Interlude

Stranger

The boy was standing in the courtyard and staring at the cracked, sun-baked ground. It was the third day in a row, Yahya noticed. He had seen him before with the other women and children, but always at a distance, behind the protective wall of his tall, proud mother. Her hair was long and her eyes big as moons as they darted from door to door, window to balcony at all times of the day. Yahya, at just six years old, did not have a mother, but he and his sister were well taken care of by the rest of the women. They got to wear fine clothes, got to serve themselves bigger helpings at mealtimes, and they rarely had to do any chores. This boy, however, was even more privileged than he, Yahya had realised. Of all the children, he wore the best clothes. He was served food first, even before the elders and women. And he never lifted a finger, even to fold his own prayer mat. His mother did it for him.

The only other sign of life in the courtyard was a lone olive tree, drooping beneath the high Kufa sun. Yahya could not understand what compelled the boy to stand there in this heat, dressed in all black that too. What was he looking at?

Yahya felt the weight of the emerald talisman around his neck. Without it, he could have easily compelled the boy to tell him what he was doing, even from this distance. But he also knew the pain of taking it off. Drowning in the thoughts and emotions of everyone around him. He decided to try a different approach.

"What are you doing?" he called from the edge of the pillar he had been hiding behind.

The boy's curls bounced as he swivelled his head around. He seemed to notice Yahya but looked back at the fissures in the ground. "Nothing," came his glib reply.

The olive tree twitched from a phantom breeze, daring Yahya to go on. He stepped into the clearing, and immediately cringed as the heat of the blistering earth cut through his thin leather shoes. "Here," he said, pulling out a date from his pocket and offering it to the boy. He glanced at Yahya's hand, then up at his face. For a moment he seemed stunned, perhaps he had never seen someone with grey eyes before.

"I'm not hungry, thanks." He looked back at the ground. He didn't seem annoyed by Yahya's presence, merely disinterested. He had all the time in the world to stare at the ground. One disturbance was not going to change that.

Yahya's fingers clenched in annoyance. He put his hand back into his pocket and pulled something else out. "What about this?"

It was a trinket, a block of wood carved into the shape of a horse. The boy's eyes seemed to glow when he laid eyes on it, and Yahya proffered it to him. When he reached out to take it, their hands inadvertently touched. That was all Yahya needed.

His mouth fell open in surprise, and he looked back at the ground. Suddenly, the random cracks in the scorched earth turned into coherent boundaries, borders, roads, and rivers. "Amazing," he exclaimed, "It's a map of the Caliphate."

The boy's eyes narrowed as he pocketed the toy. "How did you know that?"

Yahya's pulse jumped in his wrist. His father had warned him to hide his ability and be discreet; he had not yet learned the silent art of quiet observation. "My father says I'm very smart," he said, crossing his arms. The boy was not convinced, but he had nothing substantial to accuse him of.

"So, why do you spend so long looking at this imaginary ground-map instead of a paper one?" asked Yahya after a short beat of silence.

The boy continued to gaze at the map. "This one is bigger, I can draw on it, and no one else can see it."

Yahya looked back at the ground. Indeed, there were some scratchings, probably made by a stick, which didn't fit the natural lines.

"Why does it matter if other people can see it?"

The boy blinked. No one had ever asked him such a question. "A great philosopher of the East once said that you should let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, so when you move you can fall like a thunderbolt."

Yahya wondered who this philosopher was, but instead asked "What are your plans?"

"They wouldn't be very dark and impenetrable if I told you, would they?" The boy smiled. "Who are you anyway?"

"Yahya al-Barmaki," he said.

The boy seemed to react to the name. It was hard not to have heard of the Barmakis, especially now.

"Who are you?"

"Rehan ibn Ja'far."

Ja'far... Yahya had heard of such a man from his father. Ja'far al-Mansur, brother of the great revolutionary Al-Saffah. This boy was Al-Mansur's son?

"Well," said Yahya, ever aware of his scorching feet, "I'll leave you to your map, Rehan ibnJa'far."

The boy, Rehan, grew less distant. Sometimes he came out from behind the wall of his mother and joined Yahya and Yasmin to eat. Soon he even mixed with the other children, learned all their names and played their favourite games.

Later they would learn that there was a great battle at the River Zab, and in those few months their fathers had won them the most powerful kingdom in the world.

