In the Palace of the Khans Read online

  “Suppose one day she’s going to be Khan herself, which is what she wants, do you want her to be a khan like her dad, not trusting anyone, not letting anyone care for her, killing anyone who gets in her way, hanging villagers in their doorways, just because they had a hunting rifle in the house? That’s what she meant when she said it was hard being a khan. She’d worked it out about her dad having to decide whether to have us bumped off on our way back from Lake Vamar, before we could tell anyone what had happened there.”

  “No! He wouldn’t have … Nick! This has got to be nonsense!”

  “I’m afraid not, darling. This is one of the realities of absolute power. One of the reasons for my being here, and wanting to stay here, is that I—we—can attempt to mitigate it. Have you any more to say, Niggles?”

  “Yes. That’s the bit about Taeela. This is about me. It’s about how I feel. How I’m going to go on feeling for the rest of my life if I don’t get it right this time. I didn’t at Lake Vamar. OK, we were all scared about what happened, like you said, but I wasn’t just scared. I lost it completely. I panicked. I couldn’t think about anything else except me getting the hell out of there. Not anyone else. I hurt your leg, bolting for the door. I heard you yell. I didn’t think about it. When we were running along the walkway I saw you were limping, but all I thought about it was that you were slowing me up. Same when I found you sitting by the path, looking to see how bad your leg was. It just didn’t register.

  “Same with Taeela. I never even thought about what it would be like for her, what she must be feeling. Least I could’ve done was wait for her under the trees, just to be there when she got to safety. I didn’t. I ran away again. I’d actually lost it completely again on the walkway and tried to bolt, and my guard had to grab hold of me to make me stay put, and there she was running along beside her guard like she was doing it just for the exercise. I couldn’t face her. It was only when we were going up to drag branches down for the stretcher and she told me how scared she’d been that I started to think about her at all.

  “Think about me, Mum! Me inside. How’m I going to feel for the rest of my life if I don’t go? Let her down again, worse than before? Start telling myself that I haven’t got the guts—that’s just how I am? Finish up being like that? Is that what you want for me?”

  “I really do think it’s much safer than you suppose, Lou,” said Nigel’s father. Neither of them paid any attention. Nigel’s mother was staring at him, blinking. She wiped an eye with her finger. He could hear the croak in her voice when she spoke.

  “I understand what you’re telling me, darling. I really do. Suppose I still say you can’t go, what will you do? Try and go anyway?”

  “I don’t know. You could lock me in my room, I suppose.”

  She actually managed a sort of laugh.

  “And find you with a broken neck under your window? What do you think, Nick?”

  “I agree with Nigel. There’s no chance the President would have let his daughter go back if he thought she’d be safer here.”

  She sighed.

  “All right,” she said. “I’m still not happy about it, but if you really think it makes that much of a difference to you …”

  “Oh, Mum!” he said. “I knew you’d get it!”

  He was hugging her the way Taeela had done, as if he’d never let go, when his father spoilt it.

  “I told you we should have had you negotiating over the dam contract instead of …”

  Nigel let go and spun round.

  “This isn’t funny, Dad! It’s been …”

  He stopped himself just in time.

  “… been whatever hard for Mum to say yes, and she’s still dead worried about it. It’s nothing to do with the dam! It’s between Mum and me, and she’s being terrific about it!”

  Nigel’s father rose, smiling.

  “It seems we have a rebellious teenager on our hands, my dear,” he said mildly, and walked out, automatically checking in the mirror as he left.

  Nigel’s mother sighed.

  “Try to remember there’s a lot of good sides to him, darling,” she said. “It’s not his fault that he can’t help being a bit detached. He had a tricky childhood—I’ll tell you some time. Perhaps if he’d met a Taeela of his own when he was your age … From what you were telling me it sounds as if a door has opened for you which never opened for him. That’s why I’m letting you go to the palace tomorrow. You understand?”

  “Uh … Yes, Mum. Thanks. For telling me. I’ll be careful.”

