As usual kiddoes it's another week and another update. We'll hear about what, roughly, Gem Faher means this chapter (at least from one perspective) so for those of us as confused as Anzu last week never fear~
Chapter 3: Intercessions
The horn sounded up from the arena down the slope, which had only been constructed this morning, disrupting the horde as Atemu evidently tried to introduce his lady friend to his sisters. Sighing, the Sultan grumbled up with his stick, Mahado helping Yugi to her feet. With a fleeting exchange of kisses Yugi dismissed herself to let the old man and his eldest walk towards the day's entertainment without her interference.
She quickly found Mana'jet lumbering up with the help of the other wives and taking her hand Yugi escorted her as the gossip started to tumble. With Yugi there the circle was complete enough for the real ripping to begin so to speak. While the men had risen with their drinks and rushed ahead toward the arena for the gentler sex now was the chance to really enjoy themselves with free speech unbothered, unhindered, by the menfolk. Today was an occasion for men to laugh and the women to plot. Amongst Yugi and the wives the first order of these occasions was business.
"What do you make of the white girl?" Sesset supposed drawing up beside Yugi and Mana'jet as in the ambling crowd Kisara had yet to catch them.
"No hips," Mana sighed exhausted form the weight of the babe inside her, "and I can't for the life of me unscrew her linage. She's an Earl's third daughter or something of the sort."
"Yes I got as much," Sesset tutted, "the Sultan's first wife, the primary, should be native so as to know the land and the customs. I can't imagine how we'll organize the business of running the country with that pale one. She barely understands the tongue."
"Second wives are foreign princesses not first ones," Kisara cut in as she caught them, hooking her arm round Mana's waist as they reached a steeper portion of the slope. "It is how daughters of the East keep their rightful power within the home."
Their progress stalled a little in the crowd with the slaves trying to keep the wives shaded and the men blocking the road ahead as they found their seats.
"Her blood's not royal," Yasil voiced thoughtfully, "but what's her dowry price?"
"Narrow I suspect," Sesset grunted, "enough for an ambassador not a king. What can the earls of Britton afford Gem Faher?"
"I'm not sure," Yugi rued, "the market will have changed since I was last there. No more than ten thousand crowns certainly."
She felt cruel discussing the Lady so but she couldn't have silenced the wives if she wanted to. It was their duty, their calling, and they had every right to consider it all. Anzu perhaps thought that her marriage would be utterly down to winning men but here, in this place, the wives and the important ladies were the superior power upon all unions. They were the social and religious authority on these kinds of bargains especially the primary wife of the sultan. Sultana was quite honestly more an elected position amongst the appropriately trained locals traditionally.
Oh the Sultan picked others for himself; especially the foreign secondaries for political and regal alliances, for profits, but the first wife was a matter of supreme religious tradition. The first wife needed to be master of the house and the court, master of everything the lesser sex was supposed to master. They couldn't be a fool and they couldn't be new. The primary had to understand the intrinsic details of the system, they had to have friends, and they needed to be established.
"Less than ten thousand crowns for my brother," Mana'jet groaned, "he deserves better."
"She seems a kind lass," Yugi defended however meekly because here it hardly meant a piss in the wind if she was sweet as a doe. Women had real power here within the careful control of men. It wasn't about beauty.
"Aye, perhaps," Lurek shrugged. "It doesn't stack up well though: no blood, no kin, no dowry, no tongue, no hips for sons and no sense."
"Now that is abrupt," Yugi stressed as they ambled closer to the arena to take their seats in the constructed veranda of shade.
"Aye but look at her," Kisara gave a mother's moan gesturing covertly across the arena to where the Lady stood beside Atemu looking lost, "she must be dying of the heat in that ridiculous frock."
"She'll sweat herself high," Sesset nodded taking her seat.
"She doesn't know any better," Yugi waved her hand, helping Mana to seat herself as the slaves began to cluster with refreshments. "She's never been outside her shores I'd venture."
