“Luckily it had been ordained that a number of us should be sent abroad as children, to be raised with skin unblemished, in order to preempt any such scheme. When the time arrived . . He gave a mountainous shrug. “Well, I won’t go into details of what was planned for the ambassador in the course of his grand tour. Like Slava, I was well and truly beaten to it.” “You’ve left something out,” Ismail inteijected. Paluka blinked. “I thought I was being frank—” “So far as you went. What you omitted was any reference to the family whose tattoos you would normally be wearing. Am I not right in guessing that yours is the premier family in all the Land of the Long White Cloud, descendants of the navigator who first steered your folk across the trackless sea?”
For a long moment Paluka sat impassive. At last he bent his head.
“So I have been told. But I do not like to brag about what I personally take no credit for.”
This is becoming more amazing by the moment! Three great nobles at this table—why, Ismail's dinner bids fair to rival the famous one of centuries ago, even though we lack the trappings of state! Is he now going to conjure up an emperor as well?
Or is he the emperor? He wields such power . . . ! Or even Hideki, whom he referred to as “his honor"!
Indeed, Ismail’s tally of surprises was far from at an end. He turned now, politely, to Ratanayaka.
“You spoke much, effendi—” he began. The other cut him short.
“I should have said this earlier. Effendi denotes a superior rank. You should not address me that way.”
“Then how ought I to address you? Should I say . . . Shri! ’ ’
If it had been possible for someone of his complexion to turn pale, Ratanayaka would have done so. He sat rock still, save for his mouth, which trembled betrayingly.
“You’re no Lankhan,” Ismail said eventually, a trace of contempt in his voice. “Nor even a Buddhist. You’re a Mahrut spy and potentially, like Slava, a paid assas-
sin.
The man’s composure shattered. Almost babbling, he blurted, “Don’t call me so! I’m—”
He bit his lip so hard a trace of blood oozed down.
“You don’t want to be thought of in those terms?” Ismail’s tone was dangerously soft. “In that case you must tell the truth. We are still under the sign of the rose. By the way, has it occurred to you that you are ingesting animal food?”
He had automatically licked away some of the blood.
The pretended Lankhan slumped where he sat. Staring at the table, he muttered, “I think you’re a deva. You’re not human, anyway. No ordinary human could know so much of what is hidden.”
“At least you think I’m a kindly spirit. Good. Well?”
No reply. Ismail waited, then leaned forwards and said fiercely, “Do you want us to laugh at you the way you laughed at Babu Ram Dass, crushed beneath the wheels of his useless kite-carts? ’ ’
“How did you—?”
But he had betrayed himself too completely this time. Broken, he buried his face in his hands. Through muffled sobs they heard agonized words.
“How could you possibly have known my title? No one has called me Shri since I began my training! Not on orders from the King, but of my own volition!” “Who was your father?” Ismail snapped.
The brown hands were lowered. From a tear-smeared face: “Not a deva! A veritable rakshasa!”
“Your father was a rakshasa?” Ismail purred.
“No! I meant . . . you're a rakshasa, perverting my words even as I speak them! My father was a great and good man, who sought to breach the barrier between Ind and the rest of Asia, to undermine Gurkha rule—” “By stirring up rebellion among the Chinese. The consequent civil unrest was supposed to tempt the Gurkhas into a war of conquest they were bound to lose simply because the Chinese are more numerous than any other people, then open up trade routes that would make your country independent of the seaborne commerce, operated by the Lankhans, on which they have depended until now for contact with the rest of the modem world. Have I read your story aright—Shri?” “If I’m any judge,” said Feisal bluffly, “you have. See how he weeps and cringes!”
“And why aren’t you doing the same?”
“What?”
“You heard me! How are you going to pay your score for lodging? ’ ’
Feisal looked and sounded confused. “You said you’d introduce me to a pawnbroker tomorrow! I possess certain valuable relics which—”
“You mean the Roman stuff they palmed off on you
in Edo? Save your breath. The Japanese items are all right, but the Roman ones are modem imitations.” Feisal’s eyes bulbed. He muttered, “But they came from the Mikado’s private—”
“Private factory! Ah, people like you have no business getting involved in the machinations of the real world, let alone the worlds beyond the real.”
Djinghiz’s nape tingled. Once, only once before, had he heard Ismail refer directly to the worlds transcending this one. That had been when he spoke of the mission Djinghiz alone was fitted to accomplish . . . !
So what does this presage ? Yet another shifting of the Gate of Worlds ?
“The Mikado isn’t much good at it either, if that’s any comfort. The rich collectors he's relying on for foreign funds are far too canny to be taken in. So what price your scholarship now?”
Feisal was gaping like a new-hooked fish. He choked out, “You claim you can recognize forgeries that I accept as genuine?”
“Ah, you don’t know what genuine means—nor how to fake even a simple identity for yourself! ’ ’
“What?”
Was there pity in Ismail’s eyes? Djinghiz thought so, and found himself admiring him the more therefor.
“To start with, you’re not a Moslem. If you were, you’d never have taken so long to react when I mentioned Allah. You’re a Christian, aren’t you?”
