Jaida's Villa

His first wife had to be seen first. As his capital wife, Taraneh often brought him information about what the other princes were thinking. She knew all the other capital wives, especially the high-ranking ones living in Citadel, and her role would only increase with his promotion.

Taraneh was impatient to get another child, so they drank lovers' herbs and lay together every night. Then, as soon as she had his seed, she was immediately after him about improving their living conditions. They couldn't get a better home within Citadel because quarters for upper princes were roughly equal. Some dwellings boasted more floor space at the expense of the grounds or had a better view in exchange for less convenience, but there was little to be gained by changing locations. However, the first-ranked prince received first-ranked pay, and Taraneh was ready to spend it all to redecorate in the most sumptuous style she could imagine. In the endless nights Zaid spent with her, he learned she could imagine a lot.

When he grew tired of her, he caustically said, "You should have married a merchant. You're greedy enough." He left her bed to sleep alone in a separate room. She could make one of her old handmaidens keep her warm and listen to her complaints.

Zaid still had work to do in Bodrum to feel secure in handing it over. So he spent part of each week there with his second wife, Negin. She was a working wife, someone with the skills required to help manage his domain, and her needs were very different. She filled his calendar with meetings and work, but everything she wanted benefited both of them.

He didn't know what he would do with her when Bodrun was given to another prince, an inevitability now that he was destined to be Tyrant. The Tyrant's quarters had separate wings for separate wives, but even that much distance might not be enough. Taraneh was greedy and jealous, while Negin was superior and scornful. And, Negin wouldn't be half as useful to him in the capital as she had been in Bodrum.

It was possible to hand a wife to another husband. Usually, this happened when a man died without leaving any viable heirs. Sometimes, a wife would be given as part of a territory because she had deep and irreplaceable connections to the area. Very rarely, a wife would get a new husband by consent of all parties involved, but it required some pretext. No prince could be perceived as giving up a wife to someone else because she preferred it. Negin's youngest child was nearly grown, so it wouldn't inconvenience her unduly, but would the new Lord of Bodrun be wise enough to take her? None of those difficulties would need to be faced if he could find work for Negin in the capital while keeping her and Taraneh far apart.

It took weeks to gain a free afternoon to spend with Jaida. When he arrived at her villa in the shadow of Citadel's mount, she didn't meet him at the door. Instead, her seven silent handmaidens welcomed him, offered him refreshments, and relieved him of his armor and every other article of clothing, layer by layer, peeling off his duties and concerns. They were pretty things: young without being too young to gaze at; beautiful without being more beautiful than their mistress.

For him, they were untouchable: their beast traits were too weak or of the wrong sort. Hadith's line had refined the leonid traits for a century, in a bid to restore the power of shape-shifting. It would be a fourth Great Work when it was accomplished, further proof they were destined to rule. There was little doubt the founder and the two subsequent generations could change from men into animals and back again, but the power was lost long ago by a Tyrant who loved the wrong woman, a lowly woman whose greatest power was to charm him. He died with only her half-breed sons to succeed him. That was when Tyrants started taking more wives and expanding their families until there were hundreds of Hadiths to choose from. They were perfecting the line, and it was pointless to mate with anyone who didn't share strong leonid traits.

The untouchable handmaidens soaped him, scrubbed him, and left him in a soaking tub full of hot water. Jaida would come to him after he was sufficiently relaxed and sit with him for a while. That was their ritual, and he blessed her for it every time he came to her house. No meetings, no reports, no training. The space existed purely to help him put aside his duties.

In all of Taraneh's decorative imaginings, she never thought of anything he wanted. It was her entertainments, her comfort, and her kitchen to cater to her guests she always thought about. It would not occur to her to install a bath because he liked it. If leisurely bathing ever became fashionable, she'd be the first to install the most ornate, most garish bathing room gold could buy.

As expected, Jadia appeared just as the day's concerns were melted into puddles of their former selves. Her full body of red fur, elegant tail, swaying hips, round green eyes, the claws on her toes that clicked along the stony floor, all of her entranced him. It had always been that way with her, ever since they met. She wasn't high enough status to marry him properly, but her strong traits and second-degree relation to the Line were good enough for an acceptable concubine. He was glad to see her — glad enough to smile for the first time in days. She kissed him deeply, their naked bodies barely touching, until the last stubborn vestiges of the day were forgotten. Bed play would come later. For now, they sat next to each other, arms and shoulders touching, not saying anything.

"This is Vivian. She's temporary," explained Jaida, "to fill in for Susan when she goes to visit her parents. She's a treasure. You must try her."

"She's not your usual type." Zaid was looking at a dark-haired woman with no discernable beast traits, clothed only in a short robe. She was very healthy and symmetrical, but a little plain and possibly as old as thirty. Jaida usually preferred to surround herself with little sisters, like the girl Susan standing next to her. Zaid usually took Susan, but if Jaida recommended the new girl so strongly, he was willing to try her.

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"Vivian it is." Zaid dropped his robe to the floor and nakedly mounted the narrow table. Vivian approached with hands scented by expensive oil and exotic flowers from Mialta. Within minutes, he understood why Jaida had picked her. Whatever massage secrets the woman knew were practically like their own Art. She found every knot and tension still hiding inside him and eased them away until Zaid was floating. Whatever Jaida was paying her new masseuse, it was silver well spent.

Sometime after the girls left them, Zaid turned his head to Jaida, who lay on a matching table, watching him with bright eyes. "Are you hungry yet?"

