The Steel Seraglio (23 page)

The woman slid back her sleeve and showed the awestruck bandits the mark of a man’s hand, blazoned in bright gold on the duller brown of her forearm. As one man, they drew in their breath.

“I ran from the room,” she continued, “in horror at what I had done and at the dire promise I saw in my father’s dying look. I reached the palace gates, and the two guards on duty there stepped forward, intending, perhaps, to enquire as to my business at this late hour. In my wild desire to flee, I shoved them roughly from me and continued on.

“It was the thud the first body made as it fell that froze me in my tracks.

“I turned, filled with a creeping dread, to see the first soldier I had touched lying on the palace steps, livid in death. His comrade was undergoing a sickening transformation. Before my terrified eyes, his armour where I had touched him was turning to gold, the bright colour spreading swiftly through it like a fever. It flowed over his corselet, up to his helmet, down to the very point of his sword, until he gleamed all over. At the selfsame moment, his body became rigid, his skin deathly pale, and he fixed upon me a gaze filled with hatred, that thickened the blood in my veins and burned my heart with grief.

“I left the two men where they fell, and ran sobbing from the city. I have wandered the desert ever since, shunning human company these many years for fear of my strange powers and the horrors they might work.

“And that is the tale of how my father gave me a curse for my dowry, as I suppose I deserved. He punished me as I punished him, with a torment befitting my misdeed. I murdered him with gold, and now I am tainted with a touch that brings both great riches and ineluctable death. All that is metal, the slightest contact with my skin will turn to purest gold—and all that is living, that same touch will slay at a stroke.

“My hands are bloodied with the lives of three men, and my contrition is vaster than this desert. Yet I might turn it to an ocean with my sobbing, and not turn back the glass of time. All things pass, as the Increate wills,
baraha barahinei
, and I cannot undo the things that I have done. That too, is my curse, one that I must bear alone. And I am so, so lonely!”

The woman ended her tale as she had begun it, with an explosion of violent tears. One of the bandits moved to pat her on the back, then recoiled as he remembered what would become of him were he to try it. They were all completely astonished. Any who might have doubted her tale were incontrovertibly convinced by the dead jackals and the pile of gold.

Some had begun stripping off their swords and daggers before the woman had even finished speaking, and had laid them in a little pile by her side. Now, they gazed at her with a strange amalgam of compassion and eagerness as Yusuf Razim stepped forward, bowing respectfully.

“Your tale is deeply moving, my lady. My brothers and I are truly sorry for all that you have suffered.”

The woman sniffed mournfully. “Thank you,” she said. Yusuf coughed once or twice, awe and pity fighting a losing battle in his mind against the greed and concupiscence that made up most of his comfort zone. He continued with as much courtesy as he could manage: even bandits have some pride.

“Meaning no offence, my lady, I don’t suppose you might oblige us by bestowing the benefits of your powers upon my brothers and myself?”

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure. You have been so kind to me!”

Anwar Das looked uneasy, and laid a restraining hand on Yusuf’s arm.

“Brother, I’m not sure that’s a good—”

“Shut
up
, Das.”

“At least let one of us keep hold of his sword, in case she’s lying.”

“How dare you impugn her good faith! Besides, are you insane? That way we get less gold!” With an impatient movement, Yusuf Razim tugged Anwar Das’s sword from his resisting grasp and tossed it onto the pile at the woman’s feet.

Immediately, her face lit up, all traces of tears vanishing.

“It worked, everyone!” she called.

Eleven of the bandits looked confused. Das looked horrified. He dived for his sword at the same moment that what looked like an army of women erupted from the surrounding rocks and ran down upon them from all sides.

“It’s a tra—” he started to yell. Then a fist or a cudgel slammed into the back of his head, and for a while at least he was untroubled by worldly matters.

The women flooded into the thieves’ valley, chattering excitedly. They were elated from their success, and cheered Bethi, the servant girl who had pulled off the stunning deception. She grinned back at them, using the edge of her robe to wipe from her arm the hand mark that Farhat had drawn there in
kehal
paint.

