He looked toward the new Emir and murmured a barely audible courtly greeting. He seemed to have trouble looking in Selima’s direction.
“Sir?” Michael asked finally.
The Emir smiled warmly. “Has Sir Anthony left yet? ’ ’
“This morning, sir. I didn’t speak with him.”
“No. No, I imagine you wouldn’t care to. It’s a mess, isn’t it, Michael? You can’t really go home.”
“I understand that, sir.”
“But obviously you can’t stay here. This is no climate for the likes of you. ’ ’
“I suppose not, sir.”
The Emir nodded. He reached about behind him and lifted a book from a stand. “During my years as prince I had plenty of leisure to read. This is one of my favorites. Do you happen to know which book it is?”
“No, sir.”
“The collected plays of one of your great English writers, as a matter of fact. The greatest, so I’m told. Shakespeare’s his name. You know his work, do you?”
Michael blinked. “Of course, sir. Everyone knows—”
“Good. And you know his play Alexius and Khur-rem, naturally?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Emir turned to Selima. “And do you?”
“Well—”
“It’s quite relevant to the case, I assure you. It takes place in Istanbul, not long after the Ottoman Conquest. Khurrem is a beautiful young woman from one of the high Turkish families. Alexius is an exiled Byzantine prince who has slipped back into the capital to try to rescue some of his family’s treasures from the grasp of the detested conqueror. He disguises himself as a Turk and meets Khurrem at a banquet, and of course they fall in love. It’s an impossible romance—a Iirk and a Greek.” He opened the book. “Let me read a little. It’s amazing that an Englishman could write such eloquent Turkish poetry, isn’t it?
‘ ‘From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventurd piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents ’ strife—' ’
The Emir glanced up. “ ‘Star-cross’d lovers.’ That’s what you are, you know.” He laughed. “It all ends terribly for poor Khurrem and Alexius* but that’s because they were such hasty children. With better planning they could have slipped away to the countryside and lived to a ripe old age, but Shakespeare tangles them up in a scheme of sleeping potions and crossed messages and they both die at the end, even though well-intentioned friends were trying to help them. But of course that’s drama for you. It’s a lovely play. I hope to be able to see it performed someday.”
He put the book aside. They both were staring at him.
To Michael he said, “I’ve arranged for you to defect to Tirkey. Ismet Akif will give you a writ of political asylum. What happens between you and Selima is of course entirely up to you and Selima, but in the name of Allah I implore you not to make as much of a shambles of it as Khurrem and Alexius did. Istanbul’s not such a bad place to live, you know. No, don’t look at me like that! If she can put up with a ninny like you, you can manage to get over your prejudices against r[irks. You asked for all this, you know. You didn’t have to fall in love with her.”
“Sir, I—I—”
Michael’s voice trailed away.
The Emir said, “Take him out of here, will you, Selima? ’ ’
“Come,” she said. “We need to talk, I think.”
“I, I, —”
The Emir gestured impatiently. Selima’s hand was on Michael’s wrist, now. She tugged, and he followed. The Emir looked after them until they had gone down the stairs.
Then he clapped his hands.
“Ali Pasha!”
The vizier appeared so quickly that there could be no doubt he had been lurking just beyond the ornate doorway.
“Majesty?”
“We have to clear this place out a little,” the Emir said. “This crocodile—this absurd giraffe—find an appropriate charity and donate them, fast. And these hippo skulls, too. And this, and this, and this—”
“At once. Majesty. A clean sweep.”
“A clean sweep, yes.”
A cool wind was blowing through the palace now, after the rains. He felt young, strong, vigorous. Life was just beginning, finally. Later in the day he would visit the lions at their pit.
