The Steel Seraglio (44 page)

It was during a trip to Jawahir, and I was hopelessly lost. My water had run out the day before, and I staggered across the featureless desert, sure that death would be my lot if I did not find a spring or an oasis soon. I had just fallen, exhausted, to the ground, when a terrific sandstorm blew up around me. The dust stung my eyes, so I flung up an arm to shield my face.

When I risked a look to see if the storm had died down, where the swirling sands had been a great city stood, its gates just a few feet from where I lay. I walked up to it like a man in a dream, wondering that it did not crumble at my very breath. For I saw quite clearly that the pale material from which it was made was not stone but sand, gritty and fine. I ran my hand over the surface of its walls, and felt the tiny grains shift and stir beneath my fingers, much as they would if I ran my hand along the sand at my feet. Yet the city stood before me still, as real and sturdy as if it were built from granite.

I stepped back and surveyed it. Its whole surface seemed to shift and change, a motion I had taken to be an effect of the heat-haze at first. I could see now that it was the wind, rippling the surface of the city as it passed. The storm raged on, but the sand that it once moved had been transformed. These reflections occupied me for some moments, but as you can well imagine, by this point I had more pressing matters on my mind. A city, even a shimmering spirit-city borne through the desert by a sandstorm, might offer some source of water.

I stumbled through the deserted streets, calling out for help in a hoarse voice. The denizens of that strange place waited until dusk before they graced me with their presence. I saw several little drifts of sand rushing towards me, and a fragrant breeze caressed my cheek and ruffled my hair. The ribbons of blown sand seemed to fountain up into the air, and all at once I was surrounded by a crowd of ghostly forms, who peered at me with gentle interest.

They never spoke, but they laughed sometimes: rustling, whispering laughter. They were very welcoming, and wanted me to stay and marry the sultan’s daughter (a story for another occasion, I think). I have to say, though, that their tastes were quite different from my own. All they drank was a curious wine, distilled from the desert heat haze, that seemed to bring about intoxication very quickly. They offered me a flask of it, and after I had taken it, and thanked them gratefully, the winds that blew perpetually outside the walls rushed in, and the entire place dissolved again into the sandstorm. It was gone before I could raise a hand to cover my eyes.

Thankfully, the contents of the flask were enough to last me the rest of my journey. I arrived in Jawahir, considerably inebriated but alive. Unfortunately, no one believed my strange tale, for the flask, as soon as I had drained its contents, crumbled back into the sand from which it had been crafted. I keep its remains still, in a bag which I carry always on my person. Have a look if you like, and witness for yourselves the truth of what I say.

Ah, my friends! I have visited Khyir, and eaten the fruits that grow there: the sun fruit, grown from seeds sown at dawn, and the moon fruit, harvested on the nights of the full. I have been to Fikri, the great city underground, and to Safa-al-Din, the city built on stilts. In Qismat, they hailed me as a hero, and I departed laden with many treasures, while in Tish-Barat they chased me with spears, and I barely escaped with my life. I could have settled in any one of those cities. Most (with perhaps the exception of Tish-Barat) would have welcomed me. On my travels, I have seen a thousand marvels, and I see more with every cycle of the moon.

But in every city I visit, when I tell the people there of the wonders of Bessa, their eyes go round and wide, and they listen like little children, struck dumb with amazement. And of all the beauties of all the cities I have ever seen, the best is the sight of Bessa’s gates, standing open like great arms in the last light of the evening, welcoming me home. There is not another city like Bessa anywhere on this wide earth, my friends. Not a one.

Bethi

No doubt about it, life is more interesting now. But you know what, outside the palace there isn’t nearly such a call for hairdressers as I thought there’d be.

A friend of mine says I have a talent for storytelling, that perhaps I could make a living that way. It’s certainly a thought.

Rem

We are ahead of our time. So far ahead, that sometimes it seems we’re in the wrong millennium entirely. It doesn’t matter a damn. The city was built on a fault line, dropped into the middle of a spider’s web. It shook things up, and the tremors of its coming reached backwards and forwards and out on all sides.

