E. Hoffmann Price's Fables of Ismeddin MEGAPACK®

by E. Hoffmann Price

  “Qasim, Allah blacken thee! Get me some paper—here, take my ring, and never mind the paper.”

  Shams ud Din drew from his finger the massive signet that adorned it, and handed it to the secretary.

  “Go to the barracks and tell Shaykh Ahmad to ride out with the Companions and not to come back until he has taken Iskander Bey’s hide and all of his crew of bandits, and sacked every town within three days’ march of the border,” he commanded.

  “Harkening and obedience, sidi,” acknowledged the scribe.

  “My lord, may I go with the Companions?” inquired Ali Agha, hoping to prolong the discussion on raiding along the border, and divert the sultan from his masquerade.

  “You’d probably come back and say that all was quiet, you red-bearded sot! No, by Allah! Get into those rags, here and now.”

  “Sidi,” protested Ali Agha, “you were wrong in sending the Companions away. Those playmates of your pious father—on whom be the peace of Allah, and His Mercy and His Blessing!—are the foundation of the throne. And I found the border quiet.”

  The Albanian muttered in his hennaed beard, and poured himself another drink.

  Qasim had departed with the sultan’s order, and with the signet which would give it force. The three attendants had likewise left the hall. Shams ud Din presented a fair target.

  Nureddin leveled the revolver. His hand was steady. The supreme moment was at hand. In that age-long instant of pressing the trigger, Nureddin reviewed the successive steps of his enterprise.

  “Click!”

  The hammer fell on an empty chamber.

  Nureddin’s subtlety had exhausted itself in the stealing of the Albanian’s weapon. He had not noted that it was empty. The golden throne of Shams ud Din in that instant became mirage and fantasy, and despair corroded the soul of Nureddin.

  Then he saw the sultan turn toward the door by which the three attendants had left but a few moments ago, and heard him say, “We’ll go to Jabran’s place.”

  The Albanian followed his chief, chanting a bawdy song in Turki.

  “Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds!” murmured Nureddin. “Allah and my stupidity saved you, and now you go to Jabran’s, O Forgotten of Allah!”

  Just as Nureddin was about to emerge from his place of concealment, he saw the sultan’s secretary coming down the corridor toward the hall. He had missed his master by a scant moment in returning to give Shams ud Din his signet of engraved carnelian.

  Qasim had seen the sultan in beggar’s rags…

  Nureddin’s instant decision was followed by a flash of steel as the secretary passed the ambush. Nureddin dragged the secretary’s body into the alcove, and put the signet of Shams ud Din on his own finger: the power and the symbol of power. A slave wearing it in the name of the sultan could command the guard, and demand whatever life and head he fancied. The throne of Shams ud Din beckoned again, and as Nureddin strode down the corridor, he knew that the old gray wolf could not escape this time.

  * * * *

  Sham ud Din and the Albanian had in the meanwhile stalked into the stench and glare of Jabran’s disreputable wine-shop, selected a comfortable nook in a corner, and after dragging the muttering, drunken occupant of that portion of the diwan to the floor and well out of their way, they seated themselves and called for ’araki and its inevitable accompaniment of curds and sliced cucumbers and stewed meat.

  “Ya Allah! A lot of information we’ll get out of this den of cutthroats!” growled Ali Agha. “Look at them! Waylaying travelers and snatching purses is their limit.”

  “Nevertheless,” countered the sultan, “my spies report every day right after sunrise prayer, and they always smell of ’araki and garlic and hasheesh, and the perfume of those dancing wenches—”

  He indicated a Syrian dancing-girl who was pirouetting and writhing to the notes of a sitar, her anklets and castanets clicking to the purring drums.

  Ali Agha knew the vanity of seeking to dissuade Shams ud Din from his drunken fancy, and resigned himself to listening to the technique of personally supervised espionage.

  At the height of the discussion, Nureddin sought and gained admission to the back room of Jabran’s den. Jabran, one-eyed, oily, and villainous, greeted his distinguished visitor with respectful familiarity. Nureddin cut short the florid welcome, and led the way to the proprietor’s corner by the coffee hearth.