“You didn’t leam that from my passport!”—with a flare of defiance.
“No, it’s among the best I ever ran across. Your people undoubtedly have talents. It’s just your ill luck to have stagnated for so long in a backwater of history . . .
You are a Christian. I know that for certain now. What’s your real name?”
At last, in a sullen tone: “Menlik.” With a glance at the ceiling.
“Don’t worry. I honor the rose. No one save us has heard you say that and they’ll repeat it at their peril . . . Menlik! Is that not a royal name in Ethiopia?”
“Yes! And I bear it by right!” He straightened his back. “It has been my people who preserved the tradition of the meek and loving Jesus amidst the onslaughts of the Ttirks and other Moslems who by their behavior, their cruelty, might as well have been pagans, or worse! ’ ’
“The Christian Russians don’t have a much better record, do they? But by alliance with an extremist faction among them—the sort of people who regarded the late Czar as overcautious even though, had he lived, his armies would have occupied Krakow months ago!—you hoped to ‘liberate’ your country. I see. Did it not trouble you to buy their support with phony Roman relics? ’ ’ Feisal-Menlik’s face crumpled like wet paper. He whispered, “But I honestly believed they were genuine!’’
“I don’t suppose many of your dupes still do,” Ismail said curtly. “The idea of enlisting Japanese help to buy the support of the people the Japanese are trying to break loose from! Heaven help us all, if this is the caliber of talent the forces of freedom have at their disposal! Well, I suppose I’m turning into a senile fool. I dared to think this might be an echo of the dinner of five kings, for nobles overt or unacknowledged have come to join me. Now, well, all I can say is: look at you! Just lookl”
A stir of understanding burgeoned at the back of Djinghiz’s mind, though he read on all the other faces renewed incomprehension.
I think I finally had a glimmer of what the old devil is up to. I don't believe it. I don’t want to! But he isn ’t finished yet .......
Eight: While Petals Fade
&n
bsp; Abruptly it dawned—what Ismail was awaiting from the man who alone among this company had truly moved the Gate of Worlds, albeit as his instrument.
But he said his eyes were off me while I was actually at work . . .
Djinghiz’s mouth was parched, his belly taut, and all the weariness that massage had removed was flooding back. It must be late, it must be very late—past midnight, maybe, but there was no clock in view.
Nonetheless:
“Ismail effendi?’*
“Yes?” The face looked as tired as he felt, the eyes had lost their brilliance and sparkle, the voice was dull as last week’s wine. But that was acting.
“I think—I don’t know why or how, but I feel it—I think you’re right. It’s just that you’ve omitted someone from your list. You sent a message asking to meet ‘those who had traveled furthest’—right?”
Ismail allowed himself to perk up. “Go on!” “Earlier you put on a show. It was designed—was it not?—to shame one among us who has made amends.”
My mouth is so dry I can barely shape the words, yet I daren yt break the spell I seem to be creating, with a gulp of wine! “It may nonetheless have possessed some—some validity. I can’t find a better word.”
Now their entire attention was focused on him, but in a different way from when he described how he had killed the Czar. They were hoping for enlightenment amid the empty cups and jugs, the forlorn scraps left on the dishes that had held loukoumi, fruit and other delicacies, the sour stale vapors from the hookah in whose bowl the rose petals which had earlier been red were dying to brown even as the coals below had died to gray.
He said: “Hideki . . . ?”
And waited. It felt as though eternity dragged by. Then, at last, with the marvelous grace he who had pretended to be she had so long been schooled in, the boy rose to his feet and bowed to Djinghiz.
“You are right,” he said in Russian better pronounced and better accented than he had ever previously heard from him. “I too was assigned to kill the Czar. Our troupe was to be presented at the Moscow court, where—so I’m told—there has lately been a fad for Japanese culture. There is a particular play that offered an opportunity . . . But you spared me from having his death on my conscience. May your karma bear the burden lightly.”
Ismail had totally recovered his spirits. He said explosively, “Of course! I’m a fool! Feisal—Menlik— whatever your name is! In your case it would have been poison, wouldn’t it?”
“What?” The Ethiopian started.
“You aren’t just carrying fake Roman relics! You also have some jade and soapstone—what do they call them?—feeling-pieces! ’ ’
“Netsuke,” Hideki supplied.
“Right!” Ismail banged fist into palm. “They’re genuine enough, and really valuable! And just before you sold the one you were sure would pass through the Czar’s own hands, you were going to coat it with something deadly but slow acting ... I can tell that I’m right.”
Menlik’s face was stiff as an Egyptian statue, save his lips. He whispered, “God and Jesus forgive me, but— yes.”
“I don’t understand why, but—Ah, of course I do! Leave it for the moment! Shri Ratanayaka or whatever you are really called: what were your means to have been? They say certain persons in Ind are adept in the use of silken scarves. Does the goddess Kali figure in your pantheon?
“You are indeed a rakshasa!”
“I see. Expert strangulation, very quick.” Ismail plucked his lower lip. “You, Slava-Erik?”
