In the Palace of the Khans

by Peter Dickinson

  The next two hours sauntered by, untroubled. Nigel breakfasted slowly and repacked his bag ready for a quick getaway, got out his chess set and explored a variation on the Queen’s Indian. Men crawled in, glanced at him, muttered to each other and left. After a bit of this he shifted his chair to face away from the entrance and wasn’t surprised when the next visitor seemed to stay longer and before he left something brushed lightly against the nape of his neck.

  This time he didn’t mind. It seemed to be an expression of their togetherness, like the comradeship among their five leaders that had suddenly renewed itself when they had found their attack-point yesterday. Nigel had never been a natural joiner-in, a foreigner in Santiago and almost that back in England, with his stupid looks and hoity-toity accent. Even in the chess team, with the other players older than he was, he never felt he really belonged. He used to tell himself he was a loner, anyway. Not now.

  Only when the men began to muster to their posts, departing a few at a time so as not to clog the shafts, did tension return. He followed the last of them along the passage to the foot of the shaft and waited there, yawning and sighing, until Taeela appeared from below, already in her dahl. She checked over her shoulder that he was there and climbed on, followed by Satila and then Rahdan. Nigel joined himself on at the tail.

  When they emerged on the gallery level she took charge and led them to the left, then to Nigel’s dismay knelt at an entrance he had tried yesterday and found blocked on the inside. By the time he had pushed past Rahdan and Satila to warn her she had swung the slabs apart and was crawling through. They emerged into what looked like a store-room for office stuff.

  “What happened?” he whispered. “I tried this …”

  “We came up in the night to see. Me, Satila and Rahdan. This is the best room for us. The women will watch from the gallery, and they will leave their cloaks in the room outside, so we came through Ditta’s office to clear the way. Now you put on your woman’s clothes and we go through.”

  There was a silk undershirt, dark green with lacy white cuffs. The dahl was a classy garment, rich brown, beautifully soft and supple, with a pattern of glittery bits on the shoulders and round the arm-slits, and a little handbag to match. There was even a pair of fancy shoes he could get into.

  “You must practise to walk like a girl, Nigel” she said, giggling as he tittupped awkwardly across the room. She seemed to be in terrific spirits, as if she were getting ready for a fancy dress party, preening this way and that while Satila fussed round her brushing away the dust of the passages and picking off invisible scraps of fluff. Her outfit was the same as his with the colours reversed, showing they belonged to some clan or other.

  “We’re some rich guy’s daughters, right?” he said.

  “Tahrin Farzhna. West Dirzh. He works in Vladivostok. He has two daughters. They have never been to Dirzhan. No one will speak to you.”

  “Bet they haven’t got blue eyes.”

  “In your bag, Nigel. I think of everything. No, don’t put them on. Satila must do your face.”

  “There’s only about six square centimetres anyone’s going to see.”

  “They must see a girl.”

  “Someone in Sodalka made all this kit? The stupid shoes even?”

  “Sure. Alinu had felt your feet. She knew the size for them.”

  “You couldn’t know I’d be was coming up here with you.”

  “I knew.”

  Suddenly he wanted to yell at her. She didn’t! She didn’t! She didn’t! Any more than she knew that in twenty minutes’ time the whole enterprise wouldn’t have ended in a bloody shambles!

  She reached out and stroked the back of his hand.

  “I knew you’d do what is right, Nigel,” she said gently.

  There wasn’t an answer, not here, not now in this swirl of fear and excitement, this longing to be out of it all, anywhere else in the world, provided she was there too. He pulled back the hood of his dahl and let Satila start work.

  She did his whole face, lip-stick and all, working steadily, absorbed in the task. People were moving about now in the room outside. He heard women’s voices, a burst of laughter. Satila finished his face and picked up his hand, too pale for a Dirzhak’s, too large for a girl’s, with short unvarnished nails.

  “There isn’t time!” he whispered. “I’ll keep them under my dahl.”

  “Yes, we must go soon,” said Taeela, and explained to Satila.

