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Election Day

Part of the Queenmaker series.

[[Al-Quareshi?]] , Kentauri Caliphate Long Count [[998.8?]]

The first warming light of dawn’s caress reached the open window in the room in which she slept, it was a portal without glass, and above was a skylight which was open and covered, when it should rain, with canvas. It was the way in these lands, of the Caliphate of Kentauri, the youngest, but currently most powerful, of the lands of the faithful: the building itself was two stories tall, and had a balcony that ran all the way along the outside of the south wall, it was here that she immediately after throwing over herself a robe so that she could breakfast and catch up on her reading.

Rapidly approaching was election day, that day when the first Hajj for the Caliphate would be selected, it had not come about either by accident, nor as a happy evolution – but, as she could clearly remember, it began with the riots.

- - -

That was a day that was not to be forgotten, it was just before the beginning of the last Ramadan, and she clearly remembered how she had stayed awake through the night, and was preparing to go to bed and sleep straight through daylight. Her serving maid had come running up saying “Umayma! Umayma! You must go and read the news board!”

Now usually a woman such as her self did not go out to read the news on boards posted around the city. Generally there was nothing in the dispatches which could not wait until late afternoon when the newspaper came out, which was greedily devoured over coffee and cakes in the waning hours of the day. Then, the houses of the well to do and wealthy would ring with discussions of it until long into the night. But, if there were such a dispatch, then usually it was enough to send a servant to copy the information down and bring it back.

Very rarely it might be necessary to go the public telegraph room, where there, tapping out at furious speed, was the news service from the government, which, at the rate of 10 words a minute, repeated the same few stories over and over again through the day. The were almost always nothing more than single sentences. She remembered going there only once out of every 100 days, to the clean cold stone floored building, with narrow ceilings supported by heavy brownstone lintels, to see the white garbed men who were writers, runners and hangers about waiting there, taking sips of very black coffee and arguing, or listening for the next new dispatch. Others would go to the prayer room, where another wire would tap out prayers to which the faithful did devotion in silence, the rapping of the code of these prayers had to be poetically correct, but also have a pleasant droning which encouraged devotion.

Going down to the news board, the best of which was outside of this office, would involve pressing close to a throng of people - who even on average days would crowd around the board, and have their best reader read the dispatches as they were assembled and posted, at which point an impromptu market and gambling society met – where people paid bets made on horse races or other events. While gambling was, technically, forbidden, the circumlocution was that the loser was paying the winner for “early news”.

This crowd was filled with workers, and with those who tended shops, and who hawked wares on the streets, it was hardly the place for a lady of any refinement, and her servant knew that. So indeed, it must be urgent.

“Can you tell me what it is that is so important.” “Oh it is grave news, from the capitol, there is rioting.”

“At the Hall of Government itself?”

“I think so, but I could not get close enough to read, and it was not safe for me to go.”

That she go was unthinkable, that she not know was equally unthinkable, and as high as her husband’s status was, it was not so high as to make it possible to clear the entire notice board area. She thought, and then took out pen and paper, wrote to the Imam of the “Palm Quarter” – that wealth section of town that stood on the northern edge of the curved bay of Al-Quareshi – and asked him to deliver a sermon on this news immediately. Of course, he would have to read the news to deliver a sermon on it – and that would allow both she, and the other women, to hear it, without the difficulties posed by the usual public means of dissemination. It was written and sealed in minutes, and then she rang a bell and had her message boy go to the main house, to where her husband undoubtedly was, to ask him to spread the word. He, the man that he was, would not have heard, since he would have been sleeping the night with one of his favorites, who he pretended was his scribe. She sniffed at the thought of taking up with such a woman, but, that was the life she was wed to. The wives of wealthy men did not complain of such things.

Almost immediately she heard the ring at the front, and she, having just had time to wash her face and torso, went down. It was the Imam’s messenger, who told her that it would be indeed done in time for noon prayers. Not even an hour later, she heard Muezzlin, with their high pitched voices, calling out that there would be a sermon on the rioting with the new prayers, and to expect to stay the rest of the day in prayer and conversation.

