with just a few days of sun in the infirmary garden and plentiful local cuisine, she looked better; her skin bronzed and her thin arms filled out, on display in the elegant native garments.
She spent her mornings at court, her afternoons with the queen or in the apothecary, and her evenings with palace scholars.
When Dalila was sleeping, God only knew. Merely contemplating her schedule left me exhausted and yet no matter how late she returned to our chambers, she never appeared tired. Rather, she was determined, energy seeming to bubble under her skin.
It was starting to make me envious. As Dalila roused me after yet another torturous court session, I couldn’t help but grouse, “How are you doing this? I didn’t even hear you return last night and you’ve more vigor than a bridal couple in their wedding bed.”
“I nap while my potions brew,” she replied, and I genuinely could not tell if she was jesting.
“Speaking of . . .” Her voice grew more excited, in the alarming way it tended to do just before Dalila invented a novel knockout gas.
“I may have something for you soon, a new tonic I’ve been working on—Ah, there is the queen.
It looks as though she wishes to see us. ”
I wasn’t sure if the queen summoning us was better or worse than imbibing Dalila’s latest experiment.
“Maybe she’ll finally grant my request to check on the Marawati,” I muttered as we approached the throne.
We’d been in Khatti Ugal for three weeks and I’d yet to be permitted to leave the city, the steward always dodging my request. “The men are going to think they’ve been abandoned. ”
As we neared the queen, it was hard not to be dazzled.
The sight of Lab always took me aback; her clever, lovely face and the astonishing colors of her gowns a stark contrast to her pale, languid subjects, like a kingfisher among moths.
Maybe it wasn’t magic radiating off her, but it was power nonetheless, one that felt as dangerous as a tiger showing its fangs.
“Good morrow,” she greeted. “I pray today’s session was not too boring, Captain?”
I tried not to grimace; I doubted nodding off in court would endear me to the queen and her inner circle, but short of sitting on a chair of spikes, I didn’t know how to stay awake.
“I beg forgiveness. I’ve never been one for the quiet life of scholarship and politics; I fear my blood runs too hot. ”
“An understandable trait in a sailor, I suppose.”
I seized the opening. “Indeed. On that note, Resplendency, I was wondering if I might trouble you for permission to visit my ship. I’m sure my requests have simply slipped Mitanni’s mind—”
“Do not fear. He has passed them on,” Lab interrupted, her benevolent mask in place.
“Oh?” I replied, struggling to match her blandness. I didn’t mind the occasional grovel in service of a con, but if this woman was keeping me from my ship and my men, that could not stand.
Lab motioned for us to follow as she turned toward the door. “We do not believe it in your best interest to visit the Marawati right now. After all, the walk through the jungle is long and you were most recently injured.”
“I am much recovered, I assure you.”
“Are you?” Lab’s voice was rich with an almost pitying condescension, like how one might speak to a child feigning adult tasks. “What excellent news; Mitanni has some wonderful ideas for how to better utilize your skills, but we did not wish to task you.”
“I am here to serve,” I said through my teeth as we entered yet another flower-filled colonnade, dusky swallows swooping through the air. “But I have duties to my crew—” A jolt of pain stole the rest of my words. I flinched, pressing a hand to my head.
No. Not now. But the shadowed colonnade ahead was already vanishing. In its place were the bare stubs of long-ruined columns under a moonlit night, a gnarled dead tree looming above. A startled owl screeched from its branches and then flew off, diving toward my face. I ducked . . .
Then the vision was gone; my senses returned to the Khatti Ugalan present.
And to a very attentive Queen Lab. Her careful eyes traced me from turban to toe and then she glanced ahead, to where I had just seen the owl. When her stare returned to my face, it was unreadable.
She spoke, her words precise. “Are you quite all right, Captain?”
I fought for a good lie, but with the air already tense between us, her gaze all but peeling me apart, it was difficult to think.
“Sun got in my eye,” I said, swallowing. “Sorry for the distraction.”
“I would imagine the sun getting in your eyes to be an occupational regularity for a sailor,” she pointed out, adding, “from a desert climate.”
Dalila spoke up. “The nakhudha is prone to headaches. Always has been.” A chiding note entered her voice. “I do what I can to encourage her to wear a hat, but she doesn’t listen.”
Lab’s cool expression remained unchanged. “And yet she has no problem wearing her knives.”