The Curse of Zohreh Read online

  She reached the herb garden and ran through it to the kitchen door. She creaked it open, and was immediately in the noisy backways of a very busy kitchen. Timidly posing a few questions, she was soon directed to the second cook, a very tall, rather large and majestic black Nashranee woman from Aswadd called Miss Josephine. She had shrewd, cross eyes and was dressed in a rather magnificent shade of crimson, her closely plaited red-hennaed hair lying against the sides of her round black head like the carvings on a statue, and a golden Nashranee heart symbol swinging on a golden chain around her thick neck. When Soheila meekly told Miss Josephine that her name was Payem, and that Omar had sent her to fill the position of kitchen boy, the Aswaddi boomed, ‘Very well, you can start at once. Over there – the chief spice-maker needs some more ground coriander, at the double. What are you staring for, boy? Get over there at once!’ She fetched the boy a cuff across the ear that sent him sprawling, and turned back to her main work of harassing the under-cooks. Soheila picked herself up and scuttled across to where Miss Josephine had pointed.

  The chief spice-maker turned out to be a deaf mute called Rajiv – a thin, almost skeletal, Alhindi man with a sunken chest under his stained white tunic. He deftly made himself understood with a variety of expressive gestures, and his eyes were kind. He showed Soheila what he wanted, and she was soon kept busy grinding and mashing and mixing.

  It was an extraordinary place, this kitchen. It was as big as a normal family house – or probably even bigger. Certainly it was much bigger than Soheila’s own house back in Sholeh. It was full of rushing people. The sight of all the food, the extravagance of the dishes, the effortless wealth that all this represented, tightened her heart – and her resolve – even more. She would be patient; she would learn as much as she could about the al-Farouks so she would know how best to strike, and when, and whom.

  Kareen prowled around the corridors of the palace like a red-headed ghost, startling servants who came unexpectedly across her, and who assumed that she was some kind of mad Rummiyan that their master, for inscrutable reasons of his own, had allowed to stay in the train of his other guests. Kareen didn’t care what anyone thought; she was intent on following the trails of the other Jinns who lived in this place. It would take a while to become familiar with them, she knew. House-Jinns – with their settled, clannish ways – would be very suspicious of a wandering spirit, being not sure where to place her in caste and hierarchy, especially given that she had wandered so far from her native habitation. It would take patience and diplomacy to work out the correct ways to approach them – and Kareen had neither quality in significant quantities. She was independent, dismissive of niceties, and determined to do it her own way.

  She had known there was some kind of House-Jinn hanging around Khaled back in the grand salon, causing the youth’s strange behaviour. If she’d had a tiny bit more time she would have called it out but it had disappeared before she’d had a chance to do so. She had caught its name, Farasha, on the lips of the boy, but not where it came from or what part of the caste it operated in, and that was the important thing with House-Jinns, especially in a palace like this one. The upper-class ones were so haughty they wouldn’t even look at you; the middle-class ones were so determined to be upper-class that they treated you with scorn; the lower-class ones liked to get their own back on the others, and so might lie, out of pure mischief. Still, it was the lower-class ones Kareen found it easier to speak to, especially now that, after her long habitation in Jayangan, she had become a trifle rusty on the whole protocol of Al Aksara House-Jinn tribes.

  She had prowled along so far that she had reached the end of the family’s and the guests’ quarters. She was in the servants’ quarters now. This was more like it, she thought, sniffing determinedly along the corridors, looking into every room. This was where she’d find her allies, her go-betweens.

  She pushed open a door and found herself in the bathroom. It was not like the guest bathrooms, of course, but it was clean and cool, the concrete floors scrupulously scrubbed, as were the plain white baths, showers, lavatories and other fittings. Kareen held her breath. She could feel a friendly, approachable presence here. She waited, listened, then bowed in every direction and said, ‘Compatriot of the Fire, kinsman of the Secret People, honoured friend, I, Kareen Amar, salute you, and beg leave to speak with you.’

