Yes, everyone knows the Kimmerians are savages. They besot themselves with hard liquor to pass their long winters, and their idea of military strategy is to press every untrained boy they can find into service and simply pile up the bodies until their opponents are overwhelmed. We are fortunate they have never been particularly skilled sailors.

* The Commentaries of Aram ibn Bashear

☀

11th Day of New Summer’s Moon, 297 AC

The plague swept through the city of Maʿīn, and Valeria du Champs d'Or smiled.

She had been given a suite of guest rooms in, ironically enough, the Palace of Eagles, within the larger complex of the Al-Qaṣr of Maʿīn. From her window, she could look down upon the Court of Eagles, where a stone fountain depicted winged golden eagles, of the type common in the foothills south of the Hauteurs Massif. It would have been more appropriate, she mused, if there had been a Palace of Owls, but the Caliphate was a place of great learning, and here they still remembered what the owls of Agrat had done during the Cataclysm.

“You should sleep with him,” Agrat commented, from where she had draped her inhuman body into a carved and lacquered wooden chair, decorated in dizzying geometric patterns. The daemon’s wings were tucked up behind her, and she did not bother clothing herself. “There is no better way to tie a male to you than by sharing his bed. They cannot help but regard you as theirs, afterwards, and their jealousy can be very useful when provoked.”

“The last thing I need is for Nasir al-Rashid to regard me as his own personal whore,” Valeria shot back, with a frown. “I’ve hardly known the man two days. It is much too soon.”

“Is it?” Agrat sat up and leaned forward, narrowing her eyes. “Or are you simply infected with the weakness of a mortal conscience? You didn’t sleep with the Prince, either, and look how that turned out. The Narvonnians talk a great deal about a woman preserving her virtue for marriage, but I truly didn’t think that you had bought into it, little one.”

“Never mind that,” Valeria said. “We have our cover; the plague is spreading among the poor, outside the medina. Now, we need only infect the Caliph.”

“I have told you already,” Agrat protested, throwing herself back into the chair’s embrace, and casting her eyes up to the vaulted ceiling. “Isrāfīl is too powerful. He will never allow his Exarch to be struck down by a plague. And the moment anyone within the Al-Qaṣr is infected, these Caliphate physicians will begin quarantining everyone.”

Valeria closed her eyes, and stretched out her hand through the open window, touching the threads of bright yellow fire that stretched out through the city. Two days before, she had carefully chosen and infected four people with her Plague Touch Boon. The fleas and lice ever present in the crowded, poor quarters of a city such as this had spread the sickness to rats, which had in turn infected even more fleas, which would spread the plague to more people. In the meantime, her gift had infected the lungs of the first four victims, and now when they coughed, the disease was inhaled by their families.

She could have let the plague incubate naturally, but Valeria had a limited amount of time in which to work, so she had accelerated its development as much as she could. Those first four people would already be swelling, their skin turning black, the stench of death wafting from their bodies. In another two or three days, ten times as many people would be symptomatic, and then the panic would begin.

“It will be a good harvest,” Agrat said, as if able to hear Valeria’s thoughts aloud. “We have not been permitted to Tithe to our satisfaction until now.”

“I’m not going to devastate the city,” Valeria cautioned the daemon. “But I think that we can take enough to push all of my Boons to yellow, at least.”

“Cecilia was blue,” Agrat pointed out. The Plague Dancer never failed to compare Valeria to her previous Exarch, and always to Cecilia’s advantage.

“My aunt had hundreds of years to feed you and to Tithe for herself,” Valeria pointed out. “I will be just as strong as she was, in time. Stronger.”

“You need to get there more quickly,” Agrat insisted. “That faerie knight will be getting stronger. He will kill us if he can.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Valeria said. “My father has sent three daemons to deal with him. He can’t win against so many, no matter how good he is with a sword.”

From outside the door to her sitting room, a woman’s voice came, calling in Nabāṭic: “Lady Valeria? You have a visitor.”

Valeria shot a glance at Agrat and waved her hand, as if to flick the daemon off of the chair she occupied. With a ruffle of feathers, Agrat turned into an owl, spread her wings and swooped out the open window, to see, presumably, what she could learn in the city. “Enter,” Valeria answered the servant, taking care with her pronunciation.

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“Lady Valeria,” Nasir al-Rashid greeted her, then paused, swallowing.

“My apologies, Lord Nasir,” Valeria said, using the Narvonnian style of address. “Alone in my rooms, and unused to it as I am, I did not veil myself. If it would make you more comfortable, however, I can fix that.” She reached for the veil, artfully arranged over the top of the divan against the wall, as if she’d absently thrown it there, but made certain to move slowly enough that Nasir could stop her if he wished to do so.

