Chapter Eight: Love, Kakolukia.
"Ah...this is the life," Shirin grimaced shutting her eyes. She had tied her hair back tightly in a bun and was dressed in a white binding that went from under her arms to just below her knees. She had suggested that we come here, I never thought a thief would make such a big deal about hygiene. Well, I had to say I was glad she made a big deal about it and to be honest, I was glad we were here because it was very relaxing with the fragrance of incense and the soothing feel of the water. We were at some public baths; we hadn't anything else to do. Neither of us felt ready to form a plan; I wasn't sure if I wanted to put it off or not, yes I wanted to see Farah, but chances were, the moment I did see her people, and by that I mean guards, would be after me. One of Shirin's eyes opened and looked at my face, it was in deep thought. "Quit thinking! You only have one chance at life, why spend most of it thinking and being stressed?" she asked.
"Life must be really easy for you," I murmured. Shirin closed her eyes, her hands behind her head.
"Why do you say that?" she asked.
"You have no real rules...you can dress how you want, say what you want, do what you want," I murmured.
"Hm, and you don't?" she asked.
"No, not really, not at home anyway," I murmured, I sighed, "So where should we go next? There is still quite a few hours of daylight left?" I asked. Shirin opened her eyes now but they were following someone across the room, quite a handsome man. Many people of both genders used the baths; we were sat in a shallow square indent, the room was very much like the baths at Azad, just the ceiling was had a flew windows in it so parts of the blue sky could be seen. "Dipesh!" I called. She jumped and looked at me.
"What?" she asked. I raised an eyebrow sceptically. "Hey I'm seventeen what do you expect?" she asked shrugging.
"Well where should we go next?" I asked. A giant grin moved across her face.
"The marketplace," she grinned. The thoughts of what a thief would do in a marketplace ran through my head. You could probably guess what I wanted to say to her suggestion, but I held my tongue and came out with something more...refined.
"Uh, I am not so sure about that," I mumbled.
"You will be when you see what is there," she smiled and stood out of the shallow water.
"What does that mean?" I asked watching her.
"You'll see," she smiled and began walking away.
"What? D-Dipesh! What are you talking about?" I asked. Why did she never explain what she meant to me? I quickly hopped to my feet and followed her.
"So what are we here for?" I asked, it was hard keeping up with Shirin because she moved so quickly. She was quite thin, with a small waist and hips; she barely had any real fat on her, but oddly enough, she always ate like there was no tomorrow, well with the way Dahaka didn't like me, maybe there wasn't going to be a tomorrow. We were in the marketplace now; the hustle and bustle was in full swing. We had bought Indian clothes (I, however, still wore my cloak) and Shirin was wearing a deep red sari...I had to admit, she looked quite radiant. Shirin was slightly distracted by a stall with many pieces of jewellery, all gleaming in the daylight, but she managed to peel her attention away from it.
"Guess, who do you think is the guest at the marketplace is today," she smiled. I shrugged. "Well here's some help. You really fancy her!" grinned Shirin. I jumped, I couldn't mention Farah's name just in case someone overheard and got some ideas and reported me to the guards of the Raja or Maharajah.
"Are you sure? How do you know?" I asked.
"D'uh! Why do you think so many people are here? I do hear stuff! Anyway, she is coming with her father, only her, none of her brothers or sisters. So that means a lot of attention will be placed on her, you won't get a moment alone with her, maybe you should write a letter or something and give it to her discreetly. You write it...I'll be over there," said Shirin drifting off as she darted over to the jewellery stall. She knew she could only look, she couldn't take. I knew she was trying hard not to take anything. I couldn't believe it, soon I would see Farah again! Would she recognise my face? It had only been a few months after all.
Shirin came back to me after a while. I looked at her briefly, removing my eyes from the letter I had composed, she didn't seem to have stolen anything.
"Do you want to have a look at it?" I asked. She nodded and took the letter off me before I could pass it to her. She was like that, I don't think she lacked manners, she was just very eager to know things. I watched her eyes move as she read. Her face didn't really show much emotion, it rarely did unless the emotion was quite extreme like sadness. I hated seeing her sad because her face would make me sad, not many people could do that.
"Uh...I think this is too long," she murmured after finishing it, she had read a page so far. Maybe it was best that I didn't warn her that she also had to read the other side.
"How can I shorten it down then? It isn't just simple, I really I'm pouring my heart out here," I tried to explain. She took another piece of paper from a nearby stall and wrote a second version with a pen that had recently been dipped in ink – the pen also was from a stall.
Dear Farah.
