Isrāfīl forbids intoxicating substances because it stupifies men, and leads them to foolish behavior. They quarrel, and fight, and forget the words of the Angelus in their sins. Go north, if you do not believe me, and witness the drunken debauches of Narvonnian soldiers after a battle, or when left idle in their camps.

Qahwa, on the other hand, is a drink most sublime: it sharpens the mind and the wit, and rouses the body from slumber. To even compare the two is foolishness.

* The Commentaries of Aram ibn Bashear

☀

9th Day of New Summer’s Moon, 297 AC

Valeria Avitian du Champs d'Or, Exarch of Agrat, drew upon the yellow thread of the first Boon she had ever Tithed for, as she passed through the southern gate of Maʿīn, leaving behind the districts that had grown up outside the city walls and entering the medina. A yellow haze hummed at the edge of her vision, vibrating through her body, and wrapping her in the comforting, protective cloak of power which turned away the eyes of Exarch and Angelus alike.

She’d earned the Boon by charming Sir Cynric, despite his Angelus Theliel’s presence, with her facade of innocence when she was only fourteen years old. As the Exarch of a daemon, the act of deceiving an Angelic Exarch had been exactly what she needed to allow Agrat to grant her Silent as the Grave. So long as Valeria held it around her, no one would be able to see her threads, or even to perceive Agrat sheltering deep inside her. The only problem was that she still couldn’t hold the concealment for a whole day, which meant that the entire time she’d been with Lionel and his idiot champion Bors, she had needed to find occasional excuses to go off by herself and rest.

The day before, after Bathin had opened a gate from Cheverny to Maʿīn for her to use, Valeria had begun with a bit of shopping in one of the smaller markets outside the medina. There, she’d purchased herself a soft burqa in a beautiful shade of blue. In Narvonne, blue fabric was expensive, and dyed using the leaves of the woad plant; but even the most expensive blue dresses she’d seen in the capital did not match the brilliance of this fabric, and she hadn’t been able to resist. Valeria had asked the merchant how the dye was made - it had been a good excuse to practice her Nabāṭic - and gotten a long tale about chemists and ores. The lightweight cloth itself was also like nothing she’d ever felt before, sheer as the gossamer of a spider’s web. She’d hardly been able to stop running her fingers over it, and had already resolved that as soon as she had wrapped the Caliph’s son around her finger, she would have more of it. Her appreciation had not, of course, prevented her from infecting the merchant who’d sold it to her with Agrat’s plague. He wouldn’t notice anything until the fever came, and only when the black pustules followed would he realize that he was a dead man.

The merchant wouldn’t be alone: Valeria had also infected a ragged, half-starved boy who’d attempted to steal her purse, a drunk who’d intended to corner her up against the side of a building and fondle her, and a dark-skinned mercenary from south of the Maghreb Waste who’d helped her find an inn for the night. Four, she thought, would be sufficient to send the plague running through the slums outside the medina, and to stir up a bit of panic. If there was one constant in the world, it was that there would always be more merchants to sell her clothing.

In the meanwhile, the burqa concealed everything but her eyes and the surrounding skin, and a bit of makeup had done to darken that enough she was confident no one would look twice at her on the street. Once Valeria had passed the guards at the gate successfully, she roamed the avenues, thankful that the veil of the burqa covered her mouth.

Everyone in Narvonne heard rumors, of course, of how beautiful the city of Maʿīn was. Sailors returning on merchant ships spoke of it in the taverns of Rocher de la Garde, and the merchants themselves brought chests of imported goods to sell in the markets of not only the port city, but the capital, Lutetia, as well. Valeria had sometimes wondered whether the tales might be exaggerated, but now that she was actually here, she thought that it might be more to her taste to wed the Caliph’s son and let herself be pampered, rather than live with Lionel in Cheverny.

The city was located in a river valley, with mountains rising purple in the distance on the horizon. Valeria had passed enough farmer’s wagons coming in from the surrounding lands to know they must be fertile, likely flooded by the river regularly. There were wheat and olives, almonds and pomegranates, at a time of year that the fields where she’d grown up in the Barony du Champs d'Or wouldn’t be ready to harvest for moons yet. It was hot this far south, and with a rainey season instead of a snowy winter, they must be able to grow crops all throughout the year.

Valeria followed twisting, paved lanes, passing flower-filled courtyards centered on splashing fountains, surrounded by delicately arched buildings of red and white and sandy-golden stone. Overhead, palm and cypress trees cast shade, and balconies looked out over passers by.

“Threats?” Valeria asked Agrat, under her breath, as she meandered her way toward the palace at the center of the medina. She doubted the average person on the street spoke Narvonnian, but Maʿīn was famed for its university, and it was better not to chance a passing student overhearing her.

“I can sense Isrāfīl at the center of the city,” Agrat the dancer replied, creating an illusion of her voice to affect only Valeria’s sense of hearing. It was the sort of subtlety they’d gotten quite practiced with at the King’s court in Lutetia. “Hafaza, as well. If they had noticed us, we would already be fighting an Exarch.”

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“I was more concerned with whether Bathin’s gate might have drawn their attention,” Valeria admitted. “But it seems he left enough room. Good, that gives us time. Were your owls able to find him, last evening?”

