Dawn ascended in shades of carmine, and ground broke on Erik's little kingdom by the sea. The Shah had provided a veritable host of workers. They had swarmed like ever so many locusts, clearing the land at a speed Erik grudgingly recognized as impressive. The perimeter stakes he had been arranging over the past week now stood out at stark attention. He fancied that he could see the palace walls arising from the new trenches, all covered in gleaming mosaic. One had to wonder if lives could be built so easily.
Perhaps. After all, every great building was merely workable materials crafted to form a sturdy and attractive whole. Palaces had wood and marble. Lives—truly great lives, lives worth living—needed power, and ability and—and respect.
There was respect to be wrung out of this sun-soaked, sea-kissed land. Erik had set his price of blood, and the Shah had met it—the Shah had exceeded it, which Erik took to mean that there would be inevitable reckonings in the future.
(Erik idly wondered, like a spectator of some morality play rather than the principal actor in his own tale, whether he would rise to the occasion or not.)
It hardly mattered on this rose-tinted morning. He could even stand to ignore the smack of bribery that permeated the entire project, in favor of that warm promise of the future. If the Shah wanted to believe he could buy Erik's compliance, so be it. Erik would be the last one to dispel that illusion.
The men worked without letup until the noon sun reflected blindingly off of the nearby seas. They then retired to makeshift tents to eat and rest, avoiding Erik's glower as he came to observe the result of the morning's efforts.
He smiled, and was glad of his mask. An excited school-boy grin would ill-suit Naser al-Din's all-powerful sorcerer-assassin, nor would it do to have the workmen know how utterly delighted he was at their progress.
A few of the foremen attempted the polite, customary offers of refreshment. For a brief, mad moment, Erik toyed with the idea of agreeing. He would remove his mask and pretend that Death had come to take tea, and then see just how long it took for the men to return to work.
In the end he desisted, for how was he supposed to acquire enough respect to conjure up a real life if he allowed himself to play the sideshow freak? For all practical purposes, he was their lord and master—and what master walked about with his soul exposed to be gawked at and mocked?
Then again, was not Death the truest lord and master of all men, and would it not serve Erik to remind them just how closely he was related to it?
Perhaps. But not today.
He nearly abandoned all such restraint when he caught sight of one particular tent. It was an innocuous enough thing, made of inoffensive pale fabric and did not appear to be so different from all of the other tents that housed the senior foremen. But different it was, and a maddening difference at that. It was the accountant's tent.
That scarred, hesitant man who kept his eyes downcast and his voice impossibly bland was probably sitting in there even now. Erik had railed against his presence, but the Shah had played the fool and insisted that Feridoon can be of the utmost service to you.
"Are you sure that I cannot be of service to him?" Erik had asked, with a gesture that mimicked an executioner's coup de grace.
The Shah had pulled a face that fell at the midpoint between a disappointed connoisseur and a cornered rabbit. "No. No, you cannot, Jadugar agha."
Erik now regretted acquiescing to the Shah's will in the matter. Nothing would please him more than to charge into Feridoon agha's tent with a Death's head and a banshee scream, giving the little accountant a heart-stopping spasm.
He settled for the next best thing, and accepted the man's perfunctory offer of tea.
He did not drink, of course, merely sat across and stared at Feridoon. The man had the gall to remain unruffled. He wrote with quick pen strokes in a massive ledger, while three scribes made copies.
"I beg your pardon for not entertaining you properly," Feridoon intoned eventually, using all of the properly exaggerated phrases of abashment, "but your men are consuming goods at a remarkable speed, and it is a struggle to keep up with the demand."
Erik decoded this little monologue as: You are pouring out gold like befouled water, and I do not approve.
Erik did not reply. What could he possibly say to this man? Threats would lack elegance. Chitchat about the weather? Erik had vague impression of people chattering about sunshine and rain clouds, but he hardly thought old washerwomen were fit models for him in the art of conversation. The men at court made pretty speeches about nothing; merchants rattled off numbers and place names in barely comprehensible scrambles. The workers at the palace site made crude joke and told absurd tales. And Erik… Well, he was being driven mad by scratch of pens and the clinks of abacus beads.
He should have just killed the man, Naser al-Din's wishes be damned.
At length he set down his tea glass, still full, and considered the scene before him. "You do realize that you are surrounded by spies," he said. He waved at one of the scribes when Feridoon glanced up. "The Shah's man, of course, and the fat one is from Mahdeh Olia. And another one from the Premier! Goodness, they do like to keep an eye on you, don't they? Trust isn't quite your commodity, is it?"
Feridoon looked back at the three, who were all working diligently at their books and abaci. He heaved the faintest of sighs. "I suppose you'll be wanting to add your own man, as well. I haven't budget for it at the moment."
"Don't be stupid," Erik replied, "if I wanted to know what you were doing, I would hardly be obliged to resort to the ears of sycophants."
Feridoon made a noncommittal sound.
Erik arose, and before anyone else could move, he had snatched one of the ledgers away and left the tent.
The scribes were cursing and shouting. Erik heard Feridoon sigh and the sound of pen on paper resumed.
It became a routine. Sometime during the day, while everyone else was loitering about, Erik would find and harass Feridoon.
