by Martin Dukes
“My mother is quite impossible,” said the Sultan, looking up from the plans he was studying. “You know that, don’t you? She cannot adjust herself to the notion that I am a grown man. The fact that I am Head of State and master of all I survey requires a leap of the intellect she will never make. She treats me like a child,” he concluded bitterly.
“I’m sure she has the best intentions,” said Alex smoothly. “I’m sure she just wants the best for you. Mothers are like that. They’re a bit of a pain in the bum, but it kind of goes with the territory.”
The Sultan regarded him seriously.
“Sometimes I wonder whether we speak the same language,” he said. “What do you know of my mother’s intentions?”
“Nothing,” gulped Alex, alarm bells shrilling in the corridors of his mind. “I’m just, you know, speaking in generalities.”
“She will not leave me alone,” continued the Sultan, warming to his theme. He moved on to mention the many ways in which she infuriated him, and Alex provided a sympathetic ear. It was hard for him to join in with anecdotes about his own mother/son relationship. It was, after all, unlikely that Shaquira bent his ear about tidying his bedroom or leaving his shoes by the back door. Since it appeared that the Sultan wasn’t going to ask him directly whether Shaquira had been trying to exert influence on him, the hairs on Alex’s scalp started to lie down again.
“She hates me, you know,” said the Sultan abruptly, sweeping the map aside with a sudden gesture.
“Why would she?” asked Alex reasonably enough, alarmed by this surprising burst of emotion.
“I’ll tell you why she hates me,” said the Sultan, glancing around to check that the ever-present bodyguards were convincingly out of earshot. “She hates me because I had her favourite son strangled.”
“Ah…” said Alex.
He could see that this was bound to place a strain on the best of relationships. It was hard to know how to respond to such a disclosure so he said nothing at all, merely fiddling anxiously with his cuff and waiting for more horrors to come his way – which they presently did.
“I had both my brothers strangled,” continued the Sultan matter-of-factly. “You know this, I suppose. Everyone knows it. It is the way of the world; otherwise, there would be civil war. My brothers and I would have fought for the throne and thousands would have perished, trampled beneath our armies. God smiled upon me. When my father died of an unexpected seizure, my elder brother, Fahad, was away in the north of the island. I was in the palace, and with Hussain’s assistance I sent men to apprehend him, to slay him, before he could do the same to me. I do not regret his death. He was proud and vain and foolish. He would have commanded my death with no more thought than one wrings a chicken’s neck.”
He turned to Alex and demonstrated this with a fierce gesture.
“Do you see?”
Alex nodded, swallowing hard.
“But Nadir…” The Sultan’s eyes filled suddenly with unshed tears. “Nadir’s passing I regret. He was a sweet, gentle child who deserved more than the twelve years that God, in his wisdom, allowed him. It was with a heavy heart that I ordered his destruction.”
He looked suddenly at Alex, his eyes wide and lit by a strange yearning that was, perhaps, for forgiveness.
“Do you think me a monster, Alex?”
This was easy now. Alex felt on firm ground.
“No,” he said confidently and untruthfully. “Of course not.”
“You understand,” said the Sultan nodding slowly. “You understand. It is ever thus for a Sultan of Zanzibar, for the Sultans and Emirs of many places, for the Caliph himself, indeed; for who does not rule without the blood of his brothers on his hands? Sometimes at night I see their shades at the foot of my bed, Alex. Fahad, I can face down with conviction, but Nadir, he pierces me to the quick. I wish I were a harder man. Guilt is a cancer in my heart.”
“It is the will of God,” tried Alex, feeling that something was required of him and knowing that it was the kind of catch-all formula that people said to each other all the time in Zanzibar. He felt a vague temptation to mention that in a parliamentary democracy the new head of state wouldn’t have to go around murdering close relatives, but this was not, perhaps, the time.
