The City of Silk and Steel Read online

  ‘And moreover, a hope grew in his breast that if he could survive, he could obtain justice – could go back to the city that birthed him and face down the most execrable moneylender, Nilaf Brozoud, who had murdered his blameless father.’

  ‘You said Nilaf Brozoud was a courtier,’ Zuleika pointed out.

  Anwar Das nodded. ‘So he was. But he also lent money at interest. That was the source of much of his wealth. Also . . .’ he tried to remember what he had learned from his conversations with the women ‘. . . he hobbled horses in order to lay complaints against guiltless ostlers, and raised a tax on cloth that bankrupted the seamstresses of Yrtsus and caused terrible suffering to their innocent families.’

  Gasps of outrage and muttered execrations from those women whose background included stables or sewing.

  ‘The young man longed to face this man – this ignoble monster, rather – and throw his villainy in his teeth. And so one day, when he had been with the bandits a year, he bade them farewell and set off across the mountains to Yrtsus, determined at last to requite the death of his excellent father. The bandits offered to accompany the young man and make his fight their own, but he thanked them and said that he would not have them come into danger for his sake.

  ‘But in the mountains, even if one has a map, it’s fatally easy to become lost. The young man strayed from the path, and was soon confused by the myriad peaks and valleys, all alike, with which these hills abound. When night fell he was alone and without shelter, and a sandstorm greater than any witnessed on the Earth until then had descended out of the north, driving him – all unknowing – even further from his way.

  ‘Stung and blinded by the sand, all but dead from exhaustion and thirst, the young man sank at last to his knees, and then fell prostrate. In that moment, he succumbed to despair – thereby, sweet ladies, deserving death a second time, since in despair we turn our backs to the Increate’s mercy and assume, always falsely, that he has no plan for us. The young man cursed his fate, and so proved himself unworthy of rescue or redemption.

  ‘But though he abandoned the Increate, the Increate did not abandon him. The tips of his fingers, as he lay there on the face of the desert like a child upon his mother’s breast, touched something cold and hard. Drawing it forth from the sand, he discovered that it was a bottle.

  ‘The young man was, as I have said before, almost dying from thirst. So he pulled the stopper from the bottle, thinking that it might contain water, and to his astonishment, out from those crystal confines came—’

  ‘A djinn!’ Zuleika grunted in disgust. ‘He’s telling us a story with a djinn in it. The kind that lives in a bottle and grant wishes. Please let me kill him now!’

  ‘It was no djinn,’ Anwar Das said with dignity, although it had been about to be exactly that. ‘Please, lady, no interruptions. Out from those crystal confines, I say, poured an army of infinitesimally tiny men. Men the size of ants, whose voices were so small and so shrill that the astonished young man could make out nothing of what they said. And yet, by cleverly arranging themselves into the shapes of letters and words, they contrived to speak with him.’

  It was the best that Anwar Das could do on the fly, having been deflected from his djinn, but the women seemed interested in this implausible development, and prepared to roll with it for a while at least.

  ‘The tiny myrmidons told the young man that they were the lost legions of Jugul Inshah, who had been sent against the mages of Treis in the days when the world was just created and the Increate’s touch was fresh upon it, so that everything dripped magic as the trees drip water after a storm.

  ‘They had fought, and they had lost, and the mages of Treis had trapped them in a bottle, cursing them with the doubled curse of infinitesimal size and eternal life. The only way they could be restored to their former stature and live once again the life of normal men was to win the blessing of the king of Treis himself. But Treis had passed from the Earth ten thousand years before, and none knew now even where it had stood, so their plight was a parlous one.

  ‘The young man told the diminutive army his own story in turn, and they commiserated with him on the perfidy of the evil merchant—’

  ‘Courtier,’ Zuleika muttered.

  ‘—courtier, with mercantile interests, Nilaf Brozoud. Indeed, such was their pity and fellow feeling for the young man, whose person was so fine and whose morals were so upright, that they swore themselves into his service and offered to go with him into Yrtsus.

