The Steel Seraglio

by Mike Carey

  “We need some camels made ready,” the tall woman said. “Also the litters. If I uncover your mouth, will you answer softly? There’s no need for your men to see you like this.”

  She was—astonishingly—stronger than he was. Issi struggled but could not move a limb. The woman waited calmly until he nodded, then took away her hand.

  “Let me go!” Issi demanded in a furious whisper. He had seen that En-Sadim was a man of effete appetites, unlike most of the new sultan’s followers—but what sort of perversion required a litter, and forcible holding-down by women? “What can the Legate want with me? I’m an honest working man.”

  “The Legate is dead,” the tall woman said. “I killed him, and all his soldiers. It may be that I don’t have to kill you. Will you help us, or must I think again?”

  Something cold was pressed against his throat. This was clearly a madwoman. Issi fought to hide his terror. “I’ll help you,” he croaked.

  “Good,” the woman said. In the darkness he could not read her expression, but she took the knife away from his neck and summoned one of the others to help him to his feet. Issi’s legs gave way beneath him, and the two women half-carried him to the makeshift enclosure where the camels were penned.

  Another group of women were waiting there, and to his inexpressible relief Issi recognized one: Lady Gursoon, a senior concubine whom he had sometimes met at the stables. She had always treated him civilly, and had once brought him water with her own hands. A woman like her could surely be trusted to keep her head. He broke away from his two guards and ran to her. They did not follow him, but still, he kept his voice low, not wanting to antagonise the madwoman.

  “Lady, you must go and wake the Legate at once! That lady there” (he gestured with his eyes, afraid to move his head) “is sun-struck. She’s seeing visions of murder—and she has a knife.”

  Lady Gursoon did not move. He tried again: “Lady—we must get help now!” But he saw with disbelief that she was shaking her head.

  “Zuleika told you the truth,” the old lady said. “She did kill the Legate, and we helped her to kill the others. It was to save our own lives. But you and your men are safe.” She moved away from Issi, settled herself heavily onto one of the rocks that bordered the enclosure and patted the place beside her. “Here. Sit down, and I’ll tell you what happened.”

  They had to use seven camels, and all the litters that Issi kept for travellers laid low by the sun. He helped the women to load the dead men four or five to a litter, trying not to look at the gaping wounds and the staring eyes. Then he and six of the women—they would not let him wake any of his own assistants—led the camels out toward the eastern dunes, while other women walked alongside the litters to make sure their runners did not catch on rocks, and to prevent their grisly burdens from slipping off. There was no light but the stars, and their progress was slow. When they reached the dunes they scraped a shallow trench in the ground and laid the men in it, side by side, covering them with sand. Issi knew they would be uncovered again in a day or so, to be stripped by the birds and jackals, but by then the women and their children would be long gone.

  By the time they returned, the sky was beginning to lighten. They built up one of the fires from its embers and burned those clothes that had been fouled by blood. Then most of them slumped on the ground staring into the flames, unwilling to talk and trying not to think. Last night, Issi would have refused even to sit in such a way, the only man among women. Now, his mind dulled with horror and tiredness, it hardly seemed to matter. He did avert his eyes, though, when a few of the younger women pulled up their robes and stretched out bare legs to the fire. He looked instead at Lady Gursoon, marvelling at her air of composure despite her scratched hands and the straggles of grey hair now hanging around her face. She had accompanied the burial party, leading a camel, and closing the dead men’s eyes as they were laid in the ground. Now she sat and gazed into the fire, her face thoughtful.

  “Where will you go now?” Issi asked her.

  He suddenly noticed how still she was sitting, and it came to him that she had expected the question. “That depends,” she said slowly. “Will you come with us?”

  Issi was taken aback. “Come with you! How can we? Hakkim Mehdad will be wanting his camels back.”

