Samarkand the Omnibus: Books 1-2

by Graham Diamond

  “I have come to study,” Tariq spoke, continuing the charade. “Fortune has smiled upon us both.”

  His companion nodded, completing the necessary code. “Then I shall be your teacher.” They turned and walked among the arches, out of sight and hearing among the shadows. Worn sandals clattered hollowly on the tile.

  Once well away from unwanted eyes, Tariq dropped the masquerade. “Amar the slaver says you are trustworthy,” he said, evenly greeting his companion’s gaze.

  “What is it you want?”

  Tariq’s voice dropped to a barely-audible whisper. “I have, er, a sister in the palace. Entered only yesterday among the girls taken to serve in Kabul’s brothel...”

  “Her identity shall be protected, you need not fear.”

  With eyes coolly narrowed, Tariq added, “She needs better employment. A position that will keep her a hairbreadth away from the Khan.”

  At this the scholar tensed. “You ask much, Kazir. The closer to Kabul the greater the risk — for everybody.”

  “Yet Kabul’s brothel is under your control, isn’t it?”

  The scholar smiled thinly. “A man must learn to survive in dangerous times, Kazir. Amar supplies the women, I select those for the royal harem. The others are given to men of rank — soldiers, ministers, and their ilk. If your sister is beautiful enough, then perhaps Kabul or any of his eight sons may claim her. If not, she will be taken away. It’s not in my hands.”

  Shrewdly, Tariq said, “Ah, but the overseer to the whores, the palace prostitutes, is she not chosen by you?”

  The question was a trap, the scholar knew. This Tariq had done his research well. “Yes — but there is only one. A eunuch, not a woman. A former slave, castrated by the Khan, who won his freedom by serving the Huns as skilled torturer in the palace dungeons. I named him overseer because I could trust him with the women. I doubt Kabul would readily let me have him replaced.”

  Tariq thought for a moment, then posed another question. “And what if this eunuch were removed by force?”

  The scholar hesitated before replying, then said, “The next choice would be my own. Perhaps another eunuch —”

  “Or the right woman?”

  He nodded. “If she were suitable. Her duties would be in constant demand; each night she must select women to share the Khan’s bed and those of his sons. Currently there are over one hundred and fifty women in the harem. My overseer must keep them all beautiful and ready.”

  “Soon, your eunuch will no longer be a burden to any of us,” Tariq said flatly. “You need not know the circumstances, only that it be done. When the task is complete, I want you to name my sister as new overseer of the whores. Tell Kabul any tale you like.” He pressed his face closer to the other man and said, “then stay far away.”

  His companion, having lived and survived so long amid such intrigues inside and outside of the palace, smiled smugly. “And what, Kazir, if I should refuse? Call you out this instant to those soldiers patrolling the high walls?” He was surprised when Tariq showed no fear. The young Kazir glanced over his shoulder casually, whistled softly. From the gathered group of kneeling worshippers one man lifted his head and his frame, an awesome man, a giant with shoulders as broad as a wall. The man skirted a glance to Tariq, for only the briefest moment took his hand from inside the sleeve of his robe. He clasped a short curved knife that glimmered angrily in the sunlight. The scholar winced, the message all too clear. Indeed, spies were everywhere!

  “Well?” said Tariq impatiently.

  His fretful consort ran a thick tongue over suddenly very dry lips and mouth. “Your sister shall be named overseer. But the demise of Castus is up to you. I have nothing to do with it.”

  A satisfied smile crossed Tariq’s desert features. “I knew I might count on you. Return home and wait; palace guards, I would imagine, shall summon you by morning.”

  Chapter Five

  Constructed upon the highest ground of the city, an acropolis from which tens of leagues in every direction could be observed from the highest towers and teardrop-shaped spires, stood the ancient and splendid palace of Samarkand. Within its stone walls great rulers had governed its empire since the time of Alexander. Now, though, the pomp and splendor of former days were gone, leaving instead only the shell: drab, gray walls ridden with cracks and fissures, upon whose battlements grimly marched the Khan’s inner guard.