Take the Dagger of Time and your bow and arrows, and go to the gardens that are right of the entrance to the fort – go tomorrow when night has fallen and wait.
Love
She left the part where my name should have gone blank. She stopped, obviously thinking. Her eyes always seem to glaze when she was thinking, it always made me think that maybe her mind had barricaded itself in a cocoon inside of her, and left the body dormant and asleep. She looked at me with her perplex face.
"How can I sum this up in one word that doesn't begin with 'P'?" she asked.
"Sum what up?" I asked, peering at the letter.
"She needs to know who you are without anybody else really knowing, if someone finds it with the 'P' word on it then who knows what they might start thinking. Wait, what was that word, the word you were told by you-know-who?" asked Shirin. She was saying things like you-know-who hoping no one would suspect anything, if I was to be honest, I would get interested if she was saying this stuff and I was just a passing stranger.
"Kakolukia?" I murmured quietly. She pushed the pen and paper in my hands.
"You write it," she said turning round. I wrote the words leaning the paper on her back so it wouldn't smear. I looked at it and read through it twice.
"What have you been planning?" I asked. She smiled. It was one of those 'I'll tell you later' smiles – a smile that was unique to Shirin. It wasn't a smile that particularly annoyed me, but sometimes it did make me feel weak when I wasn't fully informed with everything. She took the paper and began folding it up tightly. "What are you doing?" I asked. She finished folding it and then removed something from her neck. A silver locket in the shape of a rhombus with a small red ruby in the centre. It looked a little bit old. I rolled my eyes with my immediate thoughts. "Shirin! You didn't take it did you?" I asked. She couldn't have given up now, not when she had been trying so hard.
"What do you take me for? A thief?" she asked with a smile, she opened the locket and placed the letter in it.
"A rather good-looking one, yes," I said, I started to doubt the idea of her stealing the locket. She wouldn't be smiling so much if she had.
"Aw so sweet, I bought it," She replied. Shirin had stolen some money (it was gold, so it could be used just about anywhere) from my palace when she was robbing it, it was actually from my room, she had kept it on her so the desert thieves hadn't taken it. However, there wasn't much of it.
"Shirin, we need that to pay the inn keeper," I told her. I didn't appreciate the idea of her just throwing our money away on jewellery.
"I've asked that leering sickco to put it on my tab," she explained, she was holding the locket, she didn't seem to want to put it back on her neck.
"Well how exactly do you plan to pay that tab?" I asked. She came up close to me and whispered in my ear.
"Well, we're not going to, tomorrow night, you travel to the north of the city and wait on the outskirts, me, I'll pick up Farah and take her to where you are waiting. You call it a moonlight flit, surely you can be dishonest?" she smiled. Did this girl ever think of doing anything legal? Nevertheless, maybe that was what I liked about her, she was 'resourceful'. I couldn't ever imagine Shirin as anything else other than a thief...of course, by that; I meant her version of being a 'thief'. Thieves always struck me as cold, distant people; this was something Shirin was exactly the opposite of. There was something about Shirin that really did mystify and that was her ability to be so optimistic, even though she had the curse of possibly being related to Dahaka and was pretty much an outcast of society because she was a thief she remained bright and smiling.
"Okay...so what is the locket for then?" I asked.
"You will be only able to get near Farah if you have a gift for her, so this is the gift," Shirin whispered back.
"But what happens if she doesn't open it?" I asked, I wasn't intentionally trying to think of all the negative things that could happen.
"Well that's why I'm giving her all tonight and most of tomorrow to open it!" whispered Shirin; she backed away now. "Should I give it to her or do you want to?"
"Uh..." I started, I wasn't really sure if I did want to give her the locket, she could recognise me, and although this was something I did want her to do, if she ordered guards to take me to the palace, then Shirin's plan would be out of the window. It would be best if Shirin gave it to her. "You do it," I ordered. Shirin shrugged. So now, it was only a matter of time...straight flowing time that is.