When Zuleika had suggested that they kill some jackals to add weight to the story, the other women had thought it impossible. But the assassin had a tiny vial of clear liquid in a lace pouch at the bottom of her pack, and once they had added a few drops to five raw camel steaks, they were soon rewarded with five jackal carcasses with not a mark on them, quite plausible victims of Bethi’s death touch. Issi and Zeinab had protested a little at the prospect of killing a camel, but with almost four hundred of them in the train, they agreed that one could be spared.

Now that they had assumed control of the valley, the women and the camel-drivers took it in turns to wash in the pool, letting out little cries of relief and pleasure as they did so. Then they filled their water skins from the spring as it flowed over the rounded stones. After sniffing doubtfully at the dank air inside the cave, they pitched their tents as near as possible to its opening and, leaving a small group to guard the thieves, ventured inside.

It turned out on exploration to be not one cave but a whole network, running under the mountains for what could have been many miles. The braver girls ran in with whoops of excitement, calling out to see how their voices echoed. At the cave mouth, Jamal and his friends had begun a game of hide and seek, with the older women looking sternly on to make sure that they did not stray too far.

Apart from the group of bound men under armed guard in a small room off from the main cave, the scene seemed almost like an afternoon of leisure back home in the seraglio. Laughter and conversation, such as had not been heard since they were first sent into the desert, began to drift through the air.

“You know we’re going to have to do something about them.” Zuleika said to Gursoon, as they collected wood for the fire. She jerked her head in the direction of the bandits.

“I know,” Gursoon sighed, “but look at everyone now. It will sadden them greatly when we tell them. They’re good girls, Zuleika, and brave too, but it’s not in their natures to be violent. Let’s give them this evening, at least, to celebrate—and leave the killing, if killing there must be, until tomorrow.”

Now there was among the thieves one Anwar Das, who had this much of virtue in him: he wasn’t very keen on killing, and had sometimes dissuaded his colleagues from unnecessary massacres by resorting to the pragmatic argument that it drove away repeat business.

Anwar Das was used to winning arguments. He had a keen mind, and a smooth tongue—the latter cultivated in Ibu Kim, where in the course of a woefully misspent youth he had plied the trade of a professional gambler. It was a tribute to his eloquence, his persuasiveness and his charm that he had come out alive; in Ibu Kim, let’s not forget, disappointed gamers who feel themselves cheated will often lop a limb from the suspected trickster so they’ll know him the next time they see him.

During the day after their defeat and capture by the women, Anwar Das pondered his likely fate—and, to a much lesser extent, that of his comrades. He wanted to live to see another dawn, but it was clear to him that the women were renegades of some kind, trying to evade pursuit. In such a situation, he had to admit, it made solid sense for them to kill the men outright, and thereby avoid any possibility that their precarious refuge might be compromised.

He tried to think of some stratagem that might save him, but inspiration didn’t come. In the meantime, while the other thieves muttered sullenly to each other about what they’d do to these whores if they once got the upper hand, Anwar Das chatted to their guards—who were changed frequently—about their origin, their adventures and their reason for being in this remote mountain fastness.

Most of the women were only too willing to talk. Anwar Das was handsome, as well as eloquent, and when he put himself to it could charm the pants off anyone. He had blond hair, a rarity in that region then as now, fine features, and eyes like wells in which a woman saw herself reflected ten times more beautiful than she was. In some ways, charm and subtlety were his stock in trade, and it had felt like a come-down for him when he finally made Ibu Kim too hot to hold him and had to join the bandits, whose idea of subtlety was to say “look behind you” before they whacked you on the head with a club.

So the women poured out their hearts, or at any rate their recent histories, and Anwar Das listened with very flattering attention, occasionally throwing in an interjection of the “how you must have suffered” variety. He was not proud of himself for doing this: the women were still disoriented from the recent collapse of their entire lives, and full of fear to boot. Their guard was down.

Only the tall, wiry one with the hooded eyes refused to rise to Anwar Das’s bait, and had no words to give him. Not even her name, although he learned from the other women that she was Zuleika. She would be the one, he thought—the one who finally gave the order to cut throats, or more likely got stuck in and did the job herself. She had the look, somehow: the stare that takes cold count of all it sees, and does not shrink from the tally no matter how it comes out.

