I t was going to be unpleasant, she thought, tapping perfectly rouged lips with the tips of manicured nails that had been buffed by a slave until they shone. But it had to be done…and swiftly.
The First Wife and Absolute Favorite glanced down into the exquisite private garden where boys played among the cypresses with a ball made from an inflated pig’s bladder. Their laughter prompted a smile, but anyone looking at this woman would have sensed no warmth. Herezah was already imagining how different those childish squeals would be when the order was given.
An agonized groan dragged her from her thoughts. Taking a moment to settle an appropriate look of sorrow on her face, Herezah turned from the beautifully sculpted window of the Stone Palace to the bed where Zar Joreb, Percheron’s high ruler, King of the Seas, Ruler of the Deserts, Mightiest of the Mighty, lay dying. The man had been treated as a god these past thirty years. But even gods have to die, Herezah thought with fierce joy as she flicked a glance of summons to a slightly stooped man standing nearby.
Tariq spoke softly from behind the oiled beard carefully split into two narrow plaits and ostentatiously hung with a ruby at each end. These audacious accessories spoke much to Herezah about Tariq’s designs for personal aggrandizement. She knew he wanted the title of Grand Vizier and she was sure he had never felt himself closer to his goal than now. That was good. He was well connected; she would feed his ambition, make him her puppet.
He kept his voice low enough for her ears only. “My lady Herezah?”
“Fetch Boaz,” she whispered. The Vizier understood, bowing and withdrawing silently.
Herezah looked around the fabulously ornate chamber, gilded recklessly with gold at every turn. The room, already crowded, would get only more thick with people as the day drew on, for her husband would most likely die, if not this hour then within the next few.
Joreb had very particular tastes in art, which thankfully his Absolute Favorite shared, although in truth he had given her that appreciation, guiding her since childhood as to what constituted beauty. And it was certainly not this gold-laden room with its rich, gaudy colors. No, Joreb liked subtlety and understatement; his preference was for paler hues and simpler design. Herezah felt a fleeting pang that the man who had given her the opportunity to rise out of the slush of the harem would give up his soul in a room as vulgar as this. Her regret passed quickly, however, replaced by the thrill of knowing that her ultimate goal, the one she had been striving toward these past two decades, would be achieved in merely hours.
She calmed her racing pulse and tried to focus. Despite her anticipation at what her husband’s death meant for her, Herezah had been shocked to learn that his injuries were, in fact, fatal, and she had made every effort to make him as comfortable as possible.
The large chamber they were in might be vulgar but it was cooled by a gentle breeze blowing from the massive, semicircular aquamarine harbor the famed city of Percheron overlooked. It was here that for thousands of years cultures had collided and mingled to yield the Percheron of today. Its strategic position and seemingly endless reserves of precious stones and metals gave the city riches beyond most realms’ dreams.
But while those elements had once given Percheron such power, they were now its greatest threat. Herezah—keenly in tune with national security—was well aware that Joreb had begun fretting about Galinsea in particular. He had disclosed to her his concerns that their warlike neighbor to the west had designs on Percheron.
Herezah’s wandering attention was arrested by the worried expressions of the court’s two most senior physicians. The Zar would not see sunset, that much was obvious, and in turn their lives were forfeit for failing His Majesty. Understandably they continued to consult each other, desperately considering new, and hopeless, strategies.
At the foot of the Zar’s bed cavorted a dwarf, sumptuously outfitted but looking ridiculous all the same. Herezah quelled a scowl. The fool was a constant annoyance in her life. He was “closed” too, which only served to irritate Herezah further. Not even a blood-telling by her crone, Yozem, had revealed anything about him. The Practitioner of the Blood Arts had termed him a blank, claiming the dwarf offered no clues about himself, thereby accounting for his madness. Herezah felt sickened to see the awkward antics he performed on his thick, short legs.
If Percheron was credited as being the most idyllic cove in the Faranel Sea, then its Stone Palace was the most breathtaking aspect of that cove. And within that Stone Palace its harem was the magnificent prize where beauty ruled supreme. It disturbed Herezah constantly that such vulgar deformity as this dwarf roamed among the beauty. He was the flaw in Percheron’s jewel. Pez—she wasn’t even sure whether this was his real name—had been a favorite clown of the Zar’s for too many years for Herezah to get rid of him. She despaired that her son adored Pez in equal measure to her hatred.
