“Is that all right?”
“Of course it is, silly. Although I shouldn’t allow it. We don’t even think of you English as completely civilized.” Her eyes glowed. He began to tremble, and tried to conceal it from her. She was playing with him, he knew, playing a game whose rules she herself had defined and would not share with him. “Are you a Christian?” she asked.
“You know I am.”
“Yes, you must be. You used the Christian date for the year of the conquest of England. But your ancestors were Moslem, right?”
“Outwardly, during the time of the occupation. Most of us were. But for all those centuries we secretly continued to maintain our faith in—” She was definitely going to get him going again. Already his head was beginning to pound. Her beauty was unnerving enough; but this roguishness was more than he could take. He wondered how old she was. Eighteen? Nineteen? No more than that, surely. Very likely she had a fiancé back in Istanbul, some swarthy mustachioed fez-wearing Ottoman princeling, with whom she indulged in unimaginable Oriental perversions and to whom she confessed every little flirtation she undertook while traveling with her father. It was humiliating to think of becoming an item of gossip in some perfumed boudoir on the banks of the Bosporus. A sigh escaped him. She gave him a startled look, as though he had mooed at her. Perhaps he had. Desperately he sought for something, anything, that would rescue him from this increasingly tortured moment of impossible intimacy; and, looking across the room, he was astounded to find his eyes suddenly locked on those of the heir apparent to the throne of Songhay. “Ah, there he is,” Michael said in vast relief. “The prince has arrived.”
“Which one? Where?”
“The slender man. The red velvet tunic.”
“Oh. Oh, yes. Him. I saw him in the marketplace too, with Ali Pasha. Now I understand. They came to check us out before we knew who they were.” Selima smiled disingenuously. “He’s very attractive, isn’t he? Rather like an Arab, I’d say. And not nearly as dissolute-looking as I was led to expect. Is it all right if I go over and say hello to him? Or should I wait for a proper diplomatic introduction? I’ll ask my father, I think. Do you see him? Oh, yes, there he is over there, talking to Prince Itzcoatl—” She began to move away without a backward look.
Michael felt a sword probing in his vitals.
“Boy!” he called, and one of the blacks turned to him with a somber grin. “Some of that wine, if you please!”
On the far side of the room Little Father smiled and signaled for a drink also—not the miserable palm wine, which he abhorred and which as a good Moslem he should abjure anyway, but the clear fiery brandy that the caravans brought him from Tunis, and which to an outsider’s eyes would appear to be mere water. His personal cupbearer, who served no one else in the room, poured until he nodded, and slipped back into the shadows to await the prince’s next call.
In the first moments of his presence at the reception Little Father had taken in the entire scene, sorting and analyzing and comprehending. The Turkish ambassador’s daughter was even more beautiful than Ali Pasha had led him to think, and there was an agreeable slyness about her that Little Father was able to detect even at a distance. Lust awoke in him at once and he allowed himself a little smile as he savored its familiar throbbing along the insides of his thighs. The Turkish girl was very fine. The tall fair-haired young man, probably some sort of subsidiary English official, was obviously and stupidly in love with her. He should be advised to keep out of the sun. The Aztec prince, all done up in feathers and gold, was arrogant and brutal and smart, as Aztecs usually were. The Turk, the girl’s father, looked soft and effete and decadent, which he probably found to be a useful pose. The older Englishman, the little one with the red hair who most likely was the official envoy, seemed tough and dangerous. And over there was another one who hadn’t been at the marketplace to see the dancing, the Russian, no doubt, a big man, strong and haughty, flat face and flat sea-green eyes and a dense little black beard through which a glint of gold teeth occasionally showed. He too seemed dangerous, physically dangerous, a man who might pick things up and smash them for amusement, but in him all the danger was on the outside, and with the little Englishman it was the other way around. Little Father wondered how much trouble these people would manage to create for him before the funeral was over and done with. It was every nation’s ambition to create trouble in the empires of Africa, after all: there was too much cheap labor here, too much in the way of raw materials, for the pale jealous folk of the overseas lands to ignore, and they were forever dreaming dreams of conquest. But no one had ever managed it. Africa had kept itself independent of the great overseas powers. The Pasha of Egypt still held his place by the Nile, in the far south the Mambo of Zimbabwe maintained his domain amidst enough gold to make even an Aztec feel envy, and the Bey of Marrakesh was unchallenged in the north. And the strong western empires flourished as ever, Ghana, Mali, Kongo, Songhay—no, no, Africa had never let itself be eaten by Turks or Russians or even the Moors, though they had all given it a good try. Nor would it ever. Still, as he wandered among these outlanders Little Father felt contempt for him and his people drifting through the air about him like smoke. He wished that he could have made a properly royal entrance, coming upon the foreigners in style, with drums and trumpets and bugles. Preceded as he entered by musicians carrying gold and silver guitars, and followed by a hundred armed slaves. But those were royal prerogatives, and he was not yet Emir. Besides, this was a solemn time in Songhay, and such pomp was unbefitting. And the foreigners would very likely look upon it as the vulgarity of a barbarian, anyway, or the quaint grandiosity of a primitive.