"Well this was a grand venture to make," Lurek admonished, "coming here without the Sultan's prior approval. She's damned her reputation by travelling alone. I admire the boldness but she doesn't it seems."
"That she has," she nodded sympathetically, "that she has, but we ought to weigh this properly. There's more to consider."
"Get the cards then," Yasil clapped good humouredly at a slave milling about, "go on! For the Gem-Faher!"
"And drinks," Kisara clicked, "drinks for this heat."
"We'll never know for sure until someone can inspect her," Yugi diverted, "there's her stars and her hips to regard in detail. We don't even know the day of her birth."
"I doubt the Sultan will let us get that far if his bitter maw is anything to judge the storm by," Mana laughed sighing, "father seems not to like the look of her."
Not at all.
Anzu could see them all across the arena; the finest of the ladies playing, laughing, gambling? It startled her but then so did everything here.
With no place to sit herself amongst them, unable to strike up conversation, Atemu had defended them by keeping her at his hip which left her standing under her parasol amongst the unfanned men. Their shade was limited and the veranda they had was so cramped with rustling bodies it was hard to take a seat for long.
"What is the entertainment?" She managed to turn to Atemu, cramped between the bodies of taller men as he tried to corral her into a comfortable nook.
"Lions, contests of men, bears…" He recounted absently. "The Sultan imports and breeds animals to do battle, so do many of the nobles, and they bet upon their creatures. Tonight the men will play games of skill with each other; sports like chess and so on but today there will be gladiatorial combats."
"Like the Romans?" She perked. "Hand to hand?"
"Or with weapons," Atemu nodded, "it's savage and unarmoured."
"But why?"
"Because every man, including every noble prince, here should be a warrior it's believed. Rather than philosophers or men of great learning princes strive to be warlords. It's aggressive." He trailed off. "No one will be killed but they will be injured. Boys have died because they would not back down. It's considered honourable."
"That's horrible," she wheezed.
"I know," he seemed ashamed as he whispered, "bring up your fan. You shouldn't have to see the worst of it."
Entranced, almost frightened, Anzu shuffled a little closer as the very richly clad men around her began to laugh and chatter almost as if nothing was wrong. Nothing about this bothered them, not at all, and she seemed to be the only one paled at the prospect.
They had bear baiting, cock fights, in Britton and so the lions would be a grand amazement but men without their armour? Wrestling in the sand? Intending to wound each other naked to the sun? Nobles fighting aware they might perhaps kill a first born son? It seemed a little too far from the play jousting and the sword fighting of Britton with all its pomp and circumstance. It was a thin line, she would admit, but it existed to her.
Anzu could stand the sickening heat, the vicious screeching of the lions over a mud brick fence barely three feet high, the applause of the audience as a man almost lost his arm to another… but Atemu had forgotten to allude to the details of what it looked to watch real battle blood be drawn. In Britton men were injured but through armour. The whole process was cleaner and less graphic.
In Britton, on the Isle, men did not duel with lions and a short sword either. The man had been so mauled Anzu found it stupendous that the well born fellow, of good station, could even stand after willingly putting himself before a beast three times his size. It was…
Luckily as the sun set they wandered, bloodlust finally sated, back to the tents.
Anzu lingered at the table along one back edge of the main canvass tent. Her stomach was still weak from the fighting and the blood. She was sure the sloshing of sweat in her ears was the dying gasp from another great beast in the walled arena under the Sultan's inspection. Her dress, she feared, if it was not already ruined by the smell of sweat and dust would become gamey form the guts stinking up the air.
Her hands idled by her side, collecting herself, and she still… without Atemu she wasn't entirely sure what was what on the refreshments table. She hardly recognized the shapes or the smells of the food which had been macerated and spread out of familiar shapes. She'd never seen anything like it. She had nothing to orientate herself with and it was intimidating. Embarrassed she realized that without Atemu she couldn't even fetch herself a proper drink.