I always saw it, as a child, glowing in the distance as if in the desert at night, a day’s journey away. Its light transfixed me then, and it has been drawing me to it ever since, across that desert of years. I see it still, now that I am living in it, and it flows over and around me like a river.

It is a masterpiece of fragments, spangled light and colour that fills my mouth with song and my eyes with tears. I can cry here, finally. I bottle the ink, give it to Zeinab to sell in the market. It is popular.

So are my poems. I sign them, as I sign everything, with an eye, proffering a single tear. Rem the weeper. One who fashions all things from her sorrow. I knew, I have always known, that I would one day be in a position to laugh at that prophecy. It does not deaden the sharpness of the joy I feel now. Nor does the knowledge that it will one day be fulfilled again deaden it. I have always known this to be the case.

The city shines in the centre of time, a solid ruby hung on a string of driftwood beads, floating in a landscape of black on black. Everything that came before was a crescendo, and everything that comes after a tailing off. It will fall, in the end, into that darkness, and all its works will turn to dust. It doesn’t matter a damn. It exists now, it will always have existed. It is enough.

Zuleika

No one said it would be easy, and it wasn’t. We did it anyway.

“You know why I asked you to come, Anwar Das?”

“If I may speak my heart, Lady Gursoon, I think it’s because the City of Women finds it expedient to have a man for its ambassador—and you don’t know that many men who you actually trust.”

“Do you think you could take on this role for us?”

“Of course. My previous job involved a great deal of diplomacy and protocol.”

“You were a camel thief.”

“Yes. The diplomacy and protocol arose more in the fencing of the camels afterwards. But tell me, lady. What does Bessa need most at this point in its trajectory? Wealth? Influence? Accurate intelligence as to its rivals’ doings?”

“Stability, Anwar Das. We need something that will ensure we can survive, and thrive, in a future that is uncertain and likely to be stormy.”

“And now I have my brief. Thank you, lady.”

“Thank you, Anwar Das. When can you start?”

“I was on payroll, wise and beauteous one, from the moment when I bowed to you.”

Arriving in Heqa’a on the back of a camel whose name was Muzra, the Whirlwind, Anwar Das of Bessa took up residence in the Imtil. From there, he sent gifts of wine and dates to the esteemed and noble house of Omran Injustari. He did not, at this time, present himself at that house, but announced his willingness to do so at a time that might be mutually convenient.

Only silence in reply, but Anwar Das was not discouraged. He obtained privy access to Injustari’s sister, the celestially beautiful Siyah Sireyah. Extremely privy access: they made love for the best part of an afternoon, in a great variety of positions, and afterwards lay in each other’s arms, spent and sweaty and highly satisfied with the day’s labours.

“You are a strange man,” Siyah Sireyah murmured.

“Am I?” Anwar Das affected dismay. “I thought I was a comparatively well formed one.”

“Oh, as to that,” the lady murmured, “I have no complaints. But it’s strange that the City of Women should send us such a . . . what’s the word? . . . such a
virile
ambassador.”

Anwar Das frowned judiciously. “Bessa, lady, is far more than that sobriquet suggests,” he told her. “A city whose populace were entirely female would be doomed to last only a generation, unless women like bees could find the secret of reproducing their kind without the intervention of the male sex. Until that happens, we men will always be at your side, ready at need to play our part in the propagation of the species.”

“Such selfless devotion!” said Siyah Sireyah, caressing Das’s manhood with warm affection. “This generosity of spirit must be rewarded!”

She rewarded it in a way that Das found impossible to argue with, and another hour or so passed without either of them looking at the glass or troubling to turn it. Then, regretfully, the lady began to dress. Her brother was extremely protective of her, she explained, and always charted her movements with scrupulous care. She had told him that she was abroad to visit friends, but he would look for her return before sunset.

“Lady, I have gifts for you,” Anwar Das said. “Unless you think that gifts would profane the near-mystical communion we’ve just enjoyed.”

“Not at all,” Siyah Sireyah said, enthusiastically. “Next to the near-mystical communion we’ve just enjoyed, I enjoy presents best of all. Wheel them out!”

