In the Palace of the Khans Read online

  “It’s a spare mobile, Dad. I’ll bash it with a rock as soon as we’re done. Is Mum there?”

  “Hovering at my elbow. Anything I need to know first?”

  “Only I’m way outside Dara Dahn now. We’ve got transport. Tell Rick Janey and the kids are OK. We’re hoping to get somewhere safe this evening. What do you want me to do then? I thought I might be able to get to Kyrgyzstan, if you want me to.”

  “Not unless you can fly. If you think you’re safe where you are, I’d stay put until the dust settles a bit more. Just don’t let anyone think you’re representing the British government.”

  “Got it, Dad. I’ll be careful.”

  “Fine. Good luck, Nigel. Here’s your mother.”

  “Darling? Are you … oh, don’t be silly, woman!”

  “Hi, Mum. I’m fine. I got a bit if a bang on my shoulder so I’ve got my arm in a sling, but we don’t think anything’s broken. Don’t worry—it’s not a big deal, Mum, compared with a lot of stuff going on.”

  “Those horrible men! Doing it in front of our eyes, too! As if they didn’t give … you know what!”

  “I guess one big monster was better than a lot of little ones, Mum.”

  “I don’t …”

  The piano started to tinkle in the background. In his haste ring off he got tangled with his sling and dropped the mobile, so he stamped on it with all his force and tossed it into a patch of scrub, then walked back down to the road feeling very alone, very vulnerable.

  At least he’d got through and talked to them both this time. And if the colonels’ security lot were up to locating where he’d called from they’d think he’d been heading north to Podoghal. That was why he’d crossed the road.

  They turned west at a small town three or four miles further on, stopping on its outskirts to buy a refill of petrol for six times what it would have cost a week ago. Then on up into the mountains, threading their way through a network of valleys and passes and the occasional ramshackle village, with not a signpost anywhere, no guide but the map and Nigel’s compass. Luckily there weren’t that many choices and most of them were obvious.

  In the late afternoon their road ran along the shore of a small mountain lake dominated by a wonderful wooden building, like a Hollywood palace. There wasn’t a sign of life anywhere. He signalled to Rahdan to stop and went round and opened the rear doors.

  “Time for a break,” he said. “Look, Taeela. I think this might be Forghal. You remember, where …”

  “I remember,” she said. She climbed out, glanced at the map and stared round.

  “I shall not come here again,” she said.

  “Oh, sorry. That was stupid of me. Do you want to move on?”

  “Rahdan must rest. Come with me, Nigel.”

  They walked in silence along beside the water, with the rescued girls trailing behind them hand in hand. Fish rose here and there. A raucous gang of birds flew overhead, mobbing a hawk. A family of small ducks were diving for something by a reed-bed. The adults were black, with scarlet trimmings, the sort of thing you see in an ornamental park, but obviously wild here. After about ten minutes they turned and went back to the van.

  “I think it’s a bit over an hour to Sodalka,” he said as they reached it.

  “Good. I will come in front with you now. Wait for me.”

  She fetched an ornate little bag out of the rear compartment and took the two girls down to the water’s edge, where she gave one of them the bag and the other one a hand-mirror to hold for her while she cleaned off the remains of her make-up and put on fresh, as carefully as if she’d been about to appear for a formal photo. OK, perhaps the girls were a bit of a help. But that wasn’t why she’d done it. It was because it allowed them to put their tragedy aside for the moment and absorb themselves in their roles as the Khanazhana’s hand-maidens.

  He waited at the door of the cab while she coaxed the girls into the rear compartment without her.

  “D’you mind going in the middle?” he said. “It’d help if you hold that side of the map for me, which’d make life a lot easier.”

  She climbed in, saying something to Rahdan as she settled into place. He grunted, obviously pleased.

  Nigel opened the map and spread it out between them. Much better than fiddling about one-handed. She seemed to guess his thought.

  “Your shoulder hurts, Nigel?”

  “It’s not too bad provided I don’t jerk it around. The sling’s a help, and so’s whatever it is Janey’s been doing.”

  “When we get to Sodalka we will find you a knowing woman.”

