A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 17

She leaned forward, "I am more interested in a djinn queen who lives inside a mountain in the middle of my kingdom and no one knew of it. I wish to meet any queen who is my neighbor, and mostly, I wish to know her so that I may thank her for sending you to see what was afoot in the land to the south and east of her. She must be told what a fine servant she has, and that is best said -- so that the words may be spoken and heard truly -- only from queen to queen.

If she is djinn and you are partly so as well, I know that you need only send your thoughts to each other if you are close, and you say that you are as her son. Whether she sent you or you came by chance to see my return, it matters not. If she does not know that she has a neighbor, then she will know long before the dawn. I am not troubled by it. I welcome it, as I have said."

She leaned back and dazzled Yasmin with the fluid motions of the dagger in her hand as it spun looking like a glittering sphere before her. "I once had the love of a beautiful girl by that name, that is all. It gives me a pleasant memory which hurts my heart after more than a moment. She left me and never returned. That is all that needs to be said."

Eventually, Dakhete saw Yasmin's yawn, and reminded her that her ordeals would begin in the morning. Khyan was reluctant to take his leave of them, but he said that he had to go. Yasmin asked him if she might walk with him to the gates, and Khyan grinned as he nodded.

They walked to the gates together. "Thank you for what you have done," Yasmin said, "My hair has never felt so clean and the way that it smells now, ..."

"It was nothing," Khyan said, "I am happy to have met you. If it is your wish, I can return tomorrow. I think that you will need a little help in what it is that you are to learn. I know little of you, but I believe that you have lived on the strength of yourself until now. I believe that your Kandake seeks to add to this."

Khyan walked on through the gates and Yasmin wondered where this guard of his waited. But things became a little clearer when Khyan bent to put a leather belt on and tie it closed before he strapped on his sword and picked up his long spear. He whistled, and the huge cat bounded over out of the darkness. As they walked off together, Khyan turned and wished Yasmin a good night with a smile and a small wave.

"I saw his guard," Yasmin said to Dakhete later, "He has a large cat who waited for him somewhere in the darkness. He came when Khyan whistled for him. Dakhete, he was huge and had long teeth, but he barely gave me a look and then they walked away. He asks to return in the morning."

Dakhete smiled, "I see that you like him. He is very good to look at, though I think that you should try a little harder to keep your gaze on his fine face a little more."

Yasmin looked down, "Was I that obvious? I've never seen men naked, even where I grew up."

"You were," Dakhete grinned, "but there is no shame in it. We cannot fault him if we are not wearing much ourselves. Let him come then, it is only a little sad to me that he came this evening, when we had just arrived ourselves, but that is fate, Yasmin."

"How do you mean, Dakhete?" Yasmin asked, and then her eyebrows rose, "Oh, you mean that he came here when the Kandake was least prepared to receive him," she said, looking around at the dusty ruin all around her.

"Just so," Dakhete nodded, "and you have overlooked something in your quiet pleasure at finding a young male who is obviously as delighted to make your acquaintance as you are to make his. He is fine, is he not? But all the same, he said that his queen took him to raise as her own. No matter what the circumstances of how it was that he came to be made, Yasmiin, we were visited by more than a humble young emissary, as fine as he is."

She looked around and then hung her head a little, "I began the day with only the thought to come here alone to search for some of my memories in the dust. Look at me now, Yasmin. Along the way, I felt something draw me to a souq to save a mistreated one and I make a friend and student out of it. I drag her here and assume what I left behind me," she said, sweeping her hand around them.

"It was not my plan to do more than try to remember a little, and I am here with a strange and compelling desire in me to raise this dusty place. I wish no empire anymore. I only wish to make it live a little by itself and not by my hand as a puppet. I think that it can be done -- all of it, and I can teach the friend that I have made as well.

Such a strange day," she said, "and I am one, Yasmin, who has lived many strange days."

Dakhete laughed then and shook her head, "But I lived for so long as the instrument of others, doing deeds for their purposes and never my own. Now I seek to live for myself and my friends, the lovely one who does not know what she truly is and her wondrous little ass."

She looked and saw Yasmin's smile as she strained to hold her laughter back.

"I meant Najmah," the Kandake chuckled, "but no matter. And this is the day that I receive my first guest. I have not even ruled here an hour and I am faced with the emissary of a neighboring queen that I knew nothing of. I will surely look as a fool to her when he tells of us. My fine luck," she said shaking her head. "At the least, yours still holds and serves you."

"How so?" Yasmin asked as she slid her arm around the queen's waist and hugged her with one arm, "I am your student and I will serve you in anything. I wish to be your friend longer than I am alive for the things that you have done for me in only a day. You need to learn to share your burdens with me, so that I might know how to help in anything, for that is my wish, Dakhete."

"I am only grumbling," the queen smiled as she accepted her fate and saw her good fortune as it came to her with Yasmin's affectionate kiss on her cheek. "Your taste in men is as fine as you are, my young friend. No matter what was said, the one who helped to wash and comb out your beautiful hair as though he was nothing more than a servant is much more than he appears, if you can set aside your wonder of his body, as lovely and lithe as your own."

"How so?" Yasmin asked once more, "Make it a little clearer to me. I remind you that I began the day as the daughter of a whore, my Queen."

Dakhete nodded with a soft little grin which spoke of how her annoyance was swept aside as she thought of what had really been her good fortune, "Yes, you were the poor girl who was to be stoned for getting caught as she sought a little pleasure with another girl.

I am enjoying the sweet bit of irony, Yasmin. My young gazelle's eye has been caught by another gazelle, much like herself, only he is a fine male. Whatever will you do?" she chuckled, as she hugged Yasmin briefly before looking into her golden eyes for a moment and then leaning in to leave a very soft kiss on her student's lips.

"Such wondrous eyes which only need to be opened a little," she smiled, "yet they work for you, even though you do not know how well yet. To you, he is a copper-skinned beauty, with such blues eyes and golden curls. He smiles a little shyly, and I see you almost lift from the ground. You do well, my friend. The emissary whose nakedness you were admiring," she nodded, "Khyan is a prince."

"A prince?" Yasmin sighed as her jaw began to open in wonder.

"Just so. He is half-human by his words, but I can see that he does not know everything. He is djinn, the same as I am. I have seen his flame while you were gazing at his bottom and the other part which caused him a bit of trouble. He is a djinn raised as the son of a djinn queen." She leaned in and kissed Yasmin's cheek and left her ear with a new wonder to consider.

"I will enjoy watching this," she whispered as Yasmin felt Dakhete's smile against her cheek. "Khyan bint el-Jebel is a prince who has seen the lovely gazelle who can stop his young heart when she smiles. He will find no sleep for himself this night," Dakhete said, and her look said that the subject was closed.

Yasmin looked around and Dakhete smiled as she raised her hand as though fending off an argument, "I will not hear of it, my friend. I know your thoughts and I did not pull you away from your death so that I would have a servant who sleeps at my feet. It is my wish that you sleep close to me. I will not allow you to sleep as though you were a dog at my feet. I have never been that sort of queen."

"For one so wise," Yasmin smiled, "You speak plainly sometimes. I already knew what you would say."

On the hard stone slab, they had only blankets, but they didn't mind it. Yasmin hugged and kissed Dakhete, thanking her for a day like no other in her life before she turned away and pulled the woman's arm over her. They talked for a time and then each one fell asleep.