The Spice Gate, page 16
The dance must have lasted only a few minutes, for the Jhanakari locals groaned and complained when it ceased. Almost immediately, cheers rose from the same people as the thronekeepers bowed in their direction, joining their palms together in gratitude.
Kalay squinted at several other figures squatting a few yards away from the ceremonial pit. At a whistle from the chowkidars, the figures rose and lumbered forward. Turbans wound over their heads, a stained towel thrown over their shoulder and a loose tunic on top of a lungi that flailed against the tangy breeze.
Carriers. One from each kingdom—once more, except Halmora—to receive the blessings of the thronekeepers. Amir adjusted his shawl around his throat, the spicemark seeming to writhe beneath it. One of the older Carriers stumbled as they walked, then regained their footing and rejoined the other Carriers.
Involuntarily, Amir’s hand raised to grip Kalay’s shoulder, his breath caught in his throat. He had just recognized the man who had stumbled. The man who now knelt opposite Orbalun and removed his turban. The mop of familiar gray hair falling to his shoulders, bristling against the breeze.
Karim bhai.
“They must be in the palace,” Kalay said, ignoring Amir’s excitement. “Come, we must try to get in.”
Amir waved her away. “It will be swarming with chowkidars. We should wait for Karim bhai.”
“Who?” Kalay frowned.
Amir pointed at the field. “The Carrier who is kneeling in front of Orbalun. I know him. He can help us. He’s the most resourceful man in the eight kingdoms.” A bubble of relief expanded in his chest. After the last several days of strangeness and incredulity, here was something that was familiar, with a fragrance of home. Here was his oldest friend . . .
The Mouth always knows.
Amir instinctively grabbed Kalay’s arm and began to drag her through the crowd. Each body he brushed past, each face he looked at . . . No, no. Don’t think about it. It cannot work that way. Yet could he be certain? Was he jeopardizing everyone’s lives by simply being in their presence? He shut his eyes and elbowed through the throng, Kalay in tow, until they were safely away, no more jostling but nevertheless breathing heavily, standing on the road that led toward the docks.
When she wrestled away from him, he was taking long, deep breaths. He squatted on the dirt track stampeded upon by a thousand Jhanakari less than an hour before.
“What was I thinking?”
“Speak plainly.” Kalay scowled, massaging her wrist where Amir had held her.
Amir dug his fingers into his hair. “Karim bhai . . . he knows. I told him about Illindhi.”
Kalay remained tight-lipped. Amir shut his eyes. He’d feared the worst, and her silence confirmed it.
She adjusted the satchel’s thread running across her chest. “That is why the palace is our best choice.”
This time, Amir did not resist. A dreariness engulfed him, weighing him down by the responsibility he suddenly shouldered. Moreover, he was hungry, and he itched to abandon the entire plan, hike down the lanes to the docks, sneak into one of the inns, and swig a mug of ale. Complement it with some salted peanuts and kara sev before diving into a bowl of meen kulambu and rice. The true Jhanakari experience, which the bowlers barely got a taste of during their duties. And here he was, not on the Spice Trail, but on his own, chasing a ghost. A different whip was at his back, albeit a whip wielded by Mahrang and his bloodthirsty army. Time, like always, wrapped its thorny coils around him.
Perhaps this could end tonight. They’d find Madhyra and this would all be over and he—and his family—would finally be free.
And perhaps, if you look far enough into the sea, you’ll see where you will live out the rest of your life.
He hoped Kalay would take care of apprehending Madhyra. He was merely her guide in this endeavor. Each minute stretched endlessly in the thought of using the shamshir given to him by Mahrang. He fought imaginary battles in his mind over and over, and even in those, he did not emerge the victor. Even in his most delusional of daydreams he realized his own incompetence.
Kalay had better be up for it!
It was evening by the time they climbed the rugged trail toward the palace. With coins dug out from Kalay’s pouch, they purchased new clothes for Amir from an emporium in the sea market, a traditional Jhanakari chogha in black with little fake sapphire mirror beads on it, and a pajama that flourished around his ankle, concealing most of his chappal, its leather now tearing.
