In the Palace of the Khans (6 page)

When the door opened again Nigel stepped out into far end of the lobby in the Khan's private apartments. The door of the living-room was already ajar. Taeela came running to it and flung it wide, but stopped there and did her pout.

“You … you're late!” she said.

He looked at his watch.

“I'm three minutes early.”

“Three minutes early is late!”

“OK.”

Her new toy, he thought, as he followed her into the room. The eunuch, on his stool just inside the door, greeted him with a smile and a slow, deferential nod. He smiled back and raised a hand in greeting. Boys, he wondered. Apart from school, does she get to meet boys at all? If so, how do they cope with it, the precious daughter of the Khan, the eunuch listening to every syllable, watching every gesture with his sleepless single eye? They'd be out of there as soon as they got the chance, wouldn't they? Not much fun for her.

“Can I call him Fofo?” he muttered as he sat down

She glanced towards the door, frowned and shook her head.

“Then you must teach me to say his name.”

“Fohdrahko.”

The aitches were tricky. She kept him at it until she was satisfied, then called the eunuch over.

“Say it to him,” she said.

Nigel rose. He didn't want to have his hand kissed again, so he put his palms together in front of his face as he'd seen Indians do, bowed his head slightly and said “Greetings, Fohdrahko.”

The eunuch copied the gesture one-handed.

“Khanazhan Nigel,” he said carefully.

Taeela clapped her hands.

“I teach … taught him how he … how to say your name. Khanazhan means little khan. Now you can call him Fofo.”

She spoke in Dirzhani to the eunuch, who gave a silent laugh, bowed his head again to Nigel and returned to his stool.

“What would you like to do?” said Nigel. “My mother's found a film you might like to watch. If we get bored I could start teaching you chess.”

“Cool,” she said experimentally.

As soon as the film started Fohdrahko brought his stool over and settled behind the sofa. Watching it was a slow process because Taeela kept pausing it to ask Nigel questions about stuff she hadn't understood, or simply to explain what people were saying to Fohdrahko. She was starting to sound like Jenny Agutter when the servant came in with the drinks and biscuits. They were still only half way through, but she switched the TV off.

“Enough,” she said. “Now you teach me chess.”

Mr. Harries used the school team to help teach beginners, so Nigel knew the drill. First he showed her the moves, and how to take pieces and what check and checkmate meant and so on. Then he set the board up, giving her the black pieces, and advanced his king's pawn.

“Your turn,” he said.

“What I … do I do?”

“Anything you like, so long as it's legal. I won't be trying to beat you, I'll be trying to keep the game going. It's just so you can get a feel of how it works.”

The first game took about five minutes. In the second he started saying things like “I can take that knight with my bishop unless you protect it with that pawn.” By the third she'd stopped moving almost at random and was beginning to play more intently, starting to make a move, taking it back (Mr. Harries let beginners do that), defending her pieces with other pieces and so on.

As they set up the pieces for the next game Nigel said “We'd better make this the last one. I'll have to go soon.”

“I will play ve-ry slow-ly. This time I am black.”

In fact she played only a little slower, and that because she was thinking more. When there were only a few minutes left he said “Are you sure you want to do that?”

She stared at the piece she'd just moved, and shrugged.

“Why not?”

He advanced a pawn to fork her knight and rook.

“You've got to lose one of them,” he said.

She glared at him and shifted the knight.

“I like my little horses,” she said.

“You mustn't think like that,” he said. “That rook was much better placed, and it'll be stronger once the board's a bit clearer. You've got to get used to the idea of giving pieces up, any piece, if it's worth while. There's nothing more exciting than a good queen sacrifice.”

“Show me.”

“Next time. I'll have to think it out.”

“No, show me now. This game is stupid.”

Impatiently she picked her queen up and handed it to him.

“Oh, all right. But if the driver …”

“I tell him to wait.”

“Oh, all right.”

Because it was fresh in his memory and he could do it without thinking he quickly set up the position at the end of yesterday's game.

