Hounds of God (46 page)

While Margaret spoke, Aidan left his chair and began to
prowl. It was his way; he could sit still, if he must, but stillness robbed him
of his wits. In the silence he spun on his heel, facing the lady, waiting.

She smiled very faintly at a memory. Gereint, warning her: “He
can never sit for long, except in the saddle. He can’t help it. He was born
restless. God’s mistake. His brother got all the quiet; he got all the fire.”

“That’s not strictly true,” Aidan said. Suddenly he grinned.
“But true enough.” His head tilted. “Sinan wants a web of loyal spies. I can
understand that. Why precisely your mother’s family?”

“It is the greatest,” Margaret answered. “And it has
something which he wants.” She met his eyes. Sea-grey, Gereint had said, like
his own: northern seas and northern stone. They put her in mind of fine steel.
When he shifted, the strangeness flared at her, cat-green. “I was a widow when
Gereint came here,” she said, “a ruling lady with two young children, and men
enough to defend me, and Aqua Bella mine by right. My husband had been a vassal
of the Prince of Antioch; he left other sons than Thibaut to inherit his lands.
It had not mattered to me. I had Aqua Bella. And I had my share in the House of
Ibrahim.

“Sinan asked for me. For me, not for one of my cousins,
because I was both Frank and Saracen. My Christianity was no impediment. I am,
after all, a woman, and a woman is what her man commands her to be. He wanted
my House and my place in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Perhaps, a little, he wanted
me. I was not so ill to look at when I was young.

“I refused him,” she said. “He persisted. He could not
understand that I was my own woman. I had taken one husband for duty and to
please my father. I chose the other to please myself. Then, I thought, Sinan
would let me be; and I wedded my daughter to a baron in Acre, lest he turn his
mind to her.

“But Sinan is of the people of Alamut. He accepts no will
but the will of his master, and since he reckons himself master, that will is
solely his own. He granted me some little peace. Then he commanded me. I would
set aside my Frankish boy; I would accept his suit. My answer had no words.
Only laughter. I was proud of it. I was a very perfect idiot.

“I grew more perfect with time’s passing. Sinan, having
commanded, turned to threats. He slew my best hunting hound; he slew the mare I
had raised from a foal. I gave him only defiance. Then he let me be. I thought
that I had won. I lowered my guard. And when the new message came, I defied it.
Yield,
it said,
or truly I resort to force.

“I defied it,” she said, “and for a long while again no blow
fell. I was wise, I thought. I took great care to guard myself. I thought that
he would abduct me; I took every precaution against it.

“But he is an Assassin. His force is deadly force. He did
not take me. He took my lord.”

Aidan was still. A quivering stillness, like a flame where
there is no wind.

“So you see,” said Margaret, “it is all my doing. I will not
surrender the House of Ibrahim into that man’s hands.”

“Indeed you shall not.”

His face and his voice between them brought her to her feet.
“You have no part in this.”

“Your enemy has made certain that I do.”

“Then you had best slay me, for I have been your kinsman’s
death.”

Aidan considered the logic of it. He could do that, even in
the white heat of rage. His teeth bared. It was not meant to be a smile. “You
know what your folly has won you. That is revenge enough. No, my lady; your
suitor owes me a blood debt. He will pay it in his own person, if I have to
pull down Alamut stone by stone.”

“Masyaf,” she corrected him, cool and fearless.

“Masyaf, and Alamut, and every hut and hovel which owes
fealty to the
Hashishayun
, if need commands
it.”

“All for a single human life?”

“He was my sister’s son.”

She touched him as if she thought that he would burn. Her
hand was cool and steady. He caught it. It did not try to escape, even when his
grip woke pain. “So strong,” she said. Observing only, interested. “Do you
truly mourn for him? Or are you glad to have found so mighty a battle?”

He could kill her. Easily. One effortless blow. Or he could
break her mind. She was a mortal woman. She was nothing before his power.

She knew it. She cared not at all. She could do naught but
what she did; she would yield for no man, nor ever for a white he-witch whom
grief had driven to folly.

He let her go. “I will do what I will do,” he said.

She bowed. It was not submission. “Will you see your kinsman
laid in his tomb?”

“I have time,” he answered her.

