Two chapters for the price of one today, as I have a little extra time and the last one was short.
The first thing Erik noticed about Feridoon's funeral was the absolute commotion. Most of the noise seemed to come from the women's pavilion, but the men in the main part of the mosque were playing their part with substantial gusto.
The second thing he noticed was the profusion of cousins. Some of them claimed kinship with the specificity typical in Persian families—my mother's brother's wife's brother's son's wife's father's brother's son, or perhaps my sister's husband's aunt's husband's nephew. But many present gave up after the sixth or seventh step. It was the missing steps that Erik noticed the most. For all of Feridoon's distant cousins, there seemed to be a distinct lack of aunts and uncles or siblings. Beyond Mojgan herself, Nadir's seemed to the most concise relationship.
"Our mothers were cousins," he said. It was practically the only thing Nadir said to Erik that day. He disappeared soon after, weaving a path through the people that would have made any maze-maker proud. Erik recognized evasion when he saw it—Nadir purposefully maintained his distance for the rest of the funeral.
Erik almost left halfway through the funeral. The Quranic Arabic used was mostly inscrutable, apart from a few rote phrases that one found in everyday life. Erik picked out the takbir—allahu akbar—but could only follow the mullah's prayers in the most rudimentary fashion.
Why he felt he needed to be present at all was a mystery, even in his own mind. That man had been nothing but a nuisance to Erik. Not an especially fatal nuisance, but still a rather irksome one. He had dealt with Feridoon too regularly to dismiss him outright. Between the palace construction project, Nadir, and the Sultana's morbid interests in Mojgan… well, Erik simply couldn't escape the man. That simple, ugly, maddeningly quiet man who possessed everything in the world that mattered—everything that Erik did not have.
Oh, how Erik wanted to hate him. He had wanted him to be the enemy, to be a sinister character deserving of destruction. But Erik could never find it within himself to move beyond irritation—and jealousy. Even now, the only other feeling Erik could conjure up for Feridoon was something like… loss. He could not say he was saddened by Feridoon's death, per se. But he had the notion that, out of the myriads of maleficent mankind, Feridoon probably did not deserve this death. From what he heard it was a gruesome one, very typical of the political-cum-personal assassinations of the Court.
No, Feridoon didn't deserve that, and so Erik stayed through the funeral. He stayed for the burial and eventually found himself at the ugly little house with its chipped fountain and homely walled garden.
It seemed like a sea of people had invaded, coming in relentless waves. Neighbors brought enough food for the entire province, and people grieved with gluttony. Erik strayed late into the night and returned early the next morning. He moved through the house soundlessly, staying in the shadows and watching. Another day passed, and then another.
Why didn't Mojgan just kick them out? Did she not crave solitude? Peace? Or perhaps she was simply trying to drown out the demons in her mind with a din?
It was impossible to gauge her state of mind. She moved through the house as unobtrusively as Erik did, one of a dozen-odd black-veiled women. Occasionally he would catch some glimpse of profile through the fabric, some slight posture that suggested 'Mojgan' beneath 'mourning.' Not that he had a chance to speak with her—she stayed away from the men. Personal preference or another Persian custom that was enforced or ignored per convenience?
At last, the house began to empty. When the last of the visitors trickling out, Erik finally emerged. Nadir had taken up a semi-permanent position in the main room, standing in for closer family. Erik found him there, glass-eyed and seemingly stagnant.
Erik sat across from him. The role of 'comforter' was a little beyond his capabilities, Erik figured, but he knew that 'presence' was often thought of as a comfort in of itself.
It took some time for Nadir to notice him. When he did, the Daroga gave one of his old, disapproving sniffs. "You're still here, are you?"
Erik bit back a snide comment and simply nodded.
"Why bother?"
Erik shifted in his seat. "I thought it was the right thing to do."
Nadir laughed in an odd, humorless puff. "And if you had thought it the wrong thing to do, would that have stopped you?"
Erik tilted his head. "Was it the wrong thing?"
"Well. Well, you were quick enough to cause this trouble," Nadir spat, "I suppose the least you can do is see it through."
Erik supposed that he felt sorry for Nadir. He certainly seemed to be grieving. But did grief give a person license to be bad-tempered? The funeral suggested the answer was 'yes.' Erik did not quite believe it. "I think you've been drinking, you crazy old man. What are you talking about?"
"I believe you know," Nadir sniffed again.
There was a long stretch of silence as Erik ran through a profusion of possibilities. One in particular taunted him and refused to be discounted. Well, now. This certainly brought the last three days into perspective.
"You think I killed him." He had intended for the words to be a question, but they were not. They did not need to be.
Nadir did not reply as such. His lips were drawn out in a thin, long line. His eyes were... well, Erik knew that look. His eyes were murderous.
