Najoud. “So.”
“Highness,” Najoud said unctuously, “with all our hearts, before God, we congratulate you, and swear to serve you to the limits of our power.” “Thank you, Najoud,” he had said. “Thank you. Ahmed, what was the Khan’s sentence decreed on my sister and her family before he died?” Tension in the Great Room was sudden.
“Banishment, penniless to the wastelands north of Meshed, Highness, under guard - at once.”
“I regret, Najoud, you and all your family will leave at dawn as decreed.” He remembered how her face had gone ashen and Mahmud’s ashen and she had stammered, “But, Highness, now you are Khan, your word is our law. I did not expect… you’re Khan now.”
“But the Khan, our father, gave the order when he was the law, Najoud. It is not correct to overrule him.”
“But you’re the law now,” Najoud had said with a sickly smile. “You do what’s right.”
“With God’s help I will certainly try, Najoud. But I can’t overrule my father on his deathbed.”
“But, Highness…” Najoud had come closer. “Please, may … may we discuss this in private?”
“Better here before the family, Najoud. What did you want to say?” She had hesitated and come even closer and he felt Ahmed tense and saw his knife hand ready, and the hair on his neck stiffened. “Just because Ahmed says that the Khan gave such an order doesn’t mean that it… does it?” Najoud had tried to whisper but her words echoed off the walls. Breath sighed out of Ahmed’s lips. “May God burn me forever if I lied.” “I know you didn’t, Ahmed,” Hakim had said sadly. “Wasn’t I there when the Khan decided? I was there, Najoud, so was Her Highness, my sister, I regret th - ”
“But you can be mercifulll!” Najoud had cried out. “Please, please be merciful!”
“Oh, but I am, Najoud. I forgive you. But the punishment was for lying in the Name of God,” he had said gravely, “not punishment for lying about my sister and me, causing us years of grief, losing us our father’s love. Of course we forgive you that, don’t we, Azadeh?”
“Yes, yes, that is forgiven.”
“That is forgiven openly. But lying in the Name of God? The Khan made a decree. I cannot go against it.”
Mahmud burst out over her pleadings, “I knew nothing about this, Highness, nothing, I swear before God, I believed her lies. I divorce her formally for being a traitor to you, I never knew anything about her lies!” In the Great Room everyone watched them both grovel, some loathing them, some despising them for failing when they had had the power. “At dawn, Mahmud, you are banished, you and your family,” he had said so sadly, “penniless, under guard… pending my pleasure. As to divorce it is forbidden in my house. If you wish to do that north of Meshed… Insha’Allah. You are still banished there, pending my pleasure….” Oh, you were perfect, Hakim, he told himself delightedly, for of course everyone knew this was your first test. You were perfect! Never once did you gloat openly or reveal your true purpose, never once did you raise your voice, keeping calm and gentle and grave as though you really were sad with your father’s sentence but, rightly, unable to overrule it. And the benign, sweet promise of “pending my pleasure”? My pleasure’s that you’re all banished forever and if I hear one tiny threat of a plot, I will snuff you all out as quickly as an old candle. By God and the Prophet, on whose Name be praised, I’ll make the ghost of my father proud of this Khan of all the Gorgons - may he be in hell for believing such wanton lies of an evil old hag.
So much to thank God for, he thought, mesmerized by the firelight flickering in the Koran’s jewels. Didn’t all the years of banishment teach you secretiveness, deception, and patience? Now you’ve your power to cement, Azerbaijan to defend, a world to conquer, wives to find, sons to breed, and a lineage to begin. May Najoud and her whelps rot!
At dawn he had “regretfully” gone with Ahmed to witness their departure. Wistfully he had insisted that none of the rest of the family see them off. “Why increase their sorrow and mine?” There, on his exact instructions, he had watched Ahmed and guards tear through their mountains of bags, removing anything of value until there was but one suitcase each for them and their three children who watched, petrified.
“Your jewelry, woman,” Ahmed had said.
