A/N:  Big thanks to Cairistiona, whose work as beta made this possible.

The throne room is designed to impress, to dazzle, to make supplicants feel their own insignificance.  Like the courtyard outside, it is composed almost entirely of marble—both white and black, all smoothed and polished to a mirror-like finish.  Carvings of ancient Gondorian kings glare out from alcoves along the walls.  The ceiling arches impossibly high above me.

I keep my eyes on the floor.

My belt is lighter, now; my sword, like all the humble knives of my companions, was left in the entryway under the watchful eyes of armored soldiers.  I clutch my purse a little tighter as my compatriots and I kneel, our faces bowed in submission as we would in the presence of one of our own nobles.  My knees begin to ache almost immediately, but I neither shift nor rise.  From my furtive glances about the chamber, I’ve seen no one who looked to be a king—only guards, servants, and a handful of simply-dressed advisors.  Still, it never hurts to be careful.  I will not put Ayman at risk over something so petty as failing to show the proper respect.

As a handful of Gondorians filter in from a side chamber, I snatch covert glimpses, trying to judge where power lies in this kingdom and in this chamber.  These newcomers are clearly no strangers to power.  Gondorian clothing is strange to my eyes, but I can easily see that their garb is much finer and more costly than any I have seen yet; the dyes are richer, the cuts fuller, the piping and embroidery far more elaborate.  None of these men wear a crown, but I study them nonetheless, wondering if this fabled king might be among them.  Few seem capable of inspiring the sort of tales I’ve heard.  Most are well into their later years, with gray beards and a scholarly look, masked in part by haughty expressions.  They watch us with faces that suggest pity or indifference or outright loathing. 

I wonder for a moment if I was a fool to have come here.

I shake off the dark thought.  These courtiers can hate us as much as they wish; it is the king who holds the power to release prisoners or to execute them.  It is the king I must sway.  My gaze alights for a moment on a tall man in a blue surcoat, who regards us with suspicion as he converses with a younger man.  This one, at least, has the look of a warrior—a stern face set in what the Umbari might call “noble lines.”  But, then he bows his head slightly in deference to his companion and I shift my gaze to the younger man instead.  This one, too, might have seen combat recently, if the military set to his shoulders is any indication.  He clutches a sort of scepter that might be a mark of office.  His eyes are a clear gray, and softer than those of his fellows.  But after a moment, I dismiss him as well.  This kind-eyed man seems a touch too timid and a touch too wan to be the living legend who commanded the dead and rode against the Black Gate itself.

The lords, for these are clearly nobles of some sort, gather in a small knot near the front of the chamber.  There are perhaps a dozen of them, but no one steps forward to take control of the proceedings.  These, then, must be more advisors—men with some influence, but not the king.

I could have saved myself the trouble of my fruitless guessing game.  Before the pain in my kneecaps can become intolerable, a herald appears at the door, announcing the arrival of “The King of Gondor, Aragorn, son of Arathorn; Elessar Evinyatar, the Elfstone and the Renewer; first of the house of Telcontar; heir of Isildur, heir of Elendil, long may he reign!”

This king of theirs seems to have a lot of names.

I dare not lift my head now, so my first impression of the king is a pair of leather boots.  I keep my face bowed to the floor while the great doors at the back of the hall swing open.  As the king walks past us, though, I follow him with my eyes, so at first all I see are the boots.  Black leather.  Clean and oiled, but a bit worn around the ankles, in stark contrast to the spotless sable cloak that swishes around his heels.  As he walks past me, I note the length of his stride and glimpse a remarkably long sword belted at his waist.

He steps onto a dais that places him a step above the knot of advisors, but does not ascend the steps all the way to the oversized throne.  As he turns to face the hall, I risk a glance, catching only a brief glimpse of fine clothes and jewels, of dark hair under a strange, steel crown.  But, what I see makes my breath catch in my throat, and I quickly fix my gaze once again on the flagstones.

For, the king bears not one sword, but two.  The long sword at his belt must be the legendary blade his subjects whisper about, but he carries another in his hands, turning it over and over as he regards us.  A long, Gondorian sword in a simple leather scabbard, somewhat aged and somewhat dried from years in the desert.

My sword.