X

Friend

After the revolution the Abbasid capital moved to Kufa, and Yahya and Rehan did not see each other for several years. Al-Mansur's family kept to themselves, while the Barmakis vied for prominence in the court of Al-Saffah. It was only after Al-Saffah died and Ja'far al-Mansur was named Caliph that they were again reunited. The lone heir needed a watchful and powerful protector whose loyalty remained unquestioned. But the boy, Rehan, merely needed a friend, that friend was found in Yahya al-Barmaki. Al-Mansur and Khalid al-Barmaki saw the boys sitting together one afternoon after the Jummah prayer, and in that scene they saw the future of their great kingdom. From that day the pair were made to sit together in the mosque, to take lessons together in jurisprudence, poetry, mathematics and science. At first Yahya thought this forced proximity was stifling, and the boys frequently broke into spats and fights, but as time passed he realised that the original fascination he had felt the moment he saw Rehan standing in the dusty courtyard alone was still there. After a time, it was no longer their parents who forced them together, but they who desired it. Now Yahya knew why he was placed where he had been, but then, he was just a child, ignorant as any other to the machinations of a court as grand as the Caliphate.

The summer Rehan turned 15, Yahya experienced true fear for the first time. They were in one of the parlours of the new Abbasid royal palace in Rusafa, lounging languidly in the late afternoon, when a messenger came to summon Rehan to his father's study. He glanced at the letter, looked at Yahya and shrugged.

"I'll be back," he said, hopping to his feet and non-chalantly following the messenger out. He returned after more than an hour, his face pale and drawn as if he had seen demons in the flesh.

Yahya jumped up from where he was sitting. "What happened?"

Rehan seemed to recoil at the concern in his friend's voice. He was afraid of being seen by Yahya's power, even though he wasn't close enough to him to be touched.

"My father—the Caliph," he corrected, "has said I'm to go to Khorasan."

Yahya frowned, flipping through mental pages of politics and geography they had studied together. There was a rebellion in Khorasan, not of the Umayyads but of complete secessionists. Rebels who wanted to carve out their own country from the blood and stone of theirs.

Dozens of questions and protests erupted in Yahya's mind at once, and he was certain this distress was showing clearly on his face. "Why you?" he murmured.

"I am the only heir. The people need to know I am strong."

Even as he said it he knew the words didn't belong to Rehan. He stood up, gesticulating. "He's making you prove yourself to the court so they can't propose anyone else as his heir!"

Rehan took a long breath and looked up at the stuccoed ceiling. "I know, that's why I have to do it."

Yahya clenched his jaw, combed his fingers through his hair, now down past his chin, and sighed. "When do we leave?"

There was real pain in Rehan's face now. "We don't. He thinks it would be too dangerous to have you there."

"Him, or my father?"

"...Both."

Rage boiled beneath Yahya's skin, slashing his cheeks red and hot. "How can they do this? After raising us together they decide to separate us now?"

"I think that is part of it, too. The court may think I am too dependent on you, some of them know about your other... capabilities."

Yahya clenched and unclenched his fists. "You don't seem angry about this. Do you want to go alone?"

"I was angry, Yahya," Rehan finally crossed the room and grabbed his shoulders. "I was enraged, but I didn't want to show you that anger today. You always witness it, and then you have to allay it because I don't know how to control myself." Rehan's hands dropped to his sides.

"I could make them let me go," whispered Yahya. The words took shape and disappeared with the quickness of a breath.

"I know," said Rehan. "But I am asking you not to. I am not going there alone, Yahya, I will have legions and seasoned commanders behind me. I know I can do this."

"Aren't you afraid?" As he said it, his own fear seemed to grip him by the throat, stealing his life force. Losing Rehan would cripple him.

"Only a fool doesn't fear walking into possible death, but I believe in my father. I believe he wouldn't send me to die when he has no other son or heir. I am trusting him, and everything he taught us."

There was a flame in Rehan's eyes which Yahya was seeing for the first time. A conviction, a thirst. Something no words of his could stop.

"Attack like fire—"

"And be still as the mountain," Rehan laughed, "I know."

Rehan left Baghdad a few weeks later, riding a jet black horse and donning specially painted black armour. He had begun psychological warfare without even lifting a weapon as he marched his troops of darkness into Khorasan, and that was when Yahya learned that his trust was founded well, and his fear was not.

X

Brother

Upon the Prince's return to Baghdad after a bloody but extremely successful campaign which had secured huge swathes of territory, the city erupted into celebrations for seven days and seven nights, at the end of which Al-Mansur revealed his grand surprise. A wife, a first wife, to Rehan. The daughter of Al-Saffah was a youthful beauty, charming and witty with caramel skin and a high bridged regal nose which suited the position of Princess. Rehan took to her like water to scorched earth, lost in her dark brown eyes and her silken hair and her promise of love. Every time Yahya touched Rehan or brushed against him when she was near, he felt a surge of emotion, passion, and affection shoot through his nerves. Rehan's raw feelings for Rayta, unbeknownst to him, were written onto Yahya's palm like an unending love poem.

