The Steel Seraglio

by Mike Carey

  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.”

  “No,” Anwar Das agreed. “In this place, and at this time, they are for me to decide. I have won the ear of the Caliph Kephiz Bin Ezvahoun, and I don’t mean in a game of hazard. For the time being—who knows how long it will last?—I have his permission to broker a peace on his behalf.

  “But let us be clear, Rudh Silmon. These matters do have a direct bearing on your business. Peace with your great neighbour means an opening of trade routes kept closed for whole generations. Only imagine how far you could expand your empire, and how great the house of Silmon could become!”

  Silmon was imagining precisely this: Anwar Das’s words merely played, like the fingers of a skilled musician, across the already tautened strings of his thoughts.

  Still, the Keeper rebelled against the price that was being demanded of him. “But what you’re asking in return would threaten both the city and my enterprises!” he protested.

  Anwar Das met this objection with a smiling countenance. “Only if Bessa entered into direct competition with you,” he said. “A second treaty could easily be drawn up, not between Bessa and Susurrut but between Bessa’s merchants and yourself. A treaty not of peace but of trade and commercial strategy. If the cities of the plain were imagined as one enormous confection, concocted of fruit and sugar and covered in glazed pastry, we could agree which slices went to you and which to Bessa.”

  Rudh Silmon examined this comparison, and found it both potent and suggestive. “That might be done,” he agreed. “But once I give you what you ask for, you’d be bound by nothing but your word.”

  And there they were, at last, at the point which they had always been destined to reach. This time what Anwar Das took from his sash was indeed a knife, but in the numinous strangeness of that moment, Rudh Silmon did not quail from it. “We would be bound only by our word,” Das agreed. “Excellency, let me show you what the word of Bessa means.” He laid his right hand down upon the table, palm down, and poised the knife above it.

  “I swear,” Anwar Das said, “on my rank and eminence as Bessa’s ambassador to Susurrut, that at your request I will cut any finger from this hand—including the forefinger, though it would be with some sadness because I play the buzuq in a small way and it’s a lot harder to strum with that particular finger missing.”

  The Keeper looked from the hand to the knife, and thence to Anwar Das’s face. He saw only calm, cold resolution there, and he did not doubt that the ambassador meant every word he said. “I am as serious in this,” Das told him, “as I am in everything I’ve said to you. In the past, diplomats have been famed for their lies and equivocations. The diplomats of Bessa are as truthful as priests, and there are no priests in Bessa because the Increate has not decided yet what to make of us. You may believe everything I say, Rudh Silmon. My words follow my heart, and my deeds follow my words. I, who lived for years as a thief and a murderer, swear this to you in solemn sooth.”

  Silmon blinked.

  “The—the forefinger then,” he said.

  Anwar Das’s hand came down, and he began to carve.

  “No! No!” Silmon cried, hastily. “I require no amputations, and the inlay on that table is of cedar and mahogany! I believe you, Anwar Das. I trust your word.”

  “I am heartily glad of it,” Anwar Das said. The knife had already broken the flesh at the base of his finger, and a single drop of blood welled there like a ruby. “Then perhaps we might turn to the items on my list.”

  When he left Susurrut, Anwar Das rode at the head of a caravan of forty camels. They bore in their saddlebags many tens of thousands of seeds and seed pods, from which could be grown crops of cassia and cinnamon, marjoram and cumin, fennel, nutmeg and cardamom, and a dozen spices besides. Rudh Silmon had not stinted, and indeed had added in—after a visible struggle with himself—an additional pannier of unimpressive red-brown seeds which he forbore to name. “Give them,” he had told Anwar Das, “to your sultana. Tell her it is a gift from the house of Silmon.”

  But since Bessa had no sultana, and since the Lady Gursoon didn’t know a seed pod from a stamen, he gave the pannier instead to Farhat, who by this time was so busy setting up Bessa’s trade guilds that she slept standing up and could not hold a conversation lasting longer than ten heartbeats.

  When she saw the contents of the pannier, Farhat gave a small yelp, like the cry of a woman at the moment of sexual release, and looked up at Anwar Das with eyes into whose corners tears threatened to come.

  “What are they?” Anwar Das asked, mystified at the vehemence of her reaction.

  “Zaferan,” she whispered. “Crocus seeds! Oh Anwar Das, you have done a great thing.”

  “And without losing a single finger,” Anwar Das added, which mystified the lady considerably.

  They sorted out the irrigation in the second winter after the fall of Hakkim, and in the third summer, there was a swathe of desert west of Bessa where the gold of endless sand gave way to the purple of crocus fields—and thence, by arcane ministrations, to the deeper, infinitely more precious gold of saffron.

  And that is how Anwar Das fulfilled his commission.

