Harry Turtledove - Down in The Bottomlands (and Other Places)

The next morning, altitude turned what would have been a bad hangover into a killer. Coca tea helped a little, but not enough. Park wished for aspirins and black coffee. Wishing failed to produce them.

Eric Dunedin was still out like a light. Envying him, Park got dressed and braved the vicious sunlight outside as he walked over to the foreign ministry.

The handful of guards outside the building had been replaced by a platoon of troopers. A good many of them were standing in a tight circle around someone. They waved their arms and shouted at whoever it was.

At the moment, Park disliked shouting on general principles. “What’s going on here?” he said. Then he saw for himself. The man in the midst of the angry Tawantiinsuujan soldiers was Da’ud ibn Tariq.

Heads turned his way. “Another foreigner,” one of the troopers growled. He lifted his air rifle, not quite pointing it at Park.

His headache made Park even more irascible than usual. “Go ahead,” he said scornfully. “Shoot me and the emirate’s ambassador both, why don’t you? See if Tawantiinsuuju has a friend left in the world the moment after you do.”

The officer who had noted — and knotted — Park’s previous arrival on the kiipuu recognized him now. “It is the judge of the International Court,” he said. “Stand aside. Let him by.”

“Let Da’ud ibn Tariq come too,” Park said. “I think the minister Tjiimpuu will be interested in seeing him.”

“Exactly what I’ve been trying to tell them,” Da’ud said. “I was summoned here by the minister himself.”

“Maybe we don’t care about that, murderer,” a soldier said. “Maybe we’d sooner cut out your guts with a tuumii-knife .” The Tawantiinsuujans’ ceremonial knife had a half-moon blade on a long handle. They did not practice human sacrifice any more (even Aztecia had given it up), not officially, anyhow. But they remembered.

“Stop that!” Park yelled, and flinched at the sound of his own voice. “You are not at war with the Emirate of the Dar al-Harb. Even if you were, your own embassy in Ramiah may answer for how you treat Da’ud. So let him come with me, and stop acting like dog-eating Wanka fools.”

Park’s gibe struck home. All the other tribes in the Tawantiinsuujan empire mocked the Wankas for their addiction to cynophagy. The officer said grudgingly, “The judge may be right. Our overlords will treat the wretch as he deserves. Let him through.”

Sullenly, the soldiers obeyed. One of them slammed the big trapezoidal double doors behind the two foreigners, so hard that Park thought the top of his head would come off. He rather hoped it would.

“I am in your debt, Judge Scoglund,” Da’ud said in English, bowing deeply.

“It’s nothing. I was just trying to get them to shut up.”

The Moor glanced at him. One elegant eyebrow rose. “Perhaps I should backpay the debt by talking you into ontaking Islam. That I would seek to do anyhow, for the good of your ghost. Now, though, it strikes me your body would also be the better for having wine-bibbing forbidden it.”

“It wasn’t wine, and it’s not your dealing,” Park snapped.

“Seeking to win a good man to Islam is the dealing of any Muslim,” Da’ud said. Park was about to snarl at him when he went on smoothly, “But here we are at Tjiimpuu’s door, so let us backturn to Ketjwa and perhaps speak of this another time.”

“You were not bidden to come here, Judge Scoglund,” the foreign minister’s secretary said when he saw Park.

“Yes, I know, but here I am, and what are you going to do about it?” Park followed Da’ud ibn Tariq into Tjiimpuu’s private office. Having failed once already, the secretary didn’t do anything about it.

To Park’s surprise, Tjiimpuu didn’t fuss about his walking in. In fact, a grim smile briefly lit the foreign minister’s face. “Well met, Judge Scoglund,” he said. “Now the world will have an impartial account of the latest outrage the Emirate of the Dar al-Harb has visited upon us.”

“The Emirate has done nothing against Tawantiinsuuju,” Da’ud said. “I presume you are referring to yesterday’s explosion here.”

“And the gunmen who set it off and took advantage of the terror it caused to kill even more,” Tjiimpuu said.

“Ninety-one people are dead at last count, more than three hundred wounded. Two of the murderers survived being captured. Both are Muslims; both say they and the rest wanted to strike a blow against the true holy worship of Patjakamak and the sun.”

“Heaven will receive our dead, as it receives all who fall in the jihad ,” Da’ud replied, “but they did not act by the will of the Emir, Allah’s peace be upon him. The Emirate is blameless.”

“I do not believe you,” Tjiimpuu ground out. “Nor does the Son of the Sun. This looks to be — this is — all of a piece with the murder and banditry your people engage in throughout the border provinces. We can tolerate it no more.” The foreign minister breathed heavily. “I am sorry, Judge Scoglund, but your presence in Kuuskoo is no longer required. It will be war.”

“Wait!” Allister Park said immediately, then realized he had no idea what to tell Tjiimpuu to wait for. He thought frantically. “If, ah, if the Emir — without admitting guilt — expresses his sorrow for those killed at the Raimii festival, will that not show enough, ah, good feeling from him for talks to go on?”

Tjiimpuu frowned. “The Emir Hussein has never been known for his compassion.”

“That is not so,” Da’ud said at once. “His Highness feels more compassion for pagans than for Muslims, in fact, as he knows that when pagans die they have only the pangs of hell to anticipate.”

“Then let him say so,” Park urged.

“Such a statement, were it to come; would surely be looked on with pleasure by the Son of the Sun,” Tjiimpuu agreed. “If you think it might arrive, Da’ud ibn Tariq, I will urge Maita Kapak — ” he shaded his eyes for a moment “ — to delay the declaration.”

“I do not know whether the Emir would make such a statement,” Da’ud said. “In any case, I do not intend to seek it of him.”

“What? Why the hell not?” Park exclaimed, startled out of both his diplomatic manners and his Ketjwa; he got no satisfaction from cursing in a tongue he had just learned.

“Because of this.” Da’ud drew a rolled sheet of paper from inside his robe, handed it with a sober flourish to Tjiimpuu. When the Tawantiinsuujan undid the ribbon that held it closed, Park saw the sinuous characters of Arabic. He was learning to speak that tongue, but could read it only very slowly.

Tjiimpuu, plainly, had no problem with it. He looked up in sharp surprise at Da’ud. “This is not a forgery you made up this past evening after you knew I had summoned you?”

“By Allah I swear it is not.” Da’ud turned to Allister Park, explaining, “Last night I received a courier dispatch from Ramiah. Not far outside the city, a mosque was put to the torch at the hour of evening prayer some days ago. Many are dead, how many no one knows. On a wall nearby was scrawled the name ‘Patjakamak’.”

“Jesus,” Park said. He supposed both Tjiimpuu and Da’ud thought he was swearing by his own god. He was swearing, all right, but not in that sense of the word.

“I will take this to the Son of the Sun,” Tjiirnpuu said slowly.

“Do so,” Da’ud agreed. “We have as much cause for war as you. More, since you claim lands rightfully ours.”

“They are ours,” Tjiimpuu said.

“Wait!” Park said again. “This whole business of the lands has been stewing for a generation. A few days more won’t matter, one way or another. What we need to do right now is to get each of you to stop trying to harm the other over what you find holy. Maybe knowing how much even a few zealots can hurt you will make both sides think twice.”