The scene at noon was a packed mosque – the building itself was a relatively small, but highly domed building, richly decorated in the old style, based on a pentagonical plan. Indeed, Al-Quareshi was one of the oldest cities, site of a holy shrine when the first warriors had reached the Crescent sea after fighting their way north. The inlay of jade and quartz – in intricate designs which were said to have all of the major prayers woven into them – created a vast warm interior, into which came light from circular apertures spaced every few feet, as the sun moved along the day, it would highlight a verse written on the floor, one each hour.

But now the floor was invisible, those who were high members, who paid their tithes in gold, sat close, on their own carpets, those who paid in silver sat on the rows of kneeling benches, and then all others stood. But the crowd was so packed that the high members, as was customary on such occasions, rolled their prayer carpets and sat on them, to create more space.

All eyes were on the raised dais, in the shape of a circle, a the center of the building, there was a single pointed finger of light that cut down through the yellow dust that was everywhere on this world, and just beneath it stood the Imam himself.

“Oh most holy of holies, we come gathered here in the name of the God, the one God, the only God.”

It was not the ritual call to prayer, but the modern beginning of a service with only a sermon. It would have shocked the more conservative mosques, and it seemed strange to be surrounded in the old style and be among the most liberal of faiths, but it was so. The salat would come after, not before.

He began.

“Praise be to the one God, the only God, who by his hand has given us this news, the truth of which cannot be denied or set aside. As it is revealed to us, let us read first the news itself, which comes from our capital, under the peace of God, on this 8 days before the beginning of Ramadan.”

He then took out a small folded paper, and placed a pair of spectacles on his nose. He was not yet an old man, his bushy black beard only just reached his chest, and one could still see the rounded face of youth peaking above it on his cheeks. He was of medium dark skin, and slightly less than medium height. He was also stocky, which being dressed in white trousers of linen and a white turban made him seem even puffier. His movements were not slow, but the were deliberate: he took the moment to straighten his spectacles and began.

“In the name of God, the One God, the only God, this news comes from the office of the Caliphate Bureau of News. In the capital city of Kentaurus yesterday, as dusk broke out, it became necessary to disband the marchers who had clogged the city streets of traffic, and to institute the Vizier’s peace upon the roads.”

The Vizier’s peace was a euphemism for martial law, since the Vizier in Kentaurus had become, by tradition, chosen by the military to be the right hand of the Caliph. In older times it would have been held by a wise man, even an Imam, but not for some time had this been so.

“In so doing, they broke the old law.”

Here there was a gasp, this was from the official news service. It could not make such an admission.

“And the holy people who had gathered to recite the Qu’ran and praise God then marched through the streets, and to the Great Hall of Government. They were met by those intent on breaking the Peace of God. When the musketeers, “ these were the elite troops of the Vizier, who seldom used their fire arms, it implied the other troops had fled, “drew on the holy crowd, it was The God’s will that their weapons should misfire, and did more injury to the soldiers then the assembled Jihadeen.”

“Then the Jihadeen did enter the great hall, and there toppled the faithless from their unrighteous command of power, and have transmitted this message to all of the faithful by the means of the telegraph. Long live the faithful under the peace and guidance of The One God, the True God, the Only God.”

He paused, and waited. At then, from high above in the minaret, there was a cry of Adhan. It was, at first, one lonely voice that sang and spoke the call. But then, from another mosque, the cry was picked up. And then, faintly, from far away, they could hear the horns used in the civic Mosque in the center of the city. For long minutes it was just this, the criers, growing louder as they could hear echoes of one of the 33 mosques of the city joining in, and the horns blowing in the ancient pattern of five long sharp blasts.