"Starving." He rolled off gently, and they helped each other put on robes. No visitors would disturb them today, so they could dress (or not) however they liked while they dined. As they crossed the villa from the bath to where dinner would be served, they passed Jaida's family shrine. Princes and their wives didn't keep such displays — they had the archives for honoring their ancestors. But other families kept images of their loved ones, tiny statuettes of forebearers arranged in scenic displays, surrounded by tokens of symbolic importance. He'd seen Jaida's many times, but now it had a new member: a child of five, traitless, standing with his favorite ball grasped in both hands. He was surrounded by uncles, grandparents, and great-grandparents.

"I brought an offering," he said. The candle was already by the display. He'd passed it to one of the handmaidens, who knew where it should go without asking. It was a wax taper scaled for a household ancestor display, expensively perfumed with whispering colony trees. He lit the fragrant candle and placed it in a tiny holder to burn in memory of their son.

After the boy turned five, Zaid took him on an outing during Founder's Week. He was a curious boy, well-mannered, and excited about his first outing alone with his father. They put on masks and watched the street dancers and puppet shows from a second-floor balcony. When he tired of that, they went among the masked celebrants in the street, close to the hero's procession, and watched the parade of giant puppets, each one a heroic prince wearing a face like the masks around them and wielding accessories related to their deeds.

Jaida had done a good job of raising him. He knew the different masks representing the heroic princes and what most of them had done. He asked questions about the few he didn't know. After the last heroic prince passed them by, they sampled food hawked by vendors on the street. The boy ate well but wasn't messy about it.

When the sun was four fingers from the horizon, Zaid took the boy to an Enclave healer who specialized in beast traits. After a brief examination, the healer told Zaid what he already knew: there were no lingering traits waiting to reveal themselves. The boy was smooth-skinned. Zaid paid the Enclave healer according to the usual scale, and they boarded a carriage to their next destination: a magnificent overlook.

The boy was sleepy by the time they arrived, but Zaid took him in his arms and walked to the edge so they could look west into the sunset. The sea was far below them, a distant churning of white-capped ripples. The vast ocean stretched out before them.

"Tell me about the cardinal points," prompted Zaid. Every child learned about the directions.

"North is Order. South is Chaos. East is where souls come from. West is where our souls go when we die. Can we go home now?"

"In a minute. Are you thirsty?" The boy indicated he was, so Zaid handed him a small stoneware bottle sealed with wax. Inside was milk, and his son drank it down in one pull.

"I'm sorry Father, that was rude of me. Did you want some, too?"

Zaid's heart skipped a beat, then pounded at him painfully. He didn't anticipate being so affected by this son.

"No, I'm fine. The sun is almost down, so let's stay until then. Hold my hand so you don't fall off."

The boy put a trusting hand into his larger one, and they stood like that, father and son, as the last wedge of sun disappeared beneath the water. The boy leaned against him heavily and sagged to his knees. Soon, he was softly snoring.

Zaid took the child in his arms, all limp limbs and lolling head, gathered him up with gentle care and, with a sudden heave, threw him far enough away from the edge so he wouldn't hit the rocks on his way down. He had a brief glimpse of loose limbs cartwheeling through empty air, falling and falling into darkness, fading into the ocean's mist and heaving waters. Zaid couldn't see or hear any sign of him, he just faded away and was gone.

When he returned to the villa, no handmaidens waited for him. There was Jaida, standing alone at the wide open door. She saw him empty-handed, stared at the void beside him where her son had been, and screamed until her lungs were empty. He'd heard that grief before, a whole chorus of it when he put Vanush to the sword, but this lone woman's wail slashed at his labored heart more keenly than their hundred voices ever could.

Jaida fell on her knees and drew a desperate, anguished breath, and screamed again. Zaid tried to approach her, to comfort her. He took one step forward and she slammed her doors on him, grieving loud enough to shake the wood in its frame.

That was a year ago.

"Thank you," Jaida said, her voice softer than usual. Zaid wanted to say he was sorry, that he felt a measure of her pain, but how could he? They both knew their duty and understood what having a child of the Hadith Line entailed.

They ate without speaking, tended by her silent women who walked them through courses of light fare with intense flavors: Thin-sliced vegetables in bright aspic; Fish chowder spiced with coconut milk and hot peppers; Slivers of aged venison served nearly raw with a streak of blood-purple sauce; Polished amaranth cooked in fruit until it was sticky-sweet enough to hold the shape of a rose.

After dessert, Zaid and Jaida retired to their favorite divan which had seen many passionate hours, and joined together for the first time in over a year. She had the endearing habit, when they were facing each other, of covering his eyes when she neared her climax. That trace of girlish shyness took him back to a hundred blissful afternoons.

Only later, when they had moved to the bed and she lay across his chest, tickling his sides with her fur, did she ask him anything.

"Did you get the men you need?"

"Yes, plenty of men. I barely had to touch the farms."

"Enough to win?" She looked up at him with a worried glance.

"I have to win. Father commanded me to conquer the desert or die trying."

Jaida sat up, alarmed. She knew better than to criticize the Tyrant, so she chose her words carefully. "When Ormaz had his campaign, he raided a single garden and came home. Why would he make you do so much more?"

"Maybe because they'll never be this weak again in our lifetimes. Or maybe it's because Enclave gave us twenty thousand mercenaries. At least manpower isn't a problem."

"Twenty thousand! But you're worried." She smoothed his brow with her palms. "I can tell. It's not often you worry."

"If it was just us versus the rebels, this campaign would be easy. But there are disciples in play — on both sides. Enclave says the Pasha is just charismatic, but they're throwing everything they have at him. Gobert thinks he's going to be a problem. I don't know what the truth is, but I know Enclave isn't telling it."

"So what will you do?"

"The Tyrant's command is law. I'll do what he couldn't, even if it costs all the blood in my army." He pulled her closer. "We have a ten-to-one advantage, and all the Enclave disciples are on our side. We're going to win."