In the Palace of the Khans (21 page)

“He works another trap,” whispered Taeela.

They waited until the old man came back and crawled through the opening. Taeela followed. Nigel crawled in backwards, using the cloth-roll to smooth out the dust at the entrance. He closed and locked the slabs and helped Taeela lift Fohdrahko to his feet. Already visibly tiring again, the old man tottered ahead into the darkness. Taeela followed close behind, holding her torch pointed to shine just in front of the dragging feet. Nigel came last, still hauling the cloth-roll behind him.

This passage was different. Instead of a vertical wall on the left, the torchlight showed the base of an arched surface curving away into a wider darkness. Light glimmered a little further ahead. When he reached it Nigel found it came from a spy-hole looking down through the ceiling of a meeting room, with chairs arranged around a large table, all lit by the afterglow of sunset coming through unseen windows.

He caught up with the others as they turned a corner. Now the passage, pitch dark, ran between two vertical walls, as narrow as before. A little way along it Fohdrahko halted, leaned his back against the wall and slid himself down into a sitting position.

“He must rest,” whispered Taeela. “It is a long way to climb down. We practise this three times. Fofo says I must know to do it alone.”

She took a wrapped bar out of one of her bulging pockets, broke off a piece and handed it to Fohdrahko, then another for herself and offered the rest to Nigel. It was some kind of energy food, dates and grain and honey. She switched off her torch and he settled beside her and nibbled slowly in the dark, thinking about the women working at the blood-stained stairs, and that large life, that overwhelming personal presence, gone, its last traces being scrubbed away while the little lives around it carried on.

He himself was one of those lives. The horror of the event, the near-panic of their escape, the long, tense afternoon, the worry about his parents—for the moment all that seemed to have happened to someone else. He'd had as much as he could cope with. That bit of him was numb. Just another little life.

And this wasn't the first time. Again and again blood, the blood of khans perhaps, must have stained those stairs. The spy-hole he had looked through had been splayed like an arrow-slit in a castle, and the hole itself, hidden among the ornamental curlicues of the Great Hall, had been large enough for a musket to be aimed through … How many, many times through the long generations of khans had their eunuchs used these secret ways to spy on their masters' enemies, or steal from them, or poison them? It was almost as if their ghosts were there among the shadows beyond the torchlight, whispering too faintly for living ears to hear, telling him that the splendid building he had seen from across the river, or standing in the Great Hall, was only an outer shell. These hidden ways were the veins of the creature. This was where it lived its mysterious life. He shivered at the thought, not with fear but with a kind of excitement.

The mood was broken by a mutter from Fohdrahko. Taeela answered and they started to talk, the old man telling her things and she asking questions. Nigel became restless with anxiety. Every minute that went by was another minute in which the soldiers might get on their trail. The glimmer of a spy-hole showed in the darkness ahead, so for something to do he rose and felt his way along to it.

Once again he found himself looking out across the Great Hall, this time from the side. There was more to see from this angle, men scurrying around, one stopping to ask something, another answering with a shrug, and both rushing off. It didn't look as if anyone was in control enough to organise a proper search. He watched for a while, then returned to the others, spread his dahl out on the floor and lay down it, using the bag as a pillow and set out an imaginary game in his mind. Taeela woke him almost two hours later.

“We go now,” she whispered. “Leave the floor-sweep in the shaft.”

By the time he'd sorted himself out she was opening another entrance. Slowly Fohdrahko hunkered himself round and worked his legs into the gap. One at each shoulder, Taeela and Nigel eased him forward onto the rungs. They watched him sink slowly out of sight. Taeela switched off her torch and followed.

Nigel closed the entrance slabs by feel and tied the cord of the cloth-roll round a rung, leaving it hanging. The descent seemed to go on for ever, with pauses while Fohdrahko rested and the only sound in the dark shaft the weary rasp of his breath. At last he reached the bottom, Taeela switched on her torch, and Nigel could see him huddled against one wall to let her crouch beside him and unlock another pair of slabs. As she swung them outward a draught of reeking air blew up the shaft, bringing with it the mutter of fast-moving water.