And then in the background, but cutting through the ever growing cries, were the bells, the bells of the high tower, above the town, which drew the strikes of Lucifer, and housed the great metal castings, made long ago, and tuned in perfect intervals. They were rung only at moments of great celebration, and great alarm. With the striking of the bells came then the banging, the banging of sticks on stones, of mallets on metal, of any thing which makes a sound struck on another that might be found in a home. The din grew.

Finally added to it was a deep booming sound, of the great dreams, which called the militia to the city’s defense.

“Oh my people,” began the Imam “Peace be Upon You. The day for which we have long prayed is upon us, the defilers and parasites who have drained us of our blood and toil have met their just reward under Shariah. The Caliph’s peace reigns again, and we shall have a great Restoration.”

He then went on at great length, summarizing the rise of the crisis, and how the Vizier had proclaimed that all tax money was to be used to construct one Great Mosque, which would be used only by the few of the inner circle. It was well known that it would be used for the scandalous rites using harim’s and other abominations, away from the eyes of others. But this alone was not enough, for the project which was being diverted from was to build a great channel that would run from the Central Sea and into the Ocean of Sanctuary, from which would be drawn the thaumaturgical fire so needed for the increasing of the mightiness and puissance of the faithful.

For 10 long annae the argument had raged, and finally the vizier, on the wishes of the military, had dissolved the council of advisors who had represented the interests of the three free cities and the 15 provinces. He declared that hence force he should govern only on the advice of the God, the Caliph and the auguries. This enraged those involved in trade, for they were the advisers, and it enraged the working peoples, for they, being of the Old Way, though auguries to be herron – forbidden.

It was three days later when the news came from the telegraph, that the Vizier’s head, along with the heads of his four wives, and his followers, and their wives, were staked outside the city. What was not made public was in a letter she received from her sister, who was well placed in Kentauri, being the second wife of one of the chief tax inspectors.

Many will hear many tales of how this all was accomplished, but I say to you that the story they will tell of Jihadeen will be false, or at best half true the way the colours at dusk are half true. Before there were riots, before the daily calling of prayer, before the vigils and the marching, there was a growing agreement among the government ministers that they could no longer act as the arm of a man so unwise as the Vizier. Truly he had become a puppet of other men, and of the military, which feasted on every drachma, denarus or dinar which flowed in, and whose hand was caught in this interminable war, and for what? For the coal of Al Uwharain? The burning of which would lead, surely, to disaster and fire? And yet I tell you that was their course, to shove aside the water channel, and instead build great fire furnaces, in which could be forced better weapons of steel. But now, after 7 annea, the war has not accomplished as it was promised, and there was talk of conscription.

Finally, with the decision to build the mosque rather than the channel, they threw their hands up. As I am sure you know, the growth of Kentauri itself has been enormous, but so has the explosion of crime and unemployment. Only this project would have employed every strong back in the city, and, once completed, been the foundation for new industry. My husband sees this clearly – the tax revenues are still paid – but in debased coin. The country cries out for industry, for business to hands which is the will of The God, may his peace be upon us.

But the fateful day came when one of the young military men met with the man who is, do not say this, to be the new Vizier. The military man promised to sabotage the powder of the guns, in return for a post higher in the army after the Restoration. For that is what it is to be called, the Caliph is to be restored to power, the old Caliph shall leave in favor of his most liberal and enlightened son, may the light of the God always fall before him, and we shall have – I swear it – a return of the Haj. The great assembly of the nation.

The next Vizier is to be the blonde haired one, Surat is his name, whose grand parents joined the faithful, and whose father rose to be the great governor of the northern provinces. They have there an institution known as the “Thang” which is elected as a council. And this is what Surat will do: we will have a great “Thang” as our Hajj.

The letter then veered off into the details of how this had been accomplished, and how her husband had been involved, and how she would be in trouble for revealing the details.

And that was her memory of the Restoration: being pulled along by a torrent, but feeling an undertow of interest and conspiracy. It was not long there afterward that her husband started spending evenings with her again, and after Ramadan, broached a subject that surprised her. Elections.