I waited. I just longed to see Farah, it had been at least an hour now; the minutes seemed like hours themselves. I looked at the sun, teasing me as it barely moved in the sky, the same way Farah was now teasing me, but both didn't realise this. The excitement was growing among the crowds but I didn't take in any of the words they said; I didn't even listen to Shirin. Shirin suddenly jabbed me hard in the shoulder, it wasn't because she was annoyed with me; she wanted to make me look in her direction. I hadn't realised how silence had fallen over the crowds of people. My heart missed a beat. It was Farah. She was a princess so obviously riding on a horse was out of the question; she sat, rather artificially with a extremely straightened back, on a platform with a canopy that housed her away from any bad weather. It was her, it was Farah! I couldn't really believe it, it must have been a dream, anything but reality! I kept on thinking this...however, I knew down it was reality and loved every second I saw her, the happiness inside of me, a sweet feeling within my stomach. I wanted to call her name, I wanted to go up to her, I wanted to embrace her, none of which I could do for she would take me for a insane stalker or something and have me immediately dealt with. She hadn't changed much, she remained slender and a dark colour that came with the Indian sun. She seemed a little bit taller now, and her jet-black hair had must have grown a little as her plait was longer, but not much. She looked the same as she had done the day I had met her except for those changes, she wore the same red top and skirt and had the same strand of black hair by her face and then there was the medallion, still worn round her neck. I looked at her dark eyes, and realised that once again, they were looking at me like they had done when we were travelling to Azad. Shirin dragged me down to bow, everybody had to bow, Farah and her father were royalty after all! Her father, a man who shared little likeness to Farah, rode on a large but young brown stallion, you could tell it was a male horse; it had the same attitude as its rider. The Maharajah seemed somewhat vain and full of himself, it could be told by the way her stuck his stubby nose up in the air, I very much doubted that he actually liked being among the common folk of Amber. He was a tall man with a chin that appeared more sharp than pointed. His eyes weren't brown like Farah's but a grey that was far from dull; they seemed quite powerful and commanding and for some reason, caused fear within me. At the sides of the Maharajah, were the elite guards, the best with their sharpened weapons, dark stares and eyes that seemed as sharp as there blades. Farah continued to stare at me with a penetrating stare, she was trying to work out who I was, and in my mind, I was pleading that she would soon realise before I disappeared from her view. She didn't seem to recognise me...it hurt me, but only temporarily.
As soon as the platform was set down, I, along with many others, leapt to my feet. She and her father were, almost immediately confronted by people, offering gifts and hoping to have a few words with the royalty. I very much doubted Shirin would be able to get to her, she could see this in my eyes that were fixated on Farah. She smiled and knew how to get to Farah. She entered the crowd confidently.
"'Scuse me, outta the way, watch your head, ooh nice bracelet – wouldn't be too attached to that would you? Coming through, make way!" she cried as she pushed her small self through the crowds, I never realised that she was quite small at a mere five foot one. She pushed a man who was about to greet the princess out of the way with a sharp shove of the elbow. "Hi, you're the princess right? It's a real honour to meet you!" smiled Shirin and she curtsied quickly. I watched from the sidelines, only barely able to see her through the crowd. Farah looked somewhat...taken back by the flamboyant little, skinny woman that stood in front of her.
"Uh, yes, pleased to meet you too," Farah managed to say; she still spoke the same way as she had done when I had met her.
"I would like to give you this locket, as a gift," said Shirin and pushed the locket into Farah's hands. Farah looked at it.
"Um, thank you," she smiled, it was nice to see her smile, I just wish it had been at me. She seemed quite nice, I liked her this way, when I had first met her, she had hated me, she had all right to, but right now she completely hate and bitter-less. She looked at Shirin. "Weren't you the one with that man, the one with green eyes?" she asked. My heart jumped! She had noticed me! She must have wanted to know who I was...otherwise, she wouldn't ask. However, Shirin knew she couldn't give my identity away.
"There are quite a few green-eyed men here, I honestly couldn't tell you who they all are," shrugged Shirin, she was covering up her accent well. She gave one final smile and then removed herself from the queue. I managed to join back up with her, out of Farah's view.
"Do you think she will open it?" I asked almost immediately.
"Hey, she isn't going to forget me anytime soon, nor you, she really did seem to want to know who you were," smiled Shirin. I wanted to smile, but I just couldn't. What if she didn't read the note? All the possible negative things that could happen ran through my mind. Maybe I just thought what was happening was just too good to be true...
When we returned to the inn, the horrid little innkeeper had a surprise in stall for us. He had changed our two-bed room to a one-bed one. I felt like he knew, with his smarmy leery grin, that Shirin and I weren't really married but he just wanted to make things as bad and as difficult for us as possible. We sat on the bed that we would have to share. The room resembled the same one we were in before just this one had a family of mice in the corner and a dust lining the wall.
"I want the left side," said Shirin. I looked at her; she was being serious.
"Why? Would it have anything to do with being right next to the door?" I asked, I knew she wasn't pleased with the idea of sharing.
"No, I'm left handed aren't I," she defended. She was? I had never noticed. I pointed this out to her. "Well you've never seen me write have you?" she murmured. This was true and I had never really paid attention to which hand she used to eat with. There were a lot of things I didn't really know about Shirin...