Kalay complained she was uncomfortable in a sari, so she chose a thin chestnut salwaar kameez and veiled her head with a translucent blue dupatta.
Blending in, it was easier to maneuver, especially once they’d escaped the crowd from the ritual. Behind and beneath them, the city sprawled in myriad colors, a cluster of cone-shaped houses and settlements, all the way to the docks, where the many boats were silhouetted against the striking orange of the sun as it dipped westward along the watery horizon.
At the entrance to the palace, the chowkidars stopped them again. Once more, Kalay flashed her letter and offered the Jewelmaker’s regards. And once more, amid animated murmurs, they were allowed to pass, although the guards did request their weapons, which they stored in a room close to the gate. Amir was secretly glad to part with the shamshir, and Kalay the opposite. She continued murmuring to herself, as though concocting a plot to retrieve her weapon later.
The palace of Jhanak was wholly different from the experience of weaving through the Halmoran qila. While Harini’s home was brooding and lonely, the stone castle of Jhanak hugging the mountain had a festive air. Lights everywhere—lanterns on cross-ropes, candelabras, chandeliers beneath domed ceilings, glass-encased candles ensconced in walls, and even artificial fireflies strung up on invisible threads and suspended from the roofs. Servants scurried about singing songs, chattering and laughing, carrying plates of laddoos, jelebis, jamuns, and gujiyas topped with nuts and sprinkled with cinnamon. The air was rife with cinnamon most of all, brimming with its haze and sweetness, a lush fragrance that reminded Amir of a feast in the Bowl when a pair of thieves had stolen a sack full of cinnamon from the granaries and had gathered everyone at the bottommost square. And even though cinnamon was not his favorite spice, he couldn’t resist being enthralled by its aroma.
Kalay was not as captivated by the sights and sounds as Amir, but the fragrances seemed to catch her attention just the same. They stopped a few servants to grab what confections they could sweep into their arms, then found a dank corner to stuff their bellies. Kalay did not eat much. She had something on her mind, for why else would she avoid most of his questions? Her curiosity upon entering Jhanak had dimmed, and she was more acolyte than wanderer now.
Remember who sent her.
Tonight was a lesser feast, an occasion to commemorate the burial of the spades. The following day, after abstinence, would be the real pomp. Amir had been a kitchen servant dragged in by Karim bhai for the afsal dina held in Raluha the previous year. He’d never entered the darbar, but he’d smelled enough perfumes and heard enough music to imagine what transpired beyond those great iron doors.
How would the thronekeepers react, he wondered, if they discovered a ninth kingdom? Who among them would, as Munivarey prophesied, upset the balance of the Spice Trade and chase after olum?
Or has one already done so?
There was a lot Amir did not yet know of what transpired in Halmora, but could Harini—who had never been proud of her heritage to begin with—have been swayed by Madhyra? During the times Amir and Harini had spent together, she had often spoken of desiring to travel the eight kingdoms, a craving for the Poison she had never been permitted by her parents to drink—and now Amir began to wonder if it was this longing that had drawn her to him.
It was an unkind thought, he realized, and shook his head as if to clear it. You went to Halmora with the intention to use her as well—remember that. This feeling . . . it was not good. This relentless barrage. Of half-baked hypotheses. Of foreboding strange ideas and possibilities. Of people not being who he thought they were.
Now that he came to think of it, Harini had been happy on seeing him in the darbar. Surprised, sure, but he’d also seen a genuine joy on her face, a contrast to the countenance with which she had spoken to Madhyra moments earlier. A reminder of where her heart lay, even if Amir, since then, had come much to doubt it.
He wasn’t sure if she’d be so happy to see him now.
It didn’t bode well to think of Harini in the same vein as the other thronekeepers and their spoiled, privileged children. Even if she was ultimately serving the people of Halmora—in her heart, she was still who Amir thought she was.
Amir and Kalay reached a domed antechamber separating the corridors from the Great Hall. A retinue of Jhanakari chowkidars stood in conversation with a turbaned man in Raluhan attire. At the sight of him, a wave of panic flooded Amir.
