The King

37. The Black Blanket

Tehran was stricken by the plague, but England extended a helping hand to the vizier just in time. They sent Indian nurses to the villages around Tehran to cope with the epidemic. Russian army doctors also came over, pitching tents on the bazaar squares in the northern cities.

Thousands of people died in Tehran and the surrounding countryside. In the harem three more women succumbed. Every Friday the populace went to the Jameh mosque to ask for God’s help, under the imam’s direction. And their prayers were heard, for winter came earlier than expected and it was so cold that the rocks crumbled in the mountains. It snowed for one whole week, and the snow froze. The weather was so severe that it was impossible to know whether people were dying from the cold or the plague.

As if that weren’t enough famine caught them unawares. Experience teaches that when hunger strikes you no longer think about death. The hunger was so intense that everyone forgot about the plague.

There was no sign of the plague in the southern part of the country. The British were working on the harbour in the Persian Gulf, and in the city of Masjed Soleyman they were laying the foundation for the first major oil installation in the Middle East.

All this time the shah stayed in his castle and sent his orders to Tehran from there. Just before a thick layer of snow threatened to cut the shah off from the outside world, he returned to the palace. He avoided the harem and refused to allow anyone to talk about the tragic deaths.

On one of those cold winter nights, when the streets were deserted and everyone had their windows covered over with blankets, the shah summoned the vizier. The shah had had no personal contact with him since that one evening at the castle before the invasion of Herat. A messenger had been conveying messages back and forth between them. It was strange that the shah wanted to see him just now, in this cold and so late at night.

‘I have a bad feeling about this. It would be better if you didn’t go alone,’ said his wife, Fagri.

‘Don’t worry. I won’t be long.’

‘Listen to me. Think of something. Say you’ll drop in tomorrow.’

‘I can’t do that. The shah needs me now. Otherwise he wouldn’t have summoned me at this late hour.’

‘God help us,’ wept Fagri silently.

‘Vizier-koshan’ was a well-known hallmark of Persian history. It meant ‘kill the vizier!’ The murder of a competent vizier was not an unusual occurence in royal circles. Each vizier was fully aware that at any unexpected moment he could be killed by the king. There were also many examples of princes who had murdered a king, and of kings who had taken the lives of their sons and brothers.

The story of Grand Vizier Hasanak was an example everyone knew about. Hasanak was popular and powerful. On one ill-fated day the sultan summoned him. Hasanak knew that he was hated among the royalty, but he never suspected that the sultan wanted to kill him. As soon as he rode into the palace grounds the gate was closed and bolted from inside. Bayhaqi, the medieval chronicler, recorded the following scene in his book:

The next day, Hasanak the grand vizier was put on a shabby nag and taken to the gallows. He had never ridden on such a small horse before.

The executioner wanted to blindfold him, but Hasanak refused.

‘Stone him!’ cried the sultan.

But no one threw a single stone.

‘Hang him!’ cried the sultan.

The executioner hung Hasanak. For seven years Hasanak hung on the gallows. The Persian sun burnt him and the east wind carried his ashes away.

Another familiar example was the death of Grand Vizier Mirza Tagi Khan. Early one morning he went to the hamam to bathe. After his bath he sat down in the barber’s chair. The barber sharpened his razor, removed the superfluous hair from the vizier’s neck, placed the razor on his artery and severed it. He did this by order of the king.

Fagri knew those stories, which is why she was afraid that her husband would meet the same fate.

‘Don’t cry,’ the vizier told his wife. He kissed her and rode to the palace.

When he got to the gate he noticed the guards were different. He had never seen this head of the guards before. It was customary that when the vizier appeared on the square, a horn would be sounded and the head of the guards would come out and salute him. This time there was silence, and the head of the guards did not move from his post.

Still seated on his horse he heard the sound of the bolt in the gate, which he suspected was being locked behind him. The branches of the trees bowed low under the frozen snow, the palace chimney smoked and the torches near the pond were burning. The shadow of the shah fell on the curtains of his study, as if he were spying on the vizier from the window.

The vizier dismounted and gave the reins to a groom who was also unfamiliar to him. He was a muscular man who lacked a groom’s customary deftness.

The vizier cautiously climbed the icy stairs to the palace entrance. Inside the corridors were dark, but a small lantern was burning in front of the door to the hall of mirrors. There was menace in the air. A voice within him urged him to turn back before it was too late, but he couldn’t turn back. The shah had seen him and was waiting for him. Instinctively he turned round, pulled the door open and was about to go outside. The man who had taken his horse away was standing at the top of the stairs.

‘His Majesty is waiting for you,’ he said calmly, and closed the door.

The vizier walked back to the hall of mirrors, knocked gently on the door and called out, ‘Aga Moshir!’

Out of the darkness came a voice: ‘Go in. The chamberlain is not here.’

All the curtains in the hall of mirrors were closed, but the candles were burning in the chandelier. The vizier walked across the big green carpet, sat down on the pomegranate-coloured satin chair and began to massage his leg, which was acting up again.

Every time he came here to wait for the shah he marvelled at the patterns in the carpet beneath his feet. It was one of the most beautiful carpets he had ever seen. Many thin threads of gold were woven into it, and hundreds of finely polished, colourful little jewels were worked into its floral patterns.