“Indeed,” she said, “you do.” She sat again, called for her
women.

He was dismissed. That was novel enough, and he was bemused
enough, that he let her have her will. Later she would pay his price. If he
chose to ask it.

2.

The baby was teething, and fretful with it. Whatever he
wanted, it was not what anyone could give. When his grandmother rocked him, he
wailed for a sugar tit; when the aunts tempted him with a sugar tit, he howled
for his mother’s breast; when she gave him the breast he struck it hard enough
to bruise, and screamed in earnest. His mother was tempted to scream with him,
if only to drown him out.

“A proper little prince he is,” said Laila, who resented
him. She had been the most junior wife until he was born, but at least she had
had Sayyida to be superior to: a mere daughter of the house, youngest and last
to be married, and that to a fatherless nobody. But Sayyida had done what Laila
had never been able to do. Given her husband a son, and so become a person of
note within the limits of their world.

“A prince,” Laila repeated, hands pressed prettily to her
ears. “His whim is our law. Why, I’ve hardly slept since — ”

Sayyida set her teeth before she said something regrettable.
Her breast throbbed. She ventured to dance Hasan on her knee. His screams
modulated to a hiccoughing roar.

“Here,” said someone new. “What is this?” She swept Hasan
into her arms.

The silence was so abrupt that Sayyida reeled. For a long
moment she simply sat and luxuriated in it. Then she opened her eyes and
stared.

Hasan had met his match. His fists were tangled in the most
wonderful hair in the world. He had, improbably, begun to laugh.

Laila loosed a little shriek. Stout comfortable Fahimah had
the wits to go in search of food and drink as the laws of hospitality demanded,
but she would not look directly at their guest. Mother — to Sayyida she was
always and irrevocably that — sat very erect and very still. She would not go
so far as to express dislike, but her disapproval was cold enough to burn.

Sayyida did not care for any of them. “Morgiana!” She flung
herself upon her guest, baby and all. Hasan did not even frown. He was quietly
and blissfully fascinated. “Morgiana!” his mother cried. “O miraculous! Would
you care to adopt a son?”

Morgiana smiled and shook her head. She was as indulgent
with Sayyida’s exuberance as with Hasan’s tugging at her hair. “Peace be with
you,” she said, “and with all this house.”

That put Sayyida in mind of her manners. She bowed as
politely as she could when she wanted to dance with delight. “May the peace of
Allah be with you, with your coming and your going; and may that going be late
and blessed.” She sucked in her breath. “
Morgiana!
When did you come? Where have you been? How long can you stay? Did you know
about Hasan? Have you — ”

Morgiana laughed. “In order, O impetuous: I came just now, I
have been where I have been, I can stay until the evening prayer, and yes, I
knew both about Maimoun and about this handsome son of his.”

Laila made a sign against the evil eye. It was not directly
entirely at Morgiana’s boldness in trumpeting Hasan’s virtues to every demon
that could hear. “This worthless girlchild,” she said, “has been driving us to
distraction.”

Morgiana hardly glanced at her. Sayyida swallowed a grin.
Laila not only knew that she was pretty; she made sure that one else remained
unaware of it. But beside Morgiana that shrank to insignificance. Morgiana was
wonderfully, outrageously, exhilaratingly beautiful. Her skin was ivory. Her
eyes were the clear green of emeralds; or, Laila had said more than once,
spitefully, a cat’s. Her hair was rich enough to kill for: beautiful, improbable,
the color of the dark sweet wine which no good Muslim would touch, pouring to
her knees. She glowed as she sat on a cushion in the worn familiar room, amid
the clutter of four women and a baby; even in plain respectable clothes, she
looked as if she belonged in gold and silk.

Fahimah came back with the maid and a small feast. Mother
disapproved in silence. Laila sniffed, and frowned. “
Zirbajah?
Fahimah, we were saving it for — ”

Mother looked at her. It sufficed. She sulked, but she was
silent.

Morgiana nibbled bread, salt, a little halwah; she dipped a
fingerful from the bowl of
zirbajah
,
savoring the rice with its pungency of garlic and spices. Hasan snatched,
greedy. She placated him with halwah, with which he was well content.