  Torchlight and candles shone gloomily across the sprawling imperial chambers and halls that had once hosted a courtly retinue from virtually every civilized nation. The desperate solitude now bore silent testimony to the recent years of Kabul’s reign; men trod softly through these once-hallowed rooms, fearful and respectful of its new occupants, ruthless men brutally plotting and scheming ruthless conquests. Spreading terror into every land beneath the black banners of the Huns.

  The private apartment was dark at this hour, devoid of slaves or servants, quiet except for the heavy and labored breathing of one man and the tinkling of the instruments of the cloaked figure at his side.

  Kabul lay prostrate upon the worn, velvet divan, his head slightly elevated by a tiny, brocaded pillow. Naked save for the plain sheet draped across his loins, he listened to the pounding of his heart, stared expressionlessly up at the high recessed window, at the starlight. The robed man standing over him drew another needle, long and fine, from his tray. He twirled it for a second in front of his eyes, then twisted the tip against Kabul’s flesh, inserting it at the juncture of elbow and arm.

  The Great Khan’s mouth tinned down with the initial sting of pain, spittle from his thick lips flying across his once-fiery beard. Gray had long since replaced the crimson, more rapidly in recent years than ever before. Deeply-pouched jowls remained covered by the beard, but above it the skin was etched with deepening lines that crisscrossed his features. His body was massive with strong, powerful arms. Broad shoulders, flat stomach, firm thighs. Almost a perfect specimen for a man his age — except for one item. Below his slanted and bushy silver brows a scarred and bulbous canker festered, a sewn sore where once his right eye had been. It was now a swollen, sightless mass that, were it not for his patch, would have made him hideously ugly to look upon.

  Another needle pierced into tracked flesh; Kabul winced and sucked in a lungful of late-winter air. This one hurt — hurt badly, causing white-hot flashes of pain to run up his leg and nudge at his spinal cord. Still, the punishing acupuncture was less severe than his spasms, periods of excruciating agony when the dangling nerve-endings of his lost eye sent him into fits of writhing and screaming. Even the most cleverly-designed torture seemed mild by comparison. This Chinaman who stood before him with a slight smile and inscrutable slanted eyes was the only man Kabul had ever been able to find who might bring relief for his pain. Kabul needed him and his craft more than his sons or his generals, more than his women and chancellors. Were it not for these frequent treatments, the Great Khan would surely have died long before. Not from the symptoms, as terrifying as they were, but by his own hand. For even one such as he could not have borne the punishment of the spasms. Now Kabul existed for one thing and one thing only: revenge. Swift and equal retribution for the devil’s minx who had caused the infliction.

  “Do you feel better, my lord?” rasped the accented voice.

  The Khan glanced sidelong at Sing-Li the Chinese physician. As the tireless acupuncturist padded away beads of sweat from his forehead, Kabul replied, “The spasm is gone. I can think again.”

  The physician broke into a shadowed grin and bowed low before the Khan, hands hidden in his wide sleeves. “You have honored me in letting me treat you this night, O liege. Summon me again, should discomfort return.”

  Kabul sat up, hirsute legs dangling over the side of the divan. This time when he swelled his chest, there was an absence of pain, the overwhelming head pain that had forced him to wake and cry out for the Chinaman’s skills at once. He toyed with the eyepatch clutched in his large hand, proceeded to tie it back into plac
e. “You may go” was all he said. Then as an afterthought to the Chinaman’s back, “Have Khalkali come in.”

  No sooner had the oval bronze doors parted than a handful of slaves quietly entered. They lit candles and braziers, laid wine and supper before the Khan. Kabul wrenched a breast from the roasted duck, ate greedily, swilling it down with the strong Indian brew.

  Barely a few moments later the door opened wide once more. In swaggered a tall, hairy barbarian, a much younger image of Kabul himself, with long fiery locks, well-developed biceps, a brooding sneer beneath a drooping crimson mustache.

  Khalkali swept with a grand and overdone bow. “You sent for me, Father?”

