The City of Silk and Steel Read online

  The nursemaid, Sharissia, kept her head down, did as she was told, and wherever she saw the men with the lists and the intent expressions walked the other way. Her position had effectively been terminated with the slaughter of Bokhari Al-Bokhari’s wives and children. The memory of that horror was fresh in her mind, and she yearned to walk out of the palace gates and never look back. But the palace gates were guarded by grim-faced men in black robes with naked swords: Sharissia didn’t want to have to pass them and risk being tasked with awkward questions about her former duties.

  So she stayed put, and employed pretty much the same kind of camouflage that ostriches do.

  On the third day after the coup, a harassed servant yelled an order to her as he ran by the door of a storeroom where she was pretending to count jars of olive oil. ‘Bring His Excellency a jug of water! Now!’

  With a sinking heart, Sharissia obeyed. She filled a jug in the kitchen, put it on a tray with a pewter goblet, and took it to the throne room. The guards glanced at her once and stepped aside without challenging her. In a matter of seconds, long before she was mentally prepared for it, she was in the new sultan’s presence.

  In some respects, he was less terrifying than she’d imagined. He was less of a monster, certainly: slight of build and not overly tall. But the grim set of his features cowed her, all the same. Or perhaps it was just that in his black robes he looked like an executioner. In any case, her hands trembled as she set the jug down before him.

  Hakkim Mehdad indicated with a curt nod that the girl should pour for him. She lifted the jug, but her hands betrayed her. Unable to keep them from shaking, she splashed water down the front of the sultan’s robes.

  Hakkim Mehdad clicked his tongue impatiently, and waved for the girl to leave him. Rooted to the spot with fear, she did nothing. A guard stepped forward to remove her. As his hand clamped down on Sharissia’s shoulder she gave a great start and almost fell into a swoon.

  Believing she was about to be killed, Sharissia begged and bargained for her life in a torrent of words, which spilled out just as uncontrollably as the water had. ‘I meant no harm! I’ll do better! I was trained for the nursery, not the throne room! I have an elderly mother, and she can’t survive without me!’

  The guard was already dragging her towards the door, and as she thought, to execution. ‘I know where the crown prince Jamal is!’ Sharissia shrieked.

  Hakkim Mehdad looked at the girl for the first time. ‘Stop,’ he commanded the guard.

  The guard released the girl, who fell on her knees before the sultan and performed a series of abject obeisances. Without even being asked, Sharissia blurted out her story: of how Oosa had come to her and given her the child and bade her run with him to the seraglio; of how the Lady Gursoon had accepted him and promised to hide him; of how the most merciful Hakkim, bless him, oh bless him, had been most indefensibly betrayed by odalisques and whores!

  Hakkim listened to this spew of words calmly and silently, his brow set in a solemn frown. There was no need to have the girl tortured – the story was only too plausible, and beyond her wit to make up. He ordered the guards to take her away and put her in a cell; it was possible, although not likely, that he would have need to question her again later. That done, he called for a scribe and a messenger.

  The scribe being the first to arrive, Hakkim dictated to him a letter ordering the immediate execution of all the concubines, their children, and any servants who still attended on them. This was no time for half-measures.

  The messenger arrived soon afterwards. He was a vain and self-important man, inordinately fond both of the perks that came with his job and of the sound of his own voice. He was one of the many who had joined the Ascetic movement when it became clear which way the wind was blowing, but had no instinctive sympathy with its goals. He began a speech summarising his good wishes for the new regime and his desire to serve it to the best of his ability for as long as he lived. Before he had got halfway through the first sentence, Hakkim Mehdad thrust the sealed letter into his hand. ‘Ride with all speed in the direction of Perdondaris,’ he instructed the slightly deflated emissary. ‘Find the caravan that set out two days ago, and give this to the legate, En-Sadim.’

  ‘As His Excellency wishes,’ the messenger murmured, bowing low.

  As he retreated toward the door, bowing all the way, Hakkim fired further instructions at him. ‘Stay to see it done. And then bring word to me, here. At once. Day or night does not matter.’