At the Sign of the Rose By John Brunner
Prologue: For Reasons of State
The most luxurious train ever to travel that wonder of the modem world, the Eurasian Railway, rumbled onward through the first hot spell of summer. In its specially built observation car, as far as might be from the noise and stench of the locomotive, Vladimir IX, Czar of All the Russias, Khan of most of Asia including China and Korea, and “honorable protector” of a certain troublesome cluster of islands off the eastern shore of the continent, sat beside the Maori ambassador, wishing for the latest of uncountably many times that those distant people would abandon the habit of tattooing themselves. It made it impossible to guess what they were thinking.
Which, no doubt, was why they did it.
A vision invaded his mind: Admiral Cheng-ho’s sailors on their tragic final voyage when, half-starving and delirious with scurvy, they found their storm-battered
junks, alist with their sails in tatters and their powder soaked so that their guns were useless, surrounded by Maori war-canoes. Many of them had jumped overside crying out that they were being attacked by devils—and could they be blamed, given those insane blue patterns the strangers wore not only on their faces but all over their bodies?
At least this one had the decency to cover himself like a civilized person. But judging by the way the tattoos ran down his neck and under his collar . . .
The Czar repressed a pang of nausea and reverted to his constant preoccupation, forcing himself to reason despite the oppressive atmosphere. It was the sort of day when superstitious people claimed to hear the Gate of Worlds grinding on its hinges. The air was still, yet it dragged almost as though it were becoming solid, hampering bodily movement, making even thought sluggish. . . .
He, however, had no time for such foolish notions. He was a practical man. And right now he was faced with an extremely practical, extremely intractable problem.
He had absolutely no way of judging whether or not he was making the right impression on his guest. And he must! All his counselors were agreed on that. Indeed, the lowliest peasant might recognize the value of a non-aggression pact with the Land of the Long White Cloud. That meant-to-be puppet the Mikado, according to intelligence reports, was showing signs of impermissible ambition. Apparently he dreamed of making his people an independent maritime power through forging a secret foreign alliance: perhaps with Mexico, perhaps with Peru, but most likely with the Maoris.
Whichever way, it would eventually lead to war. And if anybody knew how fragile was the eastern part of the vast empire ruled from Moscow, it was the Czar. Hostilities in that region could shatter his realm to fragments, and in a generation it would have gone the way of the Sublime Porte. A war in the west, on the other hand, would be a different matter—even useful . . .
Was the ambassador properly awed by this wonderful engineering achievement, this iron road which had cost so much effort, so much money, and a full decade of time? Not to mention hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives. . . . But there were always more serfs, and theirs had been a necessary sacrifice. Within recent memory l±ie journey from Shanghai to Moscow had taken a year, tor one was forced to overwinter en route. Now, in fine weather, it was a matter of ten days, and even in snow-time under a month.
It was of course no use expecting Maoris to be impressed by the locomotives themselves. Their chance contact with Cheng-ho’s gunners had led them to understand the principle of heat expansion as though by instinct. The whole world knew of their capital Rotorua, where the houses were warmed in winter, and the factories driven the whole year round, by natural steam erupting from the ground. Thanks to the ships that
resulted from combining the junk with the canoe and the catamaran, plus the all-important acquisition of the compass, which kept them on course when the sky was 1:00 overcast to navigate by their traditional star maps, i:hey had dominated trade across a fifth of the globe for centuries. There were Maori settlements on every coast of Great West Island—which from the Old World point of view lay far to the south, but Maoris had circumnavigated it before any European set foot there. That had been achieved with oars and sail. When steampower was added theirs turned into a formidable fleet indeed. And some of their latest cannon, rumor said, could hurl a shot six versts!
The Czar bit back an oath. This damnable trip, no matter how essential it might be for reasons of state both internal and external, was interfering with so many other plans! To insure against the risk of losing its eastern lands, his empire must expand in Europe. The decline of Tlirkish power and constant bickering among the Teutonic States meant that great chunks of Poland and Slovakia were ripe for the picking. He had nourished independence movements there—and in many other countries—with plentiful finance and occasionally weapons. Now the moment was at hand. There would be pro-Russian uprisings the moment his army crossed the border. But the task must be complete before next winter, and time was wasting.