  ‘You have a funny accent, friend,’ said a cheerful, roguish voice, ‘and you’re one of those wanderers, aren’t you?’ The Jinn had manifested himself as a kind of shadow on the glass of one of the shower screens; only his yellow, sparkling eyes could have been clearly seen, and only for a second, by any human who might have wandered in. But Kareen Amar, with the sensitivity of her kind, could see his real fire-shape.

  ‘I am Kareen Amar,’ she said with great dignity, ‘wandering songstress of the Jinn, and my accent is strange to you because I have dwelt long in Jayangan and other places far to the east, gathering music. What may be your name, honoured compatriot?’

  ‘My name is Hamarajol,’ said the Jinn, ‘and this is my place, this place of splashes and smells.’ He gurgled with laughter. ‘The other Jinns look down on me because of it, but that is no concern of mine. Welcome, wandering songstress, who is the first in hundreds of years to call me “honoured”. What may I do for you?’

  ‘I need some information on the clans in this house, please, honoured Hamarajol,’ said Kareen Amar.

  ‘Ah, that will be a pleasure, but it will take time,’ said the Jinn. ‘There are so many great ones in this house, my friend – so many who consider themselves great, that is. Where do you want me to start?’

  ‘With Farasha,’ said Kareen Amar. Hamarajol gave a low whistle. ‘Farasha? He’s hardly great or important, only a rung above me, really, though you wouldn’t think it, the way he preens himself.’

  ‘Never mind, he may be of use,’ said Kareen Amar. And quickly, she told Hamarajol a little about what they were there for, and what she’d seen in the grand salon. The other Jinn gave a gurgling laugh again. ‘Well, flush me down!’ he exclaimed coarsely. ‘They don’t half want to perform miracles, those Clay People.’

  ‘Don’t they always,’ said Kareen.

  ‘Now then, our friend Farasha,’ said Hamarajol, ‘is the Jinn of neglected books. His home is not very far from here. Come with me, we will speak to him together.’

  Nine

  Abdullah had spared no expense for the welcoming dinner that evening. The long, polished table in the main dining room was set with an ancient, delicate lace tablecloth from Wardah, the Rose City of Masrikhan, heavy, carved solid silver cutlery from Alhind, and gold and crystal goblets from Leonica, a famous canal city in the Rummiyan Empire, while an amazing butter sculpture of the al-Farouk family symbol, the golden eagle, was the table centrepiece. Ferns and roses and sprays of blossom, airfreighted from distant cities, filled the room with scent and colour, and the waiting staff were dressed in black and gold livery.

  If the setting was magnificent, the food was even more so, for the cooks had excelled themselves. There were dishes of the best Parsarian caviar, with fresh bread and lemon slices; platters of fragrant rice, sprinkled with powder of gold; steaming lamb stews, and chicken with plump apricots, and juicy meat skewers, and whole fish with a glazing of herbs and spices; beautiful green and red salads, and eggs stuffed with spinach and nuts; and honey pastries, light apricot sherbets and fragrant rosewater sweets.

  While Husam ate heartily, and Abdullah chatted companionably with him, Kareen was not even at the table, for Jinns rarely eat. Khaled could hardly keep still, and only toyed with his food. He wondered what Kareen was doing. He wondered when Farasha would come back. He wondered if even now, Zohreh’s ghostly presence was gathering in the shadows, ready to strike a last, devastating blow. He wondered if there was any point to anything at all …

  In the kitchen, Soheila had no time to ponder or wonder. She was on her feet all night, running from one end of the kitchen to the other, fetching, carrying
and doing all kinds of odd jobs for all kinds of people. She was not the only kitchen boy. There were two others, including a rather cheerful Mesomian refugee boy, Ismail, who took the newcomer under his wing. It was soon apparent that a kitchen boy’s work was never done, and that as he was on the bottom of the entire pecking order in the kitchen, anyone and everyone could demand things of him, be it crushing spices, or sweeping, or fetching things from the larders, or washing platters, or chopping onions, or throwing out rubbish.