  “Yes he will. And if you return them he may forgive you for being among the men who allowed us to escape; and for failing to prevent the deaths of his soldiers. . . . But if you and your camels return to Bessa, there’s no hope for us. The children won’t be able to walk much further. Perdondaris is too far to reach now, even if we were wanted there. We might get to Agorath, but it’s too small a city to disappear in. And sultan Mahmoud won’t protect us from Hakkim; now he’s seen what the man can do, he won’t seek a war with him.”

  “But you have children with you!” Issi protested. “The children of his old friend. There are obligations.”

  “The old friend is dead,” she said. “And his killer is very powerful. I met Mahmoud several times, Issi, and he never struck me as a man of sentiment. Prudence, rather.”

  Issi hesitated as long as he could before replying. Gursoon waited calmly, her hands folded in her lap. He had no choice, he realised.

  “I’ll come with you,” he said heavily. “And the boys too. I’ll explain it to them. So, lady: now that you have my help, where will you go?”

  She wasted no time on thanks.

  “South,” she said at once. “Hakkim is less likely to follow us there. Our sister Zeinab used to go on trading journeys to the mountains with her father, and knows where the oases lie. But we’ll need to find a place where the camels can feed when we arrive. Do you know of one?

  “Only beyond the mountains! There’s good grassland below the northern slopes—but the pass is far too narrow for such numbers. We could take a string of twenty beasts or so, no more.”

  “We’ll have to do it twenty times, then,” the Lady Gursoon said. “I think you should rest now.”

  She gestured to someone behind her, and a woman came to her side: the tall, frightening one who had first attacked him. Issi was on his feet in a moment.

  “I’ve given you my word,” he said with what dignity he could muster. “But I’m not going anywhere with her!”

  The tall woman only gave him an indifferent look, as if a small dog had barked at her. Gursoon stood up in her turn, forestalling any further discussion.

  “Keep an eye on the fire for me, Zuleika,” she said. “Our friend must renew his strength for an hour or so, if he’s to help us tomorrow. I’ll find him a bed.”

  Issi was glad to follow her: he was suddenly overwhelmed with the need to sleep. But as Gursoon showed him into an empty tent, he turned back. The question would not let him rest.

  “Your . . . sister there. She would have killed us, wouldn’t she? All of the men.”

  Gursoon looked at him for a moment, then inclined her head in the smallest possible nod. “She had that thought.”

  “And you said no?”

  She nodded again.

  “But if I hadn’t agreed to help you, would you have killed us then?” This time she made no move, and Issi was suddenly angry. “What made you so sure I’d agree?”

  “If you had refused, I would have let you go,” Gursoon said. “You have no weapons, and you don’t wish us any harm. But we needed the beasts. And I think we have a better chance of surviving with your help. Do you remember the stables, back in Bessa? You worked there sometimes with the head groom.”

  Issi was mystified. “Yes, Fouad,” he agreed. “A good man. What of him?”

  “Oh, nothing. Only he once said the same thing about you.”

  The camp woke in fits and starts next morning. Imtisar, senior courtesan, thought at first that it was mere inefficiency in the men who were guarding them, when Zeinab came to wake her at first light, drawing her
past tents where the children were still sleeping. From one of them, she could swear she heard snores that could only come from a full-grown man!

  “Three days we’ve been gone,” she murmured to herself, “and already there are no standards.”

  Zeinab took her to the edge of the camp, where most of the older women were already gathered. It was Gursoon who had called the meeting, Imtisar saw with displeasure. Of course, she was the oldest of them now—several years older than Imtisar—and so was entitled to respect, but it could not be denied that the dumpy little woman cut an unimpressive figure. And yet she would persist in running things. And she had called together an odd assortment of women, now Imtisar came to look at them: there were a couple of the servants, and that hard-faced new girl, Zuleika, with several others who had no seniority.

