Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History Read Online Free Page A

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    No. I feed them because Fakr-ad-Din’s son has been recently killed. His grief is raw. His grief is new.
    Hisham’s demons are old. They were his mother’s. I don’t know how long they have been in his family and I don’t know any way in which they can be destroyed. All I know for sure is that my song of grief has lasted almost three years and is beginning to fade. Might the song of a prince, even a prince defeated and in hiding, not last for thirty years, or more?
    God loves Fakr-ad-Din
, I think,
or he could not have been the prince. He could not have conquered from Palmyra to the sea, built mighty castles, or beaten the armies of Damascus.
    “It is the woman,” calls a low voice from the mouth of the grotto.
    “Weapons away,” another voice murmurs. “It is only the woman. Come. We will go down to the valley and unload the cart.”
    I hesitate at the cave mouth. Inside, it is cold. Wet. Dark. A screen for the bloody shadow-puppet show of my unexorcised memories. Hisham died in a cave like this one. The Jesuits chained him to the wall. In the Cave of the Mad, they said, the healing powers of the saint would save him.
    The saint did not save him.
    “The beautiful Zahara,” says the man who can only be Prince Fakr-ad-Din. Each time I have come before, it has been full dark, and the prince has been engaged in secret meetings, but his supporters do not dare visit in daylight.
    He takes my hand, kisses it. Christian women permit such things. My mother would have clawed out his eyes.
    The prince has a woman’s height. He has a curling white moustache and a waist-length beard that obscures the thread-of-gold embroidery decorating his silks. He carries a lantern in his left hand. A scimitar hangs at his waist. “It is a gift of heaven to meet you at last,” he says. “My nephew told me the story of how he shot one of your goats. Instead of bringing the Janissaries, you vowed to keep us from starving, and here you are, true to your vow. Is your husband in good health?”
    God loves Fakr-ad-Din.
    “My husband is blessed with excellent health,” I say by rote.
    See me, God. I give bread and cheese to the one that you love. Will you give me some crumb in return? Or has my baptism truly cleaved me from you? Can you truly be turned aside by water?
    “And your children?”
    “My daughter is also blessed, your Highness. Is your royal family well?”
    There it is. The mouth slackened by distress. The tic in one eye. The breath in his lungs that is suddenly not enough. Finally, he wets his lips and speaks.
    “My… my nephew is well. Nephew!”
    The middle-aged cavalryman who killed my goat comes out of a side-passage. He carries a Turkish bow and a musket. It has been three months since I first saw him and though he still wears the same brown tunic, baggy black trousers, and knee-high boots as he did on that morning, his neat black beard is no longer neat.
    He quirks an eyebrow that is sliced in half by an old scimitar scar.
    “Yes, Uncle?”
    “You did not tell me that the talented Zahara is also a musician. You did not tell me she carries an oud.”
    “Do you think music is prudent in this place, Uncle?”
    “She will play for me in the inner chamber. My soul is weary.”
    “As you wish, Uncle.”
    If Fakr-ad-Din fears his father’s demons, it does not show. He leads me deeper and deeper into the cave. My foot slips on uneven ground and the jostling wakes Ghalya fully. Though soldiers cannot, in general, be trusted, I have no fear that these will harm her. They depend on me.
    “I don’t like the dark,” she says in a frightened voice by my ear.
    “Hush, little squirrel,” I say, struggling wearily to find my balance. “I will play some soothing music, soon.”
    “But Aunty Rafqa says–”
    When we reach the inner chamber, I let Ghalya slip down to the carpet. She stretches, but stays hiding behind me, peeping around me as I unsling the oud case and sit with my legs crossed beneath my