Throne of the Crescent Moon (25 page)

The inn where they were meeting Litaz’s contact was in the Round City, the innermost part of Dhamsawaat. A sixty-foot wall of massive, sun-dried bricks surrounded the Round City, with great gates of iron in its northern and southern sections. The pair joined a line of people making their way through the North Inner Gate and, in a short time, reached the gate itself. As they walked through, Litaz smiled and nodded at one of the watchmen on duty. The man eyed Raseed’s habit and sword but said nothing.

As soon as they passed through the gate they turned from the huge gray paving stones of the Mainway. Litaz led the way confidently and Raseed followed. They rounded a corner and stepped onto Goldsmith’s Row, a paved lane that was narrower than the Mainway but still quite broad. Leaving behind the press of pedestrians and shouting porters already building up, the pair joined a traffic flow that was decidedly quieter and less crowded.

Litaz bit her lower lip and mumbled to herself, obviously deep in
thought. So Raseed remained silent and took in his surroundings. He had been in Dhamsawaat for nearly two years now, but he’d never been down Goldsmith’s Row. He looked about with interest.

Tidy storefronts and splendid houses lined the street here, the crude, open, stone windows of the Scholars’ Quarter replaced by fine sandalwood screens and, in the more opulent shops, leaded glass. Though one could walk here from the Scholars’ Quarter in less than an hour, the two neighborhoods were a world apart.

Here were the homes and shops of Abassen’s wealthiest merchants and most distinguished craftsmen—elite importers and perfumers, gemcutters and jewelers, bookbinders and glassblowers. Here also, in decadently furnished mansions, lived the courtiers and viziers and their families—those who did not live at the palace itself. Raseed marveled at how few people there were, and what little noise they made.

No doubt many of them were home preparing meals for the Feast of Providence, which was this evening. But there was more to it than that, Raseed thought. This was the sort of place where one could be alone with one’s meditations. The streets of the Scholars’ Quarter were never this quiet, or this empty, or this clean. Raseed envied the residents the solemnity of their surroundings.
No great stinking puddles. No loud donkey-whipping.
No hashi smoke drifting in the window. No muttering madmen. Would that I had a place like this to meditate and train.
He tried to smother this unacceptable covetousness.
O Believer! Worship God wherever fate finds thee—whether prison, prairie, or Prayersday table
, the Heavenly Chapters say.

His service with the Doctor did not bring him into contact with the overfed inhabitants of the Round City. It was probably just as well. The denizens of the Doctorm">="0 d1019;s home quarter disgusted Raseed with their degeneracy and lewdness. But while the hashi-smokers and whores of the Scholars’ Quarter were foul, the men and women here were perhaps even more foul. Here was wealth, as much wealth as anywhere in the Crescent Moon Kingdoms. Here was every opportunity for virtue and learning, with none of the dire incitements to vice that poverty brought. But the Doctor claimed that the people of Goldsmith’s Row ignored
such opportunity, using their incalculable riches only to devise new and more luxuriant vices.

Partner
, he had called Raseed the other night. But Raseed was unworthy. He’d said nothing to the Doctor or the others about his encounter with Pharaad Az Hammaz. About taking the stolen goods the thief had given him. He hadn’t gone so far as to utter a falsehood—when he’d returned to the Soo couple’s shop and Litaz had asked after his dusty silks and disheveled appearance, he’d put off her questions, and she hadn’t pressed him. The wrongness of it burned his soul, like a foretaste of the Lake of Flame.

Partner
. Again he turned the word over in his mind. Unworthy though he was to speak prayers to God, he prayed now that the Doctor was safe. There was no telling when that Mouw Awa creature would strike again.

“Raseed?” Litaz’s voice intruded on his thoughts.

“Yes, Auntie?” He scanned the thin crowd about them as he answered.

“Zamia Banu Laith Badawi—she is interested in you. Do you see this? Do you understand how careful you must be with this?”

He felt as if she had slapped him. Without meaning to, he stopped walking. He closed his hand around his swordhilt, said nothing, and started walking again.

Litaz’s heart-shaped face split in a patronizing smile as she walked beside him. “And you have taken an interest in her, too. Anyone with eyes can see that plainly enough,” she said, sounding amused.

