At the entry arch, a short man in the yellow tunic and turban of a royal rider was consulting with the tavern keeper.

  “Is that messenger looking for you, my Lord?” Dahoud asked.

  Govan shifted into his official pose and summoned the man with a flick of his sandalwood fan. The courier walked on bowed legs as if he still had a mount between his thighs. Conversations halted, glances followed him, and whiteseers peered, anticipating business.

  Lord Govan put on his official smile to receive the leather-wrapped parcel.

  “Forgive me, my Lord,” the herald said. “The message I carry is for Dahoud, the clerk.”

  Govan’s hand pulled back and his smile vanished.

  Dahoud's stomach went cold: The Queen or her Consort would not write to an ordinary clerk. After three years of respite, his anonymity was breached. He stripped off the camel-skin wrap and broke the scroll's seal. The ends of the purple ribbon dropped into the mutton sauce.

  “The High Lord Kirral, Consort to the Great Luminous Queen, greets Dahoud, council clerk in the satrapy of Idjlara: Present yourself at the palace without delay. The Queendom needs the Black Besieger. K.”

  The expansive curves of the signature “K” claimed more space on the parchment than the message.

  In his bowl, the uneaten mutton was going cold, whitish grease separating from the sauce. A large fly drifted belly-up in the liquid, its legs clawing for a hold in the air. The memories of siege warfare wrapped around Dahoud, those sour-sweet odours of fear and faeces, of disease and burning flesh.

  At twenty-five, he had a conscience heavier than a brick-carrier’s tray and more curses on his head than a mangy dog had fleas. He had left the legion to cut himself off temptation, to deprive the djinn of fodder. After a siege, rape was legal, a soldier's right, practically expected of him, part of the job. By returning to war, he would forfeit his victories over his craving. The djinn would again be his master.

  Yet he ached to wear the general's cloak again, to silence sneering bureaucrats, to make women take notice. He lusted for that power the way a heavy drinker, deprived of his solace, ached for a sip of wine. The yearning to wield a sword ached in his arms, his chest throbbed with the urge to command, and his loins flamed with the dark desire. He felt the panting breaths of women and their hot resisting bodies, smelled the scent of female fright and sweating fury.

  “Why is the Consort writing to you?” Govan leant forward to grab the document. “You’re out of your depth with royal matters. I'll read and explain.”

  “Why should I want your counsel?” Dahoud tucked the rolled parchment into his belt.

  “Don’t get pert, Samili!” Govan barked. “Give me that letter.”

  “The Consort summons.” Dahoud rose. “Good afternoon, my Lord. Don't expect me back soon.”

  He strode to the exit, his mind reeling like a spindle. Could he deny that he was the Besieger? Refuse a royal order? Lead an army without stimulating the djinn?

  On a low stone wall near the entrance gate, a row of whiteseers perched like hungry birds. Whiteseers had glimpses of futures others could not even imagine. One of them slid off the wall and sauntered in his direction. A coating of pale clay covered her sharp-boned triangular face and her long hair, and painted black and blue rings adorned her clay-whitened arms.

  “Your hands,” she demanded.

  “I need to know what will happen if -”

  “Give your copper to a soothsayer,” she snapped. “We white ones only give advice. We can see the future; we can see several futures for everyone, but we won’t tell you all we see.”

  “Advice is all I want.”

  “That’s what they all say. Yet everyone asks for more. I give one piece of advice, the best I can give to help a client. They always demand that I tell them what I see. Well, I won’t.” Nevertheless, she grabbed the copper ring from Dahoud’s fingers and threaded it on her neck-thong. Her tunic smelled of old sweat and mouldy wool.

  She grasped his hands to pinch their flesh, her long nails tickling. Her white paint contrasted with Dahoud’s bronze tan. When she felt the pulse and lifted his hand to her face to listen and sniff, he could have sworn he saw her blanch under the white clay as her closed eyes stared into his past. She sagged forward and stayed in a silent slouch.

  At last she straightened, her eyes wide, her mouth open, but no words burst forth. So she had seen what he had done, and worse, what he might do once more.

  “I assure you, I'll never again...”

  “I can’t read if you chatter.” She frowned at his hands. “My advice: Get stronger arms.”

  He flexed his biceps, startled. “My arms are strong! I do trickriding, I wrestle, I lift weights.” Every night, Dahoud exercised until his muscles screamed, to block out his cravings and punish his body for its desires.

  The seer’s mouth curled with contempt, making more clay crumble. “You’re not listening. I didn't say strong. I said stronger.” She pinched his biceps. “Much stronger.”

  “What difference can arm muscles make?”

  “I told you to give your copper to a soothsayer.” She ambled off, leaving a cloud of unwashed stink and crumbles of clay.

  Dahoud hurried to the stable to ready his horse. He had to persuade the Consort not to send the Black Besieger back to war.