- - -

“My Princess.” He never used that term unless he wanted something, “ I wish to talk about something with you.”

The low sun was streaming through the window, there were shooting stars due in the evening, and she was looking forward to them, and not to a discussion with him. It was her own fault, being on the balcony, with him between the door and her. Normally she would have found some household duty that needed to be attended to, and use it as an excuse to set a sharp limit on the conversation.

“What is it, my dearest husband.” She let her honey toned voice flow all over him, and softened the look on her face.

“I am thinking about the Hajj.”

“I haven’t troubled myself with it, I am sure The God will find the solution.”

He looked over the newspaper at her and said, “But my Princess, I have thought about the great glory that a seat there would bring, and how it would immeasurably enrich our reach.” He smiled and leaned back in his wicker chair, and let his legs slide forward so that he was semi-reclined, and yet looking straight at her. His neatly trimmed beard glistened in the sun – he used oil on it and his hair to keep them in place.

“But our son is too young, and if you were to serve, he could not. They are unlikely to repeal the laws against nepotism.” These ancient laws forbade any family to serve two consecutive generations in government or three in the military. The latter was often gotten around by various means, but the former was strictly applied to all but the Caliph, who was, technically, not in government.

“Ah but the law says that no son shall serve whose father or uncles served.”

She stopped, he was planning something, and she wanted to know what. Buying the seat for some weak willed friend of his? She didn’t see the obvious until he sprung it.

“You could stand for election.”

She pulled her head back.

“Oh my husband, how can that be? I cannot even vote.”

He snapped the paper and read to her the qualifications: they required being a citizen, being born into the faith, and owning land. She grasped the implications. The poll tax was restricted to those who could pay in gold, which women could not touch by law, as the “man’s metal”, and “no man may pay for any other”. Thus women could not vote, nor could most men for that matter. But citizenship only required that the tax be paid. And she, having inherited a good deal from her father, who died in war long ago with her as his only surviving child, she paid the tax. This meant, among other things, she could testify in court, sign contracts, and collect debts. All useful things for the wife of a man whose wealth was in trade and who was often away.

“So you are saying, my husband, that you will back me if I stand for this seat?”

He grinned, while he had long since ceased to be attracted to her ample breasts and wide hips, he still appreciated her turn of mind, so much of his fortune was her doing.

“Yes, my princess. Yes.”

- - -

And so it was. The Hajjwas to seat 500, out of a voting population of somewhat less than 500,000. That is, there would be one representative for every 1000 voters. Each of these voters, however, was required to go to 10 others, and vote as the group of 10 had voted. But of course, they got to select the other 10. This set off a scramble to find 10 faithful citizens to hold the gathering with. The bribes flowed like water. She spoke with many, both voters and their caucuses, and endlessly toured the city seeking advantage with each of them.

She had long been a fixture of the liberal reaches of the religious community, having amply endowed charities, and always taken concern for the religious education of the young men. The truth was, she adored the way men could snap to action, it endlessly fascinated her as they seized on decisions. She had also realized that she had tremendous influence over their minds, and as a result, had gathered a following. She held many such in her home, dining, listening to late night poetry recitals and attending services in each of the 33 mosques of the city. By the end, she felt sure that she had secured a place.

However, the province also snaked inwards from the sea, and it was in highlands, at an ancient fortress palace, that the province’s seat of government lay. It was there that results would be reported, and then tallied. Two days before she set out, renting a fine doppled mare to ride in on – her father’s people had been horsemen, where as most of the Farsi speaking people of the upper class were people of the sea, and thus did not traffic with horses. They stopped frequently, and talked with supporters, had they gone directly it was somewhat more than a day from Al-Quareshi to the citadel itself, half a day to climb up the ridge around the city, and then half a day from the peak of the escarpment to the citadel itself.

She set out with two dozen holy men behind her, praying as they went. But the Imam from her mosque ceremonially lead the horse by the reins and the two of them conversed on devotional poetry up into the hills. The trees turned to grasses, of the kind that burn every year, making a place empty of inhabitation, because it is too dangerous, then, over the foothills from the sea, into higher and higher, steeper and steeper mountains.