So how to win clemency from the women, when their very existence depended, for the moment, on ruthless pragmatism?

He considered a verbal seduction: one of the guards might be persuaded by sweet words and proffers of love to cut his bonds and set him free. But he’d still have to get out of the caves, through many chambers no doubt filled now with women. There would be other guards on duty elsewhere in the tunnels—since this Zuleika, at least, was no fool—and it was likely they’d make short work of him.

A mass escape, then? Get his own hands untied, then free his comrades and try to fight a way out? But they were too heavily outnumbered, and in any case the bloodshed, once started, would play out by its own logic. Even if they escaped, they’d escape with blood on their hands, and they would be pursued, brought down, slaughtered like dogs.

The tricks by which Anwar Das had made his living, back in Ibu Kim, mostly depended on making the mark see something that wasn’t actually happening, or making him fail to see something that was obvious. He had to do the same thing here, in a sense, but without the benefit of any props. He had to do his heypass-repass with words alone.

At sunset, the guards came for them and brought them out from the supply hole into the larger chamber where, in happier times, they had been wont to enjoy their supper. The chamber was cool, even on the hottest of days, and it had a large smoke-hole through which, if one lay awake at night, one could watch the stars wheel across the sky.

The bandits were made to kneel, and the tall woman walked along their ranks. Many other women lined the walls of the room, staring at them from all sides. Anwar Das could sense their tension. He noticed one in particular—older than most of the others, and with a kind of authority in her bearing. When she raised her hand, all conversation in the room died away.

“Whatever we decide,” Zuleika said into the silence, “we decide it now, without debate. It’s not mercy to let these men linger with their fate in the balance, tormented by hope as much as despair. Vote now, and let it be done. If the vote is for death, I’ll do it myself—and I’ll give these thieves the same mercy I’ve shown to kings and noblemen. I’ll kill each of them quickly and cleanly, with a single stroke. When it’s done, I’ll need a detail of twenty to help bury them.

“If for life, bear in mind that if even one of these wretches escapes, he’ll go straight to the nearest town and tell the story of what happened here. A chain of whispers will start then, and in the space of days or weeks it will reach Hakkim’s ears. From that moment on, we are as slaughtered cows, their throats already cut, that yet stand and believe themselves alive.”

The stark image caused dismay across the room, and Anwar Das saw in the faces that surrounded him a few dozen votes for clemency summarily torpedoed.

The older woman frowned. “I don’t like to pay for our freedom in the coin of atrocities,” she said.

“Why not?” Zuleika asked, bluntly. “Trust me, Gursoon, it’s the currency most commonly used.”

“Then why did we go to such lengths to take the men alive?”

“To spare our own numbers,” Zuleika said. “For no other reason.”

They held each other’s gaze for the space of some three heartbeats.

“A vote, then,” the older woman said, at last. “Life, or death. But you will not take this on yourself, Zuleika. All who vote should be ready to bloody their own hands, rather than another’s. We’ll draw lots. Twenty throats, twenty hands to cut them. So each of us has an equal chance of coming out of this a murderer.”

Zuleika acquiesced with a curt nod. “I vote for death,” she said. “All those who agree with me . . .”

“I wish to speak!” Anwar Das called out, in a ringing voice. All eyes turned to him, and he went on without a pause. “Esteemed ladies, I beg you to let me speak. I have words in my breast to which I must needs give utterance. And since, if I tactfully wait out your deliberations, I might be somewhat handicapped by having my throat cut, this present moment seems opportune.”

“Shut up,” Zuleika told him sternly.

“No let him speak,” Gursoon countered, and there was a murmur of agreement from around the room. Anwar Das was pleased to discover that his day’s schmoozing had not been wasted. “What is it you want to say to us?”

Anwar Das climbed to his feet. With his hands tied behind his back, it wasn’t easy, but he felt he cut a better figure upright than on his knees. It was clear from the wistful looks he saw on many faces that he was not alone in that opinion. But they were wistful glances, not merely admiring ones; the women thought this was a waste, which meant they were resigned to his destruction.