  *

  At the entrance to the royal audience hall, green-uniformed guards confiscated Dahoud’s dagger-belt. The door thudded shut behind him.

  Light seeped through slitted windows, painting stripes on the carpet. Rows of whitewood benches stood empty, as if waiting for spectators to stream in and take their seats. The Consort Kirral sat on an elevated divan, a jewel-encrusted white turban on his head, his moustache shaped into a pair of pointed blades. The steep platform bearing the divan forced visitors to gaze upwards, a technique Dahoud himself had often used to intimidate callers.

  “Highness, you summoned me.”

  Grape-green eyes peered from under dark bushy brows. Kirral cracked a saltnut between his teeth and spat the empty shell on the carpet at Dahoud's feet. Dahoud permitted himself no response. Standing as straight as a soldier before his commanding officer, he inhaled deeply of the stale incense and old breath that lay in the air, and waited.

  A mural of the Queen, a white full-moon face under an ornamental headdress, dominated the room, reminding audience-seekers that she was the true ruler of Quislak - even if she took little interest in politics. She left the day-to-day government to her Consort, who in turn delegated most work to his head-wife.

  “Would you like some saltnuts, young man?” Kirral's voice had the soft scraping tone of a sword grinding against a whetstone.

  To take the nuts from the Consort’s outstretched hand, Dahoud had to walk up to the platform and look up, the way a lapdog accepted morsels. Kirral grinned, and his slippered feet wiggled in anticipation.

  If the Consort gained pleasure from humiliating visitors, pride was a waste of time. “Thank you, Highness.”

  “The Koskarans ransack our settlements, rob our caravans, slaughter our people.” Kirral twisted a saltnut between his fingers, as if assessing its value. “Are you the man who subdued those savages four years ago?”

  “I am.” Dahoud glanced at the statues lining the cedar-panelled walls. He had looted many of those marble deities from temples in conquered lands, including Koskara. Now they queued at floor level, paying homage to Quislak's nine Mighty Ones, who stood haughtily on a brocaded dais. “If my experience may be of use, I'll gladly advise the general in charge.”

  Kirral cracked another nut. “I want you to squash those rebels to pulp.”

  “You need a different man, Highness.”

  “I need the Black Besieger, and I will get him.” Kirral stroked the parchment scrolls at his side with a lover's caress. “My favourite reading matter: personal dossiers. These are from your employers, past and present. You were the youngest general in the Queendom's history, the first ethnic Samili to rise to that rank. Then you threw your career into the dust.” Kirral's eyes focused like a hawk's before the kill. “Why?”

  “Personal reasons.”

  “Your personal reasons entertain me,” Kirral said. “During a fine game of Siege last night, I asked my good friend Paniour why the Besieger quit. I learnt that he had a sudden attack of conscience. Not about battlefield deaths, but the treatment of captives.”

  Dahoud stayed silent.

  “To fool the world that the Black Besieger no longer existed, you spread rumours about his death. His supposed demise occurred not on the battlefield, but at the hands of an enraged woman. How imaginative.” Kirral cackled like a spotted hyena. “Paniour tells me you imagined yourself possessed by a djinn. A mythical creature from nomad lore.”

  Dahoud knew better than to insist on the gruesome truth of demonic possession. “It was a figure of speech.”

  Kirral's bushy brows rose to his turban rim and stayed there. “For two years, all traces of you vanished as if you had indeed died. What did you do before Govan took you on?”

  “Labour.” The kind of work a Samili could get: digging latrines, dragging a builder's brick-loads like a sweating donkey, stirring a dyer's pots of boiling piss.

  “Watching you would have been educational. A leopard may dress as a rabbit, but he will find the garments too small.”

  Dahoud said nothing.

  “Last year, one of Satrap Govan's regular reports held an interesting paragraph. When the earthquake struck, a minor clerk led the rescue efforts 'with courage and quick thought, and with the efficiency of a general'. The clerk was an ethnic Samili with a sketchy history. Naturally, this clerk interested me. Alas.” Kirral leant back into the divan, and the corners of his mouth twitched as if something amused him. “Govan's opinion changed. Now he rants about your lack of manners, your insolence, the ideas you have above your station, how he wants to kick you out of office and send you to count goat-droppings in the Samil.” Kirral's voice lowered to a confidential whisper. “Tell me, young man: Are you courting your employer's daughter?”

  Dahoud's face fired. Esha's white dimpled cheeks and soft voice had captured him. Whenever they met at work, she granted him a friendly word, and twice he had escorted her to a fantasia show. For the first time in his life, a woman seemed to like him.

  “A Ladysdaughter has dynastic obligations,” Kirral said softly. “Her offspring will only be Ladysdaughters if fathered by a satrap. If the girl has sense, she will not waste herself on a mere clerk.” He popped another nut into his mouth.

  “Of course.” Esha would marry a satrap, or at least, a chief councillor with promotion prospects.