  “A pair of the sultan’s spies disguised as beggars are making the rounds of the town. They just now entered the front door. If those fellows leave here alive, the sultan will know you’re serving ’araki to true believers, and you know how he handles cases of that kind.”

  Jabran knew, and shivered at the thought. Shams ud Din was as savage in the extermination of publicly violating the Prophet’s prohibition of strong drink as he was enthusiastic about drinking in private.

  “That red-bearded fellow will probably start a fight, which will simplify matters. If he doesn’t, have some one start a quarrel with him.”

  Nureddin paused a moment, and stared full at Jabran, eye to eye.

  “Remember,” he warned, “those fellows must not leave alive. And if you would escape the sultan’s vengeance—”

  And leaving the unspoken menace for Jabran’s inspiration, Nureddin turned and stepped out into the side street to await developments.

  In the front room of the wine-shop, Shams ud Din and his companion were still wrangling on the matter of espionage.

  “We’d better do our spying somewhere else, or we’ll be recognized. You’re as convincing a beggar as I would be a dancing-girl.”

  “Nonsense!” scoffed the sultan. And then, unwittingly prophetic, “Our own mothers wouldn’t recognize us in these rags.”

  “Look at that fellow over there, staring at us already,” persisted Ali Agha. “That red-bearded pig of an Afghan—”

  “The red-bearded pig is Achmed Khan of the Durani clan, O dung-heap!” shouted the Afghan, rising from his place and striding toward the Albanian. “And there are too many red beards here already.”

  So saying, he plucked Ali Agha’s hennaed beard.

  “Father of many pigs!” raged the Albanian at that mortal affront.

  He drew a heavy revolver from beneath his rags, firing thrice before it was fairly extended. The Afghan staggered, and crumpled in a heap.

  At Jabran’s yell of alarm, a handful of negroes armed with swords and staves came pouring out of the back room. The hangers-on, drawing knives and pistols, gathered in their wake; but they paused before closing in on the Albanian and his smoking revolver.

  “Back to your dens, O pork-eaters!” roared Ali Agha gleefully.

  He fired until his revolver was empty. Then he and Shams ud Din drew their scimitars from beneath their rags, and back to back, received the charge. It occurred to neither to halt the brawl by naming their ranks and titles; a fight was a fight, and the ancient glamour of slaying made their blades leap and dance in a deadly carnival of slaughter.

  Those in the rear pressed forward to close with the audacious intruders, forcing the front rank into the flailing sword-strokes of Shams ud Din and the Albanian, while the front line of the attack sought vainly to retreat. Flasks and water-pipes and coffee pots were hurled by those safe from the flickering, shearing blades; and from time to time a pistol barked, causing more consternation among the assaulters than the attacked.

  Jabran was frantic. The riot was far out of hand. At any moment the guard would come in and quiet the disturbance by clubbing every one present into insensibility. And then the stakes in the public square…

  Jabran shuddered at the memory of what had happened to Khalil, his hapless neighbor who had allowed drunkenness to become scandalously public one night. His untanned skin still was nailed to the Herati Gate.

  “Ya Allah!” shrieke
d Jabran in despair. “You can hear it all over the quarter.”

  “Call the guard, fool!” counseled one at his side. “Hand the captain a heavy purse. And their hides will pay.”

  With enough trials, the wildest shooting will finally find its mark. Just as the sultan and Ali Agha had cut their way to within reach of the door, a heavy brazen coffee mortar hurled from the rear crashed down on the Albanian’s head. He dropped in his tracks. The enemy closed in on the survivor. For all his deadly swift sword-play, knives raked and stabbed Shams ud Din, and staves belabored him. Alone, he could cut his way to the door; but the handicap of a disabled comrade was too much even for that seasoned fighter.

  Nureddin was standing in the shadow of the tavern across the narrow street from Jabran’s. Jabran dared not fail him; and he patiently awaited the extinction of Shams ud Din and the Albanian at the hands of the cutthroats of the wine-shop.

