The City of Silk and Steel Read online

  She eyed him warily, gauging his reaction.

  Hakkim rose to his feet. ‘If one of your number is trained in the assassin’s art,’ he replied, never taking his eyes from her, ‘then why are you here, and not her?’

  Rem walked slowly towards him.

  ‘Because her grievance against you has been satisfied. You tried to kill her people and you drove her from her city. Well, now she has killed your people and taken the city back. But what you took from me, I cannot retrieve. Your death will not make up for the loss of one thousandth of it.’

  She had drawn very close to him now, though not quite within easy striking distance. Hakkim scanned her form, noticing the awkward folds of her robe at the waist, which told his practised eye the location and number of the concealed weapons she carried.

  ‘What did I take from you? You retained your life, did you not?’

  ‘My scrolls. You burned them.’

  ‘They were lies, abominations. Things you should have been ashamed to live by.’ Hakkim gave a contemptuous snort. Rem’s eyes flashed.

  ‘And what do you live by, Hakkim?’ she retorted. ‘Your rock is covered in moss on its underside. When it sat in your first master’s garden, it was the home of ants and centipedes. You venerate it above the world, yet it is of the world, as much a part of the qu’aha sul jidani as you or I.’

  In spite of himself, Hakkim drew in a sharp breath. He had never told anyone about the boulder of negative thought, which he still kept behind a curtain in his bedchamber. It was a thing too precious, too personal, to be preached on– the lone, squat pillar upon which his faith rested. Rem saw with her inward sight the jolt of shock run through his mind, and lunged at him, drawing her sword to strike. Her attack was clumsy and slow; Hakkim evaded it with casual ease. Sidestepping the thrust, he stepped in towards Rem and jerked his arm up in a powerful blow to her left forearm which sent the blade flying from her hand. Rem jumped backwards, reaching for the smallest of the three daggers at her belt. She hurled it at Hakkim as if it were a throwing knife, but it went wide of its mark, clattering to the floor some feet away.

  Hakkim did not bother to pick up these fallen weapons. Both were outside of easy reach, and it was clear enough that this woman posed no threat to him. He would wait until she disarmed herself through her own stupidity, and then he would finish her. He moved nearer to her, waiting patiently for her to attack a third time, and so expose herself.

  Rem drew another dagger and swept out with it in a low, wide arc. It was an amateurish move, even easier to avoid than the first. Hakkim leaned away from the blade, turned to the side, and drew back his leg. As Rem turned to slash at him a second time, he pivoted and kicked her, his foot connecting with her hand so that it snapped at the wrist. For a moment her right hand was bent backwards until it was parallel with her forearm.

  Rem cried out, dropping the dagger as she had the sword. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she braced her broken wrist with her other hand, and reached down to her belt, trying to grasp the final weapon which hung there. But though she could, with difficulty, move her fingers, she could not make her hand into a fist with which to grip it, and it slipped from her grasp. She kicked the fallen weapon across the room. Hakkim considered snapping her neck where she stood, but Rem was unarmed now, and his was the overwhelming advantage. By rights she should have died years ago, and in a much slower and more painful manner than he had time to recreate in the present circumstances. Her crimes had been heinous at the time of her sentencing, and he had no doubt that she had only compounded them since. In recognition of her great evil, and the punishment that she had so undeservingly escaped, he felt that her death should be as protracted as he could make it.

  He circled towards Rem again, making as if to strike. As she held up her hands to ward him off, he stepped in and seized her injured wrist. Squeezing it until she screamed with the pain, he forced her to her knees, then kicked her so that she sprawled on her back.

  He knelt on the woman’s chest and put his hands to her throat. Rem struggled as his hands tightened around her neck, the wild hunger for air making her kick and flail. Hakkim pressed harder, feeling the ridged bones of the woman’s throat beneath his thumbs. He gazed down on her slowly reddening face, varying the pressure of his hands in order to draw out the ordeal for as long as possible before she lost consciousness.

  Abruptly, Rem began to cry. Black tears gathered in her eyes and spilled down her face in rivers of black. Her eyes themselves became wellsprings of darkness, their whites eclipsed by the sudden inky flow. Hakkim stared down at her, his eyes widening with the horror of recognition as he saw the black tide of his nightmares rising from her eyes. His grip became nerveless and slack.