She sighed; at least the palace buffoon, with his strange yellow eyes, would keep Boaz amused during the difficult times ahead. He might even prove a blessing, for there were occasions when time spent with Pez seemed to help her only child emotionally. Boaz was intense, often too serious, but the dwarf made him laugh with his ramblings. She couldn’t imagine how. The dwarf could hardly string together a single sensible sentence without breaking into song, or acrobatics, or without his mind wandering elsewhere. How Boaz and Pez managed to hold even a simple conversation was a mystery to her.
A small movement at the corner of the room distracted her. She glanced over at the silent mountain of black flesh that went by the name of Salmeo. He put the fear of a thousand angry gods into most people around the palace, including herself. She had lost count of the times the giant man had reduced her to a shaking wreck. But never again, she promised, now that absolute power was within her grasp.
Salmeo was the cleverest, most sly man she had ever known—no doubt ever would know. He was as cunning as he was dangerous. He was also cruelty personified…but then you didn’t become Grand Master of the Eunuchs without taking a perverse pleasure in punishment.
Salmeo embodied so many unpalatable characteristics, it was hard to imagine how they all came together in one person. For the umpteenth time her amazement was triggered by the sheer size of him beneath the richly patterned garments he draped over his folds of loose, flabby skin. Heavy folds, she knew all too well from her own experience, that had to be lifted away in order for him to be cleaned. He matched his revolting looks with a vicious demeanor more befitting a scorned woman than a grown man. Which wasn’t far from the truth, perhaps. Salmeo had been cut at the age of seven, when his height and size fooled the Grand Master Eunuch of the day into believing he was older. He was an “almost complete”: nothing much was left of his manhood save the painful yearning of desire. No toys, no tricks, no magicks helped ease Salmeo with his frustrations, so he took his pleasures in other ways.
Herezah’s gaze was helplessly drawn toward the sinister, sharply pointed nail on the index finger of his right hand. He stained it red, so no woman could ever forget its purpose and no naive boy went beyond wondering at its use. She masked the shudder of the memory of that nail’s cruel touch.
Salmeo must have sensed her attention and she just had time, before hurriedly looking away, to see the pale rope of the scar that ran the length of one of his fleshy cheeks pull as he raised an eyebrow at her interest.
As she turned away, Herezah’s focus finally fell upon the Zar himself. He groaned and moved restlessly beneath silken sheets, fighting the unseen spirits who had come to claim him.
Death is ugly indeed, Herezah thought, watching the great one’s lips draw back in a silent howl as a fresh wave of punishment rode his body. The door opened and to her relief she saw Vizier Tariq usher in her son.
“My lion,” she said softly to the boy, reaching out her arms theatrically.
“Mother.” He dutifully kissed her cheek but twisted away from the embrace.
Herezah did not outwardly react to his rejection but she promised herself that she would try harder with Boaz. After all, within hours she would be his regent, quietly ruling from behind the figurehead Zar of so few summers. She saw his intelligent dark eyes observing her and felt a momentary loss of composure, as if he understood precisely what she had been thinking. Before she could correct her expression, his gaze slid away to his father, moaning on the bed.
“You must be brave, Boaz,” Herezah warned. “He will not last long.”
“Can we not stop his pain?” he asked tersely, ignoring her concern.
“The physicians minimize it,” Tariq offered, eager to include himself in the royal conversation.
Boaz ignored the sycophantic Vizier as well. It was shock enough for him to see his father in this state—especially as he had seemed to rally in the early days of the fall—but having his mother displaying her newfound devotion and feeling his emotions used as some sort of circus ground for everyone else’s benefit was making him angry.
“Come, my son,” Herezah said, taking his hand. “You are fifteen now and old enough to witness your father’s final breaths.”
Final breaths? Boaz scowled. He could hear the predatory tone in his mother’s voice. He knew only too well what his father’s death meant—his mother had comforted him to sleep when he was a young child with stories about how one day the two of them would rule Percheron. When he was small he had trusted and adored his mother, but for the past six or seven years she had essentially ignored him and he had been raised by royal servants, learning to live without the maternal love he craved. Now it amused him that both his parents doted on him: his mother because of the power he would bring her, and his father because he recognized in Boaz a future leader. Boaz knew the Zar loved his sharp mind, his scholarly pursuits and love of the arts, and it didn’t hurt that he was described as handsome these days either—he could see how all of these attributes made him a most eligible heir. Nevertheless, it was sickening to watch his mother reveling in this same knowledge and using it to get precisely what she wanted, not for his benefit, but for hers.
