The Warrior King (Book 4) Page 9

  The view was impressive, but she was more interested in her immediate surroundings. The balcony emerged from the outer edge of an onion dome covered with glazed red tiles. On this side, she was at least ninety feet above the empty gardens below. The remnants of scaffolding ringed the edge of the dome, and she could see fresh tiles of a deeper red where some artisan had crawled around to replace older, broken ones. To her right, higher up the palace, was a wall almost at eye level. Here she was surprised to see several storks sitting on nests made of sticks and bits of desert brush. They paid her no mind.

  Afraid of being spotted on the balcony, Sofiana went back inside to the stairs. She waited until dark when it felt safe, then crept down the stairs to drink from the nearest fountain, before returning to the balcony to look down at the city. It was more interesting than inside on the dusty stairs. Movement from the sky caught her attention.

  A huge shadow, bigger than a horse, swooped down at the palace. Sofiana shrank against the tiled dome, thinking at first that it was coming in for her, but it soared overhead, paying no attention to either the girl or the storks that croaked in alarm and lifted flapping from their nests. The huge shadow swept past the dome and up the hillside to the upper reaches of the palace, where it disappeared inside the gardens.

  She stared in alarm, worried at first that she’d spotted a young dragon. She knew the dragons had come from the desert wastes outside the sultanates, and it was said that the dragon kin lived in the dry mountains beyond the plains of Marrabat. But then she remembered Daria. The shape must be a griffin, but it was much bigger than any she’d seen before. Narud or Markal must have fetched it from outside the city and brought it in to retrieve Daria and fly her away from the heat. Sofiana should run in that direction and see if she could find them.

  But even as this thought occurred to her, the dark shadow was rising in the sky again. It lifted higher and higher as it flew north and soon disappeared into the night sky.

  She thought about what she’d seen at the baths. Pride made her run away, that’s all. She refused to admit that she needed Markal’s apprentice at all, but if so, why should she wait while he pined over that griffin girl? Daria could take care of herself. And that they’d been on the verge of lovemaking when she arrived had made her bristle in irritation. Couldn’t they control themselves? Pathetic. Sofiana swore that when she was an adult, she would never give in to animal lusts.

  “I still shouldn’t have run off,” she said out loud. “That was a stupid thing to do.”

  So what should she do now?

  Stay put, that’s what. Chantmer could search for her by magical means, or maybe one of the other wizards would find her. They would help.

  The balcony was too narrow to stretch out on, but it was still a better place to sleep than the stairs, and she didn’t dare leave the tower, so she lay on her side with the stolen dagger in hand in case someone grabbed her in the night. It was some time before she was able to fall asleep on the hard stone.

  The next morning she woke to the sounds of birds chittering in the trees, followed by the bells ringing the opening of the gates, and the sounds of the palace rousing itself. A rooster crowed from somewhere nearby. She yawned, stretched, and was back inside to the safety of the stairs before she realized she should have awakened before daylight so she could get a drink. And she’d have to relieve herself on the stairs, which was distasteful.

  Sofiana spent the day on the staircase. Inside she had protection from the sun, but by afternoon it was stifling, and her tongue felt like it had been rubbed with hot sand. By the time the sun fell again, she was trembling and sick with thirst, her head pounding. She crept down from the tower and into the gardens, vowing to help herself instead of waiting for the wizards to find her.

  Sofiana got a drink from a fountain, climbed an orange tree to pluck a few fruit, and was soon feeling better and more confident. There was no way she’d spend another night in the tower hiding. The Harvester take her first.

  #

  Sofiana drew her breath as she squeezed through the window so she wouldn’t get stuck. She’d already climbed two walls and slipped past several guards, both Marrabatti and Balsalomian, before she had reached the inner courtyard. When she dropped into the room, she stood silently for several seconds, looking around. When she didn’t immediately see anyone, she was afraid that the occupants had been thrown into the palace dungeons.

