Michael flattened himself against the buttress. He could not bear the thought of being seen by the prince now, here, as if he had been haunting the palace all night, spying on Selima. He put his arm across his face in a frantic attempt to hide himself, he whose western clothes and long legs and white skin made him stand out like a meteor. But the prince wasn’t coming toward him. Nodding in an abstracted way, he turned quickly, passed through the throng of chattering petitioners as if they were ghosts, disappeared in a flurry of white fabric.
Michael looked about for his sudden friend, the man who had wanted to sell him camels, massages, souvenirs. What he wanted now was a guide to get him out of the Old Town and back to the residence of the English ambassador. But the man was gone.
“Pardon me—” Michael said to someone who looked almost like the first one. Then he realized that he had spoken in English. Useless. He tried in Turkish and in Arabic. A few people stared at him. They seemed to be laughing. He felt transparent to them. They could see his sorrow, his heartache, his anguish, as easily as his sunburn.
Like the good young diplomat he was, he had learned a little Songhay too, the indigenous language. “Town talk,” they called it. But the few words he had seemed all to have fled. He stood alone and helpless in the plaza, scuffing angrily at the sand, as the sun broke above the mud rooftops like the sword of an avenging angel and the full blast of morning struck him. Michael felt blisters starting to rise on his cheeks. Agitated flies began to buzz around his eyes. A camel, passing by just then, dropped half a dozen hot green turds right at his feet. He snatched one out of the sand and hurled it with all his strength at the bland blank mud-colored wall of Little Father’s palace.
Big Father was sitting up on his divan. His silken blankets were knotted around his waist in chaotic strands, and his bare torso rose above the chaos, gleaming as though it had been oiled. His arms were like sticks and his skin was three shades paler than it once had been and cascades of loose flesh hung like wattles from his neck, but there was the brilliance of black diamonds in his glittering little eyes.
“Not dead yet, you see? You see?” His voice was a cracked wailing screech, but the old authoritative thunder was still somewhere behind it. “Back from the edge of the grave, boy! Allah walks with me yet!”
Little Father was numb with chagrin. All the joy of his night with Selima had vanished in a moment when word had arrived of his father’s miraculous recovery. He had just been getting accustomed to the idea that he soon would be king, too. His first misgivings about the work involved in it had begun to ebb; he rather liked the idea of ruling, now. The crown was descending on him like a splendid gift. And here was Big Father sitting up, grinning, waving his arms around in manic glee. Taking back his gift. Deciding to live after all.
What about the funeral plans? What about the special ambassadors who had traveled so far, in such discomfort, to pay homage to the late venerable Emir of Songhay and strike their various deals with his successor?
Big Father had had his head freshly shaved and his beard had been trimmed. He looked like a gnome, ablaze with demonic energies. Off in the corner of the porch, next to the potted trees, the three marabouts stood in a circle, making sacred gestures at each other with lunatic vigor, each seeking to demonstrate superior fervor.
Hoarsely Little Father said, “Your majesty, the news astonishes and delights me. When the messenger came, telling of your miraculous recovery, I leaped from my bed and gave thanks to the All-Merciful in a voice so loud you must have heard it here.”
“Was there a woman with you, boy?”
“Father—”
“I hope you bathed before you came here. You come forth without bathing after you’ve lain with a woman and the djinns will make you die an awful death, do you realize that?”
“Father, I wouldn’t think of—”
“Frothing at the mouth, falling down in the street, that’s what’ll happen to you. Who was she? Some nobleman’s wife as usual, I suppose. Well, never mind. As long as she wasn’t mine. Come closer to me, boy.”
“Father, you shouldn’t tire yourself by talking so much.”
“Closer!”
A wizened claw reached for him. Little Father approached and the claw seized him. There was frightening strength in the old man still.
Big Father said, “I’ll be up and around in two days. I want the Great Mosque made ready for the ceremony of thanksgiving. And I’ll sacrifice to all the prophets and saints.” A fit of coughing overcame him for a space, and he pounded his fist furiously against the side of the divan. When he spoke again, his voice seemed weaker, but still determined. “There was a vampire upon me, boy! Each night she came in here and drank from me.”
