Hypatia
It was only after filling Younos up with sweet wine, cheese and dates that Hypatia broached the subject of his clandestine studies of the paranormal. Spirits were a good way to get young Younos to talk in a manner that was less than circumspect.
“Are you training in the old magic, brother?” she asked him, deciding that a direct approach was for the better.
He looked shocked at her question, but his guard wasn’t completely up, as he was tending to inebriation.
“Where did you get that idea, Adelphe?’ he said.
“I’ve looked at your scrolls, Younos,” she said, simply.
He started, and then was lost in thought for a moment.
“I know you practice magic, but I want to know what your designs are, brother?” she said.
He had a look that Arabian horses often got when they sighted packs of jackals in the desert. It was a look of panic mixed with determination.
“You entered my room?” he said.
“This is my house, brother,” she said, keeping her voice even but very dangerous.
Younos understood veiled threats, so he towed her line just then.
“Okay, okay,” he said, making a conciliatory gesture with his palms. “I’ll tell you about those scrolls, Adelphe.”
She nodded.
“I have been spending all my dinars on obtaining a certain strand of magic all these years,” he said.
“What strand would that be?” she said.
“It is called Inanna’s charm,” he said simply, and then looked down at his feet.
She gasped. Inanna was the ancient Sumerian goddess of love. Love, not marriage. She was particularly known as the goddess of extramarital liaisons and sensual affairs. The goddess herself was supposed to prowl the streets and taverns in search of carnal adventures. Inanna’s charm was a mystical amulet that endowed the owner with infinite sexual potency and a hypnotic hold over whomsoever he or she desired. Younos was blushing after admitting this. No wonder.
“Younos!” she said. Her tone was a mixture of consternation, condemnation and admiration. Consternation, for she hadn’t expected that to be his target. Condemnation, for he appeared to be frittering away good money over something that was probably only a myth. Admiration, because he had backed his ribald ambition with everything he materially owned. “What have you been doing with your life!”
It was a rhetorical question. He stayed silent for a moment. Then he went on.
“Adelphe, I mean to accomplish it,” he said.
Why? Why this? She saw no point in asking him out loud. Of course, her brother was always ogling pretty girls, and his baby face didn’t really make him a much sought after suitor among the opposite sex. That could be one reason. He was always looking at girls but never sleeping with them.
She wondered whether she should talk to a lovely Arabian prostitute she knew about ‘helping’ her brother with his confidence. The girl was known for her succulent breasts, and even had people in the Sultana’s court as her clients. She decided against it. She had to learn more about his progress in the mystical arts.
Mediha
The assassin had not been apprehended. She had vanished entirely into the secret labyrinth that played secret mistress to the palace’s vast halls and bedchambers. Princess Mediha realized that whoever had tried to drown her knew the palace catacombs intimately. She also had her suspicions as to who instigated her assassination plot.
The Nubian bitch was at the center of her web of suspicions. The assassin had been female, and she had been a few inches shorter than the Nubian, but she could have been hired by her. Alternatively, it was entirely possible that her own impressions during the brief and violent struggle with the assassin were mistaken, and that the woman who had attacked her was indeed Tuya, but her memory betrayed her presently. She did not know the truth of it, but her conviction that Tuya deserved to die grew by the minute.
Her scimitar was gripped in her hand, and the princess paced her bedchamber, turning thoughts over in her mind. She had sent several of her personal guard to look for Tuya, after giving them a detailed description. She had issued orders that Tuya be dragged to her chambers alive. She must be alive, so that she could mete out her justice personally. There were only five more days to the end of the month, when she left this palace for good in order to accompany her Nubian prince into a foreign land and into a new life, and she wanted to anoint her new life with the blood of the Nubian bitch.
Habiba, one of her guard, returned presently. She was Arab and stood a good six feet in height, with an absolutely erect posture and powerful shoulders and arms, great breasts that hid behind her bronze armor, and muscular thighs and hips that could easily be employed to crush an opponent in unarmed combat. She removed her bronze helmet and saluted the princess.
“A woman of that description was found several miles from the palace, my princess,” she said, meeting the princess’s gaze.
Habiba was a proud warrior. She didn’t bend the knee to anyone except the Sultana, and Mediha felt trepidation and an equal amount of glee in ordering her around. She maintained eye contact, knowing the rules of the game of dominance. Mediha wondered at the irony of her name. Habiba meant ‘darling’ in Arabic, while Habiba was nobody’s darling, except perhaps her birth mother’s. Still, the princess couldn’t bring herself to associate her guard with anything feminine, given her mien and her attitude.
“Bring her to me immediately,” she said, keeping her voice sharp, and making sure Habiba understood who was boss here. She felt glad inside. The Nubian bitch was finally hers, after two days of waiting and enduring. The fruit of patience is indeed sweet, as went the ancient saying.
“Drag her into my presence,” she said.
Her mother was still unaware of her actions.
The true desire for vengeance is a cold and spine chilling affair. It is a far cry from the passionate and hot idea of vengeance that much of the world entertains. Princess Mediha’s desire was more the latter. It wasn’t the calculated vengeance of someone who has planned for years to have delivered cold comeuppance. It was rather a royal hothead making plans while she was driven by her naturally passionate nature.