  ‘You misjudged your enemy, Hakkim,’ Rem rasped. ‘It is not the world. It’s me.’ Though the Ascetic leader knelt on her chest, her arms were still free. Now, as he stared transfixed into her eyes, she raised her left hand, drawing back her fingers like claws. Each was tipped by a long nail, tapering at the end to a sharp point. White zirconia. Virtually unnoticeable in a poor light, Zuleika had said. She had been right. Rem drove her hand into Hakkim’s neck.

  Hakkim registered the pain, but at first he was so terrified by Rem’s ghastly tears that he did not notice the other, more viscous liquid that had begun to mingle with them. It was not until he glanced down at his hands, intending to resume throttling his enemy, that he saw that they were drenched in blood. It flowed down his arms and pooled on the floor. He raised a hand to his throat, and tried with a convulsive movement to stem the blood which gushed there. It spurted between his fingers.

  As his strength failed him, Rem managed to roll over so that she was on top of him. The tears still fell from her eyes into his, so that it seemed to Hakkim that his dream was coming to pass, the black flood embracing and whelming him. In his nightmare he always woke at the last moment before he was consumed. This time, there was no redemption from the dark. Rem’s tears occluded his sight as he died, and the blackness swallowed him whole.

  Soraya careered down the final flight of stairs, the others on her heels. Through the archway she could see guards patrolling the gardens, but as Zuleika had predicted there did not seem to be very many of them, and in the flat, open spaces of the palace grounds no archers had been stationed. Fighting her instincts, she dashed through the archway and into full view of the armed men beyond. The guards looked at the group in surprise as they ran past, but made no movement to stop them. There was nothing inherently threatening in the sight of the four running figures, though the three girls were a mystery, since the sultan had dismissed all his female servants long ago. One hailed them, stepping towards them to ask their business. They ignored him, and he shouted again, a note of warning entering his voice. Fernoush, running behind the others, stumbled slightly. Her robe slipped sideways, and she pulled it back into place, but the watching guard had already seen the flash of steel at her belt. He called out once more, an order this time. Around him, the other soldiers drew their swords.

  Soraya heard the shouts at her back, and knew they were pursued. She increased her pace, shooting past the kitchen gardens, the shady arbour, the paradise of a thousand scents, and registering each only as an indication of how close she drew to her goal.

  When she finally turned onto the long pathway which led to the stables, she reached into her robe and pulled the key from around her neck, holding it before her as she ran. She knew how little time they had before the guards caught up with them, at which point they would have no hope. They had all volunteered for this task because they were small and light on their feet, not because they could fight. Fear, both for herself and for the women of the seraglio whose lives would be forfeit if she failed, gave Soraya strength. She reached the point where her legs lost all feeling, then the point where a brazier of hot knives seemed to blaze in her chest, and pushed past both, running the last stretch to the stable gates on adrenalin alone. She was too tired to check her momentum. She crashed into t
heir wooden bulk with a dull thud, and as she did so she shoved her key into the rusty old padlock, and turned it with all the strength she had left. She held onto consciousness just long enough to hear the click as the catch released, but as she slid to the ground Zufir was at her side, tugging the heavy chain from the gates and throwing himself against them to make them open. Huma ran up next. She took her friend under the arms and pulled her to the side of the path, while Fernoush ran to help Zufir. Together, they flung themselves at the gates again and again. At the sound of the thumps coming from the other side, the army amassed outside the palace began pulling too. The gates creaked, shifted, gave at last with a grudging groan. The women of the seraglio poured in.

  The fight was brief. Though Hakkim Mehdad’s guards were better trained, the women far outstripped them in numbers. Many fled. A few surrendered. Those who fought managed to inflict some damage, but were swiftly overcome. When Zuleika and Umayma arrived from the Eastern Gate, the forces of the seraglio had taken the gardens and were moving in a body towards the palace. As the mass of concubines, bandits and camel-drivers streamed past her, Zuleika scanned their faces with increasing anxiety. Rem was not among them. Catching sight of Soraya and the other volunteers sitting by the stable yard gates, she went up to them. They saw the question written on her face before she opened her mouth.

