เฮยจิวจู่ ดินแดนรักร้อนซ่อนแรงปรารถนา(Nc18+)

The pigeon has chosen a fig tree.

I lower my hand from above my eyes and look at the keeper.

“Well?”

“He’s resting.”

He has carried a basket of feed up eighty-three steps. The bird for whom he carried it is sitting beside a water trough at the eastern outpost, attending to a wing.

“He left the basket,” I tell him. “Flew straight to the tree.”

“Then he knows he’s free to go.”

Below us, morning light reaches the upper branches of the palms. The gardens are still mostly in shadow, their irrigation channels dark between the cultivated beds. Beyond the last wall, the road follows the valley toward the outpost. An ordinary lookout can distinguish its tower on a clear morning.

I can see the man beneath it shaking an empty basket at our pigeon.

“He’s trying to encourage him.”

The keeper leans forward.

“With the basket.”

He sits back. “That won’t help.”

It doesn’t.

I leave him the stool and move around the parapet to check the northern road.

My tower stands on the city’s eastern ridge, above the sanctuary of al-Lāt. From its stairs, I can reach my rooms through the sanctuary courtyards without entering the streets. Before dawn, I appreciate the short walk. When I am late, I wish there were fewer people along it who know where I ought to be.

On a clear day, from high enough ground, I can see places a caravan would take four days to reach. At that distance, I follow the movement of groups and distinguish the shapes of their loads. Faces require a closer view. So do many of the details people ask about after something has gone wrong.

The western approaches are less obliging. Roads disappear among ridges and emerge farther down the valley; a man can spend an afternoon walking through country I cannot see at all. Malik sends patrols there. He commands the city’s garrison and considers I saw no one an inadequate report unless I explain where I looked.

After years of answering his questions, I have begun putting the answers in before he asks them. He usually finds another.

Two carts approach the northern gardens. The first carries charcoal beneath a coarse covering. A binding on the second cart’s wheel has worked loose, and I make a note for the gate guard. Behind them, a boy is trying to remove three goats from someone’s planted beds. He catches one. The other two take advantage of his occupied hands.

Nothing requiring an alarm.

At the eastern outpost, the pigeon is still in the tree.

“He came back yesterday,” I say.

“Yesterday he was released beyond the gardens.”

“Perhaps he prefers the gardens.”

“Perhaps he prefers being a pigeon to being employed by the king.”

I glance at him. His face remains solemn.

Perhaps he is not the only one.

Though I doubt the pigeon would appreciate everything that comes with my position. I have rooms of my own, an education my parents could never have afforded, and enough money to make their lives easier. There is satisfaction in spotting trouble while someone can still do something about it.

I would simply like leaving to be a choice. For a few weeks, at least. Long enough to visit my family without having to prove the city can survive my absence.

My father would have had plans for me if I had stayed home. I know that. Still, I would like someone to ask about mine.

The keeper reaches into the basket and examines a handful of grain.

He has spent most of his life tending birds for the king’s household: hawks for hunting, partridges for the table, and expensive songbirds whose ailments he remembers with particular resentment. Now his beard is white and his knees trouble him on the stairs, but he has persuaded the household to let him try something with pigeons.

The trial was approved twelve days ago, after three meetings about expense and one about whether the messages would be stolen. Returning home is something the birds want to do, the keeper insists. For months, he has raised them at the city loft and carried them progressively farther away before releasing them. Yesterday, one returned with a scrap of writing secured to it.

The scrap lies beneath a stone beside my ink.

Released at the garden wall.

Four words, carried here faster than the man who wrote them could return.

If the longer journeys succeed, someone at the outpost could send a warning without waiting for a rider to cover the road.

I asked about letters from my family before the keeper had finished removing yesterday’s message.

There must be a familiar loft to return to, he explained. Suitable birds. Careful journeys. He cannot give a pigeon my sister’s name and expect it to find her.

But if birds from the city were taken to my family, perhaps one could bring a message back. He has promised to consider it once we can manage the outpost.

“Movement,” I say.

He gets to his feet.

The pigeon drops to the trough.

