It’s bath day as I follow Katayoun to the hammam.
I will be defecting to Arsduq, to warn my clansmen. If I don’t seize my only opportunity to gather more information, it could cost my clan and the warlords our only stronghold in eastern Azadniabad. This information can regain the warlords’favour because we have leverage against our common enemy infringing on our territories.
‘But you already have information,’ No-Name presses.
My lips tug down.I need more. The fate of my existence as the fallen emperor’s sword begs for me to do it.
In the women’s side of the bathhouse, hot steam curls around my face. The baked brick cupola is divided into vaulted rooms, wooden partitions for segregation. Spring waters, from the oases’ qanat system, circulates through geometric-tiled basins and hot stones, heated in part by the smokeless firelight at the top of the bathhouse. Attendants glide around the partitioned chambers, from cuppers to cleanse spiritually polluted blood, to bathkeepers and shavers: the only luxury in Za’skar, sponsored by a notable in the sultana’s courts buying favour with the military.
Soldiers recline on marbled benches, propping their feet above the steaming stones. Others teeter in high wooden clogs – a precaution to avoid the molestation of the smallest, most perverted of bathhouse jinn-folk. Ceramic walls are painted with pictorial art of warriors on the backs of huma birds.
‘Even if your idea is sensible, how would you take from the Sepahbad?’ No-Name pauses. ‘After all, he is the most feared warrior in the empire. You cannot just steal it.’
I gaze pointedly at the partition between the bathhouse.I will not steal the seal. I will borrow it.
Instead of bathing, I tie my robe and walk along the latticed partition, stepping away from the women’s quarters. Around the corner of the slab, in the public side of the bath, I see young men, scholars, even pazktab boys, relaxing shirtless in their loincloths, conversing.
The Sepahbad is where I expect him, next to Za’skar advisers and Alif warriors. Even Adel is present. I can hardly see the vizier’s profile, except that his back is flush against the centre of the filigree partition, the wink of the bone-seal secure against his throat. I try to calculate his exact position in my mind.
‘You perverted girl,’ Katayoun tells me when I return.
I jump. ‘No – I...thatis not what I was doing. I was... lost,’ I mutter.
In the women’s section, I test my theory. Katayoun hands me a loincloth and we disrobe quickly. I wade through the oily rose waters to the centre of the wall, back against the wooden partition. My hand presses at it. This slab of palm wood separates us by a nail’s length but the Sepahbad does not know it, not how close I am to him, nor what I am to do. If I was to stand and reach over the narrow gap between the partition and ceiling, he would be right below, hair merely a finger’s brush away. Our proximity means the bathwaters between us are connected.
Sinking my hand deep into the water, I increase my finger bonds to one-third of their expansion. The bathwater clashes with the cosmic cold nur – so dense from the Second-Stratum, it forces the water’s temperature to drop. The smokeless fire above us flickers and sizzles, reheating the room to compensate. After twenty minutes, across from me, Katayoun flinches and – to my amazement – removes her bone necklace, placing it on the carved niche beside her. I continue this and watch other warriors remove some of their bone-pendants due to the hot air heating them, until immense steam rises and wavers like a white sheet hung by a thread, obscuring my sight.
After another moment, my left silver earring sears against my ear, the metal hot from the clash of temperature below and the heat above. It confirms my theory.
Short on time, the next week, on bath day, I execute my plan. If I am to temporarily borrow the Sepahbad’s bone-seal, I will need a bar of red clay soap.
I unclip my left earring and place it in the dressing chambers along with my makeshift soap-mould. In my loincloth, I settle in thesprings with Yasaman and Arezu, who I’d told to join me in the hammam that evening. As they bicker beside me, I discreetly alter the bathwaters with my nur. My back slides against the laces of the partition, gooseflesh tickling my neck despite the heat, for on the other side of this screen, a handspan away, the Sepahbad should be with his advisers, sitting with his back against the slab separating us. Based on my observations, that is the same location where he and other senior officers tend to rest. My gamble is steep because I cannot rely on seeing him to make this work.
After cooling the waters with the densest nur I can discreetly summon beneath the surface, I lift from the tub, tie on my robe and excuse myself from the students.
I round the women’s section, pretending to walk to the dressing chambers. In the public corridor, I glance at the pale ceramic walls, containing a slight reflection of the public side of the bathhouse, revealing a view of the Sepahbad. His seal is on his neck, still.
The smokeless firelight flickers and the skin around his neck seems to redden from the hot air. Adel reaches out, brows furrowed, and lifts the Sepahbad’s bone-seal, snapping something at him. At the moment, it is no longer around his neck but on the edge beside the niche of the basin, near Adel’s hand. From the hot temperature, steam curls and thickens until the seal is hardly visible.
I return to the bath, which Arezu has left to try blood-cupping.
‘Yasaman,’ I say after a moment. ‘I need help.’
She floats to my side. In a hushed voice, I say, ‘Remember my earring? I think I dropped it below this partition.’ I point behind me. ‘It slipped through the cracks but I am too embarrassed to go to the men in my immodest state. Perhaps if you summoned the white beetle we used in the Marka –discreetly, as to not surprise anyone – you might command it to retrieve the earring. It’s on the edge. I would be in your debt.’
Yasaman huffs, ‘No debt needed, master.’
The guilt swirls in my blood. I remind myself futilely I did not train her for moral reasons but for my own utility. Still, a part of me worries that I will implicate her in my crimes. But the Sepahbad would not hurt children, would he?
As Yasaman concentrates, I will more nur beneath the connecting waters until our side of the bathhouse is a swarm of steam so thick,I can no longer see. For the next minute, the Sepahbad should not notice that his seal has vanished.
A short moment later, the bone-seal emerges through the cracks of the partition, the white beetle blending into the tile.
‘That is not an earring.’ Yasaman’s eyebrows draw together.
I don’t like where this is going.
‘I wove it on to a string.’ I snatch it before she notices my lie. ‘Anyhow, I’ve things to do, student.’
