Hajaj's home lay on the side of a hill, to catch the cooling breezes.
Bishah had few cooling breezes to catch, but they did blow in spring and fall. Like many houses in the capital, his was built of golden sandstone. Its wings rambled over a good stretch of the hillside, with gardens among them. Most of the plants were native to Zuwayza, and not extravagant of Water.
The majordomo bowed when Hajaj went inside. Tewfik had been a family retainer longer than Hajaj had been alive; he was well up into his elahties, bent and wrinkled and slow, but with wits and tongue still unimpaired. "Everyone's still going mad with celebrating, eh, lad?" he croaked.
He was the only man alive who called Hajaj lad. "Even so," the foreign minister said. "We have won a victory, after all."
Tewfik grunted. "It won't last. Nothing ever lasts." If anything refuted that, it was himself. He went on, "You'll want to see the lady Kolthoum, then." It was not a question. Tewfik did not need to make it a question.
He knew his master.
And Hajaj nodded. "Aye," he said, and followed the majordomo.
Kolthoum was his first wife, the only person in the world who knew him better than Tewfik. He'd wed Hassila twenty years later, to cement a clan tie. Lalla was a recent amusement. One day before too long, he'd have decide whether she'd grown too expensive to be amusing any more.
For now, though Kolthoum. She was embroidering with one Hassila's daughters when Tewfik led Hajaj into the room. One look at her husband's face and she told the girl, "Run along, Jamila. I'll show more about that stitch later. Right now, your father needs to talk -V me. Tewfik-"
"I shall fetch refreshments directly, senior wife," the majordomo said.
"Thank you, Tewfik." Kolthoum had never been a great beauty, had put on flesh as she aged. But men paid attention to her because of voice, and also because she made it very plain that she paid attention them. As soon as Tewfik shuffled away, she said, "It's not as good as crystal makes it sound, is it?"
"When is anything ever as good as the crystal makes it sound?" He returned. His senior wife laughed. He went on, "You aren't the only who thinks it is, though, and you have friends in high places." He [..t.] her about his conversation with King Shazli, and about what he'd has do; when speaking with his wife, he did not need to wait through ritual of tea and wine and cakes.
"A good thing he didn't take you up on it!" Kolthoum said ind nantly. "What would you do, underfoot here all day? And what do we do, with you underfoot here all day?"
Hajaj laughed and kissed her on the cheek. "Powers above be pray that I have a wife who truly understands me."
"Well, of course," Kolthoum said.
Fernao had visited Yanina a couple of times before what news she in Setubal were calling the Derlavaian War broke out. Unless his memo had slipped, Patras, the capital, hadn't been so frantic then. Yaninans frantic - or, at least, they looked that way to foreigners - but they seemed less on edge then.
Of course, he thought, being a small kingdom sandwiched [.bitwe.] Algarve and Unkerlant went a long way toward helping to make a [.fo.] frantic. Having King Penda of Forthweg cooped up somewhere in the royal palace couldn't have helped matters, either, not with King Swemmel breathing down King Tsavellas's neck to get his hands on Penda.
And so broadsheets sprouted on every wall. Fernao couldn't [.re.] them; the Yaninans used a script all their own - as much to be difficult as for any other reason, as far as the Lagoan mage was concerned. But they were full of pictures of soldiers and dragons and red ink and the punctuation marks for excitement and urgency that a lot of scripts shared. If they didn't mean something like LOOK OUT! WE'RE GOING TO BE IN A WAR! - if they didn't mean something like that, Fernao understood nothing of symbols.
Two Yaninans were quarreling on the plank sidewalk in front of the doorway to the shop Fernao wanted to enter. They were going at it hammer and tongs, getting madder by the minute. In Fernao's ears, Yaninan sounded like wine pouring out of a jug too fast, glug, glug, glug. He knew only a handful of phrases of it; it wasn't a tongue closely related to any other.
A crowd gathered. Arguing and watching arguments seemed to be the Yaninan national sports. Men in tunics with puffy sleeves and tights and women with kerchiefs on their heads egged on the two combatants. At last, one of the skinny, swarthy men grabbed the other's bushy side whiskers and yanked. With a shriek, the second man hit the first in the belly. They grabbed each other and rolled into the street, clawing and gouging and cursing. The crowd surged after them.
With a sigh of relief, Fernao slid through the now vacant door-way of the gourmet-foods shop. Varvakis supplied King Tsavellas with delicacies; selling him a shipment of smoked Lagoan trout gave Fernao an innocuous reason for coming to Yanina. The foodseller spoke fluent Algarvian, for which Fernao gave thanks. "Just another day," the mage remarked, pointing to the commotion outside.
"Oh, indeed," Varvakis answered. He was a short, bald man with a big black mustache and the hairiest ears Fernao had ever seen. Fernao's irony went past him; as far as he was concerned, it was just another day. Patras was like that.
Fernao glanced around the shop. Varvakis did business with the whole world. Jars of Algarvian liver paste stood beside hams and sausages from Valmiera, Jelgavan wines next to Unkerlanter apricot brandy, Kuusarnan lobsters and oysters by chewy strips of dried conch from Zuwayza, build red peppers from Gyongyos alongside fiery ones out of tropic Siaulia.
The mage pointed to some large brown dried leaves he didn't recognize.
"What are those?"
[..Id sed een folk the mel read..]
"I just got them in, as a matter of fact," Varvakis answered. "The from one of the islands of the north, I forget which one. The na crumble them in a pipe and smoke them like hashish. But they speed up instead of slowing you down, if you know what I mean."
"That might be interesting," Fernao said. "But now-" Before could get down to business, a plump woman with a distinct must walked in. Varvakis fawned on her. They walked over to a bin of [.p.] and had a long discussion of which Fernao followed not a word. Woman finally condescended to buy a few ounces worth. Varvakis [.her.] a couple of coppers in change with the air of a man conferring [..a k dom-saving..] loan upon his sovereign. Fernao let out a muffled snort more than Algarvians, Yaninans overacted.
"But now-" Varvakis said when the plump woman had Yaninans also had - and needed - a gift for picking up the threads interrupted conversation. "But now, my friend, I have, or think I good news for you. A steward of my acquaintance tells me that-" bowed himself double when a man came in and went over to [..exa..] the lobsters. At the prices he was charging for them, only a rich customer could have afforded any. Fernao quietly fumed till the transaction done.
A steward of your acquaintance tells you what?" the mage a when Varvakis remembered he was there - he was learning to ha multiple interrupted conversations, too, although not to enjoy the some exasperation, he added, "Could you let a clerk handle people we're done here?"
"Oh, very well." The fancy grocer sounded testy. "But customers want to see me. They come to deal with me." He puffed out his chest pride - and with air, which he used to shout, "Gyzis!" The clerk eme from the back room, wearing a leather apron over a Yaninan-style p sleeved tunic. Grudgingly, Varvakis put him in charge of the front shop and took Fernao into the back room.
More delicacies lined the shelves there, some in jars, others kept in rest crates. "About this steward-" Fernao prompted.
"Aye, aye, of course." Varvakis's eyes flashed. "Do you take me halfwit? For a price, he says, he can get you in to see King Penda - Penda can moan that he's pining for smoked trout. What you do you see Penda, I know nothing about. I wish to know nothing about they're natives [..eed you fore he stache f prunes ord. The akis gave g a king ort. Even ~I,ACN ki". threads of nk I have, that-2' He to examine ch customer saction was mage asked g to handle oy them. In e people till ut customers his chest with lerk emerged – style puff~ e front of the ers..] kept fresh take me for agenda - maybe t you do once ing about it."