  ‘The young man was loath to accept their assistance, since his purpose was so terrible and the risk so great, but they importuned him until he agreed. He went on with the bottle in his pack, and soon found the right way again. He was in Yrtsus before nightfall, and found an inn, the Seven Stars, wherein he could spend the night.’

  ‘My father’s inn at Saruqiy was called the Seven Stars!’ one of the women exclaimed.

  Anwar Das knew this already, from an earlier conversation, but reacted with polite surprise. ‘Perhaps,’ he suggested, ‘this inn was named for your father’s, for who has not heard of the Seven Stars of Saruqiy, its legendary hospitality, the sweetness of its wines, and its entirely reasonable prices?’

  The woman nodded happily, and Anwar Das mentally moved one vote from the nays to the ayes.

  ‘The innkeeper,’ he went on, ‘a worthy man of advanced age, gave the young man news that saddened his heart. The grand vizier of Yrtsus had died only a week before, and Nilaf Brozoud had been appointed to that most honoured and impregnable of positions. He was now second only to the sultan himself, who placed absolute trust in him and loved him like a brother. The feasting and celebrations at the palace were still going on, and were set to continue until the first day of the month following.

  ‘The young man’s heart was heavy. He had hoped to challenge a private citizen – wealthy and powerful, but with no special protection under the law. Instead, he was setting himself up against the rule of the sultan himself, so that even if he succeeded in his quest he would likely still be treated as an enemy of the state and brought to the block or the scaffold.’

  ‘Aren’t we owed a third mortal sin round about now?’ Zuleika demanded.

  ‘It’s coming soon,’ Anwar Das assured her. ‘The young man gained entry to the royal palace, and—’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The gates were unlocked, and unguarded because of the feasting.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’ Zuleika exploded. And Anwar Das had to admit that it did sound weak.

  ‘I misremembered,’ he said. ‘The gates of the palace were indeed unguarded, because the guards had been given permission to attend the celebrations. But the gates were stout and heavy, made of oak seven inches thick, and locked with seven locks. Moreover, the walls were as high as twenty men, and as smooth as glass. When the young man came to the gates, he could see that it would be no easy task to gain ingress.

  ‘But he took from his pack the bottle containing the miniature army, removed the stopper and set it on the ground. The tiny soldiers poured out once again, and stood awaiting the young man’s command. He told them about the gates with their seven locks, which stood now between him and his enemy.

  ‘The minute legions once again flowed like sand to spell out their answer with their own bodies. “Once,” they said, “we would have knocked down these gates with a battering ram, or levelled them with stones flung from mighty siege engines. Now, we have no such resources. But we will see what can be done.”

  ‘They swarmed upon the gates like termites, these diminished heroes. The wood that seemed so smooth to me – I mean, of course, to the young man – offered to their small hands any number of shelves and escarpments and conveniently placed rugosities.

  ‘They marched into the locks and set their shoulders to the wards, pushing them one by one into the neutral position. They hauled the tangs out of the recesses in the wall, and pushed them back into their housings in the locks themselves, until finally the young man had only to push
upon the gates, and they fell open of their own accord on their well-oiled hinges.

  ‘With the bottled army once more in his pack, the young man strode on into the palace. It was by then three hours after midnight, and though some were still at their revels for the most part they lay asleep where they had fallen, overwhelmed by drink and other pleasures to the point where their bodies had finally surrendered.

  ‘The young man knew of old where the former grand vizier had had his chambers, adjacent to those of the sultan and in a tower less lofty by the merest inch. He went there now, walking past the swinishly dozing sentinels to present himself, with no announcement or fanfare, before Nilaf Brozoud himself.

  ‘He said not a word, and the villainous courtier stared at him for a long moment, first mystified by his presence there and then fiercely indignant. “Begone from this place!” he commanded. “Or I’ll have you whipped until there isn’t an inch of unbroken skin left on your body.”

  ‘The young man only smiled, and said. “Will you so, Nilaf Brozoud? With my father you were able to work it so, because he was old, and had no strength left in his limbs. But I am not Isulmir Das. Take such a high hand with me, and you will rue the day you tried it.”

