Alamut (52 page)

Morgiana's sudden movement brought Sayyida back to herself. They were in a small room on the edge of the women's quarters, where no one ever went except, now and then, a guest for whom there was no room elsewhere. It was close and musty, as if it had not been opened in a long while. The ifritah opened the door, paused.

“Trouble?” Sayyida asked. She could hardly manage a whisper, her throat was so dry, her heart hammering so hard.

“No,” said Morgiana. She beckoned. Sayyida stumbled after her.

They were all at dinner. Morgiana's doing, maybe. Once in a great while Laila would wait on her husband, and Fahimah liked to assure herself that her men were eating well, but Mother never stooped to it. Except that, tonight, she had. Maybe it was that Ishak was there. If she had pretended to play the servant, she had been dissuaded quickly enough and set on the best cushions, next to her son.

It was no joyful gathering, even with Ishak in it. Farouk looked almost old. Mother was grim. Laila was muted, quenched. Maimoun ate methodically, but not as if his mind was on it. The line between his brows was etched deep; there were shadows under his eyes.

Sayyida started forward, but Morgiana's arm barred her.

Ishak set down his cup with a thud. The noise was loud, and abrupt. “Ya Allah! A month, you've been at this, and for what? Won't you even begin to look for them?”

“What use?” his father said. “We know who took them.”

“And why.” It was a growl in Ishak's throat.

Maimoun did not respond to either growl or glare. He chewed the last of his bread, swallowed, reached for his cup.

Ishak caught his wrist. “Iblis take your bones!”

He freed himself, easily, and drank.

“If they've been killed because of you — ”

The cup jerked in Maimoun's hand. He set it down. He rose, bowed first to Mother and then to Farouk.

“No, you won't,” said Ishak. “You've walked out enough. Now you'll face what you did.”

“I know what I did,” said Maimoun.

“You tried to keep your wife in chains. What had she ever done to deserve them?”

“She kept company with a demon,” Maimoun said.

“And you angered the demon. Which of you was the greater idiot?”

 “I did what I thought I had to do.”

“
You
thought.” Ishak. started to spit, caught his mother's eye, grimaced instead. “All you were thinking was that it was a heady thing to be someone's lord and master. Emirs who treat their troops like that, don't go far.”

“I didn't say I was right,” said Maimoun.

Sayyida could not stand it any longer. “You were as right as you knew how to be,” she said.

In stories, the return of the long-lost child was perfectly simple. She — or more often he — came back, her aged mother fell into her arms, her aged father wept on her neck, and everyone lived happily ever after.

Sayyida's father was not one to weep on anyone's neck, and Mother only swooned when she had something to gain from it. There was a very long silence. No one looked particularly surprised; merely nonplussed, and a little disappointed. It was difficult to shift one's mind from the prospect of a kinswoman lost and maybe dead, to one alive and all too evidently thriving. She could not even manage to look as if she had suffered for the lack of them.

Ishak was the first to scramble his wits together, and leap regardless of Morgiana who stood at Sayyida's back, and hug her and Hasan until they gasped for breath. He pulled them into the room, pelting Sayyida with questions. “Where were you? What did you do? You look marvelous — and Hasan, he's grown. Who took care of you? It wasn't — ”

“‘Giana,” said Hasan clearly. “Mama. Hasan.” He waited.

“Ishak,” his mother said, trying not to laugh. Her brother's expression was comically shocked.

“Ishak.” Hasan grinned at them all.

No one could ever resist a baby; and this one had been taking lessons with Morgiana's Frank, who could charm a star out of the sky. Fahimah greeted Sayyida gladly enough, but she fell on Hasan, laughing and crying at once.

Without him to fill her arms, Sayyida felt naked. She could feel Morgiana behind her, a shadow in a veil. No one seemed to have noticed her, except Ishak, who was not choosing to speak of it.

The fuss over Hasan gave Sayyida time to bolster her courage. Ishak still had his arm around her, a little too heavy, a little too tight, but blessedly welcome. Everyone else was cooing over Hasan.

