Star of Cursrah (5 page)

Bored, Amenstar let her eyes roam over her quarters. Everything in sight was hers. One entire wing of the family compound, nine opulent rooms surrounding a courtyard with a pool, gardens, and fruit trees. Her father, the bakkal, or priest-king of Cursrah, had four wives, of which Star’s mother was sama, the first, or senior queen. Star had two elder brothers and twelve younger, and nine younger sisters, with more siblings on the way. Luckily, as eldest princess she enjoyed great privileges, as well as grating pains, such as her mother’s incessant harping. The daughter tuned in momentarily to see if the tirade covered anything new.

“… is the duty of royalty to set a good example for the kingdom. How can we expect commoners to behave and exalt us as descendants of the most high genies, when you insist on crawling through gutters with low-born rascals—”

“My friends are noble born,” Star interrupted, “and I think royalty should venture out occasionally and see how common people regard us. How can you and Father claim to rule this kingdom if you don’t know the people? Do the citizens love us, hate us, or not care at all? Do you know? All of Cursrah’s noble class lives by night while the commoners toil by day. How can you say that you understand them?”

Star’s mother resembled her daughter but for greater girth and thicker makeup to disguise wrinkles, and like her daughter she rolled her eyes in exasperation. Having just arisen from a day of sleep, even the first sama wore the universal, simple tubelike shift. Her plump figure floated in a cloud of gauze filmy as spider webs.

“Amenstar, dear, royalty relies on advisors to gather knowledge and give counsel—which always conflicts. We don’t tell the cooks how to salt the broth. Great Calim himself, all praise his name, assigned us each a specific role. The royal family tends to the highest chores: steering diplomacy between the city-states, interpreting the wishes of the gods, overseeing a balanced trade, monitoring our neighbors’ internal politics—”

“You’re lax in that,” Star blurted. “Our soldiers fear Father, and you underestimate the threat from Oxonsis. Their scouts reconnoiter our borders and harry our outermost garrisons, I’ve heard. The wisdom of the marketplace is that we should bloody Oxonsis’s nose before they annex our eastern plains.” Star lifted her pointed nose, proud to score political points, but in fact she understood neither “reconnoiter” nor “annex.”

“Don’t babble, Amenstar. Your parrots speak too, but no one seeks their advice.” The sama closed her eyes and added, “Don’t diverge from the subject, please. You must not slip out of the compound again. It’s simply too dangerous in these troubled times—”

“Times are always troubled,” Star sighed.

An acolyte shuffled up with a message from the bakkal, who had also recently begun his “day.” With a shaved head and brown robes bundled to her chin, speaking in a habitual whisper, the acolyte resembled a hairy-legged spider. Star looked away in disgust. These adherents of death seemed three-quarters dead themselves. As night settled, vizars crawled from their dens like bats or jackals or vampires.

Glancing at the slate palette, the sama agreed to come, after blowing one last frosty blast at her wayward daughter. “Amenstar,” she said, “your abysmal naivete regarding our border crisis reveals dangerous gaps in your education. Your father and I have laid plans to rectify your ignorance. Remain here. I’ll send tutors to clarify your perception of the world—and your place and duties in it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mother,” Star said quietly. Agreeing put the quickest end to the harangue.

“I wonder if that’s true,” the sama sighed. “Oftimes I wish Tunkeb were the eldest samira. She strives for obedience.” Turning a tubby circle, the sama swept out, trailed by eight maids and four standard-bearers.

“Tunkeb is a kisser of warty, hairy bottoms,” Star muttered.

Behind, an empty-headed maid giggled, but when Star turned, they all stared stone-faced. The princess wondered which honey-tongued traitor had squealed about Star ditching her guards and fleeing the royal compound. Servants were notorious for carrying whispers, plotting lies, and betraying anyone in order to inch up the social ladder. Star trusted none of the fawning fools and sensed their smug glee at her being grounded.

Clapping her hands, Amenstar barked, “All of you, begone! I wish to nap.” The maids chirped in surprise. Usually, two maids watched the samira sleep.

One objected, “B-but, your highness, th-the most high sama sends tutors—”

Another clap made them jump. Star pronounced, “I determine what I learn and when, you fox-faced doxy. Now get out!”

Still the maids hesitated, twittering like birds. Furious, Star reached for the nearest object, a china vase that some artisan had labored a year to glaze. Unmindful if she hit anyone, the royal daughter lobbed it hard. Maids ducked, and the vase shattered on the wall. At the noise, two guards bearing lyre-spears ran to the doorway.