Silently, I curse my foolishness.  It had seemed only prudent—bearing the weapon to the city as a precaution against bandits and a warning for pickpockets.  I hadn’t spared a thought for how it would appear to the Gondorians—a stranger from an enemy land bearing one of their own weapons.  What conclusions should they draw?  I could only have gotten such a blade from a warrior of Gondor.  They must think I had slain one of their own, or captured him and taken his blade.  The bright steel marks me, unmistakably, as a man who has profited from their misfortune.

And isn’t that close to the truth?

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“Is it ready?”

“Azzam, I think you know how I feel about this . . .”

“I do, Asima.  Is it ready?”

“I . . . yes . . . yes, it is ready.”

“It must be tonight, then.  We can wait no longer.”

“You know the markets won’t open for another week at least.  Until then . . .”

“Until then, Dakheel remains our responsibility, I know.  I will speak to him . . . after.  Perhaps he will understand, though that will make this no easier to bear.”

“We will be judged for this.”

“If it helps, you can tell your gods that it was my decision, as the head of this family.  They will have mercy on you, I’m sure.”

“They will do no such thing!  I am your wife, not your chattel.  If you had not convinced me, you would find me impossible to compel.”

“So you understand.”

“I hate it.  I’ll regret it for as long as I live—as will you.  But I understand.”

“Thank you, Asima.”

“Don’t . . . Azzam, I vowed a life by your side.  Your sins are my sins.  But do not thank me for them; I cannot bear it.”

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“There is something I do not understand.”  Dakheel sat on the floor beside me, his long legs stretched out in front of him.  I had just finished a story about the great mûmakil-rider Mukhtar, who had won great honor for his southern tribe in battle against the strange people who dwelt in the far east.  Dakheel idly took a bite of stew and passed me the bowl.  “You speak of each region of Harad as if it were its own entity—with one ruler here for your people, another in the far south, and yet more along the coastline.”

I nodded as I stirred the still-warm stew.  “Each province has its own nobles.  They’re like . . . governors, I guess you’d call them.  Not as high as kings, but more powerful than the tribal chieftains they replaced.”

“And yet, you also speak of a unified army.  I have seen this force myself.  It is a cohesive unit with impressive discipline.  Each company holds men diverse in appearance and dress, as though coming from many different tribes, yet we’ve seen no signs of infighting nor rivalry.  And the men of Gondor tell me it has been so for centuries.  How did such a force come to be?”

I scooped up a bit of stew.  It must have been from the bottom of the pot; it had a slight metallic tang.  “We were not always scattered.”  I lowered my voice.  “We had a high king, once—a dynasty founded some eight centuries ago.  We are forbidden even to speak their names, now, but they unified the sixteen tribes of the Harad and appointed the governors to serve them.  The Grand Army was founded under their reign.”

“What became of them?  Did they die out like the kings of Gondor?”

I lowered my voice still further.  “Yes . . . and no.  The last king ruled until about forty years ago.  When the Dark Lord returned to his throne in Mordor, he sent emissaries to our capitol in the distant south, demanding that we honor treaties made with our ancestors millennia ago.”  I passed Dakheel the stew and he took a small bite.  “The king would have given our allegiance.  It’s said that all the court prostrated themselves before the Dark Lord’s servants.  But, they had not come for his submission.  The Dark Lord decreed that if Harad wanted his aid and protection, the viziers must burn their own king alive.  He said that he would be ruler enough for Harad—that he was god and emperor both.”

I glanced around the empty cell, as if checking for eavesdroppers.  This tale was forbidden, which only meant that people got a great thrill out of repeating it.  I was no exception.  “They say the last king went willingly to the pyre—that no one forced him or bound him.  The faithful say this is because he recognized the might and right of Sauron and submitted to him as to his god.  But,” I paused for dramatic effect, “Even as he was burning, his wife and his children escaped into the jungles of the deep south.  That is how we know that the king resisted him to the last.  The spectacle of his death drew the eyes of Sauron’s minions, giving the queen and her children time to escape.”

Dakheel looked thoughtful.  I told myself that I was not disappointed that the last king’s grisly fate had not evoked shudders and exclamations in this hardened Northerner.  “What became of them?” he asked at last, “His family?”

“No one knows.  Sauron’s servants swear they were slaughtered as they fled, but witnesses are few, and no bodies were ever produced.  For a while, orcs from Mordor combed the jungles of Far Harad . . . but the queen was born in that region, and there are cities hidden there that even the Great Eye has never seen.”

“But, his people he left to Sauron’s mercies,” Dakheel murmured this, as if to himself, “Though perhaps those are kinder than Sauron’s wrath.”