“Of course it is God’s will, Alex,” said the Sultan, wiping his eye with the back of his hand. “But it is a heavy burden to bear nevertheless. And that is why my mother hates me. Nadir was her favourite. It was I who looked last upon his living face.”
Alex wondered if this meant that the Sultan had strangled his little brother with his own hands, but he preferred not to know for sure.
“But she must have known it would happen,” he said. “He must have known, too.”
“And do you suppose that makes it easier to bear? Since when has logic ever been a brake on sentiment?” he asked.
“I guess…” shrugged Alex.
“She hates me, Alex, and I, for my part, hate her. She is a wicked, manipulative old woman, rotten through and through with bitterness and resentment.”
It was hard to feel too sorry for the old bat, but the venom in the Sultan’s voice sent another thrill of horror across Alex’s scalp. So, no Mother’s Day lunch for Shaquira then. There was an awkward pause at the end of which the Sultan suddenly beamed and slapped Alex chummily on the shoulder.
“Well,” he said. “I’m glad we’ve had this little chat. It helps to get things off your chest sometimes, doesn’t it?”
The final military preparations for the Sultan’s expedition were falling into place. Foreign mercenaries had been engaged to supplement the Sultan’s own troops, and these were kept in barracks outside the city, allowed within the walls only in small numbers and under close supervision. Previous experience with mercenaries had shown that they were likely to wreak as much havoc in their employers’ cities as in their enemy’s. The young nobles who had volunteered to serve with the military were assigned to their commands. In general they found themselves serving under experienced officers, but a few of the more promising young men found themselves with independent commands of their own. Henry, all of fifteen years old, was given nominal command of a platoon of musketeers, although the tough old sergeant at their head had a shrewd idea who was really in charge.
“You give me a general idea of what you want them to do, sir, and I’ll translate it into sensible orders, if it’s at all feasible,” he said.
“And if it’s not feasible?” asked Henry with a frown.
“Then I’ll be sure to let you know, sir.”
“Excellent,” said Henry with some relief. “Well, I’m sure you know what you’re about. Carry on, Sergeant.”
“Sir,” said the sergeant with a grin and a smart salute.
It was during musket practice with the other young men that Henry came close to having his head blown off. With his friends Amjad and Khalid he was practising at the butts. The musket was heavy, cumbersome and extremely primitive, at least in the eyes of one accustomed to playing for hours on Call of Duty. It did, however, make a very satisfactory bang and had a kick like a mule. Henry rather liked firing it, although he was less keen on the lengthy process of reloading it. The main thrust of their training was learning to load it more quickly. The weapon fired a leaden ball the size of a quail’s egg with comical inaccuracy. Anyone who could hit a barn door at twenty paces was considered a marksman. No one was seriously expected to be able to hit anything with it reliably except at point blank range. Tactics revolved around getting in close and blazing away en masse, surrounded in great billowing clouds of acrid black powder smoke. Henry was required to know what to do with one but he was not expected to wield a musket in battle, given that it was not really considered to be a gentleman’s weapon. Gentlemen were required to murder their fellow human beings with edged weapons at close quarters.
Henry was about to fire his musket for the third time that morning when there was a terrific bang next to his ear. A momentary gust of air ruffled his hair as a
bullet passed within a finger’s breadth of his head. A great deal of shouting began almost immediately. Most of it came from Dhakeel, their drillmaster, who was irked to find that what the military referred to as an ‘involuntary discharge’ had taken place on his watch.
“I could have sworn it wasn’t loaded,” complained Ismail, one of the dimmest of Henry’s classmates. “I only put it down a moment ago.”
He said this haltingly and at intervals whilst being beaten briskly with the cane that Dhakeel always carried expressly for this purpose.
“You NEVER, NEVER pull the trigger when the weapon is pointed anywhere near a comrade,” grunted Dhakeel between strokes. “Even when you are quite sure it is unloaded.”
“Are you alright?” asked Amjad anxiously as Henry rubbed his ear, part deafened, part reeling from shock. “You are unharmed, I trust.”