A few years before, counting here would have been a folly, indeed the Vizier had moved governmental functions back into such places to make them inconvenient – with courts distant from the people who had to attend them, and officers dependent on him for their livelihood, surrounded only by garrisons of military. But now telegraph lines had been run along the central spine and between the main cities. To receive was becoming more common, with glass boxes shrouding the spark from the outside, each one sealed by a Vedic thaumaturgy, who knew the appropriate Homas. The government, of course, maintained a monopoly on sending, and the two together formed a powerful duopoly. But the demand for that stream of news from the wider world, even if very slow – a skilled listener could pick up 30 words a minute – excited too many, especially the young, who had taken to creating singing styles that mimicked the rap a tap rap of the telegraph key.

This made it possible to count the ballots quickly, since the totals would be sent in by wire. It shrank the country to a few minutes – at least, in the core where over three quarters of the population lived. Some 350 of the members of the Hajj would be known by nightfall of the day after the elections.

They then crested a sharp escarpment, and saw before them the valley which had been the source of so many poets admiration.

It is the river of life, fixed in waves of green, This valley which, with its warm wet earth, Is as ripe as when the baby buries his head Encompassing in his mother’s bossom.

The Imam smiled as he recited this, from one of the great love poems, which, of course, ended tragically. She looked back at him and asked.

“Tell me, when did you have a chance to study such work.”

“All words belong to the God, and therefore none are forbidden to my eyes. Though my tongue would sear if I spake them without purpose.”

“And what was your purpose here?”

He turned to valley.

“We have forgotten life – this life – in our pursuit of gold and silver, and I feel that this moment the people cry to be returned to that great beginning, where they could suckle at life, rather than scratch for gold. You must change this in the Hajj, when you sit there, as oyu must make sure that charity is remembered.”

“The Hajj will be more a place of talking than doing.”

He shook his head.

I have seen the rocks that tumble from their perches, Though long they sat to regard the sun and stars, And each persuades three others, Until the rock torrent roars.

“Once there is a Hajj, it will be the moving boulder, the gathering of the will of the people.”

“How can you say this knowing that most cannot vote.”

“Ah my dear child remember, it is not whether you can vote, but whether you can be heard, that matters. We did not vote for The God, but he hears us. Many choose Lucifer, bt he does not hear them.”

She nodded, and the topic turned to the patterns of tapestries which were being woven, she making the analogy that it was more important to be able to live with what you chose. But her mind wandered back to being heard. She had not been heard in so long within her own four walls.

- - -

She was taken to the grand citadel of government, which rose up out of the rock, and out of that a spire, and on that the great metal thamaturgical pole which drew down the wrath of Lucifer so that the rest of the area would be spared. Sitting, as it did, on a high outcropping of rock, it made an imposing presence, surrounded by a clutter of lower buildings and a rock wall. The city was freshly painted, and despite having less than ten thousand inhabitants, gleamed with prosperity.

She had to climb a seemingly endless series of steps up the side of the valley, which rose almost 300 feet sheer from the floor, and then wait at the gate with the others who were to be admitted. Once inside, however, it was very different, there were small garden plots on every roof, boxes of flowers from every sun facing window and balcony. The white sheer draps that were in every window rustled with the light morning breeze, and the hot exertion was rapidly turned to cool relief.

Once there she was taken to the new room, it was entirely of stone, granite black on the floor and granite white on the walls and ceiling, though inlaid floor, walls and ceiling, with verses from the Qu’ran. In middle of the room was a circlular table of stone, and around this a circular bench, on which was placed a series of simple cushions. On the table, at regular intervals were glass oblong boxes, which contained an intricate apparatus, with many wheels, which had, emerging from one slot, a thin tape of paper. At each cushion was a woman or man who read the code off the slot and transcribed it.

