In the Palace of the Khans by Peter Dickinson Read Free Book Online Page A

might be construed as Western interference in any of the states on their border that used to be part of the old Soviet empire. Only a few years back they persuaded Kazakhstan to turf the Americans out of an important airbase there. No doubt they’ve been putting similar pressure the President to let them take the dam project over. They’ll find him a tough nut to crack—he won’t stand for interference from anyone—but if he has a weak spot it is his daughter. Your visits to her may seem trivial in the light of world affairs, but in the hands of a skilled propagandist they could cause considerable embarrassment.”
    â€œI wasn’t going to say he was the President, Dad. Just a rich guy with a swank house on the river.”
    â€œAh … In that case … You’ll show me when you’ve finished?”
    â€œAll right. Shall I go on?”
    Was almost beating the President at chess a matter of state? The President seemed to think so. Nigel was pretty sure that that monstrous sneeze had been a sort of get-me-out-of-this signal. The interruption had been just too neat to be for real. Anyway, he’d already worked out what he was going to tell his parents, and it didn’t make any difference what his father had just said.
    â€œI took him a bit by surprise, I think. He only wanted to play me to see if I was good enough to teach Taeela, so maybe he was a bit careless. Out of practice too. We were about level when something came up and he had to go.
    â€œAnd really that was it. Oh, yes, one thing, Mum. Any chance there’s a video here Taeela might want to watch with people talking posh in it? Like Helena Bonham-Carter, he said.”
    â€œI’ll look.”

CHAPTER 3
    Day 3 .
    Back to Mr G.’s in the morning …
    This time one of the palace cars came to fetch Nigel. The driver didn’t speak English, or pretended not to, and drove him along a boring modern ring-road, over a different bridge and round to the back of the palace, then through an archway guarded by sentries into a huge central courtyard, with a pillared arcade running all the way round it.
    He parked in the far corner, got out, opened the door for Nigel, muttered what must have been the Dirzhani for “This way,” and led him to a side door. A bored guard checked Nigel’s pass, rootled a bit in his bag, frowned at the video of The Railway Children , shrugged and handed the bag back. The security seemed to be much slacker down here than it was at the main entrance. He did a perfunctory body-search and let Nigel in to a small modern hallway whose only feature was the door of a lift-shaft, with a key-pad on the wall beside it. Not bothering to hide what he was doing the guard pressed in a stupidly simple code, 9876. The door sighed open and he gestured to Nigel to enter, then leaned in, pressed the “2” button and withdrew as the door closed. Somewhere up at the top of the shaft a buzzer sounded. The lift started upward.
    When the door opened again Nigel stepped out into far end of the lobby in the Khan’s private apartments. The door of the living-room was already ajar. Taeela came running to it and flung it wide, but stopped there and did her pout.
    â€œYou … you’re late!” she said.
    He looked at his watch.
    â€œI’m three minutes early.”
    â€œThree minutes early is late!”
    â€œOK.”
    Her new toy, he thought, as he followed her into the room. The eunuch, on his stool just inside the door, greeted him with a smile and a slow, deferential nod. He smiled back and raised a hand in greeting. Boys, he wondered. Apart from school, does she get to meet boys at all? If so, how do they cope with it, the precious daughter of the Khan, the eunuch listening to every syllable, watching every gesture with his sleepless single eye? They’d be out of there as soon as they got the chance, wouldn’t they? Not much fun for her.
    â€œCan I call him