"Excuse me?"
Anzu lurched, brazenly uncoordinated, at the sudden British that cropped up clear as day by her side. When she turned she found to her surprise that the white witch stood composed and watching. Something about her face was so elegantly casual Anzu… the first image that came to her mind, wrongfully, was that of a proud Madam.
"Oh, hello," she breathed uselessly. "I am sorry. Am I in the way?"
"No, not at all," Yugi dismissed, "I wondered if I could be of any assistance? Are you quite alright?"
"Oh I'm fine," she coloured, ever so slightly flustered at the generosity. "Merely catching my breath."
"I understand," she sympathised, "are you coping quite alright with the heat milady? I know it can be overwhelming at first."
"A little," she laughed, "I feel almost faint but I'll be fine. I ought to find myself a drink I think, would you recommend anything?"
"The water's much cleaner than in Europe," Yugi offered reaching for a blackened pitcher as she gestured, "there's fresh milk or mead if you'd rather? The less alcohol the better I find. The heat makes you tipsy with greater haste."
Yugi poured her a cup and upon offering it Anzu found herself locked into thanking the witch. She didn't resent it, not at all, she smiled but Atemu had said so many things about this queer stranger that she hardly knew what to do. She lifted the glass, took a sip, and sighing contentedly found a morsel of cool relief that travelled down her swamped calves.
"Thank you," she sighed again, "I can't make sense of anything yet I fear."
"You need only ask milady," Yugi promised, pouring herself a cup. "The sexes here are very kind you'll find I'm sure."
"I see that," Anzu acknowledged. "Thank you."
Yugi smiled, bowed ever so slightly and tipping her glass took a sip as she turned to amble back towards the Sultan. Under Anzu's watchful glance upon her back Yugi raised her cup to the Sultan and twitching in the corners of his withered mouth the King smiled extending his hand toward her. Fascinated Anzu followed the trail of the witch as she settled, finally, to take a seat among some gloriously glittering guests upon the cushions.
"Anzu? Love?"
She pivoted lazily over her shoulder, slightly dazed by her brush with the witch, to find Atemu frowning at her.
"Hmm? Darling?" She mumbled.
"What did the she want?" Atemu fretted under his breath. "Was she rude to you?"
"No, quite the opposite," Anzu took a sip. "She fetched me a drink."
"Hmm," the prince sighed, evidently unconvinced. "You'll be careful won't you…?"
"Of course," she promised. "Have you heard anything from the Sultan?"
"He won't let me within an arm's length yet," Atemu grumbled, "but the party will move to the palace soon. When the drink's in him I can only hope he'll be a bit more reasonable."
"Hmm," she gave a solemn nod, worrisome. "Love?" She murmured, Atemu grunting towards her. "What does Gem Faher mean? She's not…it's not Mistress is it?"
"No," Atemu shook his head sourly. "No, it's nonsense. She's a nobody but high ladies at court require titles. It's a matter of social tradition but no one can very well call her a countess, earless or duchess, can they? It's nonsense. It's a title my sisters and brothers fabricated for her, an imaginary position. Gem Faher is a character from an Eastern fairy tale. In effect it would be the same as if I called you a Red Riding Hood or said; here is the Snow White of Britton." He scoffed.
The procession made their way, as the sun set, back into the walled palace with a lining of guards while the slaves trailed behind cleaning, dismounting the tents, swiping the blood in the dust… Anzu finally had cause to lower her parasol but feet aching and ankles bleeding she knew her cheeks were burnt from the tingle alone. She'd be red and peeling, utterly unpresentable all week, hardly in any state to improve the impressions of her. She looked now, she was sure, like a silly girl.
Atemu held her hand in his elbow but in his own way, however straight he stood, he was clearly becoming desperate for the a chance to speak with his father. Anzu sensed their occasion and her future was slipping. She sensed defeat and trying to hold her head high didn't know quite how to aid herself from falling. Her father would be un-reconcilable when the letter recounting all this reached him and in those weeks waiting for his reply she'd be utterly without council.