“Now look,” he said. “I've got a strong attack on your king here. It's your move. The first thing you're going to do is …”

There was a tap at the door and the rustle of its movement across the carpet. It wasn't the under-secretary coming to tell Nigel the car was ready. It was the President.

Nigel rose. Taeela rushed across the room, grabbed his hand and started to pull him towards the board.

“Come! See!” she said. “Nigel is showing to me how I sacrifice my queen!”

He came and stood, gazing down at the board. Nigel's throat was taut, his mouth dry. He had to stop his tongue from continually licking his lips.

“You gave her the black pieces?”

“Yes, sir. Uh, she had them already. Uh, I'd forked her knight and rook …”

He stumbled through to the end of his explanation.

“Why this position?”

“It was a game I'd, uh, studied not long ago so I didn't have to think it out.”

Another tap on the door and swish of its opening.

“Tell the driver to wait,” said the President without looking round. “Very good, Nigel. Continue the demonstration.”

Nigel managed to take a grip of himself. It was going to be all right. This time, anyway. He turned to the board.

“Now,” he said. “It's my move. I attack your queen with my bishop. Either you'll have to move her away or use her to take my bishop, but if you do that I'll take her back with this pawn. What do you do?”

“I move her … but you say no?”

“Look what happens if you move her. Something like this …”

Rapidly he shifted the pieces through several moves.

“Now you see, you've still got your queen but you've lost more pieces than I have and I'm pretty sure to beat you soon. But …”

He put the pieces back.

“So I take the bishop, like this, with my queen?”

“And I take her with the pawn. You've lost her. But look at your rooks.”

It took her a few seconds to see the point. She picked the front rook up and banged it down in his back rank.

“Check!” she shouted, and a moment later “Checkmate!”

“A queen sacrifice,” said the President quietly. “Extremely satisfying. Except when it happens to you.”

“You tell me I am your queen,” said Taeela pertly. “Often you say this. So you sacrifice me, because it is satisfying? You tell me, marry the son of the British Ambassador because it will be good for your stupid dam.”

“You should not tease your guest like this. It is not manners. Besides, Nigel may have views on the matter.”

He turned to Nigel and raised his eyebrows.

“Er … well … of course you wouldn't sacrifice her for anything or anyone,” he said. “Chess is only a game—all you've got to do is win. And anyway Fohdrahko wouldn't approve.”

“Three excellent answers for the price of one,” said the President. “All you have to do is win, so you will sacrifice your best pieces to achieve that. As your father my aim is to secure your happiness and well-being. As President my aim is to secure the happiness and well-being of Dirzhan. These two purposes are not part of the same game. May I never need to choose between them.”

All the lightness of his tone was gone. For the first time Nigel felt that he had a glimpse of the man behind the mask of power—the man behind the monster behind the mask, if you wanted to look at it that way. Taeela reached up and stroked the back of his hand with her fingertips. He took her hand into his own, squeezed it gently, and let go.

“You do not choose,” she said. “You ask me, ‘Who do I wish I … wish to marry?' Then I choose. Am I right?”

She had dropped her habitual pertness and spoke as if she meant what she said almost as earnestly as her father had. His face went blanker than ever.

“Well, we must not keep our guest waiting to be taken home,” he said.

Taeela refused to have the subject changed.

“First, tell me I am right, Dudda.”

He said nothing for a while, then sighed.

“Yes, you are right. I do not sacrifice my queen, though I lose the game.”

“Word of the Khan, Dudda?” she said, dead serious now, and offered him her hand, palm up. He hesitated briefly and took it between his.

“Word of the Khan, Taeela,” he said.

“It is spoken, Khan,” she answered, still utterly solemn, then swung round laughing, triumphant, and it was a game again.

“Nigel, you are witness. You will come again tomorrow?”

“If you like. But I'm afraid I can't do Saturday or Sunday. We're going up to the mountains for the weekend.”

