The Rose Field, page 9
“That’s correct.”
“And what is my name?”
“Magister Parathanasius.”
“Parathanasius. A fine name, which I shall strive to deserve. How should I address you, Queen Tatiana?”
“Like that. Say ‘Queen Tatiana, may I present His Excellency Mustafa Bey?’ ”
“Not ‘Your Majesty’?”
“No. We witches live plainly and without ceremony. Ah!—Wait here.” She had noticed something in the window of a dress shop, and went inside. After a minute she came out with a length of narrow scarlet ribbon.
“That for me or for you?” said Ionides.
She smiled, which surprised him, and it occurred to her that she couldn’t remember the last time a smile had come to her face. She tied the ribbon around her head, across the middle of her brow, and let the ends fall in front of her right ear.
Ionides watched critically, and said, “You permit?”
She nodded, and he adjusted the ribbon slightly.
“There. Very royal. What my name again?”
“Parathanasius. Magister. Like Maestro. Master Parathanasius.”
“From Prague.”
“That’s right.”
He looked around. The street was busy; it was a late morning in a prosperous, cosmopolitan city, and no one knew they were in the presence of a queen and a magician.
“All right, Queen Tatiana Iorekova,” he said seriously. “You wanted me to guide you to Aleppo. Here we are, and you will soon pay me forty dollars—”
“Thirty.”
“As you say. When I take you to Mustafa Bey, our contract will expire, not so?”
“That’s right.”
“And what then? The whole of Asia is open to you. What is your destination? Will you require a guide to accompany you there?”
She had already made her mind up, but there were formalities and customs to observe.
“Master Parathanasius, this is not the right place or the right time. A queen of the witches does not bargain in the street. When I have concluded my business with Mustafa Bey, you and I shall go to another and smaller café and discuss the matters you raise, over a glass of tea.”
He nodded slowly. His expression was serious, his clothing ragged and dirty, the scar across his face white against the brown skin and the graying stubble. He looked like a beggar. But he stood upright, his body was lean and tense, and his eyes were alive with complicity and, deep inside, amusement.
“All right, we go to find Mustafa Bey,” he said. “You come with me, Queen Tatiana, and my magic powers find the way.”
He strode along beside her for all the world as if he really was a magician in the service of a queen. Lyra was pleased with her own bearing too. Like panthers, that was the way Farder Coram had described the way witches bore themselves. She found herself thinking something unexpected: she wanted Abdel Ionides to feel proud of her.
He swept imperiously into the entrance of Marletto’s, stopping in mock astonishment only when a white-aproned waiter said a few words in French, sharply, and barred his way.
“Vous nous prenez pour des MENDIANTS?” Ionides said in high indignation. “Écoutez, espèce d’imbécile. Voici sa majesté la reine Tatiana Iorekova, qui gouverne le royaume entier de Novaya Zemlya, et moi qui suis son sorcier particulier, le gardien de ses finances, le président de conseil de ses affaires d’état, le Maître Parathanasius! Queen Tatiana,” he went on, turning to Lyra and switching in a moment from arrogant to emollient, “I apologize for the ignorance of this lowborn rascal. Please forgive him, because now he knows who you are, he will hasten to bring you everything you desire, and conduct us without delay to a corner of this establishment which is fit to receive us. And,” he added to the waiter, “take word to His Excellency Mustafa Bey that Queen Tatiana Iorekova will receive him at once.”
The waiter looked from Ionides to Lyra, from Queen Tatiana to Master Parathanasius. Ionides was bursting with angry pride, and Lyra held herself still and faced down the waiter with a gaze that came from the coldest fastnesses of the northern ice. Privately she was delighted.
The waiter bowed nervously and led the way to a corner shaded by a potted palm whose leaves waved delicately in the breeze from a fan on the ceiling. Ionides held out a chair for her while the waiter hurried away.
“When you’ve presented him to me, you can go,” Lyra said quietly. “I saw a fountain in the square as we came through. I’ll meet you there in about an hour.”
“You don’t need interpreter?”
“I’m sure I can manage. Here he comes.”
Mustafa Bey was a large man in a physical sense, and an imposing one. His wealth was visible in the exquisitely cut cream linen suit, the handmade shoes, the massive gold watch on his wrist, the golden signet ring on his little finger, the immaculately groomed gray hair; his power was manifest in the way he seemed to carry a field of magnetic force around him, compelling attention, demanding respect, knowing with utter certainty that his every wish would be not only fulfilled, but anticipated. His dæmon was a cheetah. If Lyra had not been a queen, she might even have been intimidated.
Ionides inclined his head briefly and said, “Queen Tatiana, may I present His Excellency Mustafa Bey?”
Lyra extended her right hand. The great merchant bent to kiss it, and Lyra responded with a smile.
“Please join me, Mustafa Bey,” she said. “I know how busy you are. I would be grateful for a few minutes of your time.”
She indicated a chair, and Mustafa Bey sat down. Ionides was giving an order to the waiter, who hurried away, and then Master Parathanasius bowed deeply to Lyra and withdrew. Mustafa Bey still had not said a word.
