Rulers of the Darkness

From his office in the anteroom to Hajjaj's, Qutuz asked, "Do you suppose Iskakis will bring his wife?"

"I'm sure I don't know, though he often does," Hajjaj replied. "He likes to show her off."

"That's true," his secretary said. "As far as anyone can tell, though, showing her off is all he likes to do with her." He sighed. "It's a pity, really. I don't care how pale she is- she's a lovely woman."

"She certainly is," Hajjaj agreed. "Iskakis wears a mask and wants everyone to take it for his face." No matter how lovely his wife was, Iskakis preferred boys. That didn't particularly bother Hajjaj. The Yaninan minister's hypocrisy did.

"What sort of clothes will you wear?" Qutuz asked.

"Oh, by the powers above!" the Zuwayzi foreign minister exclaimed. That problem wouldn't arise at a Zuwayzi feast, where no one would wear anything between hat and sandals. "Algarvian-style will do," Hajjaj said at last. "We are all friends of Algarve's, however… exciting the prospect is these days."

Thus it was that, two days later, he rolled through the streets of Bishah in a royal carriage while wearing one of his unstylish Algarvian outfits. His own countrymen stared at him. A few of them sent him pitying looks- even though the sun had sunk low, the day remained viciously hot. And someone sent up a thoroughly disrespectful shout: "Go home, you old fool! Have you lost all of your mind?" Patting his sweaty face with a linen handkerchief, Hajjaj wondered about that himself.

The Gyongyosian guards outside the ministry were sweating, too. No one shouted at them. With their fierce, leonine faces- even more to the point, with the sticks slung on their backs- they looked ready to blaze anyone who gave them a hard time. What with Gyongyosians' reputation as a warrior race, they might have done it.

But they bowed to Hajjaj. One of them spoke in their twittering language. The other proved to know at least a few words of Zuwayzi, for he said, "Welcome, your Excellency," and stood aside to let the foreign minister pass.

Inside the Gyongyosian ministry, Horthy clasped Hajjaj's hand and said the same thing in classical Kaunian. With his thick, gray-streaked tawny beard, he too put Hajjaj in mind of a lion. He was a cultured lion, though, for he continued in the same language: "Choose anything under the stars here that makes you happy."

"You are too kind," Hajjaj murmured, looking around in fascination. He didn't come here very often. Whenever he did, he thought himself transported to the exotic lands of the uttermost west. The squared-off, heavy furniture, the pictures of snowy mountains on the walls with their captions in an angular script he could not read, the crossed axes that formed so large a part of the decoration, all reminded him how different these folk were from his own.

Even Horthy's invitation felt strange. Alone among civilized folk, the Gyongyosians cared nothing for the powers above and the powers below. They measured their life in this world and the world to come by the stars. Hajjaj had never understood that, but there were a great many more urgent things in the world that he didn't understand, either.

He got himself a glass of wine: grape wine, for date wine was as alien to Gyongyos as swearing by the stars was to him. He took a chicken leg roasted with Gyongyosian spices, chief among them a reddish powder that reminded him a little of pepper. Nothing quite like it grew in Zuwayza.

One of the Gyongyosians was an excellent fiddler. He strolled through the reception hall, coaxing fiery music from his instrument as he went. Hajjaj had never imagined going to war behind a fiddle- drums and blaring horns were Zuwayza's martial instruments- but this fellow showed him a different way might be as good as his own.

There was Iskakis of Yanina, in earnest conversation with a handsome junior military attachй from Gyongyos. And there, over in a corner, stood Balastro of Algarve, in earnest conversation with Iskakis' lovely young wife. Hajjaj strolled over to them. He had not the slightest intention of asking about the military situation in southern Unkerlant, not at the moment. Instead, he hoped to head off trouble before it started. Iskakis might not be passionately devoted to her as a lover, but he did have a certain pride of possession. And Balastro… Balastro was an Algarvian, which meant, where women were concerned, he was trouble waiting to happen.

Seeing Hajjaj approach, he bowed. "Good evening, your Excellency," he said. "Coming to save me from myself?"

"By all appearances, someone should," Hajjaj replied.

"And what would you save me from, your Excellency?" Iskakis' wife asked in fair Algarvian. "The marquis, at least, seeks to save me from boredom."

"Is that what they call it these days?" Hajjaj murmured. Rather louder, he added, "Milady, I might hope to help save you from yourself."