It was Hasmin.
Amir wheeled around and covered his face with one hand, grabbing Kalay with the other.
“What?” she snapped.
Amir began to walk back the way they’d come. “Don’t look back, just keep walking,” he muttered. “Hasmin, that chowkidar, he knows me.”
When he’d nearly reached the bend, Hasmin, who had probably gotten only a fleeting glimpse of Amir, shouted, “Ho! You there, halt!”
Amir, however, had no intention of halting, especially now that Hasmin was accompanied by some of the Jhanakari chowkidars he also recognized. These particular guards knew him for his scrambling detours to get a closer glimpse of the docks and perhaps wet his lips with some ale. While they condoned Karim bhai, who always had a way with people of other kingdoms, he, Amir, always found himself on the end of whips and lashes. He didn’t relish that today and so increased his pace, Kalay nearly jogging to catch up with him.
“What are you doing?” she growled.
“Just keep walking.”
When Amir glanced back, Hasmin and three of the Jhanakari guards had detached from the retinue and were coming after him. Amir began to run.
“You! Stop!”
The servants scrambled toward the periphery with their plates and glasses of wine as Amir and Kalay dashed through the space. He had no idea where he was going, only that he had to get away from Hasmin. The image of the chief’s face in his office in the Pyramid burned in Amir’s mind. There would be no room for forgiveness or escape this time. Amir had broken the most serious, and unspoken, law of the Spice Trade: he’d deceived one of the abovefolk in charge.
It’d make sense to escape and try again the next day. Today was definitely not a possibility; not even the excuse of Amir being an enigmatic member of the Jewelmaker’s caravan would play in front of Hasmin. Already, locating Harini and Madhyra had proved difficult, and in a palace of this size, as tall as a mountain, where would they find two women who didn’t wish to be found? With a contingent of the Jhanakari chowkidars behind them, no less. The thought numbed his feet but also kept him running.
Hasmin was getting closer. Amir and Kalay rounded another domed antechamber, scurried through a half-open door, rushed along another passageway lit with scintillating candles, and dashed down the stairs, the air rife with cinnamon.
Amir glanced up to see the chowkidars behind them. “Run, run, run!” he shouted. Kalay’s scarf around his throat fell off as he ran.
At the landing, Amir and Kalay separated. He scampered left; she ran right. By the time the separation dawned on him, the chowkidars behind had already split off also, with two of them, including Hasmin, chasing Amir. He bolted without a smidgen of care for people in his way.
Ahead, another curved hallway emerged, the walls strung with paintings and murals hanging against a faded tapestry of the Whorl. A dense cyclone across the ocean, creating a seemingly bottomless fissure beyond which no ships could sail. A lone galley straddled that line between water and abyss in the painting, and Amir conjured the remainder of its fate in his mind as he dashed past. An Outerlands wonder he had no time for.
A great bronze door appeared ahead, polished and gilded. Gates, he thought, that’s a door made to keep people like me out of it.
So be it.
In that moment, Amir decided there was little difference in breaking one rule versus a dozen and rushed headlong toward the door just as the door itself groaned open.
Amir crashed into the first person to walk through the doorframe. The collision led to a soft landing for him, though the same could not be said for the person he fell into. From the fold and brush of silk against his skin, Amir knew he’d just physically assaulted a royal. He was attempting to scramble to his feet when Hasmin’s hands grabbed him from behind. He was scooped up, even as he skidded to regain balance. Did Hasmin just . . . touch you? This has to mean—
With Hasmin’s nails clawing into his skin, the sense of disbelief turned profound and washed over him. He had collided with none other than Maharaja Orbalun.
The thronekeeper of Raluha lay on the floor, weighed down by his mantle of silk and silver, almost chuckling. He was declining help from the thronekeeper of Jhanak, Rani Zariba, a tall, thin woman with a necklace of lapis lazuli and a golden nethi chuti that was brighter than all the lights in the palace. Behind Zariba, the rest of the thronekeepers Amir had seen at the ceremony stood in shock (still no Harini!), their families, ministers, and their personal retinue of chowkidars rallying to safeguard them, equally perplexed at this turn of events.