  ‘I haven’t seen Rem since we ran the wall,’ Soraya said. ‘I saw her climb through the window, but after that, nothing.’

  ‘She definitely got inside safely,’ Fernoush reassured Zuleika, ‘and none of us saw a body. Maybe she just . . .’

  But Zuleika was already running to the palace, seized by a terrible suspicion. Her mind flew over the weapons she had seen at Rem’s belt, her distant behaviour before she ran the wall, her guarded replies to Zuleika’s questions. She ran through the corridors, glancing into every room and screaming Rem’s name. She found her at last in the throne room, slumped beside the body of the sultan. Her head was bowed, her right hand broken, her breaths as deep and ragged as if she had just run a marathon, but at the sound of Zuleika’s voice she looked up, and managed a weak smile. Her face was covered in ink and blood. She held up her left hand, the elongated fingernails still dripping with gore.

  ‘I stole them while you were asleep,’ she said, her voice hoarse. ‘Sorry. I needed a weapon that he wouldn’t notice, and I didn’t think you’d let me borrow them.’

  Zuleika stared at her wildly for a few heartbeats, her chest heaving as she tried and failed to control the flood of relief that threatened to overwhelm her. Then she burst into tears. ‘I told you to stick to the plan!’ she sobbed, weeping and shouting at the same time. ‘Hakkim was a trained assassin – he could have killed you without even trying! You should be dead right now! Why did you do it, Rem? Why did you fight him?’

  Rem was too tired to match the choked ferocity in Zuleika’s tone. ‘He burned my scrolls, Zuleika. What else was I going to do?’

  Zuleika wept with relief and incredulity. Her words came out in sharp gasps. ‘Scrolls? You did this because of your books?!’

  Rem nodded wordlessly.

  Zuleika ran to Rem’s side and gathered her gingerly into her arms. Rem pressed her head against Zuleika’s chest. As her racking sobs subsided, Zuleika’s breaths became deeper and slower. ‘Oh Rem,’ she whispered, ‘you should be dead. You should be dead.’ For a while neither of them moved, locked together in the sweetness of reunion. Around them, the rule of Hakkim Mehdad ended, and the city of Bessa was reborn.

  There remained but one enemy to face, and this one they could deal with entirely on their own terms. The army on the plains had long ago given up firing on the walls, and now sat or stood in small clusters at their base, casting occasional despondent glances at the fortifications above them. Captain Ashraf and his men had not returned from their charge on the dust cloud, and with every passing watch it became clearer to the waiting soldiers that the real battle had taken place in the city behind them, and that they had missed it. When Zuleika reappeared on the walls, the sky had grown dark. No one bothered to shoot at her. A few moments later, Gursoon came up to stand at her side. Unlike the rest of the older women, she had refused to form part of the dust cloud, instead entering Bessa in disguise with the rest of the army. There, she had gathered intelligence and helped to spread the rumours of the oncoming attack which reached Hakkim’s ears. When the fighting started, she retired to Mayisah’s house and waited it out. Now the two women stood on the walls and regarded the tiny figures below them.

  ‘We can’t just leave them there,’ Gursoon pointed out. ‘They don’t have the provisions to make it to another city, and the dust raisers would have to pass through them to get back to us. That could be a risk.’

  ‘We could just shoot them,’ Zuleika suggested.

  Gursoon frowned. ‘No unnecessary bloodshed. We agreed that beforehand, Zuleika. Besides, we wouldn’t be able to kill all of them. Some would get away, and then we’d have a party of angry exiles on our hands, constantly looking for a way to settle the score. We were in the same position once, and look how that worked out.’ She gestured at the city now under their control. ‘Better that we let them back inside, where we can keep an eye on them.’

  Zuleika considered her words. She knew they had wisdom in them, but she shook her head.

  ‘We can’t let them back in. They’re Ascetics, and loyal to no one but Hakkim Mehdad. They would attack us as soon as they passed back through the gates.’

