A Place Called Armageddon Read Free Page A

It sounded like a man’s, and both the men drew back from the screen and sought the comfort of a dagger against their palms. ‘Know this, Chosen One. If you would do what you must do, you must do it within the year, or the heavens will turn against you. On this very day, but one year from now, at the eleventh hour of the day, let the dragon breathe fire, let the archer shoot true with his first shot. It will take time, and Allah will hold the scales and weigh your actions. Then, when the moon hides half her face, call me and I will come – to see for you again.’
    The young man’s face had blanched when the voice changed. Now, on the words, red flooded back, deeper even than the red of beard and brow. ‘I will,’ he whispered.
    Leilah sat back. It was time to act for herself. When she was younger, scarce fourteen, and had lived with a janissary, Abdulkarim had brought her into the mysteries of the Bektashi school of Islam, taught her some of the mysticism of the Sufi. Yet since Bektashi drank wine guiltlessly, and soldiers when drunk talked of little but martial glory, she had learned something about siegecraft. Gossip in the barracks she still visited had developed her knowledge. All the talk now was of the city known as the Red Apple. It had dangled above Muslim heads for a thousand years. Barracks wisdom had it that the first step to bringing it down would be to cut it off. To cut its throat. It would be wisdom in the palace too. And she had learned that wisdom, supported by prophecy, led not only to confirmation of her skills, but to action.
    ‘Mark,’ she intoned softly. ‘I see a knife, like the one you now grasp, reaching up to a stem. Cut it. Slit it like you’d slit a throat.’
    Even Hamza gasped at that. It had been the secret talk for months now. If the Red Apple was to fall, the first step would be to starve it. Cut it off from its supplies. Plans had been discussed. This prophecy spoke to them.
    ‘Yes!’ His companion had been hard at work, developing those very plans.
    Now she was ready. There was something other than gold that this man of destiny must give her this night. Deliverance. ‘But beware! Return to your saray but do not speak to any except your companion. If any recognise you, greet you by name, your plans will shrivel, like dates in a sandstorm. Unless … unless you slit the throat of the one who sees you.’
    ‘What … what do you mean?’
    Her voice dropped low again. ‘This is all you need know, for now. This is enough – until we meet again.’
    She rose. Though they could not see her, they rose too as if they sensed it. But legs that had been cramped too long wobbled. Hamza lurched – and the man beside him stumbled, tried to catch himself on the screen … which fell inwards.
    Leilah leapt back, just avoiding the crashing wicker. Righting himself, the young man stood straight and stared.
    As before he could not help the grunt, now Hamza could not contain the whistle. His youthful dealings with withered crones had led him to expect another, despite the voice. But this woman was young. Her body was beautiful – and revealed, for she was scarcely dressed in a few silks – at face, at breast, at hip – while her black hair was unbound, in the way of some Bektashi women he had known.
    His companion began stuttering apologies, bending to right the screen … then freezing when he beheld what it had hidden. His voice, when it came, was huskier too. ‘I am sorry. And yet not so. For I never cease to admire beauty. And you are … beautiful.’
    She said nothing, just stared back above her mask from eyes that seemed to Hamza to be huge caverns of darkness. ‘Leilah’, he remembered now, meant ‘rapture’. The woman had been well named.
    His companion stepped forward. ‘And now I have seen you, and you have seen me, why should we be parted again?’ He raised a hand towards her. ‘If you were to join me in my saray … you would have a place of honour there. I could visit