The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Amina al-Sirafi, #1)

by Shannon Chakraborty

For this scribe has read a great many of these accounts and taken away another lesson: that to be a woman is to have your story misremembered. Discarded. Twisted.

Now, I understand the appeal of treasure-hunting, I do. After all, we build our homes upon the ruins of lost cities and sail our ships over the drowned palaces of forgotten kings.

Many forgers prefer Hebrew for its mystical connotations, but in my opinion, the text off an old Sabaean tomb makes for more mysterious letters.

not a scream any mortal mouth should have been able to let loose. Rather, it was more the roar of a tidal wave and the death cries of gulls.

I struck out madly, and the knife stuck in the air. There was a shriek—an evil, unnatural sound like claws scraping over seashells—and then the scaled monstrosity squatting on my chest rippled into sight.

What a compliment to note my worth as it compares to carting her rich ass around.

“Happy sixteen-year-olds are rarer than just kings.” I sighed.

For I have always had a gambler’s soul, finding prizes tinged with risk utterly irresistible. But my gambler’s soul had gotten innocent men killed. My gambler’s soul was now so heavy with crimes that God would have to be most merciful indeed if I was to escape hellfire.

It was a life of banditry born out of tragedy, yes. But in choosing it, I had destroyed any hope of future respectability and was happy for it. Why not wear stolen pearls and a sailor’s loincloth? Marry an oarsman I barely knew because he was achingly handsome and I wanted to fuck him? Drink stolen wine meant for a sultan across the world and fight duels at midnight?

thin but tough as steel, as if the years had boiled away all weakness in a way that made her only more impressive.

I have no doubt in their faraway homelands, lands rumored to be harsh and cold and unforgiving, there are thousands of people who are concerned only with putting food in their children’s bellies, people who would be horrified to learn what those of their creed did. I have traveled widely enough that I take everything written about “foreigners” with doubt and know better than to judge a community by their worst individuals.

For while the pious claim money doesn’t buy happiness, I can attest from personal experience that poverty buys nothing. It is a monster whose claws grow deeper and more difficult to escape with each passing season, with even the slightest misstep setting you back years, if not forever.

The room had darkened, one of the lamps flickering out. In the dim light, my daughter’s eyes were enormous and black as coal, blacker than the eyes of any person I’ve ever met.

Pharmaceuticals. I choked. “I did not think you had any . . . training in that.” “Oh, I don’t. But it is largely the same principle as poisoning, no? Just in reverse.” Dalila winked. “The ladies here love me. So many terrible husbands dying in their sleep. It must be something in the water.” God preserve me. “I am, ah, happy you are finding your place in the world.”

“‘He who dares does while he who fears fails,’”

“Not to insult your guild’s beliefs, but perhaps we could talk somewhere away from knockout gases?”

Like any youngster, I grew up on tales of the Banu Sasan. Stories of thieves who break into homes by digging tunnels under the foundation and murderers who can cut a man’s neck so cleanly his head won’t topple off. Some people say the Banu Sasan are the criminally talented descendants of Persian kings chased into the mountains centuries ago; others claim they’re just con men with clever tricks that make for easily exaggerated gossip. Either way, they inspire wonderful stories, this brotherhood of terrifying brigands and scoundrels, their tales so audacious they seem impossible to believe.

Then Dalila joined my crew. Or rather she blackmailed my crew into spiriting her out of Basrah by stowing away in the cargo hold, poisoning my navigator, and withholding the antidote until we had cleared the Persian Gulf. It was a complicated recruitment process.

Perched upon the sunken crater of a long-dead sea volcano and ringed by jagged peaks that tear at the sky, the city’s very location seems out of a book of myths.

went into a great harangue about the management of risk that convinced me she regularly murdered curious neighbors.

I praised God under my breath, my soul eased at the sight of my first love, at the ship I’d have cast all my ex-husbands overboard to save.

An old, dangerous anger lit inside me. “We follow.”

there was an earnestness in his green eyes I suppose would be endearing if that was your type. It was not mine—I make terrible decisions and thus prefer men with a bit more mischief, which has only ever turned out well.

Is this what we pay taxes to support?” I have not, in the entirety of my life, ever paid taxes. Or customs fees. Or fines of any sort (I do pay my zakat and give sadaqah, of course, for the Divine Authority is the only one I respect).

As you might imagine, the choice between “stay behind to face possible crucifixion for piracy” or “escape with the large, armed woman promising riches” was not a difficult one.

By the time we reached the beach, the water was a blur of churning blackness marked only by the crash of silver surf and the shattered light of moonbeams rising and falling with the waves. It was impossible to distinguish between the horizon and the sea, let alone make out the contours of the harbor and distant seawall. The Marawati was a bobbing cutout of stars and shadows marked by the faint light of a few torches burning on the warship anchored at her side. There

I feel like I should clarify, for I have insulted them now at depth: the Mamluk soldiers stolen from distant lands who can barely tread water are genuinely admirable warriors. Terrifying ones—when they fight Franks or rulers who don’t pay them. They are astonishingly skilled riders, knowledgeable in weapons I’ve never even heard of, and well disciplined. But they’re not locals. They’re not seafolk. And facing off against crazy sailors and divers who could swim before they lost their milk teeth in the middle of a midnight bay?