  Fortunately, there was the odd break now and again. Despite her brisk manner and tough regime, Miss Josephine was at heart fair and kindly. She knew her workers needed a rest and a drink every few hours or so. Soheila was able then to catch her breath and her wits, wipe the sweat from her brow, and guzzle down a glass of cold sweet mint tea, which soothed her poor parched throat. She answered Ismail’s questions, inventing for Payem a penniless widowed mother in Shideh who had many children to support and needed all the money he could send home. As Ismail hailed from Mesomia, it made no difference what she told him; he’d never been to Parsari and likely never would, especially since the two countries were still technically at war with each other. But he was eager to tell her all about his own family, who’d had to flee The Vampire’s cruel rule and now lived all piled in together in a tiny flat in one of the poorer suburbs of Jumana; he was very pleased that his wages were helping to send his younger sisters to school. Wages were good here, he said, especially in the al-Farouk household, where though you were expected to work hard, you were treated well, looked after if you got sick, and given bonuses on holy days and festivals. It wasn’t the case everywhere in Jumana, he said; some of his friends had to suffer under cruel or indifferent masters. Soheila listened with only half an ear. She had no intention of getting caught up in someone else’s life, and she didn’t want to hear good things about the al-Farouks.

  At last, well past midnight, the two kitchen boys were told they should go to bed and get some rest before the work for breakfast started. Ismail took Payem into the dormitory for the younger male servants, and showed him a trundle bed that would be his, and the communal bathroom down the hall. Fortunately for Soheila, there was one closed cubicle containing a shower and a toilet, and this she was able to use in privacy, and then change into clean, if patched, pyjamas. Lying down on the surprisingly comfortable bed, the urchin from Parsari had a sudden, dispiriting image of her shabby home.

  A hundred years ago, the Melkior clan had been on a level similar to the al-Farouks. Zohreh the Akamenian had been as rich and well connected as Kassim al-Farouk, her family no doubt much more ancient and noble. Now her descendant slaved as a lowly kitchen boy in the servants’ quarters of the al-Farouk palace, while Kassim’s own descendants were as ridiculously, overwhelmingly rich as the Prince of Ameerat himself, not far behind the Emperor of Parsari, who had once reigned in that country. Ismail had said the Shayk received kings, ambassadors, presidents and great men and women from all over the world in this palace. The family rode and hunted with the Prince of Ameerat and the fierce king of neighbouring Riyaldaw, in whose vast, troubled desert kingdom was situated the supreme holy shrine of the Mujisals, the House of Light, where the Heaven Stone reposed as token of God’s protection of all Mujisals. The al-Farouks were, so Ismail said, the second-greatest family in Ameerat, and amongst the ten great families of the whole of the holy peninsula of Al Aksara itself. He said this in tones of great admiration and wonder, but Soheila’s heart twisted with hatred at these words. It was so unfair and so unjust, and it couldn’t be allowed to stand. She placed Zohreh’s ashes under her pillow for safety. ‘I promise, Grandmother of Grandmothers, I promise to avenge you, and make these arrogant people taste the bread of bitterness.’

  It seemed that there was a presence in the room with her, something that she could not yet see or hear. Her heart constricted with excitement, and a touch of fear, for instinctively she knew who it was. ‘Grandmother Zohreh,’ she whispered, and fell asleep on the name. In her dreams, she saw again the hooded figure she had seen back home, the one who had beckoned her to come to this place. And now, the figure beckoned her into the very heart of the palace itself.

  Kareen slipped into Husam’s room late into the marches of the night and told him what she had learnt from Farasha. The Moth-Jinn had promised he’d get Kareen and her friends an audience with his esteemed brother tomorrow afternoon. Furthermore, he’d talked at length about the way in which the House-Jinns operated. Kareen had played on his highly developed snobbery to get the information, encouraging him by calling him ‘Oh Great Historian of the House-Jinns’, and ‘Oh Fount of Great Learning’ and other such epithets, so that Farasha had visibly swelled with pride and had not even made any demands in return for the favours he was being asked.

  ‘He is a foolish, vain, shallow creature,’ summed up Kareen, ‘but a useful one. And curious, too, which is unusual and rather reprehensible in a Jinn, but helpful for us.’

  ‘If he could only hear you …’ said Husam, smiling.