“I was advised to consult you,” Queen Tatiana said, “by a learned scholar in Oxford, Dr. Sebastian Makepeace.”
The merchant’s large and profoundly dark eyes widened a fraction of a millimeter. His expression changed from one unreadability to another.
“And there was a friend I last saw in Smyrna,” she went on, “who said that the one source of all the information I would ever need on my journey was Mustafa Bey, whom I would find in this café. One such recommendation would have been enough to make me come here—two, and I had no choice. Mustafa Bey, I am glad to meet you. Will you take tea with me?”
She could see the waiter hastening to her table with a loaded tray.
“I would be honored,” said the merchant. His voice was unexpectedly light and gentle.
The tea was poured, the pastries were set out, the waiter bowed and left.
Mustafa Bey was not going to start this conversation. He was a busy man, but he was clearly curious, and Lyra was aware that they were being watched by many eyes that were equally interested. She was glad she had not come to him as a petitioner, having to wait to be seen: this table gave her a little enclave in the middle of his territory, like an embassy, where she could command things, to which she could summon him, from which she could dictate the course of their encounter. It also meant that the initiative belonged to her: she must get on with it.
“As I mentioned, Mustafa Bey,” she said, “I’m on a journey. I want to travel to the desert of Karamakan, and I would like to ask the advice of someone who knows the Silk Roads as well as anyone alive.”
“My advice would be a single word: Don’t.”
“I shall bear that in mind, but I won’t take it. I’m determined to go.”
“What do you think you will find there?”
“A red building that contains something of immense value.”
“And what is that? Do you know what is in this red building?”
“Yes, I believe I do.”
“And you still want to go there, and put your life in danger, and risk not being able to return?”
“Yes.”
He sipped the hot tea. Despite his bulk, all his movements were delicate and graceful.
“I have never been to the red building myself,” he said, “but I know the conditions under which it must be approached. The traveler by land, the dæmon by water. Do you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And your dæmon?”
“The witches of the Arctic have the power of separation. At the moment, my dæmon is attending to an important piece of business somewhere else.”
He nodded, and set a calming hand on the head of his cheetah dæmon. “And what do you need to know about the journey between here and Karamakan?”
“How long does it take for a camel-train to go that far?”
“Six months, more or less.”
“And a traveler alone?”
“Less time, but more danger.”
“Danger from what, Mustafa Bey?”
“Bandits on the ground. And even more from birds in the air. There are no zeppelin routes across these lands for that reason. The birds are immense and ferocious. They command the air almost entirely. Do your people ever fly across Central Asia?”
“Very seldom.”
“With good reason. But, Queen Tatiana, you are not telling me the truth.”
Lyra was aware of a deep soft growl, almost too quiet to hear. It was the merchant’s dæmon, whose black-rimmed eyes were staring at her throat.
“In what way?” said Lyra. Her skin was prickling.
“You are not a witch. I have dealt with many witches—please do not interrupt me—and you are not one.”
“Could you tell at once?”
“No. I had to listen to you first. Now I am certain. Your name is Lyra Silvertongue.”
Lyra didn’t move, though every nerve was urging her to run out. She felt breathless.
He went on quietly, “We are being watched. While we sit here together, you are safe. I shall make sure you can leave without being followed, but you must do as I say.”
“How do you know who I am?”
“Your friend in Smyrna—Bud Schlesinger? I thought so. You must realize I have a thousand connections, more, from Morocco to Nippon. Very little happens on the Silk Roads that I do not hear about.”
“You know about the research station at Tashbulak?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what’s in the red building?”
“No. You said you think you know. What do you think it is?”
Lyra thought: If Bud Schlesinger trusts him…
“It’s an opening into another world,” she said.
His cheetah dæmon stood up, her tail slowly swinging. Mustafa Bey whispered a word or two, and she sat down again, her eyes never leaving Lyra’s face.
“You know of such places?” he said.
“Yes. I know how they’re formed, and I know how to close them. I have been through…” She tried to remember how many, but couldn’t. “Several.”
“Each into another world?”
“There are billions of worlds. The door that opens inside the red building leads to the world where the roses come from. The special roses.”
“Well, that I did not know,” he said.
“I don’t know it for certain. I want to go there and find out.”
“And what will you do then? If you go through, you will not be able to return.”
Lyra picked up a piece of baklava. She was recovering a little of her composure. “Mustafa Bey,” she said, “please tell me what you know. You haven’t told me how you know about the red building, or who made it, or how the rose-oil trade is carried on, or what is happening to it now. If you know that no one who enters that building is allowed to return, there must be other things you know.”
He nodded. “For centuries, for thousands of years,” he said, “there was a small trade in those roses and their oil in that region. It was like any other trade in precious material. High price, small quantity, important to guard but easy to transport, very specialist market.”
“How did you…How did merchants get hold of the material? Surely they didn’t go to the red building every time?”
“There is, or there was, a recognized guild of brokers. They would meet agents of the rose growers and distillers at various centers of exchange, Tashbulak for one. I believe that those brokers made regular journeys into the desert, to the red building, and paid generously for the rose material. There was nothing to indicate that such brokers had any dealings with another world, or indeed were any different from the traders who bought from them, my own agents included.”