He began to dispute the alkhemist’s words but found that he could not quite do so without speaking a falsehood, which was forbidden by the Traditions of the Order. He tried to find something to say. But all that he could come up with were questions. “With most humble apologies, Auntie, you should not say such things,” he said at last.

“She’s a Badawi, Raseed. Even as she is fixed on revenge, she will be thinking about keeping her band from dying out.” Litaz’s smile deepened. It was the smile of one who knew more than Raseed did about certain matters, and he found that it upset him. He kept walking,
keeping his gaze straight ahead, hoping to force an end to the conversation.

But Litaz continued. “It’s all right, you know. What you feel when you look at her. You’ve been holding a sword so long that you’ve known little else. But there is
nothing
wrong with what you feel when you look at her.”

The Soo people had a frankness in speaking of things inappropriate—it was not surprising that the Doctor was so comfortable among them. Raseed felt his face flush, and he bit off his words. “You speak of such things too openly!” he said. And surely none could blame him if he was more curt than one ought to be with an elder.

But if annoyance was edging into his voiceapeo his voi, it was annoyance with himself as much as anything. He
wanted
to be comforted, despicably weak as he was. He wanted to reach out to Litaz and talk to her about these things. But that was simply unacceptable. He fell silent.

She smiled gently. “If you want to talk, young man, I swear before God that I’ll say not a word to anyone. Not even to Adoulla or my husband.”

They moved on, turning off of Goldsmith’s Row to enter a neat but narrow cobblestone alleyway. Something in his soul clenched and then relaxed. He felt the words come without his bidding them.

“I don’t have any
secrets
, Auntie. It is just that…she has been chosen by the Angels themselves! I wish that.…It…it is so…
difficult
sometimes. When I went to seek the crimson quicksilver I—”

“You would do best to answer quickly, harlot, and truthfully!” The harsh voice came to Raseed’s ears at the same time that the speaker—a robed man with a whip—came into his field of vision. The man was lean and gray-haired, and two big men with short, thin clubs stood with him. These other two might have been twins—both young, huge, and hook-nosed. All three men were clean-shaven and wore plain turbans and heavy robes of brown sackcloth belted with coarse rope. They had a girl trapped in the alley.

The Humble Students!
Wandering mendicants that scoured wickedness from the streets and taverns of the Crescent Moon Kingdoms.
Raseed felt even worse than he had a moment before. He glanced at Litaz. Her smile had twisted into a hard line; she looked more the old warrior than the kind grandmother now.

The Humble Students were charged with chastising those who needed to be chastised, helping men and women to walk the path of God. But Raseed had learned that some Humble Students did this more out of greed or cruelty than righteousness. Praised in Rughal-ba, mocked in the Soo Republic, in Dhamsawaat the Students were few in number—tolerated by the Khalifs, disliked by the people.

Unsurprisingly, Raseed’s mentor was among their despisers. “
I don’t trust anyone who claims to serve God by beating up dancers and drunks,”
the Doctor had growled once.

The trio stood shoulder-to-shoulder twenty yards down the cobbled alley. They were facing in Raseed and Litaz’s direction. Their gazes, however, were set on a girl wearing a gauzy blouse and tight leggings with pale laces. Raseed picked up the cloying smell of cheap oil of violet from the slender girl, far away though she was.
Trouble,
the dervish knew. As he stood surveying the scene, Litaz shot forward. The Students and the girl all locked their eyes on her.

“What is the matter here?” Litaz’s voice was bold, and it instantly agitated the Students.

The gray-haired leader frowned. “The matter? An unclean girl is to be shown the way of God. Do you wish to watch and learn from her example, outlander? The Republic is a decadent place. The Soo more than most would benefit from our lessons.” There was no emotion but scorn in the man’s voice.

Litaz flashed a caustic smile. “I’ve seen the Students’ lessons before, brother. I’m afraid I can’t say that I always approve of them.”

The man arched e Hman archean eyebrow. “Watch yourself, woman. We do not need the
approval
of outlanders. We found the tramp going about her foul business in plain view. The whorehouses of this city have been left to fester, and now their rotted fruit spills onto respectable streets. But if the watchmen will not do their duty, we will do it for them. Ten lashes is the punishment.” Leather creaked as the man flexed his whip.