The Norseman shrugged. “They gave me a gun. I am a first-rate shot.”
“Paluka?”
The Maori said nothing. He merely raised his monstrous right arm and swept it forward.
“I see. Anything heavy enough and hard enough that you could throw from close enough. Were you planning, say, to enlist in the embassy guard?”
“Yes. But no.”
Ismail’s forehead creased for a second, then smoothed.
“Ah. Not just a rock or a spear. You would have used—what’s the term? It reminds me of a fruit ... I have it. A grenade? Which you could have made from local materials? And if other people got caught in the blast—? I see. It didn’t matter.”
His normal composure, his normal dominance completely restored, he sat back and beamed around.
“Well, then! I was right after all! This is an echo of the dinner of the kings—and make what you like of the fact!”
“What does that make you?” Paluka rasped, echoing Djinghiz’s thought of a moment ago. “The missing emperor? ’ ’
“My dear fellow!” Quite carried away, Ismail fluttered his eyelashes, forgetting that age had reduced them to a few isolated tufts. “You misread the situation! I was right when, purely to offend Slava, I called Hideki his honor.’ So should I have addressed you all, for here at this table are guests superior to kings!”
Djinghiz drew a deep breath. It felt like his first for a week. He hadn’t realized he had been awaiting just this resolution of the climax Ismail had built up to . . .
But how much of it did he choose to build to? A moment back he seemed disappointed, disillusioned, defeated. . . .
How much of it did he control? How much controlled him ?
Us.
Me. . . .
The eunuch’s tone was affable now, as though he had convinced himself completely of his all-along rightness.
“Don’t you see? We have here Hideki who planned to kill the Czar on behalf of the Mikado, in hopes of prying loose Russia’s grip from his country. We have
Menlik-Feisal husked, “You talk as though you’ve read this in tomorrow’s news sheets!”
“In a sense,” said Ismail dryly, “yes, I have . . . but so could anvone who’s been following the news from China!”
And at once resumed.
‘ ‘We know about Paluka now, we know about Slava— and of course we know about the last of the company, the Tartar prince who succeeded while the others were still mooning about and making fruitless plans. So there you have it.”
Djinghiz grated, “We have what?”
“My dear young friend! We have, as I thought you of all people would realize, the kind of gathering that I dared to foresee.”
“A bunch of pretenders, of down-and-outs, of exiled wanderers? ’ ’
“Not at all! I said: those superior to kings!” “Because ...” Djinghiz had to drive the words between his lips. There had been a tongue-loosening substance in the air, the food, or the wine; he was convinced of it. During his travels he had been invited to experiment with drugs, and to maintain his cover among the Eastern Tartars he had been obliged to indulge; several had dried his mouth in the same way, and more than one had done things to his sanity that he detested . . . Was the authority he respected in Ismail due to no more than a shamanic trick?
“Because,’ he began anew, “there is one power greater than a prince’s.”
“Or a king’s, or even an emperor’s.”
“That being—?” But he knew the answer as he spoke.
“Death.”
Sourly: “And what does that make you at this echo of a royal dinner? The emperor, as Paluka said?” Unruffled, the eunuch shook his head. “No. Mine is the role of their host, Councillor Wierzynek.”
“And what became of him?” Djinghiz leaned forward.
“Why! What would you expect? He succumbed to the power which, as you correctly say, is greater than any prince’s.”
“You mean he died of plague?”
r /> “Indeed. As did his family and servants.”
“So what follows from this meeting? As many deaths, or maybe even more?” Djinghiz’s head was ringing with imagined echoes of a modem war. He had foreseen, of course, some of the consequences that must flow from Czar Vladimir’s assassination: no informed person could fail to predict at least a few, and news had drifted westward—despite the Russian censorship—to announce that half China was aflame. So, therefore, must be the territory where his Tartar cousins lived. The interregnum might afford them the chance to secure their independence; so he had hoped, so he had believed. Only he could not escape the fear that such a dream might prove as vacuous as Feisal-Menlik’s . . .
“No: many fewer. That is why it had to happen.”
“Is this-?”
“The war I said would take a most unusual form? Of course it is. ”
“What’s unusual about it?” Djinghiz cried. “There must be thousands dying, tens of thousands wounded, who knows how many rendered homeless, taking to the roads as refugees! That sounds to me like any ordinary war! ’ ’
“If only you could see beyond the Gate of Worlds ...” Abruptly Ismail’s tone was gray. So was his face.
“You claim you can?” Djinghiz was halfway to his feet. “Prove it! Show me!”
There was a sullen thud. Paluka’s head had dropped forward on the table. Bewildered, Djinghiz glanced at t:he others. Hideki was leaning on his folded arms, smiling peaceably in sleep. Beside him Ratanayaka, eyes closed, was rehearsing a mantra with what seemed to be autohypnotic powers. Slava was simply and audibly m a drunken stupor; his snores confirmed it. As for Feisal-Menlik, he had produced a little book whose cover was embroidered with seed pearls and ornamented with a teardrop sapphire, from which he was reading aloud, but in a whisper, in a tongue that Djinghiz did not recognize.