They came out into a low brick tunnel, with a narrow walkway running along beside a stinking stream, the clean clear water from the hills carrying the filth of Dara away. The walkway was too narrow for either of them to help Fohdrahko but he refused to rest. Without closing the entrance slabs he led them upstream until they reached an iron-studded door set back a metre or so into the wall, leaving a small platform between it and the water. Here he stopped and with a shaking hand indicated a crack in the brickwork.

Taeela levered out a loose brick, felt into the cavity behind it and brought out several large keys on an iron key-ring. The door opened on well-oiled hinges, without creak or groan. Beyond lay a narrow passage with an iron-barred gate at the other end lit by a weak light from somewhere out of sight.

Taeela switched off the torch and unlocked the gate. Faint stirrings came from somewhere near by, and what sounded like a moan of pain. Beyond that the voices of a man arguing with a woman. Fohdrahko grunted and Taeela eased the gate open. They stole out into a wide, low-ceilinged corridor running right and left, with a series of closed doors down either side, each with a small barred window in it, head high to an adult. The air stank of people and sweat and dirt. Another place of ghosts. The ancient dungeons of the khans, where they had kept their enemies.

And still did. The lucky ones.

Now there was room to help Fohdrahko. One each side of him, taking most of his weight, they crept along between the cells, allowing him to crouch out of sight below the level of the windows. Beyond another corner at the end of the corridor the argument raged on. Was that Dirzhani they were talking …? Oh, of course. The gaolers must be watching a Russian soap.

Fohdrahko stopped at one of the doors and whispered to Taeela. She let him choose a key and then shone the torch onto his face while he straightened and looked through the window with his finger to his lips. Nigel heard the beginnings of a shout stifled back into a gasp, then rapid movements as Taeela unlocked the door and pushed it open.

The man in the doorway stared for a moment and fell to his knees, sobbing. He was pale and filthy, wearing only a collarless shirt and rough trousers. Taeela hissed at him but he didn't seem to hear her, just knelt there, gasping and sobbing. She took him by the shoulder and shook him, forcing him to pull himself together and stand. Grabbing a fold of his shirt she tugged him out and stood him where Fohdrahko could put his arm round his shoulders.

Finally he seemed to get what was expected of him. He clasped Fohdrahko's wrist, shrugged himself sideways to take his weight, and followed Taeela back the way they had come. While she locked the gate they squeezed along the narrow passage, and out onto the platform above the reeking stream.

Taeela locked the door and put the key-ring back in its hiding place, but instead of moving on Fohdrahko muttered and the man altered his grip so that he could lower him gently to the ground. Taeela crouched beside him with her arm round his shoulders, while Nigel and the man stood and listened to the wheezing rattle of the tired old lungs dragging at the stinking air. He's done for, Nigel thought. There's no way he's going any farther. We'll be in trouble without him. This other guy doesn't look much use. A bit of human wastage picked out of the gutter.

Yes. With a shudder he realised that this was what the passage they had just come through, and the little platform on which he was now standing, was for—part of the secret life of the building above him. This was where it had got rid of its own kind of waste, the dead enemies of those ancient khans, to be carried away down river and thrown into the lake for the fish to feed on.

Fohdrahko's breathing eased. He squared his shoulders and sat upright, then spoke in a stronger voice. Taeela eased the jacket out from behind him and handed it to Nigel. Fohdrahko drew his knife out of his surcoat and spoke again. The man knelt beside him facing Taeela, bared his arm, chose a place just above the wrist where the veins ran close to the surface, took the knife and carefully slid its point under the skin and gave it back to Fohdrahko. He pinched a fold of flesh between finger and thumb and squeezed out the blood.

All the time the foul stream whispered by.

Fohdrahko spoke again and Taeela rose to her feet. The man, still kneeling, offered her his arm. She took it by the wrist, rubbed her other thumb into the blood and placed it firmly against the man's forehead, leaving a red blotch like a fuzzy caste-mark. Fohdrahko spoke a few words, more slowly, so that she could repeat them to the man. She took the jacket, came round and put it round his shoulders. Still following Fohdrahko's instructions, she took an energy bar from her pocket, broke off a corner and put it between the man's lips, waited for him to swallow and offered him her left hand. He held it between both of his and solemnly repeated several sentences after Fohdrahko. She let go and the man pulled his sleeve down and rose to his feet.