She swallowed. Atemu looked gaunt, peeking his head over the shoulders of other men, trying to spot his father.
The Sultan was far ahead on the tiles, hobbling but very tall with his walking stick as the pale Gem-Faher held his arm and tried to assist his pace. It bothered Anzu still even with a vague translation of the title. With nothing but Atemu's gossip and her childhood superstitions she worried that somehow, by talking to the pale courtier or accepting her kindness, she'd let Yugi curse her somehow.
Atemu's arm shrugged out of hers.
"Follow everyone inside," he ordered patting her elbow, "I am going to try and catch them before he's off to bed. Keep your eyes out for me."
"Yes, of course," she murmured meekly.
Yugi had been assisting the Sultan, the king's weight heavy against her wirier side, making their way ahead, strolling, at the front of the party before Atemu came behind them and then beside them.
"Father," he offered, "let me walk with you. Let me help."
"I have help enough," the king dismissed, as Yugi lowered her head between them uncomfortably. Qazzadara did not at all like to be reminded of his age. Yugi would've reaffirmed it to his increasingly desperate second born but Atemu would never listen.
"Please," Atemu appealed, "let me at least walk beside you. If I am your heir, I am your son, can't I walk with you?"
Qazzadara paused, grumbled hoarsely, and regarding Yugi's averted eyes weighed the consideration plainly. The crowd behind them stalled, drawing attention, and Yugi could almost feel the sting of the eyes of the great wives and great men.
"Go stand by Mahado," Qazzadara squeezed Yugi's hand, and slipping back with the trail of her saris in one hand Yugi bowed. As she spun round out of sight she heard the king gripe to his son; "well come on then boy."
When Yugi had reached Mahado behind the Sultan the eldest prince took her hand, took her as if the whole thing were easy, were natural, and Yugi could imagine that after Qazzadara passed she could have been happy under Mahado's rule. It was a painful daydream given now she'd have to ferret out new prospects for survival.
Before them as the procession continued Atemu and Qazzadara had lowered their voices.
It took only a few meters for it to become apparent that they were bickering with increasing, shared, intensity. They had the same temper Yugi rued, turning pallid, and chuckling beside her Mahado shook his head.
"What do you think of the Lady?" Mahado murmured to her with a tender squeeze. "I did not get a chance to speak with her privately."
"She is kind, it seems," Yugi shrugged tiredly. "The wives are not impressed. She wouldn't speak with them long or animatedly. It was hard to detach her from Atemu."
"His protectiveness might damn him," Mahado sighed. "All this Western etiquette won't get him what he wants. He has to compromise but he was never good at scheming."
"I fear as much," she shuddered. "I don't know how you can be so calm."
"It's a virtue," the prince teased.
Ahead of them, as they watched, the voices of Atemu and the Sultan began to waft up a little louder while they grumbled. Things were not going well.
They had reached a dip towards the courtyard, currently on a high temple veranda leading to a flight of steps into the belly of the palace between two buildings. Yugi was aware of it if only because she worried about the old king as his body had weakened this last year during the monsoon season and the closest they came to cold days.
The intensity of Atemu's petition was evident in the passion of his profile.
The king scoffed, Yugi saw it in his shoulders, and snapping like an angry dog pushed Atemu away. The prince hissed, distraught, the king took the next quicker step himself with his stick somehow imposing still even with the slight slag in his height. He had fought lions with his bare hands in his youth.
Yugi stepped away from Mahado, who let her go, to try and reach the Sultan to resume providing a woman's assistance.
It happened then in those three seconds, that inhale, that taking his own step Qazzadara misplaced his feet.