Now, one must realize that “parties” had been forbidden in the election, which meant, in effect, there were two parties, the party of the new Vizier, which had organized using telegraph and was popular among the tradesman and craftsman, and the military party, which had spread its word through the reactionary mosques, and through the “old boy” network of those who had long done business with the previous government. Finally election authorities gave into the reality, and had each party simply send their nominating list, so that the names could be encoded, and thus save valuable telegraph time.

It was the morning after the election, and , almost at first light, one of the machines began to chug, the heavy thump thump thump was quite unlike the delicate taps she had heard before, when she realized that, of course, since they were punching paper, they would use much heavier apparatus. The reader called out numbers as he wrote them down, and then handed the paper to a runner, who took the paper out of this room, and out on to a dias that was outside, on which had been erected a huge blackboard, on which figures for seats in the province – some 13 – were tallied. Since there had been no time to create districts, it would be 6 at large seats for the city, and 7 for the rest of the province. This favored the agricultural areas heavily, since more than half of the province was in the city, but only slightly if one strictly counted potential voters.

She felt her heart leap, she had the delicious uncertainty of the process, and, instead of spending time on the board, she stayed sitting in the telegraph room itself, keeping a running tally of her votes, and those of her nearest competitors. Her husband, she knew, was out among the people in the blackboarded area, telling them about what wonderful things he was going to do.

She knew all about them, because he had been giving her his wish list, of reductions in taxes for his kind of business, of an end to the recision of debts for the poor, of a whole host of measures to make sure that none where idle and that the country was put in the hands of those who had the most stake in its success. He believed in an ownership society to the core.

She had the papers in her small thin folio, made of two rectangles of leather stitched together, but she could not read them, there was too much of a torrent coming in. In the beginning of the day, the reports were from the city’s government district, where the old bureaucracy lived, and the businesses that did business with them – civic works and the like - which had gone overwhelmingly for the old candidates, in fact, there was only 2 votes for anything other than the party which was lead by the nephew of the former Vizier. And those were for the Da’wa party, a religious party that was closely associated with them. 2 out of 2000! How to make that up? Impossible.

But on going over the numbers she realized that most of these votes had gone for the two most powerful members of that party in the city, the mayor’s brother, and the nephew of the owner of the ship yard. So while they had overwhelming numbers, they had decided that they really just wanted to be sure they had members of the Hajj. She raised her eyebrow, she had not thought that there would be such careful coordination of votes. She noted the idea down, but could not finish it.

By now, there was a wave of tapping, numbers were coming in constantly, and then being sent out. Occasionally a result would be sent back into the sending room, where confirmation would be asked for. She found herself badly falling behind in the totals, and by noon she had written off her dream as a wistful moment of imagination.

She went outside, and as women were allowed, drank think tea from a small porcelin cup that she bought from a street seller. She was, of course, surrounded by her entourage. Her husband came bustling up. His face was nearly bursting with anger.

“I told you how poorly you were handling this!”

She pulled her face in, and closed any crack of what she felt to the outside world, adopting that face of the impassive long suffering wife.

"It should have been the way I planned it. Now look, all my money wasted."

"It was mostly my money."

"And all my work gone for nothing, and why, because you wanted to actually hold the caucuses, rather than just finding 10 signatures that were needed to certify the vote."

Her insistence was part of her plan - it drew in many of the supporters of the other side, who came to try and argue the voter to their direction. Of course they failed, because the lists had been carefully selected to have 6 firm supporters for each group of 10, but it meant that their were two to four names on every single one of her votes, that were supporters of others. This drained away available taxpayers, and helped slow her opponents efforts. She had conceived of this plan her self, and its careful execution seemed to her a master stroke. She was wondering where all her votes were, her own running tally showed that less than half the expected votes had been cast in the city.

"And now look," his voice snapped her back to the present moment. "look at this." he showed her his scrawled figures. They were very bad for her.

It was at this moment that one of the young men who was part of her entourage - whose study of poetry she had subsidized and encouraged - tapped her on the shoulder.