I hesitate.

“Drinking.”

He lowers himself onto the stool again, more carefully this time.

I ought to leave the bird alone. The northern section of my report contains three lines, and I have devoted half a sheet to its morning. Yet I keep looking from the outpost to yesterday’s little scrap, clean and dry beneath its stone.

Letters from home arrive with worn folds, grease stains, apologies for how long they have taken. Sometimes Amra answers a question I have almost forgotten asking.

A dull pressure gathers above my right eye.

I turn away from the valley and close my eyes.

“Again?” the keeper asks.

“Too much glare.”

“The sun is behind you.”

“It reaches other places.”

He makes a small sound in his throat. I have heard it before, usually when I offer an opinion about his birds.

I drink from the cup beside my report. When I open my eyes, the pressure remains, but the ridge is clear.

At the outpost, the man has abandoned the basket and gone inside.

The pigeon lifts its head, opens its wings, and leaves the trough.

“It’s flying.”

The keeper stays seated.

I follow the pale underside of its wings as it circles the tower, passes behind the roof, and emerges above the road.

“Toward us.”

Now he stands.

The bird crosses the dry ground south of the road. I describe its route, and the keeper asks me to mark it on the sketch beside my report. He watches the hanging edge of my headcloth while I write.

“Wind from the north. Put that down too.”

For several breaths, the pigeon is all I watch. Then movement beneath it catches my attention.

Six pack animals stand beside a broken channel. One is kneeling awkwardly beneath a slipped load. Two men pull at the baggage while a third tries to steady the animal.

I check the hollow beyond them before calling down the stairwell for the runner.

By the time he reaches the top, I have marked the place on a second scrap.

“Take this to the eastern gate. A caravan needs help beyond the fork, beside the broken channel. Six animals. They’ll need spare rope and someone who knows how to lift a load without injuring the beast.”

He looks toward the valley, then at the sketch.

“An escort?”

“Two men should be enough. Ask them to check before they approach.”

“Yes, Lady Zarqa.”

He leaves at a run.

At home, I am Salim’s second daughter. Here, I am Lady Zarqa, the Far-Eyed One, or—when someone wants to be particularly formal—the Keeper of the Far Watch. That last is the position the king appointed me to. It sounds rather grand for a morning spent counting carts and watching a pigeon refuse to fly.

When I turn back, I have lost the bird.

The keeper reads my face.

“Already?”

“There was a caravan.”

I search above the palms. Two wild birds scatter from the garden wall. Beyond them, the second cart has stopped, its driver crouched beside the troublesome wheel.

Then wings beat close to my shoulder.

I duck.

The pigeon lands on the parapet, shuffles along the stone, and looks at the feed basket.

The keeper laughs.

“An excellent return,” I say, taking my hand from my chest.

“Very closely observed.”

He gathers the bird into his hands and checks the fastening beneath its feathers. I hold out a little grain while he removes the message. Warm claws press against my fingers.

Behind us, someone reaches the top of the stairs and stops to catch her breath.

Salma holds a folded letter in one hand. A thick strand of dark hair has escaped its pin, and she blows it away from her mouth.

“Take this before I drop it. The merchant caught me halfway across the courtyard.”

I recognize Amra’s uneven fold.

I pass the pigeon to the keeper and wipe my hand against my skirt.

“This morning?”

“Just now. He came with the oil.”

Letters from home usually pass through Salma’s hands before reaching mine. She keeps the sanctuary’s accounts and correspondence; in my first bewildering months here, she also helped me write my replies. She learned my family’s names before I learned most of the people I ate with.

Now she knows when I am leaving something out.

She sets the letter in my hand and reaches for the reports on the table.

“Malik wants these before midday.”

“The northern one isn’t finished.”

“I can see that.”

But she leaves it where it is.

The fold is worn white along one edge. I turn the letter over, checking for damage and delaying the moment of opening it by a breath.

Eight years, and I still want the first line to say they are coming to fetch me.

Amra has pressed so hard with the pen that I can feel some of the words beneath my thumb.

Before you read further, everyone is well.

