The King

18. Fear

Late that evening the vizier came to see the shah. He found him sitting in his chair with the cat in his lap. As soon as the vizier entered the room the cat jumped down, went up to him and brushed against his leg. The vizier was tired and shaken. He reached down and stroked the cat. ‘How are you, Sharmin?’ he said.

The vizier came from a family whose men had often been through trying times like these. The incident at the Russian embassy would have serious consequences.

‘With His Majesty’s permission I would like to speak with him privately in his conference room.’

The shah stood up and the vizier followed him. They locked the door and sat down at the conference room table.

‘We’ve walked into a British trap,’ said the vizier, coming straight to the point.

The shah suspected that the vizier was aware of his secret appointment with the Russians.

‘We won’t solve anything by blaming each other. It only makes matters worse,’ continued the vizier. ‘A lackey from the British embassy went straight to the ayatollah and told him about the presence of the Persian women at the Russian residence. This ayatollah maintains good contacts with the British, who have him on their payroll. He took immediate action. Tomorrow the report of the thirty-four Russian corpses will reach Moscow. The British wanted to show the Russians in a bad light, but they never could have imagined that their scheme would end in this disaster. They’re celebrating at the British residence right now, you can be sure of it. They took a chance and won.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked the shah.

‘Now the shah has nowhere to turn,’ said the vizier. ‘But there’s one question that puzzles me: what was the appointment with the envoy all about?’

The shah stared in bewilderment and said, ‘We don’t know. And the man is dead.’

The vizier could see that the shah was hiding something. He had a feeling it had to do with Herat. He wanted to keep asking questions, but the shah was clearly in a muddle. It was not the right moment to continue the conversation.

‘It is better that Your Majesty go to bed. We do not know what tomorrow will bring,’ he said.

The vizier left. Once he was alone the shah was overcome with a sense of the vizier’s growing power and of his own powerlessness. Fear had the upper hand. He knew that many ayatollahs and princes were being paid by England, but he had never expected that the British would manipulate an ayatollah in order to carry out their plans. The vizier hadn’t said it in so many words, but he had let the shah see how he was being used. What did the vizier mean when he said he had nowhere to turn?

‘Sharmin!’ called the shah.

The cat did not come.

The shah was tired, but he couldn’t sleep. His head wouldn’t stop churning. In the hall’s gloom he looked into the mirror and raised a threatening index finger: ‘Tomorrow we will teach that ayatollah a lesson. He will hang. But what about the thirty-four corpses?’

Suddenly the light of a torch was reflected in the mirror. The shah spun round and walked to the window. It was peaceful in the courtyard, but at the gate there were more guards than usual. He watched as two of them rolled a cannon to the gate. He also saw a few guards on top of the wall, their weapons poised. His glance fell on the stable, where a number of horses had been readied. Then he walked to his study, which afforded a better view of the gate. His heart began beating faster when he saw the shadow of the vizier’s tall hat out on the wall. Something touched his foot and he jumped, but it was only Sharmin.

‘You startled us. Where were you? Come, we’ve got to go away. We cannot stay here tonight,’ he said, picking her up from the floor. ‘I believe the vizier has imprisoned us. But maybe not. Maybe he is doing all this to protect us.’

He went to the bedroom, put Sharmin on the bed and turned all the locks. He opened his closet door, unlocked the secret hatch of the hidden tunnel leading to the treasury, and set out his boots and gun in readiness.

Ever since Sheikh Aqasi had led him to the treasury by way of this hatch, the shah could often be found there. And when the vizier had reduced the allowance for the shah, his mother and the royal relatives by half, and had imposed restrictions on the expenses for the harem, the shah had come to the cellar regularly to load up on gold coins. He had them melted down and made into new coins to cover his considerable expenses. The shah had already emptied several sacks of Indian gold.

He had also had the jewel-encrusted bed of the old Indian kings made up for himself, should he ever have to stay in the cellar for prolonged periods. Every time he came to the treasury he brought non-perishable food with him.

He checked the door and the windows of his bedroom once more and went to bed.

‘As soon as you hear footsteps in the hall of mirrors you must wake us up, Sharmin. Then we will flee together.’

And with that the shah laid his tired head on the pillow and immediately fell into a deep sleep.