The black fumes wafted their way from the pyre. The smoke attacked her nostrils and stuck to the back of her throat. Nalini coughed.
“Come inside… These fumes are choking me too,” he said, in between whoops, and led them way into the palace. Once they had gone through the doors, he ceased coughing and stood up straight, as if his whooping had been an act. “Lady Ríma and His Majesty,” he continued in a low voice. “Have a more aggressive understanding for defending Al-Jaraba.”
Nalini’s stomach fluttered. “You don’t mean that they intend to attack one of our neighbours, do you?”
“Lady Ríma has decried for years that your father did nothing to help the Rakimists retake Zenith. Now, though, we have a sultan who is more sympathetic to the cause.”
Nalini’s insides sank. Zenith was the holiest place in the world for all the Believers of Abyar. It was where the Messenger had come down from the heavens, and where he had gone back up after His death.
However, after Abyar’s death, the Believers of Abyar had split into two main sects: those who followed Rakim, Abyar’s nephew, of which House Reba and the majority of the people of Al-Jaraba followed; and those who followed Gautam, Abyar’s grandson via his daughter, who composed a minority of the Kingdom.
For more than a century, Zenith had been under the control of the Zufan Kingdom, who were ruled by Gautamists, even though they made up a minority of that kingdom too. Over the last hundred years, they had imposed heretical prayers and rituals upon the holy city, and thus far no Sultan of Al-Jaraba had started a war to conquer Zenith and return it to Rakimist control. Indeed, the only Sultan that had voiced support for a holy war to retake the holy city had been Sultan Jashan the Fanatic. And no sooner had he made his intentions known when Daquan Reba had rebelled against him.
Nalini could not allow Razilan to make Sultan Jashan’s mistake and bring down everything their father had built. “Please tell me that you do not seriously believe my brother is considering starting a war for Zenith?” she asked.
“It does not matter what I believe,” Lord Krarim said. “I can only tell you that Lady Ríma has agreed to let him marry her daughter, Ahnja, so long as His Majesty leads a holy war for Zenith.”
So that is what he and my aunt discussed in the gardens! “But that is absurd,” Nalini said. “Razilan already has a wife. He is no fool. He will not divorce Sultana Olella. He knows that Lord Nahmet will never accept that. And if he wants to fight a war in the east, he cannot have the western half of his kingdom taking up arms against him.”
“Let us hope you are right.”
The doors burst open. A column of soldiers came in from the courtyard and marched past Nalini and Lord Krarim. Nalini looked back at the pyre. The flames had died down to mere embers and her blood ran cold. They had burned the Sultan and gone against Abyar’s laws, igniting the fire of Abyar’s anger in the process. Mayhap, the consequences of Razilan’s next moves would be the punishment for what they had done; for what she had advised. “My Lord,” Nalini said. “Do you think we’re cursed?”
Lord Krarim looked at her with the same impassivity he had shown throughout their conversation. If he were surprised by the question, he showed no sign. “I am not the Divine, I cannot say,” he said. “But whether we are cursed or not, it is best we focus on what we can do in our positions.”
Nalini nodded. She was a vizier at court, the royal treasurer, and one of the few people in all of Al-Jaraba who Sultan Razilan listened to. She had to use her position intelligently and find a way to talk her brother out of whatever mad ideas their aunt had seduced him into believing. And she had to do it before he set the Kingdom on the path to war and ruin.
4
-Saving The Kingdom-
(Nalini)
Nalini put down the parchment and scratched at her forehead, trying to break the tension that had built up around her head. Did being a royal vizier always bring with it tension and strain? Had every courtesan’s muscles been taut throughout the reign of Sultan Daquan? Or was her body stiff because Razilan now sat on the throne?
Nalini yawned. She had only been at her desk for an hour, yet the weight pushing down upon her eyelids made it seem like she had been there all day. Was governance always this exhausting? At this rate, her days would be long, and her hair would turn grey soon enough.
The door creaked open. Nalini sat up and grimaced. She did not like it when people did not knock before they entered.
“Look!” Emilio said, when the door was fully open. “There’s your mother, hard at work.”
Payam then rushed into the chamber. The sight of their four-year-old son, who had inherited more of Nalini’s darker complexion than her husband’s fair features, brought a smile to her face. Nalini had not smiled or laughed much since her father had died. But her son brought her cheer and delight every time she saw him, and now was no different.
Payam ran around the desk as Nalini spread out her arms, before her son jumped into them. Nalini hugged her son tightly and kissed him on the brow. “Shouldn’t you be at breakfast?” she asked.
“I want you there,” Payam responded. “Can you eat with us?”
Nalini placed her son on her lap and smiled wanly. She would have loved to join Payam for breakfast. Yet, how could she tell an infant that she didn’t have time to eat with him because she deal with the finances of the Kingdom?
“If your mother can get through a few more of her papers before you finish eating,” Emilio said. “I am sure she will join us before you begin your lessons. How does that sound?”
Payam nodded and jumped off his mother’s lap. “Don’t forget, Mother,” he said.
He feels forgotten, like I don’t love him. Nalini’s throat tightened. She loved her son more than anything in the world. It was just that between caring for her late father and now being a royal vizier, her time seemed to be completely taken up of late. “If I don’t eat with you at breakfast,” she said. “I will eat with you at lunch.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Payam gave her a cheeky smile and ran away, with all the enthusiasm of a little boy. Emilio gripped the door handle. “Sorry if we interrupted you,” he said. “Payam just wanted to see you, and I wanted to show him how hard his mother works.”
Nalini exhaled. Emilio had done what he had come for. Couldn’t he just leave and not grate on her nerves for a change? “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “It made for a pleasant change. But if you don’t mind-”
“In addition,” Emilio continued, oblivious to her last sentence as he removed a scroll from his pocket and placed it on the desk. “I received this a quarter of an hour. I don’t know who gave it to me, but she told me to give it to you. I decided to use Payam’s whining as an excuse to bring it to you.”
Nalini raised a brow. This was the first time her husband had shown a glimmer of intelligence. She had always thought that King Fransisco had agreed to take the unprecedented step of letting his son marry a woman outside of his Faith of the Holy Circle because he had no use for Emilio. Had she underestimated her husband?
“Do you know who it could be from?” he asked.