Swords of Arabia: Warlord

by Anthony Litton

“But Zahirah, you are not ‘any woman’,” replied Firyal, again startling the younger woman with her frankness. “If you were, I’d not be speaking so to you. You were a wife of the ruling Sheikh, now shortly to marry his favourite brother and the mother of his two sons. You are also…” Firyal paused. “Are you willing, as a mother, to do all you can to aid Talal’s succession, in due course?” she asked.

  “Why, yes, of course, Lady. Anything I could do in honour,” she added carefully.

  Firyal laughed, “Child, there is little a mother wouldn’t do for her child, whether it was within the bounds of her ‘honour’ or not! No – that isn’t meant to mock, merely to show you that I am being open with you. The times we live in, and time itself, now allow for nothing else,” she continued enigmatically. “You say you would do anything to ensure Talal’s succession?” she asked. On the other woman’s nod, she continued, “Would that include supporting Fouad in every way?”

  Stunned, it took all Zahirah’s willpower to maintain her expression of polite interest. She couldn’t know! She couldn’t! Zahirah paled. If Firyal even suspected her plans, she herself would be dead within hours, of that she had no doubt.

  “Could you doubt it, Lady?” she answered calmly and without any give-away hesitation. “The Lord Fouad honoured me by taking me as his wife. And, as you say, he is the father of my sons,” she added.

  “Indeed – and I am aware of the circumstances leading to both,” replied Firyal bluntly. “Zahirah, I am not asking what your feelings are for my son, I have not that right, no one has. But he is surrounded by enemies without and within the kingdom. I know in which camp many reside. I am also aware of the abilities and ambitions of all surrounding my son. All except a very few. You are one of those few, child. And it troubles me. Not for the reasons you think, but because you are one of the most able. Yet I sense something, an ambiguity in you, to put in no higher, about Fouad and his successes,” she paused. “Do you think Fouad is going to win his fight with ibn Saud?” she asked suddenly, with yet another apparent irrelevancy.

  “Why, yes, it would seem so,” replied Zahirah, startled into honesty and still trying to adjust her very Bedouin way of thinking and talking to the one the senior Sheikha was now adopting. “He has regained the town from Mishari, fortified it, both on its landward and seaward sides. He has renewed vital alliances, beaten off ibn Saud, in person on one occasion and his allies on two more, extending his rule far into the desert, over the last four years. So yes, I see him as emerging the victor,” replied Zahirah, increasingly confused as to the purpose and direction of the conversation.

  “I do not,” said Firyal, again, her frankness stunning the younger woman. “Oh yes, I see him fighting and fighting, winning some battles and skirmishes, losing others, re-building alliances, brilliantly creating new ones when the old ones crumble. I see him, even, perhaps, for many years, holding this city and Narash itself. But I do not see him winning. Not finally. So you see, I was serious when I said it matters not who succeeds him. Why would it, if all they have is the dust of a shattered kingdom clinging to their camels’ hooves as they wander, homeless, in the deserts? If they live through the final reckoning at all.”

  “But surely Highness… the prophecy?“ asked Zahirah after a pause.

  Firyal glanced at her strangely, but otherwise continued as though she hadn’t heard. “Zahirah, if a warrior such as Fouad cannot hold Narash, it would be unlikely that anyone, be it Mohammed, Mahmoud, Badr or even Talal, when – if – he grows to manhood, could ever win it back.”

  “What would you have me do, Lady?” asked Zahirah simply, after the longest pause. The time for asking why she was being told these things –these private, dangerous things – had gone. She knew why. Firyal, for some deep reason not yet clear, was seeking her help to avert what she saw as a near-certain catastrophe for her – their – house.

  The older woman, nevertheless, answered her unspoken questions. “There are two reasons I raise this with you. One is that Fouad will not survive if his own house is divided against him.” She raised her hand to stave off Zahirah’s denial. “No, child, as I said, I sense, at best, an ambiguity to my son which can be dangerous in one so close to him. For another, he will be in need of far-sighted, courageous advisors in the coming years. You have proved you have both courage and vision. I would wish them allied to Fouad than not,” she replied with simple honesty.

