Читать «Rulers of the Darkness (хвв-4)» онлайн - страница 49

He went on, "The second reason is even more compelling: so far as I know, we haven't got any clothes here. I have this style and that- short tunics and long ones and kilts and trousers and who knows what useless fripperies- in a closet next to my office down in the city, but I don't need to bother with such foreign nonsense in my own home."

"If you're feeling chilly, it isn't nonsense," Kolthoum said. "I'm sure we could have a maidservant fix you something out of a blanket or curtains or whatever would suit you."

"I'm fine," Hajjaj insisted. His senior wife looked eloquently unconvinced, but stopped arguing. One of the reasons they'd got on so well for so long was that they'd learned not to push each other too far.

Tewfik, the majordomo, walked into the chamber where they were sitting. Next to him, Hajjaj truly wasn't so old as all that: Tewfik had served his father before him. Bowing, the clan retainer said, "Sorry to disturb you, lad" -he was the only man Hajjaj knew who could call him that- "but a messenger from the palace just brought you this." He handed Hajjaj a roll of paper sealed with King Shazli's seal.

"I thank you, Tewfik," Hajjaj replied, and the majordomo bowed again. Hajjaj wasn't upset that he hadn't heard the messenger arrive; sheltering behind thick sandstone walls, his home, like any clanfather's, was a compound well on its way to being a little village. He put on his spectacles, broke the royal seal, unrolled the paper, and read.

"Can you speak of it?" Kolthoum asked.

"Oh, aye," he said. "His Majesty summons me to his audience chamber tomorrow morning, that's all."

"But you'd see him tomorrow anyhow," his senior wife observed. "Why does he need to summon you?"

"I don't know," Hajjaj admitted. "By tomorrow morning, though, I should find out, don't you think?"

Kolthoum sighed. "I suppose so." She reached out and patted her husband on the thigh, a gesture having more to do with sympathy than with desire. It had been a long time since they'd made love. Hajjaj couldn't remember just how long, in fact, but their companionship hardly needed physical intimacy anymore. One of these days, he would have to wed a new junior wife if he sought such amusements. Lalla, recently divorced, had been more expensive and more temperamental than she was worth. One of these days. As he neared seventy, lovemaking seemed less urgent than it had a couple of decades earlier.

He fortified himself with strong tea the next morning before his driver took the carriage down from the foothills and into Bishah proper. It hadn't rained lately, which meant the road wasn't muddy. It also wasn't dusty, a more common annoyance.

Men shouted back and forth on the roof of the royal palace. They weren't guards; the Zuwayzin liked King Shazli well. They were roofers: when the rains came, even the royal roof leaked. Unlike his citizens, Shazli didn't have to wait his turn to get things set right.