Chapter 26 #2
“Yes. My colleague in the other part of the treasury—where we store known artifacts and valuables—confided to me recently that the queen had her hunt down a very specific necklace. A strand of silver and pearls with a cruciform ornament; a rosary, I believe she called it? Her Resplendency wished to bestow it upon your friend.” Orinth’s gaze stayed focused on the tumbling water below. “A remarkable sign of royal favor.”
Fear traced through me. This was no mere rumormongering.
Orinth had taken me to a quiet spot in the garden where we could speak unobserved and there was no concealing that the normally garrulous scholar sounded uncharacteristically wary.
But I was careful with my response—Lab was Orinth’s queen and I suspected her loyalty was true.
“Her Resplendency is most generous,” I replied.
Lab was being more than that, especially considering Khatti Ugal’s polite condescension toward other religions.
How had she even learned that Dalila was Christian?
Dalila was rarely one to let her mask slip—to confide personal details of her life to friends, let alone suspect strangers.
“It sounds as though she and the doctor have a common interest in botanicals.”
“I think, Captain, it may be more than that.”
“Surely you’re not implying . . .” I flushed, a deeply ludicrous reaction in a middle-aged lady pirate who had seen every kind of “more than that” that existed on God’s green earth.
But that was ridiculous. This was Dalila; she treated friendship like it was a trap.
Romance, love—those were the province of such utterly gullible fools that they were only to be scoffed at and dismissed from a distance.
And yet . . . The doctor was far more willing to come to an agreement. The queen’s words in the throne room took on a chilling new light.
“I wouldn’t imply anything,” Orinth replied hastily.
“Her Resplendency is my sovereign, has always treated me with kindness and granted my family many sacred garments.” She paused, swallowing, and then pressed on.
“But every once in a while—not often but enough that our people take note—she makes a favorite out of a castaway. And it is not . . . I do not believe . . .” She stumbled over her words, clearly nervous. “It is not good for them.”
I turned on my heel to face her, any equivocating I might have attempted abandoned with those far more alarming words. “What does that mean?”
Orinth was trembling. “I-I cannot say. But I would try and ensure that Dalila is on your ship when you depart.”
At this point, I feared it was more likely that Lab would be on the Marawati than Dalila. “What happened to the last one?”
She shook her head. “The last time she took a favorite was before I was born.”
I drew back, regarding Orinth again. If anything, she appeared older than Lab.
“How is that possible?” Orinth flushed, but I didn’t need her to answer, not really.
The truth was there for the plucking, my own suspicions confirmed.
“There are no grandmothers, are there? No other queens? It’s only Lab. ”
Orinth looked sick with guilt; this was a confidence she didn’t want to betray. “It is easier for newcomers, for children, for those of Khatti Ugal who may be unable to understand . . .”
“Understand what? That their queen is an immortal witch?”
“She is good to us,” Orinth protested weakly. “The outside world is dangerous. As long as we do not question her, Khatti Ugal is a paradise.”
“Oh, my friend.” And it felt right to call her that—Orinth was clearly taking a risk passing on this warning. “You are too clever to believe that.”
The scholar closed her eyes; I couldn’t blame her, couldn’t imagine trying to reconcile the reality of the kingdom in which she’d been born.
“It may be nothing to worry over with your doctor, just gossip. But I could not bear it if—” She turned to face me and then went white with shock. “Prince Pares!”
I spun around.
The queen’s young son was standing at the foot of the bridge.
When he had gotten there, God only knew.
Pares stood with his dog at his side, but there was very little of the familiar playfulness I was used to seeing in the boy’s expression.
Instead, he was watching us, his head tilted in observation.
Orinth had already dropped into a bow. I joined her, whispering under my breath, “It’s fine. He doesn’t understand Arabic.”
The other woman’s shoulders seemed to relax, and she straightened up, calling to the boy in Khatti Ugalan with more cheer. Pares returned her greeting and then giggled. He raced off, his undyed cloak fluttering like a flag.
Orinth watched him go. “I hate when they receive rites so young,” she whispered.