  “Highness, if you feel I may be – ambiguous – towards the interests of my Lord Fouad, why would you feel any words I say to you to the contrary would be an honest window to my heart rather than a dark cloak masking my deceit?” Zahirah asked quietly after a moment. “Indeed, Lady, why have you not used your influence to have me – moved – from Lord Fouad’s vicinity?” She carefully didn’t use the more loaded word removed, with its connotations of something more sinister, but nonetheless, the unspoken hung, heavy and silent, in the hot, scented air.

  Firyal gazed silently back at her, her protégé. Also the mother of her grandchildren and, so recently, her daughter-in-law. In many ways she saw not the young girl in front of her, but herself so many years ago, when she had first entered the kingdom. Young, headstrong, spirited, fighting against the constraints of a woman’s life. Fighting to gain position, influence, safety for her and hers. Seeking to use the strong spirit which a fate, harsh and arbitrary, it seemed, had placed inside the fettered body that was Arabian woman. She had used her gifts; she had succeeded where many more had failed. Now she answered her younger self.

  “Because your moment of truth has arrived, child, as did mine so many years ago. As yours perhaps almost did, when you rode as the War Queen,” she added quietly.

  Zahirah paled – Firyal knew! No, she realised, she couldn’t, but she suspected. Why then, had she done nothing?

  “All that is past, child”, Firyal said waving her hands in the air. “I cannot know whether you speak the truth – but you have answered me enough. You want Talal to come after his father; that is sufficient. He will not do so if Fouad falls before he reaches manhood. Family politics and the threat of ibn Saud will almost certainly ensure that a man, a full warrior, is chosen. I believe that whether Mahmoud, Badr or Mohammed is chosen our house will fall. They have not the subtlety required over the coming years, perhaps tens of years,” Firyal said frankly.

  “And Talal has, Highness?”

  “I cannot know that – nor, loyal mother that you are, can you yourself,” replied Firyal smiling. “But I do know that if he has you behind him and, in the meantime, Fouad receives your full support and your wisdom, then Talal has at least a chance of succeeding. Succeeding to something other than a ruined city that’s already becoming lost to man’s memory.”

  Zahirah was in what was to turn out be the second biggest quandary in her life. She knew with absolute certainty that one day she would kill Fouad; her oath, made in hatred, would ensure that. She also knew, with an equally absolute certainty, that she would do everything humanly – or inhumanly – necessary to put Talal in his place. She knew also that the woman standing opposite her was skilled in all the ways of men and of events and, even more, in how to shape those men and those events in a way she herself was not able to – yet. Much was still unclear to the young princess, but one thing was as clear as the waters of the springs which lay under the palace, that if the formidable woman standing beside her sensed failure for Fouad without her support, she knew she had only one choice.

  That choice made, she bowed slightly in acceptance. Raising her head so the older woman could see her eyes, she said, “I have no option, Highness. You have the eyes of a hawk and a wisdom I can only dream of. If you see a danger to my son’s future that I can help avert, so be it. You have my word that I will support the Lord Fouad in every way to ensure my son reaches manhood in the place he should be – as his father’s successor to these lands.”

  Chapter 11

  1910 -1911

  As the tall European left the tent’s elaborately decorated audien
ce chamber, Fouad’s face betrayed nothing of his inner thoughts as he exchanged casual pleasantries with their Kuwaiti host. Mohammed, seated beside him was less successful in hiding his feelings, but said nothing. Very aware of his limitations in the fields of either politics or diplomacy, he silently listened to the conversation between his brother and Mubarak, Kuwait’s ruthless and influential ruler.

  Though separated by many miles of desert, the two states were still close enough to share similar interests and concerns. Despite the rivalry inevitable from each having a harbour hungry for trade goods and the wealth they brought, the two sheikhdoms had enough of common interest to often work closely together. This informal arrangement worked surprisingly well, despite Kuwait being a British protectorate and Narash all but the same of the Ottoman.