“There are enough mice and rats in a city this size to feed dozens of owls,” Agrat bragged. Valeria could picture her smirk. “And the Angelus have become lazy and careless. A few centuries without a visit, and they think I’ve vanished forever. Yes, I know where he’ll be. There is a place where the young men gather to drink something they call ‘Qahwa,’ to argue politics and philosophy, and to play games with dice and wooden figures on painted boards. There are no women inside, however, and you already stand out moving without a guard.”

“Standing out can be a good thing,” Valeria decided. “Show me the way.”

The qahwa house, it turned out, was a building of white stone, with tall ceilings and expansive, glass-paned windows which were open to the city air. When Valeria stepped into the antechamber, she found a place to remove her shoes, and did so. She took a single breath to settle herself, then stepped through the doorway that separated the entrance from the great chamber that took up most of the building.

The floor was of fine, polished cedarwood, with an octagonal stone fountain in the center of the room. Three of the four walls were connected by a ‘u’ shaped cushioned lounging area, raised on a wood frame built right up against the walls. There, perhaps a dozen men reclined on pillows, smoking from strange hoses set into upright jars, drinking from steaming cups on silver platters, talking in friendly tones, and playing games on side tables. The serving men of the qahwa house circulated, clearing old cups and delivering fresh brews of the steaming, aromatic drink. One man held a short necked, wooden instrument in a shape that reminded Valeria of a pear; he plucked at its strings gracefully, producing soft notes that floated through the conversation that filled the room.

Upon Valeria’s entrance, the peaceful ease of the room broke like a still pond into which a stone had been tossed. Two men armored in caliphate brigandine, with curved swords hanging from their belts, immediately came up on either side of her, and spoke to her in Nabāṭic.

“Your pardon,” the first man began deferentially. “But this is a private gathering. If you have become lost, I will call a man to escort you.”

“I have come to speak to Nasir al-Rashid,” Valeria proclaimed, loudly enough to be heard by every man in the room. If her entrance had interrupted them, this statement disturbed. Every man stopped what he was doing; several leaned forward, placing their hands on the hilts of knives or swords. If she had been what she appeared - a lone woman of the caliphate, without a protector, barging in on the revels of their closest equivalent to a prince - she would have been frightened. Of course, as an Exarch, even one not skilled in hand to hand combat, Valeria knew she could kill everyone in the room without ever being in significant danger herself. In any event, her words got her the information she required: while they tried to avoid giving themselves away, enough men looked to their leader that she picked him out immediately.

“That will, regrettably, not be possible,” the speaking guard said, but Valeria took a step forward, finding Nasir’s eyes with her own.

“I bring you news from Narvonne, son of the Caliph,” Valeria proclaimed. “Word of the fate of General Shadi, and his second, Ismet ibnah Salah. Will you hear my words?”

“Your eyes,” Nasir al-Rashid said, putting aside the hose he had been smoking from, “Are not the eyes of a woman of our lands. Your eyes are the eyes of a northerner.”

“That is so,” Valeria agreed. “I have veiled my face in respect for your ways, but I am a woman of Narvonne. Have I done what is proper?”

“Even if you have not,” Nasir said, after a moment’s consideration, “An error made in a sincere attempt to offer respect is more virtuous than empty gestures. May I have the honor of your name, woman of Narvonne?”

“Valeria, daughter of the Baron du Champs d'Or,” she said carefully, the transition between Nabāṭic and Narvonnian words putting her tongue through several awkward movements.

“A Narvonnian noblewoman brings me word of my own army,” Nasir said, slowly. “Not at the palace, but during my private affairs. I think, my friends, that my afternoon has just been interrupted by affairs of state. I would ask all but my guards to leave us the room, so that we may converse with discretion.”

Singly and in groups, men began to stand, bow to the Caliph’s son, and depart. The guards, however, remained at Valeria’s side. Only after the room was empty, save for the four of them, did Nasir rise and cross the room, approaching her.

“Our last news,” Nasir admitted, “Was from a messenger that General Shadi sent the night before he was to assault the wall at the south of the pass. It has been weeks now, with no word. My father grows anxious. But you did not come to the Caliph; you came to me.”

“You have no word because General Shadi was killed,” Valeria explained. “And General Ismet, who now holds command, is more concerned with throwing herself at the young King of Narvonne, than sending messengers back to her Caliph.” She had to stifle a frown at that; Lionel was supposed to have been hers, and Valeria did not like having her things taken away by another woman. The skies around Falais had become quite deadly for her owl spies, after the battle at the pass, but owls were active at night, and flew silently when they hunted. Enough had survived to bring her word of how much time the southern Exarch was spending with the new king, and how they had wounded and driven off Sammāʾēl together. Even if Valeria’s insinuations held no more than a kernel of truth, she suspected that seed would find fertile ground in the Caliphate.

“Ismet?” Nasir gasped, in shock. “She would dishonor herself with a northern lord?”

“It saddens me greatly to bring you such news,” Valeria said, casting her eyes down so that the young man could appreciate her dark lashes. “And it breaks my heart, as well, to be so wronged. My father had assured me that I would be his bride, but I have been most cruelly cast aside.”

“It appears,” Nasir said, after a moment. “That we have both been gravely insulted, Lady Valeria. Perhaps, indeed, we have some matters of state to speak of. Please, sit, and allow me to comfort you in your time of distress. Have you ever tasted qahwa?”

Valeria allowed him to guide her over to the couches and the silver trays where the men had been moments before, and beneath her veil she smiled.