Star of Cursrah Read online

  “This ‘business’ you despise”—Mother’s tongue dripped acid—“puts food on the table and bread in your mouth, which has been running all too freely lately. Many fine families in Calimshan move cargo—”

  “Slaves, mother. They’re people!”

  “People with bad luck, forejudged by the gods.” Mother’s hand waved the objection away. “See here, little princess. Without trafficking, we’d be nothing but—”

  “Pirates? Bootleggers? Assassins? Housebreakers? Why can’t we pursue a peaceful pastime? Why must we live like jackals, sneaking up behind people and cracking their skulls? ‘Slavery walks Oppression’s Road.’ You may live by oppressing others, but I shan’t. I plan to pursue some other career, something—something—”

  “Oh, surely,” Mother cut in, rolling her eyes in imitation of her daughter, “you could find work in the marketplace, patching pots or cleaning fish or applying gold leaf to chamber pots. You’d have all the money you need—”

  “I don’t need money, and I don’t want a common trade. I want something … uplifting!”

  “It’s those benighted books of yours,” Mother carped. “It’s dangerous for a girl to read. It’s loaded your empty head with stupid ideas. Your father and I should have arranged your marriage long ago, so your husband could ply a rod to teach you—”

  “Any man who touches me gets his rod sliced off! And since I don’t believe a wife should support her husband in every decision, I’ll never be a pliable partner. Now please excuse me, Mother. I’m late for an engagement.” Amber clattered down glazed stairs recklessly, too fast for her mother to keep up.

  Cutting across the scorching courtyard, passing her sweating, swearing brothers and sister without a word, Amber ducked into the slave keeper’s office. From a wall rack she grabbed her favorite capture noose, a tall hook of steamed ebony with a rawhide handle. The staff was mounted with rings like a fishing rod and threaded with ten feet of tough sisal rope ending in a noose. Amber had handled slaves since she was ten, so she knew grabs, blocks, arm locks, chokeholds, and other wrestling tricks. With a capture staff, she could knock a slave flat, trip him, snag his neck, or pin him before sapping him with her sleeve cudgel. Competence meant life or death around unruly slaves, and Amber could subdue almost anyone except an armed fighter.

  Slipping from the shack, she debated raiding the kitchen but decided to buy rations in the marketplace. Her mother might yet rouse Amber’s siblings to wrestle her into a locked minaret. It had happened before.

  Whistling merrily, Amber flipped the capture noose over her shoulder and skipped for the tall, studded gates. Recognizing her, the doorway’s charm automatically opened the smaller night portal, and Amber laughed as if escaping slavery herself.

  “We’ll sail that gig all the way up the river,” Amber announced to the air, “and no one will pester me there.…”

  2

  The 383rd Anniversary of the Great Arrival

  (–6048 DR)

  “Go, djawal! Toss him over!”

  “Break his wrist, Rosey! Pitch him through the roof!”

  “Hit him, Tafir! Kick him where it counts!”

  “Pull, Taf! No, push … that way!”

  Tafir, slim, fair-skinned, and blond, hung on grimly and strained until his face burned red. Atop a slippery table, he grappled hand-to-hand against a soldier with knotty arms and a wicked grin. Both men held wobbling, slopping flagons of corn beer in their free hands. Soldiers, cavalrymen, laborers, merchants, servants, cooks, and washing women hooted and jeered and hurled bets. In a corner sat Tafir’s two friends, a young man with nearly black skin and tight curls in workman’s white and a young woman in the simple shift of a palace maid, who oddly wore a veil across her pointed nose.

  The big sergeant, drunker than his companions, bore a strawberry birthmark on his cheek, which earned him the nickname “Rosey.” The birthmark crooked as Rosey grinned and taunted, “Is this the best you can do, puppy?”

  Struggling, beer mug wobbling, Tafir leaned into the sergeant’s right arm. Surprisingly, the arm bent until Tafir and Rosey stood nose to nose. The soldier laughed, his breath stinking of wine and onions. Toying, the burly sergeant abruptly cocked his arm. Tafir had to crane on tiptoe or crack his wrist.

  Rosey smirked, “This is more fun that drilling on the parade ground, eh, djawal?”

  “I could—order you to—quit—askar!” Tafir gasped. Crushed in the soldier’s paw, his hand throbbed, but Tafir kept his feet atop the slippery table.