  As part of this pattern, Sheikh Mubarak had, at Fouad’s request, arranged the meeting just concluded. Fouad had, currently no intention of changing any of the alliances Narash had with other powers in the region, be they Arab or Imperial. Far-sighted as ever, however, he had decided to at least meet some of the representatives of the various powerful interests in the region, against such a time when such contacts may prove useful. Mubarak had accordingly arranged for his Narashi counterpart to meet the British Political Agent stationed in Kuwait, a young military officer who gloried in the name of William Shakespear.

  Fouad smiled, as he recalled his initial surprise on meeting the Englishman for the first time earlier that day. Despite the searing heat, the young official was wearing the stiflingly hot full khaki uniform of a British officer, right down to what the startled Fouad had later discovered were puttees on each ankle. The young Englishman seemed so totally out of place that Fouad was tempted to dismiss him as of little account, despite the huge power he represented. As the discussions progressed, however, he found himself surprisingly impressed by the man. Though young, he showed a thorough grasp of Arabian affairs and a genuine interest in, and knowledge of, the whole area and its various peoples. To his surprise, Fouad found himself enjoying the meeting. As it drew to its close, he was content with the time spent both on the meeting itself and on the efforts to bring it about.

  This was despite nothing of actual substance being discussed. Mubarak had warned Fouad before the meeting, that to be talking, even informally, with a known ally of the Ottoman, was perhaps more than the young Englishman should be doing without the sanction of his superior, the British Political Resident in the Gulf. Fouad himself was less than certain that such sanction hadn’t unofficially been given, perhaps as a sop to himself, by the Political Resident, as that official had himself adroitly avoided meeting Fouad, even though informally approached via third parties, on several occasions. As a result of this studied detachment, the meeting with his young subordinate, arranged on neutral land between the Kuwaiti and Narashi borders, had been, of necessity, both brief and empty of all but generalities and platitudes.

  “Why do you value the time so spent?” Mohammed later asked his brother, puzzled at the bland utterances and the vagueness which descended when any issue of substance threatened to arise.

  He was to ask the same question after each of the other two informal meetings between Shakespear and his brother held over the following months.

  Fouad’s answer was always the same. “Because the day may come when we wish to talk to them of important matters and it is always of value to know men on the other side, and for them to know us.” Fouad was satisfied that both were being achieved in preparation for a day that may never come but, if it did, may be on them all with little warning.

  *

  “The time that we foresaw has come,” Fouad said grimly, a year later, as he looked around the small group gathered in his apartments. They all nodded, none any keener than he to discuss what they must now discuss.

  Mohammed waited quietly for his brother to begin the discussion. Fouad insisted he be present, though he himself knew he would contribute little of value to any discussion. He was, though, as always, intrigued to watch how the others would perform, especially his wife, Zahirah. In the almost three years they’d been married he’d attended numerous such gatherings and he’d never lost his admiration for how she conducted herself. She never, ever, stepped beyond what was proper, in either demeanour or speech. Yet, he was aware, from the very first such meeting he’d attended, that what she said weighed heavily with his brother who frequently took her advice; advice which, her husband acknowledged with a wry mixture of pride and irritation, was rarely wrong.

  “Yes,” mused Fouad, breaking into Mohammed’s reverie, “and I think this time, will be the last; I sense events starting to move swiftly.”

  “I agree, my son,” Firyal said. “We must finally decide.”

  Watching her, Mohammed was dismayed at how frail she looked and how feeble her voice now was. A voice once described by her adoring husband as sounding as sweet as honey and as welcome as the flow of the coolest water was now slightly ragged as she fought for breath to continue.

  Zahirah, correctly interpreting the older woman’s look, continued for her. “The Lady Firyal has received information that the Ottomans are fading fast in far off lands; lands which mean more to them than does Arabia.”

  Isaac ben Hassan, the late and totally unlamented Ali ben Sa’ad’s replacement as Chamberlain, nodded. He, too, was receiving worrying rumours of their major ally’s growing troubles in far-off Europe. Although he was irritated that his information always arrived slightly later than either Firyals’s or Zahirah’s, and usually with much less detail, it was still enough for him to share their concerns.