Little Father downed his brandy in three quick gulps and held out the cup for more. It was beginning to restore his spirit. He felt a sense of deep well-being, of ease and assurance.
But just then came a stir and a hubbub at the north door of the reception hall. In amazement and fury he saw Serene Glory entering, Big Father’s main wife, surrounded by her full retinue. Her hair was done up in the elaborate great curving horns of the scorpion style, and she wore astonishing festoons of jewelry, necklaces of gold and amber, bracelets of silver and ebony and beads, rings of stone, earrings of shining ivory.
To Ali Pasha the prince said, hissing, “What’s she doing here?”
“You invited her yourself, Little Father.”
Little Father stared into his cup.
“I did?”
“There is no question of that, sir.”
“Yes. Yes, I did.” Little Father shook his head. “I must have been drunk. What was I thinking of?” Big Father’s main wife was young and beautiful, younger, indeed, than Little Father himself, and she was an immense annoyance. Big Father had had six wives in his time, or possibly seven—Little Father was not sure, and he had never dared to ask—of whom all of the earliest ones were now dead, including Little Father’s own mother. Of the three that remained, one was an elderly woman who lived in retirement in Gao, and one was a mere child, the old man’s final toy; and then there was this one, this witch, this vampire, who placed no bounds on her ambitions. Only six months before, when Big Father had still been more or less healthy, Serene Glory had dared to offer herself to Little Father as they returned together from the Great Mosque. Of course he desired her; who would not desire her? But the idea was monstrous. Little Father would no more lay a hand on one of Big Father’s wives than he would lie down with a crocodile. Clearly this woman, suspecting that the father was approaching his end, had had some dream of beguiling the son. That would not happen. Once Big Father was safely interred in the royal cemetery Serene Glory would go into chaste retirement, however beautiful she might be.
“Get her out of here, fast!” Little Father whispered.
“But she has every right—she is the wife of the Emir—”
“Then keep her away from me, at least. If she comes within five feet of me tonight, you’ll be tending camels tomorrow, do you hear? Within ten feet. See to it.”
<
br /> “She will come nowhere near you, Little Father.”
There was an odd look on Ali Pasha’s face.
“Why are you smiling?” Little Father asked.
“Smiling? I am not smiling, Little Father.”
“No. No, of course not.”
Little Father made a gesture of dismissal and walked toward the platform of audience. A reception line began to form. The Russian was the first to present his greetings to the prince, and then the Aztec, and then the Englishman. There were ceremonial exchanges of gifts. At last it was the turn of the Turk. He had brought a splendid set of ornate daggers, inlaid with jewels. Little Father received them politely and, as he had with the other ambassadors, he bestowed an elaborately carved segment of ivory tusk upon Ismet Akif. The girl stood shyly to one side.
“May I present also my daughter Selima,” said Ismet Akif.