Still, he comforted himself, when it happened the Maori ambassador would see for himself how foolish it would be to cement a secret alliance with a client state like Japan. . . .
His mind having strayed to the delicious aroma being generated by his Chinese cooks in the adjacent galley, he grew suddenly aware that the ambassador’s interpreter was addressing him, and donned a polite expression. The train was slowing, no doubt for a bridge, of which there were many on this hilly and river-beset stretch of what had once been the Silk Road. Close by, a track-maintenance gang—to judge by their appearance, mostly Tartars—had broken off from their work of stacking timber sleepers and shovelling ballast for the roadbed, and were dutifully waving and cheering. Their overseers’ knouts were hidden from the travelers’ view, as per orders.
“Yes, the bridges are impressive, are they not?” the Czar said when he had grasped the import of what had been said. “We owe them to the remarkable skill of Chinese engineers in the use of that equally remarkable plant, bamboo I don’t know whether it’s found in your country. They tell me it’s a relative of ordinary grass, but some of its more than two hundred species have amazing structural properties. Being elastic and non-brittle, they can bear greater loads than iron girders. We’ve been over several trestles built of the stuff already, but that was during the night. This is the first we are to cross by day. Would you care to take a look?” Rising, he moved to the left of the car’s two nacelles. They extended slightly beyond its main body and offered a limited forward view through panes of glass, ajar for ventilation. Vomiting smoke and steam, the engine was dragging its train across the bridge at barely walking pace. The trestles flexed, but held. Which was as well. Among gray boulders far below a torrent roiled. The interpreter translated his master’s comment.
“It is a great achievement to have created a railway from the eastern edge of the continent to the borders of the Sultanate. The Incas build splendid roads, and so do the Aztecs, but even they could not match this iron track. The idea has been mooted of constructing something similar across Great West Island, but that project lies far in the future, since most of the interior is still known only to its aboriginal inhabitants.”
The Czar could scarcely conceal his jubilation, and some of his attendants signally failed to. He quelled their reaction with a scowl unseen by the ambassador.
“No doubt, then,” he said in an affectedly casual tone, “Your Excellency will wish to view it all the way to our present western frontier, rather than turn aside to
Moscow. There would be little point anyhow, since I myself have—ah—business to attend to before I return to my capital. ’
His attendants understood instantly. The invasion was to go ahead. Shortly yet another prize would be wrested from the Tirks and Teutons. They exchanged smiles as the observation car reached the bridge.
Which swayed, then lurched.
The ambassador blurted something incomprehensible, but did his best to remain impassive. So did the Czar. So did their respective retinues—but not for long.
The bridge tilted, and the observation car with it. The Czar lost his balance and fell sidelong to the floor of the nacelle, shouting. Horrified, the engine-driver pushed his regulator wide open, hoping against hope to drag the tail ol the train clear of the bridge before—
Too late.
The trestles bowed and snapped. The observation car tore loose and tumbled to the river and the rocks. There, thanks to the galley stoves, it caught on fire.
The Czar was dead. The whole world held its breath, and the Russian Empire shut its frontiers, not to reopen them for half a year.
And rebellion broke out like plague all over China.
One: The Rose and Its Buds
Having traversed almost exactly one hundred degrees of longitude, a train that had begun its journey at Hangchow on the eastern shore of Asia groaned to a halt before the walls of Krakdw in the heart of Europe. It was the first to be let out of Russia since the spring, and it was six months late.
Powdery snow was drifting from the afternoon sky, but despite the bitter cold and gathering dark, a crowd had assembled which outnumbered its remaining passengers. Many of the others had had their passports sequestered and must wait still longer, while those in a position to do so had returned home, infuriated and ultimately exhausted by their virtual captivity, and in some cases bankrupted by the loss of perishable goods.