  The urgency of the commission flattered the messenger’s estimation of his own worth, which was already high. He positively beamed as he backed out of the throne room, parting the doors with his backside so that he could continue bowing until the last moment.

  Then he went to the stables and demanded, with much ado, that the fastest horse should be brought to him forthwith.

  In the deep desert, meanwhile, another event was taking place which would prove to be full of consequences.

  The legate En-Sadim, full of desire and goaded by ever-present temptations, decided to surrender to the inevitable.

  He didn’t put it to himself quite so baldly, of course. He was surrounded by beautiful women, he was far away from his own wife and hearth, and it seemed to him – looking at things in the long term, with the utmost objectivity – that this was a victimless crime. In Bessa, the concubines had belonged to the sultan Hakkim. In Perdondaris, they would belong to the caliph Bin Ezvahoun. Here in the desert, though, they were his sole charge and his sole responsibility. Who could fault him if he sampled the merchandise? Surely it fell squarely within the bounds of his job description?

  The woman who had brought En-Sadim to this mental crisis was named Zuleika. En-Sadim had noticed her on the first day, and had not failed to notice her as often as he could thereafter.

  She was slender of figure – almost too slender, but with a wiry firmness of frame that suggested athletic possibilities in lovemaking. Her breasts were small, but well defined. Her eyes were huge and dark, and her hair fell in black ringlets about her shoulders. There was in her face a contemplative calm that was more sultry than the sultriest of pouts. This woman would draw you into her stillness and show you her storms.

  The legate indulged a fantasy in which he took Zuleika out from among the concubines and made her his servant: but sadly, it had to remain a fantasy. En-Sadim’s wife would kill the both of them on the evidence of Zuleika’s looks alone, and the Caliph of Perdondaris almost certainly had scribes who knew how to count. No, it would not do.

  But the deep desert is like a caliphate unto itself, with its own laws and customs. On the journey, at least, En-Sadim could enjoy Zuleika’s company and her person without reproof.

  And so, when they ceased their march on the third day and stopped for the night at the oasis of Khuzaymah, En-Sadim called for the guard captain, a stolid and long-suffering man named Numair, and gave instructions for the girl to be brought to him.

  Numair knew the vices of the powerful well enough, and it was not the first time that he had been called upon to play procurer. Without much enthusiasm, but also without protest or hesitation, he saluted and went off to find the lady in question, armed with her name and a somewhat lurid description.

  A minute later, a slight, demure form was standing at the entrance to the legate’s tent. Zuleika bowed to En-Sadim, not low but modestly. ‘You sent for me, Excellency,’ she murmured. Her voice was deep, not musical but with a huskiness to it that was extremely arousing. En-Sadim nodded.

  ‘Close the tent flaps,’ he said, ‘and come here.’

  The girl obeyed.

  ‘You are Zuleika,’ En-Sadim said to her.

  ‘Yes, Excellency.’

  ‘Do you play the buzuq, or the simsimiyya?’

  ‘Excellency, no.’

  ‘Some other instrument, then?’

  ‘I have no instrument, Excellency.’

  ‘Do you sing? Tell stories?’

  ‘Neither.’

  ‘But th
ere must be something you can do?’

  She raised her head and stared into his eyes – provocatively, En-Sadim considered, but right then he’d have thought it provocative if she sneezed.

  ‘Many things,’ Zuleika said.

  He touched her cheek. ‘Do the first of them,’ he suggested. ‘And continue down the list until I tell you to stop.’

  ‘Do you have scented oils?’ Zuleika asked.

  Oils were duly brought, and she got down to business.

  While the legate En-Sadim was being taken to the foothills of ecstasy, Captain Numair noticed a slender column of dust a few miles behind the caravan. To his practised eye, it suggested a single rider moving fast. The sun was still an hour from setting, and a single rider was more likely a messenger than a threat, but he deployed sentries and sent two men out to meet their uninvited guest.

  They returned, some little while later, with Mehdad’s messenger riding between them.

  The messenger dismounted and presented himself to Captain Numair. He did so with a certain degree of smugness, because he wore the sultan’s colours on his sash, and the sultan’s seal was very prominent on the letter he carried. Anyone could see even at a cursory glance that he was a serious man on a serious errand.

