Papa, I don’t …”
“Ache ve’rach!” The mangled sounds were anguished, imperative.
Jehane hurtled from her chair and dropped to her knees on the carpet at her father’s feet. She seized one of his hands and felt, for the first time in four years, his firm strong grasp as he squeezed her fingers tightly.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry! Again, please. I don’t understand!” She felt frantic, heartbroken. He was trying to speak clearly, his whole body twisting with effort and frustration.
“Ve’rach! Ve’rach!” His grip was fierce, willing her comprehension, as if sheer intensity could make the tragically distorted words intelligible.
“He is telling you to take your servant Velaz with you, Jehane. Under the circumstances, a wise suggestion.”
Jehane wheeled as if stabbed, springing to her feet as she turned to the window. Then she froze. She could feel the blood leave her face.
Sitting sideways on the broad window ledge, regarding them calmly, knees bent and both hands wrapped around them, was Ammar ibn Khairan. And of course if he was here they were already lost, because with him he would have brought—
“I am alone, Jehane. I don’t like the Muwardis.”
She fought for control. “No? You just let them do your killing for you? What does liking have to do with it? How did you get here? Where is—” She stopped herself just in time.
It didn’t seem to matter. “Husari ibn Musa should be approaching the Kindath Gates just about now. He’s dressed as a wadji, if you can imagine it. An eccentric disguise, I’d say. It’s a good thing Velaz is there to vouch for him or they’d never let him in.” He smiled, but there was something odd about his eyes. He said, “You have no reason to believe me, but I had nothing to do with what happened this afternoon. Neither did the prince.”
“Hah!” Jehane said. The most sophisticated rejoinder she could manage for the moment.
He smiled again. This time it was an expression she remembered from the morning. “I am duly refuted, I suppose. Shall I fall out of the window now?”
And just then, for Jehane the most utterly unexpected event of an appalling day took place. She heard a gasping, strangled noise behind her and turned, terrified.
To realize, after a moment, that what she was hearing was her father’s laughter.
Ammar ibn Khairan swung neatly down from the window and landed softly on the carpeted floor. He walked past Jehane and stood before her father’s heavy chair.
“Ishak,” he said gently.
“Ammar,” her father said, almost clearly.
The murderer of the last khalif of Al-Rassan knelt before him. “I had hoped you might remember my voice,” he said. “Will you accept apologies, Ishak? I ought to have been here long ago, and certainly not in this fashion, shocking your daughter and without leave of your wife.”
Ishak reached out a hand by way of reply, and ibn Khairan took it. He had removed his gloves and rings. Jehane was too stunned to even begin to formulate her thoughts.
“Muwaari? Wha happ?”
Ibn Khairan’s voice was grave. “Almalik is a subtle man, as I think you know. He wanted Fezana quelled, obviously. He also seems to have had a message for the prince.” He paused. “And another for me.”
Jehane found her voice. “You really didn’t know about this?”
“I wouldn’t bother lying to you,” Ammar ibn Khairan said precisely, without even looking at her.
Flushing, Jehane realized that it was, of course, quite true. Why would he care what she thought? But in that case, there was another obvious question, and she wasn’t especially inclined to accept rebukes from men who climbed in through the windows of their home: “What are you doing here then?”
This time he did turn. “Two reasons. You ought to be able to guess at one of them.” Out of the corner of her eye Jehane saw her father slowly nodding his head.
“Forgive me, I’m not disposed to play at guessing games just now.” She tried to make it sting.
Ibn Khairan’s expression was unruffled. “It isn’t a game, Jehane. I’m here to ensure that Husari ibn Musa is not killed by the Muwardis this evening, and that the physician, more brave than intelligent perhaps, who is assisting him to escape, is likewise enabled to live beyond tonight.”
Jehane felt suddenly cold. “They are coming for him, then?”
“Of course they are coming for him. The list of invited guests was known, and some of the Muwardis can read. They were instructed to execute every man on that list. Do you think they’d forgo the pleasure of killing even one, or risk Almalik’s reaction to failure?”
“They’ll go to his house?”
“If they aren’t there by now. Which is why I went before them. Husari had already left, with Velaz. The servants and slaves had been sent to their quarters, except the steward, who was evidently trusted. A mistake. I demanded of him where his master was and he told me he’d just left, disguised as a wadji, with the Kindath doctor’s servant.”
She had been cold before; she was as ice now.
“So he will tell the Muwardis?”
“I don’t think so,” said Ammar ibn Khairan.
There was a silence. It was not a game at all.
“You killed him,” said Jehane.
“A disloyal servant,” said ibn Khairan, shaking his head. “A melancholy indication of the times in which we live.”
“Why, Ammar?” Ishak’s question this time was astonishingly clear, but it might mean many things.
This time ibn Khairan hesitated before answering. Jehane, watching closely, saw that odd expression in his face again.
He said, choosing his words, “I already carry a name through the world for something I did in my youth for Almalik of Cartada. I can live with that. Rightly or wrongly, I did it. I am … disinclined to accept the responsibility for this obscene slaughter—as he clearly intends it to fall upon me. Almalik has his reasons. I can even understand them. But at this point in my life I do not choose to indulge them. I also found Husari ibn Musa to be a clever, unassuming man and I admired your daughter’s … competence and spirit. Say that it … pleases me to be on the side of virtue, for once.”
Ishak was shaking his head. “More, Ammar,” he said, the sounds labored, dragging a little.
Again ibn Khairan hesitated. “There is always more to what a man does, ben Yonannon. Will you permit me the grace of privacy? I will be leaving Fezana myself tonight, by my own means and in my own direction. In time my motives may become clearer.”
He turned to Jehane, and she saw by the candle and the light coming in through the window that his eyes were still altered and cold. He had said enough, though;