  ‘Then the wicked vizier recognised the young man, and saw in his eyes on what business he came. He fell, then, to his knees, and begged with heartfelt sobs to be spared. “I have led a life of depravity!” he wailed. “And surely, if I die now, the Increate will set spirits of malevolence and pain to torment me! Oh let me live that I might repent. Please, Anwar Das! Only let me live, and I swear I shall repent!” And here, ladies, we come to the third sin.’

  ‘About time!’ Zuleika observed sourly.

  ‘Anwar Das was a dutiful son, and he had sworn to avenge his father’s death. The Increate, who disapproves of murder, nonetheless smiles upon filial piety, and also upon the fulfilment of sworn oaths. Yet the young man, hearing the sobs and moans and whimpers of the wretched Brozoud, was moved to compassion, and deflected from his noble purpose. A father murdered, and yet he stayed his hand! Thus did he deserve his death a third time over.

  ‘And now he turned, and walked back to the open door. But foul Brozoud, whose tears had been but feigned, rushed on him with a dagger and drove it to the hilt into his back.’

  Anwar Das touched a spot low down on his left side, and Zuleika shook her head in scornful despite. ‘If he’d stabbed you in the kidneys,’ she said, ‘you wouldn’t have walked out of that room.’

  Anwar Das unfastened the knot at the neck of his shirt and let it fall from him. He turned so that all could see the ugly scar above his hip. There was a communal gasp, and then a communal silence. In truth, the scar that Anwar Das was displaying had been earned in a less than creditable enterprise, when the husband of a lady with whom he was enjoying some intimate converse returned home unexpectedly, but it served him well now as proof of probity.

  ‘The young man,’ he went on calmly, ‘felt a terrible, tearing pain in his side. But he did not fall at once; rather, the fury he felt at receiving such a cowardly blow empowered him, so that he turned on his enemy, wrested the dagger from his hand and slit his misbegotten throat with it.’

  ‘Good thing too!’ cried Farhat. Then she blushed and fell silent again.

  ‘But the act took the last of his strength,’ Anwar Das concluded. ‘He fell into a swoon, and was found there, beside the vizier’s slain body. The fury of the sultan was immense. He gave order that the young man should be executed on the morrow morn. And until that time he should be thrown into the dankest cell in the city’s oubliette, whose fairest apartments are famed for their dankness.

  ‘That night was the longest the young man had ever endured. He wept for his fate, but rejoiced that he had at last kept the oath he made to his father’s ghost. He mourned that his life would be cut short, but contented himself that he had ended the career of a poisonous reptile who would have wrought even worse evil had he lived. And in such contrary extremes of emotion, without sleep to relieve them, the dark hours at last were passed.

  ‘When dawn came, the young man was taken out to the royal square, where a platform had been erected for his execution. His sentence was read out before a huge crowd, all of them come to see the man who had slain the grand vizier. The executioner asked his victim’s pardon, as was the custom, and the young man gave it freely – the more so since he himself had taken a life a scant few hours before. He knelt at last and laid his head upon the block, and the headsman hefted his blade.

  ‘But at the last moment the young man bethought him of the miniature army in the bottle, which he still carried in his pack. He owed them much, and did not wish them to be buried with him, and lie in the dark throughout the future ages of the Earth. He begged the headsman to grant him another minute of life, which the headsman vouchsafed to do, thinking that the young man wished to utter a last prayer for forgiveness.

  ‘The young man took the bottle from his pack and set it down at the edge of the platform, opening the stopper so that the soldiers could leave it when they chose. He thanked them for the help they had already rendered, praised their courage and ingenuity, and blessed them for all the many kindnesses they had shown him.

  ‘In that moment a sound like a fearsome thunderclap filled the air, and a light like the shining of a thousand suns flared upon the scaffold. When the light faded, the whole of the royal square was filled with armed and armoured men, who quickly overpowered the sultan’s guards.