  Kareen frowned a little. ‘I made quite sure he couldn’t,’ she said stiffly. ‘He has very small powers only, easily overthrown by mine. I do not know what Brother Bikaj will be like, but I have yet to meet a Book-Jinn that I can truly like. They are the most conceited and arrogantly complacent of all House-Jinns. They think all Musician-Jinns are empty-headed creatures, vastly inferior to literary ones, and they perorate endlessly and tiresomely on all subjects under the sun, including ones about which they are completely ignorant, like music.’

  ‘Oh dear, Kareen,’ said Husam, laughing, ‘we might be in for an entertaining time with Brother Bikaj and little Farasha, judging from those ruffled feathers of yours.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Kareen, ‘they’d better not annoy me too much, those House-Jinns. Anyway, here’s another thing Farasha told me: there is a Mesomian trader in the Carpet Bazaar who will be able to help us repair our flying carpet. Farasha knows this because his realm, the repository for boring books, is also the place where they store packing boxes. One of the great events of his dull life occurred a few months ago, when a new box was brought into the storeroom. It had come from this trader’s shop and Farasha had a short conversation with a stray carpet worm who crawled out from it. I tell you: the creature looks down on me because he’s a Book-Jinn, but he lives so tediously that a new box coming into his realm is an event, and he has conversations with such lowly things as carpet worms!’

  ‘Shocking indeed,’ agreed Husam, hiding a smile under his thick moustache. ‘But it sounds good, anyway. Let’s go there tomorrow morning, eh?’

  ‘Very well,’ said Kareen, and so saying, she stumped out of the room back to her own quarters, where she didn’t sleep at all, for Jinns have no need of sleep, but instead weaved together a new song, to remember her arrival back in the land of her origins. And if any human in the sleeping palace heard that song, late, very late, it disturbed nobody, for it was a lovely, sweet song with a haunting melody, that appeared to come to them in a dream. But the House-Jinns heard it clearly, and they knew that one of the old Jinns, the free Jinns, the wandering desert spirits, was at loose in their calm and ordered place, and that anything, but anything, might happen now.

  Ten

  Khaled woke very early, his mouth dry, his eyes gritty. He had not slept well at all, and his dreams had been full of images of fire and blood. He sat up in bed and looked at the clock. It was only five am. And only three days till his birthday.

  He jumped up, got dressed and slipped quietly out of his room. Nobody was about in this part of the house, and nobody saw him as he headed along the corridors to the library.

  It was a lovely, cosy room, lined with enormous mahogany bookshelves, some open, some glass-fronted. Large winged armchairs and low tables occupied the centre of the room, and at the sides were stacked a couple of stepladders, to reach books that were higher up. There were ancient silk carpets on the floor, a little worn in places, but magnificent. A tall old mirror, beautiful
ly carved, stood in one corner.

  It was dim in the library, and very quiet. Khaled opened a curtain a little so he could see. Some grey light inched in. He stood nervously in the centre of the room. ‘Lord Bikaj,’ he whispered, ‘please, I ask you, come to my aid.’

  Silence. He repeated the phrase, rather hopelessly this time. When there was still no answer, he said out loud the words of the formula written above the door that invoked the protection of Book-Jinns. But still there was nothing.

  It was then that he heard the hurrying footsteps, coming straight for the door. Khaled didn’t stop to think; he dived down behind one of the armchairs.

  The doors opened. It was not a man’s tread, not a Jinn’s glide, but light, hesitant. A child’s footsteps? Khaled was puzzled. He heard the creak of one of the glass-fronted bookcase doors opening. Very quietly, he peered round the side of the chair.

  There was a thin, shabby figure standing in front of the bookcase, reaching out for a book on the topmost shelf. Khaled made a slight movement of surprise, and the figure heard it. It whirled around and dropped the book – revealing the intruder to be not a clerk, as Khaled expected, but Payem, the new Parsarian kitchen boy he’d seen in the garden the day before.

  Payem’s huge blue eyes were fixed on Khaled. There was a depth of emotion in them that Khaled took to be fear. He started towards the boy. ‘Don’t be scared,’ he said gently. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of.’