“Is that to impress the pretty-eyed merchant?” Tinbu’s expression grew even glummer. “Would it be so wrong to kidnap him?”

The cat made a sound between a death rattle and a wheeze in response, knocking its head so hard into Tinbu’s chin it had to hurt. “Your . . . mouser?” Dalila asked, sounding doubtful. Tinbu flushed. “We are still working on the ‘catching mice’ part. But Payasam noticed a spider the other day. Even put a paw on it!” He shared this accomplishment with the pride of a father announcing his child’s marriage,

REAL

First you must understand that there are a great many tales. Stories do that, don’t they, branching out like a sapling searching for sunlight? By the time centuries have passed and that sapling is a mighty tree, there are more branches than can be counted, sprawling in widely different directions.

It is said while the moon was in the manzil of al-Dabaran, it spied upon Bilqis and fell instantly in love (do not ask me how moons can do such a thing, I am a simple scribe).

She raised a shaking finger in my direction and the guise of unshakable matriarch briefly fell away, replaced by something wild and grief-stricken, as though by yelling at me, she could deny the truth of what I had laid at her feet.

For the greatest crime of the poor in the eyes of the wealthy has always been to strike back. To fail to suffer in silence and instead disrupt their lives and their fantasies of a compassionate society that coincidentally set them on top. To say no.

several ribald verses on a well-worn page relating how al-Amin’s mother ordered dancing girls and page boys to swap garments and effects in hopes of sparking the caliph’s desire. Apparently more than a few enjoyed it.

Though I didn’t see the blasted cat now, it had become fond of napping on the galley roof, and because it was the least graceful feline God had ever put on this world, falling off the roof when the Marawati rolled too much.

(the excellent thing about living along an ocean of a hundred different kingdoms is being able to commit crimes in one and flee very quickly to another),

Like any siblings, we’ve had our disagreements, but he is a good man. I should have known he got married; I should have known he had children. Our families should have visited and enjoyed holidays together. Marjana should have thought of him as an uncle, and I should have showered him with gold upon his children’s births.

“Yes, yes, I know. The cutting out of my heart and feeding it to sharks. A perfectly normal threat for a cartographer to make.”

“I’m not sure I ever stopped being a nakhudha,” I finally replied. “Our hearts may be spoken for by those with sweet eyes, little smiles, and so very many needs, but that does not mean that which makes us us is gone.

Dalila joined us, Payasam purring in her arms. “Do not tell me the useless cat has won you over as well?” I complained. “I woke up to its tail in my mouth.” “I remain entranced by its utter inability to provide for itself,” Dalila marveled. “Tinbu must hand-feed it so that it does not starve. The only thing it does seek to consume on its own initiative is my black powder. It is such a failure of a cat that I cannot help but be impressed.”

It lightens the heart of a mariner to see another who has grown old doing it, for many do not.

The tide was out, revealing greenish-blue anemones that covered the enormous black rocks jutting out of the shallows like embroidery upon a hem. We splashed into water as clear as glass, tiny waves chasing and nipping each other across the white sand. The beach was narrow, dwarfed by the towering flat plain that made up the island’s heart. Sheer cliffs of limestone rose higher than a multistoried building. Here and there, powdery dunes of pale sand piled against them like failed waves of intruders upon a city’s walls.

I’d grown up feeling terribly unusual, out of place and never at peace with the fate afforded young girls. In a hidden corner of my heart, I nursed embarrassing dreams. That I was not the child of my parents, but the daughter of a tribe of female warriors who flew upon winged horses. Or I was heir to a hidden sea kingdom below the waves, and the whispered sighs I heard from the water when we sailed and the strange lightning in the distance were not natural weather phenomena but magic, my true family calling to me.

He leaned closer. “You . . . radiate ambition, do you know that?” A strange hunger surged through his voice. “A veritable feast of yearning.”

His eyes were blazing, so bright it hurt to look upon them, but I couldn’t drop my gaze. A crimson line blossomed in their ebony depths, illuminating pupils of scorching fire. “Tell me what you want, Amina al-Sirafi,” he purred. “Tell me it all.” “I want to go everywhere. I want to be great.” Words poured from my lips, desires and confessions spilling so fast I nearly choked. “I want to look upon my mother again and see pride in her eyes. I want to explore lands I’ve heard about only in tales and listen to the stories of those who dwell in them. I want . . . I want so much.”

“I take but one husband at a time and he is the only man I allow in my bed.” “What a strange custom.” Raksh frowned. “But you said your husband was gone. So why not have me in his place?” I blinked. Surely I was not so drunk to have heard that correctly. “Are you proposing to me?” “Is that what it is called?” he asked, looking intrigued. “Sure! I propose to you. With the marrying. Now we can lay together?”

I might have signed my name to anything at that point, so focused I was on my desire to lick him.

I lowered my gaze. Stop ogling a demon’s ass. Ogling a demon’s ass is what got you into all these troubles in the first place.

Even if I did briefly entertain notions of shoving him off the cliff. The motherfucker would probably bounce and then climb back up to murder me.

He paused. “I should lick you.” I veered away. “Excuse me. You should do what?” “Lick you. Though I suppose kissing might work as well. I am feeling weak, and the path ahead is difficult. Perhaps if someone had bothered to sleep with me last night, my magic would be stronger—”