  He heard the muffled roar of pistol fire. And then the clamor of combat came through the heavy doors of the wine-shop. Nureddin tried to picture the one-sided battle.

  “Wallah! They can’t last long in that madhouse!” he exulted. “Not even that pair!”

  But if they did cut their way out—Nureddin’s heart stood still, and his blood froze at the thought of the story Jabran would tell when the terrific wrath of Shams ud Din seared him. He cursed his failure, damned the green-eyed girl whose witchery had persuaded him to hunt the old gray wolf. He wondered during one dreadful instant when he heard the great voice of Shams ud Din full above the tumult whether he could still save himself by mounting and riding break-neck across the border. Then he checked himself: for Jabran’s remarks would get no more attention than those of any other wretch in the hands of the executioners.

  His courage returned. Even those two grim slayers could not escape from the hands of the scum of the town, for they were fighting for their own lives.

  Then Nureddin heard the tread of troops advancing at the double time: a detachment of the guard. In an instant they were upon him. Flight would arouse suspicion; they would shoot him down before they recognized his rank. With a supreme effort, Nureddin collected his wits and his effrontery.

  “Ho, there, captain! What’s the trouble?”

  “Probably some drunken Kurds, my lord,” replied the captain. And then, as he beat on the door, “Open, in the name of the sultan!”

  Without waiting for a reply, the front rank assaulted the door with the butts of their rifles; and then splintered it with rifle fire. Nureddin, standing to one side, watched the guard pour into the wine-shop. He stood rooted to the ground, numb with the horrible fascination of the sight: Shams ud Din, behind a flaming hedge of steel that sheared and slew, parrying, leaping, flailing death.

  The guard charged in to quell the riot.

  “Take these dogs and impale them right away!” thundered Shams ud Din, as he crouched behind his blade. “Every last one of them, captain!”

  “And who are you?” demanded the commander of the guard.

  At those words, Nureddin’s head cleared, and the horror left him.

  “Praise God! And no wonder they don’t recognize him!”

  “Who am I?” said Shams ud Din, lowering his sword. “God, by God, by the One True God—” He choked for an instant at that outrageous question. And then, “I’m the sultan, and I’ll have your head if you don’t round up this offal and impale them within the hour!”

  Jabran, green with fright and misery, snatched at his last hope.

  “This madman said he was the sultan, and began slashing right and left! Look what he did—”

  He indicated the gory trail of the dancing blades of Shams ud Din and his stout companion.

  “We fought for our lives ever since I sent for the guard!”

  “Son of a flat-nosed mother!” roared Shams ud Din, “flay this dog alive here and now!”

  The captain grinned indulgently. Mad or not, this was a fighting man to have cut down so many of those ruffians.

  “Very well, my lord,” he agreed. “Put up your sword, and I’ll tend to him right away.”

  “Dog of a Persian!” flared Shams ud Din. “You pretend you don’t know me?”

  The captain ducked just in time to evade the sultan’s leaping blade. But the sultan did not duck the rifle butt that a soldier swung to his head.

  Then Nureddin saw his salvation. Here was victory snatched from utter ruin.

  “The town is full of sultans,” he remarked. “Looks like the same one they threw into jail this morning.”

  “Impossible, my lord,” replied the commander of the guard. “He couldn’t possibly escape.”

  “Look at him!” commanded Nureddin. The captain stared for a moment at Shams ud Din, stretched out beside his comrade at arms.

  “There is no God but God!” he exclaimed. “The very same fellow. He’ll not escape this time, my lord. Looks like the redbeard is dead.”

  “Aywah!” assented Nureddin, kicking the remains of Ali Agha. “Clean him up with the rest of the refuse. And never mind about making a report of this skirmish, captain. My uncle’s temper is never improved by tales of sultans running around this way. Particularly since this fellow escaped right under your nose after you had him caged.”

  “Quite right, my lord,” agreed the commander of the guard, seeing the point at once. “Never a word of it.”

