The Sleeping Sands (28 page)

As he stood and watched the doorway through which Khanumi had darted, Layard heard the high-pitched sound of greyhounds barking from beyond the gate, excitedly welcoming Au Kerim or another hunter. His mind wandered to a day more than a year earlier.

*                      *                      *

A furious barking drowned out his question. At the river’s edge, a pack of dogs had cornered an old ragged-looking tom cat that had backed up to the edge of a wooden platform, spitting and snarling at its pursuers.

‘Daniel?’ he repeated.

‘Daniel,’ confirmed William Layard, prodding curiously at a pile of litter with his cane. ‘As in lion’s den; writing on the wall; voices in the night. That sort of thing.’

‘Daniel?’ asked Layard again, struggling to comprehend what his uncle had revealed.

‘Yes, dear boy; Daniel,’ said Uncle William, betraying the faintest hint of frustration. ‘Have you read your Bible recently?’

‘I understand who Daniel is, Sir,’ replied Layard, ‘but I find it hard to fathom how the Society should be interested in the whereabouts of the remains of a character from an old Bible story.’

‘Ah, but that is the thing, dear boy,’ sang his uncle, quietly, looking carefully up and down the deserted wharf side, ‘there are a great many stories about Daniel. That handful that we have to make do with in our shabby old Bible is just the barest taste of the Daniel tradition. From Alexandria to Kandahar, they tell stories of Daniel that would curl your toes.’

He danced on tiptoe to emphasise his point.

‘Curl your toes, dear boy.’

‘But what would the Society want with the Tomb of Daniel?’ persisted Layard. ‘I mean, I can understand the archaeological significance of confirming the location of the tomb of any of the prophets, particularly one as important as Daniel; but for the Society to set such a store-‘

‘Change, my obtuse nephew; change,’ explained William Layard, twirling his fat index finger in a circle above his head. ‘Daniel stands at the apex of empires; he strides between falling kingdoms and rising nations; he holds secrets that can set up dynasties or bring centuries-old noble houses crashing to destruction; he gives meaning to chaos and power to those who will listen.

‘Haven’t you noticed how fashionable the young prophet is at the moment? You can hardly walk past a cheap engraver’s in St Martin’s Lane without being assaulted by images of the poor boy among the lions, the writing on the wall or Shadrach, Meshach and that Abednego fellow. The Capital has gone Daniel daft.’

‘There is a popular belief,’ replied Layard, ‘that London is the new Babylon – that we have fallen into the same sins as the Ancients.’

‘And we’re all going to be purged by holy fire for our transgressions?’ asked Uncle William. ‘Parsimonious, pious poppycock! Evangelical claptrap! I thought you fancied yourself a Romantic, dear boy. Why we should be striving to rebuild the tower of Babel, not cower in its shadow.’

He thumped the side of a shed they were passing so violently with his cane that the pack of dogs was momentarily distracted from its quarry, which leapt to a wooden walkway that ran from the wharf side towards an old jetty. Angrily, the dogs rejoined their efforts to pursue the cat with twice their previous clamour.

‘You have to scratch the surface, dear boy,’ continued Uncle William. ‘The Minds, whom we serve, understand this more than we do. They see patterns in the ebb and flow of the vulgar ejaculations of the populace that are far too subtle for the likes of you and me, dear boy. They turn the microscopes of their intellects to the chattering of the masses and listen to the whisperings of tales blown in from the desert. They see changes coming; changes that can shake the whole world; and they see in this fashionable fantasy of Babylon an arcane and esoteric truth. It is a truth that Daniel provides the model for understanding this change and for turning it to our advantage. Daniel held the secret of foreseeing change and he gave power to those who were prepared to listen. That is the story they remember in the East that is not told in our books.’

‘But surely Daniel took his secrets to the grave,’ said Layard, overwhelmed by the intensity of his usually phlegmatic uncle.

‘Precisely, my slow-witted offshoot,’ smiled William Layard. ‘That is why you need to go and look for it.’

Layard’s uncle frowned owlishly at his nephew and prodded him gently in the chest with the tip of his cane.

‘In ancient times, such was the power attributed even to the prophet’s remains that mighty rivers were diverted and entire cities razed simply to hide their location. The secret has slept for eons, but secrets have a habit of emerging; oozing though a process of osmosis into the unknowing babble of the common population. It is only since the wars in Europe ended that we have been able to painstakingly gather the information that we now have – of the three possible locations that you have been given.

