Either duty or curiosity prevailed, however, and a short time later the same man showed up outside the city wall at the other door. The household had long been prepared for the eventual arrival of someone, if not this man, another, if not today, on some other day, and the minister was admitted with instructions to remove his boots, a calculated rudeness, since all Mahahmbi removed their shoes indoors. Barefoot, he was ushered into the larger courtyard, now colorfully furnished under bright awnings, with water splashing, plants growing, and a pleasant smell of roasting meats. Here he was told to await the Marshal and was very pointedly not asked to sit down.
“Minister Saelan,” said the Marshal when he emerged in his own good time, face and hands hidden. “I am the Lord Paramount’s Marshal. My assistant, Aufors.”
Aufors nodded, a precisely calculated nod which acknowledged the minister’s presence while showing only the least modicum of respect. Genevieve watched all this from a screened window upstairs, somewhat apprehensively. The Prince had long since delegated this first meeting to the Marshal (reserving his own appearance for some later stage of negotiations), and Aufors had choreographed the exchange, but the Marshal was not always biddable, and he sometimes pushed things farther than necessary.
“Will you be seated,” Aufors murmured, as both he and the Marshal sat down under the awning. If the emissary wanted to get into the shade, he would have to sit.
“I prefer not,” said Ybon Saelan grimly.
“As you like,” said Aufors, as the Marshal kept a lofty silence. “Tell me, is the temperature normal for this season? The climate seems much milder than we had expected.”
“It is … as usual,” said the sweating emissary. “I have come to bring greetings from the Shah, Arghad the Effulgent.”
“Ah, well, how nice.” The Marshal nodded, took a glass from the table and sipped it. “May I offer you some ice water with lemon?”
“Ice … It is forbidden.”
“Oh? Too bad. It’s very cooling. However, one cannot help but admire your constancy to your culture. Will you convey my greetings to the Shah? Since we do not use the city streets, I have been unable to send a messenger with greetings, but it was very kind of him to send you. Was there anything more?”
Ybon Saelan bowed, slightly lower than before. “Nothing. No.”
“Very kind, very kind,” said the Marshal vaguely. “Aufors, do see our guest to the gate.”
“What in deepsea was that all about?” Genevieve asked when Aufors came upstairs to take off the paraphernalia.
“The man was sent to ascertain our discomfort and to reply evasively to our complaints of having no water, no furnishings, no cooling. He is probably still trying to figure out how we got the water back and where all the furniture and greenery came from.”
“Now what?”
“Now the Shah knows we’re not uncomfortable, we’re not thirsty, we’re not dying of the heat. He knows we’ve plenty of fresh food. He knows their attempt to confuse and bamboozle us over this uncleanliness issue has backfired to make him and his people just as dirty to us as we are to them.”
“Which means?”
“That the next play, my love, is up to him.”
Ybon Saelan left Prince Delganor’s quarters and went at once to the palace, where, in the toilet off the anteroom of the Shah’s divan, he secretly put on a pair of kneepads under his robes. The ritual crawling and prostrations on the rough red pebbles laid into the rammed-earth floor could be ruinous to one’s legs. On his now-padded knees he progressed from the totem of the Shah down a line of ever rougher and more uncomfortable stones to the foot of the steps to the dais, a mud platform plastered and painted with designs in black and yellow. There he stopped and made an abasement.
“Hail the Voice of Prophecy, the Tongue of the Lord, the Teeth of the Scripture, the Word of God,” intoned the minister, his mouth a finger’s width from the floor.
“He who is recognizes you,” said the Shah, staring across the Saelan’s bent form at the far wall.
“I bask in the light of your gaze, O Divine Master. I prostrate—”