  “You don’t have to bother about me. I’m OK, and you’ve got your hands full with Halli and Sulva. You’re being totally amazing with them.”

  “They are my sisters, Nigel. We are … orphans together. They are my family …”

  He waited for her to say more. He could feel the thought shaping itself.

  “Nigel, they are Dirzhan.”

  He didn’t get it for a moment. Of course they were. No … She’d said Dirzhan, not Dirzhaki. The country itself.

  She meant it too. He realised that in her eyes she was all that stood between the possibility of any kind of sensible life for ordinary Dirzhaki, Dirzhaki like Halli and Sulva, and the sort of thing they’d seen in the last two days, coup after coup, tribe against tribe, tanks firing on unarmed crowds, bloody banditry on the roads, open corruption everywhere, chaos.

  Crazy kid, he thought. But wonderful. He wasn’t going to Kyrgyzstan or anywhere else. He was sticking with her. And by her.

  The pass above Forghal started like all the others they’d climbed, but once over the crest they were in a different world. Below them a vast brown plain reached away westward, hazy with heat under the low sun. The range they were on stretched out of sight to left and right. At its feet the road to Sodalka snaked north. There was very little traffic on it; any refugees from Dara Dahn would have come by Podoghal.

  “Nearly there. We can get rid of this now,” Nigel said, and started to fold up the map. She took over, patted it flat and gave it back to him.

  “Now I come by the door,” she said, pulling herself up to let him edge along the bench seat behind her. Once in place she spent a little while craning sideways to peer in the wing mirror and adjust her headscarf, then sat bolt upright, staring ahead. Her lips moved as she rehearsed inaudible sentences.

  The main road, once they reached it, ran smoothly along, giving them occasional glimpses of Sodalka itself, an old walled city draped over the foot of a mountain spur protruding into the plain. In the bronzy sidelong light it looked like a city on the cover of a fantasy novel. They rounded the base of the last rocky ridge and were faced by a road-block.

  The barrier, a heavy wooden beam, weighted and pivoted at one end so that it could be tilted up, was guarded by five bearded men, armed with AKs. Rahdan braked, but Taeela spoke calmly to him and he drove slowly on. A few yards short of the barrier he braked again and climbed out. Somebody shouted an order and the AKs levelled. He raised his arms above his head and marched round the front of the van to Taeela’s door, still with his arms above his head and with the gun-barrels following him all the way.

  With an anxious glance towards the guns he opened the door with his left hand and at the same time lowered his raised right arm into a salute and helped Taeela climb down. She thanked him regally and walked confidently towards the guns.

  The barrels dropped. The men stared. One of them moved aside, took out a mobile and called a number. Another leaned on the weight to raise the barrier for her. Rahdan climbed into the cab, started the engine and drove slowly past where Taeela was now touching hands with one of the men, then pulled off the road and climbed down. Nigel stayed put and watched what was happening in his wing-mirror. It wouldn’t do his father much good if it got around that the British ambassador’s son was holed up in a rebel stronghold.

  A car drove up from the south and was casually waved through. Janey and the others had got out to watch. The m
an with the mobile signed off and hurried across to talk to Taeela, then accompanied her towards the van. Nigel opened the door and moved to the middle of the seat to make room for her, but she beckoned him out.

  “We go in the back now, Nigel,” she said. “He will take us to Chief Baladzhin.”

  He put on his cap and pulled it down to cover as much of his hair as he could, then slipped out the other side and round to the back while everyone else was still watching her, and waited for the others to join him in the stifling dimness of the rear compartment. Halli and Sulva crouched behind Taeela, staring at Nigel over her shoulders as if he were some great wild predator and she were the lion-tamer keeping him at bay.

  “Baladzhin’s this guy who wants you to marry his son, right?” he said as the van started to move.

  “There are fourteen chieftains of the Varaki, Nigel. He is only one. Two others are here, and five come tomorrow. They will talk about what they will do, how they will fight the Dirzh.”

  “Can they do that? I mean, the army’ve got all …”

  “There are many Varaki in the army. But I don’t want fighting like this, Nigel. Aeroplanes, tanks, big guns. It is stupid, stupid.”