  “Only don’t get so wrapped up in Taeela’s feelings that you haven’t any time for your father’s.”

  “Do you want me to tell him I’m sorry?”

  “If you think it’s a good idea, darling. Is there anything you want to do this afternoon?”

  “Only getting my blog sorted. I’m four days behind.”

  “Oh dear. You’re not going to …”

  “No, of course not. Just a bit about the birds up at the lodge, and the fish-owls, and some stuff I was talking to Taeela about. But I’m going to get the rest of it down on my memory stick, so it’s there if I want it.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Day 23, I make it now.

  I’ve seen the British papers, so I guess that some of you’ll know why I’ve dropped out again for a bit. Probably sounds exciting your end, but all I can tell you is that it’s been really scary a lot of the time this end, and sick-makingly horrible some of it. At least now I don’t have to leave stuff out like us crashing in the lake and getting shot at while we were watching the fish-owls. So here we go.

  Day 12 …

  Nothing new happened in the night. Next morning’s TV news said that the President and the British Ambassador had visited the site of the proposed dam at the Vamar gorge and showed them shaking hands in front of a stretch of water. It was an old picture, his mother said, and they’d faked in the background. Nigel found it unsettling, harmless in its way but still the President lying to his people, a whiff of the monster they were all pretending wasn’t there—just what Nigel had been doing himself yesterday afternoon, faking it, blogging about Lake Vamar and the fish-owls as if none of the horrors before and after had happened at all.

  He was sorting out the mess in his shoulder-bag when his mother came in with the portable phone in her hand.

  “It’s for you, darling,” she said and gave it to him.

  There was only one person it could be.

  “Hi, Taeela,” he said. “How’s things?”

  “Very good. Very safe. You … are coming this morning?”

  “Mum and Dad will be coming down for the ceremony, but you said …”

  “Eleven o’clock. We’ll send a car so you can come early.”

  “OK.”

  “I have a surprise for you, Nigel. Goodbye. I’ll see you.”

  There was an odd, almost hysterical, note in her laugh.

  “Bye, Taeela,” he said. “Take care. Thanks, Mum.”

  “That sounds all right,” she said, taking the phone back. “What are you up to, darling?”

  “Just dithering. I put some stuff in my bag to take to the hunting lodge, but the guards are going to search it. They don’t let me take my knife in, but they give it back when I go.”

  She studied the pile on the bed as if it mattered. It was just the things that he carried around anyway, either from habit or simply while he was in Dirzhan—passport, iPad and mobile, the knife, a coil of tough cord, his travelling chess set, a little compass, hand torch, monocular for bird-watching, street map of Dara Dahn, Dirzhani dictionary and phrase-book, and a few embassy match folders with the royal arms on them, which Roger had given him as silly little presents for people.

  “Oh, I’d take it all,” she said. “If you haven’t got something, you’re bound to need it, but if you have, you won’t. Like umbrellas.”

  Her laugh didn’t ring true. She still thought it might matter this time.

  Mr Dikhtar was waiting for him at the top of
the palace steps and took him straight in, so he didn’t need to show his pass. Two TV camera crews were setting up on one side of the Great Hall. There were new guards on the door to the private apartments. Nigel took his knife out of his bag and gave it to Mr Dikhtar. A guard patted a few of Nigel’s pockets, peered into his bag and gave it back without taking anything out. So much for the extra security.

  They waited for Mr Dikhtar to say something, but seemed to have gone into some kind of trance. He just stood there staring at the knife in his hand. His face was shiny with sweat, though it was much cooler in here than it had been out on the steps. After several seconds he seemed to wake up, looked at the knife as if he was seeing it for the first time, and gave it back to Nigel.

  “I will see you later, Mr Rizhouell,” he said, and opened the door for him, but didn’t follow him through.

  There was a longer pause than usual when Nigel knocked on the living-room door, and then a sound of sliding metal before it opened. But Fohdrahko met him with an untroubled smile. They exchanged bows and greetings.