I sit down.

Mother’s knee still troubles her, but only when someone asks her to do something she dislikes. Yesterday she climbed onto the roof because she thought Anas was laying the mats badly. He was laying them badly. Please do not tell her I said so.

Below that, in smaller writing:

He is taller than Father now. Father says this is because he stands badly.

I smile.

Anas is the youngest of us, the son my parents had after three daughters. When I left, he still leaned his whole weight against people when he wanted something. I try to imagine that child taller than our father.

The next paragraph begins:

Rim has received an offer.

My eyes return to the start of the line.

I know you will ask whether she likes him. She says he listens when she speaks. I told her to make certain he does it when other people are present.

“What is it?” Salma asks.

“A suitor for Rim.”

She comes closer but waits while I read.

The young man works with his mother’s brothers. His family has known ours for years. Rim has met him more than once and, according to Amra, has begun taking an unreasonable interest in when their household visits.

There is nothing alarming in any of it.

Rim is twenty. I know that as certainly as I know my own age, but I still picture the girl who followed me into places where neither of us was allowed. Afterward, she would stand behind me and let me explain. When I complained, she reminded me that I was better at it.

Nothing is settled yet. Father is discussing the payment. Mother has already started arguing about cloth, so you may judge for yourself how unsettled it is.

I turn the sheet over.

Three more lines crowd the bottom.

If there is any way you can come, write quickly. I have not promised Rim anything.

Then:

She asked whether you would still know how she takes her hair.

I fold that last line beneath my fingers.

Salma moves the ink away from my elbow.

“She used to make me do it twice,” I say. “The first time was always wrong.”

“Do you remember how?”

“Yes.”

The answer comes so quickly that I have to swallow before saying anything else.

“She wouldn’t sit still. I used to hold the end of the braid while she reached for whatever she suddenly needed.”

Salma sits on the edge of the table beside me.

The keeper has settled the pigeon in its basket. He picks up the feed and waits while I move my feet out of his way.

“I’ll take him down.”

“Thank you.”

He nods, and the scratching of claws against wicker fades as he descends.

For a while, I read the last few lines again.

“How long would you need?” Salma asks.

I count the stages in my head. The well where a caravan can stop safely, the long stretch beside the low hills. A small party would travel faster than loaded carts, provided we could find horses.

“Eighteen days. Twenty would give me time with them.”

“Then ask for twenty.”

“They refused twelve last time.”

“This time you have a reason they haven’t heard.”

I look up at her.

“I’m not saying they’ll agree,” she adds. “But you’ll wish you’d asked.”

I smooth the letter across my knee.

Amra is only a year older than I am. From behind, people used to mistake us for each other. Then one of us would turn around. Her eyes are brown, like our mother’s. Mine are a deep, vivid blue.

Here, my dark skin and blue eyes are usually enough for someone to recognize me. They look twice, murmur the Far-Eyed One, and begin asking about a caravan, a missing animal, a son who should have returned by now.

Amra used to tell me to stop looking over her shoulder when she was speaking.

I want to sit beside her and have her complain about me again.

Below us, a man leads a donkey toward the kitchens. Two women move aside to let him pass, one still talking over her shoulder. People leave through those gates every day. They worry about the road and the weather, about whether they have packed enough food.

I put the letter inside my sleeve.

“I’ll speak to Wahb after my watch.”

Salma reaches for the completed sheets.

“Keep these together when you finish. I’m not coming up again to discover you’ve written the northern road on the back of your sister’s letter.”

“I did that once.”

“Amra was very interested in the missing mule.”

She aligns the papers against the table while I return to the unfinished report.

I add the carts and the damaged wheel. The pressure above my eye has spread toward my temple. I loosen my headcloth, though it is not tight, and lean closer to the page.

Footsteps sound below us.

I know the pace before the man appears, and resent that I know it. He takes the last few steps more slowly, as he always does when approaching my watch.

He pauses in the doorway, one hand against the stone. His dark hair has fallen forward from where he pushed it back, and there is dust on the hem of his indigo robe.

