Ghassan focused upon the back of the emir’s head and blinked slowly. In that wink of darkness behind his eyelids, he raised the image of Mansoor’s face in his mind. Over that, he drew glimmering shapes, lines, and marks from deep in memory.
A chant passed through his thoughts as his slow blink finished.
The prince must surely take a wife now that the emperor nears death. Ounyal’am will have no choice but to marry before taking the throne.
Ghassan grimaced upon hearing Mansoor’s conscious thoughts. An instant later ...
If only the foolish girl had the wiles of her late mother. Even so, she must be made to try ...
Ghassan took care not to sink too deeply. Searching for more than surface thoughts could arouse a target’s awareness. And he didn’t care to hear much more of the would-be tyrant’s innermost thoughts. What he had heard was no surprise.
Emperor Kanal’am grew weaker every day, at a guess, for no one but the imperial counselor, a’Yamin, or attendants appointed directly by him, had seen the emperor in more than three moons.
At thirty-eight years old, Prince Ounyal’am was the remaining imperial heir and had yet to take a first or any wife. Growing schemes, machinations, and plots among the nation’s seven royal houses had reached a fevered pitch.
How many daughters had been thrown at the prince since his father had taken ill? Emir Mansoor now apparently joined the fray, vying for his A’ish’ah to be the future first empress.
Ghassan turned back down the mainway through the crowds before the gate even opened. He had greater issues to consider and a task he could no longer put off. After only one city block, he stepped between two vendor tents and into a cutway. He went on to the alley running behind the shops hidden by the forest of market stalls. When he spotted a line of water barrels, he crouched behind the last one. Once settled, he reached inside his shirt, grasped a rough chain around his neck to pull it out, and then stared at the dangling, unadorned copper medallion that he always wore close to his skin.
Closing his eyes, he gripped its smooth metal. After moments of hesitation, he opened his eyes, dropped the medallion back inside his shirt, and merely crouched there in silence.
Ghassan needed more time to carefully work out his request to his prince. For what he would ask, somehow the words never seemed quite right.
Prince Ounyal’am stood in the reception room of his private chambers watching three servants prepare a formal tea on a table constructed entirely of opalescent tiles. The chamber was furnished with colorful silk cushions on low couches. Amber sateen curtains stretched from the polished floor to the high ceiling, each held back by golden tassels. Besides the servants, the only other person present was Nazhif, captain of his personal bodyguards.
Ounyal’am did not look forward to this morning’s impending visit.
Of late, he had entertained far too many royals and nobles. All found excuses, urgent needs, and pressing matters to see him. All happened to bring a daughter, a sister, a niece, or occasionally two or even three for company. So many polite manipulations in anticipation of his father’s death had left him mentally weary. And none of these visitors knew he awaited that death more anxiously than any of them.
His reasons were far different from theirs, and ones not even his personal bodyguards knew, except perhaps Nazhif. Unfortunately, he was as much in the dark as every conniving noble with a daughter, etcetera, regarding his father’s condition.
Ounyal’am had not been called to the emperor’s chambers in more than three moons.
Presumably, his father was weakening further and Ounyal’am was expected to take a wife—at least one. As his first duty, a new emperor had to provide a legitimate heir for the security of the empire.
Ounyal’am glanced down at his simple but fine clothing of loose pants made from raw silk, a pure white linen shirt, and a yellow tunic with an open front. These were the simplest fare he was ever allowed to wear. Every item he had worn since his first step as a child had been tailored to fit him perfectly. How many of these young noblewomen would be eager to join him in marriage if he were not the imperial heir?
He often thought that he knew little of women. His mother had died giving birth to him, and he still sometimes felt the loss of her. She would have both loved him and been honest with him ... or at least that was how he imagined her.
All his life, he had been told he was handsome, but he wondered how much of this was flattery. Though small for his people, he had fine and delicate features with a smooth dark-toned complexion. He wore his near-black hair sheered at the top of his collar and always combed to perfection. He had often been called “scholarly” by imperial advisors.
Accurate and polite as that description may have been, he knew it was not always a compliment.
He was not the great warrior that his father had been. Once, a brash court official had referred to Ounyal’am as “bookish.” As a boy of fourteen at that time, he had been hurt, once he realized what that meant.
Showing his pain had been a mistake.
Emperor Kanal’am did not tolerate impudence, for his hereditary line had lasted more than four centuries. When that advisor’s headless corpse fell at Ounyal’am’s feet, cut down by an imperial guard before everyone present, that was the last time he ever allowed blood on his hands—his shoes—through his own carelessness.
Everything about him had to be perfect in the sight of all, but this morning’s visitors would be especially trying. Mental fatigue made him falter when he saw Nazhif pacing before the archways to an open balcony above the palace’s inner grounds.
“Your face betrays your thoughts,” Ounyal’am said too sharply, “as if you had sucked three lemons for your breakfast.”
Nazhif froze for an instant and then bowed his head. “Forgive me, my prince.”
He was a muscular man in his early fifties with a round face and a peppered goatee. A fierce but ever calm warrior, he had commanded Ounyal’am’s personal bodyguard for the twenty-four years ... since the day that headless body had dropped at the young prince’s feet.
Nazhif had never failed to protect the prince’s heart and mind as well as his life. In some ways, he was the father that Ounyal’am should have had and did not.
Four of the prince’s other twelve guards stood outside his complex of chambers—thirteen guards for the pending thirteenth emperor of an empire. All city and palace guards dressed much the same, in tan pants tucked into tall, hard boots, with dark brown tabards that overlay their cream shirts, and red wraps mounded atop their heads. However, the emperor’s hundreds of imperial guards were distinguished by gold sashes, and the prince’s thirteen private guards wore silver ones.
Ounyal’am regained his composure, regretting his harshness to Nazhif. No one enjoyed the company of Emir Mansoor. At a knock at the main chamber’s outer door, the door opened without invitation.
“My prince?”
Ounyal’am tensed with a flash of more than annoyance, though, again, he remained outwardly composed.
“Yes ... Counselor?”
The door swung fully open, and there stood the imperial counselor, Wihid al a’Yamin, in the outer hallway among Ounyal’am’s four hesitant but watchful bodyguards.
“Forgive the intrusion,” the counselor said, “but the emir and his daughter have arrived, and so I thought to announce them with all haste.”
A’Yamin, in his seventies, still had eyes and awareness as sharp as any falcon housed on the imperial grounds. He habitually dressed in tan pantaloons, a cream shirt, and a sleeveless dark brown robe. His white hair was always covered with a red mounded head wrap—like those of the imperial guards. Perhaps he fancied himself a warrior, though he had never served in any military. His face was lined, and he stooped to appear frail, but this fooled no one.