  Kabul wiped grease from his mouth with the back of his arm. He studied his fourth son a long while, wondering what further intrigues against him this swaggering seedling had plotted with his brothers. Ten sons Kabul had sired. Ten different mothers. And Kabul harbored no false illusions; of the eight remaining, each and every one lusted for further title and power, jockeying among themselves, currying favors among the ministers, pretending devout obedience to their father, while hoping for the Khan’s death.

  But Kabul bore little ill will on this score, even if they did prove to be an unworthy lot. The Khan needed not reminding that to attain his own position it had taken the murder of three brothers, two uncles, as well as his own father to ascend to the Hun throne. It was no secret; he’d bragged about it often enough, in any case. Yet he was still confident that not a single one of his scions would openly dare oppose him; he was still their better, alone or combined. In fact, the hatreds they nurtured among themselves for each other were a great source of amusement to the aging Khan. Many a time he had nourished such rivalries, turning brother against brother, fully knowing that it only enhanced his own chances of remaining where he was even longer.

  Khalkali stood erect, bearskin boots caked with dust, attesting to the recent weeks his personal army had spent raiding the Persian frontier; he had only returned this very evening. The flimsy Persian garrisons had easily fallen to the onslaught; Khalkali’s own men had returned with saddlebags laden with spoils, and some five hundred captives, more than half young women to pass to the legions as field whores.

  Kabul chewed his supper slowly as the youthful warrior recounted his successes. The booty had been good, he saw; more important, they had learned just how weak these Persian border defenses really were. All the more of considerable significance in light of Hun ambitions to broaden even further their vast empire.

  “...twenty thousand men,” Khalkali was saying as Kabul returned his attention. “Three thousand horsemen. Give me as many and I can bring you home the Persian crown — and the head of their shah, this king of kings as well!”

  The Khan smiled thinly. How ambitious his fourth son had become. Nothing like a few quick successes to bolster esteem. If I gave you such an army to command, dear Khalkali, how long would it be before you turned your trusted troops against me?

  “I will take your advice under consideration,” said the Khan.

  His son was seething with temper, eager to march, eager to claim the Persian throne and come back a hero. “But, Father! We have now the finest opportunity yet! The frontier is in disarray; I could make a crossing unscathed. It would take months, months! for the sanshah to group and deploy his forces. Time gives him the chance to defend against us, shore up his legions!”

  Kabul listened raptly, twisting the various emerald and ruby rings on his thick fingers. “I have not the forces to spare,” he answered. “Your brother Gamal grows impatient in the west. Or have you forgotten we lay siege to the Turks?”

  Khalkali pressed his lips in consternation, glaring at the naked man on the divan. In a subdued tone he said, ‘Is it the Turks you consider? Or that woman on the steppes?”

  The Great Khan grew crimson; he tightened his hands into fists, half a mind to leap out of his seat and strangle the sneering youth before him. Few ever dared whisper of the woman who had stolen his eye; a loyal aide-de-camp once had, meaning no harm, but the damage had been done. As an approaching spasm rollicked inside his brain, Kabul had in a rage had him arrested, both eyes plucked from their sockets, then his tongue, before mercifully giving him his own sword with which to take his life. Talk of the woman was expressly forbidden, and Khalkali showed a foolish bravado in taunting his father thus.

  “Son of a whoring bitch!”

  The fourth son held his ground, knowing his father was in his dementia only bringing on another fit. Secretly, Khalkali was laughing. Let the old fool wallow in agitation. He would not dare harm me — not now, not after my bringing home such bountiful treasure.

  Kabul snapped upright, swung himself off the divan, and planted himself firmly in front of his son. Khalkali was smaller in stature and strength; he could still break his back in a fair fight. Perhaps one day soon he would. But the obligations of office had taught even a barbarian much; his fourth son was yet useful to him, a pawn among the other brothers, a field commander for his plans to once again march against the steppes and the phantom Kazirs who ruled them.