  ‘Not all of them,’ the older woman replied. ‘Only those with the black head scarves hold to that creed. The ones in blue are mostly the old guard of Al-Bokhari, who by their presence in this force I would guess are loyal to whoever can pay them a decent wage.’

  ‘Then I think we may reach a compromise.’ With these words, Zuleika picked up the warning bugle and blew a loud, long blast. The men clustered on the plains looked up at her.

  ‘I think you’ve all realised by now that we have taken your city and killed your leader,’ she called down. ‘We could kill you, too. If we fired on you from the battlements you wouldn’t have a chance. You have no provisions with which to flee this place and no siege weapons to regain it. But we are willing to let you live, and even to return. There is only one condition. Kill every man in a black headscarf.’

  Gursoon’s eyes widened. Then she made a noise of disgust and strode forward, shoving Zuleika aside. Zuleika staggered from the unexpected blow; though Gursoon was old, she was solid. She glared at Gursoon, but Gursoon paid her no heed.

  ‘STOP!’ she bellowed. ‘No man is to harm another!’

  A few hands were guiltily removed from the hilts of swords, but for the most part the soldiers looked relieved. Al-Bokhari’s old guard viewed the Ascetics with the resentment due to the favoured force of the new sultan, and the Ascetics in their turn kept aloof from the common soldiers, treating them with a certain amount of disdain. Still, they ate the same meals and drilled in the same courtyard, and what was more, each group of soldiers had seen the other split straw dummies in half with a single well-aimed sword swipe. Between a newborn feeling of camaraderie and a healthy sense of self-preservation, the prospect of turning on one another was in no wise an attractive one.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Zuleika growled, when she had recovered from her initial shock.

  ‘No one else is going to die here, by our hands or by others’,’ Gursoon shot back. ‘When you said compromise, I thought you intended to be reasonable.’ She raised her voice again and addressed the army at large. ‘Many of you I know. Tell me, is Gamil still with the royal guard?’

  After a brief pause, one figure detached itself from the rest and stepped forward.

  ‘Hello, Gamil,’ Gursoon shouted cordially. ‘I’m sure you remember me. I am the Lady Gursoon, of Al-Bokhari’s seraglio. I used to watch you and your friends training in the courtyard, and I stood lookout for you and Layla when you two were lovers.’

  Gamil felt his face heat. A murmur of une
asy laughter rippled through the soldiers, but they remained wary of this friendly overture.

  ‘You know me,’ Gursoon repeated, ‘just as you know the others who deposed Hakkim. Layla, too, is in our number, as are all the other ladies of the seraglio. Issi, the chief camel-driver, is here, and so is Bethi, who once styled the hair of Al-Bokhari’s wives. Karam,’ she addressed a short, stocky man with dark hair, ‘your beloved Johara is here, and her child with her. Yusri, your—’

  Here, Gursoon was cut off. Another guard stepped forward, his eyes hard. ‘Yusri is dead,’ he called out in a cold voice. ‘He was hit by one of your people’s arrows.’

  Gursoon did not miss a beat. ‘Then that is a great tragedy, and I will grieve for him. But do not forget that a battle has just been fought. You fought us on the usurper’s orders, and would have slain us all on those same orders.’

  She glared at them, defying any man to contradict her.

  ‘We all have dead to mourn,’ she continued. ‘The loss on both sides is the greater because some of those we fought against were our friends. We are not foreign aggressors. We’re Bessans, all of us, and we came to liberate the city, not to steal it. Whatever the evils of this fight, I will not have them compounded in the name of revenge. The killing ends here, with a choice. Lay down your weapons on the plain and come back home. Or leave Bessa and never return there.

  ‘If you choose the first option, there will be no reprisals against you, so long as you offer us none. If the second, then we will give you provisions for your journey and dressings for your wounded. But whichever you choose, there is one thing you would do well to remember.’

  Gursoon stared out at the army, fixing them with that falcon stare of hers. All the warmth had drained from her voice, and her eyes were like pebbles in her face. Those who had known her in the seraglio watched and listened for some trace of the Gursoon they knew, the amiable peacemaker who put people so effortlessly at their ease. They found none. Even Zuleika was surprised at the edge in her tone.