I leaned back against the wall, nibbling half-heartedly on a crust of bread.  Dakheel seemed to pull himself out of his heavy thoughts when he saw my eyes drifting.

“You should return to the house, Hakim.  You look spent.”

I shrugged one shoulder slowly, still staring into space.  “The rains will come soon.”

“Indeed?  I have seen the clouds lengthening and wondered.”

“It won’t be long.  A couple of days, maybe.  At most.”  My eyelids fluttered.  It had been a long day.

“Well, worrying about them now will do no good.  Off to bed, Hakim.”

I nodded absently and clambered to my feet.

The world spun.  I must have been far more weary than I’d thought.  I shook my head to clear it.  I took a step towards the door, but stumbled and had to grab the wall for support.

“Hakim?”  Dakheel’s voice was laced with concern.  He stood slowly.  And swayed.

“Something is wrong.”  My tongue felt heavy and clumsy.

“Hakim, are you alright?”  Dakheel’s words slurred just a little. 

The world swam.  I squeezed my eyes shut and lifted a hand to rub my temples, but instead of alleviating the strange dizziness, it seemed to bring on a new wave, fiercer than the first.  I stumbled again, and this time could not stop myself from dropping to my knees.

“Ha . . . Hakim?”  Dakheel took a step towards me, swayed, and fell ungracefully to his rump.  I had never seen him so much as trip before.  My head now throbbed, steady beats in time with my own heartbeat.  My limbs felt like they were full of lead.  Even holding my head up was a trial, and I slowly sank further and further down.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dakheel snatch up the nearly empty bowl of stew.  With trembling hands, he lifted it and sniffed.  His eyes widened in shock.  Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to care, beyond wondering idly what had upset him so.

“No . . .”  He somehow dragged himself to his feet and took a stumbling step towards me.  Darkness was nibbling away at the corners of my vision as I sank to the floor.

Dakheel took another step in my direction, as horror flitted across his face, warring with the glazed cast that was falling over his eyes.  My own eyes felt so heavy . . .  I saw Dakheel stumble, saw him right himself, saw the determination in his eyes even as it was chased away by that unfocused fog.

As the darkness encroached, I saw him manage one more step.  But even as I sank into unconsciousness, I knew he’d never reach me.

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I floated in a formless void, not quite asleep, but . . . disconnected.  A small, distant part of me knew that I had to wake up—it was very important that I wake up—but it seemed like so much work . . .

“Hakim.”  A stern voice drew me back to myself.  My eyelids fluttered, but they seemed to weigh about a thousand pounds apiece.

“Hakim.”  There was a definite note of warning in that voice.  If I didn’t get up, there would be hell to pay.  Reluctantly, I pried my eyelids open.

The room beyond was an abstract swirl of color.  I blinked slowly until the haze solidified and I could make out a face staring down at me.

I immediately regretted opening my eyes.  My mother’s brow was furrowed.  Her lips were set in a thin, white line.  “How long,” she asked, in a quiet, dangerous voice, “Have you been stealing from the foreigner’s food?”

I screwed my face up and leaned back, my eyes closed once more.  A pillow under my head.  I was in my own bed.  That was interesting.  “Didn’t steal,” I mumbled, “He gave some to me.”

“And you just took it.  With no thought for our responsibility to him.”

I resisted the urge to clap my hands over my ears like a toddler woken from a nap.  “He wanted me to.”  I cracked one eyelid.  The room was spinning in lazy circles.  That couldn’t be normal.  “He said he could tell we didn’t have enough.”  The words rolled out easily, though a niggling voice in the back of my mind warned that I said too much.  “Me and Kali.  ‘Cause of the drought.  He’d give her bread sometimes.  Didn’t want you to know ‘cause you’d be ashamed, but that’s silly, right?”

I opened my eyes fully and stared fixedly at Mother’s eyebrows until they stopped gyrating across my field of view.  Something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on what.  Surely it wasn’t normal to wake up like this at . . . what time was it, anyway?

Mother’s eyes flashed.  She opened her mouth to speak . . . and then shut it suddenly.  She looked away and her face seemed to collapse in on itself.  Her eyes took on a haunted cast.  “Yes, that sounds like something he would do,” she murmured, half to herself.  She looked back at me, and her gaze reacquired a trace of its former hardness.  “You won’t do it again.”