‘It is up to you my dear boy. There are other intelligences as subtle as those which we serve. It is only a matter of time before the search is joined. You can help determine the future. Will it be a bright new Empire or a time of darkness and decline?’

The barking intensified. The old tom had now been forced to the edge of the walkway. Half of the pack crouched snarling on the walkway, ready to spring, while the other half had worked their way round, by another walkway to the main jetty and were closing down upon the cat. Only a narrow, rotten beam that had slipped from the walkway and lay jammed between the jetty and an old scow grounded in the stinking mud below provided any possible escape. The cat hissed and darted for the beam, making it just fractions of inches ahead of the snapping jaws of the lead dogs. It raced along the beam, chased by the pack. The old beam could not bear the weight of so many bodies. With a wet tearing noise it split and tumbled from the walkway, spilling the howling dogs into the evil, sucking mud below. Only the cat escaped, leaping clear of the beam at the last instant to land in safety on the scow, bristling and growling at the surviving dogs, which stood, yapping in impotent indignation from the jetty.

*                      *                      *

The barking of the greyhounds subsided and the squat silhouette of Au Kerim appeared in the doorway. He walked over to Layard and greeted him, gruffly but warmly.

‘You’re spending too much time among the women, Frank,’ he said, clutching Layard’s upper arm in a powerful grip. ‘Let’s go hunting tomorrow. I know where we are sure to find a bear. You can enjoy some Man’s sport.’

‘Thank you, Au Kerim Khan,’ replied Layard. ‘In truth there is nothing I would enjoy more. However, I have delayed long enough. I will set out for Sûsan tomorrow.’

*                      *                      *

Since their return from the lion hunt, the Khan had talked little of the terrifying night in Mullah Fezi’s castle. He had brooded long and hard on the matter and had taken to riding out on regular inspections of the fortifications guarding the approaches to Kala Tul and its surrounding pastures. He was absent from the castle when Layard made his decision to make an expedition to Sûsan, so his brother, Au Khan Baba took it upon himself to write letters to the two Bakhtiari chiefs who controlled the plain of Mal Emir on which the site of Sûsan rested. Respecting Layard’s wish to keep the object of his expedition a secret from the castle’s general population, he met with the Englishman and the Khanum in the enderun.

‘Do not trust the chiefs in Mal Emir, Henry,’ warned Au Khan Baba. ‘Mullah Mohammed and Mullah Feraj are wild lawless men who respect neither the laws of hospitality nor the precepts of the Koran. Even with these letters, giving you my brother’s protection, there is no guarantee of your safety. Walk carefully among them.’

‘Will you reconsider taking guards with you?’ asked Khatun-Jan.

‘I fear not My Lady,’ replied Layard. ‘I wish to travel quietly from Kala Tul. I will have my gun.’

‘But you must not take your gun,’ insisted the Khanum. ‘Any fire-arm is a target for robbers in the mountains and your Frankish gun would get your throat cut by the first mountaineer to see it.’

‘I am reluctant to travel without protection,’ said Layard, remembering the lion attack.

‘Here, my friend,’ said Au Khan Baba, ‘this is as good as any gun; and it never runs out of powder.’

He handed Layard a long dagger with an unadorned dark steel hilt.

‘This is the knife that slew Hassan Khan as he rose from his prayers,’ said the khan grimly. ‘With it, my brother won the leadership of the Char Lang tribe and became the Great Khan of the Bakhtiari. It paid a blood debt to our clan. There is no weapon more deadly in all of Khuzistan. My brother asked me to give it to you when you set out on your travels. Hold this knife, while my sister holds your gun, and you will return safely to Kala Tul.’