Do you think I am scared of you, Daroga? Do you think yours is the worst rage I have faced? A small part of Erik's mind answered a traitorous yes. It was one thing to face the wrath of some stranger, some mob, some nameless nobody. It was different when it was someone one had believed to be—
Erik flung himself out of his chair and took to prowling to room.
"How," Erik ground out, "can you think that? How can you believe that? Why do you think... I... would do such a thing?"
"Would you not?" Nadir stood, matched Erik pace for pace and punctuated his every point with a jab of his finger on Erik's chest. "Would you not? You are an assassin. A manslayer. A monster, a demon!"
Each word was a blade, as familiar as it was unexpected. Erik stumbled back the first time, until hurt transformed into fury and fury rendered him unmovable.
"Then why are you not scared of the monster?" Erik asked. His voice was high and shrill. He tried to force it down low again, but it seemed beyond his control. "If Erik is a demon, why do you bait the demon?" He caught the Daroga's wrist in his bruising grip. "The monster has been in your house. The monster has dined at your table. You made friends with the monster. If your friend is a monster, the killer of your family, what does that make you?"
"You are no friend of mine, Erik. You never have been. You were my curse—my shackle—just another plaything of the Shah that I was commanded to oversee. You—"
"Enough."
Both Erik and Nadir froze when Mojgan entered the room. Her black chador fluttered around her like so many raven feathers. She came up close to them and in her eyes Erik saw a real living death. Erik knew her to be his junior by a handful of years—she was, perhaps, eighteen. It hardly signified. She had all the gravitas of a matron three times her age. She looked first at Nadir, her expression deceptively mild.
"Cousin," she said, "do not insult my guest." She turned to Erik. "Erik agha, unhand my kinsman."
Erik glanced down at the hand—his hand— clasped around Nadir's wrist. He pulled away as though he had been burned.
She made them sit. Nadir, Erik noticed, looked completely spent. God alone knew what Erik looked like. He felt cold.
She snapped her fingers and tea appeared. It was a good trick, Erik thought, even if it was pulled off by the quick action of servants. It was still a good trick to make something appear by will alone. Erik held onto glass, willing some meager warmth to migrate from the glass into his hands. She came close to him for a moment and forced Erik to meet her eyes.
"Drink the tea," she commanded.
Erik complied. On the first sip, the tea sloshed across his covered upper lip and seeped under his mask. It burned briefly and then chilled him further.
"Now," she said. "Nadir—Cousin—will you please tell me what that… that scene was about?"
Nadir stayed silent, drinking his tea like it was the water of life.
Erik's focus had settled on Mojgan's hands. They were decorated with half-faded henna—a cheery relic from the days when she awaited her husband's imminent return? Erik found his voice before Nadir did.
"The good Daroga believes me to be the… assassin… of your husband."
"Hm," was her only reply. She looked between the two men for a minute, sipping her tea. She turned back to Erik. "Are you?"
The question startled Erik. He could only shake his head.
"You did not, in fact, take a blade and approach my husband from behind. You did not stab him, repeatedly, piercing through skin and muscle clear to the other side of his body—"
Nadir startled at her words. "How do you?—"
She held up a hand and continued to address Erik. "A feat, I might add, that would take either tremendous strength or tremendous fury. You did not drag him to the city gates and press his face into the ground, so that his last breath in this world would be smothered by dirt? You did not leave his eyes open and unseeing, his clothing blood-soaked and stinking? You did not leave me a widow and without a protector? Did you? Did you?"
Erik stared at her, at her impassive serenity. "No. No, I did not."
"Well, then," she shrugged and turned to Nadir. "He says he did not do it."
"He is a killer," Nadir insisted, voice raw and brittle.
"I know," she said. That admission was as piercing as any of Nadir's earlier insults. "Does he kill like this?"
Nadir finally turned back to Erik. He rubbed his neck thoughtfully. "No."
Mojgan lifted her eyebrows. "Then we are done. This is already a house of mourning. I will not have it transformed into a house of discord, as well."
Erik had not thought Nadir could look smaller or more worn. He was proved wrong when Nadir's shoulders slumped. "Erik, I—"
"I believe I do understand you well enough, Daroga," Erik said. "One wonders why it took you so long to say."
"Erik—" the Daroga stopped, rubbed his eyes, and stayed silent.
"We are none of us ourselves today," Mojgan offered mildly.
Erik snorted. "Is that so?"
"It is." More tea was served, more snacks. They all made a show of partaking.
"Mojgan-joon," Nadir said, "how did you know all that… I mean to say, how did you find out everything—"
Mojgan waved the question away. "For shame, Nadir." She bared her teeth in something that might have been mistaken for a smile. "Did you think Feridoon married me for my beauty? I'd like to think it was for my naïveté. I've been told it is my most appealing trait."