The Bird King(22)

Fatima pulled away, declining to point out that the freedoms of which Abu Abdullah spoke did not extend as far as the woman in front of him.

“Maybe they don’t hate us for our freedoms,” she muttered. “Maybe they hate us because we’ve been harrying their lands for decades.”

Abu Abdullah’s mouth hardened. He took the paper from her hands and began rolling it up.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Listen—I asked you here because they want something that will upset you, and I wanted you to hear it from me first, so that you would be prepared.”

Fatima was baffled. She sat down on Abu Abdullah’s bed, twisting her hands in the hem of her tunic.

“All right,” she said. “Tell me.”

“Hassan. It’s Hassan.”

Fatima had to repeat the name silently in her head before she was convinced she had heard what she had heard.

“I don’t understand. What do they want with Hassan? What is he to them?”

“A sorcerer.” Abu Abdullah smiled without humor and began to pace. “Presumably they’ve discovered his talents—and perhaps his weakness for dark-eyed young men, though if that’s what appalls them, I could provide them with twenty more such, starting with my own vizier. As I understand it, they intend to hand him over to the Inquisition for questioning.” He laughed helplessly. “Hassan, a sorcerer! The man couldn’t make soup out of an onion and a pot of water. What do they imagine they’ll get from him on the rack?”

The sting of this caught Fatima in a place she could not locate: when she thought of her head, her head hurt, and when she thought of her heart, her heart hurt too. She had delivered her friend to Luz like an offering. She could see him being led away, could imagine the look of bewildered panic on his face, and because she loved him, she could feel them break his beautiful hands as clearly as if her own had been shattered. Fatima covered her eyes and whimpered. How could the poets write about love so lightly, as if it was something pleasant? Love was terror and loss. Love was appalling.

“I’ll slit her throat,” she whispered. “That smiling bitch.”

“What?”

Fatima looked up and into Abu Abdullah’s face without blinking.

“You won’t let them take him,” she said firmly. “Of course.”

“I don’t think you understand, Fatima. It’s already been agreed. They’ll come for him tonight, quietly, before the treaty is announced and the date for the transfer of power is set.”

The tiles on the floor seemed to swim, rearranging themselves into shimmering patterns that Fatima could not read.

“You can’t do this,” she croaked, her mouth dry. “They’ll kill him. Don’t you see? He doesn’t know anything—he can’t tell them what they want to hear, because he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know why he can do what he does. They’ll kill him. Master—”

Abu Abdullah stopped pacing and put his head in his hands.

“You’re not the only one who cares about Hassan.” His words were muffled in his palms. “He’s been here since he was a boy—since I was a boy. The only reason we have survived this long is thanks to his damned maps. But I have no choice, Fatima, surely you can see that. His life will save thousands of others.” He looked up from his hands and met her gaze, his eyes bleak and wild. “They’ll give me back my children, Fatima. My sons, my little daughter—my God, she’s probably forgotten me by now. When you have your own, you’ll understand. All your grand ideas about justice and fairness die when your children are born. There is no life so precious that you would not sacrifice it for theirs.”

Fatima wanted to strike him and to weep with him and could not tell which impulse was the greater.

“It’s not right,” she said, suppressing an urge to stamp her foot as well. “You know it isn’t. Ask them to spare Hassan. There’s still time. You should never have agreed in the first place.”

This was the wrong thing to say. Abu Abdullah raised himself to his full height, which was considerable. “You have no right to question my judgment,” he said quietly. “I am the master here, not you. You’ve overstepped yourself once too often. Go back to the harem until I send for you.”

Fatima clenched and unclenched her fists. Then she remembered that she, too, was tall, and pulled herself up, lifting her chin. When she stood straight, without bowing her head, she was only a finger-breadth shorter than her master. She knew she ought to apologize, to lower her head again and murmur some excuse, but she did not.

“I’ll go now,” she said. “Since you have no use for me.”

Abu Abdullah stepped back, his face lined with sudden grief.

“You’re always so angry,” he said. “I don’t understand. You have pretty clothes, entertainments, food when others go hungry. You have the love of a sultan. What else could you possibly want?”

Fatima licked the dry, taut line of her lips.

“To be sultan,” she said.

He was suddenly someone else. Fatima flinched before she could stop herself, wondering if this would be the moment he raised his hand to her and undid whatever uneasy affection existed between them, as was his right by law. But he did not. Instead, he turned his back on her, fading into the umber shadows of his room.