Crossing the plain of Tul, into the hills that separated it from the plain of Mal Emir, Layard came upon the ruins of Hassan Khan’s castle. He remembered the story that the Khanum had told him of Mehemet Taki Khan’s rise to power. However complex and confusing Persian court intrigue was, the politics of the Bakhtiari were operatic in their intrigue and bloodshed. It had taken a number of re-tellings by Khatun-Jan for Layard to properly understand how Mehemet Taki Khan had won leadership of the Bakhtiari. The Khan’s father, Ali Khan, had also been the great and powerful chief of the Char Lang tribe – foremost among the Bakhtiari peoples. However, power never transferred among the Bakhtiari through any mechanism as straightforward as simple inheritance. On the contrary; Ali Khan’s power and influence had excited the jealousy of the Shah, into whose hands Ali Khan had been delivered by the treachery of his own brother Hassan Khan, in return for leadership of the Char Lang tribe. To add a terrible ignominy, Ali Khan’s eyes had been put out by the Shah and his treacherous brother had declared a blood feud against his family, forcing Mehemet Taki Khan and his brothers, still little more than children, into hiding. The boys had not, however, taken meekly to flight. The three oldest brothers, Mehemet Taki, Ali Naghi and Khan Baba swore vengeance for their father. They crept into Hassan Khan’s castle and assassinated him and his captains as they finished their morning prayers. The young Mehemet Taki had fought his uncle hand to hand and killed him. He had claimed the chieftainship of the Char Lang tribe and had taken Hassan Khan’s daughter as his wife and adopted his three young sons.

Layard rode past the ruined castle, noticing the little ragged cluster of tents around it. He recalled that the Khanum had told him that Hassan Khan’s daughter, now out of favour at Kala Tul and deposed as principal wife by Khatun-Jan, resided there; living out her days with a handful of retainers. Her marriage had been nothing more than a political expediency made by the wily Khan when still a teenager. He mused that marriage was as effective a weapon of statecraft among the Bakhtiari as the dagger he wore in his belt and wondered how his own match to Khanumi might serve the Khan.

Layard called out to a small group of men clustered around the castle’s entrance, hailing them and asking if he might pay a visit to Hassan Khan’s daughter. With dispirited voices they cried back that the former Khanum would see no-one but only asked to be left alone. He rode away from the melancholy ruin, its meagre handful of tents flapping in the harsh mountain wind.

From the hills, he entered the plain of Mal Emir and found lodgings at length with the followers of Mullah Mohammed. The Mullah’s encampment was a scrappy, poorly appointed affair, scattered across some artificial mounds that Layard suspected were the remains of an ancient city. The tallest of these was designated the castle, although in practice this was little more than a wooden hut built at the summit of the hill. Layard was welcomed by the Mullah with a meal and a rude berth in the ‘castle’.

Layard spent the following day exploring a gorge that ran to the north of the Mullah’s camp in which there was a series of caves. He explored the caves, which contained some fine relief carvings of fire worshippers, covered in minute cuneiform inscriptions. It took him almost ten hours to copy the clearest of these inscriptions into his notebook, to the entertainment of the Mullah’s men, who would take turns to watch the strange foreigner at his work.

‘Is there gold hidden here, Ferenghi?’ they would call out.

‘Will you share it with us?’

‘Are the foreigners going to invade us again?’

‘Why are you copying down those bird footprints?’

Layard could not help but feel he was the men’s only source of entertainment on the barren plain. Seeing from his watch that it was getting late, he returned to the camp, where he shared a meal and entertained the men by showing them how they could use his compass to determine the location of Mecca. Mullah Mohammed discussed Layard’s travel plans.

‘The path to Sûsan is rough and dangerous,’ said the Mullah, dipping his fingers into a bowl of mutton stew. ‘You should travel at night and as light as possible. You may leave any additional baggage here and collect it on your return. I will give you a guide who can take you by the safest paths.’

As good as his word, the Mullah supplied Layard with a guide and a fresh horse, taking his own horse and spare pack to watch until his return. The two men set out an hour after midnight and, by dawn, had covered a good part of the shattered maze of gullies and rocks that comprised the plain of Mal Emir.

Daylight had barely broken as the men rode up a steep, narrow-sided gorge. Suddenly, Layard’s guide spurred his horse and galloped ahead. At the same moment a group of tribesmen sprang from behind a rocky outcrop, brandishing swords. Layard wheeled his horse to flee but found his way blocked by a tribesman above the trail wielding a large rock.

‘It is no good Ferenghi,’ he called out, ‘you cannot escape!’

Layard had no choice but to wait for the men to surround him.

‘Give us your watch and compass,’ they demanded, gesturing to the fold in Layard’s belt where he had hidden them.