King of the Red Sand Sea

The dining terrace in the palace overlooked the gardens. Pastel pillars of sun-warmed granite framed the mid-day sky. The meal was grilled quail. Glazed in date syrup. Along with flatbread topped with cheese and spices. Honeyed wine had been chilled at the top of the mountain and brought down for our lunch. I wondered how often the servants had died making that trip so that our wine stayed cold. Of course, I wouldn't hear about it. Royalty wasn't interested in the details.

Kareem wasn't just gloating. He'd begun to reenact what Father had told him He leaned forward, a cruel smile on his face. "And the way he shrieked for his sister" His voice pitched high. "'Dalia, oh Dalia!'" He laughed. "As if some slum vermin's name mattered. Father, the tormentor did well. The lash that took his eye was a masterstroke of unintentional artistry."

 The King gave a slight, approving nod. My older brother, in the middle of lifting a piece of flatbread, tightened his eyes and blanched sightly. He set down the bread and pushed his plate away slightly. He refocused on the condensation outside his wine goblet.

I wasn't able to remain silent. "It's strange, brother. One of the scrolls, now gone, mentioned the Desert Starsuckle as a specific remedy for the lung fever."

I did try to avoid being accusatory. But Kareem saw it for a challenge. Which as a matter of fact, it was. His smile tightened. He fired back: "Details are irrelevant. He was a thief." He then turns the threat directly on her. "Are you questioning the King's judgment? Or do you perhaps harbor sympathy for criminals who threaten the Royal House?" Father's hearing wasn't great but Kareem had put in the extra volume to make sure he heard.

Father dabbed his lips with a sparkling white napkin. "The flower is for the enjoyment of the late Queen's family. To suggest her flower is merely medicine is an insult to her memory and to me. The boy was a pest. Kareem is correct." He looked at me with a cold gaze. "The matter is closed, Aliya." He returned to trimming the fat from a piece of quail with his knife.

The conversation was dead.

Akram seemed to have tuned it out, tracing patterns in the condensation. Kareem sneered at me. Akram's hand tightened, and another flicker of genuine distaste crossed his face before it was again masked by his usual boredom.

A servant came to refill our goblets. Kareem pointed at him: "Twenty lashes if you interrupt our meal again." The young servant froze and went pale. No objection from Father.

I couldn't stand it. "Please excuse me, Father. I'm not feeling so well." I headed back to my room. I remembered the boy and girl from my outing to the marketplace trying to show Smora that at least someone in the Royal Family cared for her. Dalia definitely seemed sick. They had punished Nadim for stealing a flower, but the story didn't fit. If I was to survive this family, I had to understand the forces moving beneath the surface. I had to know if his act was one of simple desperation, or if there was more too it.

Rather than going back to my room, or to the Royal Physician's chambers, I decide to go to the servant's infirmary. Father had replaced Elias with a sycophant, but the servant's physician, was another matter.

I walked quietly into the dim room. Ancient Smora was here near the door. Her red eyes remained steady. I dropped to one knee near her cot. "How are you?" She had to remain on her side or belly so that the bandages could be changed. She couldn't have weight on those wounds.

"Better, Princess."

I pushed her a stray batch of hairs aside from her forehead.

"My wounds are not going to heal so fast as when I was your age, but Ishra is taking care of me. Eventually I'll be able to return to your service."

I gasped slightly. "Don't even think about serving anyone. Take whatever time you need to get well. Are your bandages clean? Do you need anything?"

"No, Your Highness, I don't need anything. The linens are clean. Ishra, he's been very careful."

"I'm glad." I squeezed her hand.

"Who's disturbing my patient!? She needs her rest!" The angry voice came from around the corner.

Around the corner came a young man. No older than Kareem. The moment he saw me his eyes got wide.

"Your Highness!" He fell to his knees. "My utmost apologies. I didn't realize it was you. Please forgive my disrespect."

I grabbed his shoulder to pull him up. "How is the patient?"

"Princess." he quavered. "Thank you for your visit. Your concern is noted. The servant will recover." No pleasantries. 

I had to reassure him. "Your technique is meticulous." I watched as he adjusted Smora's pillow with such gentleness that it seemed the anger in his voice moments before had been a mirage. He moved like a weaver tending a precious thread, his hands communicating a respect that his words could not. "You learned from the best."