  “Yes, of course it is, but …”

  “They’ll drop their bombs on my Varaki. They’ll kill many hundreds who do not fight, men, women, children. They think the Varaki are nothing. Then the Dirzh will fight each other, East Dirzh and West Dirzh … Many, many times my father said this to me. It was his nightmare. I must stop them. How do I do it, Nigel? Think!”

  “Oh, Lord. I don’t …”

  “Think, Nigel!”

  “OK.”

  They started to climb, more and more slowly. Nigel could smell the sweet reek of Dirzhani market stalls and hear the cries of the stall-holders and voices of people jostling past. Sounds and odours faded out and they drew to a halt.

  “Look,” he muttered hurriedly. “Don’t make a big thing of me being the ambassador’s son. I mustn’t get Dad involved in this. We don’t want those bastards telling people he’s on your side. Of course he is, but …”

  “OK. You’re right. You must have a new name. Quick!”

  “Um. Nick Riddle? Hope that’s easier than Ridgwell.”

  They climbed out into a square that looked as if it had been purpose-built for tourists, though there weren’t any around. On one side was a mosque with three golden domes and a spindly minaret. The building opposite looked like a way-over-the-top little fortress, dark red brick with the muzzles of bronze cannon, green with age, poking between the fancy battlements. At the centre was a gate tower, with a wide double gate and an inner courtyard beyond.

  A reception committee was waiting under the archway, three bearded men, all with that look as if they expected you to know that they were someone who mattered. A group of lesser mortals stood behind them, some of them wearing coloured shoulder-sashes to show which clan they belonged to.

  The man at the centre of the group, shorter and fatter than the other two, stepped forward to meet them. Taeela offered him her hand, palm down, and he took it between both of his, bowed briefly over it, muttering what had to be some kind of ritual greeting, and straightened with red lips smiling amid his beard.

  He glanced briefly at Nigel, then back to Taeela, and then after at least a couple of seconds, back to Nigel. A stare this time. Taeela did the Dirzhani bit of the introduction first.

  “And this is my cousin, the Chief Baladzhin,” she said. “He was a very good friend of my father.”

  “Honoured to meet you, sir,” said Nigel and shook hands.

  “I spik not good English,” said Chief Baladzhin. “My son spik good. He is two year in Ogzhvord—Bahliohl Colledzh. You know?”

  “I should think I do, sir. My dad—my father—was at Balliol.”

  Chief Baladzhin’s mouth opened, but his English deserted him in his amazement. He swung round with a delighted bellow and clapped his hands above his head. A plump young man wearing heavy horn-rimmed spectacles came forward, did the greeting thing with Taeela and held out his hand to Nigel.

  “Hi,” he said. “Welcome to Sodalka. I’m Mizhael Baladzhin. That’s Mike in English.”

  He was less impressively bearded than his father but with the same enthusiastic manner and glance. The words seemed to tumble out of him. A bit under thirty, Nigel guessed—difficult because of the beard. He spoke English easily, but with a bit of an accent, rather like the President.

  “Hi,” said Nigel. “I’m Nigc … Nick Riddle. You can tell your father his English is a lot better than my Dirzhani.”

  “We’ll have to do something about that. How come you’ve got mixed up in this mess?”

  “Er … My dad’s …”

  “Hold it. You’re wanted.”

  In the nick of time, too. Nigel took the chance to think his story through while he was standing around after being introduced to the other two chieftains. Mizhael Baladzhin joined him as the whole group started to move in under the archway, Rahdan tagging along behind Taeela with his AK slung over his shoulder, and Janey and the girls following, all five with their headscarves folded to cover the lower half of their faces.

  “She’s pretty impressive,” said Mizhael. “Twelve, isn’t she?”

  “Taeela? She’s thirteen next month. She’s amazing.”

  “You can say that again. All sorts of stories going around. She’s holed up in the palace. She’s dead. Adzhar Taerzha’s got her, going to marry her off to one of his lads. Ditto with a couple of the East Dirzh lot. She’s hiding in the British embassy. And then she shows up here unannounced in a battered old rust-bucket with her own bodyguard and bidzhaya and vinaili …”

  “Uh?”