She was well trained. She made a quick little ceremonial bow, and as she straightened her eyes met Little Father’s, only for a moment, and it was enough. Warmth traveled just beneath his skin nearly the entire length of his body, a signal he knew well. He smiled at her. The smile was a communicative one, and was understood and reciprocated. Even in that busy room those smiles had the force of thunderclaps. Everyone had been watching. Quickly Little Father’s gaze traversed the reception hall, and in a fraction of an instant he took in the sudden flicker of rage on the face of Serene Glory, the sudden knowing look on Ali Pasha’s, the sudden anguished comprehension on that of the tall young Englishman. Only Ismet Akif remained impassive; and yet Little Father had little doubt that he too was in on the transaction. In the wars of love there are rarely any secrets amongst those on the field of combat.
Every day there was dancing in the marketplace. Some days the dancers kept their heads motionless and put everything else into motion; other days they let their heads oscillate like independent creatures, while scarcely moving a limb. There were days of shouting dances and days of silent dances. Sometimes brilliant robes were worn and sometimes the dancers were all but naked.
In the beginning the foreign ambassadors went regularly to watch the show. But as time went on, the Emir continued not to die, and the intensity of the heat grew and grew, going beyond the uncomfortable into the implausible and then beyond that to the unimaginable, they tended to stay within the relative coolness of their own compounds despite the temptations of the daily show in the plaza. New ambassadors arrived daily, from the Maori Confederation, from China, from Peru finally, from lesser lands like Korea and Ind and the Teutonic States, and for a time the newcomers went to see the dancing with the same eagerness as their predecessors. Then they too stopped attending.
The Emir’s longevity was becoming an embarrassment. Weeks were going by and the daily bulletins were a monotonous succession of medical ups and downs, with no clear pattern. The special ambassadors, unexpectedly snared in an ungratifying city at a disagreeable time of year, could not leave, but were beginning to find it an agony to stay on. It was evident to everyone now that the news of Big Father’s imminent demise had gone forth to the world in a vastly overanticipatory way.
“If only the old bastard would simply get up and step out on his balcony and tell us he’s healthy again, and let us all go home,” Sir Anthony said. “Or succumb at last, one or the other. But this suspension, this indefiniteness—”
“Perhaps the prince will grow weary of the waiting and have him smothered in a pillow,” Prince Itzcoatl suggested.
The Englishman shook his head. “He’d have done that ten years ago, if he had it in him at all. The time’s long past for him to murder his father.”
They were on the covered terrace of the Mexican embassy. In the dreadful heat-stricken silence of the day the foreign dignitaries, as they awaited the intolerably deferred news of the Emir’s death, moved in formal rotation from one embassy to another, making ceremonial calls in accordance with strict rules of seniority and precedence.
“His Excellency the Grand Duke Alexander Petrovitch,” the Aztec major domo announced.
The foreign embassies were all in the same quarter of New Timbuctoo, along the grand boulevard known as The Street of All Nations. In the old days the foreigners had lived in the center of the Old Town, in fine houses in the best native style, palaces of stone and brick covered with mauve or orange clay. But Big Father had persuaded them one by one to move to the New City. It was undignified and uncomfortable, he insisted, for the representatives of the great overseas powers to live in mud houses with earthen floors.
Having all the foreigners’ dwellings lined up in a row along a single street made it much simpler to keep watch over them, and, in case international difficulties should arise, it would be ever so much more easy to round them all up at once under the guise of “protecting” them. But Big Father had not taken into account that it was also very much easier for the foreigners to mingle with each other, which was not necessarily a good idea. It facilitated conspiracy as well as surveillance.
“We are discussing our impatience,” Prince Itzcoatl told the Russian, who was the cousin of the Czar. “Sir Anthony is weary of Timbuctoo.”
“Nor am I the only one,” said the Englishman. “Did you hear that Maori ranting and raving yesterday at the Peruvian party? But what can we do? What can we do?”
“We could to Egypt go while we wait, perhaps,” said the Grand Duke. “The Pyramids, the Sphinx, the temples of Karkak!”
“Karnak,” Sir Anthony said. “But what if the old bugger dies while we’re gone? We’d never get back in time for the funeral. What a black eye for us!”
“And how troublesome for our plans,” said the Aztec.
“Mansa Suleiyman would never forgive us,” said Sir Anthony.
