A Place Called Armageddon Read Free

inherited from her mother the ability to see what others could not, it was her father who had grounded her in the visible. In knowledge. ‘Know the man,’ he’d said.
    She had known many. She had even loved a few, loved them passionately, even after she’d seen their death written upon their faces as clearly as words in the books she treasured. Loved them and watched them die, sent them to their inevitable fate, content in knowing that she and they could do no other.
    She had never known a man like the one before her now. When he’d come the previous summer, she had been almost overwhelmed by his force – for he had brought nothing less than destiny with him. All he had sought then was how to establish himself, how to secure what was fragile. She’d helped. She’d foreseen … consolidation based on a little blood, a lot of smiling. Now he was back and it was clear that the time for consolidation was past. It was time for adventure. His whole being surged with it. His only desire was to remake the world.
    She would help him with that. It was what she did.
    When she’d heard enough, she’d risen on bare feet, moved silently to the door, opened it, closed it, and returned less quietly to her place. ‘Yes,’ she replied to his question, ‘Leilah is here. And honoured by your return.’
    Hamza was surprised at the voice. It was youthful, deep, while all the soothsayers he’d attended in his own youth had been shrill-toned old harpies who he’d been happy to pay swiftly for a love philtre or a horoscope and escape from. But more than its tone, the accent perplexed him. It wasn’t like any Jew’s he’d ever heard. More like … a gypsy.
    Most seers are, he thought, and shrugged. He could do without them all. Now he was near thirty, he sought wisdom only in the Qur’an and his own intellect. Others, like the man beside him, were as devout yet saw no gap between what the Prophet had spoken, what their instincts taught them – and what such women vouchsafed. ‘Erol’ would act on his judgement. But he liked it to be confirmed, even preceded, by a starred intimation of success.
    The younger man pushed his face close to the screen. ‘And what can you tell me, Leilah? What have you seen?’
    A silence, and then her breath came on a whisper. ‘I have seen your sandals raise the dust in the palace of the Caesars. If … if …’ Her voice trailed off.
    ‘If what?’ he asked, also in a whisper.
    She replied, more firmly, ‘There. Beside you. Open it.’
    The young man reached eagerly into a cedarwood box. He pulled out a scroll, tied with a scrap of silk. Slipping that off, he unrolled the paper, and Hamza saw the lines and symbols of a horoscope. ‘What do you see here?’ he breathed.
    The voice came softer, causing both men to lean forward. ‘You were born under the Ram, and Mars, Ruler of War, is your planet. He sits too in your ninth house, the place of journeys. It is the chart of a warrior, for you will ever be at war.’
    Hamza grunted. The youth’s expression showed he would brook no doubting. But what the woman had said about his ambitious companion, he could have heard on any street corner in Edirne.
    Leilah heard the grunt, the doubt in it. This other who accompanied the seeker, he was a little older, less excitable, a thinker. Another time she would have liked to engage him in debate, to probe the extent of his knowledge and his beliefs. Before, after or during, she’d also have liked to take him to her bed. Knowledge of men could be gained in all sorts of ways. And maybe she would consider him, since she was shortly to be losing her current protector.
    No, she thought, sighing out. For if the younger man achieves the destiny foreseen, he will achieve mine as well. He will open the door to unimaginable riches. And with those, I will never need a man to protect me again.
    She began to pant. Great heaves of breath, sucking in air, expelling it on a moan. And her voice when it came was even deeper.