The Steel Seraglio

by Mike Carey

  His own little son, Dip, who had started to stay in the seraglio with his friends overnight, begged to sleep at home again—the master had been angry and scared them all, he said. He was a spindly, fragile child, with his mother’s big eyes, and easily frightened. Rashad hated to see the boy unhappy, and tried to calm him with treats: cheese pastries or his favourite sesame sweets. But there was little time for making pastries. The sultan’s guard now drilled constantly outside the palace, and had to be fed twice a day. The calls for Mahalabiyyah became ever more frequent.

  Old Mahoor, who had been floor-sweeper since the days of the sultan’s father, said that Al-Bokhari had shouted like this in the days of his youth, when he was at war with all his neighbours. Alas, the old man added darkly, he had lost the skills of war since then. All his soldiers would not be enough to protect the city now. And so it proved.

  3. Lentil Porridge

  Take a handful of split lentils for each person. Soak in water. When the water is absorbed add a little more, just enough to cover the lentils, and some salt. Put the pot on the fire and cook until the lentils are soft. Serve in bowls, with hard bread.

  “And that’s all?” Rashad had exclaimed, when the servants of Hakkim Mehdad came to him with orders for the new sultan’s first meal in the palace. For a moment he could not disguise his shock. The second and third cooks stared in outrage.

  It was not that any of them wished to celebrate. There had been flames and screaming for much of the night. Old Mahoor had picked up a cleaver and rushed out shouting, and had not returned. The two boys, full of idiot bravado, had tried to follow him, but Rashad had given them bread knives and told them to protect Adit and the kitchen girls, who had run to hide in the drying room. Then he had waited in the small kitchen with Karif and Suleiman, none of them speaking, staring at the walls as darkness fell. The screams outside became less frequent, and he tried to convince himself that none of them had been the voices of children, and that the invaders would not trouble to attack the seraglio.

  When silence finally fell, and the light began to return, the three of them ventured out. The boys were sleeping by the drying room door, and there was no sound from within. They did not dare to go into the palace, from where most of the screams had come, so they looked out into the courtyard. It was as they had left it: the pots of herbs, the dew-catcher and the covered fire pit. They went behind the building, towards the smell of smoke, treading softly over the dark expanse of the exercise yard and through the arch to the prison and the guards’ quarters.

  Rashad stumbled upon the first body almost at once. He could not tell who it was; most of his face was gone. But the second was Faisal, one of the guards who sometimes loitered in the courtyard with his wine flask, and nearby was his friend, the fat one, whose name Rashad could never remember. The fourth dead man was Mahoor, lying face down with the cleaver still in his hand. All of them were cold. Rashad had worked with slaughtered animals all his life, but now he turned his eyes away from the wounds, like toothless mouths in their bare arms and throats. He had some idea of carrying the old man back to the kitchen, and gestured to Suleiman and Karif to help him, when they heard voices from the burned guard-house. They hid behind the arch and watched as armed men came out and took Mahoor and the others away.

  Rashad could not think any more. His blood seemed to have set like jelly in his veins. As soon as the men had gone he followed his assistants back to the kitchen and waited there until morning. Then those same men had come in, black-clad and with their heads wrapped in scarves after the manner of the Cult, and told him that he was to prepare a meal for the new sultan.

  But such a meal! Even through his numbness, he felt the inadequacy of it. A conqueror at the moment of his victory, with Mahoor’s blood still on his hands: there should have been a herd slaughtered, a hundred barrels emptied, to match that enormity. But Hakkim Mehdad ate no meat, and drank only water. As the soldiers left, Rashad caught the look that passed between Suleiman and Karif behind their backs: what sort of master is this?

  Rashad was staring down into the dull mass of soaking lentils while his assistants sulked in the corner, loudly wondering what was to become of them, when the Lady Zuleika crept into the kitchen to borrow knives. Everyone in the seraglio was safe, she told them. The children had been frightened in the night, but no one had been hurt and they were now sound asleep, Dip among them. The reassurance made a new man of the cook. For an hour the slaughter ceased to touch him—his son had been spared. He hastened to make up the porridge, though his professional pride led him to dress the lentils with butter and some spices before serving them. For this he was whipped later in the day, along with his assistants, to teach them the value of absolute obedience to their new master.