  These thoughts vanished, however, when Gursoon began to speak. Imtisar was shocked beyond measure to hear of the events of the night. She was more horrified still when they began to talk of their current prospects. Of course, they could not now go to Perdondaris. Imtisar had no illusions that the powerful Kephiz Bin Ezvahoun would take in four hundred women and children who had belonged to someone else, if there was nothing in it for him but trouble. Besides, it was too far, without any protection but a few camel-drivers. But there were other, closer cities where they might have more of a claim. Sultan Mahmoud of Agorath, for instance, had been vocal—and frequently tactile—in his appreciation of the harem on his visits to Bessa. Mahmoud was a vulgar and ill-mannered man, to be sure. But if the alternative was to live in the hills, eating stewed goat and sleeping on rocks!

  “That’s absurd,” Imtisar said. “We should go to Agorath, and ask Mahmoud for his protection. Or to Ishar, where I have a cousin. Many of us have family in the closer cities.”

  “Zeinab,” Gursoon said. “How many days’ travel is it from here to Agorath?”

  “Six days at best, Auntie,” the girl answered respectfully. “At the speed we’ve been going, I’d say closer to eight or nine.”

  “And there’s our problem,” Gursoon said. “Agorath is the closest of the cities, so it’ll be where Hakkim Mehdad first looks for us. And make no mistake, he will look. At this moment, he believes his men are burying us at the dunes. In a day, maybe two at most, he’ll expect their return, and then he’ll send more men out to find them. When their bodies are discovered, I imagine he’ll be searching for us with some eagerness. He has horses at his disposal, and skilled archers. How hard do you think we’ll be to find, four hundred of us, on the road to a city?”

  “But the mountains!” Imtisar protested. “There’s nothing there! Rocks, and snakes, and bandits! Nothing!”

  “No roads leading there, either,” Gursoon said complacently. “And our most urgent need is to disappear. Where better?”

  They had a story ready to tell the children and the camel-hands. In the night, a messenger had come from Hakkim Mehdad summoning the Legate and all his men back to Bessa. They had gone at once, leaving their charges to their fate in the desert. One or two of the camel-hands wanted to follow the soldiers, despite Issi’s orders, but faced with the piteous wailing of some of the younger women, they all agreed to help the unfortunates to find a place of safety first. Fernoush and Halima wiped their eyes and thanked the young men prettily, while Zeinab, who was helping to water the camels, watched with amazement. Despite Fernoush’s assurances, she had not expected the men to be so easily swayed.

  Having agreed to take on the role of saviours, the men were ready enough to leave at once, though a little puzzled by the women’s urgency. They were more than puzzled when they learned their intended destination.

  “The mountains! How can you go there?” the skinny, moustached one asked Zeinab. They had finished the watering and were now tightening saddles. “Why not one of the cities?”

  The women had agreed in advance how much of the truth could be allowed. “It’s because they left us so suddenly, without any instructions,” she told him, eyes lowered. “We think Hakkim must want us to die in the desert. So the aunties decided it might be best for us to disappear, at least for a while.”

  “But there’s nothing in the mountains!” The man looked unexpectedly concerned. “How will you live?”

  “There are goats, and other animals,” Zeinab said. She looked up at him. “And you and your brothers must be skilful hunters.”

  “That’s true,” he said, teeth flashing through the moustache. Suddenly animated, he began to tell her about the big gazelle buck he had brought down last month. Fernoush was right, she thought, they can be swayed. Maybe we can make this work after all.

  They were packed and ready to go before the sun was fully over the dunes, the children tumbled out of bed at the last minute and onto the backs of camels. No one would walk today, except for the drivers. The smaller children rode two or three together, with their mothers or elder siblings. If the camel-drivers noticed that there were suddenly more beasts to go around, no one mentioned it in the flurry of departure. Every waterskin was filled, and thirty of the women had each concealed an extra one among their baggage. Neither Zeinab nor Issi knew of another oasis closer than two days away to the south. They would have to make haste for more than one reason.