  ‘Where is the legate En-Sadim?’ he demanded. ‘I bear orders from the enlightened one.’

  ‘The most worthy En-Sadim is asleep in his tent,’ Numair temporised. He knew that this was not the case: he had brought the beautiful young concubine to the legate’s tent a scant half-hour before, and he expected that it would be at least an hour or so before the business that was between them was concluded. But he did not wish to mention these matters. While the legate’s dalliance with the lady was not expressly forbidden, it seemed unlikely that the new sultan would approve of it. At the very least, this was an awkward situation.

  The messenger brushed the objection aside, making a great show of impatience.

  ‘Wake him, then,’ he barked. ‘My business cannot wait.’

  Numair nodded reluctantly. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Wait here, and I’ll bring him.’

  ‘Wait?’ echoed the messenger. ‘I wasn’t sent here to wait! Which is the legate’s tent? Tell me!’

  The captain knew better than to point, but his eyes answered the question involuntarily. The messenger followed the direction of Numair’s gaze toward the largest of the silk pavilions, and set off at a brisk stride in that direction. Abashed, Numair fell in alongside him.

  ‘I’ll tell the most worthy En-Sadim that you’re here,’ he said, drawing slightly ahead.

  ‘I’ll announce myself,’ the messenger riposted.

  Numair thrust forward strenuously. The messenger, refusing to be outdone, broke into a run. They bolted together past En-Sadim’s startled bodyguards, who had retired to a discreet distance from the pavilion’s entrance, and broke through the tent flap in a frantic squall of curtailed ceremony.

  ‘The messenger of the enlightened Hakkim Mehdad!’ Numair blurted.

  ‘Forgive my unmannerly intrusion!’ the messenger cried.

  They both stopped dead at this point, staring at the scene before them. Zuleika was on her knees before the legate, naked to the waist, pleasuring him with her hands. Various pots and jars of sweet-smelling oils stood about, with which her glistening fingers had been anointed. The scented smoke of a small brazier drifted gently around them, making a teasing curtain which yet did not hide one single detail of the unfolding act. Captain Numair blanched. The messenger floundered, faced for once in his life with a situation which no protocol appeared to cover.

  Zuleika was not outfaced to find herself performing in front of an audience. She ignored the newcomers as completely as if they were not there. En-Sadim did not. He frowned at them thunderously, and after a moment or two caused Zuleika to pause in her ministrations by touching her lightly on the shoulder. She bowed her head, falling into decorous stillness.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ En-Sadim demanded in a portentous tone.

  The messenger realised at this point that he had overstepped the bounds of his office. ‘I bear a message,’ he said, his voice faltering, ‘from Hakkim Mehdad himself. He bade me not to wait but to deliver it to you at once, by hand.’

  This last was pure invention, but the messenger thought it might allay the anger he read in En-Sadim’s countenance. Belatedly he offered a bow of obeisance, the most ragged and unconvincing he had ever performed.

  ‘A message?’ growled En-Sadim. ‘You stride into my tent like a ruffian and offer me a message?’

  ‘A most urgent message,’ the messenger qualified, trying to cling to some little shreds of dignity.

  En-Sadim’s eyes narrowed. ‘And what is the purport of this urgent message?’ he asked.

  The messenger looked at the scroll, then held it up for En-Sadim’s inspection. ‘It is sealed,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Then open it.’

  The messenger did so, with fingers that shook more than a little.

  ‘Now read it to me. And if its urgency matches the enormity of your insolence, I’ll spare you the flogging you’ve earned.’

  The messenger flinched at the word flogging. He glanced towards the tent flap, and for a moment it seemed that he might turn tail and flee, but Captain Numair stood squarely in his way, arms folded, and in any event he knew that while he was in En-Sadim’s camp he was likewise in En-Sadim’s power. There was no getting out of this.

  ‘To the legate En-Sadim,’ he read, haplessly, ‘from His Excellency, the enlightened Hakkim Mehdad. There is in your charge, among the children of the seraglio, a legitimate prince of the bloodline of Bokhari al-Bokhari, formerly the ruler of Bessa, now execrated and not to be named . . .’