  Fouad nodded. He had more than enough faith in them all to accept their analysis of the weakening of their once all-powerful ally in lands which held no interest for him. In Arabia itself, which did interest him, he himself had seen, only a handful of years previously, the utter rout of the Ottoman at the hands of ibn Saud when he repelled their invasion of the Nejd, deep in the interior. Whether this and similar reverses were merely the temporary setbacks inevitable for any great empire, or the symptom of something, deeper, more fatal, was what the day’s gathering was about.

  “So, do we finally move to leave the tents of the Ottoman? Seek British protection?” Fouad asked.

  “As you know, Lord, the concern I have is that, weak or not, the Turks are still our neighbours; they still rule in al Hasa,” Isaac ventured into the small silence that followed Fouad’s words. And have troops enough to invade us, should we seem to be betraying them, he thought, but wisely didn’t say.

  “And their yoke is a light one,” Zahirah, added, nodding her agreement with the chamberlain’s words.

  “The British would not be as easy an overlord. Mubarak in Kuwait is continually complaining of their interfering in his affairs,” observed Mohammed with a smile, fully aware of how their slippery northern neighbour resented being held to account by anyone for anything he did.

  Fouad laughed, “I think my fellow ruler exaggerates. And, in any event, he’s been happy enough with the ‘overbearing British’, as he calls them, whenever ibn Saud has threatened his borders these past years.”

  “And the stories of our relatives in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and the rest, show they find the British, though ever vigilant and ruthless if their own interests are threatened, rarely interfere in their internal affairs,” added Firyal.

  “Even so, when they do interfere, it’s with far more vigour than the Ottomans ever have,” said Isaac, fully aware of the circumstances which led to the British brutally deposing a nearby coastal sheikh in favour of his son.

  “A worthy change,” laughed Fouad, who, as with many sheikhs on the Eastern coast, had watched his fellow ruler’s eccentricities with some amusement but more alarm. “Had they not done so, it is highly likely that the family would have moved against him, with the same result achieved but more messily.”

  “Why now, Lord? Zahirah suddenly asked. “The decision is one that must be made one day, we all agree, but has anything occu
rred to wish you to resolve the issue now?” she added, seeing the others watching her.

  Fouad nodded, unsurprised at the question. “You are right, Lady.” He paused a moment before continuing. “It is partly the clearly growing weakness, the slow decay of their empire, we’ve talked about, but also because I am hearing rumours – strong rumours – that ibn Saud is planning to attack al Hasa, attack the Turks in al Hofuf, itself.”

  “Not even ibn Saud would be that foolhardy, surely!” Mohammed exclaimed. To his warrior’s mind anyone who attacked the strong walls of the town, the major one in the neighbouring al Hasa region, and the even stronger ones of its citadel, and with just Bedouin troops, must be mad.

  “Maybe not today, or even tomorrow, but one day he must, if he’s to rebuild what he sees as his family’s empire,” said his half-brother flatly. “Remember, the al Saud have twice ruled everything from the Nejd right up to our coast here in the east.”

  “And both times been thrown out by the Ottoman!” scoffed Mohammed dismissively.

  “Even so, before that happened, Narash paid dearly,” Firyal noted sadly, as she recalled the bitter stories of the hardships both occupations had brought upon the region. They were both times when not only their family had suffered at the hands of their hereditary enemy, but when many of their still loyal people had also paid a heavy price.

  “And we must ensure such violation is never repeated,” Fouad said into the short silence, his mother’s words had caused. “As you know, after Mishari’s treachery, I swore I would never again be driven from our lands. If my fate is to die here, so be it, but I will never, ever, again flee before any aggressor, be it from within the family or without. And even more so should that aggressor be from the al Saud. So, as I do not intend martyrdom in the immediate future, we must ensure we have strong allies!” he smiled to lighten the atmosphere a little.

  “Would our seeking to become allied to the British be seen as a betrayal of our Ottoman allies?” Mohammed asked suddenly. “However strong our reasons?” he added hurriedly.