“Who bought the rose material? What did they want it for?”
“Ritual purposes? Medicine? Expensive cosmetics? There was no need to inquire more closely. If a customer has the money to buy it, and the commodity is not explosive or poisonous or bulky and heavy, and does not interest those who gather taxes, then trade will soon come into being. Respectable merchants such as myself will of course be happy to help the process work easily and to make a modest profit. For a long, long time the trade went on without change, interruption, increase or decrease. A steady demand, a steady supply. If I thought about it, it would only be to speculate whether the roses might be grown somewhere else and sold more widely, but every attempt I heard about ended in failure, and there seemed no danger of the existing supply drying up, so I concluded that there was little point, given that the market was so small.”
“So you’re not interested in the roses themselves, really?”
“I am interested in everything. Money, for example. Have you much money, Queen Tatiana?”
“I have a little gold.”
“Would you lend me a gold coin? I want to show you something.”
Lyra wanted to see this something, so she felt for one of Farder Coram’s gold coins and put it on the table.
“You look suspicious, Queen Tatiana, but there is no need to be. Ah! A coin from High Brazil.”
He weighed it briefly on a little set of scales that he produced from his pocket, and made a note. Then, with a quick flick of his fingers, he gestured to a soberly dressed man sitting a few tables away. The man bent to listen, and Mustafa Bey murmured a few words. The man, who was probably a secretary, set off at once to speak to a customer at a table in the corner, who listened and then stood up at once and made for Mustafa Bey.
He bowed and took the chair the merchant indicated. The secretary joined them, with writing materials to hand.
Mustafa Bey indicated the scales and the gold coin. The customer listened closely; they weighed the coin and exchanged a few words; the secretary wrote them down, and the customer and the great merchant both signed the paper. Mustafa Bey put the gold coin in the customer’s hand and nodded.
“Er—what have you just done?” said Lyra, watching the customer walk away with her coin.
“I have bought a grove of olive trees. Ali…”
Another instruction to the secretary, who went and brought someone else to the table. Polite greetings; a bow of respect from the customer; the secretary gave him the paper to read, and then Mustafa Bey spoke to him for a minute. The man nodded, looked at the paper again, rocked thoughtfully on his chair, closed his eyes, and murmured a few words.
Then he opened his eyes and nodded again. Another agreement was written out and signed, with gestures and words of mutual respect, and Mustafa Bey sent the secretary away to bring someone else. Meanwhile, the waiter came with fresh tea.
“What have you bought now?” Lyra said.
“A consignment of very fine carpets from Bokhara.”
The same thing happened again. This time Mustafa Bey exchanged the carpets for a fishing boat currently docked at Smyrna, and then he exchanged that for some precious stones from Ceylon, and finally he exchanged those for…some gold. Four coins of the size of Lyra’s now lay on the table where her one had lain.
“There is your gold coin, or one exactly similar,” said the merchant. “Please allow me to weigh it to confirm what I say.”
He did that, and then slid the coin across the tablecloth.
“Yours,” he said, and added one more. “This is the interest your coin earned while it was in my care. The rest is my profit.”
Lyra blew out her cheeks, and then thought that was rather a vulgar thing for a queen to do, and brought her expression back to normal.
“Well,” she said. “So that’s what money can do. And the roses? How do they come into it?”
“It was a small fluctuation in prices that brought them to my attention. I am not the only merchant involved in this trade, you understand, though by some way the biggest. Some of the steady customers began to complain that they were being outbid by strangers, and in turn my agents found that the rose oil was selling in regions further west than previously. There were rumors of adulteration with inferior products. I sent a small team into the desert of Karamakan, and only one man came back. He described the red building and everything he saw inside it in terms so rapturous that I thought he was quoting poetry. He said that the red building had two doors, the one he entered through, and through which he came back, and another through which he could leave, but not return.”
“Really? What did he say?”
“He spoke of rose gardens and meadows rich with color—incidentally, the roses are a unique color. Did you know that?”
“I’ve never seen them.”
“Partway between red and yellow, he said, but not orange. Some blend of color that was impossible to describe, but beautiful, subtle, complex. He told me of an air scented with fragrance, of fields and gardens tended with care and skill, of profound craftsmanship in every homestead, where the growers boil the petals for rosewater and then distill it in simple vessels down to the finest and most exquisite oil—a barrel to make a thimbleful. And then the exchange—a process of ritual and courtesy, attended by hospitality and ancient formulas. Only members of a guild of dealers from the region of Karamakan are allowed to take part in the commerce, and everything they take for exchange is the finest this world can offer. My agent learned that the prosperity brought by the market in rose oil was spread throughout that city, that nation, that people. Everything was harmonious, everyone busy with work they valued and enjoyed, everyone well rewarded. I was happy in my turn to hear of a place where such prosperity existed, where people were glad to live and proud to work. I was eager to help the trade that sustained their wealth and did no damage to mine, and happy to accept their conditions and obey their laws. And now you tell me that the place where the roses grow is another world entirely.”
