The Wings of Ashtaroth

Chapter 6: Visitors: Section IV: Uta

If Uta hadn't been in fear for her life, she'd have spit in his face at that slur. The Qelebet, Qemassen's poorest neighbourhood. Dog's Home.

It was also where the street Samelqo's niece had burned to the ground stood.

The woman cocked her head at her colleague. "Was that necessary, Bo?" She turned worried eyes toward Uta. "If she's who she claims, she could have you whipped."

Bo grinned. "We're not on the streets now. We're in the palace. I give it three days before we're sipping lotus tea on gold cushions and getting our cocks sucked by nubile slave girls."

Uta cleared her throat and the two officers regarded her with irritation. "I'll have both your names for that. Adoran eq-Afqad knows me. He is still your captain, isn't he? Or do you work for the heq-Damirat now?"

Bo snarled like he might spit on Uta himself, but the woman stayed him with a hand on his shoulder. "Taliq et-Afqat and Boyan eq-Boyas."

Good. At least Taliq had answered, though she'd left off the honorific Uta was due. "Call out to the heq-Damirat again, please. I don't believe she heard you."

Taliq banged harder on the door. "There's a woman here says she's the heq-Ashqen's wife!"

Uta covered her ears at the officer's abrasive voice.

The door opened.

Himalit et-Moniqa reached between the two officers and seized Uta by her shoulder. The heq-Damirat hauled her into the room and the doors thudded shut behind them.

The heq-Damirat's fingers pinched hard as an animal's bite. Royal hands hard on her flesh—the most attention any of the royal family had paid her for twenty years. Fear coiled like a snake at Uta's breast, but she strangled it: she wasn't a slave anymore. According to Himalit's own rules, Uta was a person of import.

Uta's attention was drawn immediately to Madaula, huddled in the corner behind Samelqo's desk. Her cheeks were smeared with black where her tears had carved rivers of smudged kohl. Her brown curls had been torn from their binding as though someone had grabbed her by her hair and pulled.

Violence burned in Uta's belly. Madaula was a sweet, even-tempered girl, and she'd had absolutely nothing to do with any harm that had come to Himalit's bratty sons.

Samelqo stood in the middle of the room, drawn up to his full height. "Unhand my wife," he said, but Himalit did not unhand her.

"Your wife, is she? Not your slave?" Himalit's grip on Uta's shoulder tightened and Uta sucked her teeth. "Do you have documents to prove it?"

Samelqo scowled. As he stalked toward his desk, his black, embroidered robe twirled. "Of course I have documents! Do you think me incompetent?" He shuffled some papyri around. "Uta—find me the documents!"

When Himalit et-Moniqa made no move to release her, Uta tore her shoulder away. She brushed past the heq-Damirat with an air of confidence only made possible by her anger at Madaula's shattered expression.

"Your reports are always inadequate," the heq-Damirat bit back, as though this bizarre argument over who was a worse administrator was of dire consequence to anyone but themselves. "You have a propensity for embellishment."

"I have a propensity," Samelqo insisted, "for reporting necessary detail to my king. Your sparseness has left him in want of crucial information more than once."

"You actually believe my father reads anything you give him? I'm the one suffering through your tedious verbosity."

This was rather a lot like watching a cat attack its own reflection, and Uta had little patience for it. Perhaps, like cats, they ought to be drowned.