Anwar Das did so, and the lady’s eyes became wide as she saw the beautiful things the Bessan envoy had brought her. Peerless silks, delicate brocades, silver necklaces and bracelets inset with coloured glass beads most cunningly wrought. Her breath caught, for a moment, in her throat.

“So lovely!” she sighed. “So lovely!”

“Their loveliness will be consummated when you wear them,” Anwar Das said, kissing the lady’s neck. And they took their leave of each other with many protestations of love.

The next day, Anwar Das sent gifts of pears and spiced meats to the esteemed and noble house of Omran Injustari, along with another discreetly worded suggestion that at some point, a meeting might be arranged to their mutual advantage. Silence again.

A lesser man might have been deterred. Anwar Das merely shrugged and went out on the town. In Heqa’a there is a house, the House Several, where musical performances are sometimes staged, and there he went. To the strains of buzuq, mijwiz and tanbur, he made the acquaintance of the Lady Afaf Nusain. It became an intimate acquaintance shortly afterwards, in one of the upper rooms of the House Several.

Kissing the lady’s thighs and belly, after the immediate fires of passion had somewhat abated, Anwar Das asked her if she would be insulted to accept a gift from him. “Besides the gifts already proffered?” Afaf Nusain sighed contentedly.

“Of a different order,” Anwar Das answered her.

“I should not be insulted, Ambassador. Not in the slightest.”

Anwar Das gave her jewels and patterned cloths of great beauty, which she received with enormous pleasure. He begged her, when she wore them, to think of him, and she vouchsafed to do so—promising, besides, to spare him more than a passing thought when she took them off.

On his third day in Heqa’a, Anwar Das sent gifts of apricots and almonds to the esteemed and noble house of Omran Injustari, indicating in the accompanying letter that he wished to bend that gentleman’s ear at some point before they both died of old age.

He expected no reply, and so was not disappointed.

That night he visited another noble house and met the wife and daughters of the Ibiri princeling, Namuz, in that royal gentleman’s absence. There was no amorous play, but plenty of stories, in which—as in the act of love—Anwar Das was adept. The women were thrilled at his narrative skills, and the evening passed agreeably for all. Before leaving, Anwar Das presented all three of them with gifts of jewels and dresses of exquisite design, and they thanked him effusively. They asked if there were any way that they could show their gratitude, and he gave them the same answer he’d given the Lady Afaf Nusain—if they thought of him kindly, from time to time, he would be well rewarded.

On the fourth day, Anwar Das rested. That evening, Prince Namuz was hosting a party to which all the nobility of Heqa’a were invited, and Das, as envoy plenipotentiary of the city of Bessa, was naturally invited too.

In the course of the evening, he found occasion to sidle up close to the esteemed and noble Omran Injustari, and introduce himself.

“Oh,” Injustari said, gruffly. “You’re the one that’s been bombarding me with fruit, aren’t you? Well listen here, Ansul Bas, or whatever you call yourself. I don’t need whatever it is you’re selling, and throwing dates and apricots over my garden wall isn’t going to change that. I’ve got profitable partnerships with every city west of Baram-Saal, and I’m not about to shake that tree while I’m standing under it, you understand me?”

Anwar Das confirmed that he did indeed understand, and turned the conversation to other things. As they spoke—about the shocking state of the city walls, and the best oasis to use between Stesh and Ibu Kim, and the chance of Abdul Mu’izz writing a decent poem one of these days—Injustari’s attention kept wandering to the women who passed on every hand, dressed in uncommon splendour. Anwar Das noticed the frown that appeared on the great merchant’s face, and could not forebear to smile.

Omran Injustari saw that smile, and slowly, its import dawned on him. “Yours,” he said.

Anwar Das shrugged. “That depends on how you define these things,” he replied.

“Bessan silk.”

“No.”

“Bessan silver.”

“No.”

“What, then?”

Anwar Das took a sip of wine, drawing out the moment. “Bessan weavers,” he said at last. “Bessan silversmiths. Bessan carders and dyers and artists and glassblowers. We produce no raw materials, Excellency. We have no mines, and few farms. But we have the finest artisans in the region.”

Injustari was silent, but many thoughts visibly pursued each other across his face.