Erik blamed it on the Daroga, of course. Nadir had been sent off on some errand or the other, and Erik found it terribly dull to be deprived of such a wonderful scapegoat. Feridoon was not an ideal substitute—the Daroga, at least, could be incited to anger—but he would serve in the interim. Now, if only Feridoon would react a bit more...
Today, Erik had turned all of the tea in the camp blood-red and laced it with a harmless bit of copper.
Feridoon merely grimaced whenever he took a sip. Erik wanted to turn the teapot over his head and then push him out into the open, a mess of burns and not-quite-blood stains. But then there would be the Shah, tsking at him, and the Daroga looking vindicated with his smug frowns. Erik couldn't have that, now could he? Silence dragged on.
"I need more men to put up the frame," Erik said.
Feridoon flicked two beads on an abacus across their rod. "There are already more workers assigned here than any other royal project in the Empire."
"Of course there are. I've seen what they're doing at Golestan Palace. It's a disgrace. Besides, we need to be further along before the winter storms begin. I will not have snow settle on unfinished wood."
"It rarely snows this close to the coastline," Feridoon replied. "…But if you can trim some of the material expenses…"
"Cut material expenses? You are a fool, Ali Jah—"
There was a commotion coming from the woods—the sound of a large party, many horses and the odd rattle of a tambourine. There was laughter, as well, and Erik had a fair guess of who was intruding.
Feridoon looked up from his account books with an indifferent blink. "Royal trumpets."
Erik glowered at him. "'Royal trumpets,'" he mimicked, "surely your indifferent heart is criminal."
The scribes had the good sense to look terrified. The accountant merely blinked again and returned to his sums. "I live to serve," he said mildly.
A boy ran in and bobbed in terrified bows to Erik. "Agha, a party from the palace—"
"I know," Erik replied darkly and watched the boy pale. He glanced back at Feridoon. "Won't you accompany me, sir?"
"No," Feridoon said, "thank you."
Erik glared at him for a moment longer, for all the good it did, and then swept out of the tent.
It was a small group of the Shah's women on horseback. They were outnumbered two to one by their dour eunuch guardians, who were in turn outnumbered by waiting women and servitors. Erik's bricklayers were forced to scatter to let the party approach. One tripped on a trowel, and arose with blood on his brow.
A high, merry laugh overrode the mayhem as a lone rider urged her horse towards Erik.
She was a tiny woman, utterly lost in her striped silk outer robes and veils. A second veil in the Arabian style covered her face from the cheekbones down, but Erik could hear the smile in her voice.
"Azrael," she greeted him, curbing her unruly steed. "I'm helping you with your soul reaping today, I think."
Erik spread his hands and bowed. "Sultana."
She laughed again and set her horse at a slow amble, "won't you walk with me, Angel of Death?"
"You tempt fate, Sultana," Erik intoned, but matched his stride to keep up with her.
"I do, yes," she said. "The present course of fate being so very, very dull I can hardly stand it." She leaned down a little. "Do you know what has happened with the kitchens?"
Erik did not know, and could not claim to care—but how wonderful it was for this funny little woman to seek him out and speak with him, almost as if they were equals. "Tell me."
The Sultana huffed. "Anis al-Dawla now has them under her hand. A peasant girl, Sorcerer. I am to dine on menus created by a maid."
"Are not all nobles to be served by maids?" Erik asked.
"No, you silly beast! A noble ought to be served by other nobles," she looked down at Erik through blackened lashes. "Angels, of course, are exceptions."
Erik bowed again and showed her around the construction. It bored her excessively, and Erik was obliged to play same trick with the tea on her ladies. They screamed and prayed, and the Sultana laughed until her kohl ran down under her veil. The only thing that marred the day was the memory of Feridoon drinking his blood red tea with little more than a wince to betray his displeasure.
Then the entire idea came to him in an instant, built from those first glances of the little accountant ensconced in his pretty garden with his fairy bride.
As the women made to depart, Erik whispered to the Sultana, "I do crave a favor of you, Highness."
"Oh?" Her eyes were grinning, and her voice child-bright, "what can I do for an angel of death? What can I do for you?"
"Do you know of Feridoon Ali Jah?"
Her brow crinkled for a moment. "He's none of my concern."
"Ah, but do you know he has a wife?"
The sun was just starting to fade, and a good number of men were busy preparing to leave for the evening. Feridoon and his entourage of pen-pushers were packing up their precious books, and mounting their mules. Erik appeared, and grasped the reins of Feridoon's beast.
"I have done you a favor, agha," Erik announced.
Twilight cast bizarre shadows over Feridoon's scars, making him look like some defaced statue. "Oh?"
"I have spoken to the Sultana," Erik said, "and she has invited your wife to come and dine with the ladies of the royal harem."
Ah, there it was—the peculiar look in a man's eyes when he comes face to face with death. Anger, misery, missed chances, and fear.
Run, little man, Erik thought, run and hide behind your piles of coin and your neat number books. If you cannot love me, then you must fear me—the whole wide world must fear me.
"Thank you," Feridoon said with some effort. He could not keep the tremble from his voice. Erik allowed him to depart, quite satisfied.