Yet she was his only ally—not friend, not loved one, but someone he could count on to look after his interests because they served hers so well. It was a terrible thing to admit but he needed Herezah and her bright, agile mind, which could plot and plan faster and more skillfully than anyone’s he knew.
Accepting this only made him angrier still, but these dark thoughts were put on hold as Pez scampered up. Boaz smiled inwardly at the dwarf ’s oversize pantaloons, which, because they had insufficient length to billow properly, pooled comically around his thick ankles. Nevertheless, the swath of fabric hid the savage bow of his legs that made Pez sway so oddly. He arrived pulling silk squares from his nose. It was a trick that had always amused Boaz, but not today.
“Hello, Pez,” Boaz muttered.
“Master,” Pez replied.
The boy looked sadly at the dwarf. “Is he truly dying?” he said, as if, by asking his friend rather than those he disliked, the reality might be different.
“We all die,” Pez replied in a singsong voice. “You, birds, fish, me…your parents too.” Herezah glared at the dwarf as Pez’s gaze slid past her in a deliberate provocation. “You must carry yourself proudly now, young prince. Do you know why?”
Boaz looked at his friend—the only one he trusted in this room—and nodded. “Because I’m to be Zar.”
“That’s right, my darling,” Herezah gushed, clearly surprised that the dwarf was making sense. “Your father awaits,” she urged, pulling Boaz away from the jester.
The young man glanced at Pez, who blinked slowly in that curious manner of his. Then the dwarf bowed theatrically, the bells on his velvet cap tinkling into strained silence, for the groaning had just subsided.
Aware that all eyes in the room were trained upon him, Boaz took his father’s hand. It felt dry, too cold, as if death had indeed arrived, although a sudden rasping groan put an end to that fright. Through puffy eyes, the King of Kings tried to focus.
“My lord.” Herezah spoke lovingly near the Zar’s ear. “Our son, Boaz.”
The man rallied ever so slightly, a brief smile immediately replaced by another grimace. “Boaz.”
“Father, I—”
“Hush. Listen now,” the Zar growled, though it took all his effort to endow his weak voice with the tone needed to make the youngster pay attention. “You are the Chosen One. No one else! You alone. Never forget it!” He gasped desperately, tried to take one last struggling breath, and failed. The stricken physicians watched as the head of the Zar lolled to one side; a trail of spittle escaped, running down his chin. Herezah looked away in feigned despair, the action hiding her triumph. The men of medicine hung their heads, imagining what their own last words would be that evening when their throats were cut. No point in fighting it now. Their wills were written and they knew their families would be well looked after. They had enjoyed position and wealth for many years and had always understood that when Joreb died, they would too.
They went about their final duty now, one checking that no pulse was present while the other held a small mirror against the Zar’s mouth and nose. As a final precaution, the first man drew a long pin from a pouch and pricked the Zar’s body repeatedly. Herezah was busy removing the large ring from her husband’s finger. Boaz, his eyes stinging with tears, turned his head away.
Pez, sensing the boy’s distress, suddenly sank to his knees before him. As if the dwarf ’s sudden movement was a signal, everyone in the chamber also dropped. They bent to touch their heads on the floor before Boaz, the son of their Zar’s Absolute Favorite and his chosen successor. Salmeo took longer than anyone to kneel, but after much grunting he too paid the new Zar appropriate homage.
Boaz froze, stunned; he wasn’t ready to accept this new role, even though he had been groomed for many years to take his father’s crown. If not for the sly wink that Pez gave him from under a short arm, he might have fled the chamber.
“Your Majesty,” Herezah cried, and Salmeo, Tariq, the physicians, and even the servants attending took up the chant. “Hail the Zar!” They repeated this several times until the new King of Kings commanded them to stop.
Into the instant silence that followed, Pez broke wind, his rear pointing suspiciously toward the new Valide Zara and her bejeweled Vizier. Boaz knew this sort of lewd behavior should have made his father sit up from death and roar with laughter. Joreb had so loved Pez’s wickedness. Boaz felt a nervous flutter of amusement threaten to explode from his own throat but he controlled it with effort and focused on his scowling, clearly offended parent. He ignored the mortified Vizier, who, in his opinion, deserved all the bad smells that came his way.
“Mother,” he said. “Rise.”
And she did, first crawling forward—as one should before the Zar—and then straightening on her knees to place the diamond-encrusted emerald ring onto her son’s finger. She nodded reassurance before bowing her head over her son’s hand and kissing the ring fervently.