"The imam has gotten a message from the city."

The husband subsided in his venting, and they scurried back inside the Great Room, and the husband saw his wife exchange a few whispers with the Imam, and then go off. He did not like much the look of satisfaction on her face.

Once away from the milling conversations that clustered in twos and threes, discussing each turn of the numbers from across the center of the Caliphate, she conferred with the Imam, he, apparently, had gotten a carrier pigeon message: namely that many votes were being held up in court, because the caucus signatures were from women, and from men who it was claimed had had their taxes paid by others. The sending telegraph in the city had been under the watchful eye of a very much old party man, and therefore the news had not gotten to them until now. She merely smiled, “I have someone already to take care of that, we were expecting problems. But just as my standing for office is legal, so are the women in the caucuses, it just said ‘tax payer’, and there are many women who pay taxes in dirhams of silver.”

At this moment the young poet , Ali Ibn Masuk by name, broke in with a whisper to her ear, he had a plan to make better show the next day, to make sure that what the judge would undoubtedly say should be counted, would be counted. She then whispered to the Imam, and said he would organize it. Her plan was to march back into the city leading as many of her followers as possible, riding on the horse. There was a small shrine just away from the escarpment’s lip, she would have the procession gather there, it was about 6 hours of a milling gait such as a march would have, and that would be about right – the court would open its doors at the moment of dawn, and the judgment would have to be done quickly, since by law no suit could take more than one day to decide, if it involved matters of citizenship. They would arrive at, or soon after, word arrived. The court would surely decide after the noon prayer, and transmit the decision early in the afternoon, the man of the law who was in her employ had assured her that this court would work with the regularity of a clock.

At sunset, she and Ali slipped out of the main citadel, and since this was the counting, the gates had been left open, by decree, to allow people to come and go with the news. The stepped down the steps, having sent a runner forward to ready the horse, there were people walking up and down the steps, and the two were wholly unremarkable. But when they reached the bottom of the valley, where the winding River Eshta cut through, there was a bridge, but off to the side of the bridge was a thin road, which went off into the trees and darkness. The light from the sky was barely enough to navigate the road, let alone the path, but when reaching the bridge she felt fatigued, and asked to sit down. He, knowing that the path lead to a small enclosed garden shrine – built with a medium wall and benches along the path to it, suggested they go slightly into the darkened path, which seemed as a great warm cave, with a breath of slight breeze coming from it.

She, tentatively, agreed, feeling that surely no harm would come to her. And they reached the first bench, as high as her knees were only, and lowered themselves on it. She leaned into him, and huddled closer in the darkness, Ali clearly ungainly so close to a woman, shaking. She realized that he felt for her. It had not crossed her mind that he would do so, she was not so young, and he was barely more than a boy, with only the faintest outline of the beard. But she knew the signs, the warming of his skin, the warming of hers next to it, the scent of his sweat growing muskier, the way he shifted position. Her heart raced at how forbidden it was, just beyond the walls of a shrine, built to love so many annae before. He not knowing where the boundaries of her own forbidden walls were, though they would have been as invisible to him by day as by night.

He, trying to reduce the tension he felt, recited one of his short poems:

Gracefully the willows bend under wind to touch the water, Knowing that they cannot drink with eager bough, Still the trees reach and bow like beggars The crowns like their roots a thirst for moisture.

He had not thought he meant anything in particular by the words, but there, in the darkness, she could feel his heart race after he said them, realizing what was under his thoughts.

“Let us walk a bit further in, I think I see a pool and I would like to drink.”

There was indeed a pool, and them moved very slowly, she leaning on him for support, or so it seemed. They reached the pool and the benches by it. And sat again, this time embracing. It was her turn to recite, this time an old verse which she learned in those blossoming days of her youth:

The wild reeds have no need of planting, Nor of reaping, nor of sowing, nor of agriculture, Taking only the water and the light, And leaving only rustling in the night.