  “Ha! You are a wet-nosed puppy. I’m not an askar, a common soldier, I’m a musar. See my red braid? Twelve years I’ve served our thrice-blessed bakkal, may he live for an eternity.” A table of veterans with scars and eye patches and missing fingers whooped. A few wore the flat collar of a citizen, but more went collarless, being mercenaries from other countries.

  As an officer cadet, Tafir wore a yellow tunic and red kilt that glowed like bird’s plumage against the infantrymen’s blues. Tafir grated, “Why don’t we—split an amphora—at a table—not on it!”

  “Are you buying?” Chuckling, Rosey flexed an arm solid and brown as an oak branch. Tafir was hurled backward. Beer from his mug cartwheeled across the ceiling, walls, and patrons. Tafir pitched onto a table of stonemasons in dusty aprons, landing with a spectacular clatter and crash of crockery. Wine splattered his new uniform. A mason flipped him off the table to thump in a tangle of arms and legs.

  Hopping off the table, Rosey shook his head in mock disgust and said, “Shame to waste good beer, cadet, but officers are wasteful of everything, especially infantrymen’s lives.” Saluting, he drained his mug to another round of cheers.

  Tafir’s two friends threaded the crowded tavern. The dark-skinned man was Gheqet, and the palace maid was named Star. The two hauled Tafir to his feet.

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  “Glad to hear it. We salute you!” boomed Rosey. Fast for such a big man, the sergeant snatched a tankard off the masons’ table and dumped it over Tafir’s blond head. Red wine splashed and his friends yelled. The veterans howled with glee, pounded their fists, and called encouragement and names. Rosey crowed, “Now you’ve been baptized into the army!”

  Tafir’s teeth ground as he glared through dripping eyebrows. Everyone in the cellar laughed, but he was surprised at the guffaws and titters coming from behind.

  Gheqet held his ribs, pointed at the pink trickles, and, laughing, said, “Oh, T-Taf, you look so delicious steeped in red wine! Like a v-verdach plucked from a p-pond for the pot!”

  Star giggled so hard her veil drooped, and she fumbled to cover her dusky features. “That should sweeten you up,” she said. “You’ve been too much a sourpuss since they enlisted you in the army.”

  Everyone in the tavern roared as Tafir blushed red as the wine. A soldier hollered, “Hey, don’t be greedy! Where’s our wine?”

  That did it. With a yell, Tafir jumped for Rosey’s throat. Cheers bounced from the high plaster ceiling. Even drunk, years of training let Rosey dodge, grab Tafir’s skinny wrists, and sling him headlong in the same direction. Stumbling out of control, Tafir flopped across a table manned by fresco painters in color-smeared smocks. Blackware mugs tumbled and shattered, beer splashed into foam, and sunflower seeds stuck everywhere. Tafir never gained his feet, for Rosey scooped him off the floor, straightened him like a crumpled cloak, and thumped him atop the table.

  “A good start, djawal, but you need more training. Publican, more beer.”

  “I’ll buy,” called Gheqet, bright eyes shining in his dark face. That earned more cheers, and Star trilled merrily.

  Hopping onto a bench, Rosey vaulted to the tabletop, toe-to-toe with Tafir, and grinned like a hungry panther at the soggy cadet. The tavern keeper, who’d decided the entertainment was worth a few broken mugs, handed the sergeant and Tafir two full ones.

  Rosey waved his mug and said, “Remember, first one to spill his beer or get pitched off the table buys another
round. Grab on!”

  Wishing he were somewhere else, Tafir looked to his two friends, but Gheqet and Star craned to watch. Reluctantly Tafir put his right hand into the sergeant’s iron fingers.

  Before they could tussle, Tafir called above the roar, “Whoever spills his beer first loses? Then I lose!”

  So saying, Tafir chucked his beer into Rosey’s face. Gagging, spluttering, Rosey let go Tafir’s hand to wipe his burning eyes. Immediately the cadet lunged. A sharp shove sent Rosey reeling and cursing. Packed around the table, patrons tried to leap aside as the big sergeant keeled for the wet floor.

  Grabbing wildly, a huge paw snagged Star’s veil and ripped it loose. Chirping, the maid hooked her voluminous sleeve across her face, then peeked to see if she’d been identified. The crowd seemed distracted by the combatants, and Star sighed with relief.

  Two pairs of hooded eyes had glimpsed Star’s face. An unsmiling couple, man and woman, conversed quietly without moving their lips, then skulked out the door.