  They left by the road to the north, leaving a thousand footprints in the soft ground near the waterhole for Hakkim’s men to follow. When the ground hardened and the shifting sand began to drift over their path, they abandoned the road and turned southwest. Zuleika stayed behind with half a dozen other women to cover their tracks at this point, sweeping over the ground with bundles of sacking tied to poles. Zeinab was one of the group. She had not slept all night, but for now she felt as if she could never be still again. She worked side by side with Umayma; the two did not speak, but now and then exchanged glances of complicity. The other women who had taken part in the night’s grim work were riding with their children, holding them close and reminding themselves at every step of what the killing had been for. But her daughter Soraya was old enough to ride with one of her friends, and Umayma’s son was the chosen companion of Prince Jamal.

  When the work was done to Zuleika’s satisfaction, they mounted their camels and rode after the caravan. Zeinab would be needed later on in the journey as a guide, but for now she was glad to stay at the back, out of sight.

  She glanced at Umayma, riding beside her, and saw that she was smiling, as if at a pleasant memory. The sight filled Zeinab with unease. “Are you well, Umi?” she asked cautiously.

  Umayma seemed to consider this.

  “Yes. Yes I am,” she said. “My son is alive, and so am I.” They rode in silence for a while. Then Umayma said abruptly, “Did I ever tell you, my father sold me?”

  “No,” said Zeinab, confused. In fact, she thought she had heard this before, but it was the experience of several of her sister concubines. And Umayma seemed to want to talk.

  “He sold me to a merchant he had dealings with. I was glad to leave the house at first, even though he was a very ugly man. But he didn’t want me for a wife—he took me in his baggage train, as entertainment on the long journeys. He told people I was his daughter. When he came to Bessa, the sultan asked him for me. I think he got some sort of trade agreement in exchange. He said he was sorry to part with me. I was relieved. I hated the desert, or I thought I did. Of course, what I really hated was the merchant. It looks so different now, seeing it as a free woman.”

  Zeinab had not viewed their situation in this light before. Freedom?

  “You may be right,” she temporised. “But before we can live free, don’t forget that we have to find the next waterhole . . .”

  “You’ll find it,” said Umayma with absolute certainty.

  “And then we have to get through the mountains. We don’t even know how we’ll find food and shelter. It’s not going to be easy.”

  “We have Zuleika,” Umayma said. “Sh
e can hunt, and we’ll learn from her. Nothing will stand in her way.”

  Her confidence both impressed and daunted Zeinab. She too had seen Zuleika in action: it was an-awe-inspiring sight, and one that Zeinab planned to forget if she could. But Umayma’s face was alight with the energy of the convert. “She’ll teach us how to live out here,” she said.

  Their luck held, at least for the time being. The plain was not entirely featureless; before the sun reached its height Issi recognized a certain tall rock that had a depression at its base large enough to shade the children through the worst of the day’s heat. The rest of them put up the largest of the tents for shelter. They had made fair time, Issi reckoned, and Gursoon allowed them two full turns of the glass to rest. Zeinab called her daughter Soraya into the tent with her and embraced her fiercely, to the girl’s surprise. Lying beside her daughter, she fell at once into sleep so deep that she only wakened when the dressmaker Farhat came round to shake the laggards two hours later.

  The old servant had brought her a cup of water, which she sipped gratefully. Her mouth was painfully dry, but she knew, none better, how strictly the water must be rationed now. She gave half the cupful to Soraya, and saw with approval how carefully her daughter drank, not gulping, making it last. Perhaps we can learn to live in the hills, she thought. If I can lead us to the next water. She tried again to remember every detail of those two journeys, nearly eighteen years ago, and her throat tightened.

  Farhat came out with the cup, and nodded to Gursoon. “She’s awake,” she said. “Her daughter is with her.”

  “Good,” Gursoon said. “That’ll help to calm her. She’s a good girl, but last night was hard on her. And we need her to get us to that water. Issi says he knows the way, but he’s an old man. I don’t entirely trust his memory.”