Star shrilled, “Leave me! I command it! Leave me, or I’ll loose the cat on you.”

The maids shrieked, disliking the ocelot, who licked its teeth. Chittering, the servants scampered out the double doors, and Star slammed them in the faces of the guards. Huffing, the princess regarded her luxurious prison. Even nine huge rooms seemed cramped after the freedom of the city streets. She asked herself, “Well? Shall I languish here like the Trapped Terrors or follow my own advice and learn more about the commoners I’ll someday rule?”

For months now, as she approached sixteen, the princess’s life grew more and more constricted. Lessons were piled on until Star smothered, and more demands were made each day. The upshot of every instruction and the moral of every story was the same: serve the kingdom, don your destiny, assume your responsibilities—until Amenstar felt crushed under invisible burdens. Loose on the streets, she had none.

“Mother’s lessons will wait,” the princess concluded. “I’ll learn more outside the walls than within.”

Striding to a lacquered armoire thirty feet long, Star flung open gold-handled doors to whiffs of cedar. Catching her shift at the neck, Star tore the gauzy film off. She never wore the same garment twice. Picking through a dizzying array of new clothes, she donned a loose cotton blouse hand-painted with bright flowers, and double-wrapped trousers tied at the waist. Braided sandals, a head veil of silk, and a poncho of yellow samite edged with white and black pearls completed her outdoor outfit.

Amenstar, Samira the First of the Palace of the Phoenix in Cursrah, Heir to the Blood of Genies and Demigods, slipped into her privy chamber with its low step and frame holding a gold chamber pot. The opposite wall was painted with a scene from legend: at the bottom of the Mother of Rivers, the hippo-hero Khises battled Skahmau the Wolfshead. With slender fingers, Star poked the eyes of both figures.

The wall swiveled to reveal a staircase of stone leading down. Weak sky glow from high above lit the chamber. Childishly thrilled with her escape, Star skipped down the stairs. She’d need to conjure another story about exiting the family compound in secret. Perhaps she could claim to have been spirited away by a djinn, or maybe she’d sleepwalked, only to awaken miles away, or she had been transported by a flying carpet with a will all its own … though her parents must have suspected a secret passage by now. Like most of central Cursrah, the royal compound was honeycombed with cellars. If Star continued to disappear, her parents might order architects and masons to find this passage and block it. Star should conserve her few secrets, but once more wouldn’t hurt.

Treading in near darkness, she eventually reached a main passage leading outside. Two guards jerked to attention and stared quizzically, but they assumed her personal bodyguards would join her. Cutting across gardens and grass, Amenstar entered the stables and bullied the hostlers to saddle three horses, hang them with hunting gear, and open the gates.

Riding, towing the other two mounts, Star entered a necropolis a quarter mile from the compound. Sarcophagi, steles, and obelisks stood mute amidst evergreen oaks and box-cut cedar hedges. Cursrah served an impotent genie and the distant moon, and worshiped the unspeaking dead, so this sprawling cemetery was always beautifully manicured.

Two figures stepped from the shadow of a white-streaked sycamore: dark Gheqet and fair Tafir. This was their secret meeting place when Star could slip away. If she hadn’t appeared, they’d have waited a while, talking and loafing, then wandered back home.

“Horses!” snorted Gheqet. “Where are you bound?”

“To the countryside,” Star laughed. “Come, there’s lots to see.”

“Weren’t you punished for skipping out?” Tafir caught a bridle and rubbed the mare’s nose to gentle her.

“Punished? The first samira, eldest royal daughter, kin to genies and gods? Don’t be silly!” Star tossed reins to Gheqet and added, “Climb on.”

“I’ve never ridden a horse in my life,” Gheqet admitted, then flinched as the white horse tossed its head. “Do they bite?”

“Not if you show them who’s boss.” Tafir swung into the saddle easily. Horsemanship had been part of his cadet training. “You can learn to ride, Gheq. I did.”

The architect’s apprentice nervously followed his friends’ instructions and plomped into the saddle. Now Tafir hesitated. “We can’t be gone long,” he said. “I must see the commander at dawn—”

“Taf,” Star cut him off, “if they can’t punish me, they can’t punish my friends either. I’ll claim my captain is testing you for a palace guard. The army won’t argue with royalty.”

“I suppose not….” Tafir hedged. Both he and Gheqet hailed from noble families, but consorting with a princess kept the young men on tenterhooks, as if bodyguards might swoop from the sky and arrest them at any moment. “I’d rather just obey as ordered.”

