The Mbimayu Schoolman thought the day ill-omened since awakening. Nightmares had taxed what seemed every watch of the night, brawling dreams, the kind that kick away blankets—dreams he should have remembered, but had shrunken instantly into fuzzy, inexplicable horror. He even retrieved his Kizzi Bones in an attempt to divine them, so cramped and irksome was the shadow they cast across his waking. But of course the Whore had already thrown them Her way: no sooner had he found the fetishes than a grim Kianene Grandee, Saranjehoi, arrived with Fanayal’s invitation to break fast with him and his Concubine.
Malowebi’s subsequent (and quite indecorous) haste was simply a reflection of how profoundly the mood of the Bandit Padirajah had soured over the weeks since Meppa had very nearly died. Time was the enemy, and Fanayal ab Kascamandri knew it. The endless stream of ships entering and leaving the Imperial Capital were plainly visible—the Imperials had even begun hosting feasts on the walls as a goad! The Nansur countryside, meanwhile, had become increasingly hostile—scarcely a day passed without word of another foraging band lost to ambush. Where they had rode the miles surrounding Momemn solitary and shirtless in the early days of the siege, the Fanim now moved only in numbers and according to necessity. And it was this more than anything that galled their legendary Padirajah (unto near-madness, thanks to the Yatwerian witch), the fact that the idolaters refused to acknowledge their defeat, that the Zaudunyani, for all their wickedness, consistently displayed a heroism that made his desert-warriors marvel and fear. The Fanim spoke of it about their fires, the mad resolve of their foe, the impossibility of subduing souls that welcomed death and degradation.
“What kind of land is this,” Malowebi once overheard a chipped, old Carathay chieftain complain, “where women throw themselves as shields for men? Where ten throats are counted as a bargain for one!”
The measure of morale, Memgowa had famously written, lay in the proportion of ends to souls. The more the ends diverged and multiplied among the ranks, the less an army could remain an army. The desert horsemen had arrived here possessing a single goal—to lop the head from the Imperial Dragon. But as the passage of the days gnawed on their numbers, so their ends had gradually multiplied. The thought of alternatives lie on all of their faces now—as surely as it did on the Malowebi’s own. The premonition of doom had taken root in every heart—none more than that of their Padirajah. And as abused menials were want to beat their wives and children, so Fanayal had begun to evidence his potency in acts of capricious will. Corpses now hung over most all the main avenues of the encampment—Fanim executed for trifles worth only the lash weeks previous.
Desperation glares in all Men, but it burns as a beacon when it takes a King for tinder.
A votive to the dread Mother of Birth.
Curse Likaro! Curse him!
The Harem, the desert warriors now called their Padirajah’s pavilion, and to Malowebi and his alchemist’s nose, it reeked of one, the air close—even sodden—with too many exhalations, too much sweat and seed. Psatma Nannaferi was in attendance, of course: Royal Concubines were confined by Fanim law and Kianene custom. She sat both too near and too distant, as always, wearing far too much and nowhere near enough—as always. Her mood, which ordinarily swung between stony and labile, was every bit as exultant as his was troubled. For the first time she wore her voluminous hair bound back, lending a severe air to her otherwise pouting fertility.
The Mbimayu Schoolman did his best not to be snared by her vast black eyes.
He appreciated the fare—fowl, cheese, bread, and pepper, that great gift of Nilnamesh—but as he had feared, the honour of breakfast with the Padirajah quickly degenerated into the honour of being bullied and berated yet again. Fanayal had recently abandoned any pretence of diplomacy, resorting instead to “more direct tactics,” as he generously referred to his tantrums. The Zeumi Emmisary studiously examined the cracked shell of bread on his plate before him while Fanayal leaned over him, ringed index finger stabbing heaven-ward, demanding High Holy Zeum send him ships no less!
Psatma Nannaferi watched the two Men as she always watched, sitting with the lazy indiscretion of whores and maidens, those who know either too much or too little to care. A different brand of jubilation animated her look, one unencumbered by sneering.
All the World, it seemed, was a Gift this day.
“Who? Who does the Great Satakhan fear?” Fanayal was shouting.
Malowebi continued inspecting his bread. The brighter Fanayal’s dread, the more he had begun answering his own questions—to the point of preempting his interlocutors altogether.
“The Aspect-Emperor!”