I glanced at her, struck by the grief in her expression. “Why? What does that mean?”
But Orinth shook her head, seeming to return to herself. “I think, Captain al-Sirafi, that I have said enough for today. Let us go.”
* * *
But every once in a while, she makes a favorite out of a castaway.
Orinth’s words played through my mind the rest of the day, filling my heart with dread.
I had no doubt her warning was true, but I’d not a clue how I was supposed to convince Dalila of the same.
My companion had seemed unwilling to hear criticism of Lab before our fight and that was when we’d still been on speaking terms. If I came to her now and said Lab had selected her—was bestowing affection on her—for some nefarious yet unknown motives, she was going to think the poisonous “hallucinations” had taken a more severe turn.
However, that was a problem for tomorrow.
I splashed down another tunnel, lifting my lamp to examine the surrounding walls.
Determined to find the textile workshop where I hoped Lab might be keeping the spindle, I had been returning to the underground maze nightly and developed a system to map my exploration.
Every twenty paces, I passed smears of dried crimson wine on the walls, markers indicating I had already explored that branch, and small pebble cairns showing the way back.
The air was musty and laced with mildew, my head scraping the low ceiling.
Now and then I would hear the skittering of rats, their red eyes flashing in the distance, but other than that the only sounds were the hush of my breath and the trickle of water.
Finally I arrived at the spot where I’d turned back the previous evening.
It had seemed a promising junction: the earthen walls replaced by stone, the flowing water deeper than a trickle.
Careful to begin marking my way again, I picked up my pace.
This conduit was clearly used for plumbing, not skeleton storage.
The water ran faster and deeper, reaching my knees at times.
Occasionally I would pass beneath screened drains or large pipes that seemed to lead to various fountains and pools.
Though the water appeared mostly clean, I would be lying if I didn’t confess part of me feared a sudden flood.
After everything that had happened in Khatti Ugal, it would be almost disappointing to drown in a wave of unexpected sewage.
As the hour grew late, the tunnel that had seemed promising was proving to be part of an even more complicated labyrinth. A glimpse through an overhead grate showed the sky already touched by dawn’s rosy hue. It was time to turn around.
But then Orinth’s damn warning returned to me. Maybe I could press on just a bit farther. If nothing panned out, I would come back again.
Raising my lamp, I waded down a brick-lined aqueduct.
Water streamed down from a smaller pipe, joining the main channel underneath another ceiling grate.
In the light of the fading lamp, the water was distinctly crimson.
I stilled, not liking the bloody tone. But as I watched, the water grew more purple, indigo and violet swirling throughout.
Dyes.
Hope sparked in me, and I hurried on, chasing the trickles of colored water, the shades becoming darker and more vibrant.
My oil lamp was beginning to burn low, but I couldn’t imagine giving up now, not when I was so close to something that might be related to textiles.
The damp odor of the tunnel gave way to far stronger—and more varied—stenches: the ash and alum of dye vats, wet wool, and fermenting fruits.
There was some sort of rhythmic slapping, the sounds of work even at this early hour, and so I ran, my heart in my throat, until I came to a short section of tunnel with a large ceiling drain dripping with color as though a rainbow rain.
This must be it. Could the dyed runoff indicate anything other than the temple workshop, the place where Khatti Ugal’s sacred textiles were made? And clearly alive with labor, though I heard no voices. I crawled beneath the drain and then, ever so carefully, lifted it just enough to peek out.
I was rewarded with a sight both mundane and fantastic.
It was indeed a textile workshop, an enormous one.
A dozen looms stood against the opposite wall, each being attended by two women.
On the other side of the chamber, more women were working raw fiber, some picking through freshly shorn heaps of sheep and goat hair, others washing them, and still more hands carding and combing the dried wool into fluffy bundles of roving, ready for a spindle.
Across from them were great vats of dye, the arms of their attendants stained in every hue as they stirred and hung dripping lengths of spun thread.
Others were washing the still-creamy skeins, slapping and thwacking the twisted fibers.