The old ka'id was dead, of course. As a much-applauded gesture of courtesy the king had allowed him to take his own life rather than face public execution. This death, too, was only normal: it was not considered a wise idea for new monarchs to allow generals to continue in power, or even remain alive. It was one of the inherent risks that came with accepting a position of high command in an army in Al-Rassan.

Even the outlaw Tarif ibn Hassan, the terror of merchants on the southern roads and all lawful tax collectors, seemed to have decided to turn his attentions elsewhere this season. He had eschewed his chronic, debilitating raids from impregnable Arbastro into the Cartadan hinterlands in favor of a genuinely spectacular action in Ragosan territory to the north.

Talk of that affair continued through the winter as hardy travellers and merchants straggled into the city with newer versions of the story. It appeared that ibn Hassan had actually managed to seize the first-ever parias tribute from Fibaz to Jalona, slaughtering the entire Jaddite party in the process. An astonishing coup in every respect. Another strand to the forty-year legend.

The embarrassment to Ragosa—since King Badir had authorized the payment in the first place—was extreme, and so were the economic and military implications. Some of the more free-spoken of those drinking in the taverns of Cartada that winter offered the view that the Jalonans might even ride south in numbers come spring, to teach Fibaz a lesson. Which meant, to teach Badir of Ragosa a lesson.

That was someone else's problem, the drinkers agreed. For once ibn Hassan had caused real trouble elsewhere. Wouldn't it be nice if the aged jackal obligingly died soon? Wasn't he old enough, already? There was good land around Arbastro, where a loyal courtier of the new king of Cartada might one day find himself with, say, a small castle and a crown-bestowed estate to manage and defend.

Winter was a time for dreaming, among other things.

The new king of Cartada had neither the leisure nor the disposition to share in such dreams. An edgy, precise man, very much the son of his father—though both would have denied that—Almalik II knew too much that his citizens did not and his own winter, accordingly, encompassed little of the optimism of theirs.

Not that this was unusual for kings.

He knew his brother was with the Muwardis in the desert, with the blessings and hopes of the wadjis accompanying him. He knew with certainty what Hazem would be suggesting. He had no way of knowing how the proposals would be received by Yazir ibn Q'arif. The transition from a strong king to his successor was always a dangerous time.

He made a point of pausing in his business to pray each time the bells rang during the day. He summoned the most prominent of the wadjis of Cartada and listened to their list of complaints. He lamented with them that his beloved father—a Believer of course, but a secular man—had let their great city slip some distance from the Laws of Ashar. He promised to take regular counsel with them. He ordered a notorious street of Jaddite prostitutes to be cleared immediately and a new temple built there, with gardens and a residence for the wadjis.

He sent gifts, substantial ones, to Yazir and his brother in the desert. It was all he could do, for the moment.

He also learned, early in the winter before the flow of news from abroad slowed to a trickle, that a holy war was being readied in Batiara, with armies from four Jaddite lands massed to sail to Ammuz and Soriyya in the spring.

That was potentially the most momentous news of all, but not his immediate problem, and it was difficult to imagine that after a bored, fractious winter together such a disparate force would ever really sail. In another way, though, whether they did or didn't embark, the mere assembling of that army represented the gravest danger imaginable.

He dictated a message of warning to the Grand Khalif in Soriyya. It would not arrive before spring, of course, and there would be other warnings sent, but it was important to add his voice to the chorus. They would ask him for soldiers and gold, but it would take time for that request to make its way back.

Meanwhile it was more important to decipher what the Jaddites in the north of this peninsula might be contemplating in the wake of these tidings of war, which they too would have by now. If four Jaddite armies were massing to sail east, what might the Esperanans be considering, with Asharites so near to hand and an example of holy war? Would not their holy men be preaching to the kings even now?

Could the three rulers of Esperana even gather in the same place without one of them killing another? Almalik II doubted it, but he took counsel with his advisors and then sent certain gifts and a message to King Sanchez of Ruenda.

The gifts were princely; the message took carefully worded note of the fact that Fezana, which Cartada controlled and which currently paid parias to arrogant Valledo, not Ruenda, was at least as close to the latter kingdom, and at least as much potentially subject to Ruendan protection. He besought, respectfully, King Sanchez's thoughts on these thorny matters.

There were divisions to be sown in the north, and it was not especially hard to sow them among the successors of Sancho the Fat.

Jalona in the northeast was not, for the moment, of concern to him. They were more likely to cause difficulty for Ragosa, and that was useful, so long as it didn't amount to more than that. It occurred to him more than once that he really ought to be exchanging counsels with King Badir this winter, but he balked at that. Any interaction with Badir meant dealing, now, with Ammar ibn Khairan, who had fled to Cartada's principal rival the day after his exiling.

It had been a cowardly thing to do, Almalik had decided. It even bordered on the treasonous. All Ammar would have had to do was withdraw discreetly somewhere for a year, write some poems, maybe make a pilgrimage east, even fight for the Faith in Soriyya this coming year, in Ashar's name ... and then Almalik could have welcomed him back, a contrite, chastened courtier who had done a decent time of penance. It had seemed so obvious.

Instead, ibn Khairan, prickly and contrary as ever, had stolen away with Zabira straight to Badir and his wily Kindath chancellor in dangerous Ragosa. Very dangerous Ragosa, in fact, because Almalik's sources then informed him, belatedly, that the woman had apparently sent her two sons—his own half-brothers—to Badir during the summer, immediately after the Day of the Moat.

That was news he ought to have had sooner, before his father died. He was compelled to make an example and execute two of his men: it was perilous to be receiving such important tidings so late. Those two boys represented a threat to his tenure on this throne almost as great as Hazem in the desert.

Superfluous brothers, the new king of Cartada decided, were best disposed of swiftly. Look at what had happened among the Jaddites, for example. Ramiro of Valledo, for all his vaunted prowess, had only begun to flourish after the abrupt passing of his brother Raimundo. And though there had been rumors from the moment of that death, they hadn't impeded Ramiro's steady ascent at all.

A lesson to be learned there. Almalik summoned two men known to him and gave them careful instructions and explicit promises and sent them east, equipped as spice merchants, to cross the mountains to Ragosa while the pass was still open to legitimate traders.

He was sobered, and more than a little shaken, to learn later in the winter that they had both died in a tavern brawl the very evening of their arrival in Badir's city.

Badir was clever, his father had always said so. The Kindath chancellor was extremely clever. And now Ammar was with them, when he ought to have been here, or at least waiting quietly somewhere for permission to return.