The Steel Seraglio (45 page)

“You’re wondering,” Anwar Das interpreted, “whether you can keep this secret, at least until you lock your current customers into longer-term agreements. Excellency, you cannot. Many of these ladies have husbands and fathers who are merchants in their own right, or who sell contracts on behalf of the Heqa’a principate. Each of them will by now have had a conversation which began with the words ‘my dear, where did you get that?’ The secret is not in your keeping, nor—any longer—in mine.”

Injustari made a gesture—opening his fingers as though releasing some matter that, while annoying, was so insubstantial that it could be trusted to float away on the slightest breeze. “My contacts here are long established,” he said. “They know me, and they’re happy to trade with me.”

Anwar Das nodded as if to say,
Of course, of course, and I have a bridge in a city not yet built which you might be interested in purchasing.

“You offer me no threat,” Injustari insisted.

Anwar Das threw out his hands. “I don’t mean to,” he said. “I’m only trying to find a market for these goods, which I’m sure you’ll agree are superb. If, in so doing, I steal your client base away from you and leave you and your family in the most abject and unrelieved poverty, that will be regrettable and entirely unintended.”

They stood side by side for some minutes, Anwar Das respecting the other man’s profound inner struggle.

“How much do you want?” Injustari growled at last.

“For a five-year contract,” Anwar Das said, “during which period Bessan goods will reach Heqa’a, Diwani and Perdondaris entirely via your trade caravans—for this, ten thousand in gold per year, rising to thirteen by annual increments, plus one half of all profits over twice the cost of manufacture, the books to be opened to your clerks whenever necessary and a review of these terms to be carried out twice per year or at any time during the life of the contract should either party realise profits which the other considers excessive.”

Omran Injustari blinked.

“But . . .” he said at last.

“Yes, Excellency?”

“But those terms are entirely reasonable! What’s the catch?”

“Ah,” said Anwar Das. “The catch. I’m glad you asked.”

From Heqa’a, the uncomplaining Muzra took Anwar Das at astonishing speed to Perdondaris, the white city of the north. Into the great metropolis, he fell as a single drop of water falls into Ocean, and is lost. But unlike that drop of water, he had letters of introduction from the esteemed and noble Omran Injustari, whose trade caravans wove in and out of Perdondaris’s marbled streets every day of the year. And therefore, unlike that drop of water, he was admitted to a private audience with the Caliph.

It never rains in Perdondaris in any case, by the way, so it was a fatuous metaphor to start with.

The Caliph, the most Serene and Exalted Kephiz Bin Ezvahoun, was not surprised to see Anwar Das. He’d been tracking the Bessan ambassador’s progress across the blessed hinterlands for a year and a half, wondering how and when he would finally thread the maze that led to Perdondaris’s throne room. Now that Das had at last arrived, the Serene and Exalted felt moved to congratulate him.

“You had a bugger of a job,” he said, “if you’ll pardon my Turkish. The bureaucracy here has my official calendar sewn up five years in advance. In Perdondaris, spontaneity means only filling in seven forms before saying good morning instead of the usual eleven.”

“Your Highness’s jest is all the more amusing for being the literal bastard truth,” Anwar Das said, performing a graceful and protracted salaam. “But is it your wish, this fine morning, to throw all that camel dung out of the window and be truly spontaneous?”

“Get yourself into a position you can sustain without a cramp,” the Serene and Exalted invited him, “and give it your best shot.”

Anwar Das settled into a more comfortable cross-legged posture and got to the point. “Perdondaris is like an elephant, Highness,” he said. “It is great, and it is mighty, and everyone is impressed when they see it—but their choices, at the end of the day come down to two. They can ride on it, or they can stay well out from under its feet.”

“A fair summary,” the Caliph agreed.

“Some of your nearest neighbours, sadly, have been denied access to either of those options,” Anwar Das pointed out.

“You mean Bessa?” the Serene and Exalted asked, slightly thrown. “Bessa is far enough away from us, I think, that she need not fear us.”

“Your pardon, Excellency. I didn’t mean Bessa, I meant Susurrut.”

The Caliph’s eyebrows rose. “Susurrut? That’s much closer, certainly. You know there are factions within Perdondaris that view Susurrut as an unruly suburb.”