  So it was that the last time Rashad saw his son, he was unavoidably short with him. It was not just the pain in his back, which burned like hot iron when he bent to embrace the boy. It was the shame of the punishment—to be whipped like an apprentice!—that made him gruff and somewhat distant. He felt that his son must see his humiliation in his face. If he had spoken any of his feelings, he might have wept. Instead he said, “Well, a man can live on dry bread too, eh?”—meaning it as a joke. Dip gazed at him with solemn, anxious eyes. The next day the seraglio, with their children, were sent away as a gift to the Caliph of Perdondaris. Dip went with them, and the cook watched him go with a desolate satisfaction: at least he would be safe. At least he would never see his father beaten.

  4. Goat Stew

  Skin and gut the goat. Keep the skin: there are many uses for it. The head and feet should be put aside for soup. Throw the rest of the meat into the great pot with some salt, cover with water and boil until soft. It is permitted to add vegetables or barley to the stew, but not spices.

  Now there were no children in the kitchen, and no women either. Lame Adit, who scoured the pots, was sent away, and so were the three girls; from now on even the delicate work of plucking chickens would be in the rough hands of the boys. In the turmoil of those first few days Rashad did not realise the completeness of the new sultan’s changes. There were hangings, and a mass burial—and then the remaining soldiers, who had been Bokhari Al-Bokhari’s guard, were set to rebuild their old quarters, and became the guard of Hakkim Mehdad. But the black-robed men, Hakkim’s special army, were quartered inside the palace, in what had been the ladies’ house and the rooms of the women servants. From now on no woman was to enter the palace, Hakkim decreed; neither queen nor servant.

  The kitchen became a place of silence. Rashad had often been irritated by the lame woman’s gossip, and the girls’ ceaseless chatter and giggling, but now he missed it all. The boys were sullen, and Karif and Suleiman blamed him for the beating of the first day. At the start all of them lived on a knife’s edge while they tried to guess the mind of the new sultan, to discover which of their skills were still permissible and which would now be punished. There was no more roasting or basting with oil. Sweet stuff of all kinds, they learned, weakened the spirit, and spices were an invitation to the demons of artifice and falsehood. Alcohol was the worst of abominations: their second beating came when Karif was stopped with a skin of new wine, though it was meant only for a sauce. Eight soldiers carried out a search of the kitchens and cellar, and threw all of Bokhari Al-Bokhari’s cherished wines into the fire pit. The jugs broke; the flasks were slashed with swords; and as the wine vapours filled the air, the soldiers threw in burning coals, which flared with a blue light and turned the sweet fumes to bitterness.

  That night, Rashad painfully lifted down all the great jars of pepper, cardamom, cumin and cassia, wrapped them in oiled cloth and buried them deep in the ground behind the fire pit, which would not be used again.

  Their work, at least, was undemanding. Lentils and dry bread made up most of the new sultan’s diet and that of his trusted ministers. The soldiers, who needed to keep up their strength, were allowed meat three times a week, but this was to b
e goat, which was cheap and did not require haggling with the merchants for the best cuts. There was no good cut on a goat, Rashad considered. Three times a week he made huge pots of stew, and the rest of the time bread and pottage.

  For a while he carried out small rebellions. He would find quails or pistachios or new carrots still on sale in the market and smuggle the precious ingredients back to make the old meals just for the five of them, cooking over the fire in the small kitchen so that the scents would not spread. He kept in his heart the hope that his son was safe and happy with the ladies, and that he might see them again one day. But no word ever came from Perdondaris, and rumours began to spread that the seraglio had not been sent to him after all, that they had all been abandoned in the desert, or killed there. As his hope faded, the small mouthfuls of freedom began to lose their taste for him. Soon, he feared, they would all be living on dry bread.

