1
-The Threat From The East-
(Nalini)
Nalini stared at her father, as if he had gone mad. “Father, I-I will do what I can,” she said. “But no woman has ever been a vizier at court before, and now you want to make me the Vizier for the Treasury? There… there will be uproar, and I am untrained for the position. Surely, you can find someone more qualified than me?”
Sultan Daquan, lying on his bed, coughed weakly under the mask. Princess Nalini Reba, his twenty-three year old daughter, filled the cup next to him with water. She would have handed it to him, but the physicians forbade it, lest he touch her and infect her with Skin Scales.
Slowly, Sultan Daquan sat up and raised his mask enough so that he could sip the water; and so that Nalini could see the sores that had disfigured his once proud, handsome face. “I was never trained to be Sultan,” he said, after a couple of sips. “You are my daughter, and you did a better job at maintaining the castle during the revolt than either my counsellors or I ever did. You can learn how to manage the accounts of the Kingdom. More importantly, you are the only person who Razilan listens to.”
He does? She had never known her oldest brother, the heir to the throne of Al-Jaraba, to heed what she had said before. What in the Charted World gave her father the idea that Prince Razilan would suddenly start now?
“There is more to you than caring for a sick man,” her father continued. “Will you do this for me? Will you become my vizier?”
Nalini pressed her lips together and gulped. She had always been a devoted daughter, and had done as she had been asked. She had run the castle at Greatmouth during her father’s revolt, married a foreign heathen, and stayed by her father’s bed after he had become ill. All because he had asked her.
Yet, she had never been asked to do something on the magnitude of managing a kingdom before. It was too much responsibility for someone so unqualified. “I’ll do my best,” she said, feebly.
“I know you will do better than that,” Sultan Daquan said, warmly, smiling under the mask. “Just remember that the Kingdom exists in a delicate balance. Do everything you can to keep it together.”
His words pressed down on Nalini’s head like a bundle of sheaves. From the little she knew, the Kingdom of Al-Jaraba was a mosaic of inconveniently placed sects of Abyar, God’s Messenger in the physical world. Some sects were more fanatical than others, but all required an iron fist, bribery and political shrewdness to keep them from rebelling. Nalini knew nothing about any of it. “Why do you ask this of me?”
The Sultan sighed. “Because soon I will go to the Land of Judgement, to meet the Divine and learn whether or not I am worthy of Abyar.”
Nalini’s throat tightened. She could not bring herself to lie, to tell her father that he was not dying. Because he was. The warrior sultan, who had been called Sultan Daquan the Daring, after rebelling against Sultan Jashan the Fanatic, was no more. Skin Scales had ravaged him, leaving him a pitiful shell of his former self.
“When I am gone,” he continued. “I don’t want to be buried in the temple that I had commissioned. I want my body burned.”
Nalini gasped. “What you ask for will be decried as heresy,” she said. “There will be many-”
“-The number of people,” he interjected. “Who claim that burning a body is against Abyar’s laws will be small compared to the many who will die from Skin Scales if I am not burned. I don’t want anyone to suffer this disease because of me.”
Now I understand why you want me to do all that I can to hold the Kingdom together.
“Razilan will no doubt oppose my request,” he added. “In fact, I fear what he has in mind for the Kingdom when he becomes Sultan.”
Nalini furrowed her brows. She had not heard anything untoward or dangerous from her brother; not from him or anyone else. What did her father know that she didn’t? “What do you fear?” she asked.
“If you haven’t heard anything, then mayhap it is just the fears of a dying man who rebelled against his sultan.”
“You were right to rebel against Sultan Jashan. He was a fanatic and would have brought ruin to Al-Jaraba had you not risen up against him.”
“And what is Razilan?”
Nalini hummed. “Devout?”
The Sultan chuckled; although, it was a weak snort compared to his former joyful laughter. “Devout is what religious people call themselves,” he said. “Fanatic is what others call them.”
Nalini gave her father a wry smile. “Even by your standards,” she said. “That’s cynical. A person who is devout is merely someone who acts on religious beliefs.”
“Yes, and a fanatic is one who acts on religious beliefs to the misery of others.”
There was a rap at the door. Nalini stood up and opened it. It was Amani, the chambermaid, holding a tray of mutton roasted with prunes, saffron rice, and half an orange cut up into thirds. Nalini’s stomach rumbled as Amani walked past her to feed the Sultan his lunch.
“Go and eat,” the Sultan said. “Afterwards, could you find Razilan for me? I wish to speak with him.”
Nalini smiled. “I will find him for you now,” she said.
And with that, Nalini lifted her skirt and exited the royal bedchambers. The back of her yellow dress trailed behind her as she marched along the corridors of the Sultan’s Palace in search of her brother.
As she walked outside into the palatial gardens, the scent of orchids, pink daisies, amaryllis freshened the air. Then, Nalini caught sight of Razilan. And stopped. Razilan was walking with aunt Ríma, the Lady of Date-Palm Port. There were rumours that Ríma had a bewitching nature, and those rumours must have held truth as she had somehow entranced her brother into walking with her alone. With the exception of his wife, since Razilan had become devout, he had never spent time alone with another woman, even with his mother and sister. So, what was he doing with Ríma?
Nalini tried to hear what they were discussing, but she was too far away from them. Then, they passed a hedge and disappeared around a corner.
Nalini’s stomach fluttered. Sneaking and spying were some of the basest ways of finding out information. Yet, her gut told her that she needed to find out what they were talking about. Mayhap, this was what her father had hinted at when he had said that he feared what Razilan would do once he sat on the throne.
Nalini stepped forward, onto the grass, to follow her brother and aunt. Her dress swept over the pin-like blades, and the grass rustled. Nalini’s heart banged against her chest, but she approached the hedge where Razilan and Ríma had turned all the same.
Nalini stopped before the hedge. She did not want to peer round. So, she put her ear against the bush and did her utmost to decipher what they were-
“Ouch!” Razilan grunted.
Nalini jolted and walked around the hedge. “Is everything all right?” she asked.
Then, she exhaled through her nostrils and forced herself to smile, so as to cover the grimace forming on her face. The whole point of her sneaking and spying on them had been to avoid being seen. How was she going to find out what they had been discussing now?
Sitting on a patterned blue-and-white mosaic bench under a tree, Razilan chuckled to hide his pain. “It is just my shoulder, that’s all,” he said, rubbing it. “It is a small price to pay for the sins of my youth. Abyar has been merciful to me. I cannot complain.”