“Mansa Suleiyman! Mansa Suleiyman!” Alexander Petrovitch spat. “Let the black brigand do his own dirty work, then. Brothers, let us go to Egypt. If the Emir dies while we are away, will not the prince be removed whether or not we happen to be in attendance at the funeral?”
“Should we be speaking of this here?” Prince Itzcoatl asked, plucking in displeasure at his earplugs.
“Why not? There is no danger. These people are like children. They would never suspect—”
“Even so—”
But the Russian would not be deterred. Bull-like, he said, “It will all go well whether we are here or not. Believe me. It is all arranged, I remind you. So let us go to Egypt, then, before we bake to death. Before we choke on the sand that blows through these miserable streets.”
“Egypt’s not a great deal cooler than Songhay right now,” Prince Itzcoatl pointed out. “And sand is not unknown there either.”
The Grand Duke’s massive shoulders moved in a ponderous shrugging gesture.
“To the south, then, to the Great Waterfalls. It is winter in that part of Africa, such winter as they have. Or to the Islands of the Canaries. Anywhere, anywhere at all, to escape from this Timbuctoo. I fry here. I sizzle here. I remind you that I am Russian, my friends. This is no climate for Russians.”
Sir Anthony stared suspiciously into the sea-green eyes. “Are you the weak link in our little affair, my dear Duke Alexander? Have we made a mistake by asking you to join us?”
“Does it seem so to you? Am I untrustworthy, do you think?”
“The Emir could die at any moment. Probably will. Despite what’s been happening, or not happening, it’s clear that he can’t last very much longer. The removal of the prince on the day of the funeral, as you have just observed, has been arranged. But how can we dare risk being elsewhere on that day? How can we even think of such a thing?” Sir Anthony’s lean face grew florid; his tight mat of graying red hair began to rise and crackle with inner electricity; his chilly blue eyes became utterly arctic. “It is essential that in the moment of chaos that follows, the great-power triumvirate we represent—the troika, as you say—be on hand here to invite King Suleiyman of Mali to take charge of the country. I repeat, your excellency: essential. The time factor is cri
tical. If we are off on holiday in Egypt, or anywhere else—if we are so much as a day too late getting back here—”
Prince Itzcoatl said, “I think the Grand Duke understands that point, Sir Anthony.”
“Ah, but does he? Does he?”
“I think so.” The Aztec drew in his breath sharply and let his gleaming obsidian eyes meet those of the Russian. “Certainly he sees that we’re all in it too deep to back out, and that therefore he has to abide by the plan as drawn, however inconvenient he may find it personally.”
The Grand Duke, sounding a little nettled, said, “We are traveling too swiftly here, I think. I tell you, I hate this filthy place, I hate its impossible heat, I hate its blowing sand, I hate its undying Emir, I hate its slippery lecherous prince. I hate the smell of the air, even. It is the smell of camel shit, the smell of old mud. But I am your partner in this undertaking to the end. I will not fail you, believe me.” His great shoulders stirred like boulders rumbling down a slope. “The consolidation of Mali and Songhay would be displeasing to the Sultan, and therefore it is pleasing to the Czar. I will assist you in making it happen, knowing that such a consolidation has value for your own nations as well, which also is pleasing to my royal cousin. By the Russian Empire from the plan there will be no withdrawal. Of such a possibility let there be no more talk.”
“Of holidays in Egypt let there be no more talk either,” said Prince Itzcoatl. “Agreed? None of us likes being here, Duke Alexander. But here we have to stay, like it or not, until everything is brought to completion.”
“Agreed. Agreed.” The Russian snapped his fingers. “I did not come here to bicker. I have hospitality for you, waiting outside. Will you share vodka with me?” An attaché of the Russian Embassy entered, bearing a crystal beaker in a bowl of ice. “This arrived today, by the riverboat, and I have brought it to offer to my beloved friends of England and Mexico. Unfortunately of caviar there is none, though there should be. This heat! This heat! Caviar, in this heat—impossible!” The Grand Duke laughed. “To our great countries! To international amity! To a swift and peaceful end to the Emir’s terrible sufferings! To your healths, gentlemen! To your healths!”
The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume Seven: We Are for the Dark Page 37