  “Sorry. Chaperone, I suppose, and, um, well, ladies-in-waiting, kind of, except they’re usually kids even when she’s grown up … and Dad and the others are treating her pretty well like that’s what she was. What’s happened with your arm?”

  “A guy bashed it with an AK.”

  “Ouch. Been like that, has it?”

  “Some of it. Taeela says I’ve got to see a knowing woman, whatever that is.”

  “If that’s what you want. Alinu’s damn good, but we’ve got a decent little hospital if you’d rather.”

  Tempting, but the first thing was to get out of sight. All eyes were on Taeela, but that didn’t stop Nigel feeling desperately exposed, gossip-worthy, like a streaker at a Test Match. It would be worse at a hospital.

  “Let’s try the knowing woman,” he said. “What happens now?”

  “We were just sitting around talking about it all when you lot showed up. I guess we’ll let the Khanazhana settle in to her quarters and give her a bit of time to sort herself out—you can hole up with me—and … Trouble, Nick?”

  “I can’t go …?”

  “Go along with the Khanazhana? She’ll be in the women’s quarters. Dad acts pretty laid-back, but he runs a very orthodox establishment. I get a special dispensation, mind you. You’ll see. This way.”

  The procession broke up in the courtyard, a space of fountains and flowers and shade trees, surrounded by an elaborate arcade. The main body continued straight ahead, Chief Baladzhin took Taeela, Janey and the others to the right and Mizhael led Nigel towards the single large door under the arcade on the left, which he opened and stood aside with a welcoming gesture. Nigel hesitated, turned and saw almost exactly the same thing happening at the door opposite, Chief Baladzhin making the gesture and Taeela turning. Her mouth was hidden by her headscarf so she couldn’t answer his smile, but they each raised a farewell hand and turned away.

  CHAPTER 16

  They crossed a dark entrance hall, climbed two flights of stairs and stopped at a pair of double doors. Mizhael drew a large key from under his robe, unlocked them and pushed one leaf open, locking it behind him once they were through.

  “Dog-dog!” he shouted.

  There was a cry of delight, a charge of feet, and a small boy came scampering out through an o
pen door and into Mizhael’s arms. Mizhael swung him around a couple of times and held him up to present him to Nigel. “This is my friend, Nick, Dog-dog,” said Mizhael. “And this is my son Doglu—Douglas to you. And this is my lovely wife, Lily-Jo.”

  Nigel turned and saw a small slim woman watching them from a doorway, quietly smiling. She was no taller than he was, with jet black hair and a light brown oriental-looking face, with hugelensed spectacles. Her flowered blouse and white slacks would have looked OK almost anywhere in the world.

  “I’ll leave you to their tender mercies for a bit,” said Mizhael. “You must be dead beat. Why don’t you have a bit of a lie-down while I go and try to stop these crazy old men from marching on Dara Dahn?”

  “That’s fine …” Nigel started, then registered what Mizhael had just said.

  “No, wait!” he said urgently.

  Mizhael turned in the doorway, eyebrows raised.

  “Look, you’ve got to talk to Taeela. She’s desperate to stop that happening.”

  “Is she now?” said Mizhael speaking slowly for the first time. “She has a plan?”

  “Not yet, but …”

  “No time now. I’ll fix for you to sit next to me at dinner. The Khanazhana has shown up unexpectedly, darling. Nick’s an English friend of hers. Explain our set-up here to him—he’s obviously baffled. I’ll get them to send old Alinu up to him—he’s had a bash on his shoulder. Then he’d better have a bit of a rest. I’ll be back in half an hour. Love you. Bye. Go to Mummy, Dog-dog, that’s a good boy. Be nice to my friend Nick.”

  He closed the door. The key clacked in the lock. Nigel turned to his hostess. She was no longer smiling.

  “The Khanazhana is here?” she said, very softly, with a slight lisp. “In Sodalka?”

  “That’s right. We’ve just arrived. You’ve heard what happened to the President.”

  “Sure. Why does she come here?”

  “She had to come somewhere. The soldiers were hunting for us in the palace. The old man who used to look after her told her to come here because your father-in-law was some kind of cousin. She didn’t really want to …”