  But when her eyes had adjusted, she spotted a man lying on pillows in the middle of the room. He muttered something in his sleep. Sofiana crept up to him, her heart soaring with relief when she was sure it was him.

  She put her hand over his mouth. “Shh, Uncle. It’s me.”

  Daniel jerked awake while she urgently repeated her plea. He grabbed her in a fierce hug.

  “Have they hurt you? If they have, by the Brothers I swear I’ll—”

  “Shh, no. I’m all right.”

  “And the sultan, did he . . . ?”

  She shuddered. “Nobody touched me. I escaped. I might have killed a man though.”

  “You did what you had to.” Daniel sounded relieved. He was both her uncle and her step-father and perhaps nobody loved her more except for Whelan. “Did the wizards find you?” he asked.

  “No, I think they left the palace.” Sofiana told him how she’d seen a dark shape swooping into the upper gardens last night, presumably a griffin.

  “Markal left,” Daniel said. “But Narud is still here. He has turned himself into a gray cat and is looking for you.”

  “A cat? A big gray one? I think I saw him in the eunuch’s chamber.”

  “He seemed to think you were hiding in the upper gardens near the slave apartments.”

  “No, I found a better hiding place below. Is he still up there?”

  “Yes.” Daniel gave her instructions for how to find her way up, then told her he had something he wanted her to see outside before she left. “Quietly, we might have spies in our own guards. The sultan has tried to bribe several of them already.”

  He led her quietly onto his back patio, which was on the outer edge of the palace walls. On the other side was a sheer drop of eighty or ninety feet to the lowermost courtyard, where several guards stood between the wall and the palace gates. Daniel and Sofiana remained out of sight, hidden in shadows.

  A cool breeze blew in from the desert. A bowl of stars cupped the world from one horizon to the next. One star on the northern skyline was larger than any others and streamed light from its tail.

  “Look,” Sofiana said, excited. “A comet.”

  “I thought you would like that,” Daniel said. “I spotted it last night and thought of you. It might be a sign.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Chantmer once told me that a comet had appeared for several weeks during the Tothian Wars, the summer that Toth and Memnet died. And the Selphan say that a comet fell into the sea when their island kingdom was destroyed. They have been guests of other lands since that day. The comet is a harbinger of something, but I’m not sure what.” He turned back to Sofiana. “Tell me everything that happened.”

  Sofiana filled him in on her misadventures. Guards had chased her through the palace, another man had tried to force himself on her before she opened his belly with a knife, and finally she found her way into the onion dome tower. He squeezed her hand as she spoke.

  “Now, you tell me what happened,” Sofiana said.

  With all the machinations in the palace, and the maneuvering between the Balsalomians and the Marrabatti, nobody had initially noticed Sofiana was missing, let alone realized that Chantmer the Tall was involved. Then, in the morning, the tattooed mages had appeared and disarmed the princess’s guards while armed men searched the rooms. It was only then that people realized Sofiana was missing. After Narud appeared to explain Chantmer’s role, Daniel had assumed that the wizard was behind her disappearance.

  “I think Chantmer really meant for me to escape the city,” Sofiana said. “He only wanted me t
o poison the eunuch first.”

  Daniel’s face hardened. “Don’t trust anything the Betrayer tells you.”

  It made Sofiana feel terrible that she’d been so easily deceived. Daniel must have noticed, because he gave her hand another encouraging squeeze. They went inside, where he found a tray of dates and flatbread left from his supper, together with some soft goat cheese. She ate hungrily.

  “Narud will help you get out of the city,” Daniel said. “Can you manage the desert?”

  “Of course I can,” Sofiana said around a mouthful. “What’s the worst I’ll face, a few bandits and hyenas?”

  He laughed. “Well, you escaped the palace guard easily enough. Do you still have the dagger?”

  “I left it outside the window. If there was a guard, I didn’t want him to see I was armed and attack me. I wish I had my crossbow though.”