  He returned to the divan, picked another piece of roasted meat from the plate. “The woman is not your concern,” he told his son, returning to calm complacency. “I shall deal with her — and her outlaws — in my own time and place of choosing. As for your own request, denied for the moment. The sanshah has done nothing to turn his armies against us. True, he has harbored fugitives like that man Le-Dan; but for the moment neither is a threat. When we are ready, Persia shall be taken. Plucked like a grape from the vine.” His gaze tightened again as he stared single-eyed at Khalkali. “I shall probably bestow upon you the honor of bringing to me the sanshah’s worthless head — at the proper time. But always know that I will be the one to determine when. Not you.”

  Khalkali groaned. “You are making a mistake, Father. I tell you this openly and honestly —”

  Kabul waved a haughty hand, said, “You may leave. For the moment the matter is closed.”

  Khalkali bowed respectfully, turned and strode brazenly from the room.

  From a secret door behind a Chinese screen another figure slipped into the chamber: Tupol, ninth son of the Khan. His head snapped to the side in a nervous twitch, continual and growing worse with age. A deformed hand hung from a crooked arm; his limp was slight, his eyes crossed. However, a cunning mind had been encased within that deformed body, a mind Kabul was wise enough to value. And although the youth seemed the most harmless man within the entire Samarkand palace, the Khan feared him more than the others. Tupol was cagey; crafty as was his mother, with a mind far superior to any Kabul had ever known. What his body lacked in physical prowess, his constantly analyzing brain more than compensated for. To the Khan he was of immense value, and came as close to being worthy of honest trust as any of the sons.

  “My brother speaks too rashly for his own good,” hissed Tupol. He played with a necklace of common beads hanging from his neck. “Shall I follow him, Father?”

  Kabul patted the soot-haired youth of a Mongolian mother as he might pet his favorite hound. “No,” he said, shaking his head and smiling. “Let Khalkali fume, let him conspire with his cronies and brothers. It matters not I don’t even care if he consults Osklath.”

  Tupol’s laugh sounded like a mountain hyena’s. Osklath indeed! The first-born of the Khan, due to his strange experiences in the forest fighting against the Kazirs, was now a thumb-sucking, speechless idiot. Turned into an imbecile who could not even be toilet-trained. Osklath himself had taken the life of the tenth and truly youngest son of the Khan, Frizul, for so-called cowardice, thus ridding Kabul of yet another dangerous pest. Now there were eight left. Tupol, confident for the moment of his own safety, wondered which would be next.

  “Then what may I do for you this night, Father?” he asked.

  Kabul downed his wine, lay back on the divan. An olive-skinned slave silently took away the tray of food, refilled the pitcher. The Khan hungrily eyed her, feel
ing a swelling in his loins. “I need nothing tonight, Tupol,” he said. “Only a woman. Winter nights give me a chill.”

  The son chuckled. “Getting old, eh, Father?” he chided. Then more seriously, “Does this slavegirl please you?”

  “I think not. Amar has said that he’s brought a number of exotic beauties to the palace these past days, has he not?”

  “Indeed, Father! Egyptian women, with breasts as luscious as melons! And a black-skinned lovely from Africa like no woman you have ever seen! Perhaps you’d like to sample the yellow-haired one from Rus? Or even —”

  The mighty Khan stopped his babbling with a gesture of his hand.

  “You’ll make of me a glutton yet!” he answered with a boisterous laugh. “Bring the matter to the eunuch, Castus. Tell him my desires, and let him be the one to decide.”

  Chapter Six

  The overseer was obese. In kindness, even to him, there was no other way to describe him. His arms were like stubby branches of well-tended trees, belly as voluminous as a woman pregnant with a full brood of offspring. Short, squat-nosed, multiple-chinned, and with a round, jovial face, he masked the anger of his condition as a voyeur would, by clandestinely sneaking behind the walls of bedrooms, peeking into carefully-drilled holes, watching pairs of lovers cavort in the still of night. That, and absorbing limitless amounts of potent honeyed wine, were his only vices. For the rest, he was a man of strict character, obeying the Khan’s wishes and instructions to the letter, keeping his women in line by the crack of the whip when necessary. But he secretly let a few rendezvous with a lover for a few hours now and again among the labyrinth of formerly grand chambers, when, of course, they showed merit.