“She?”
“With dark hair and pale foreign skin, and eyes that eat you alive. Every night. Stood above me, and laughed, and took my blood. But she’s gone now. These three have imprisoned her and carried her off to the Eleventh Hell.” He gestured toward the marabouts. “My saints. My heroes. I want them rewarded beyond all reckoning.”
“As you say, father, so will I do.”
The old man nodded. “You were getting my funeral ready, weren’t you?”
“The prognosis was very dark. Certain preparations seemed advisable when we heard—”
“Cancel them!”
“Of course.” Then, uncertainly: “Father, special envoys have come from many lands. The Czar’s cousin is here, and the brother of Moctezuma, and a son of the late Sultan, and also—”
“I’ll hold an audience for them all,” said Big Father in great satisfaction. “They’ll have gifts beyond anything they can imagine. Instead of a funeral, boy, we’ll have a jubilee! A celebration of life. Moctezuma’s brother, you say? And who did the Inca send?” Big Father laughed raucously. “All of them clustering around to see me put away underground!” He jabbed a finger against Little Father’s breast. It felt like a spear of bone. “And in Mali they’re dancing in the streets, aren’t they? Can’t contain themselves for glee. But they’ll dance a different dance now.” Big Father’s eyes grew somber. “You know, boy, when I really do die, whenever that is, they’ll try to take you out too, and Mali will invade us. Guard yourself. Guard the nation. Those bastards on the coast hunger to control our caravan routes. They’re probably already scheming now with the foreigners to swallow us the instant I’m gone, but you mustn’t allow them to—ah—ah—”
“Father?”
Abruptly the Emir’s shriveled face crumpled in a frenzy of coughing. He hammered against his thighs with clenched fists. An attendant came running, bearing a beaker of water, and Big Father drank until he had drained it all. Then he tossed the beaker aside as though it were nothing. He was shivering. He looked glassy-eyed and confused. His shoulders slumped, his whole posture slackened. Perhaps his “recovery” had been merely the sudden final upsurge of a dying fire.
“You should rest, majesty,” said a new voice from the doorway to the porch. It was Serene Glory’s ringing contralto. “You overtax yourself, I think, in the first hours of this miracle.”
Big Father’s main wife had arrived, entourage and all. In the warmth of the morning she had outfitted herself in a startling robe of purple satin, over which she wore the finest jewels of the kingdom. Little Father remembered that his own mother had worn some of those necklaces and bracelets.
He was unmoved by Serene Glory’s beauty, impressive though it was. How could Serene Glory matter to him with the memory, scarcely two hours old, of Selima’s full breasts and agile thighs still glistening in his mind? But he could not fail to detect Serene Glory’s anger. It surrounded her like a radiant aura. Tension sparkled in her kohl-bedecked eyes.
Perhaps she was still smoldering over Little Father’s deft rejection of her advances as they were riding side by side back from the Great Mosque that day six months earlier. Or perhaps it was Big Father’s unexpected return from the brink that annoyed her. Anyone with half a mind realized that Serene Glory dreamed of putt
ing her own insipid brother on the throne in Little Father’s place the moment the old Emir was gone, and thus maintaining and even extending her position at the summit of power. Quite likely she, like Little Father, had by now grown accustomed to the idea of Big Father’s death and was having difficulty accepting the news that it would be somewhat postponed.
To Little Father she said, “Our prayers have been answered, all glory to Allah! But you mustn’t put a strain on the Emir’s energies in this time of recovery. Perhaps you ought to go.”
“I was summoned, lady.”
“Of course. Quite rightly. And now you should go to the mosque and give thanks for what has been granted us all.”