  Daniel left her in his chambers while he went to retrieve some of her clothes, including a pair of her sandals with hard leather soles. Her feet fit comfortably in the creases left by almost two weeks on the road from Balsalom. He turned his back while she changed and, when she was done, handed her a small bag of coins.

  “This is all of the money I’ve got with me, since they’re holding the rest of our supplies down by the stables. The money isn’t much, but if you use it carefully, it should be enough to buy food and maybe a donkey to ride. First get out of the city—you can outfit yourself at one of the caravanserais.”

  She slipped the coin purse into her robe, then kissed Daniel on the cheek. She wrapped her head in a turban, and pulled the end around her face.

  “Be careful, Ninny.”

  “I will. You be careful too.”

  When she was through the window, he whispered after her, “May the Brothers guide you.”

  And then she was creeping back through the darkened gardens and courtyards. She glanced up at the comet and hoped that it presaged good tidings, and not evil.

  Chapter Twelve

  A few minutes later, Sofiana hid in the shadows on one of the lower patios, thwarted. She had tried several times to reach the interior courtyards where she could follow them to the heights, but there were too many guards patrolling. Searching for her, she was certain.

  Bats flitted through the night sky, gorging themselves on insects. When she climbed a tree to get over the wall and try from a different angle, two glowing eyes stared at her from the branches of the tree.

  “Narud?” she whispered. “Is that you?”

  The eyes disappeared, and she caught a glance of a long, weasel-like creature scrambling up the branch to leap onto the tiled roof of one of the palace buildings.

  When Sofiana came down on the other side of the wall, she dropped into someone’s private courtyard. The soft murmur of voices sounded through the open archway of the apartment that lay on the far side. A dim lamp flared to life inside the rooms. She froze in place outside, afraid that someone would step out for fresh air. But it soon became clear that they occupied themselves with more than just waking in the night to fill the chamber pot. Murmurs turned to heavy breathing and groans of passion.

  Sofiana had to creep by the open room as she made her way to the wall on the opposite side of the courtyard. As she passed, she glanced inside, not to see the lovers in action, but to make sure she wasn’t spotted.

  The man was an important official of some kind. He’d set his turban to one side, but an emerald pin still held it wrapped. Ivory carvings of birds sat in the corners of the room, and the oil lamp itself was gold encrusted with jewels. He was a young man and handsome. The woman was Princess Marialla.

  Sofiana drew back in shock. She shrank behind a column of stone, her heart pounding. The sight disgusted and enraged her at the same time. The sultan held Daniel prisoner while Marialla rutted like a wild pig with some stranger.

  After a few minutes, the sounds stopped, and Marialla said, “Would you like some wine, my prince?”

  The man’s voice was playful. “Wine? No, I want another taste of your sweet love.”

  “Already? My, it is true what they say about Marrabatti men, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not so old and fat as my father. I’ve not lost my stamina yet.”

  Marialla was quiet for a moment, then Sofiana heard her say, “Here, drink this wine. I need to step outside and get some fresh air. If you’re still awake when I get back, then we’ll see if you can seduce me again.”

  Sofiana sprang for the far side of the courtyard, but she didn’t have a chance to scale the wall, so she crouched behind a lemon tree and peered around. Marialla emerged from the apartments in her night paijams. To the girl’s alarm, the princess crossed toward her. Sofiana drew her dagger.

  “You can put the knife away,” Marialla said. “Sofiana, I can see you. Come out of there.”

  The girl stepped from the shadows, surprised. “How did you know it was me?” she whispered. She put the dagger away and cast a worried glance toward the apartments.

  “I saw you gawking at us, of course. I wasn’t half so addled as the sultan’s fool son.”

  “That’s Mufashe’s son?” Sofiana hissed.