  Whereupon Nureddin set out at once to have Mahjoub the Darwish taken from the subterranean prison vaults into which Shams ud Din was to be flung. To make a convincing sultan of a darwish by sunrise would be a full night’s work, reflected Nureddin; and while the sentries would pay no attention to Shams ud Din except to kick him soundly when his ragings became too noisy, the presence of two claimants to a throne, both in the same prison, might lead to complications.

  * * * *

  There was but one whose services were indispensable to Nureddin’s success in putting the puppet sultan through his paces: and that one was Zayd, the chief wazir. Shams ud Din’s remarks to his cup companion that night, apropos of beheading the prime minister as a means of putting confusion into the hearts of whatever conspirators were lurking about court, gave Nureddin the key to the situation; and thus he made a swift, thorough, and successful search which resulted in his finding the unsigned warrant for the wazir’s execution the following morning.

  “My uncle the sultan,” began Nureddin suavely, “is seriously ill, and for the time being he has delegated his authority to me. Now among his papers I found this—”

  Nureddin presented the warrant, continuing, “But as far as I am concerned, I wouldn’t consider affixing the signet of my esteemed uncle to this interesting document. I assume, of course, that you will give me the same wise counsel and faithful administration of details that you accorded him.”

  The wazir glanced at the signet that adorned Nureddin’s finger, and without any inquiry as to details, made an instant decision.

  “By Allah, my lord, I am at your service!” he assured.

  “Rare good judgment, ya Zayd!” approved Nureddin. “For in spite of the low value my uncle set on your services, I may be able to persuade him to change his opinion.”

  Nureddin found Mahjoub the darwish an apt pupil. The quick wits of the darwish, accustomed to shifting from self-styled saint to mountebank, scholar, or scoundrel-at-large at a moment’s notice, were equal to the unusual role of substitute sultan. During the weeks in which he stayed in strict seclusion, taking advantage of the reputed illness of Shams ud Din to enable him to practice the gestures and mannerisms of the true sultan, he was able to avoid contacts of any kind whatever. And at the end of that stage, he received certain officers of the court, but remaining behind a screen, and confining his remarks to bare essentials.

  “Perfect!” approved Nureddin one day, after witnessing such a reception. “
By Allah and again, by Allah! How will they know, when I can hardly tell the difference? Tomorrow you will hold court in the throne room—”

  “So be it,” agreed Mahjoub. “Only, some one may discover the imposture, and then—”

  “Nonsense!” exclaimed Nureddin. “A king is a presence, a symbol, and not at all a person, except to those few who in the old days rode boot to boot with him when he took the field and led his raids in person. Those who might have been dangerous have been sent on embassies, and some of the older captains have been sent to patrol the border with the Companions.

  “Wallah! You are the favored of Allah!” concluded Nureddin. “For the madness you chanted as you sat in the dust at the Herati Gate has indeed come true. Therefore be of good cheer, and be truly a king.”

  And Mahjoub played his part with a masterly touch possible only to one who enjoys his role and is secure in the knowledge of his own ability. Still, it was disconcerting to have two soldiers standing behind his rug with drawn swords to guard his back while at prayer. And picking two or three dishes at random from an assortment of fifty or sixty that came, all securely sealed, from the palace kitchen—a precaution to make the administration of poison more difficult—took the savor from the royal fare, and made it a poor second to the alternate feast and famine of a darwish.

  But Mahjoub the sultan had one friend in all that splendor that rested on sword-points and rifle muzzles. That one was old Habib the gardener, who for ever pruned the rose trees that Shams ud Din loved so well, and clipped the faultlessly trimmed hedges that quartered the expanse of tiny streams and fountains of the inner courtyard of the palace: grizzled old Habib who like Mahjoub came from the hills and was one of Mahjoub’s own people. And certainly such a position at court would be infinitely preferable to being sultan, for Habib prayed without drawn blades at his back, and was concerned with no decapitations other than of hedges.

  In every way the bent old fellow was admirable; and after his years of wandering as a darwish, Mahjoub took infinite pleasure in the brusque uncouth speech of the mountaineer, and in the reverence that transfigured Habib’s wrinkled features as he made passing reference to that fierce old slayer, the father of Shams ud Din, and the heroic savagery of the Companions.