Steles of the Sky by Elizabeth Bear

Author:Elizabeth Bear
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A Tom Doherty Associates Book

16

Ümmühan curled on the padded seat inside her pierced and latticed litter of sandalwood panels and listened to the men argue in low tones. If she peered through her louvers, she could see them: Mehmed and the chief of his war-band, Malului. They sat in folding canvas chairs dyed in bright expensive colors, the crossed legs carven from lengths of ivory that rested against the floor on their curves rather than their tips.

Mehmed, no ascetic, certainly didn’t mind the comforts associated with the caliphate.

The men were arguing about Ümmühan. They thought they had their voices low enough that she could not overhear, but what few besides Ümmühan and the wizard who had engineered her litter knew was that it did not only amplify and support the sounds she made when she sang, it also picked up the voices of those around her, and made it possible for her to eavesdrop on all sorts of things Kara Mehmed would have preferred she not overhear.

She had asked him for permission to visit the Hasitani. Malului had objected, and now the men were arguing.

Once curled in position on her bench, Ümmühan was ever-careful not to move behind her louvers. The shadow would show, and they would know she was watching—although if they didn’t expect it, they were even bigger fools than she thought.

The argument had gone on for a little time now, and was coming to a head. Malului hunched forward, his spine bowed, his elbows on his knees. In a harsh whisper, hissed between teeth, he said, “I wouldn’t permit my woman to roam about the countryside, associating with those unnatural creatures!”

Ümmühan bristled. Those unnatural creatures, as Malului called the Hasitani, were priestesses of the Scholar-God in Her aspect as creator. They studied the world She had made, the rules and natural sciences that bound it together. They glorified the Scholar-God with their books and their inquiries. They were the most holy of the Scholar-God’s priesthoods, and it was from their ranks that Ysmat of the Beads had risen, of all the prophets the most touched by God. Ümmühan’s small fist knotted inside her silken sleeve, and only with an effort did she make it smooth again.

As smooth as Mehmed’s voice as he said, “You know that’s blasphemy.”

“Caliph—”

“No,” said Mehmed. “The Hasitani honor the Scholar-God as do any of us, and it is they who are the keepers of the records of Asitaneh. My Ümmühan is a poetess. She needs access to their files for the histories she studies for inspiration, in her own way to glorify the Scholar-God.”

Ümmühan was only half-listening. In her head, she was composing a mocking, anonymous song about Malului’s masculine endowments. It wouldn’t have his name in it, of course, but anyone who knew him could hardly miss the pencil-thin line of his moustache and his obsessively oiled curls, so fussed with that he draped a linen cloth across the shoulders of his robes to catch the stains. She had faith he’d recognize himself when it came to his ear.

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