Sheikh's Ransom. ALEXANDRA SELLERS

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СКАЧАТЬ courtiers, not by menials, and it’s a task they vie for—and first through the door, we’ve been briefed, will be the Grand Vizier Nizam al Mulk, the favorite advisor of the last sheikh and joint Regent during the minority of the princes, which ended only last year...and there he is! The Grand Vizier of the Barakat Emirates.”

      A white-bearded old man of impressive dignity, his costume sparkling with jewels, was seen walking through the great doorway. He paused briefly and moved down the steps towards the table below.

      Paul murmured, “That, we’re told, is the traditional ceremonial dress of the Grand Vizier on state occasions, but you can believe the princes’ own regalia will put his in the shade. And of course the aura of power you sense is just that. Nizam was the Regent for seven years, his regency ending only last year, as I said, and he still has the very important role of advisor to all three princes.

      “Just behind him are coming now the Prime Minister and the members of the Cabinet, all elected officials. Barakat is what they call a democratic monarchy...and following them, twelve men who hold the ceremonial office still called the Cup Companions, looking very magnificent in their own fabulous ceremonial robes. By tradition the king has twelve Cup Companions, and I believe each of the three princes does still appoint twelve, but to...ah, limit the formality of the occasion, we’re told,” Paul said dryly, “a representative joint twelve has been chosen on this occasion.

      “And a dramatic pause, of course, because the next to appear—they will step over the threshold neatly abreast to show that they share power equally—will be the three princes themselves.

      “And there they are!” In spite of a jaded outlook and, in the course of fifteen years in television news, having seen it all, Paul could not keep the excitement from his voice.

      “Oh my God!” exclaimed Marta involuntarily. She had been anchorwoman only two years and had not quite attained the ideal of journalistic impassivity.

      Across the threshold into the ancestral Throne Room stepped the three princes, equal but very individual exemplars of regal bearing, handsome countenance, and staggering magnificence. Those watching, both in the Throne Room and in front of their television sets, fell unconsciously silent for a few telling seconds.

      “Well, if you’d asked me, I would have said it wasn’t possible in the modern age,” said Barry faintly, and in Barakat Paul merely murmured, “Yes, I think words would be superfluous here. That is a truly breathtaking sight.”

      Framed by the graceful decorated arch of the ancient entrance, the three princes paused, smiling at the applauding crowd in the room below. Dressed in coats of heavy cloth of gold, trousers of gold-embroidered silk, and rings and necklaces studded with glittering jewels and glowing pearls, each also wore a magnificent and unusual turban of pleated cloth of gold, each adorned with a central jewel the size of a fist—one ruby, one emerald, one sapphire.

      A camera angled for a closeup of all three at once, for the handsome faces, individually quite different, together seemed to present almost the embodiment of masculine beauty. Prince Omar, with his broad forehead, thin, aristocratic cheeks, haughty green eyes and neat beard, Prince Rafi, as handsome as a Persian miniature painting, with a dark mustache, and Prince Karim, with the clean-shaven dark good looks of an ancient desert warrior. They left no doubt as to their masculine as well as their political power.

      “What a trio! Strong women are fainting all over this country as I speak,” Marta opined.

      “Those three faces, as you see them there, with their ceremonial turbans, decorate every piece of money in the three kingdoms,” Paul told the viewers. “There is a communal currency as well as a central Parliament in the Emirates. Karim on the left, wearing the sapphire on his turban, rules West Barakat, Rafi in the centre, under the ruby, is the Emir of East Barakat, and Omar is the ruler of Central Barakat. Those are the divisions their father made when, like King Lear, he divided his kingdom so that all his sons should inherit. It has worked better than King Lear’s arrangement, though, it has to be said.”

      “How old are the princes, Paul?”

      “They all turn twenty-six next week, Marta, but in case any of our female viewers is thinking about throwing herself in front of their horses, I should point out that Prince Omar is already married and has two young children.”

      “But it’s open season on Prince Rafi and Prince Karim?”

      “You can safely put on your hunting jacket for them, Marta.”

      As one, the three princes moved forward and down the red carpeted marble steps to the signing table as the ranks of the world’s photographers parted before them. The members of the Four Nations, looking oddly plain in black dinner suits, stepped forward, and all shook hands with one other.

      “If you’re interested,” Paul said, “that’s a total of seventeen handshakes taking place there now, but of course, it’s all going on simultaneously, in keeping with the strict public protocol that keeps the princes equal.”

      At the long, polished black table, six men and a woman took their seats in a row facing the cameras of the world. In front of each place was a large closed book, its gold cover embossed with the insignia of Barakat, the mythical bird called the Senmurgh.

      “Now each of the signatories to the agreement will sign each of the seven books and take one home,” Paul explained. Onscreen seven assistants could be seen like a small troupe of dancers in an almost perfectly choreographed grapevine step, picking up a book after each signature and weaving through his or her partners in the dance to place it in front of the next dignitary. “This, by the way, is what’s referred to here as ‘approval in the Western tradition.’ By tradition it is not considered binding for a Sheikh of Barakat merely to sign a document.”

      At the end, to another gentle round of applause from courtiers and observers, the seven assistants, each clutching a book, bowed to the table and moved to one side of the Throne Room.

      “And now for the ceremony without which no treaty or state document has been legal in Barakat for hundreds of years,” said Paul. “No document is binding on any Barakat monarch until the monarch has stamped the document with the Great Jewel Seal of Shakur and drawn the Sword of Rostam over it, and finally, all the signatories have drunk from the Cup of Jalal.

      “All of these ancient items have been the property of the Barakat royal house for six hundred years or more. In addition to dividing the kingdom, Sheikh Daud’s will decreed that his sons should each individually inherit one of what are, for their subjects at least, powerfully evocative symbols of monarchy.”

      A large ivory-colored parchment was now carried by the Grand Vizier to a marble table that stood to one side of the Lion Throne, placed on it, and unrolled. It was covered with ornate Arabic calligraphy of the highest quality, and, with its gold leaf and beautiful ink colours, resembled, to the Western audience, nothing so much as a page from a medieval illuminated Bible. It was held in place with two flat heavy sticks of ivory.

      A courtier moved to stand beside the Grand Vizier, holding a small jar on a gold-and-silver engraved tray. Nizam al Mulk lifted the tiny golden urn and tilted it over the parchment. A thick, viscous red substance formed a pool in the centre of the top of the document.

      Silence fell as Prince Karim approached. Just above his elbow the Great Jewel Seal of Shakur clung to his arm like a massive bracelet. He drew it off, then pressed the seal’s face firmly into the pool of sealing wax on the parchment paper. When he lifted the seal again it had left behind the impression of a raised profile portrait of a crowned head. With a glance at the red seal and another at the Jewel, he restored СКАЧАТЬ