  The Uses of Diplomacy

  Some years after the women began to rule Bessa, it happened that Suhayb bin Hassan, the sultan of Raza, took it into his mind to attack the city. He had delayed thus far in the expectation that one of Bessa’s closer neighbours would undertake the task. The town might be small, but it was known to be prosperous and undiminished by wars; and how hard could it be to take such a trinket from the hands of women? However, the local sultans seemed content to leave the prize unclaimed, and one year, when his own lands were free from unrest, Suhayb decided to act. The town would be a welcome addition to his holdings, with its wells and grazing land
; besides, it might provide a useful base from which to renew the attack on his ancient enemy Sahir bin Hussein, sultan of Gharia, which was as far from Bessa to the southeast as Raza was to the east. The two sultans were cousins, and bound to each other by a long family tradition of rancour and betrayal: this new acquisition would give him a decided advantage, Suhayb thought. So he laid his plans, and sent spies to Bessa to discover the town’s weaknesses.

  Now it happened by coincidence that Sahir bin Hussein, impelled perhaps by a family likeness to Suhayb in habits of thought, came to the same conclusion at the same time. So it was that Zuleika, chief of the city guard in Bessa, suddenly became aware of an influx of strangers asking suspicious questions in the markets and the Jidur. By offering hospitality and strong wine to some of the younger and more swaggering of the men, her agents quickly discovered the involvement of Raza. The sultan of Gharia was a cannier man, and his operatives were both fewer and better trained. But one of them had studied at the school of Assassins, and Zuleika recognized him as he stood quietly among the gossipers at the flour-merchant’s stall, gazing about him in innocent interest and buying nothing. A few discreet enquiries furnished her with the name of his current employer. The next day she called a special meeting of Bessa’s council and laid her information before them.

  “So it seems we have two enemies,” she concluded. “From what we know of the two cousins’ histories they’re unlikely to be allied against us; in fact it’s most likely that neither knows of the other’s interest.”

  “Certainly Ibrahim from Raza had no idea,” put in Bethi, who had accompanied her. “He thought his master would walk in and take Bessa from us single-handed.”

  “He said that?”

  “It was somewhat muffled,” Bethi said reflectively. “But I’m sure those were his words.”

  “Our course is clear, then,” said Anwar Das. “We let each of them know of the other’s interest, arrange for a few insults, and let them fight it out between themselves.”

  “No,” said Gursoon. “No one will go to war because of us. Besides, these things have a way of spreading. I think we must settle this by diplomacy.”

  “My father was a friend of the father of Suhayb bin Hassan,” said Imtisar. “I met them both once, before I came to Bessa. If the council will permit me, I think I could make him see reason.”

  The Lady Imtisar set out in state a few days later, to pay a visit to the sultan of the city of Raza. The messengers sent ahead of the party informed him that their sultana had intended to send friendly embassies to all the cities around Bessa; affairs of state had prevented her from offering this courtesy to the illustrious Suhayb bin Hassan until now, and she was anxious to remedy the oversight.

  Suhayb’s first thought was to turn away the embassy: what empty pretension, in a city that was about to become his subject! But he reflected that he had not opened hostilities yet, and did not want to alert his prey too early; besides, the message was delivered with a very proper humility. “Illustrious” was an especially happy touch, he thought.

  He was appalled, the following evening, to see what looked like an army approaching the city gates. The Bessan ambassador was flanked by a hundred armed men, all of whose beasts needed immediate stabling. There were a further six camels bearing gifts for the sultan: bales of fine cloth, intricately worked tapestries and flasks of golden wine. The Ambassador herself, a tall and stately woman, was dressed in richly embroidered silks, a veil concealing all but her dark eyes. She was accompanied by six younger women, all of queenly bearing, whose more diaphanous veils half-revealed faces of dazzling beauty.

  Imtisar had been very precise about these attendants. They included Jumanah, whom the ambassador had come to love almost as a daughter, and Jumanah’s bosom companion Najla. There was also Binan, who was now in paid employment as hairdresser to the three ladies: a statuesque young woman of surpassing skill in her profession but very few words. “Binan? Are you sure?” Zuleika had asked. “I don’t see her as a diplomat.”

  “Trust me,” Imtisar replied.

  The six ladies stood demurely behind the Ambassador, maintaining propriety, as she sat with the sultan in his audience chamber and accepted from his servant a cup of her own city’s wine. Suhayb was finding himself somewhat at a loss. There was a protocol for such meetings—ritual courtesies followed by empty promises; threats, veiled or otherwise; competitive displays of wealth or force leading to the climbdown and acquiescence of one side, usually the guest. But the Bessan Ambassador was not adhering to the rules. She smiled and asked him about the grain crop in Raza, which had been bountiful that year. She seemed genuinely interested, and none of Suhayb’s conversational sallies could distract her. Worse, whenever for a moment his eyes strayed from those of the Ambassador, he could not avoid the sight of her retinue: standing like guards, but with the faces and bodies of peris. The very air of his chamber seemed full of a subtle and insidious perfume.