“Zariba, is this the extent of your security?” one of the thronekeepers—a thin, wiry man in Vanasari attire—raged. “We have an assassin caught outside the royal chambers. So much for snatching away our weapons at the doors.”
Amir gave up struggling with his captor. He lay limp as Hasmin flipped the baton he was carrying and pummeled one end of it into Amir’s gut. His stomach convulsed, all the breath rushed out of his mouth, and the brilliance of the light around them muddled in his head.
“There will be no need for that,” Orbalun said, helping himself up. “It was an accident.”
“You wouldn’t be saying this if there was a chaku in your gut, Orba,” Rani Asphalekha of Kalanadi, whom Orbalun had earlier danced with, rebuked.
Hasmin joined his palms and performed a deep bow. “Apologies, huzoor, but this man is a Carrier. He is not permitted in the palace. I will take him and leave him outside.”
All of a sudden, Amir felt more than fifty eyes on his throat, followed by the uncomfortable feeling that being an assassin was perhaps a better option in these circumstances.
Orbalun dusted his robe and smiled. “I would like to think I’m nowhere near as diabolical to my populace as to be deposed by an assassin, Asphalekha. And as for you Senapati Hasmin, I would be a fool if I couldn’t recognize a Carrier by his mark. I’m well aware of this young man’s position. It does not change the accidental nature of our collision.”
“But huzoor—”
“Didn’t you hear him?” Rani Zariba barked at Hasmin. “Get out of here. And take him with you. Leave him outside.”
Stiffening at the reprimand, Hasmin’s head jerked between Orbalun and Zariba, as though he had trouble judging the extent of his loyalties. However, Zariba’s glare was absolute, a countenance that would have prompted even Amir to obey any instruction from her.
Before Hasmin could act, however, a commotion broke out behind the thronekeepers. Some of the ministers and soldiers parted, with shrieks of barely contained disgust as a tiny, stooped figure nosed ahead.
Karim bhai appeared just as disheveled as he was on a day of Carrying, his beard even more unkempt, offering a stark contrast in the midst of all the glitter and silk.
The only difference now was that he was no longer bare-chested. Instead he wore a gray shirt over a white dhoti, which all but screamed abovefolk. It’d be plain for anyone who could look at Karim bhai that he was utterly discomfited by it.
Karim bhai rushed to Hasmin, who had begun to drag Amir out. “Dei naaye,” he called out to Amir loudly, with no consideration whatsoever of who he stood among. “We thought you were dead.”
“I . . .” Amir began, dangling beneath Hasmin’s clasp, his head tilted awkwardly backward. “I’m not?”
A more urgent thought rose to the surface, which he could not hold back from asking. “Karim bhai . . . Kabir . . . did they?”
Karim bhai nodded weakly. “To Talashshukh.”
Amir concealed with difficulty a deep desire to hurt Hasmin. He didn’t know to what extent, or how. Only that Hasmin, who held Amir like one holds a dead rat picked from the gutter, had to pay. He glared at the chief of the chowkidars, who merely shrugged, as if to say, I told you this was his—and your—fate.
“What is the meaning of this, Karim?” Orbalun demanded, having gathered himself and shrugged off the fawning touches of half a dozen ministers.
Karim bhai turned and fell at Orbalun’s feet, his hands outstretched. “Apologies, huzoor. The boy has been reckless. He is one of ours.”
“A Raluhan?”
“Yes, huzoor,” Karim bhai admitted. Amir heard a snarl from Hasmin, as if Amir didn’t have a right to claim his own kingdom.
There was a tinge of disappointment in Orbalun’s face, but he was quick to conceal it. Around him, the other thronekeepers and ministers began to lose patience, though it was hard to say at whom.
“Is this man also a Carrier?” Zariba posed the question first. “Am I to understand there are presently not one but two Carriers in my palace, Orba?”
“Guests.” Orbalun smiled. “While my wife and family grieve over the loss of my unborn son, Karim served as an able replacement. Although, I daresay Karim does deserve a place among my retinue even if my entire family were to be available for this feast.”