The Sultan stumbled, which wouldn't have been of much consequence had it not tripped him too close to the top step. Yugi called out, saw a flash of it before it happened, quickening her step and with his hands crossed, paused in a moment of impossible anger, Atemu startled to glance to Yugi before realizing what the Gem Faher was running to.
Mahado was calling out behind her, Yugi missed her chance, twisting Atemu missed his chance and all three of them had to watch the King tumble down the sixteen glistening alabaster steps.
"Majesty!" Yugi shrieked.
Atemu and Mahado screamed next, before the clamour erupted amongst the guests. Hefting up her trails to dart down the steps Yugi bolted, almost fell herself and when she reached the bottom to clutch at the king Atemu was right behind her.
"Love?" Yugi pawed, pulling the King, moaning and hissing and spitting, onto his back and into Yugi's grasp. "Majesty? Can you stand? Where's the pain?"
"Is he alive?" Atemu hit the bottom step behind her desperately.
"Get the physicians!" Mahado was screaming upon the middle rung.
"Is he alive?" Atemu repeated arms useless at his side, fingers tense, eyes wild.
"Sweetheart," Yugi rushed out the words with the same hysteria, ignoring the prince not out of spite but simply because her whole world had condensed. "Majesty look at me, please Darling, pleas- God he's bleeding! Mahado!" Yugi didn't recognize the sound of her breaking voice as she shrieked. "Mahado!"
Yugi was… she….
She palmed her face nails digging across her scalp into her hair. Her head was ringing, everything was ringing, and… she…
Scattering she took a breath. She swallowed it, pale and stinging she watched the physicians fluster about under her gaze and schooled herself to pay attention lest they miss something. They were wiser here in general than in the West. They lacked a degree of superstition. Their gods believed in the pursuit of sciences and chemicals not as witchcraft but necessity. Mathematics and medicine were rife here more than any pestilence in Britton. Yugi very rarely had to raise her voice to these men.
They were feeling his bones, trying to isolate breaks, stopping the bleeding….
They knew they had to touch a king like they would any other man to keep him breathing. Privacy failed to exist. They stripped him and worked fast, without the pomp of some untrained priest, to strip their sovereign.
Yugi watched, they whispered.
"They need to be cleaner," she rasped eventually to one fumbling back attendant coming with the bandages, "new ones. Go, shoo, find something new."
She didn't sound like herself, stroking the unconscious warlord's hand as she scrunched herself out of the way by his resting head so the men could work.
"Milady," one drew her attention, "the thigh is still bleeding too thick. Shall we cauterize it?"
"Cauterise and set the bone, yes," she nodded dumbly. "Get him something to keep him out though, we'll force it down."
She could go on more about thinning the blood, about the king being too old for the strain and the stress of taking the molten metal while conscious but it would've been unnecessary. These men weren't fools. They knew. Yugi could rasp half a whisper of permission and the rest of the whole thing would be done with her face in her palms.
Mahado was praying Yugi was sure of it.
The court would, however, not be in a shambles. Zarzak, Abraxas, Falker, Seth and the other sons within the city or the palace would be called up to run the men's work. The princes would handle the security. The great wives were still all awake to run the rest. There'd be no panic, everything would function, the responsibility spread out, but for the night who would decide what to do with Atemu and his Western Lady? Where would they sleep? What would Qazzadara want?
Yugi inhaled, another tremor ran up her spine, and she scanned the still breathing clavicle of the king below. The Sultan was still here, his brow still firm under her hand, but this was all draining him greatly, weakening him. Qazzadara couldn't afford such a shudder. He shouldn't have broken so much either. He wouldn't have broken so much ten years ago when he was stronger, younger. He may have shaken this off then.
Yugi patted his face, felt the heat of a stressed body and hummed. He was aching, straining, from an exertion to great. The water in her belly, the tempest, churned flickering to life in the darkened bedroom.
If she…
"We've checked him over?" She whispered, running her tongue along her bottom lip.
"Aye Milady."