  Howls of protest and glee answered Tafir’s bold maneuver. Still on the table, the cadet accepted a victory mug from the innkeeper. Tafir watched warily as Rosey clambered to his feet and mopped his face, then vaulted to the table again.

  “Not bad, puppy. We’ll make a soldier of you yet!” Rosey extended a calloused hand. “But three bouts make a winner. Grab—”

  “Soldiers of the bakkal, come to attention!” bellowed a voice full of authority.

  Framed in the doorway, at street level, stood a shyk, an army commander, resplendent in twin ostrich plumes, gold breastplate, and a red kilt with gold buttons. Two servants in paler uniforms trailed.

  The shyk’s parade ground bawl brought every soldier to rigid attention. Tafir straightened as he’d been drilled for three months to do, though he felt foolish nudging a big sergeant atop a beer-stained table. Even civilians dared not move and catch the officer’s hot-eyed glare.

  “Look at this hole! Look at you men!” The officer stamped down stone steps. “You’re a disgrace to the bakkal, may we exist only to further his reign. You fools, get off that table. Just because you’re off-duty is no excuse for slovenliness.…”

  Abuse was piled on the big sergeant, who was obviously known to the commander, but the severest acid rained on the army’s newest cadet, Tafir.

  “… fail to understand the gravity of your role. As an officer in training, you are forbidden to lay hands on a soldier lest you take advantage of your higher rank. And brawling! If I ever …” On and on, to a final bark, “That’s all! The lot of you begone!”

  Everyone, civilians and military alike, shuffled out the door into the early evening. White buildings still pulsed with the sun’s heat, though a breeze from the eastern grasslands was sweet and cool. Sunset’s golden glow cast long shadows as workers and shoppers streamed home.

  Star’s veil had gotten sodden and filthy, so she discarded it. Keeping her sleeve before her face, she crowded Gheqet as if whispering. The dark man told her, “You draw more attention holding your sleeve like that. You look like a vampire.”

  “People know my face.” Star pretended to scratch her ear. Her hair was jet black, cut in square bangs and woven into cornrows above her shoulders. Her aristocratic face was a vibrant bronze, her eyebrows sharp-plucked, her eyes outlined with black kohl to look bigger. Despite her simple maid’s shift, passing citizens peered at her curiously.

  Gheqet was an architect’s apprentice with stone-rough hands and limestone dust in his dark curls. “I should have left my work apron on,” he said, brushing at beer and avocado dip. “Oh, here’s Taf.”

  Their blond friend was fair and freckled because his parents were foreign-born mercenaries enlisted in the bakkal’s army. His yellow tunic and red kilt were stained and crusted.

  He sighed, “I’ve the brains of a bull. The commander demands my presence in his office tomorrow at dawn.”

  “Ooh,” teased Gheqet, “that’s when they hang criminals. You’ll be sore as a whipped camel from wrestling. Maybe you should beg a pardon from a certain princess—”

  Erupting from the milling crowd, assailants struck like lightning. Gheqet yowled as a metal-wrapped club smashed behind his knee. He fell heavily, and only an upthrust arm prevented the club from creasing his skull. As it was, his elbow was crippled by a vicious stroke.

  To Star’s left, a female assassin sliced downward with a hooked katar, its curved blade like a crescent moon. Star shrieked and ducked sideways, tumbling over the fallen Gheqet. The clubber grabbed for her but only tore her hem.

  Tafir’s short military training took control. The cadet scuffed his feet to keep his balance and jabbed his bare hand flat and hard at the woman’s throat. Quick as a cobra, she bobbed her head and raked backward with her hooked blade. Tafir flinched, tangled with Star’s legs, and so saved his arm from being slashed to the bone. His wild flailing to stay upright made the assassin jump back. Desperately, Tafir swayed, then raised clawed fingers to fend off the next attack.

  People who’d been homeward bound stopped, stared, shrieked, and pointed. A woman called, “That’s Samira Amenstar!”

  Star, actually Amenstar, eldest princess of Cursrah, was the assassins’ target. The club-wielder lunged over the prostrate Gheqet and snatched a fistful of Star’s cornrows. Jerked backward, Star crunched down onto her thin-padded rump and tailbone. Pain shot up her spine, making her yelp. Flicking his club, the assassin smashed Star in the stomach. Her breath whooshed out. Star sobbed, trying to pull air into empty lungs as she was dragged by the hair.

  As the female assassin retreated and ran, Tafir bellowed in imitation of his instructors, “To arms! To arms! Samira Amenstar is kidnapped! Aid the princess, citizens! To arms!”