  5. Baked Fish with Sauce

  Take one fish for each man. If they are dried fish, soak them a little in water first, and do not use salt. Bake the fish in a pan, covering it so that the steam does not escape.

  Make a thin paste of sesame seeds and oil. If there is yoghurt, this can be added. Garlic and lemon juice would also be good. When the fish are almost cooked, pour the sauce over them, then bake for a little longer, until browned at the edges. Serve with fried onions.

  It had been a long time since fish of any kind had been seen in the market. As the rule of Hakkim Mehdad continued, more and more things disappeared: some outlawed, some whose sellers no longer came. There seemed to be fewer visitors to the city all the time; by the third year of Mehdad’s reign, only traders—and precious few of those. And if trade had fallen off, so too had demand. The old fast and feast times were no longer observed—unless, as Suleiman sourly joked, they were now meant to take every day as a fast.

  There would be no more quinces or medlars to make jam for the new-year cakes; no more sweets to throw to the dancers at midsummer. No more dancing or singing, come to that: either could get you whipped. It seemed there was a new prohibition every week, and the townspeople had started to throw angry looks at the palace, in which even the servants were included. Nothing could be said aloud, of course. But when the two boys came back from the market with mud on the flour-bags and Walid’s eye blackening, Rashad decided that he would do the shopping from now on. He still had friends in the town, his wife’s family and some of the grown-up children of the old sultan’s ladies.

  The marketplace was nearly deserted. Only the flour-seller and the blacksmith kept their old booths nearest the palace: most of the other merchants who had once fought for spots there had left, gone to other towns or different occupations. Those who remained preferred to lay out their oilcloths and blankets around the square, away from the shade of the awnings, but away too from the enclosed spaces where people could stand unseen. There were too many black-robed and scarfed men about, listening and watching for any sign of evil-doing—and others, without scarves and less visible, who listened just as hard.

  Rashad bought cheese, milk and a sack of the hated lentils. Then he turned away from the palace, and walked down several side-streets, checking now and then to see that no one followed him. The house he made for had a prosperous look still; its owner had been a merchant. He had married the daughter of Lady Gursoon, and that alone would have made the cook think of him as a friend. But he had also been a wine-seller, one of Al-Bokhari’s most valued suppliers, and a guest of the kitchen in the time when they had invited guests. Now he roamed the country, selling animal skins and embroidered blankets, and whatever else he could. And whenever he came home for a time, Rashad would visit him and hear his news of the world beyond Bessa.

  The merchant’s wife came to the door with her two young sons clinging to her legs. She greeted Rashad with a cry of pleasure, and unveiled once they were safely inside—they had known each other since her childhood. She had grown to be a striking woman, as tall as he was himself. Her husband looked tired, and older than Rashad remembered, but he jumped up instantly to embrace his friend.

  They sat together and drank mint tea while the woman played with her twins in the other room. The sound of their shrill voices filled Rashad with sadness; they reminded him powerfully of Dip, the last time he had seen him. He would be twice their age now, if he still lived. But there had never been any news of the seraglio, and Rashad put the thought away from him. His friend had been to the north, he said, among the hill tribes, who fought constantly among themselves but were glad to buy his skins whenever they stopped. He thanked Rashad for the goat skins he had bought last time, which had fetched a good price. He offered him half of it, which Rashad refused, and the two men bickered amiably for a while. Both of them knew that a man with two secure meals a day does not take money from a man without, particularly a father of young children—but there were courtesies to be observed, which were more important than ever at a time like this, Rashad thought.

  As they talked, it seemed to Rashad that the merchant was oddly constrained in his manner, even nervous, as if something were weighing on his mind which he did not like to mention. It was all too common a happening these days, but the cook was sorry to see his old friend so afflicted. Questioning delicately, he assured himself that the family were all in good health, and that the trip to the north had brought nothing more than a good profit. That meant that whatever troubled his friend had arisen in Bessa, and he would not speak of it to a man who lived in the palace. Rashad sighed, but he understood too well. He finished his tea, pressed the merchant’s hand and took his leave.