She could feel his muscles taut next to her, and easily encouraged his hands to caress her. Finally feeling his eager lips upon her shoulder. In the dark, and covered, he could not see how gravity had worked upon her body, and in that darkness she was as young to his imagination could allow. It was she, not he, who was feasting on an eager virgin, whose hands reached for her thighs. Soon they were but a tangle of arms and legs, she gently teaching him to kiss even as he thrusted, to move slowly and then quickly, and to carry his own weight on his hands, but leave enough for pleasurable pressure on her chest.

And when he was spent, she took off her overdress, and lifted her underdress and waded into the pool to bathe her self enough, so that she would be ready to face the day. The napped for a few hours. She changed clothes into the light white linen robes of a penitent, and woke him, they walked the rest up the escarpment, and to the shrine. They hurried somewhat, so that the two hours they had lost would not be missed, since no one knew exactly when they had left, thus no one would suspect what had transpired between them.

There, just off the main road, and hidden by carefully shaped hedges, was the new shrine to Wakeem I, which was built of white marble with a pointed dome which stood on columns of the Hellenic style, with grooves cut in them and an ornate capital order. The floor of it was azure stone with a picture of a running deer, having been built after the Great Schism, when the new way allowed depiction of animals and men again. She had stood on the center of it, and watched as, at first in ones and twos, and then in threes and more, her supporters had gathered.

Dawn struck the top of the shrine like a note from a gong– it illuminated a round ball atop the point of the dome, turning it in an instant to a lusterous orange gold. Already there were 200 gathered, already more could be seen traversing the back and forth path up from the terraces below – which could be entered from the main road or from the shrine – and coming in somewhat greater numbers along the more direct route to the shrine. The sun crept down, illuminating seven terraces in turn, none of them very large, but each covered with an intricate geometric network of flowers and other exotic plants, and trellised with stone polls and metal rods.

By just after dawn, there were almost 500, and she, without a word, simply began to walk, the poet was sent ahead, both to call the way, and, she felt, to make sure he would not by any word or glance betray anything. From the escarpment crest to citadel it was 6 Ishtari hours at a slow walk, but she found her supporters were not slow and solemn, but wanted a faster walk. She accommodated them, and had the man leading her horse to pick up the pace, soon the throng was reaching towards the steps of the citadel, and it had only grown, from where she did not know, but finally she saw that many people who had been leaving the citadel, turned around and came back with them. They felt that this was their moment, that now, they were the Jihadeen.

The poet came back to her and whispered that the Imam had been spreading the story of how her votes were being denied and “a vote is a witness to The God, and therefore denying it is to deny the God from whence it came and to whom it is devoted.” He had been speaking at the street corner, waving a blank ballot, which did indeed bear the words “The right from the hands of The God, and returns to the Ear of the God.” Which was a standard invocation on almost every contract.

By the time they reached the gate, she, not seeming to sweat even though she had been walking, then riding, for some time, almost glowed as she sat up straight and said

“It is the people of Al-Quareshi come, to see that the God’s will is done.”

The guard of the gate merely nodded, he did not seem in the least reluctant to let them passed, and he knelt for them, The people in the streets lowered themselves as she passed, and there were flowers being thrown from the windows. None of this, had been planned.

At the citadel itself there was a great tumult and chanting, and banging of drums. The court had decided, not in hours, but in minutes, hours before the votes had started to be tallied, and the results were piling up to a lopsided ratio for the followers of the New Vizier. She was not the first of her party’s candidates, but her showing was more than respectable. When all was counted, 5 of the 6 candidates from the city were to be of the new, and only one of the old – the Mayor himself.

Then, finally, she saw her husband, clenching and unclenching his fists, furious at being out of the center of power, and having had nothing to do with this coup. He none the less bustled up to her, but before he could mouth even the simplest of pleasantries, she looked down at him from her horse, and said:

“I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you. As it is in the old law, let me go back as I came, with only dowry and my name.”

(This story is continued in Queenmaker)