The girl jumped in, sensing her chance. “I…I wasn’t working on the street, Auntie, I swear it! I…I wouldn’t do that. I was just coming from…coming from a…from a friend’s house.” The girl lowered her eyes in shame.
She can’t be more than four and ten
, Raseed thought, disgusted. But he felt something shameful—painfully shameful—race through his body as he looked at her.

“What is your name, girl?” Litaz asked.

The girl looked at the alkhemist with hunted-gazelle eyes.

“Suri.”

A look of surprise crossed Litaz’s face. “Suri? Truly? That is one you don’t hear every day.”

The girl made a noise in her throat and ducked her head.

“Suri,” Litaz repeated. “A beautiful name. And a very, very old one.” She turned to the Students with a clearly forced smile. “Surely you brothers see the sign from Almighty God here? The Heavenly Chapters’ story of Suri says ‘O Headsman, drop your sword and serve His mercy! O Flogger, drop your whip and serve His mercy!’”

The gray-haired Student spread a conciliatory hand, but he sneered as he did so. “The Chapters also say ‘And yea, proper punishment is the sweetest mercy,’ do they not? A new era is coming, outlander! An era when only those who walk the path prescribed will prosper.”

The two big men were tensed for a fight. Raseed found that he was as well. He took a step toward Litaz.

“The ‘path prescribed’? And the Students will be the ones to judge what that is?” The alkhemist’s eyes narrowed as she spoke. “Please, let the girl go. I ask you to indulge an old woman.” When this earned no response, Litaz’s pleading slid into threat. “Look, we’re not on the riverdocks, brothers. Do you think the respectable people of this neighborhood—who you know can’t stand your order anyway—do you think they will sit idly by while you beat a girl in their streets?”

The eldest Student’s sneer deepened. He ran a hand over his smooth brown jaw. “Listen to me, woman. Leave now. Please. Do you see? I say
please
. Go back to one of your perverted outlander neighborhoods. I
will not ask you again.” He turned his head toward Raseed. “And you, Master Dervish?” The man’s brittle-sounding voice made the title a mockery, but for the first time he looked unsure of himself. “Are you
truly
keeping company with this trash?” Raseed parted his lips, but no sound came out. Words flew into his head.

I am here in company with her, but—

Please forgive her, brother, she—

I am afraid that I mustȁ th must$

But none of them made it through his suddenly dry and cracked throat. Raseed had faced and killed highwayman, Cyklop, and ghul, but he now found himself paralyzed and unable to speak.

The gray-haired man’s uncertain expression evaporated, replaced by a cold scowl. “I take it by your silence that you
are
here with this mad old degenetress! Where is your virtue? Have you stopped serving God already, young man?” The two big hook-nosed men began to shift, clearly itching for a fight.

There was the incongruous sound of laughter as two young couples entered the alley, took one look at the scene before them, and swiftly turned back.

Litaz drew her dagger from the kidskin sheath at her waist.
What is she doing?
Long and broad-bladed, in her little hand it was a small sword. “Leave, Suri,” the alkhemist said with a deadly calm in her voice. When the girl didn’t move, Litaz shouted “Leave! Now!”

The girl ran before the men could grab her. The two big Students started to follow, but their leader held up a hand and they froze. Suri flew from the alley without a word or a backward glance.

“This old whore’s vice is greater than the other’s was,” the lead Student spoke to his men with an eerie calm. “She will take the girl’s punishment.” He focused his words on Litaz. “And who
are
you, whore-with-a-knife, to think you can interfere in God’s work with impunity?” The man seemed genuinely curious.

Litaz gave no answer.

The veins in the man’s neck bulged. “Whoever you are, you will find that you are sorely mistaken!” Raseed did not approve of the man’s
tone—there was an unvirtuous anticipation there at the thought of proving Litaz mistaken in some brutal manner.

Raseed’s hand went to the hilt of his sword before he thought about who his opponents were. The Order held ties with the Humble Students. These men might be unpleasant and overbearing, but they were Raseed’s allies as far as duty was concerned.

But.
Litaz Daughter-of-Likami was a true servant of God who had doubtless fought more real battles than all three of these men combined. And she was one of the Doctor’s dearest friends. Raseed’s mind raced, and his hand flexed on his pommel.