Oh, officially they’d been “guests of the Czar,” fed after a fashion, allowed medical attention and otherwise provided for. But it was sheer misery to be caught up in the slow-grinding mill of Russian bureaucracy. The police had continued their investigations and interrogations long after the rest of the world had concluded that if the old Czar’s death had indeed been due to sabotage, it made sense to seek the culprits not in the west but in the east, among disaffected minorities like the Georgians or Uzbeks—even the Mongols, despite the fact that after centuries of state intermarriage, Vladimir IX had been cousin to most of them several times over.
Moreover: what if the Chinese weren’t simply seizing an unlooked-for opportunity to throw off their ancient alien yoke? And how about Japan, whose incumbent Mikado seemed determined to kick over the traces of the troika? (Propaganda from Moscow often invoked the image of that traditional Russian conveyance, in summer a carriage, in winter a sleigh, drawn by horses three abreast, implying that they were Russia-cum-Mongolia, China-cum-Korea, and Japan. Cynics pointed out that in the real-life case two of the horses had their heads twisted too far to the side to count; only the middle one actually did any pulling.)
Perhaps, though, that wasn’t what tipped the balance. Perhaps it had merely dawned on the Muscovite courtiers—or their wives and housekeepers!—how much trade was being lost because the frontiers were closed, and what a boring winter it was apt to be unless foreign goods were allowed to enter normally. Why, one was still wearing last year’s fashions, serving last year’s dishes to one’s guests!
The international situation was so tense that those who had a choice preferred not to run the risk of being trapped in a foreign—worse, a hostile—country should a war indeed break out. Some claimed that was unlikely, since the new Czar had had to order his armies eastward to contain the crisis in China. Others countered that it was therefore all the more probable: was it not traditional to unite a divided nation by invoking patriotism against an outside enemy?
That, of course, led to endless disputes about whether a Chinese, still less a Japanese, should owe allegiance to a Russian-speaking half-breed thousands of versts away in Moscow, even though he called himself a Khan. Ought Italians to obey him rather than their overlords the TUrks, simply because he also bore the title Czar that had been Caesar?
Such arguments could drag on forever. But they had been a welcome means of passing time while the train was stranded at the frontier ... so long, naturally, as no one suspected of being a Czarist spy was in earshot.
Now, though, the train had reached its destination, and its weary passengers were free to go about their business—or what of it was left after such long delay.
A few imported steam carriages, hissing and fuming, waited in hopes of wealthy customers, the sort who could rent an entire train-car for themselves and their families or retinue, instead of subletting part at a profit as did most who engaged them: those, in sum, who might be expected to require luxury transportation during their stay. But the machines’ owners were due for a disappointment. The richest travelers had been the first to turn back, and indeed the police had released them the soonest. Money, one suspected, must have talked. . . .
For those not so well off but nonetheless prosperous, cabs drawn by mules or horses were for hire. Largewheeled wagons stood in a line for those who had bulky goods to unload, but they were obliged to wait while black-uniformed customs officers moved in pairs among the throng, making sure that all necessary documentation had been completed at the border post where the Nida and the Wisla met. Some of them had dogs trained to sniff out undeclared substances easily concealed, such as tobacco, opium or coca.
Meantime dolmushes filled quickly. As soon as every seat was occupied their traditionally foul-mouthed drivers swung them about, using whips as well as tongues to clear the way. For those too poor to ride the short distance to the city there remained porters with greasy fur caps on their heads, wooden frames on their backs and wooden clogs on their feet, offering to bear loads as heavy as themselves for the price of a meal or a drink.
A little apart from the rest was parked one most unusual conveyance. Dark green, with red roses painted on either side, it was capable of seating eight, all facing forward, and built to such a high standard that even its driver was protected from the elements. Its engine and boiler, at the front, afforded him grateful warmth, while both chimney and spent-steam pipes discharged at the rear after heating the passenger compartment. Many were the envious glances cast towards it—but of them the portly personage leaning out of its left-side window took no notice. Immensely caped and gloved, he was issuing instructions to a group of teenage boys clad in the same dark green and wearing rose-red turbans.