He is the younger of King Hisham’s two sons. I am pleased to see him, enough that I almost forget why I am angry with his father.

His gaze meets mine.

Lately, he comes even when he has nothing to ask. I hope this is one of those mornings.

I glance at Salma before I can stop myself. She is gathering the reports with unnecessary care. She has never seen us behave as anything more than friends, but I doubt she needs to.

“I can return,” he says.

“I’m leaving.” She lifts the finished sheets. “Make sure she keeps the rest for the runner.”

He steps aside for her. I watch him wait until her footsteps have passed the turn.

Until a few weeks ago, I knew how to be alone with him. We had years of practice. Now I am aware of the table between us and the space beside my chair.

“Did the bird come back?” he asks.

“Yes. I missed the arrival.”

His eyes move to the page.

“You seem to have recorded everything else.”

“That is for the keeper.”

“I wasn’t going to take it.”

He rests a hand on the table, close to mine.

I set down the pen before I can spill anything.

He notices the loosened cloth at my temple.

“Another headache?”

“It will pass.”

I do not want to spend his visit discussing it. I turn my hand beneath his, and his fingers close around mine.

For a moment, he stays where he is. Then he bends to kiss me.

His beard brushes the corner of my mouth. I catch his sleeve as he draws away.

“That was very cautious.”

“There are stairs.”

“They were there last time.”

He smiles and glances toward them.

Weeks ago, on this same table, he held down the corner of a map while I explained why his proposed patrol would lose half a day. He listened to the explanation. Then he asked whether I intended to keep discussing the route until he had to leave.

I had known, by then, why he was still there.

Remembering it makes me loosen my grip on his sleeve, though I do not quite let go.

He is not the heir, but his marriage still has value to his father. There is talk of a merchant’s daughter whose family could improve trade in the north. I know little about her beyond that.

My position might secure me a better marriage than my parents once expected. I cannot imagine it making me an acceptable wife for Ziyad.

I haven’t asked him what he imagines.

His fingers brush the folded letter inside my sleeve.

“News from home?”

“Amra wrote. Everyone is well.”

I take it out.

“Rim has a suitor.”

He looks surprised.

“Your little sister?”

“She’s twenty.”

I have to remind myself as much as him.

“She likes him, apparently. Amra thinks they’ll agree.”

He draws the other stool nearer and sits.

“Will they send you the date?”

“I’m going to ask.”

I straighten the letter against the table. There is a small brown stain beside my name. Something spilled at home, on a table where my family still sits without me.

“I want to be there.”

Ziyad’s eyes return to my face.

“For the wedding?”

“Before it, if I can. I want time with them.”

“How much?”

“Twenty days.”

He looks toward the valley. Below us, the eastern gate is opening for the men sent to help the caravan.

I had hoped he would answer before thinking about the roads.

“I can prepare the reports,” I say. “Malik could strengthen the patrols. The eastern outpost has a clear view of—”

“You don’t need to persuade me.”

“Then help me persuade your father.”

He turns back.

For a moment, I expect him to agree at once. I have already begun imagining how I will tell Salma.

Instead, he reaches for my hand.

“Let me speak to him first.”

“I was going to take a request to Wahb today.”

“You can still prepare it. Give me until this evening.”

“Why this evening?”

“He has a difficult morning ahead. I’d rather choose the moment.”

His thumb passes over the ink on my finger.

He knows which mornings are difficult, which matters can be raised after a meal and which must wait until his father has walked in the courtyard. I know how far away a caravan is. It has never helped me choose the right time to ask for anything.

“Until this evening,” I say.

He nods.

A voice calls from the stairs. Ziyad answers, and the quiet between us ends.

He stands, but keeps my hand a moment longer.

“I’ll find you afterward.”

I let him go.

When his footsteps have faded, I return to the report. The boy has recovered his goats. The charcoal cart has reached the gate; the second driver has found someone to help with the wheel. Farther east, the men beside the kneeling pack animal are waiting for assistance already on its way.

I write the final line and put the sheet where the runner will find it.

Then I turn over a fresh scrap and begin my request, with twenty days written plainly at the top.