Phantom (36 page)

"If you want to retain any sanity at all, you have to get out of Persia soon," I said. "You know that, don't you?"

He shrugged. "When the palace is finished, I'll think about it."

"You may not have the leisure to think about it," I warned him. "The moment the last stone is in place you had better be prepared to take good care of your health. You have more enemies than any other man in the country, and you will not have the shah's protection for much longer. The woman wants your blood, Erik. I tell you, you've burned your boats now, make no mistake of that."

He sucked the sweet smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled slowly on a long sigh.

"Ah, well," he mused with a sort of dreamy, distant sadness, "hell is full of burning boats, did you know that, Nadir? I daresay that's what makes it so bloody hot."

I smiled faintly. Even in the darkest mood he retained that odd, engaging little quirk of humor, an unexpected sense of fun which made him seem strangely human even in the most bizarre of circumstances. Since Reza's death he had been the only person who regularly made me surprise myself with laughter at a time when I had thought I would never learn to laugh again.

Perhaps I did wrong to give him opium and fuel another deadly vice, but I would have had to be a hard man indeed to deny him those fumes of peace.

When the bell in the minaret summoned me to prayer, I left him alone in a familiar cloud of sickly fragrance. Presently my prayers were disturbed by the melancholy playing of his violin, and in spite of my religious obligations I found myself listening transfixed.

All the grief in the world seemed to be distilled through those soft, vibrant notes.

It was as though the devil himself wept teardrops of pure sound.

The rest of the conspirators died in a horrific public spectacle which shocked all the resident European missions.

The thirty executions were personally carried out by the ministers of state, the offenders being variously bayoneted, gouged, and generally cut to pieces before the watching court; but the spectacle was sufficiently unoriginal to exonerate Erik from any part of its devising. Clumsy, disorganized, and entirely lacking in finesse, it bore the stamp of our new prime minister's healthy respect for his own preservation. It was difficult to pinpoint a victim for revenge when the entire government had been obliged to take responsibility for this mass execution. The shah's French physician, when invited to show his loyalty by wielding a knife at the event, excused himself by remarking humorously that he was already professionally responsible for too many deaths to voluntarily increase that number now. The shah had laughed heartily and appeared to accept the excuse with good grace, but shortly afterward the good doctor was served with a glass of poison and died in great agony.

I, fortunately, was considered of too mean a rank to be honored with an invitation to take part. I was relieved of my duties as spy and bodyguard and sent back to Mazanderan to ensure that no Babi activity in the region would disturb the shah in his winter retreat. Consequently I did not see Erik for many months, and the first I knew of the new palace's completion was a command to attend the shah at the Garden of Echoes.

When I arrived I found the vast audience chamber quite empty. The mass of the court was still at Ashraf, the Shah's presence here today being in the nature of a passing visit for the purpose of inspection. For all its palatial exterior the building was really only an elaborate hunting box, a play pavilion designed to amuse and entertain its royal master. Right from the beginning there had never been any intention of housing the entire court. Only the favored few-would ever be invited to attend the king of kings in this whimsical folly, and those who were invited to do so would do well to avoid unguarded words in private conversation. Erik had warned me that the place was not called the Garden of Echoes for nothing.

When the shah appeared abruptly at my side, I was so startled that I dropped the dossier containing details of my loyal activities during the preceding months. He had not entered the room through any of the doors upon which I had been keeping a wary eye, and it seemed to me that he must have walked straight through the wall behind me.

Nothing could have delighted him more than my very genuine stupefaction.

"Ah, Daroga!" he said with the gloating glee of a schoolboy, "I see that I have startled you. An amusing little device, is it not?"

"Most amusing, Imperial Majesty."

I rose from my knees in accordance with his gesture and stared in dismay at my documents, which were now hopelessly muddled. I knew that the entire palace had been riddled with secret passages and trapdoors for the shah's exclusive use. Personally 1 considered the whole thing very childish, a devilish game of hide-and-seek which would inevitably result in many wonderful tragedies. It was a sad waste of Erik's talent. All he had wanted to do was build something beautiful, but at every step of construction he had been dogged by his patron's insatiable demand for novelty and diversion. I knew that the trapdoors and secret passages had formed no part of Erik's original design; his wonder of architecture had been reduced, at the end of the day, to an elaborate toy designed to please a vicious little boy. Its very real beauty was entirely lost upon the shah.

"How do you care for my new house of pleasure?" continued His Majesty. "Would you say that it was unique of its kind—
truly
unique?"

I hastened to assure him that it was. In spite of his glee there was something querulous and even petulant about his mood which alarmed me. He was like a spoiled child who had been forced to wait overlong for a promised gift, determined to find fault because reality could not quite compare to his dream.

"The secret passages are very cramped and airless," he complained suddenly, "quite uncomfortable in fact. I was obliged to remove my hat."

I did my best to look sympathetic. Personally I considered the greatest miracle of this building was the fact that Erik had somehow managed to keep his hands off his master's neck during the course of its construction.

"There cannot be another monarch in the world who possesses a palace such as this," I assured him fatuously. "You have a great jewel of architecture and a servant who is truly without equal in this world."

The shah frowned and flicked a speck of masonry dust from his voluminous skirts.

"As he has served me, so may he serve others. They say his fame has already spread to Constantinople and that the sultan seeks to lure him from my service."

I felt my mouth turn dry with apprehension.

"I'm sure Your Majesty may quite safely ignore such malicious rumors. Erik's loyalty—"

The shah laughed abruptly.

"Do you think me foolish enough to believe in that man's loyalty? He owes allegiance to no one, as I believe you know very well. Erik is entirely without scruple of any kind. He is a murderer—and worse than that, he is a thief."

"A thief?" I echoed uneasily. "Surely a man of such honestly acquired wealth need not stoop to theft."