  ‘I leave you to imagine the young man’s astonishment. He had not known until that point that he was of the royal lineage of ancient Treis, and that therefore his blessing would be potent enough to end the immemorial curse upon the bottled army. Now, as they freed him and lifted him on their shoulders in triumph, he realised that this must be the case, and he thanked the Increate in his heart for engineering such a miracle.

  ‘The soldiers would have made the young man sultan, but he had no interest in power or politics. He embraced them all – it took several hours – and took his leave of them with many touching displays of affection. Then he went back to the thieves, who had been his first saviours when he wandered in the wilderness, and towards whom he still felt a great debt of gratitude. Perhaps, ladies, that is a fourth sin – that he was determined to cleave to these rogues, although he knew that what they did was wrong. That he was loyal, even to wicked and lawless men.

  ‘But I leave the final count, and of course my fate – the fate of all these men who kneel here – to you. Baraha barahinei. And may your days on Earth be strewn with blessings as thick as blossoms in spring.’

  A smattering of applause broke out among the women, and voices could be heard returning Anwar Das’s blessing. Discomfited, Zuleika fell back to confer with Gursoon.

  ‘I’m going to lose this vote, aren’t I?’ she muttered.

  ‘I think it’s very likely,’ Gursoon said. ‘And you could argue that he’s paid us back in our own coin. We took them in with a story – and here he’s done the same thing to us.’

  ‘It’s only because he’s good looking! I should have let one of the ugly ones speak.’

  ‘It’s partly because of that, but also because of his ready tongue.’

  ‘Yes,’ Zuleika agreed gloomily. ‘I’m sure many of them are thinking of his ready tongue.’

  ‘He could be an asset to us,’ Gursoon pointed out.

  ‘He could be a pain in the arse,’ Zuleika countered.

  They both had many weighty matters on their mind right then, and might have come to other conclusions if they had had the leisure to think longer on the matter. But they were both right.

  Reading Lessons, Part the First

  In the evening of the same day, the seraglio had its first meeting. An outcrop of flat rock outside what had previously been the bandits’ cave formed a natural stage, and when the air cooled, the concubines, the serving women, all twelve bandits, and Issi and his team all congregated in front of it, sitting on the sand, which w
as still warm from the sun’s heat. Gursoon climbed heavily onto the rocky platform and addressed them all in a voice that remained loud and carrying, despite her age.

  ‘We have come far today,’ she said. ‘This morning, we had nothing but our thirst. Now we have a home, or at least something that will serve as one for the time being, and—’ and here she gave Anwar Das and the brigands a meaningful stare ‘—some new allies, who have promised us their aid.’

  A few of the girls blushed and giggled at Gursoon’s words. The thieves had already attracted considerable attention, and Anwar Das, with his charming smile and winning manners, was proving particularly popular. Standing together towards the back of the group, the brigands were beginning to reconsider their earlier reluctance to surrender to a bunch of women, and swelled a little at getting a mention in the lady’s speech. Some of them were returning the interested glances of the women around them with what they optimistically hoped was smouldering animal magnetism.

  Gursoon, as far away as she was, noted this with a wry smile. The closer the group became, the easier it would be to prevent friction and schisms when the difficulties of their new life began to bite. She continued, however, in a stern tone. ‘Let me be clear about our situation, and what it means: we are in the middle of the desert. The very nearest village is many days’ journey away. Out here, those of us who were in the sultan’s seraglio are no longer concubines. The term has no meaning any more.

  ‘But that is not the only thing which has no meaning. Farhat, Bethi, Thana.’ The serving women stirred in surprise as they heard some of their number mentioned. ‘If I am no longer a courtesan, then you are no longer servants. We all of us served the same master, in our different ways, but he is dead, and the man who killed him would have killed all of us, too. His rules do not apply to us here, and neither do the hierarchies he created for us. In order to survive, we are all going to have to work until our fingernails bleed, and if the hundreds of us who were concubines sit around waiting for the few of us who were servants to do all the work, whining at them to brush our hair and put up our tents, then we’re lost before we start!’