  The merchant’s wife met him at the door, holding a package. Rashad could see at once that she was as tense as her husband had been; he said something meaningless and prepared to leave her, but she grasped his arm to prevent him. This was unheard of. If they were outside, the contact could have them both arrested. Rashad started and tried to pull away, but she held him fast, smiling into his face. And for a moment it seemed to him that she was a child again: little Mayisah with the green eyes, who had teased him and wheedled from him when he was a kitchen boy.

  “This is for you,” she said. “A present—to remember my mother.”

  Then she released his arm and he was outside in the street.

  He did not dare look at what she had given him till he was safely back in the kitchen. It was one of the cloths she embroidered for her husband to sell: a small one, but intricately worked. And folded in it, a smaller package of oilcloth, with a familiar, pungent smell. He unwrapped it with shaking hands.

  Dried fish from the river villages; five of them. He had not tasted one for years.

  6. Bread and Onions

  Slice the onions and fry them in a little fat. Serve with hard bread.

  If there is no fat, or if a fire cannot be made, slice the onions very fine. Soak them in a little water to take away the worst of the sting, then add salt.

  It was not that Gursoon’s daughter had said anything to give him hope. She had told him only to remember her mother, which he did anyway, in friendship and sorrow. It was her smile, that look from their childhood. From that day, hope woke again in the cook, more painful than loss.

  When he went out for supplies the streets seemed quieter each day, the market stalls less frequented as the patrolling men in black scarves became more arrogant in their power. Even women could be punished: one was beaten in the street for calling out to a young man; another for showing her hair. Blind Hama the beggar was hanged for using threatening words about the sultan, though everyone knew the old man was mad and would not kill a flea. And every now and then a man failed to turn up at his workshop or stall in the morning, and was not seen again. There were dark rumours of hidden prison cells, or worse—though perhaps, Rashad told himself, such men had simply left the city in search of a pleasanter life elsewhere. It was certain that Hakkim Mehdad was concerned about the traffic in and out of Bessa; some said that he feared attack f
rom an outside enemy, though no one could say who it was. There were guards at the city gates, taking note of all who passed, peering into carts, and forbidding some to enter and others to leave.

  For all that, there were still comings and goings. A few weeks after his visit to the merchant, Rashad went to the market and found the old flour-seller gone. His place was taken by a beardless boy who said he was old Abdullah’s wife’s sister’s son, taking care of the stall while his aunt and uncle visited their family in another town. Rashad had known the old man for years and had never heard of a nephew, only a niece who had been one of the old sultan’s ladies. But the boy was polite, and besides, had a familiar look to him. Rashad bought his flour and did not complain at the high price—he saw that there was less for sale than there had been even a week ago. Perhaps it was as well that people were managing to leave. Hakkim Mehdad’s men somehow saw to it that grain and flour still arrived, and there were the goats: a herd of them had reduced the plain beyond the western gate to stubble. But there was little else, and many in the city were hungry. In the kitchen, the shelves were empty most of the time, and Rashad and the others lived on lentils like their master, or on bread and onions. Karif and Suleiman and he had become comrades-in-arms of a sort, trusting only each other and working by unspoken agreement to protect the two boys, who had grown into great gangly young men, not lazy, but headstrong and loud-mouthed. They were always incurring punishment of one sort or another, and seemed proud of the marks of their beatings. Rashad feared for them, but it seemed they could not be taught caution.

  He bore it all in silence, hope and fear alike. But outside, in the streets or the marketplace, he felt that something was changing. There were still few people about; at least, few that he recognized. Perhaps there were more women, heavily veiled and averting their faces from all passers-by, not just the men in black scarves. He saw a few boys, none known to him, walking fast from one house to another. No one loitered on the streets; there was no stopping for greeting or conversation. Of course, people were cautious, and rightly so. But Rashad could feel something more, a sense of . . . purpose?