you were married. Because she loved you she let you secretly into her bedroom and so risked death. She risked death because she loved you and you begged her. Didn’t our mother persuade her father to accept you, and persuade your father to allow you to marry her, instead of your older brother who wanted her as a second wife for himself?” Hakim’s voice broke, remembering her in her dying, him seven, Azadeh six, not understanding very much, only that she was in terrible pain from something called “tumor” and outside, in the courtyard, their father Abdollah beset with grief. “Didn’t she always stand up for you against your father and your older brother and then, when your brother was killed and you became heir, didn’t she heal the breach with your father?” “You can’t… can’t know such things, you were… you were too young!” “Old Nanny Fatemeh told us, she told us before she died, she told us everything she could remember….”
The Khan was hardly listening, remembering too, remembering his brother’s hunting accident he had so deftly engineered - old Nanny might have known about that too and if she did then Hakim knows and Azadeh knows, all the more reason to silence them. Remembering, too, all the magic times he had had with Napthala the Fair, before and after marriage and during all the days until the beginning of the pain. They had been married not even one year when Hakim was bom, two when Azadeh appeared, Napthala just sixteen then, tiny, physically a pattern of Aysha but a thousand times more beautiful, her long hair like spun gold. Five more heavenly years, no more children, but that never mattered, hadn’t he a son at long last, strong and upright - where his three sons from his first wife had all been born sickly, soon to die, his four daughters ugly and squabbling. Wasn’t his wife still only twenty-two, in good health, as strong and as wonderful as the two children she had already birthed? Plenty of time for more sons. Then the pain beginning. And the agony. No help from all the doctors in Tehran.
Insha’Allah, they said.
No relief except drugs, ever more strong as she wasted away. God grant her the peace of Paradise and let me find her there.
He was watching Hakim, seeing the pattern of Azadeh who was a pattern of the mother, listening to him running on: “Azadeh only fell in love, Highness. If she loved that man, can’t you forgive her? Wasn’t she only sixteen and banished to school in Switzerland as later I was banished to Khoi?” “Because you were both treacherous, ungrateful, and poisonous!” the Khan shouted, his ears beginning to thunder again. “Get out! You’re to… to stay away from all others, under guard, until I send for you. Ahmed, see to it, then come back here.”
Hakim got up, near tears, knowing what was going to happen and powerless to prevent it. He stumbled out, Ahmed gave the necessary orders to the guards and came back into the room. Now the Khan’s eyes were closed, his face very gray, his breathing more labored than before. Please God do not let him die yet, Ahmed prayed.
The Khan opened his eyes and focused. “I have to decide about him, Ahmed. Quickly.”
“Yes, Highness,” his counselor began, choosing his words carefully, “you have but two sons, Hakim and the babe. If Hakim were to die or,” he smiled strangely, “happened to become sightless and crippled, then Mahmud, husband of Her Highness Najoud will be regent unt - ”
“That fool? Our lands and power would be lost within a year!” Patches of redness flared in the Khan’s face and he was finding it increasingly difficult to think clearly. “Give me another pill.” Ahmed obeyed and gave him water to drink, gentling him. “You’re in God’s hands, you will recover, don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry?” the Khan muttered, pain in his chest. “The Will of God the mullah died in time… strange. Petr Oleg kept his bargain… though he… the mullah died too fast… too fast.” “Yes, Highness.”
In time the spasm again passed. “Wh… what’s your advice … about Hakim?” Ahmed pretended to think a moment. “Your son Hakim is a good Muslim, he could be trained, he has managed your affairs in Khoi well, and has not fled as perhaps he could have done. He is not a violent man - except to protect his sister, eh? But that’s very important, for therein lies his key.” He came closer and said softly, “Decree him your heir, High - ” “Never!” “Providing he swears by God to guard his young brother as he would his sister, providing further his sister returns at once of her own will to Tabriz. In truth, Highness, you have no real evidence against them, Only hearsay. Entrust me to find out the truth of him and of her - and to report secretly to you.”
The Khan was concentrating, listening carefully, though the effort was taxing him. “Ah, the brother’s the bait to snare the sister - as she was the bait to snare the husband?”