He did not know when the poem began to morph from a ghazal into a lament, but by then it was already too late.

"I don't know what I've done wrong," Rehan said one night. They were still in heavy armour from the day's military exercises, today was a rare occasion on which Yahya had decided to join the soldiers from his sideline position as strategist.

"What do you mean?"

"I thought— I." Rehan fiddled with the vambrace on his left arm. This man had slayed thousands on the battle field but could hardly form words without his breath shaking. "I told her I loved her. I made Gibran write scores of poetry for me to read to her, but her eyes—"

Yahya had seen it well before their relationship had blossomed. A gleam, a defiance, an unfettered ambition not common to women, even those of her station. He often wondered if things would have been different had he told Rehan what he knew, but a large part of him accepted that no words of his could turn a man's heart against his love.

"Do you want me to make you—"

"No." Rehan pulled off his vambraces and set them into their holders. He wrung his wrists. "I need to feel this. I can't let myself forget it."

At that moment, Yahya thought about compelling Rayta to love his friend, so he would not have to witness the anguish pushing down on his strong shoulders. He had never attempted such a strong compulsion before, something that could alter the very soul of a person, but the way Rehan stood that evening told him that it would not have been wanted. He had already accepted his fate, and the suffering that came along with it.

Yahya watched him drown himself in countless new concubines and overflowing goblets of ruby red wine that no one could deny him because he was all but king. Sometimes Yahya would lay a hand on his shoulder, tell him it was enough for the night. He did not make him forget, but dampened the pain fractionally each day so that by the end of a few months he and Rayta were as good as strangers again. He deigned to think what he would have to do if this fate befell Rehan again.

X

Yahya awakened groggy and drenched in sweat. The curtains drawn over the arched windows cast the room in low light. He squinted, turning his head to find the chair they had left Rehan in empty.

"Are you alright?" came his voice from across the room. Yahya swivelled, and a searing pain shot through his head.

"I've fared better," he managed to say as he slowly sat up. "Where is Sharan?"

"I have no idea, I woke up and one of the men was here standing guard. I told him to leave after I gathered my bearings."

A beat of silence hung between them. "...How are you feeling?" Yahya finally asked, surprised by the sudden dryness of his throat. Was this what pushing the limit did to him, or was it simply nerves?

"I'm... not sure. I woke up exhausted but I'm doing fine now. It's been maybe an hour."

"Do you remember the square? The assassin?" Yahya was too afraid to ask if there was anything else, too afraid to know if his attempt at repair had failed.

"Yes, I remember that, then you and Sharan brought me here." Rehan frowned. "There was something else, in the square. I'm not sure what it was, but I felt like I heard—"

The door, as if guided by the hand of God, swung open without announcement, and Rehan jumped to his feet. It was merely the same man he had dismissed earlier.

"Apologies, Sayyidi," he bowed, "I was hasty. Emir al-Barmaki is summoning you both to the barracks, they've captured one of the rebels."

Yahya, still laying on the bed, jolted forward in shock. "What? How?"

"Nadir and one of the others."

Khayzuran.

"Take us to them."

As they meandered through the residence Yahya took stock of his faculties. The headache had disappeared quickly, and when he let out a tendril of his will towards their unsuspecting guide, he felt him bend beneath him. He would be able to push.

For the rest of the short journey he watched Rehan in the corner of his eye. There was clearly a fragment of memory which had been preserved, but it was cloudy, fractured. It bought them time, but he knew that too would dwindle soon.

As they finally entered the barracks, Yahya fervently hoped that Khayzuran would not be there to witness what was about to happen.

X

Dear readers, this is a rather strange chapter and my first attempt at an interlude / flashback montage style chapter. I wrote this during Day 1 and 2 of National Novel Writing Month 2023. NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write 50,000 words in the span of the 30 days of November. Which means hopefully, by the end of this month, I will have finished The Serpent's Veil.

I will be uploading chapters as and when I finish them but due to the accelerated writing speed the quality may be lower than I usually prefer. Do leave a comment on what you think can be improved so during the editing stages I can get an idea of what to change.

Please join me on my NaNoWriMo journey and overall writing journey @corporal_bookish on Instagram!