A miracle. No, Sayyida thought. Morgiana. The others, even
Laila, were wary of her, almost afraid. She was the family legend, and the
family secret. A very solid secret, savoring
zirbajah
,
sipping thick sweet kaffé from the silver cup that only came out for a guest of
high note.

When she had tasted everything and complimented it duly — gaining
from Fahimah the name of the new pastry cook in the bazaar, who had apprenticed
in the sultan’s own kitchens — she settled to an age of uncomfortable chatter.

Sayyida had trained herself to see the necessity. She had
never been able to train herself to be patient. Morgiana never told her best
tales in front of the older women. To them she was an infamous eccentric,
endured because their lord and master had bidden them endure her, and accorded
hospitality because the Prophet enjoined it upon them. To Sayyida she was
simply and most complexly Morgiana. And that was wonder and splendor, and tales
that had no equal, because they were the truth.

But she did not tell them to everyone, nor would she cut
short the rites of courtesy. Sayyida sat at her feet and tried to remember a
matron’s dignity, and struggled not to fidget. Surely Mother knew. She followed
Morgiana on every step of every furlong of the pilgrimage to Mecca; questioned
her minutely regarding her every companion; counted every stone of every holy
place in that holiest of cities.

Laila, of all people, came to the rescue of Sayyida’s
sanity. She yawned delicately, like a kitten, and stretched in the manner best
suited to the multiplicity of her curves. “I beg our guest’s gracious pardon,”
she said, “but my lord husband is coming to me tonight, and I must rest, or I
shall hardly be fit to please him.”

Sayyida bit her lip. Mother was above jealousy. Fahimah was
oblivious to it. But they were reminded of duties that could not wait. Morgiana
would not have them abandon necessity for her sake; no more would she spoil it
by naming Sayyida’s name. “I am quite content,” she said, “to wait upon the
little prince. If his mother should wish for an hour’s respite...”

“Of course she should not,” Mother said tartly. “Go on,
girl. Take the lady to the garden. And mind you bridle your chatter. She has no
need to hear the foolishness that passes in you for conversation.”

oOo

Sayyida hugged herself and danced round the rose arbor that
was Fahimah’s greatest pride. “O brilliant! O wonderful!” She plucked a blossom
and buried her nose in it until she sneezed. Morgiana watched with glinting
eyes. Sayyida claimed Hasan, who was hungry, and sat on the grass to feed him.
Her grin was anything but matronly. “You planned the whole of it, didn’t you?
Even Laila.”

“Laila needs no plotting but her own.” Morgiana shook rose
petals upon Sayyida’s head. Hasan laughed at the breast. Morgiana brushed a
hand through his curls, light and quick and oddly tender. Odd, because Morgiana
was not a gentle creature. She tossed aside her veils and her dark voluminous
robe, uncovering what Mother would have been appalled and Laila much interested
to see: the dress of a young man of Damascus.

“Is it safe?” Sayyida asked. Foolishly, but she could not
help herself.

Morgiana folded her lithe slimness on the grass and plaited
her hair with flying fingers, binding it with a bit of green silk, tossing it
over her shoulder. Her smile was a white fierce thing. It was not womanly at
all, and yet it was utterly female. Very much like the rest of her. “It,” she
said, “is quite safe. Ask rather, am I?”

Sayyida thought about it, carefully, with Hasan tugging
lustily where she was most tender. She bent her head over him. “I would die for
him,” she said almost to herself. She looked up. “And so,” she said, “would
you.”

Morgiana’s smile vanished. She leaped up. Sayyida, startled,
raised her arm to shield her son. She lowered it without apology. Morgiana
expected none. She spun into a sudden wild dance, sun to Sayyida’s awkward
shadow, graceful as the panther’s spring, and as passionate, and as deadly.

But not to Hasan. Morgiana dropped down in front of them
both. “You trust me too much,” she said.

Sayyida shook her head.

“Obstinate.”

Sayyida smiled.

Morgiana sighed. “Chit of a child. Do you know what your
husband knows of me? A rich man of this city, I; rather too fanatic in my
piety; and rather too fond of good Damascus blades, for blade of flesh, alas, I
have none. He would pity me, if he despised me any less.”

“Ah,” said Sayyida, undismayed. “He’s a man, and newly come
to proof of it. Of course he’s insufferable.”

“Does he make you happy?”