Her gaze was imperious and unanswerable. In one sentence Serene Glory had demoted him from imminent king to wastrel prince once again. He admired her gall. She was three years younger than Little Father, and here she was ordering him out of the royal presence as though he were a child. But of course she had had practice at ordering people around: her father was one of the greatest landlords of the eastern province. She had moved amidst power all her life, albeit power of a provincial sort. Little Father wondered how many noblemen of that province had spent time between the legs of Serene Glory before she had ascended to her present high position.
He said, “If my royal father grants me leave to go—”
The Emir was coughing again. He looked terrible.
Serene Glory went to him and bent close over him, so the old man could smell the fragrance rising from her breasts, and instantly Big Father relaxed. The coughing ceased and he sat up again, almost as vigorous as before. Little Father admired that maneuver too. Serene Glory was a worthy adversary. Probably her people were already spreading the word in the city that it was the power of her love for the Emir, and not the prayers of the three saints, that had brought him back from the edge of death.
“How cool it is in here,” Big Father said. “The wind is rising. Will it rain today? The rains are due, aren’t they? Let me see the sky. What color is the sky?” He looked upward in an odd straining way, as though the sky had risen to such a height that it could no longer be seen.
“Father,” Little Father said softly.
The old man glared. “You heard her, didn’t you? To the mosque! To the mosque and give thanks! Do you want Allah to think you’re an ingrate, boy?” He started coughing once again. Once again he began visibly to descend the curve of his precarious vitality. His withered cheeks began to grow mottled. There was a feeling of impending death in the air.
Servants and ministers and the three marabouts gathered by his side, alarmed.
“Big Father! Big Father!”
And then once more he was all right again, just as abruptly. He gestured fiercely, an unmistakable dismissal. The woman in purple gave Little Father a dark grin of triumph. Little Father nodded to her gallantly: this round was hers. He knelt at the Emir’s side, kissed his royal ring. It slipped about loosely on his shrunken finger. Little Father, thinking of nothing but the pressure of Selima’s dark, hard little nipples against the palms of his hands two hours before, made the prostration of filial devotion to his father and, with ferocious irony, to his stepmother, and backed quickly away from the royal presence.
Michael said, distraught, “I couldn’t sleep, sir. I went out for a walk.”
“And you walked the whole night long?” Sir Anthony asked, in a voice like a flail.
“I didn’t really notice the time. I just kept walking, and by and by the sun came up and I realized that the night was gone.”
“It’s your mind that’s gone, I think.” Sir Anthony, crooking his neck upward to Michael’s much greater height, gave him a whip-crack glare. “What kind of calf are you, anyway? Haven’t you any sense at all?”
“Sir Anthony, I don’t underst—”
“Are you in love? With the Turkish girl?”
Michael clapped his hand over his mouth in dismay.
“You know about that?” he said lamely, after a moment.
“One doesn’t have to be a mind-reader to see it, lad. Every camel in Timbuctoo knows it. The pathetic look on your face whenever she comes within fifty feet of you—the clownish way you shuffle your feet around, and hang your head—those occasional little groans of deepest melancholy—” The envoy glowered. He made no attempt to hide his anger, or his contempt. “By heaven, I’d like to hang your head, and all the rest of you as well. Have you no sense? Have you no sense whatsoever?”
Everything was lost, so what did anything matter? Defiantly Michael said, “Have you never fallen unexpectedly in love, Sir Anthony?”
“With a Turk?”
“Unexpectedly, I said. These things don’t necessarily happen with one’s political convenience in mind.”
“And she reciprocates your love, I suppose? That’s why you were out walking like a moon-calf in this miserable parched mudhole of a city all night long?”
“She spent the night with the crown prince,” Michael blurted in misery.
“Ah. Ah, now it comes out!” Sir Anthony was silent for a while. Then he glanced up sharply, his eyes bright with skepticism. “But how do you know that?”
“I saw her leaving his palace at dawn, sir.”
“Spying on her, were you?”
“I just happened to be there. I didn’t even know it was his palace, until I asked. He came out himself a few minutes later, and went quickly off somewhere. He looked very troubled.”
