Hope Renewed by David Drake, S.M. Stirling Read Free Book Online Page B

“he’s not here for gold. He’s here for blood. He’s . . . he’s not going to be bought off. You have to see him—”
    ali would agree to the increased tribute, but remain on civil government soil, probability 97%, ±2. observe, said Center.

    “Filth!” Ali screamed. He strode through the pavilions, kicking over platters filled with whole roast lambs, rice pillaus, fruits, and ices. “You call this a feast of welcome! Filth!”
    The syndics of the town shrank backward, looking around with the instinctive gesture of men in a trap with no exit.
    “That pig Barholm, that two-dinar Descotter hill chief who calls himself a conqueror, it isn’t enough he makes me wait for my tribute, but he insults me too.”
    Ali stopped, smiled, relaxed. The expression was far more frightening than the bloodthirsty madness of a minute before.
    “Well then, we’ll have to show the kaphar what it means to insult the Commander of the Faithful, won’t we?” he went on.
    He eyed the assembled syndics with much the same expression that a farmwife would have, standing in the yard and fingering her knife as she selected a stewing pullet.
    observe:
    A younger Ali knelt behind a girl. Gardens bloomed around them, thick with flowers and softly murmurous with bees; the stars shone above, the only light on the rippling water of the fountain save for a few discreet lanterns. Ali had a hand on the girl’s neck, pushing her face below the surface of the water as he thrust into her. He let her rise for an instant, long enough to take one breath and scream.
    It bubbled out as he pushed her down again. Her hands beat against the marble of the pool’s rim, leaving bloody streaks on the carved stone.
    observe:
    Ali sat at a chessboard, across from a grave white-bearded man. The pieces were carved from sauroid ivory and black jadeite; they played seated on cushions of cloth-of-gold, beneath a fretted bronze pergola that served as support for a huge vine of sambuca jasmine. A slender girl naked except for the filmy veil that hid half her face poured cut-crystal goblets full of iced sherbert. Droplets of condensation stood out on the silver ewer.
    “Checkmate, Prince of the Faithful,” the older man said. “Congratulations. This is your best game yet.”
    Ali looked down at the chessboard, his lips moving as he traced out the possible movements. When he moved, it was so swiftly that the serving girl had time for only the beginning of a scream.
    His hand grasped the cadi ’s white beard, and the dagger slashed it across. He threw the tuft of hair in the older man’s face.
    “Sauroid-lover,” he screamed. “You dare to insult me?”
    The old man drew himself up. “You forget yourself, Ali,” he said. “I am appointed by the Settler to guide your footsteps. You must learn restraint—”
    Ali moved again, very quickly. The curved dagger in his hand was hilted with silver and pearls, but the blade was layer-forged Sinnar steel, sharp enough to part a drifting silk thread. It sliced more than halfway through the cadi ’s throat. The old man turned, his blood arching out in a spraying stream of red across the priceless silk of the cushions and the white body of the girl. Ali stood silent, panting, watching the body tumble down the alabaster steps of the gazebo. Then he turned toward the servant, smiling. Blood ran down his mustaches, and speckled his lips.
    observe:
    Ali sat on the Peacock Throne of the Settlers, in a vaulted room whose ceiling was an intertwining mass of calligraphy picked out in gold, the thousand and one names of Allah, the Merciful, the Lovingkind. From a glass bull’s-eye at the apex, light streamed down, mellow and gold, to the tessellated marble floor. Guards stood motionless around the walls of the great circular chamber. Others dragged a man forward; he was stripped to his baggy pantaloons, a hard-muscled man in his thirties with a close-cropped beard and a great beak of a nose.
    “Greetings, Akbar my brother,” Ali