Anwar Das knew this very well, but pursed his lips as though the folly of such a view pained him deeply. “Excellency,” he said, “we’re both men of the world and we’re neither of us fools. You know as well as I that Perdondaris has conquered Susurrut three times in living memory, but never held it for longer than five years at a stretch. The irregular exercise of your subjects’ wilder aspirations costs both cities dearly.”

The Caliph stood. “We will continue this talk, he said, “in the gardens.”

As they walked among the plenty of nature, sustained most unnaturally in this dry and thirsty place, the Caliph admitted Anwar Das’s point—which was a lot easier than admitting it in the throne room, in the hearing of two dozen attendants and twice two dozen spies. “The cost to both cities of these futile skirmishes is indeed very high, Anwar Das. But it’s a lot higher for the Akond of Susurrut than it is for me,” he mused. “And in many ways, I prefer the war party here to be weakened and attenuated by the war draft and the war levy. I always make sure they pay more than their share.”

The Serene and Exalted stopped on a terrace overlooking the sunset. Anwar Das stopped with him. That symbol of ending and endlessness made them both sombre.

“A man’s life is like a wave that breaks on a beach,” Anwar Das observed. “The water that was the wave rolls back down the strand to join the water of Ocean, and it has no knowledge of itself, any longer, as a separate thing. In the same way, a man’s body joins the elements again and there is nothing left to show that he stood and thought and moved. Except for men like you, Excellency, whose lives touch the lives of others in myriad ways, and who may be remembered for their deeds long after their bodies are dust.”

“You negotiate with philosophy,” the Caliph said, “because your bag is empty.”

“My bag is empty,” Anwar Das countered, “because I would not insult so great a king with anything so paltry as a bribe. I would bribe you with history, Serene and Exalted One. I would bribe you with the words that will be spoken when you can no longer hear them.”

“What words?” Kephiz Bin Ezvahoun asked.

“He took the fragile flower of peace and tied its stem to a stout stake, so that it grew stronger and stronger. Before him, Perdondaris and Susurrut exhausted themselves with war. Now they clasp each other in amity, and each is richer than it was before. The alliance between the two can never be broken, and neither need fear any enemy, for if any man rises against the one, the other will strike him down like the hammer of high heaven.”

The Caliph laughed long and hard, but the glance he turned on Anwar Das was curious. “You have a fine line in camel dung yourself,” he said.

“Your Excellency is too kind,” Anwar Das said, bowing low.

“And if I said yes—ticking off the warmongers mightily—Bessa would be the broker of the peace?”

“A truly neutral party would be needed for such a delicate job. I would be honoured to act as mediator, and to lay out the terms of a suitable treaty for your own and the Akond of Susurrut’s approval.”

The Caliph grinned. “You want a crowbar,” he summarised.

“Of the finest manufacture, tipped and filigreed with silver.”

“What did you do before you were a politician?” Kephiz Bin Ezvahoun asked. “Were you by any chance a camel thief?”

For a moment, Anwar Das was discountenanced. “It was far south of here,” he began. “I never stole from Perdondaris, Excellency, or from any of its . . .”

The Caliph roared with delighted laughter. “It was a joke, man! But you’re telling me it’s true? Oh, that’s too wonderful!” He wiped tears from his eyes. “A thief! A bandit! Bessa appoints a bandit as her ambassador! But of course she does, because her soldiers are odalisques and her citizenry are sultans! Wonderful! By the Increate, truly wonderful!”

Recovering his composure a little, Anwar Das suggested that they might run up a rough draft for a possible treaty right there and then.

The Caliph shook his head vigorously. “Oh, the details I leave to you. Only make sure that they include the abandonment of the forts on the Yildriziah, and the re-opening of the Pass Paved with Iron. I need to have a few fig-leaves to flaunt in front of my fanatics.” He was chuckling again by this point. “I meet so few camel thieves! If they’re all like you, I’m surprised we have any camels left at all!”

They went back into the throne room, where spiced wine was brought. They talked for some turns of the glass about the many ways in which stealing camels and governing cities were not so dissimilar as might be thought, until at last Anwar Das took his leave, with effusive thanks for the Serene and Exalted’s great generosity.