  “Khanazhan Nizhil.”

  “Hi, Fohdrahko. Good to see you.”

  Taeela was already standing a few feet from the door, posed as if he’d been going to take her photograph. She looked terrific, well worth photographing.

  “Hi, there,” he said.

  She didn’t answer, but simply stood there waiting. Behind him he heard the bolts of the door slide home.

  He got it now. No wonder she looked terrific. She was wearing serious make-up. Her lips weren’t really quite that full and red, the flush in her cheeks quite that peachy, her eyes quite that large, the lashes quite that long and dark. This was the surprise she’d been teasing him about.

  “Wow!” he said.

  “Hot?” she said.

  “And then some.”

  What could she be up to? Good thing Fohdrahko was here. No. The camera crews in the hall. With relief he put two and two together.

  “I don’t suppose it’s just for me,” he said. “You’re going to be on TV? When your dad presents you to the chieftains at this tribute thing?”

  “This tribute thing!” she snarled. “It is not a thing, Nigel. It is an old, old custom, from before the Tsars, before the communists. Every year at the … eighth—yes, eighth—whole moon the chieftains of all the big families—how do you say this, many families all one big family?”

  “Um … clans?”

  “Yes, clans. The chieftains bring … brought gifts to the Khan to show him they were his friends. Then the Tsars came. They said, ‘You can keep your khan, but you will give him only small gifts. Instead you will send taxes to Moscow.’

  “It was the same with the communists. They killed the last khan. The chieftains hid in the mountains. The men who gathered the taxes sent only half to Moscow and stole half for themselves. When my father made himself Khan he said, ‘The people will still pay taxes and no one will steal them. I will spend them for the people’ So it was done.

  “And now, Nigel, he says ‘Let us have the Tribute of the Chieftains again. They will come to the palace at the eighth whole moon, but they will not bring tributes to the Khan. Instead, each man will tell the Khan what tribute he will give to Dirzhan. This man will build a school, and this man will build rooms for a hospital, and this man will make a road good, and so on. And they will bring me signs of their gifts to show to the people.’

  “Today is the first time this is done. It will be in the grand hall. We will watch it this from the balcony.”

  “Cool.”

  “Wait. There is more. This is new. Yesterday only my father told me. When his speech is finished he will make a sign to me and I will come down the stairs and stand at his side. So the chieftains will see me and each one will say in his heart, ‘This is the Khanazhana. One day my son will marry her.’”

  “Wow! Big day for you. No wonder you’re looking hot. I bet he isn’t going to tell them that actually you’re going to choose.”

  “Not yet.”

  “You won’t forget to invite me to the wedding?”

  “You will ride in on your white horse and carry me away?”

  “I’ll think about it. What shall we do now, while we’re waiting?”

  “Let’s watch El Cid. The horses are great. And Dzharlton Heston is so funny.”

  Maybe he was, but Nigel didn’t give himself much chance to find out. His mind was elsewhere. Little things bothered him. Mr Dikhtar’s manner—was he just scared of the President’s anger if something went wrong with the ceremony? Why hadn’t he noticed the guard not doing a proper search? And that business with the knife …?

  And why did Fohdrahko keep bolting the door? He’d never done that before. And these weren’t just ordinary bolts, by the sound of them. They were like the bolts of a big safe. And why was he staying at his post by the doorway instead of coming to watch the film, as he usually did?

  And the way Taeela herself was carrying on. It just wasn’t like her. He’d have expected her to act dead cool before something like this. But then, who was he to say? It really must be pretty scary for her, the thought of coming down the stairway to face all those proud old men, all gazing at her, each of them judging her, each of them making the same calculation, Which of my sons?

  And the President had only just sprung it on her. OK, she’d look great on TV, but he could have thought of that before. But suppose stuff was happening that meant he needed the chieftains on his side. He’d promised he’d never sacrifice her, but there’d be no harm in giving them the idea that he might. You’d feel differently about a queen sacrifice if you were the queen.