All but Maimoun. He watched his son hungrily, but he could not seem to make himself move. He would not look at Sayyida.

Hasan decided his own share of it by wriggling out of Mother's clasp and onto his very capable feet, and clambering into his father's lap. “Papa,” he said.

Maimoun lit like a lamp. “Did you hear that? Did you hear what he said?”

They nodded. Even Mother was smiling.

“He's walking, too,” said Maimoun. “My son is walking. And talking.”

“Talking,” said Hasan. “Walking.”

After that, no one was much minded to flay Sayyida with questions, though Ishak looked near to death of curiosity. Sayyida was back, safe and whole. Farouk seemed content; the women followed where he led.

They trusted her. She almost broke down, realizing it. Her father at least, Fahimah certainly, maybe even Mother — they were not afraid that she had dishonored the house.

Nor was Ishak, but he would die if he had to wait much longer. “I was in a place Morgiana knows,” Sayyida said: “a secret place, far away from any city. I haven't seen a human being since I left here.”

“That's horrible,” he said.

“It was peaceful.” Most of the time, “I took care of Hasan. I looked after the house. I cooked. I did woman-things. Sometimes I went out. The sky was very wide. I could stretch my mind so far, there was hardly any me left at all.”

“Don't tell me it turned you into a mystic.”

“When there were dishes to wash? Don't be silly.”

“You were really... all alone?”

Maimoun said that. He still would not look at her. His voice was rough.

“Morgiana was there,” Sayyida said. Light, cool, steady. She was proud of herself.

They saw the ifritah then: she moved out of Sayyida's shadow, into the light. She did not lower her veil.

“I asked her to come,” said Sayyida, not so steadily now. “I owe her a debt, for giving me a place to go, and looking after me while I was there. I want her to stay for a while. She's not an Assassin anymore. She wants to learn to be a woman.”

They greeted that with varying degrees of incredulity. None of them went so far as to say it. Even Maimoun.

“I will not presume on your hospitality,” Morgiana said. She did not sound as haughty as she might have.

“No,” said Farouk, thickly. He cleared his throat. “No, you don't presume. You're welcome in my house.”

Laila might have had something to say; Mother certainly would. But Farouk had taken it out of their hands. Sayyida could not tell if he regretted it. He did not seem to have done it for fear of what Morgiana could do; he had certainly not done it for liking.

Morgiana bowed as a woman of rank to a benefactor. “You are most generous,” she said.

“My daughter owes you a debt. Should I be niggardly in repaying it?”

“Some might,” said Morgiana.

Nothing about her singled out Maimoun, but he stiffened. He did not say anything. He did, finally, dart a glance at his wife. She could not read it, except that it was not altogether furious. Maybe, after all, he would forgive her.

Suddenly she was tired of all these crowding kin, their fuss and flutter that never quite settled, their desperate efforts to make it all seem ordinary. Harmless. As if Sayyida's month among the afarit had never happened.

But she knew why she had gone; and Maimoun remembered. She drew herself up. “Thank you, Father,” she said. “Mother, Fahimah, Laila: my respects. Ishak, I'm glad to see you again. Maimoun — ” She had to stop, take a breath, go on again. “Maimoun, husband, if I may still call you that — ”

“You may.”

He was having no easier a time of it than she. It helped her, a little, to know that. “Husband,” she said. “I'm sorry I went away.”

He swallowed visibly. He was blinking too much. “Yes,” he said. “I'm sorry, too.” He glared at his feet. “I'm... sorry ... I did what I did.”

“I, too.” She let it dangle for a bit. “Can you forgive me?”

“I ... “ He blinked hard. “Yes. If you'll forgive me.”

She nodded.

He had to look up to see it. He was trying not to break down and cry.

That almost broke her. But this was no place for it, for either of them. She lifted her chin. “If everyone will pardon me, it's been a long while since the dawn prayer, and I've been missing my own bed. May I have permission to go to it?”

They did not want her to; Fahimah protested that she could not go to bed without eating first. But she was firm. She felt like a coward, leaving Morgiana to their tender mercies, but their fear of the ifritah would keep them honest. Sayyida needed to talk to Maimoun. And maybe not only talk.