  She raised his hood and fastened the veil, careful not to smear her work. He picked up his hand-bag and strutted round the small space between the shelves, getting used to the shoes, while Taeela listened at the door.

  “Now,” she whispered. “We are two shy girls. Hold my hand, Nigel.”

  She turned the key, and they slipped out behind the cover of a conveniently placed coat-rack. No, she’d probably shifted it there on her reconnaissance visit that morning. She relocked the door and gave him the key.

  Yes, of course. He’d be coming back this way most likely. She probably wouldn’t. Whatever happened.

  With their joined hands invisible in the folds of their dahli they edged out from behind the rack, followed by Satila. A couple of women were checking their make-up in wall mirrors. Several others were chatting in small groups. Only three were wearing dahli, the rest elegant head-scarves. Nobody did more than glance at the newcomers as they slipped out into the gallery.

  The spaces along the balustrade were filling up, mainly towards the front of the Great Hall, where the spectators could look more directly towards the staircase. As if too shy to join them Taeela headed for the corner where the gallery turned along the back of the hall. Still hand in hand they leaned on the balustrade and studied the scene below, vivid under the television lights.

  The lay-out was a copy of the Tribute ceremony, minus the fancy dress. There was a table on the dais with three microphones and chairs. The band with its weird instruments had been replaced by four buglers and a drummer. A dozen men in tribal dress, chieftains by the look of them, were lined up on one side of the table. The ambassadors and other bigwigs, along with half-a-dozen senior officers, were seated either side of the stage, with two ragged lines of palace guards behind the chairs. Nigel could see the back of an ash-blond head in the front row below him.

  Now another gap appeared as a guard on the far side laid his gun on the floor and scuttled off towards the guard-room, his hands already feeling for his belt-buckle. A different soldier appeared, picked up his gun and filled one of the gaps, grey-faced and swaying. An officer strode up and snarled at the guard-sergeant. The poor guy was obviously suffering as badly as any of his men. The officer looked at his watch. Too late to do anything about it. He snarled again and stalked up onto the dais in front of buglers. Another thing going right. The timing had been tricky. Veela had had to show Rahdan several sizes of pot and how much of Alinu’s mixture to put in each of them.

  Nigel sneaked a glance at his watch. Three minutes to twelve. He tried to count seconds but the hammer of his heartbeat muddled his timing. Mr Dikhtar appeared at the top of the stairs with a shiny leather folder under his arm. He walked quietly down to the dais, took three documents out of the folder, laid them on the table ready for signing, and stood to one side.

  The band readied their instruments. The huge room stilled. The officer raised a hand, one finger pointing at the dome, took a quick glance up the stairs and brought it smartly down. The drums rattled. The bugles squawked. Adzhar Taerzha, flanked by two of his personal guards, strode out from the shadows of the gallery into the lamp-glare and raised a hand in greeting. The two colonels appeared either side of him, halted and saluted. The stricken soldiers raised a feeble cheer and the audience clapped. Both sounds were immediately drowned by the roar of canned applause.

  The colonels started down the stairs. Adzhar Taerzha followed a couple of steps behind them.

  Now! thought Nigel.

  Taeela’s fingers squirmed in his tightening grip. Her nails dug in
to the back of his hand. A burst of gunfire broke through the canned clamour. Immediately below Nigel a stream of tribesmen wearing black and orange sashes poured out across the floor, whooping and waving their guns as they rushed towards the dais. The party on the stairs halted and stared. Mr Dikhtar went scuttling up past them. Colonel Sesslizh spun round, snatched his gun from its holster, aimed two-handed and shot Adzhar Taerzha in the face.

  He fired again as the big man fell, and again as he hit the stairs, out of sight behind the balustrade from where Nigel was standing, and then both colonels were flung backwards by a burst of fire from the two bodyguards.

  At that point someone in the control room switched off the applause. It had all taken less than thirty seconds.

  Nigel turned to look at Taeela. She wasn’t there. He hadn’t even noticed her letting go of his hand. Satila had gone too.