“No apologies are required, my lady,” Nasir said, after a moment too long. See, Valeria thought, in the general direction of where Agrat had flown out the window a moment before. I do not need to take a man to bed to wrap him around my finger. “I understand that the ways of Narvonne are different from our ways. It is I who should apologize; I am not used to seeing a woman so enchanting as you are without a veil. But that is no excuse; if I have made you uncomfortable, it is I who beg your forgiveness.”

Valeria wrapped herself in the veil, slowly and deliberately, affecting the manner of someone not entirely certain how to wear a garment. She thought for a moment that he might offer to help her, but apparently that would have been a step too far, for Nasir simply waited until she was decent to his eyes. “As you have said, my lord, no apology is necessary. I only hope that you will be more comfortable in my presence, now, as you have been so kind to me since my arrival.”

“You are most considerate and gracious,” Nasir said. “I came to speak with you, because I thought that you might be interested to know that General Shadi’s bodyguards have returned, with his remains.”

“And?” Valeria took a seat on the divan, and was amused to see that the Caliph’s son took the wooden chair in which Agrat had perched only a few moments before.

“It is as you said,” Nasir admitted, with a heavy sigh, “in every regard. The General fell in battle against the Sun Eater itself, and following that, Ismet ibnah Salah took command of his army, allying herself with Narvonne. She did not so much as consult with my father,” he said, shaking his head.

“And the other?” Valeria asked. She was pleased to see that Nasir’s jaw flexed with tension, at her question. “Even a painful truth is better than a lie,” she prodded him.

“It is said she saved the Narvonnian Prince in battle,” Nasir said. “She was observed lying next to him on the rubble, and drinking wine from his flask. Wine! Against the edicts of Isrāfīl! The bodyguards left as soon as they were ready to travel, but they told me that she was feasting at his side every night, in the castle of Falaise.”

Nasir leaned forward, lowered his head, and massaged his temples with his fingers. “It is exactly as you told me. I never would have expected it of her.”

“I know that I am only a stranger,” Valeria said. “But for whatever it may be worth, my lord, you have my deepest sympathies. If anyone knows what you are feeling right now, it is I. After all, he threw me aside for her.”

“All the more fool him,” Nasir said, raising his head to look into her eyes. “A woman of such obvious refinement and courage, to come all the way to Maʿīn. What will you do now, my lady?”

“I do not know,” Valeria said, putting a bit of a quaver into her voice for effect. “I have lost everything, my lord. I am certain they are spreading the most vile gossip to discredit me. Even if I were to go home to Narvonne now, I would be ruined. No one would even consider taking me as a bride. Perhaps I will take a ship north, for Raetia. My father spent his younger years there, and I believe he still has friends in that part of the world.”

“If you would permit me,” Nasir said, “I would offer you the protection of my own father’s palace for as long as it suits you. Such a long sea journey can be dangerous, especially through the outer ocean. You would not be hugging the coast, but far from land.”

“You offer me more than I could ever repay,” Valeria said, making certain to cast her eyes down to the floor as if embarrassed. “I am now a woman of no means, and no future. I will remain long enough to consider your offer, at least, and to determine whether any ships bound for Raetia are within my modest means.”

“If you do choose to go, you need not consider the price of your passage,” Nasir said, flicking his hand as if shooing away a pest. “It is the least I can do for you.”

“And you, my lord?” she asked, looking up. “Now that the worst has been confirmed, what will you do?”

“Riders have been sent, carrying orders in my father’s name,” Nasir said. “For the army to return. I suppose we will see what Ismet ibnah Salah does, when those orders are received. If she is loyal to the Caliphate, and to the Angelus, she will return.”

“And if she does not?”

“I saw to it that more than a single command has been given,” Nasir said, grimly. “If she chooses defiance, men loyal to me will place her under arrest and return with her in chains.”

It was all that Valeria could do to keep a grin from her lips. She almost allowed it, with the veil to conceal most of her face, but did not wish even the hint of a smile to reach her eyes. “I am certain that she will not refuse a lawful order,” she said, instead. “I cannot possibly believe she would have fallen so far as that.” Let him chew on that thought, and doubt.

“In the meantime, perhaps my lord would be willing to show me more of the palace?” Valeria requested, hesitantly. “Everything here is so beautiful and magnificent, nothing like the castles of Narvonne. If I am to leave soon, I wish to paint it all in my mind, so that I can cherish the memories even when I am grown old, in the cold north.”

“Of course.” Nasir rose, and inclined his head to her. “Please, allow me to show you the Garden of Paradise. The original garden is centuries old, but my father had substantial renovations commissioned for my mother, only two decades past. I believe you will find it quite relaxing.”

Valeria rose, and approached him. She lifted her arm, then hesitated. “Oh, I apologize. I am still accustomed to the manners of Narvonne, where it is customary for a man to take a woman’s arm when escorting her.”

“It is a strange custom to us,” Nasir admitted. “But no one can blame you for the habits of a lifetime in another kingdom, my lady. Come, I will have food and drinks prepared for us in the garden.”

Valeria permitted herself to smile as she left her room, just for a moment.