But, once Fahimah and the servant had seen at exhausting length to Sayyida's comfort, Sayyida began to be afraid that she had been too subtle. That he would not come. Or that he refused to, because he could not forgive her so far.

She was ready to go back, at least to retrieve Hasan. She had even started to get up, when Maimoun opened the door.

He did not look as he had the last time he came to her. He was quieter this time; more subdued.

She sank down on the mat. He stood with his back to the door, and looked everywhere but at her.

“Maimoun,” she said, suddenly shy.

“Sayyida,” he said. He chewed his lip, fidgeting. “You're really well?”

“Really.”

“You were — really — where you said?”

“Really. We were somewhere in Persia, I think. In the desert. There was a fig tree, but the birds ate all the fruit.”

“You liked it there.”

She could not deny it.

“I wasn't trying to shame you,” he said. “I wanted to do you honor. Like a lady.”

“I know,” she said.

“It was just — that — that creature — ”

“She's not easy to like,” said Sayyida. “At all. I think you have to start when you're a baby.”

“She took good care of you.”

He was trying to talk himself round. Sayyida gave him what help she could. “She did. She's loyal to her friends. And she loves Hasan.”

“I... could see that. She almost looks human, when she looks at him.”

“She's trying very hard. It's not been easy for her, being an Assassin. She had a bitter time to win her freedom.”

He was not ready to talk about that. He pulled at his beard, shy again, wavering as if he wanted to bolt.

Sayyida gave up her thoughts of subtlety. She was on him before he could move, holding him tight. “I missed you, Maimoun.”

He mumbled something. At first he was rigid, but she held on. His arms crept stiffly around her. He patted her back.

She was crying. She had not even noticed. Once she did, she could not stop. She did try. Maimoun hated tears; they made him desperately uncomfortable.

“I'm sorry,” she tried to say. “I didn't mean to — ”

“I missed you, too.”

She tilted her head back. His beard was damp. She brushed at it. “Does that mean you won't divorce me?”

“Should I?”

“I haven't done anything dishonorable.”

“So. Why would I want to put you aside?”

She shrugged. “You might not trust me.”

“You know what came of that.”

“I do want to be a good wife,” she said. “I try to obey you.”

“I should try to give you orders you can obey.”

“You could,” she said slowly, “order me to kiss you.”

He blushed crimson. But he laughed, which startled her. “Well, then, I will. Kiss me.”

She was delighted to obey. He was delighted to command it again.

And he had not even drunk any wine. She drew back in the middle of it, to catch her breath. “I'll have to run away more often,” she said, “just for the homecomings.”

Her hair was down, and his fingers were tangled in it. They tightened briefly, painfully. “What if I order you not to?”

“I'll try to be obedient.”

“But you might not be able to.” He was learning. It was hard; he did not like it. Still, he tried. She admired — no, more than that; she loved him for it.

She kissed him yet again, with fervor that left him reeling. “You are my husband. Even when I was most angry, I never wanted to belong to anyone else. I'm glad my father gave me to you. I'm glad you gave me Hasan. I'm glad to be here, with you, being your wife.”

He did not answer that, except to hold her a little more tightly, but she could feel the happiness grow. He was only stolid to look at, was Maimoun.

Tomorrow might not be so joyful. They both had much to forgive, and Morgiana was there to remind them. Maimoun, being human, and male, was not going to find it easy to change his ways. Sayyida, being Sayyida, was sure to do something to aggravate him.

For once, she could not care. They had the night. Tomorrow would look after itself.

36.

Aidan fell out of nothingness, dizzy and reeling. Morgiana had made it seem so simple: as if one stepped through a veil of air. But in that veil was limitless void, and passing it was to chance one's utter dissolution. It sapped the will; it robbed the mind of its vision, the doubled awareness of the place one left and the place one sought, without which one could not master the dark.

For a long while he could not even remember where he had wanted to go. Fear swelled. Had the void taken him after all? Had he gone astray, lost himself with no hope of returning?