"Right," Yugi kissed his brow, pushing herself free of the corner. "Cauterise and be gentle about it. I'll be in the north tower engaged. Send a page in the next hour with how you go."
So many things tumbled, so many things screwed over, her mother's old recommendations, the solstice murmurs, the supplies on hand, plans, remedies, insurances, temptation, hunger…
Yugi was half in her head, half mad, with purpose when she clunked clumsily into the hallway.
She wasn't expecting Atemu there, against the wall, waiting with the guard.
He had that look about him, gaunt under the eyes, as if he might pounce and maul any man foolish enough to cross his line of sight. It registered on some level that he existed, filling the space but Yugi didn't focus upon him. Her mind erased notice of him in a second till she hadn't seen him at all. Yugi walked right past him in the other direction, didn't even hear him calling out till the Prince lunged after her and grasped her arm.
"How is it?" He demanded.
"I don't know," Yugi tugged her arm, uncaring and unfocused. She didn't have time for Atemu. She was seething, croaking. The water was rising inside drowning everything else out. "You'll know more in the morning Majesty."
He did not let go, fingers digging into the skin above her elbow where the Sultan often grasped for support.
"Was he badly hurt?" Atemu pressed. "Will he live?"
"I don't know." Yugi wrenched harder, still lost in a haze of stinging synapses, her insides sizzling. "Off me now," she murmured tense, "I have to go. I am one of his physicians and the blood is still flowing. I need to attend to this. Let me go work."
She struggled once more, Atemu dug in and like a bear trap refused to let her loose. He took both of Yugi's arms and hefted her nearly off her feet. His hands hot, smooth, the fire inside him rippled in the tension of his jaw.
"Answer me." He rattled under his breath. "Is my father alright?"
"He's old, he's hurt. He's fighting." Yugi squirmed, increasingly clipped in her own sense of impending disaster. She was losing moments while the Sultan gasped at air. The prince and his face only reminded her bitterly of the how the world might unravel if she did not drag her chosen sovereign through the dark hours before dawn. Death was hungry round them. "Now let me go or he'll perish. Let me go help. You want me useless?"
Atemu shook her once, earrings clapping against her neck, growled and hushed her with the hoarseness of his own whisper.
"What should I do?" He ordered though it was such a bizarre, twisted, thing for he of all people to demand of Yugi now.
"I don't know!" Yugi croaked viciously though the effect was only to make her sound smaller. "I don't know! I don't know! Let go!"
She sounded petulant, she sounded wild, and turbulent Yugi barely seemed to cuff the Prince's face with her eyes. She couldn't make his image out, she was too entrenched in a thought and a plan and a hope that tumbled out of her control. Her insides were knotting with whispers. Her patience wrought, fear rising, she was too exhausted for Atemu or for this. Her feet were screaming to move and every moment of pause itched her to frenzy. The north tower was wailing silently and Qazzadara's ticking heart was...
Atemu growled, frustrated no doubt and hurting somewhere Yugi suspected from the crack in his octaves. Her arms shook loose finally, shoulders rolling out of his grip and Yugi pushed at his upper arm as she passed till with clinking feet Yugi broke into a run towards the tower despite herself. Atemu's pausing her had sent her into some sense of inflamed crisis and made the whole thing worse.
For the length and breadth of the following three days the witch scattered entirely out of sight, evaporated like the morning fog. While from the windows Atemu spied some shadow of Mahado moving between the temple shrines and the holy alcoves during the afternoons, on a constant vigil of prayer, Atemu had seen no sign of the white witch since she'd disappeared to her nest.
Court ran on, tripping forward with the usual business, and Atemu had no power yet to run it himself while Mahado was present.
There'd be no decision on his marriage now till something changed. Though… truthfully Atemu went long hours without remembering Anzu at the docks in their little crown a night room.