“As they’re both bait for the other! Yes, Highness, of course you thought of it before me. In return for giving the brother your favor, she must swear before God to stay here to help him.” “She’ll do that, oh, yes, she’ll do that!” “Then they’ll both be within your reach and you can toy with them at your pleasure, giving and withholding at your whim, whether they’re guilty or not.” “They’re guilty.”
“If they’re guilty, and I will know quickly if you give me complete authority to investigate, then it’s God’s will that they will die slowly, that you decree Fazulia’s husband to be Khan after you, not much better than Mahmud. If they’re not guilty, then let Hakim remain heir, providing she stays. And if it were to happen, again at God’s will, that she is a widow, she’d even betroth him whom you choose, Highness, to keep Hakim your heir - even a Soviet, should he escape the trap, no?”
For the first time today, the Khan smiled. This morning when Armstrong and Colonel Hashemi Fazir had arrived to take possession of Petr Oleg Mzytryk, they had pretended to be suitably concerned about the Khan’s health as he had pretended outwardly to be sicker than he had felt at that time. He had kept his voice wan and hesitant and very low so they both had had to lean forward to hear him. “Petr Oleg is coming here today. I was going to meet him but I asked him to come here because of my… because I’m sick. I sent him word to come here and he should be at the border at sunset. At Julfa. If you go at once you’ll be in plenty of time… he sneaks over the border in a small Soviet helicopter gunship and lands near a side road off the Julfa-Tabriz road where his car is waiting for him… no chance to miss the turning, it’s the only one… a few kilometers north of the city… it’s the only side road, desolate country, soon little more than a track. How you… how you take him is your affair and… and as I cannot be present, you will give me a tape of the… the investigation?”
“Yes, Highness,” Hashemi had said. “How would you advise us to take him?”
“Choke the road both sides of the turnoff with a couple of old, heavily laden farm trucks… firewood or crates of fish… the road’s narrow and twisting and potholed and heavy with traffic, so an ambush should be easy. But… but be careful, there’re always Tudeh cars to run interference for him, he’s a wise man and fearless… there’s a poison capsule in his lapel.” “Which one?”
“I don’t know … I don’t know. He will land near sunset. You can’t miss the turnoff, it’s the only one….”
Abdollah Khan sighed, lost in his thoughts. Many times he had been picked up by the same helicopter to go to the dacha at Tbilisi. Many good times there, the food lavish, the women young and accommodating, full-lipped and hungry to please - then, if he was lucky, Vertinskya, the hellcat, for further entertainment.
He saw Ahmed watching him. “I hope Petr escapes the trap. Yes, it would be good for him to… to have her.” Tiredness swamped him. “I’ll sleep now. Send my guard back and after I’ve eaten tonight, assemble my ‘devoted’ family here and we will do as you suggest.” His smile was cynical. “It’s wise to have no illusions.”
“Yes, Highness.” Ahmed got to his feet. The Khan envied him his lithe and powerful body.
“Wait, there was something… something else.” The Khan thought a moment, the process strangely tiring. “Ah, yes, where’s Redhead of the Knife?”
“With Cimtarga, up near the border, Highness. Cimtarga said they might be away for a few days. They left Tuesday night.”
“Tuesday? What’s today?”
“Saturday, Highness,” Ahmed replied, hiding his concern.
“Ah, yes, Saturday.” Another wave of tiredness. His face felt strange and he lifted his hand to rub it but found the effort too much. “Ahmed, find out where he is. If anything happens… if I have another attack and I’m… well, see that… that I’m taken to Tehran, to the International Hospital, at once. At once. Understand?”
“Yes, Highness.”
“Find out where he is and… and for the next few days keep him close by… overrule Cimtarga. Keep He of the Knife close by.”
“Yes, Highness.”
When the guard came back into the room, the Khan closed his eyes and felt himself sinking into the depths. “There is no other God but God…” he muttered, very afraid.
NEAR THE NORTH BORDER, EAST OF JULFA: 6:05 P.M. It was near sunset and Erikki’s 212 was under a crude, hastily constructed lean-to, the roof already a foot deep in snow from the storm last night, and he knew much more exposure in subzero weather would ruin her. “Can’t you give me blankets or straw or something to keep her warm?” he had asked Sheik Bayazid the moment they had arrived back from Rezaiyeh with the body of the old