No one knew exactly when the royal carpet had been crafted, but it was thought to have come from one of the Persian palaces that had been set on fire by the Muhammadans when they conquered the Persian Empire thirteen centuries before. Muhammad’s disciples had plundered all the palaces and burned them down, but one servant managed to save this carpet. This distraction helped put the vizier at ease.

‘The vizier was frightened for a moment,’ he said to himself. ‘This is not like you. You’re tired. Why not go back to Farahan for a week and get some rest?’

Suddenly he heard footsteps behind the small door the chamberlain always used.

‘Aga Moshir!’ he shouted.

No one responded. He went to the small door to see who it was, but the door, which was always open, was now locked. He heard someone walk away.

‘Aga Moshir, is that you?’

The silence that followed filled him with fear. Something moved behind the long curtain from which the shah always made his appearance. The vizier expected the shah, but it was Sharmin, sticking her head out from underneath.

‘Sharmin!’ he called, greatly relieved. ‘Come, come here!’

The cat didn’t budge. She seemed to smell that something was amiss. She stared at the vizier for a moment, then pulled her head back and disappeared. Sharmin convinced the vizier that the situation in the hall of mirrors was not as it should be. Otherwise she would have come up to him and rubbed herself against his leg.

The vizier hesitated. Perhaps he ought to notify the shah himself: ‘Your Majesty, I’m waiting for you.’

He walked to the curtain.

‘Your Majesty! Are you there?” he called again.

Perhaps the shah wasn’t in the building yet and the vizier had been mistaken when he thought he saw the shah’s shadow. He paced back and forth through the room with his hands behind his back. Something told him he had walked into a trap. His body had warned him right from the start, but he had ignored all the signs.

What else could he have done? He couldn’t have disregarded the summons. He couldn’t have stayed at home or fled. He had to obey the shah, so he had come to the palace.

The fact that his enemies wanted to kill him was something he always had to take into account. But he hadn’t thought they would set the trap in the hall of mirrors.

He tried to rally his courage. Perhaps the shah was just angry at him and was trying to offend the vizier by making him wait too long. Besides, what could the shah do? When the shah’s father had asked him to be his son’s prime minister, the vizier had agreed under one condition: ‘If the crown prince swears by the Quran that he will never kill me.’

The crown prince had laughed and said, ‘I swear by the Quran that I will never have your blood on my hands,’ at which the shah’s father had happily placed his son’s hands in those of the vizier.

‘Now I can die in peace,’ he said.

The vizier was startled to recall the shah’s words. The shah hadn’t sworn that he wouldn’t kill the vizier, only that he would never have his blood on his own hands. He could leave that to others.

The torches around the pond had been extinguished and the courtyard was pitch dark. The gate was closed and there wasn’t a guard in sight. The vizier had not been wrong. He had to save himself. He flung open the door and ran smack into the broad back of the guard, who was blocking the entrance like a brick wall.

‘I believe His Majesty is very busy and will probably be occupied for quite some time,’ said the vizier. ‘I’m going to prepare myself for prayer.’

‘You’re not going anywhere. His Majesty is waiting for you.’

‘It won’t take long.’

‘You cannot leave,’ said the guard.

‘I believe I am being detained?’ said the vizier with a tone of irony.

The guard roughly shoved him inside and shut the door.

‘Don’t be weak,’ said the vizier to himself. ‘Stay calm.’

He stood in the middle of the room for a moment, then walked to the shah’s water jug, which had been placed on a table in the corner. Meticulously he washed his hands and face for prayer, then turned towards Mecca. It was the only calming thing he could do. He said his prayers, taking longer than usual, but the shah still did not appear.

What was the shah waiting for? If he had wanted to belittle the vizier he had succeeded. And if he had something else in mind, why was it taking so long?

Suddenly he realised it was Friday evening: on Friday it was forbidden to kill anyone. The moon was hanging directly over the palace. It was almost midnight. He began to sing quietly: ‘Ashhado anna la ilaha illa Allah, wa ashhado anna Muhammadun rasul Allah. I testify that there is but one God and He is Allah. I testify that Muhammad is His prophet.’

These are the words you recite when you are certain that death is near. It was quite conceivable that the shah was spying on him to see how the vizier, the hero, the man who wanted to topple him from the throne, was now wrestling to escape from a tight situation.

With great composure he walked through the room. Now that he was prepared to die he had become calm. He observed the carpet once again. It was indeed the most beautiful carpet ever made by Persian women. Many other viziers had probably walked across it just before their death.

The moon had almost passed over the palace.

‘It is time,’ murmured the vizier.

The door opened. Three burly men came in. They were carrying a large black blanket and a rope.

‘La ilaha illa Allah,’ cried the vizier.

Two of the men ran up to him, grasped him from behind and tied his hands tightly together.

‘La ilaha il—’ cried the vizier again, but before he could finish his sentence the third man shoved a handkerchief in his mouth.

The vizier fought to get loose, but the three men forced him to the ground. In a few quick movements they wrapped him in the black blanket. He snarled and kicked, but the men bound the blanket with the rope, lifted him from the floor and carried him outside.

When peace returned to the room the cat came out. She walked across the carpet and sniffed it here and there. Then the curtain opened and the shah appeared. It was still night, but the torches near the fountain were burning again and the guards were standing attentively at the gate as if nothing had happened.