  The messenger slowed, caught in a contradiction. Had he not just named the ex-sultan? And was that a sin? Surely not, since he was reading the words of the Enlightened One, which was an unimpeachable defence.

  The legate did not seem to have noticed the solecism. Behind him, though, and forgotten by all three men, Zuleika had raised her head and was listening intently, as she wiped her slick hands with great care on the folds of her skirt.

  ‘Continue,’ En-Sadim snapped.

  The messenger took a moment to find his place again. ‘This . . . this prince,’ he read, ‘shall not be suffered to live. No more shall those who have sheltered him, in defiance of my edict. Kill the women of the harem forthwith, along with their children and maidservants. Let not one survive. Their bodies let the desert claim, and their names be fed to silence.’

  These were the last words on the scroll, but the messenger continued to stare at it as though more words might appear. The sultan Hakkim had not signed off in the manner demanded by protocol, which gave him no graceful exit from the horrendous sentence he had just pronounced.

  He should not have worried. The legate En-Sadim had already moved his attention elsewhere. He turned to Captain Numair, who came immediately to attention and stepped forward, shouldering past the dithering messenger.

  ‘Gather your men,’ En-Sadim said. His face and voice were grim, but he did not shrink from the commission: he was a career diplomat, and had seen and done worse things than this. ‘Give them their orders all at once, and in private, then have them divide the women and children into smaller groups, the better to ensure that—’

  He stopped in mid-sentence, distracted by an unexpected occurrence. Zuleika, to the astonishment of all present, had chosen that moment to rise to her feet. En-Sadim turned to stare at her, perplexed.

  ‘Resume your station,’ he said, with something of gentleness in his voice. ‘You at least will not die until you have finished the offices for which I called you here.’

  ‘Great sir,’ said Zuleika in a low voice, ‘let me entreat some mercy for my sisters, and for the children. If you were to let us go free into the desert, we would not return, and the sultan would never know that his orders had not been followed to the letter.’

  En-Sadim looked
stricken for a moment, then angry. ‘You must not speak before your betters,’ he said. ‘Kneel. I will return to you shortly.’

  ‘Great sir,’ Zuleika essayed again, ‘I beg you not to do this thing. It is a terrible crime, and will stain your soul into eternity.’

  The legate’s face darkened. He strode two steps forward, which brought him directly before the concubine, and he drew back his hand to strike her across the face.

  This action was not destined to be completed.

  Zuleika leaned aside from the blow, her feet not moving at all but her upper body flexing like a coiled cobra. She caught the legate’s hand in both of hers, and bending it behind his back, broke it quickly and expeditiously at the elbow. En-Sadim crashed to his knees, unmanned by pain.

  Reaching behind her, Zuleika plucked the brazier from its stand, holding it in her bare hand without seeming to notice the fierce heat. The legate’s mouth had opened by this time on what was presumably going to be a scream. The concubine emptied the red-hot coals and glowing ash directly between his parted lips and he spasmed in strangled silence, his head striking the ground as his spine folded forward.

  The two other men responded to this astonishing event in very different ways. After one moment of stricken amazement, Captain Numair stepped in to save his master; the messenger, yielding to the same impulse that had almost possessed him earlier, turned to flee the tent and shout for help. Help might not be needed, since the captain would surely deal with this madwoman, but at least his own valuable person would be placed out of harm’s reach.

  Zuleika leaned down, drew the dagger from En-Sadim’s belt, and threw it with whiplash swiftness. It was a ceremonial dagger, and poorly balanced. It struck the messenger in the back of the head, pommel first, laying him out unconscious before he could reach the pavilion’s entrance.

  This allowed Captain Numair time to reach the concubine, but he had not thought to draw his sword along the way. He punched her instead, a solid blow to the jaw which he thought would fell her. Zuleika did not even appear to feel it. She jabbed her fingers, as straight as a ruled line, into the captain’s throat, and sudden agony spiked and splintered inside his gullet as though he had swallowed a draught of iron nails.