The Ruler gave him a long stare, then reached out for a wooden ladle beside him, dipped it into the bucket on the step below, and poured the contents on to a pile of steaming stones against the wall. The water exploded with a sharp hiss, filling the room with a fog of steam. The visitor found himself gasping again, and blinking at the Ruler through tears of sweat.
The steam slowly subsided. The Ruler looked down at the little man in front of him. ‘Welcome, Letif.’
Marmut bem Letif, newly appointed Minister of the Interior to the Imperial Court of the Emerald Throne in Mamounia, bowed again and produced a bunch of gilt keys with which he began to unlock, with his slippery fingers, each of the four locks on the case. He opened it, still standing, and balancing it awkwardly on his forearm, picked out three stapled sheets of pink paper closely covered with Arabic script. He began to hand them to the Ruler, but was waved back.
‘The paperwork can wait until later. I have summoned you here, Letif, for a confidential audience. First, how do you find your new appointment?’
Letif licked the salt off his lips. ‘It is indeed an honoured privilege, Your Imperial Highness. It carries with it great responsibilities.’
‘Come, come, Letif. You talk like a diplomat. I have not summoned you more than 3000 miles to listen to bureaucratic platitudes. Here you are free to talk privately, in absolute confidence. I do not want the babblings of some fawning acolyte. I want the truth.’
Letif raised his head and looked at the Ruler with moist, yielding eyes. He felt the sweat running down his back. The Ruler seemed for a moment amused. ‘You are shy, Letif. The experience of your new office has not yet taught you the harshness of authority. Let me help you. You have already made the acquaintance of your subordinate, Colonel Sham Tamat?’
Letif inclined his head in a nod, but said nothing.
‘He is a hard man. A brutal man. But NAZAK is a hard and brutal organization. It guards the internal security of our nation, Letif. We cannot afford — even for the benefit of our Western friends — to leave it in the hands of weak, sentimental liberals.’
Letif stood with his head resting on one of his narrow shoulders. There was a long pause.
‘Something troubles you, Letif. I am your master, and you are directly responsible to me. You must tell me everything, however trivial it may seem.’ The Ruler’s tone was quiet and soothing.
A nerve began to twitch and tug at the damp skin around Letif’s right eye. He spoke carefully, without looking at the Ruler. ‘I am conscious of Your Imperial Highness’s views about certain aspects concerning the work of Colonel Tamat and his organization. Last week, on the day after I received Your Imperial Highness’s Seals of Office, the colonel invited me privately to the headquarters of NAZAK. I witnessed one of his formal interrogations.’
He paused, and his dewy eyes seemed to be searching for something in the steamy gloom of the sauna. Again he smelled the brackish odour of the windowless cell, with its single strip of neon that fizzed and blinked from the ceiling; saw Colonel Tamat’s large friendly figure beside him, in its well-tailored uniform the colour of dried dung, as the awful instrument was wheeled in, looking like a portable barbecue; then the girl being stripped from the waist down and strapped on to the grille, and then the screams and stench of scorched skin and urine, the flash as the lights fused, and Tamat’s laugh bellowing through the darkness: ‘The little bitch — pissed on to my beautiful barbecue a cheval — toasted her fat arse and she never told us a thing!’
‘I am waiting,’ said the Ruler; but before Letif could answer, his master had ladled more water on to the stones. When the noise had subsided, Letif replied.
‘There was an accident. One of the prisoners — a girl, a student — was electrocuted on Colonel Tamat’s machine.’
The Ruler’s eyes showed no expression. ‘Sham Tamat is a good family man, but he has the instincts and appetites of a wild beast. He is also cunning, and will react quickly and cleverly when attacked. Minister Letif, I am going to entrust you with a delicate and difficult task. You must be wary of Colonel Tamat. I have many potential enemies in my kingdom — some of whom I know, some I do not — but Colonel Sham Tamat is a man who must be watched constantly. After myself, he is probably the only person in the country who understands how to use real power. While he was still content to use that power in the interests of my nation, I was prepared to give him a free hand — even if it did mean allowing him to play with his revolting toys.
‘However, I have taken a decision. I no longer trust Tamat, and I intend to take that power away from him. But it must be done without bloodshed. That is most important, Letif. I have no intention of advertising our country as just another snake pit of power feuds, like our cheap Arab neighbours. Over the next decade, Letif, my nation is destined to become one of the greatest powers in the world.’
A dull light shone in his black eyes as he sat forward, hands on his naked knees. ‘But I intend that we should also become a civilized power. We will use civilized methods in everything from agriculture and industry to