Kisara and Mana'jet held dinner, ordered dances, tried to keep the praying and the murmuring about the Sultan supressed. Good energy or something of the sort was what they aspired to create. Apparently the white witch thought peace and calm across the house helped aid restoration. Atemu didn't know the particulars of her theory, her mysticism, but he disliked it. They ought to be panicking.
Mahado did not come to eat but Sesset dispensed a page to take him food.
As Atemu sat amongst his brothers along the high table, beside his father's empty seat, he tried to make out some of Kisara and Mana's conversation down the table.
"She has to eat," Mana rasped to a page who'd been ferrying back and forth from the outlying towers and the king's rooms where the witch had evidently been hiding. "Tell her she must come down and we'll send no more food."
"Mana," Kisara cawed quietly.
"I must," she grunted back. "I must see how pale she is. She'll run herself to death. Who knows what hours she's kept? The physicians lost track of her coming and going with herbs. I've seen the crown prince, I know he'll last a few more days before falling into a bed too but-"
Seth slapped Atemu's side, distracted him, and drawn away he missed the last of it.
"Anything from the clerics?" His younger brother murmured straight faced however badly it suited him to be so.
"Father's settled," Atemu sighed warily, "but though they've got him eating and laced up they tell me he's not much improved yet. They assure me they were thorough but every hour is something new, it's all slow, fresh…"
"Damn everything," Seth slumped. "So Yugi is off working for better results I suppose?"
"I wouldn't know," Atemu cocked his chin, fingers tapping. "Who knows what she'll do."
"She's kept the King alive this long," Seth muffled. "Summers ago the head clerics used to say Father wouldn't last the week out before they bought Yugi from the dock-"
"I know, I know," he raised his hand petitioning the other to cease. It drove him to sick distraction to seem them all so enamoured, so trusting, of the dirty little foundling who, for all Atemu knew, was off singing lullaby's to the devil to buy his father another year of life. The moral turf war it caused inside him was unbearable.
In seven days the King was no better. He seemed to be slipping, he moaned in bed half awake and wouldn't rise. He seemed weak. He seemed no better even as they fed him more. He wouldn't speak much. They feared the worst.
When Atemu arrived to visit the Sultan Mahado and half the council had only just left for the morning meal. They'd been whispering and, evidently still able to grunt warily, the Sultan had given them something to go with, some scrap, after their meeting with him. Whatever instructions Qazzadara still had strength to issue Atemu didn't care. He was too hot inside to think of walls, wars and politics. His father, his great noble father…
The people were strange here, they prayed to the wrong gods and seemed so much duller, so much more savage, then when he was a child but Atemu still… of course he still… he just… He swallowed.
"The Gem Faher?" He asked of a guard by the latched doors.
"The Lady is not in Majesty," came the thickly slurred answer, "she has left to return again this afternoon."
"Good," Atemu sighed.
So the witch was still riled, fretting. After turning about his Majesty's health so swiftly in those first months five seasons ago was she useless now? Had she run her mile? Run out of chants and blood to trade off? In a way Atemu hoped so. He couldn't fathom how she had kept the king here so long already but the enchantment that had fallen over the house after…
It didn't matter today in the midmorning heat. Today Qazzadaa was close, tripping the edge, and Atemu was trying to console his breath to something calmer.
1 I'm using 'British' here in the same way we'd say the 'English language'
2 I'd like to warn you that Atemu's translation of Gem Faher could be biased and incomplete.
3 When Yugi arrived at court she originally worked as a kind of 'specialist physician' for the Sultan five years ago when his health was poor (he was seventy-five then, eighty now). Atemu has been an ambassador in Britton for three years. As we've heard his father sent him off hoping a look at other cultures would chill Atemu out.
4 What exactly is Yugi doing up in those towers to help the Sultan? Could Atemu actually be onto something? Nah…
Next Time: Atemu seeks a blessing but delivers a warning, Yugi is lured into a dance with the enemy, while Mahado advises on the best ways to avoid executions, farmers and furious princes.