"Master Elias taught that care is a form of precision, Princess."

He stiffened, but I thought I saw pride flicker in his eyes. "Master Elias taught that care is a form of precision, Princess."

Ishra had recently started as Elias' apprentice, now relegated from Palace Physician in training down to de facto servant's physician.

Now down to business. "A boy was flogged in the marketplace... Kareem spoke of it. He stole Desert Starsuckle for the lung fever." I watched Ishra's face for any reaction.

Ishra didn't look me in the eye. He busied himself applying a new poultice to Smora's back. His tone was perfectly flat. "The fever takes many in the slums. The Royal Flower is not for them."

His distrust was very understandable, but this kind of relationship wouldn't work. We needed each other, I had to go out on a limb. "Prince Kareem sees a thief who got what he deserved. My father sees a dishonor to a memory. They are both blind. They see a flower, but he also stole the seeds. Why? What use are the seeds?"

Ishra crossed his arms as he looked at me. He was loyal to Elias's memory but cautious. "Princess, I do not know. I recall the Master's work on Desert Starsuckle focused entirely on the curative properties of the blossoms and buds. I do not recall anything about the seeds. Why would he want them?" Then he stopped. "To even ask such questions is dangerous. The Master's library was declared clutter and destroyed. Why would you seek knowledge that the King has deemed worthless?"

"Because my family is steering this city into a storm, and they have thrown the charts overboard. Because competence is punished and cruelty is rewarded. Because a starving boy with a plan for the future is the only rational thing I have seen all year. I need to know if I am wrong."

He stood motionless for what seemed an eternity. I waited him out. "I still have my practice copies... the texts I transcribed to learn his methods. Perhaps the answer is there."

I spent the next hour scrutinizing Ishra's neat but artless practice scrolls as the young man went back to his business. There was no reference to any use for the seeds. The answer wasn't in the scrolls. The answer was the absence of the seeds in the scrolls. Elias, the most thorough man in the kingdom, found no use for the seeds. So why steal them? Unless their use wasn't medicinal... but strategic. A man who steals blossoms is desperate. He needs a cure for today. A man who steals seeds... he is planning for a tomorrow. He was not just trying to save one life. He was trying to save the future. Nadim wasn't just a victim; he was a thinker, a planner. And Dalia was the reason for his sacrifice.

The idea that a low-born, starving boy acted with more strategy and courage than anyone in my family was a lifeline. Goodness and competence still existed in my city. How could I have done nothing for that poor girl than told her to go home and get well?

I had no money of my own since women were not allowed to handle coins. I wasn't even allowed to leave the palace. I was trapped.

Just as when I went out to show Smora my support, I went to my only option.

The palace aviary had all kinds of beautiful birds in it. Akram happened to be admiring a fan-tail. 

I wasted to time getting my point. "I need to get out of the palace. Tonight. And I need coin."

Akram scoffed. "More theatrics? The novelty is wearing thin, little sister. What are we taking risks for, exactly?"

"Risk? The risk was Kareem's performance at the table. Did you not find it... unseemly? He sounded like a marketplace brawler, gloating over a crippled boy. He has no grace. He makes our family look vulgar, brutish. Father may see it as strength, but it is an ugly, noisy kind of strength. It is an embarrassment."

 Akram slumped. "Kareem has always been a hammer."

 "Exactly. And a hammer sees every problem as something to smash. He smashed that boy in the public square and made a spectacle. I understand that he even screamed 'Dalia' during the whipping. The girl is no longer just a random child, she's a loose thread." I let that sink in.

 Then I continued. "What happens to loose threads, Akram? They get pulled. If she dies of fever, perhaps the story dies with her. But what if she lives? What if some rebellious Elder in the city decides to make her their martyr? Kareem has created a symbol of our injustice. That is a political headache. It's a future problem that will require meetings, guards, pronouncements... effort. It will disrupt the peace."

Akram winced at the thought of tedious council meetings and security briefings that would surely follow. Peace, to him, was the absence of agenda items.

"Or," I circled back to the point. "Or... a few coins I know you won't miss, and an hour's distraction. And the problem goes away."

He gave a slow nod and reached into a small pouch, producing a few heavy coins. "An hour's distraction at the Old Gate. That's all I can promise," he says. "Do not be caught, Aliya."