Chapter 10 · Chapter 10

The door to the majlis stood open by a hand's width, and the steward's shadow crossed it once before he went away. Nobody called for me. In that house a call came in the shape of a cup, and an open door was a question; I had learned at nineteen how to answer a question by walking into it slowly.

I straightened the Shaila at my shoulder, drew the Abaya down at the wrists, and went in.

Oud hung in the air, the smoke still turning above the corner Mabkhara, and under it cardamom — the second pot, kept warm, which meant the first round was already finished. My uncle had the Sadr. Two of the Al-Harthy men sat along the left wall; I knew one by his voice and the other by his rings.

Nawaf stood where the carpet's pattern broke into plain wool, neither at the head nor at the wall, and the men beside him had shifted their shoulders to give him room without appearing to move.

No one rose. That was correct.