“You’ve taken everything, everything… please, Hakim … Highness, please…” Najoud sobbed. Her special jewel satchel, secreted in a pocket of her suitcase, had already been added to the pile of valuables. Abruptly Ahmed reached out and ripped off her pendant and tore the neck of her dress open. A dozen necklaces weighed her down, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires.
“Where did you get these?” Hakim had said, astonished.
“They’re … they’re my… my mother’s and mine I bought over the ye - ” Najoud stopped as Ahmed’s knife came out. “All right… all right…” Frantically she pulled the necklaces over her head, unfastened the rest, and gave them to him. “Now you have everyth - ”
“Your rings!”
“But, Highness, leave me someth - ” She screamed as Ahmed impatiently grabbed a finger to cut it off with the ring still on it, but she pulled away, tore the rings off and also the bracelets secreted up her sleeve, howling with grief, and threw them on the floor. “Now you’ve everything….” “Now pick them up and hand them to His Highness, on your knees!” Ahmed hissed, and when she did not obey instantly, he grabbed her by the hair and shoved her face on the floor, and now she was groveling and obeying. Ah, that was a feast, Hakim thought, reliving every second of their humiliation. After they’re dead, God will burn them.
He made another obeisance, put God away until next prayer at noon, and jumped up, brimming with energy. A maid Was on her knees pouring the coffee, and he saw the fear in her eyes and was very pleased. The moment he became Khan, he had known it was vital to work quickly to take over the reins of power. Yesterday morning he had inspected the palace. The kitchen was not clean enough for him, so he had had the chef beaten senseless and put outside the walls, then promoted the second chef in his place with dire warnings. Four guards were banished for oversleeping, two maids whipped for slovenliness. “But, Hakim, my darling,” Azadeh had said when they were alone, “surely there was no need to beat them?”
“In a day or two there won’t be,” he had told her. “Meanwhile the palace will change to the way I want it.”
“Of course you know best, my darling. What about the ransom?” “Ah, yes, at once.” He had sent for Ahmed.
“I regret, Highness, the Khan your father ordered the messenger’s throat cut yesterday afternoon.”
Both he and Azadeh, had been appalled. “But that’s terrible! What can be done now?” she had cried out.
Ahmed said, “I will try to contact the tribesmen - perhaps, because now the Khan your father is dead they will… they will treat with you newly. I will try.”
Sitting there in the Khan’s place, Hakim had seen Ahmed’s suave confidence and realized the trap he was in. Fear swept up from his bowels. His fingers were toying with the emerald ring on his finger. “Azadeh, come back in half an hour, please.”
“Of course,” she said obediently, and when he was alone with Ahmed, he said, “What arms do you carry?”
“A knife and an automatic, Highness.”
“Give them to me.” He remembered how his heart had throbbed and there was an unusual dryness in his mouth but this had had to be done and done alone. Ahmed had hesitated then obeyed, clearly not pleased to be disarmed. But Hakim had pretended not to notice, just examined the action of the gun and cocked it thoughtfully. “Now listen carefully, Counselor: you won’t try to contact the tribesmen, you will do it very quickly and you will make arrangements to have my sister’s husband returned safely - on your head, by God and the Prophet of God!”
“I - of course, Highness.” Ahmed tried to keep the anger off his face. Lazily Hakim pointed the gun at his head, sighting down it. “I swore by God to treat you as first counselor and I will - while you live.” His smile twisted. “Even if you happen to be crippled, perhaps emasculated, even blinded by your enemies. Do you have enemies, Ahmed Dursak the Turkoman?” Ahmed laughed, at ease now, pleased with the man who had become Khan and not the whelp that he had imagined - so much easier to deal with a man, he thought, his confidence returning. “Many, Highness, many. Isn’t it custom to measure the quality of a man by the importance of his enemies? Insha’Allah! I didn’t know you knew how to handle guns.”
“There are many things you don’t know about me, Ahmed,” he had said with grim satisfaction, an important