"I believe that he steals purely for amusement, Daroga— to test his own powers of legerdemain. That matter of the cat's collar was never resolved, as you know. And cut glass has been found in the Peacock Throne—
glass
! There was a time when such shameless arrogance amused me, but the khanum advises me of his insolence and I find I am increasingly inclined to agree with her judgment of him. A man such as he is not to be trusted with state secrets."

The shah turned away and began to stride restlessly up and down the room. I did not dare to argue with him, and after a moment he turned to look at me thoughtfully.

"I am relieved to find you do not speak in his defense. There have been moments in this past year, Daroga, when I have been afraid your own loyalty was not above reproach."

I prostrated myself at his feet, in the proscribed act of self-abasement, my forehead coming to rest against the tip of his riding boot.

"Get up, get up!" he said testily. "I have devised the perfect means for you to demonstrate your loyalty to me now."

I raised my head fearfully. Allah, what was this?

"It may interest you to know that the khanum suggests I should have his eyes put out."

Yes, I thought… a fitting punishment for his crime against her. What use are eyes to a man who willfully refuses to see a woman's wretched lust?

"But on reflection," continued the shah coolly, "I am not convinced that such an act would necessarily extinguish his gifts and render him useless to another monarch. I wish to preserve the unique quality of this palace… he shall build for no other king. Every man who worked upon this site is to be put to death—including its creator. You will arrest Erik tomorrow night when he returns to Ashraf."

"Tomorrow?" I echoed dimly.

Again the shah frowned.

"Tonight he completes a minor alteration that I have required to my private chamber, and 1 do not wish him to be disturbed. Tomorrow I have no further use for him."

Seating himself on the dais he glanced critically around the audience chamber, but evidently found no further cause for complaint that would have gained Erik another night's reprieve.

"I shall leave the means of execution in your capable hands, Daroga… but be quite sure that no damage is inflicted upon the skull. It is my wish that his head should be preserved with embalming fluids and mounted on a pillar in the Gulistan. The sultan and the emir will both be sick with jealousy to hear of my new ornament."

I looked at the floor, terrified that my expression would betray my disgust.

"Well," demanded the shah brusquely, "are my instructions not sufficiently clear?"

"They are perfectly clear, O Shadow of God." I made an elaborate obeisance and backed away to the door.

"Daroga!"

"Your Majesty?"

"Instruct your men to search his apartments very carefully after the arrest. I fully expect that collar to be found hidden among his possessions."

Once more I bowed my head in acknowledgment.

I had twenty-four hours to make my arrangements.
*

Shortly before dawn my men surrounded Erik's apartment at Ashraf and I entered his room alone.

He was startled.

"It is customary to knock first before entering," he said rather shortly. "What the devil are you doing here at this hour? I did not invite you."

"This is not a social visit," I said loudly, allowing my voice to carry into the corridor beyond. "I come here in my official capacity, as chief of police in this region, to arrest you for treason. You must prepare to leave at once."

He began to laugh, but when I made a violent sign for him to be silent, he was suddenly quiet, watching me curiously.

"We don't have much time," I whispered. "Find whatever you have of portable value and give it to me quickly."

He leaned over to touch a hidden spring in the wall and immediately a stone moved to one side, revealing a small cavity from which he took a casket.

"I have been working all night on the shah's personal commission, you find me about to bathe." His voice carried effortlessly out to the ears of my waiting men and I saw with relief that he had accepted the rules of this desperate game.

"You will be permitted a few minutes in which to dress," I said.

He handed me the casket, and when I opened it I found a veritable dragon's hoard of treasures within. There were precious gems of every description, some official rewards for his services, but many others quite plainly appropriated. 1 recognized a great diamond that had once belonged to Mirza Taqui Khan and, lying on the bottom of the box, the missing cat's collar with a fortune in jewels winking in the torchlight.

I looked at him accusingly and he gave me a graceful, almost humorous little shrug.

"You know my weakness for beautiful things."

I sighed as I tipped the contents of the casket into a leather bag and fastened it safely beneath my coat. He wished always to surround himself with beauty and I knew that a diamond or a butterfly was of equal value in his eyes. I had to go back to the cavity in the wall to find the money that he had stuffed carelessly at the back and forgotten. When I had emptied the secret compartment I gestured for him to close it.

"Give me your hands," I muttered. "They will expect to see you bound."

For a moment, as he stiffened in anger, I thought his insane pride would ruin everything, that he would sooner die than suffer himself to be tied and constrained like an animal.

"Give me your hands," I repeated, with authority. "Erik —it is the only way."

He looked at the rope with a fear and loathing that showed me a grim shadow of his past, and as I passed the rough, fibrous binding around his wrists, his fists clenched, as though in an effort to restrain some primitive instinct to resist. I felt that I was binding some wild, mythological beast; only the trust which had slowly grown up between us prevented him from turning on me now and rending me to pieces with savage claws.

His wrists were so incredibly thin that I bound them cautiously, fearing their deceptively fragile appearance, and as I did so I noticed that the flesh was covered with old scar tissue.

"How did you come by such injuries?" I asked curiously. "Was it that window in Tehran?"

He shook his head briefly, still staring at his bindings as though he could not quite believe he had permitted this thing to be done.

"I broke a mirror once," he said. "A well-meaning and very misguided lady bound up my wrists and saved my life."

"Your mother?"

He looked up at me, and something in his expression made me shiver.

"My mother would have let me bleed to death," he said stonily. "And who is to say she would not have been right in that?"

I fastened the rope in silence, once more struck dumb by the bleak tragedy of his existence, and when I had finished I went to the door and called my men into the room.

"Search the apartment and make an inventory of all you find." I turned back to Erik, who stood with his head bent, staring at the floor. "You, sir, will come with me now."