“Nigel, this is Rahdan,” said Taeela. “He will help us.”

“Hi, Rahdan,” said Nigel, holding up a hand in greeting. “Good to meet you. I'm Nigel.”

Rahdan seemed to notice him for the first time. He stared. His mouth fell open, he began to say something and then burst into a guffaw of laughter, shockingly loud in that place of whispers and secrets, almost the first real sound they'd heard since the clamour of gunfire in the Great Hall.

Taeela snarled at him and he cut the laughter short with an apologetic gesture, a shrug and a sidelong glance. The glance forced recognition. This was the guard who'd let Nigel into the back entrance of the palace that day and then kept him waiting until he'd tried to use the lift on his own. Rahdan had no reason to think kindly of him.

Taeela was watching him.

“Are you sure he's all right?” he said. “This is the chap who …”

“Nigel, I know this. He is the son of the daughter of the cousin of the husband of Fofo's sister, and because of this my father gave him a place in the guard. Then he brought shame on the family by what he did to you. It was right that he should be punished. Fofo said this too. It was for thirty days only.

“Now all that is finished, changed. My father is dead. I am the Khanazhana. I set him free. I put a coat on his back. I put food in his mouth. I put my mark on his forehead. He swears to me the blood … swearing …?

“Oath?”

“… the blood oath. He is my man for one year, to live and to die.”

“Sounds good to me. Hi again, then, Rahdan. Hope we have better luck with each other this time.”

Rahdan returned his greeting with a gesture and an uncertain smile but didn't say anything.

“What happens now?” said Nigel. “He can't be up to much after what he's been through. Do you think he can carry Fofo back up the shaft? There's some of that bar left, isn't there? That might help.”

She nodded and gave the bar to Rahdan, who eyed it doubtfully but then chewed at it with gusto.

“I talk to Fofo,” she said, and did so, crouching beside him, taking his spidery fingers between her small plump hands, cajoling and pleading. He listened, smiling peacefully but shaking his head from time to time.

When he answered he didn't seem to be arguing with her, but telling her stuff she needed to know. She replied with little grunts of understanding. At one point he reached into his surcoat and drew out a package of what looked like two thin old sheets of leather with some folded paper between them, tied round with a faded ribbon. Taeela took it and slid it into a pocket.

When he'd finished she leaned across and hugged him, leaving a blotch of tear-streaked eye-shadow on his cheek when she withdrew. He smiled and patted her hand, then heaved himself over onto his knees and crawled purposefully along the walkway towards the shaft with Taeela lighting his way with her torch. Nigel gestured to Rahdan to wait before they followed. This was something private between the two of them.

Fohdrahko crawled straight into the shaft when he reached it and Taeela stopped half way in. They whispered briefly and she withdrew, rose and stood aside.

“You close the doors, Nigel,” she muttered. “This I cannot do to him.”

He crouched and saw Fohdrahko sitting against the wall at the back of the shaft with his knees drawn up and his lit torch beside him.

“Goodbye, Fofo,” he said. “Thanks for everything.”

Fohdrahko smiled, whispered something and raised his hand in farewell. Weeping himself now, Nigel swung the two slabs gently together and rose. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve, felt in his bag for his torch and switched it on. Without a word Taeela led them along beside the reeking water.

The tunnel curved left and right and then was barred by a heavy iron grating. Noises came from beyond it, audible above the rush of the stream, a police siren piercing the surf-like rumble of an angry crowd. A burst of gunfire stilled it for a moment, then it rose to a roar.

Shading her torch with her free hand she searched a section of the brickwork, found the place she wanted and switched off her torch. He did the same. He heard the grate of a brick being removed, the clink of a key ring, the dull double click of a big lock. By the time a gate in the grating swung open his eyes had adjusted and the darkness beyond it was no longer absolute. Taeela waited for them to follow her through, closed and locked the grating and put the key in her pocket. A dozen paces on they were standing under the first arch of the fancy bridge.