  There were screams to his left where most of the women had left the balustrade and were crowding towards the cloakroom, though a few were still where they’d been, staring down at the chaos below. Where was his father? There, crouched in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head in the emergency-landing posture. Most of the male audience were on their feet, heading for the main doors or simply staring around. Three of the attackers had their guns trained on the group of officers.

  Over on the far side the soldiers seemed to have melted away. The officer was barking orders at the ones below Nigel. The men stared mutinously at him, broke apart and shambled off out of sight beneath the gallery.

  Up on the dais the chieftains had split into two gesticulating groups. The attackers were in confusion. What had just happened wasn’t in the script. That first warning burst of gunfire had been meant to be the only shots fired. They would storm the dais and arrest and Adzhar Taerzha and the two colonels, while others racing in along the gallery blocked their escape up the stairs. Taeela would then make her grand entrance from there. Dead bodies sprawled on the stairway were not part of the scenario.

  More confusion now, a scuffle of some sort, at the top of the stairs. An elderly woman pushed her way out of it, staggered down and flung herself on her knees at the back of the dais, wailing and tearing her hair. Oh, no! But of course they would have been there to see their men in their moment of triumph—the mothers, the wives, the sons and daughters …

  Unable to watch, Nigel turned away. Unthinkingly he headed for the cloakroom but the doorway was choked with women trying to get through. He heaved a slow sigh and came to his senses. Not time yet. He had to stay there, to see it through. He’d promised. He forced himself back to the balustrade.

  From this new angle he could see Adzhar Taerzha lying face down, with a pool of blood beneath his head, glistening beneath the lights and dripping down in a thin stream from step to step. Further down Colonel Madzhalid was sprawled on his side like a sleeping man, his wounds invisible. Colonel Sesslizh had rolled down to the dais and lay there with the woman crouched over him, moaning and wailing, then throwing her head back and raising her fists and yelling her curses towards the dome. She could have been Lady Finching’s sister. There is no bottom to the pool of grief. It can never be filled.

  Around her the attackers were sorting themselves out. They’d stripped off their black and orange colours and were handing round the purple sashes of the khans. Two of last night’s new arrivals seemed to be in charge and were lining the rest up on either side of the stairs, like a ceremonial guard at a wedding, with the dead bodies at their feet. The ones at the top faced outwards, watchful for any sign of a counter-attack.

  One of the men in charge walked over to the grieving woman, took hold of her arm and started to heave her to her feet. She was trying to fight him off, still wailing, when Satila came hurrying down the stairs and spoke to him. He nodded, let go and stood back. Two palace servants arrived carrying a makeshift stretcher-it might have been a door ripped off a cupboard—rolled Colonel Sesslizh’s body onto it and carried him up into the gallery and out of sight, with the woman stumbling beside him wrapped in her noisy desolation. A door closed and the wailing died away.

  That changed things. There was no need of a signal. The whole huge room seemed to become aware that something new was about to happen. The gaps along the balustrade had almost filled and the bodies were gone from the stairs when Taeela walked quietly out of the shadows of the gallery into the television lights. She had been wearing full mourning under her dahl and stood there, jet black amid the glitter and glare, a figure of tragedy

  There was a brief, astonished silence. Nigel hadn’t expected any applause. Almost everybody in the Great Hall must either have supported the coup or else couldn’t afford to take sides, one way or the other. But somebody clapped and several others joined in. The women around him were whispering excitedly. A few cheers had started when the canned applause took over.

  With Satila and Rahdan a couple of steps behind, Taeela came slowly down the stairs, stopping on the final step above the dais so as to give herself the extra height. Two of the men picked up the table, carried it bodily towards her, adjusted one of the microphones for her and removed the other two. The canned applause stopped abruptly and the scattering of cheers died away. She fiddled with the microphone and was clearly about to speak when she was interrupted by a fresh disturbance at the top of the stairs.

  With deliberate slowness she turned to see two of the men standing under the archway with Avron Dikhtar sagging in their grasp.

