Well, kings had also died in that manner.
He regarded her curiously, little threat in his expression. From this close—if they both reached out to the span of their arms they could have taken each other’s hands—she could see the bushy, aggressive curve of his eyebrows, the way the wiry hair had been combed out to accentuate the chipped-looking edge on his nose.
“Raise your visor,” he said. “Wizard Samarkar.”
Swallowing, she hooked her thumbs under the edge and raised it. The cool air that rushed in allowed her to breathe more easily, but the constriction of her chest counteracted that.
The caliph looked at her frankly, curiously—but briefly, before averting his eyes. “If you would be more comfortable,” he said, “you may remove the helm. I promise to respect your modesty.”
“Excellency,” Samarkar muttered. A suggestion from a king was no such thing, and so she lowered her chin and fumbled with the buckles that Temur had fastened for her. She lifted the helm off, feeling strands that had worked loose from her braid lift and pull with it. The bone-dry air that tickled her scalp was not cool, but it evaporated the lingering sweat enough to seem so. The caliph kept his eyes averted. Just as well; Samarkar had no illusions that she was currently impersonating a ravishing beauty.
He gestured to the daybeds. “Sit and drink with me.”
Samarkar steeled herself—and if he did make a direct proposition, what then?—but he settled himself across from her, on the other divan. He indicated with a hand jeweled only by two tasteful rings that she should pour. She blinked; of course he would not serve her with his own hands. But she had not been searched and could have any venom at all pressed between her fingers or slipped up her sleeve. The caliph was either exceedingly foolish or exceedingly brave, and foolish men did not usually live into their seventh decade—at a guess—still as reigning kings.
She poured the caliph his own wine, unwatered this time. She set a glass before him. He raised it, toasted her silently with his eyes still cast politely to one side, and drank a healthy swallow. He took a grape and popped it into his mouth, closing his eyes in pleasure as he chewed.
“There,” he said, putting the glass down again precisely, turning it with his fingertips so the square-trimmed base aligned with the tiles of the tabletop. Samarkar had barely touched her lips with hers. “We have shared a meal, and you are a guest in my house. Does that assure you that you will come to no harm at my hands today, Wizard Samarkar?”
He was working to disarm her—and succeeding. But Samarkar bowed her head in something that could be interpreted as a complaisant nod.
The caliph said, “It would be best if your armor were in some disarray when you left, good wizard.”
She felt her smile press the edge of the glass she had raised again to her lips as if enjoying the aroma of the wine. In truth it was very fine, but not fine enough to be worth letting her guard down. “So,” she answered, discarding the glass on the low table, “this is a stratagem.”
“We are who we are,” the caliph answered. “Would it be possible for there to be anything else between us?”
Now she let him see the smile in full. “I doubt I would be to your taste,” she said. “Not when you have your pick of perfumed harem girls.”
“There is more to worthy womanhood than perfume,” he replied, undaunted. He settled himself against the back of the divan and crossed one long leg over the other. “Ysmat of the Beads is not said to have been known for her beauty. And yet she is renowned above all women.”
Samarkar turned her wineglass again. “Is that blasphemy, your serene Excellency?”
His teeth glittered in his beard. “Perhaps a little. But yes, this is a stratagem. My advisors will be certain of it, but—as in so many things—in this it is the appearance of the thing that matters.”
“And so, wine in the afternoon and the appearance of an assignation.”
“Drink deep,” he said. “You should have it on your breath when you leave.”
She obeyed. Three savoring swallows, and then she set the glass down again. She needed a clear head, not one wine-muddled.
“You sent us away.”
“I did that.”
“What if I could offer you Asmaracanda back? Not for troops, your Excellency, nor any monetary support. But merely in return for the acknowledgment of Re Temur as Temur Khan, as a rightful claimant to the Khaganate.”
“Not even Temur Khagan?” the caliph asked. “Just Khan?”
“I thought I was pushing to get you past Khanzadeh,” she admitted artlessly, with all her art behind it.