“Fine, fine,” said Henry, waving him away but sitting down on an upturned barrel nevertheless.
Shazad came strolling through the swirling wisps of gun smoke, a sly smirk on his face.
“That might have been a very nasty accident,” he said. “I rejoice to see you unmarked. So many of those who cross me suffer ill-fortune, but perhaps you are luckier than most.”
For once Henry found himself lost for words.
“This gesture you make,” said Shazad, leaning against the low wall they were firing from and studying his perfect nails. “You must explain its meaning to me some time – if you survive long enough to do so, that is. Fortunes of war, Henry. It is a dangerous business, peril on all sides.”
“Ha!” said Henry, gathering his mental resources but finding them to be insufficient. “That’s what you think.”
“A witty riposte,” said Shazad with another insufferable smirk. “You outdo yourself.”
“Yeah, well I’ll do you in a minute,” said Henry, feeling blood rushing to his face at last.
“I think not,” said Shazad, placing a hand on his sword hilt. “But there will come a time, God willing, when we shall compose our differences.”
“You’re such an idiot,” Alex told him later. “Can’t you ever just stay out of trouble?”
“It’s hardly my fault if I nearly got my bean shot off,” objected Henry in aggrieved tones.
“Well no, but you just told me you didn’t think it was an accident,” said Alex. “You just told me you thought this Shazad, or one of his pals, swapped that guy’s unloaded musket with a loaded one.”
“Yeah,” objected Henry. “But how’s that my fault?”
“It’s your fault because you’ve managed to get yourself into a blood feud with one of the most powerful and well-connected nobles in the land, that’s why,” Alex explained. “And all because you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head. Duh! I give up!” He slapped his head.
“Are you going to be okay on this expedition?” asked Kelly, considering her hair in the polished bronze mirror that Kashifah had lent her. “You and Alex both, I shall be worried about you.”
“I’m sure Alex’ll be fine,” said Henry. “He’ll be back at HQ riding a desk. He faces nothing more lethal than a paper cut.”
“You are joking,” Alex told him. “The Sultan’s a hands-on kind of guy. He’ll be leading from the front and muggins here’ll be right behind him.”
“Well I hope he’s not relying on you to fend off his enemy’s blows,” said Henry with a chuckle. “Or his life expectancy’ll be measured in seconds.”
“I hope Will’s going to be back before you go. It’ll be a bit weird with me and Tanya being here on our own,” said Kelly, setting down the mirror.
“Yeah, and how are you going to keep yourself busy whilst Alex and me are away?” asked Henry with a mischievous glint in his eye. “You’ll be so bored, won’t you?”
Kelly bit her lip and looked away, conscious of the flush in her cheeks.
“Don’t give yourself too much credit,” she said. “We’ll get by.”
“I just wish Malcolm would come and get us out of here,” said Alex bitterly. “We shouldn’t be doing this kind of stuff, should we? We are basically just kids, yeah? We should be revising for our exams – dull, ordinary stuff like that. What the hell am I doing getting ready to go off and fight a bunch of bloodthirsty pirates? My mum’d go nuts.”
“Same,” grunted Henry. “Still, this is all a big old dream, isn’t it? I am going to wake up any minute, aren’t I? Ouch!”
This last utterance was a consequence of Kelly taking the opportunity to get in the really sharp pinch that she felt he so richly deserved.
“There!” she said. “Wakey, wakey, rise and shine! Oh, is that not doing the trick? Let’s try again, shall we?”
“Hey! Lay off!” laughed Henry, throwing cushions at her as she pursued him around the room.