“Pooh! Nothing is to do in the mountains?”

“There is for us. My father is nuts about fishing, and my mother and I will go bird-watching. She says they've found a really nice old hotel at—I've forgotten the name—it begins with an F. For- something.”

“Forghal,” said the President. “I must take you there one day, my dear. The hotel is a true relic of the Czarist days … I am afraid there may be problems about that, Nigel. I will call for the latest reports and telephone your father. Meanwhile I think the driver is waiting for you in the lobby. We will see you tomorrow.”

Nigel told his mother what the President had said as soon as he got back to the embassy.

“Oh, I hope not,” she said, “but it's the sort of thing that happens here. Somebody gets drunk in a bar and says something stupid about the President and they close the whole area off and do a house-to-house search and so on.”

“Are there actually any terrorists? Bombings and stuff?”

“Not like that, not so far. I suppose these days there are fanatics about wanting to turn Dirzhan into a proper Islamic state, though everyone else thinks the Dirzhaki are hopeless heretics and don't even count. You'll have to ask your father—he'll be up for lunch in a few minutes, though I doubt if he's heard anything about Forghal yet. It can't be that urgent.”

She was wrong on both counts. He was half an hour late and came in with an odd expression on his face. He didn't say anything until he'd sat down.

“The good news or the bad news?”

“The President told Nigel there might be a problem about Forghal,” said Nigel's mother, “so I suppose the bad news is that we're not going there because the area's closed off.”

“Right, but I doubt if that's true. Roger called the hotel this morning to check our bookings were OK, and they didn't say anything.”

“Then why on earth …? Unless he doesn't want us to go to Forghal for some reason, I can't imagine what.”

“Because he wants us to go somewhere else?” said Nigel. “And that's the good news?”

“You're spoiling my fun,” said his father. “Care to guess what?”

“I don't know. We were chatting away about going to Forghal, and he started telling Taeela what a nice old hotel it was, and then, all of a sudden he pretty well closed right down and sent me packing.”

“So the good news is …”

“That we're still going somewhere we can fish and bird-watch … He's taking us out to the thingummy gorge to look at the fish-owls so he can show the British Ambassador how much he cares about them?”

“I worry about you, Niggles. You really are too bright to live long. Yes, he's invited us to his hunting lodge for the weekend. That's something in itself. It's the old hunting lodge of the khans, not that far from the Vamar gorge, so we'll be flying up in a couple of helicopters on Saturday morning, then driving over to the gorge that evening to have a look at the fish-owls.”

“In the dark?” said Nigel's mother.

“He's already got a project set up to study the birds with a view to providing them with a fresh habitat further down the gorge. There'll be night vision binoculars and so on. The project director—I've met him—he's a very live-wire little German—looks like a cross between an Old Testament prophet and a garden gnome—he'll be on hand to tell us what's what.”

“You've already accepted?”

“Difficult not to. It would be a considerable snub. Mostly he uses the lodge as a private retreat. I believe he took the President of Kyrgyzstan out there when he came on a state visit a few years back, but that was very much the exception.”

Nigel could hear the purr in his voice. The visit would be a real plus for him at the Foreign Office.

“Is Taeela coming?” said Nigel.

“Indeed she is. He specifically asked me to remind you, Lou, that she mustn't be left alone with Nigel, or indeed with any member of the male sex over the age of four, including himself, but it's all right if you're there too.”

“What a crazy mind-set. Helicopters and sophisticated economics and CCTV and this! Poor girl. Am I going to have to dress for dinner, Nick?”

“Not if we're going owl-watching, I imagine. But we'd better take something presentable, just in case. There's limited baggage-space in the helicopters, so a car will come for our stuff on Friday morning and take it up by road. Oh, one other thing. Don't tell anybody where we're going. Anybody at all. Even here in the Embassy.”

“I bet you I hear about it at the next wives' lunch,” said Nigel's mother. “These things always come out. They'll be green with envy.”