  “So, lady,” he said, essaying for the third or fourth time to turn the conversation his own way. “Your guard . . . an impressive body of men, and well turned out. But such a force: are you not taking from your city’s defences?”

  The Ambassador laughed, like the tinkling of little bells. “Oh, it’s true, I suppose,” she said. “I begged them not to send so many, but Bessa values the safety of its envoys. But we have many more. And then, of course, there’s always the citizen army.”

  “The citizen . . . ?” said Suhayb, gripped by a sudden unease.

  “Oh yes,” said the lady. “Had you not heard? Every man and woman in the city is a trained soldier. And every child over fourteen. That’s how we took the city in the first place, of course. And in recognition of their victory, the sultana decreed that everyone would have a say in making the laws of the city, through the Jidur; so now the citizens will defend her with their lives. It’s worked very well, we found.”

  The sultan was momentarily speechless. The young women behind the Ambassador, as if sensing his discomfort, stood a little more to attention: he saw the breasts of the tallest shifting beneath her tight tunic. “Your . . . attendants too?” he managed. “They fight?”

  The lady laughed again. “Trained soldiers, every one of them,” she assured him. “Though a friend such as yourself, Excellency, will never see them doing anything so ungentle.”

  “It must be a barbarous place!” the sultan exclaimed. Strangely, the monstrous knowledge did not make the young women one whit less attractive. The tallest of them bared a flash of teeth in what looked like a smile, and for a moment Suhayb’s gaze was caught in hers like a fly in amber.

  “Somewhat barbarous,” the Ambassador agreed cheerfully. “But very safe. And also most comfortable.” She raised her cup to him, and the sultan signalled his servant for more: it was, indeed, excellent wine. “I entreat you to be our guest soon, Excellency; you must allow us to return your hospitality.”

  This time the tallest of the women did smile at him, in a way that indicated he would be made very welcome indeed.

  When the delegation left the next day, the sultan was unwontedly thoughtful. It seemed to him, on mature reflection, that Bessa might, after all, have its uses as an ally. Of course, he could not agree a treaty with women—not in his own house—and the lady had shown too much delicacy to suggest such a thing. Nevertheless, he resolved that he would indeed visit Bessa, and soon. The promised welcome of the tall young woman should not be spurned. And who knew how many others like her the city might hold?

  So, from a combination of caution and lust, the sultan of Raza suspended his plans to attack the city.

  The Lady Imtisar’s approach to Sahir bin-Hussein, sultan of Gharia, was more circumspect. The initial messengers were less florid in their greetings; the gifts were fewer, the trappings of the embassy less rich, and while the escort of a hundred men was still felt to be prudent, Imtisar was accompanied by only two ladies.


  As before, the sultan received the Ambassador and her attendants in a private audience chamber. He kept his vizier with him, however, the same graduate of the assassins’ school that Zuleika had recognized back in the market of Bessa. This man was his chief adviser, and had been the subject of much discussion between Imtisar, Zuleika and Gursoon before the second embassy was dispatched.

  “He’s known as Kedr,” Zuleika told them. “It’s not the name he had when I knew him, but that’s usual in his profession.”

  “Which is?”

  Zuleika shrugged. “Fixer. Enforcer. One who removes the barriers to a man’s ambition, for a high price. He was known as a sneaky little bastard even by the assassins’ standards, and particularly mercenary. If he is the one making Gharia’s policy, the sultan must value profit above all else.”

  “Is he clever?” Gursoon asked.

  “Up to a point. He trusts no one and does his own investigating; that’s bad. But he has his blind spots. He thinks everyone is stupider than himself. And in the market that day I looked him in the face, and he didn’t know me.”

  In the sultan’s audience room, the vizier looked at the Ambassador with a professional indifference, and at her ladies not at all. The sultan himself seemed barely more impressed, though he spared Najla an appraising glance. But he greeted the women civilly enough, and responded to the Ambassador’s queries about harvests and prices, while plying her with her own wine.

  “We are forging trade links with all our neighbours,” she told him, accepting her fourth cup. “Free trade is so important, don’t you think?”

  “Indeed, lady,” the sultan said. “Though I fear that our current suppliers will not welcome the competition.”

  The Ambassador seemed not to hear him. “For instance,” she went on, her speech slurring a little in her enthusiasm, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but we’re about to form an alliance with the city of your cousin, the esteemed Suhayb bin Hassan.”