Chapter Ten
Will reached into his saddlebag and groped for another handkerchief with which to mop his sweating brow. It was almost unbelievably hot. Ahead of him, Zoroaster, head shaded by a broad-brimmed hat, studied a map pressed to his horse’s haunch. The horse whinnied and fidgeted, causing Zoroaster to curse and to call upon God to strike it dead if it dared to move another muscle. The horse turned its head and regarded him balefully, but it stood still. Will was impressed. His own mount was evidently an atheist. Zoroaster muttered under his breath, his finger tracing a route amongst the faint lines of a street plan. Will rubbed his bottom ruefully. Having ridden for hours on an evil tempered and flatulent steed with a keen interest in unshipping him, this part of him was aching furiously. Zoroaster, despite his advanced years, seemed hardly to notice discomfort. He needed a little help in getting mounted up, but once established in the saddle he seemed impervious to pain or fatigue.
“I think we must be nearly there,” grunted Zoroaster, turning to Will. “This map is somewhat outdated, unfortunately.”
They stood in a broad and dusty street on the outskirts of Tattash, a flyblown town some miles from Canopus. It reminded Will of one of those places in the Wild West, entirely deserted and with tumbleweeds blowing along the main street. There were no tumbleweeds here, only dried palm fronds in the parched, sun-baked tracks between mud brick houses. Here and there tall palms stirred in the faintest of oven door airs drifting in from the desert.
“Ever heard of a siesta?” asked Will. “It’s got to be time for a break now, hasn’t it? We passed a decent tavern a couple of miles back.”
“Must you always think of your belly?” retorted Zoroaster, turning the map through ninety degrees.
“Someone’s got to,” said Will glumly, shaking a drop of sweat from the end of his nose and swatting away a fly.
“Let’s try further up here,” said his companion, pointing ahead.
The street ended in a T-junction, and from here they found themselves looking along a straight avenue that led westwards towards the desert. There were low, flat roofed houses on each side, some with a second story but most were sprawling single story complexes set in mud brick walled enclosures. And this was the smart end of town.
“Bingo!” said Will.
The tower at the end of the road reared up behind a dry ditch and a stand of tall bamboo. It was doubly impressive when seen past the squat buildings that stood before it. Beyond there was nothing but dry scrub and the distant rim of the desert.
“Why didn’t we see it before?” sniffed Zoroaster, pushing his hat back on his head. “It’s big enough.”
“There’s that big clump of trees back there,” said Will, turning to look back. “Are we riding or walking?”
“Riding,” said Zoroaster after a momentary glance to measure the distance. “Here, help me up.”
This was the sixth and last of the towers they had visited since their arrival in Zanjd. All of the others had been in a more or less ruinous condition. Zoroaster had come in search of evidence of the worm cult, but all that had been found was a single shattered plaque, half buried in a pile of rubble in the first of the towers they had seen. On part of thi
s it was possible to make out what might have been the writhing shape of a worm, but the surface was too badly eroded to be sure.
“This one’s looking good,” said Will, heaving on Zoroaster’s rump to install him in his saddle.
“Indeed,” said Zoroaster triumphantly. “And you would have had us idly filling our bellies in a tavern.”
The tower proved to be four stories tall, perhaps eighty feet and was made from a smooth, hard stone that set it apart from all other buildings in the vicinity. It tapered to a certain degree from base to top and its curving sides were made from masonry cut so accurately that the joints were barely visible.
“Such wonderful craftsmanship,” said Zoroaster approvingly, running a hand along the smooth regularity of a mortar line. “I doubt there is a builder today who could match it.” The only entrance was in the second storey, about twelve feet from the ground and on the side facing the avenue from which they had approached it. There were a few tiny slit-like windows, but apart from this there was nothing to break the smoothness of the stone except for a single plaque set above the entrance.
“Now that is what we were looking for,” said Zoroaster with satisfaction. “What is it you said? Bingo!”
The curving line of a worm was unmistakeable in the bottom quarter of the frame. The greater part of the space was occupied by the two concentric circles they had seen illustrated in the ancient book from the Sultan’s library.
“Is this helping much?” asked Will, craning his neck upwards so that a little rivulet of cold sweat ran down his back. “Anything coming to you, is it?”