I struggled to sit up.  Something was definitely wrong.  I managed to prop myself up on one elbow and used the other hand to rub at my eyes.  “The food . . .”  I froze.  My stomach clenched as understanding washed over me at last.  I stared at Mother.  “You tried to poison him.”

She opened her mouth, but then closed it once more.  Jaw clenched, she did not meet my gaze.

That cleared the last of the cobwebs from my mind.  Though my limbs were still slow to obey, I sat up fully and pushed back the thin sheet that covered me.  With an urgency born of fear, I rose on unsteady feet.  Mother stood and reached out to steady me, but I pulled away and all but ran from the room, down the hall, and out the front door.

True night had fallen.  Diffuse moonlight shone through a thickening haze of clouds.  The earth was still warm under my bare feet as I stumbled toward the barn, willing certainty into my step as the cool air dispelled the last of my drug-induced clumsiness.  My limbs trembled.  A sudden fit of shudders wracked me, but I forced myself not to falter.  I reached the barn just as my father emerged with a lamp in his hand and a dark expression on his face.

“What did you do?”  My voice was sharp—disrespectful, even—but I found I didn’t care.  “Father, what did you do to him?”

It was a mark of how grim his mood was that he did not chide me for my insolence.  He would not even look at me.  “I did what had to be done,” he said shortly.  Not waiting for a response, he strode back toward the house.

I hesitated for only an instant before wrenching the barn door open and rushing through.  The deadbolt was slow to yield to my clumsy fingers, but at last it too gave way and I pushed past into Dakheel’s quarters.

In the dim light, I could just make out the shadowy form of my friend.  Dakheel sat on his pallet, his arms wrapped around his knees, his torn cloak gathered loosely around his shoulders.  For a moment, everything seemed so normal that I could almost pretend my strange awakening had been a fever dream.  Then, his shoulders shook with a sudden tremor.  He stretched out his legs, and I heard an ominous clanking.

Finally, my eyes adjusted enough to distinguish the dull gleam of metal around Dakheel’s ankle.  I swallowed hard.  A manacle.  One of the trappings of slaveholders that my family hadn’t used since my grandfather’s time.  I don’t know how long my father labored to clean the rust off and make it usable once more, but it was locked securely around Dakheel’s ankle and attached to a six foot chain bolted into the very brick of the wall.

I sat down, quite suddenly, right where I was.

Dakheel hadn’t noticed me until that point, wrapped up in his own cares, but he lifted his eyes at the sudden sound.  “Hakim?  Are you alright?”

I stared at my bare, dirty feet.  “I’m sorry,” I said at last.

A long pause.  Dakheel sighed heavily.  “You didn’t know.  That much, at least, is clear.”  He gave the chain a tug.  “Your father expected I’d try to flee when the rains arrived.”

I couldn’t meet his gaze.  After a moment he looked away.  “I should have expected this,” he said quietly, “Perhaps I could not have prevented it, but . . .” his eyes lit upon mine once more, “At the least I could have kept you from being hurt in the crossfire.”

“Don’t worry about me.  I’m alright.”

“Nevertheless, I was careless.  I knew your father would act somehow, I just didn’t suspect he would do it so soon.”

“I’ll talk to him.  I’ll make him understand.  He can’t have you sold, not after what you’ve done for us . . .”

He held up a hand to stop me.  “Peace, Hakim.”  His eyes glinted in the faint moonlight.  “I thank you for your friendship.  It means more than you know.  But Azzam understands what he does.  I do not think he will be moved, this time.”

“No, you don’t know him—not really.  He’s not like this, he’s  . . . good.  He’s always been a good man, so I don’t understand why . . .”

I trailed off, suddenly aware that my ramblings would bring Dakheel no comfort.  He smiled gently.  “Deeds that seem evil are often the product of a desperate heart,” he said.  I simply stared.  Was this for my sake?  Or did he truly forgive my father, who was even now in the process of betraying him?  “Do not judge his deeds too harshly.  And do not be ashamed for still loving him.  He is your father.”  He leaned back, suddenly weary.  “You should go now, Hakim.”

As I stepped out into the night air, I felt sudden wetness on my face.  I blinked.  Was I crying?

No.

I lifted my face to the heavens as the first drops of summer rain fell.

A/N:  Thanks for reading!  The next update will probably be on Thursday.  Feedback of any kind is greeted with open arms and squeals of delight.