“Very well,” Amenstar huffed, “obey this. I, First Samira of Cursrah, command you my loyal subjects, to accompany me where I will. Is that better?” She laughed at her own pomposity.

Gheqet and Tafir smiled crookedly, but Amenstar didn’t notice.

Kicking her heels and whipping the reins, Star spun her horse and cantered for the gates. Hanging tight, the men lumbered along behind her.

Amenstar vaulted into the street, pointing toward the surrounding hills, and crowed, “We’re off to see the kingdom, and none will dare stop us!”

The Year of the Gauntlet

“Tack! Tack or we’ll stick on a sandbar!”

“What does ‘tack’ mean?”

“Shhh … they’ll hear us.”

“We’re gonna capsize!”

The three friends fumbled to steer the gig by meager moonlight. Reiver admitted he’d sloughed his sailing lessons, so their stolen boat zigged and zagged up the River Memnon. Mostly the incoming tide propelled them, for Reiver hadn’t realized that inland the wind dies at dusk. Hakiim leaned over the prow to spot the channel and saw only black water. Trying to capture the fading breeze, Amber grabbed the sheet away from Reiver and tied it to a cleat on the port side. Unexpectedly, the sail snapped taut, and the boom swung to the other side. The boat tilted left and almost pitched over. Hakiim yelped and grabbed hold with his toes, slung partway overboard, and Reiver cursed when the boom nearly brained him.

All Amber could say was, “Sorry, but hush!”

As the gig inched upstream, Amber squinted north. Atop a high ridge overlooking the river sat the squat block of Fort Tufenk, “The Fortress of Fire,” once the sole barrier that restrained the ravaging armies of Tethyr. Deep trenches for defense still scarred the moonlit slopes beneath the stone walls. Though Tethyr and Calimshan shared an uneasy peace, relations had been prickly ever since the Eye Tyrant Wars, and both sides still laid claims to the ruins of Shoonach and the old Kingdom of Mir. In this fort alone, two hundred troops trained daily for war. They were the Pasha’s Farisan, or standing army, and the elite Mameluks, descendants of slaves who’d won their freedom. Ears ringing, Amber peered and listened, but no torch flared, nor did a whistle or horn raise an alarm as their stolen navy gig crabbed past the keep. Steering under a luffing sail, she saw the fortress finally fall behind.

Amber slipped a loop over the tiller and flexed her cramped arms. “Whew, we’re past it.”

“We’ve got plenty of water,” said Hakiim. “The monks say the mountains suffered the deepest snows ever seen, so the rivers will flood all through Ches.”

“Oh? I heard spring thaws are late, and we’ll have drought in Tarsakh,” said Reiver. “Who’s got something to eat?”

“So much for predicting the weather,” sighed Amber. “Hey, don’t gobble. We need rations for six days.”

Wedged backward in the prow, Hakiim nudged a jute bag with his toe. “I’ve got figs and prunes, and flat bread and dates, and some dried peas and goat cheese,” he said, “and a cake of pounded almonds, and mint leaves for tea if we can build a fire. I would have grabbed more from the kitchen but my Uncle Harun was grousing again.”

“Grousing about what?” Having no family, Reiver often asked about his friends’. He munched bread slathered with hummas.

“Oh, the usual. ‘When will you get serious about the rug trade?’ Never, is my answer, but I don’t dare say it.”

Amber heard a lamb bleat. Along the dark, sloping riverbank, white jots of sheep and goats grazed by night amidst thorn bushes and evergreen oak. Just over a brow winked a shepherd’s campfire. Far to the east was the jagged line of the Marching Mountains.

Nibbling a pigeon pie wrapped in paper, Amber asked, “Why don’t your sisters take over the business, Hak? Then you could do what you want.”

“Oh,” Hakiim yr Hassan al Bajidh sighed as he rummaged in his haversack, “Asfora’s going to sea, and Shunnari’s getting married. Since my brother got killed in the fire, I’m the only one left to carry on the family name, but I’d rather—I don’t know—go adventuring….”

“I live with adventure every day, trying not to get killed or jailed,” drawled Reiver. “It’s hardly a lark.”

“Still,” lamented Hakiim, “repairing rugs and rolling rugs and hauling rugs and haggling over rugs—better Ibrandul spirit me to the Underdark.”

“Shhh, you’ll jinx us,” Amber said, putting her fingers to her ears to keep out evil notions. “Especially out here. You want skulks to drag us off while we sleep?”