“My lord Zar,” she said, pride catching in her throat. “How may I serve?”
“Hail, Valide Zara,” Boaz said, and Herezah basked in the words she had longed to hear for so many years. Now, as the Zar’s mother, her very name would strike fear into the hearts of those around her.
She accepted their obeisance, noticed the wry smile on Salmeo’s normally unreadable face, and gave her first order as the most powerful woman in the land.
“Rise, all,” she said, turning to Tariq. “Where is Lazar?”
“Waiting, Valide Zara,” the Vizier replied, fully recovered from the dwarf ’s insult and barely able to contain his glee at the thought of the potential riches and power spreading out before him. Hail the Valide! He had aligned himself well.
“Admit him alone,” she ordered, resisting smiling at the notion that Lazar would share this moment of high joy with her. “The passing of the old Zar is a secret until I say differently.”
The physicians were smoothing the formerly rumpled sheets neatly over the corpse as the tall, sun-browned Spur entered the chamber.
“Lazar,” Boaz said, his expression lightening. The formidable warrior was the only person who walked the palace corridors whom he truly considered a friend, aside from Pez.
The Spur spared only a fleeting glance toward the prone figure on the bed. His shock at the news of the Zar’s imminent death had already been suffered at the ratha emporium; he had concealed it with effort as he strode in disbelieving stony silence ahead of the runner who had brought the dire message. He would reflect on his grief later, in private. Right now his focus was firmly on the new Zar and on ignoring Herezah, who stared at him with the hungry gaze of a hunter.
Lazar dropped to his knees, reaching to the huge ring that was barely able to sit straight on the slender fingers of the young man’s hand. “Zar Boaz, Your High One, I offer my services and my life to you.”
In a show of affection, Boaz covered Lazar’s hand with his own, pale and unblemished against the tanned, strong fingers of the bowed man. “I hope we never claim it, Spur.”
The Spur of Percheron stood and nodded at Boaz, proud of the boy’s composure. The light gray eyes that marked Lazar as a curiosity looked now to Herezah before he bowed low. “Valide Zara.”
The Valide stifled her pleasure, hiding it behind the grave expression she had contrived; there would be plenty of time to enjoy Lazar’s new fealty to her. Right now there were urgent arrangements to make and she reveled in the thrill of finally being able to give him a direct order.
“Take the physicians away and do what you must,” she said coldly, glad that protocol did not insist she be veiled within the palace confines so long as the Zar was present. It pleased her hugely that the Spur could see her beauty and know what he was missing.
If he could sense her pleasure, he did not show it. “May I pay my respects?” he asked, looking toward the body draped in silken sheets.
The new Valide inclined her head and watched the Spur cross the room in four strides, kneeling to kiss the hand of the dead Zar. He took a moment in silence before he stood and soberly turned toward the men who had tried to prevent death. “Physicians” was all he said.
“You must be gentle with the gentlemen’s throats,” Pez began to sing. He cartwheeled once before an exasperated look from Herezah told Lazar that it was in the dwarf ’s interest to be removed as well.
“Come, Pez. You can keep us company,” the soldier suggested.
The dwarf agreed but not before a loud and long farewell belch to those gathered.
Annoyed at being so insultingly upstaged, Herezah made her voice chilly. “Do it immediately, Spur, but no word of Zar Joreb’s death is to get out until I sanction it.”
Lazar noted Herezah’s lack of deference to her son, but said merely, “As you wish, Valide,” and bowed. The Faranel Sea below blew a sweet wind into the room that was nevertheless unable to cover the stench of ambition. It revolted him and he was grateful to escape, even if it were only to carry out the unpalatable task of having the physicians executed.
After the door had closed on the five men, Herezah turned and said, “Tariq, Salmeo.”
“Valide?”
“You understand what needs to be done.” It was not a question.
“I do,” the avaricious Vizier replied.
“Salmeo?”
The huge black man sighed. “Enemies will be made, Valide Zara.”
She could smell on his breath the violet-fragranced tablets that he habitually sucked. “The enemies of Boaz will be dead. The other kind will be helpless.”
“Mother? What’s going on?” Boaz, lost in his grieving thoughts, was unable to follow the conversation.
“Come with me, Boaz. I want to explain something to you.” The Valide took his hand, looking pointedly at the two men who had been charged with the ugly task.
She did not need to say any more. The darkly ambitious eyes of the woman who now essentially ruled Percheron said it all.