“He should have looked troubled. He’d just found out that he might not get to be king as quickly as he’d like to be.”
“I don’t understand, please, sir.”
“There’s word going around town this morning that the Emir has recovered. And had sent for his son to let him know that he wasn’t quite as moribund as was generally believed.”
Michael recoiled in surprise.
“Recovered? Is it true?”
Sir Anthony offered him a benign, patronizing smile.
“So they say. But the Emir’s doctors assure us that it’s nothing more than a brief rally in an inevitable descent. The old wolf will be dead within the week. Still, it’s rather a setback for Little Father’s immediate plans. The news of the Emir’s unanticipated awakening from his coma must rather have spoiled his morning for him.”
“Good,” said Michael vindictively.
Sir Anthony laughed.
“You hate him, do you?”
“I despise him. I loathe him. I have nothing but the greatest detestation for him. He’s a cynical amoral voluptuary and nothing more. He doesn’t deserve to be a king.”
“Well, if it’s any comfort to you, lad, he’s not going to live long enough to become one.”
“What?”
“His untimely demise has been arranged. His stepmother is going to poison him at the funeral of the old Emir, if the old Emir ever has the good grace to finish dying.”
“What? What?”
Sir Anthony smiled.
“This is quite confidential, you understand. Perhaps I shouldn’t be entrusting you with it just yet. But you’d have needed to find out sooner or later. We’ve organized a little coup d’état.”
“What? What? What?” said Michael helplessly.
“Her Highness the Lady Serene Glory would like to put her brother on the throne instead of the prince. The brother is worthless, of course. So is the prince, of course, but at least he does happen to be the rightful heir. We don’t want to see either of them have it, actually. What we’d prefer is to have the Mansa of Mali declare that the unstable conditions in Songhay following the death of the old Emir have created a danger to the security of all of West Africa that can be put to rest only by an amalgamation of the kingdoms of Mali and Songhay under a single ruler. Who would be, of course, the Mansa of Mali, precisely as your young lady so baldly suggested the other day. And that is what we intend to achieve. The Grand Duke and Prince Itzcoatl and I. As representatives of the powers whom we serve.”
Michael stared. He rubbe
d his cheeks as if to assure himself that this was no dream. He found himself unable to utter a sound.
Sir Anthony went on, clearly and calmly.
“And so Serene Glory gives Little Father the deadly cup, and then the Mansa’s troops cross the border, and we, on behalf of our governments, immediately recognize the new combined government. Which makes everyone happy except, I suppose, the Sultan, who has such good trade relationships with Songhay and is on such poor terms with the Mansa of Mali. But we hardly shed tears for the Sultan’s distress, do we, boy? Do we? The distress of the Turks is no concern of ours. Quite the contrary, in fact, is that not so?” Sir Anthony clapped his hand to Michael’s shoulder. It was an obvious strain for him, reaching so high. The fingers clamping into Michael’s tender sunburned skin were agony. “So let’s see no more mooning over this alluring Ottoman goddess of yours, eh, lad? It’s inappropriate for a lovely blond English boy like yourself to be lusting after a Turk, as you know very well. She’s nothing but a little slut, however she may seem to your infatuated eyes. And you needn’t take the trouble to expend any energy loathing the prince, either. His days are numbered. He won’t survive his evil old father by so much as a week. It’s all arranged.”
Michael’s jaw gaped. A glazed look of disbelief appeared in his eyes. His face was burning fiercely, not from the sunburn now, but from the intensity of his confusion.
“But sir—sir—”
“Get yourself some sleep, boy.”
“Sir!”
“Shocked, are you? Well, you shouldn’t be. There’s nothing shocking about assassinating an inconvenient king. What’s shocking to me is a grown man with pure English blood in his veins spending the night creeping pitifully around after his dissolute little Turkish inamorata as she makes her way to the bed of her African lover. And then telling me how heartsore and miserable he is. Get yourself some sleep, boy. Get yourself some sleep!”
The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume Seven: We Are for the Dark Page 39