  The cadet stooped to lift Gheqet, who couldn’t rise on a paralyzed knee, then ran after his other friend.

  Like water spilling through a weir, soldiers charged from the crowd. Stunned citizens were bulled aside by half-drunk soldiers who’d sworn a blood oath to protect the lives of their sovereigns. Rosey was first on the scene, with Eye Patch clattering behind in hobnailed sandals. More men of action raced from the street, shouting to confuse the enemy, whoever they might be. By then, some citizens had joined the rush. Housewives clattered down stone stairways with cornmeal on their hands. Masons ran with tool bags and baskets jingling. A goose boy whipped his squawking flock aside. A fat drover puffed up, ox goad ready.

  The assassins didn’t flee far. Man and woman had hammerlocked both Star’s arms behind her back and gripped her hair to steer. Despite the searing pain, Star saw that they aimed for a sunken stairway framed by an iron grill. Hoisting her feet, she wrenched both arms to wrap both knees. Her sudden extra weight slowed the kidnappers. They cursed and almost threw her down the stairwell, but the princess jerked free one hand and latched onto the grillwork. She lost a hank of cornrows as her captors jolted to a halt.

  The female killer kicked Star’s hand to knock it loose, then flashed the knife before her face and said, “Let go or lose your hand.”

  Though fascinated by the curved blade, Star glimpsed a tattoo encircling the woman’s wrist like a bracelet. A row of crooked crocodile teeth revealed these were hatori, assassins of a guild that emulated the fearsome sand crocodiles of the desert. Like those camouflaged and armored reptiles, hatori thugs swam below the surface of society, popped up, bit hard, then disappeared. The hatori were an undying infestation the palace chancellor had vowed to stamp out.

  The male assassin gabbled at his partner in thieves’ cant, but the samira interrupted, “You gutter trash! You wouldn’t dare kill me. If you’re smart, you’ll ru—urk!”

  A garrote of braided camel hair looped around Star’s throat. She gagged, gasped, and almost vomited. The cutthroat’s coarse clothes rubbed her shoulder through her thin shift, then the garrote twisted as he lifted her off her feet. He hoisted Star on his back like a lamb, not caring if she strangled. The world dimmed for lack of air.

  Footsteps pounded
from all directions, but Star feared they’d be too late to prevent her strangling. Vaguely, through a red haze, she saw the female assassin snap a latch at the bottom of the sunken stairwell. She hissed for her partner to bring his burden, and Star was dragged halfway down the stairs. Amenstar shuddered and clawed wildly. Once these killers bolted that solid door, they might confound their pursuers long enough to escape—with Star either a prisoner or a corpse.

  “Release her!” Amenstar heard Tafir shout, then saw the cutthroat lift her katar to fend off an attack.

  Star wanted to shout a warning, but her wind was cut off. In agony, she saw Tafir leap clear over her head and down into the stairwell, obviously aiming to kick the female hatori’s head off.

  The woman dipped like a cobra and sliced with her curved dagger, and the knife sizzled across the hobnailed sole of Tafir’s sandal. Scrambling, hands braced against the wall, the cadet poised on a step and kicked wildly to avoid the blade. Obviously, Tafir only needed to harry the enemy and block the door until help arrived. Through a fog Star saw panting soldiers cram the stairwell. Rescue was close, if only her throat wasn’t crushed.

  The stairwell grew darker, the light eclipsed, and Amenstar feared her vision was fading, that she was dying. Then she smelled smoke. Out of the doorway boiled black smoke tinged with green curls, as if the building were afire. From under the smokescreen charged more assassins like bees from a smoked hive.

  Star couldn’t track what happened next. Her captor, still with his death-grip garrote around her throat, booted her down the stairs against the oncoming assassins. The dark depths had to be a thieves’ den. Star tried to grab someone rushing nearby, but the awful pressure on her throat made her sick, and she crumpled. Smoke stung her eyes, scorched her gaping mouth, and made her nose itch abominably.

  The cutthroat shoved her downward. A thief banged her hip dashing one way, then thumped her again in retreating. Star wondered how her rescuers fared. Assassins, wrapped in gauze or light cloaks, flashed knives or hurled what looked like big copper coins—until Star saw a soldier’s arm gashed to the bone. The coins were razor-edged quoits. The palace chancellor, who studied the methods of assassins, would find that fact interesting—if Star lived to tell it.