  Idiots! At this moment of all moments!

  No, it hadn’t been like that. He must have been there all along. They’d’ve collared him almost at once. He’d raced up the stairs and run straight into their arms. Taeela had arrived in time to decide what to do about the captive before she made her entrance. This was the result. She’d been expecting the interruption, chosen the moment.

  She beckoned. The men virtually carried Mr Dikhtar down towards her—he’d have fallen if they’d let go of his arms. She climbed to meet them, stopping several steps up and turning half-sideways so that audience and cameras could see the confrontation.

  The men forced him to his knees on the step below her and stood back. He stared up at her, grey-faced, streaming with sweat. Still with deliberate slowness she drew her pistol out of her jacket and weighed it up and down, holding it two-handed so that everybody could see what it was.

  Every Dirzhak in the room knew what to expect. Three of her father’s murderers were already dead. The last one cowered at her feet.

  Her thumb moved on the safety. She began to raise the gun, paused, lowered it again, closed the safety, put it away and turned to face the room. She took a deep breath and called out two short sentences in Dirzhani, waited, and repeated them in English.

  “The vengeance of the Khan is the mercy of the Khan.

  “There will be no more killing.”

  Nigel watched, strangely detached. The rest of the room may have been shuddering with the release of tension. Even the half-dozen men who’d heard her give him the Word of the Khan couldn’t have been sure she’d keep it. Only he can have been certain, or known what it had cost her to forgo her vengeance. To stand there and act her agonising change of heart right to the hilt, laying it on for all she was worth.

  And why not? She was fighting with everything she’d got—for herself, for her father, for Dirzhan—and she hadn’t got much, forty-odd crazies from the wild clans in the north, and herself, the Khanazhana. And the people of Dara Dahn who’d poured rioting into the streets that night to protest against the coup, and had had to be driven back by tanks and gunfire. She was appealing directly to them. It would make great television. Mutineers from the Dorvadu barracks were supposed to be taking over the TV and radio station just about now, providing nothing had gone wrong …

  Something had, though, here. For the first time Taeela seemed to be hesitating, unsure of herself. She was looking up at the gallery to his right …

  Hell! He’d moved. She’d looked for him where he should have been as if to say
“There! I kept my word, right?” and he wasn’t there. Automatically he raised his arm and waved. She caught the signal, smiled and walked back down to the microphone.

  And meanwhile everyone round him had seen the pale coarse hand and big macho wrist-watch protruding from the elegant sleeve. Quite a few of those below too had turned to see what she was looking for. Hurriedly he lowered his arm out of sight and turned away. There were mutters and whispers all around him but a pathway opened before him.

  By the time he reached the cloakroom door Taeela was speaking into the microphone. Her voice filled the Great Hall.

  CHAPTER 23

  Fohdrahko’s body lay against the wall with his eyes closed and his arms neatly folded across his chest. The entrance slabs were still open. From the direction of the dungeon came a curious muffled uproar. Nigel hesitated at the door, but the key-ring was still in its hiding-place, five keys, three plain and two with more elaborate business ends—skeleton keys for the cells presumably. One of the plain ones fitted the door.

  The din burst through as he inched it open, men’s hoarse voices yelling, mixed with metallic bangs and clanks. The bars the far end were silhouetted against the weak dungeon lighting. He unslung his dahl from his shoulder-bag and pulled it on over his ordinary clothes, fastened the veil and crept forward, almost invisible now in the darkness of the tunnel. A cell door came into view, with a man’s face pressed close the bars, lined, haggard, mouth open in a scream, like a horrible old painting of a soul in hell.

  He hesitated again. But if there was any chance Rick was there, screaming like that …

  More doors came into view, more faces, snarling or yelling or grimly silent. The third one on the left was black.

  No point in sneaking about. The other plain key fitted the lock on the grille. The yelling changed tone as he opened the gate and with quick, short girl-steps crossed to Rick’s cell. Rick cut his yell short and stared at him. Nigel had to shout to be heard..