Mehr Jirah stood before Aurungzeb, Sultan of Ostrabar, and Ahara, his concubine. The Sultan held the reins of a magnificent warhorse in his right hand and a worn and ancient-looking scimitar in his left. He was dressed in the plain leather and furs of an ancient steppe chieftain. Ahara was clad as soberly as Aurungzeb, in a long woollen cloak and a linen veil.
Mehr Jirah cried out loudly in the Merduk tongue, and the two thousand cavalry clashed their lances against their shields and roared out in affirmation. Yes, they would accept this union, and they would gladly recognise this woman as their Sultan’s First Wife. Their Queen.
Then Aurungzeb put the reins of his warhorse in Ahara’s hand and set the scimitar which had been his grandfather’s at her feet. She stepped over it lightly, and the whole host cheered, the musicians on the backs of the elephants blasting out a cacophony of noise. Mehr Jirah offered a bowl of mare’s milk to the couple and they sipped from it in turn, then kissed. And it was done. Aurungzeb, the Sultan of Ostrabar, had a new wife: one with a child growing in her belly who would one day be the legitimate heir to the throne.
They had cleared a new set of apartments for her in the tower of Ormann Dyke. Their windows looked east over the River Searil towards Aekir and the Merduk lands beyond. She sat at the window for a long time whilst a small army of maids and eunuchs hurried back and forth lighting braziers, moving furniture, setting out arrays of sweetmeats and wines. Finally she became aware that someone stood behind her, watching. She turned from the view, still dressed in the sombre steppe costume in which she had been married, and found Serrim, the chief eunuch, standing there, and beside him a tall Merduk in leather riding breeches, a silk tunic and a wide sash about his middle with a knife thrust into it. He was weather-worn and gaunt, his beard as hoary as sea salt. His eyes were grey like her own but he was staring out of the window over her shoulder and did not meet her appraisal. He looked to be in his sixties but his carriage was that of a much younger man.
“Well?” Heria asked. Serrim had been a bully when she was a mere concubine. Now that she had been catapulted into the Merduk nobility he had quickly become a sycophant. She disliked him the more for it.
“Lady, His Majesty has sent Shahr Baraz to you to be your personal attendant.”
The lean Merduk hauled his gaze from the window and met her eyes for the first time. He bowed without a word.
“My attendant? I have plenty of those already.” Shahr Baraz looked as though he belonged on a horse with a sword in his hand, not in a lady’s chambers.
“He is to be your bodyguard, and is to attend you at all times.”
“My bodyguard,” Heria said wonderingly. And then something stirred from her memory. “Was it not Shahr Baraz who commanded the army which took Aekir? I thought he was an old man-and-and no longer with us.”
“This is the illustrious khedive’s son, lady.”
“I see. Leave us, Serrim.”
“Lady, I-”
“Leave us. All of you. I want the chamber cleared. You can finish your work here later.”
A procession of maids left the room at once. The eunuch padded off with them, looking thoroughly discontented. Heria felt a brief moment of intense satisfaction, and then the cloud came down again.
“Would you like some wine, Shahr Baraz?”
“No, lady. I do not indulge.”
“I see. So you are my bodyguard. Who do you intend to protect me from?”
“From whomsoever would wish to harm you.”
She switched to Normannic. “And can you understand this tongue?”
The Merduk hesitated. A muscle twitched in his jaw. There was a long, livid scar there that ran from one cheek into his beard.
“Some words I know,” he replied in the same language.
“Do you understand this, then? That I believe you are nothing more than a spy set here by the Sultan to keep watch over me and report my every move?”
“I am not a spy,” Shahr Baraz said heatedly.
“Then why would the Sultan place the capable son of such an illustrious father in such a menial position?”
His grey eyes had flared into life. His Normannic was perfect as he replied, “To punish me.”
“Why would he want to punish you?”
“Because I am my father’s son, and he thinks my father failed him before this fortress.”
“Your father is dead, then?”
“No-I don’t know. He disappeared into the mountains rather than return to court to be… to answer for his actions.”
She switched back to Merduk. “Your Normannic is better than you think.”
“I am no spy,” he repeated. “Even the Sultan would not ask me to be that. My family have served the House of Ostrabar for generations. I will not fail the Sultan’s trust-nor yours, lady. I swear it. And besides”-here a glint of humour pierced his sternness-“the harem is full of spies already. The Sultan has little need of another.”
She actually found herself liking him. “Have you family of your own?”
“A wife and two daughters. They are in Orkhan.”
Hostages for his good behaviour, no doubt. “Thank you, Shahr Baraz. Now please leave me.”
But he stood his ground stubbornly. “I am to remain with you at all times.”
“All times?” she asked with one raised eye-brow. Shahr Baraz flushed.
“Within the bounds of propriety, yes.”
She felt a pang of pure despair, and abandoned the game. “All right.” The prison walls were still intact, then. She might be able to order about a flock of flunkeys, but her position was essentially unchanged. She had been a fool to think otherwise.
Heria turned to regard the view from the lofty window once more. The pain was there of course, but she kept it at bay, skirted around it as a man might avoid a bottomless quagmire in his travells. Somewhere over the horizon in the east the ruins of Aekir stood, and somewhere in those ashes were the remains of another life. But the man with whom she had shared that life was still alive. Still alive. Where was Corfe now, her one and only husband? Strange and terrible that the knowledge he lived and walked and breathed upon the earth was a source only of agony. She could take no joy in it, and she scourged herself for that. She bore another man’s child, a man who now called her wife. She had been ennobled by the union, but would live what remained of her life behind the bars of a jewelled cage. While her Corfe was alive-out there somewhere. And leading the fight against the world she now inhabited.
She wanted to die.
But would not. She had a son in her belly. Not Corfe’s child, but something that was precious all the same-something that was hers. For the child she would stay alive, and she might even be able to do something to aid Corfe and the Torunnans, to help those who had once been her own people.
But the pain of it. The sheer, raw torment.
“Shahr Baraz,” she said without turning round.