  It was a relief when the telephone rang and Taeela leaped to answer it. The conversation couldn’t have been briefer. She put the handset down and spoke to Fohdrahko, who rose from his stool, slid a section of panelling aside and reached into the cavity. With a quiet clunk the bolts withdrew. Nigel could feel Taeela’s tension easing as she returned to the sofa and pretended to be watching the film. As the door opened he jumped up and turned to face it, but she stayed curled in her corner of the sofa, giggling away at Charlton Heston.

  The President came in, bowing his head to get his hat through the doorway. His robe was a rich, dark purple, reaching almost to the floor and covered with swirls of glittering gold. The hat was all gold, embroidered with golden cord. It would have been like a cartoon wizard’s hat, without a brim, but instead of rising to a point it curved over, so that the tassel at the tip dangled above his left shoulder. It ought to have looked ridiculously over-the-top, but it didn’t with him wearing it. The effect was slightly spoilt by Taeela thumping into his chest and flinging her arms round him. He gave her a brief hug and pushed her away.

  “Now, my dear, that is enough,” he said. “If I had wanted a puppy rather than a daughter I could have bought one. I have a present for you.”

  It was a soft package wrapped in tissue and tied with a ribbon. Taeela took it, drew herself up and stooped into a deep, professional-looking curtsey before retiring to the sofa to open it.

  “Wow! Now that really is cool, sir,” said Nigel.

  “I am glad it has your approval, Nigel. The dress is authentic, and was worn by the last four khans. Since the communists took over it has been in the museum, as have some of the robes the clan heads will be wearing. The remainder have been specially …”

  He broke off and looked beyond Nigel.

  “You approve, my dear?”

  Nigel turned and saw that Taeela was once again standing in her all-set-for-the-cameraman pose, only she’d changed the dark green headscarf she’d been wearing before for a new one, deep purple, edged with gold, and with long golden tassels at either end. Again she stooped into her curtsey, straightened, and thumped once more into her father’s chest.

  “You must be more careful with it,” he said. “The fabric is very delicate. It was worn by a Khanazhana a century before you were born.

  “Now, take if off and give it to Fohdrahko. We have about te
n minutes. Put your other scarf back on. When I leave, you and Nigel will come out onto the gallery and watch from there. It does not matter if you are seen. The Tribute will take about twenty minutes. I will then make a short speech. As soon as I start Nigel will stay where he is, but you will move back from the balcony and change headscarves. You will then come round the gallery to the head of the stair, keeping close to the inner wall so that you are not seen.

  “At the end of my speech the chieftains will applaud. Count to twenty and then come down the stair to stand on my right side on the dais and curtsey to the chieftains. I will then formally present you to them. I have not told them this is going to happen. I intend it to be a coup de théâtre. Elderly men in grey western-style suits talking to each other do not make for exciting television. You agree, Nigel?”

  “Uh … Oh, yes sir! It’ll make great TV.”

  The President nodded and settled into an armchair, opened his folder and began to read. Nigel returned to the sofa and Charlton Heston. When the ten minutes were up the President rose without a word and Taeela, Nigel and Fohdrahko followed him out to the gallery. Taeela gave him another hug and he strode off along the arcade, keeping to the shadows by the inner wall. Only the top of his hat glittered in the blaze of the TV lighting from below.

  Nigel leaned on the balustrade, screwing up his eyes against the glare. The stairway and the dais were lit like a stage set. The invited audience was seated in a double row on the far side, almost invisible beyond that central brightness. Nigel spotted the ash-blond blob of his father’s hair in the front row. He waved, and the shape beside the blob waved back.

  One of the cameras was filming a line of soldiers spaced out along the further side of the dais, wearing uniforms that wouldn’t have been out of place in El Cid, orange turbans, dark green jackets and kilts, and sword-belts, and carrying short spears. A similar line stood opposite them.