Chapter 30 · Chapter 30

The quiet that followed Sulaiman’s departure did not last an hour. It was broken not by an elder of my own blood or another clerk carrying carbon sheets, but by the elder steward whose post remained fixed at the threshold of the formal outer courtyard. He stood beyond the open archway of the majlis, his gaze lowered with deliberate protocol, waiting until I raised my head before he crossed the sill.

"Sayyidati," he murmured, his voice level and entirely devoid of urgency. "Abu Khalid has sent word from the high gallery. He does not summon you to the central bench, nor has he convened the cousins. He asks only if your tea is finished, and if you will take ten paces into the alcove where the northern ledgers are kept."

Abu Khalid was the chairman whose signature preceded all others on the estate’s corporate charter. He did not traffic in Sulaiman’s petty anxieties, nor did he soil his fingers with the preliminary inventories.