Thence to Susurrut, where Anwar Das arrived in the middle of the night. This being Susurrut, night or day made little difference: everything is for sale in that place so long as a man knows where to apply, and Anwar Das had old acquaintance there. Among them was Bethi, the former servant maid who had now become the most stalwart of his spies. She welcomed him with honeyed fruits, and with the sweeter gift of her embrace.

“How many times did you have to put out in Heqa’a?” she asked him teasingly, after they had pleasured each other.

“I am a loyal and uncomplaining servant of the Bessan polity,” Anwar Das told her, his face grave.

Bethi marvelled. “That many times! Your poor manhood!”

Bethi’s reasons for being in Susurrut included the clearing of the ground for a meeting between Anwar Das and Rudh Silmon, the merchant prince and so-called Keeper of the Fields of Gold. She had scattered bribes so judiciously and sweet-talked all interested parties with such address that Anwar Das was ushered, before noon of the next day, into the presence of the man himself.

Silmon was inspecting samples, as he did most mornings, sitting in a dark room with the windows barred and sniffing judiciously at dozens of dark-coloured powders arrayed in the recesses of a long tray built for that purpose alone.

“Anwar Das,” Silmon said.
Sniff, sniff!
“The Bessan ambassador.
Sniff!
“Come with a shopping list, no doubt.”

“The Keeper is as clear-sighted as he is morally irreproachable,” Anwar Das said, civilly, and he handed Silmon a scroll. Silmon undid the ribbon, and the scroll fell open: it fell all the way to the floor, and had not completely unwound when it got there.

Silmon read the list, his lips moving as he silently recited its contents. Before he had got more than five lines into it, he set it down and stared at Anwar Das.

“Are you mad?” he asked him.

“I believe not,” Anwar Das answered.

Silmon threw the scroll back across the table to his guest, in irritation or perhaps disgust. “You are wasting my time,” he said, “and your own. I will sell you spices and scents in any quantity, assuming you have sufficient gold to pay my admittedly outrageous prices. But the items on this list I will not sell for a king’s ransom.”

“I have no such fortune,” Anwar Das said, opening his hands to show his empty palms.

The Keeper glared at them. “Then you are an idiot, sir!

“But I have this.” Anwar Das drew something slender and elongated from his belt. Silmon gasped and drew back, for a moment fearing an assassination attempt. Susurrut had enemies who would be only too happy to kill him, if they could do so without being found out.

But what Anwar Das handed him was only another scroll, broader but much shorter than the first. The Keeper stared at the seal, which was the seal of the most Serene and Exalted Kephiz Bin Ezvahoun, Caliph of Perdondaris.

“What is this?” he asked stupidly, his resources of speech and intellect briefly abandoning him. Perdondaris’s whimsical pleasure and displeasure were the diastole and systole of life in Susurrut: Silmon could not regard that seal with equanimity.

“Read it,” suggested Anwar Das,” and see.”

Silmon broke the seal and scanned the letter. Anwar Das stood silently and patiently by while the older man went through the requisite stages of awe, disbelief and violent perturbation.

“Peace?” he said at last, in a strangled gasp. “Peace with Perdondaris?”

“Well, a treaty with Perdondaris,” Anwar Das corrected him scrupulously. “A treaty which guarantees peace for a period of . . . pardon me, I have misremembered the precise details.”

“Ten years!” The Keeper ejaculated.

“Ten years. You are right. And the review to be carried out in the ninth year, by men of wisdom and goodwill from both cities, with a guarantee that if there have been no skirmishes or debacles in that time, a second period of not less than a further decade will be agreed. Susurrut must abandon the forts on the Yildriziah, and keep the Pass Paved with Iron open to all travellers and caravans of any provenance whatsoever. These are the only stipulations.”

At this point, Anwar Das’s greatest ally was time. Settling back in his chair, he took a pipe and tobacco from his pack, prepared a toke and lit up, while Rudh Silmon read and reread the entire screed from its initial fanfares to its closing pomposities. Das had written it himself, so he knew these flourishes were good and needed to be savoured. Moreover, he was aware that Silmon was weighing in his mind all the implications of a peace treaty with Perdondaris, and that this weighing was likely to be a complex and protracted process.

When he had almost finished his pipe, the older man set down the scroll and fixed him with a stare. “I’m no politician,” he said, stating the obvious. “These matters are not for me to decide.”