  “You can speak in a normal tone. I put something in his wine—he’ll be out already.” Marialla smiled. “He’s supposed to meet with his father in the morning, but I suspect he’ll be late.” She spoke easily, as if they still traveled along the Spice Road and nothing of the past few days had happened.

  “What are you doing?” the girl blurted. “Why would you sleep with the sultan’s son?”

  “I’m trying to get closer to his father, and this is the only way.”

  “So you don’t love that man?”

  Marialla laughed, but there was a bitter edge to it. “Love has nothing to do with it, child. I am not so fortunate as my sister to have a handsome barbarian king to marry. I must take what fortune I can find.”

  Fortunate? Kallia Saffa was also carrying the dark wizard’s child and had suffered terribly during the enemy occupation of Balsalom. Sofiana didn’t think Princess Marialla’s sister was particularly fortunate, even if she had ended up marrying King Whelan.

  “I still don’t understand. How is this going to help?”

  “I need to marry the sultan,” Marialla explained in a patient tone. “But he refuses to meet with me. He has his eye on . . . someone else.”

  “I know all about that,” Sofiana said, dismissively. “What do you think I’m doing here? I’m trying to escape from the palace.”

  “But if I can get to him, he’ll be mine,” the princess added. “Chantmer the Tall has seen to that.”

  “Don’t trust anything that wizard says. Ask Daniel if you don’t believe me.”

  “Believe me, I don’t trust him. To be honest, I don’t trust anyone, not even you. For all I know, someone sent you to spy on me.”

  “That’s a lie!”

  Marialla put her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “Calm yourself, Sofiana. You know what I mean. Now where are you going?”

  Tears of frustration welled in Sofiana’s eyes. “I’m trying to reach the upper gardens so I can meet with Narud, but I can’t seem to get past the guards. And I can’t spend another day in the tower, I just can’t.”

  “Oh, is that all? Come with me, then.”

  Marialla took her by the hand and led her into the apartments. The sultan’s son lay on his back, mouth agape, his hand still clutching the wine glass. It tilted at an angle, the rest of the wine spilled onto the pillows.

  “He looks dead,” Sofiana said.

  “Alas, no. It will give him a terrible headache, but he’s very much alive.” She pointed down the hallway. “Go to the end of the passageway and turn right. That will take you outside again toward the stables. After the stables take the . . . let me see . . . the second left, I believe it is. It’s the door that’s missing the handle. Push it open and follow the covered passageway up the hill. By the time you come up top you’ll be in the slave quarters where there won’t be as many guards. You
can find your way up from there.”

  Sofiana turned to go, but Marialla took her arm. “Wait. The sultan’s son has two guards of his own. You can’t be seen leaving the apartments from that direction. They’re young and alert—you’ll never get past them without help.”

  The girl bit her lip. “Then what do I do?”

  “Give me a moment—I’ll coax them away.”

  “How will you do that?”

  The princess smiled, but there was something sad in her expression, Sofiana thought. “The only tools I have. Count to fifty before you come.”

  The princess disappeared. Sofiana waited in the hallway, glancing back toward the sleeping prince while she counted softly under her breath. Her heart counted its own furious time. When at last she reached fifty, she entered the hallway. Torches lit the passage at infrequent intervals, and she kept to the shadows. Giggles and men’s laughter came from beyond an archway to her left.

  “Come on now, give me one kiss,” one of the men said.

  “What would your master say?” Marialla asked in a tone of false outrage. “He’d have your head!”

  “You don’t know our master,” a second man said. “He’d ask to watch!”

  Sofiana didn’t want to linger and make the princess suffer any more of this outrage, so she hurried past, following Marialla’s directions. Moments later she was outside and facing the stables with no guards to be seen.

  She’d have to cross an open stretch to get to the stables, where she could hear horses nickering and camels grumbling. She scanned the intervening courtyard for movement, saw none, and bolted across the flagstones. She half expected to hear a voice shout for her to stop, but she reached the stables without incident. She found the door without the handle.