  The moustache blades quivered with every chewing motion. “Two days ago, more news came from Koskara. This is not public knowledge yet. Satrap Zetan is dead, apparently poisoned by rebels. His councillors barricaded themselves into the residency. What do you think of their decision?”

  “They're brave.” They were foolish. Dahoud remembered the residency: a greenstone palace with pillars and pilasters, fancy and fragile, not designed to withstand a siege. “Are women among them?”

  Kirral's lips curved as if the question gave him malicious pleasure. “Would it make a difference to you if there were? If the Besieger squashes those rebels, I will make him the new lord-satrap of Koskara.”

  Dahoud stood very still. Lord-satrap? He checked the Consort's posture: leaning forward, hands tented, lips pursed, eyes intent.

  “Think about it, Dahoud. No more labouring, no more clerking, no more grovelling before Govan. More power than you ever had as a general. Your own satrapy to shape into an oasis of peace where you can keep the womenfolk safe.” The Consort’s smile spread the ends of his moustache. “And I shall send Esha Ladysdaughter as your bride.”

  Power, respect, peace, a woman who liked him, all served on a silver platter – if he unsheathed his sword again, if he devastated Koskara once more, if he besieged the rebels' strongholds. During a siege, anger and lust built a pyre on which the noblest resolutions burnt to ashes. He might again become the monster he had fought so hard to leave behind.

  “What if I decline?”

  Kirral beamed as if Dahoud's reaction had lit pleasure lanterns behind his eyes. “Then you will stay here at the palace. I will give you a job suiting your particular talents and interests: torturer in charge of females. You will enjoy that. The choice is yours.”

  Dahoud's blood chilled. “I'll go to Koskara.”

  “Good choice, Dahoud. The high general Paniour awaits you.”

  On his way out, Dahoud sent silent a prayer to the Great Mare, the horse-headed woman who protected Koskara.

  From the historical thriller The Russian White by Jonathan Broughton:

  The bell in the steeple struck two in the morning.

  Wolfman sprang out of the shadows and sprinted towards the church. He collapsed against the cemetery wall. His ragged breathing smothered any sounds of pursuit. This was no time to rest.

  He dashed across the fields and mud clung to his boots. Pain burned his legs, and his body staggered as it threatened to topple him over. Then his boot hit hard ground.

  A large barn loomed before him with one huge door propped wide open. He stroked the silver wolf charm at his neck, it always brought him luck.

  He ran inside. Straw rustled at his feet, and then pricked his face. His hands plunged into its dry sharpness; a mountain of straw, tall enough to cover a man. He dived in, head first, and wriggled. The dust filled his eyes and mouth and he coughed.

  Behind him, running footsteps hammered hard against the cobbles. Loud voices, stamping boots, lantern light throwing violent shadows across the barn walls, and then the swish of a sword as it scythed through the straw over his head.

  His hand closed over the diamond in his pocket. He scrabbled through the straw until his fingers found a deep crack where the barn wall met the broken floor, and he pushed the diamond inside and secured it between the sharp stones.

  Then a strong hand reached down, pulled him up, and exposed him to the lantern light.

  The men jeered as they searched him. They hit him with the flats of their swords. They shouted at him, but he didn’t say a word, and that angered them. They cut him. He didn’t cry out, not even when warm blood trickled down his arms. He felt light headed, like dreaming.

  Then anger erupted into violence, and the men pushed him onto his knees and sliced his head off. They thrust it into an old sack, but they left his body for whoever might find it.

  In the dark, Wolfman’s blood dripped through the straw, and some of it dried on the diamond.

  *

  On the 20th October 1853 a handwritten bill, pinned to the door of The Garden Room Club in the London Borough of Soho, flapped in the wind. A passing gentleman took a moment to read it.

  Venus and Adonis by W. Shakespeare and James Turney.

  Mister James Turney takes great pleasure

  In presenting his Famous Classical Beauties in this Ecstatic Love Poem.

  One Night Only (23rd October, 10pm)

  Eight Spectacular Scenes. Admission One Guinea.

  Gentlemen Only.

  The gentleman adjusted the tilt of his top hat, pulled up his high collar, made a mental note of the date and time, and moved on.

  On the appointed evening, he arrived alone at The Garden Room Club, paid his guinea, and climbed the narrow stairs to the upstairs saloon.

  Gentlemen packed the room. A haze of blue tobacco smoke drifted over their heads. Raucous laughter drowned out any attempts at conversation. He bought a beer and found a seat against the wall. A small stage shrouded in white curtains stood at the far end of the saloon.

  On the stroke of ten the doors were shut and the lights extinguished, except for two gas lamps on either side of the stage. The gentlemen cheered, and gave their undivided attention to the white curtains swaying in the heat.

  An old man shuffled out of a side door and sat down on a wooden stool. He opened a large leather bound book. There was a murmur of disappointment as he began reciting the poem “Venus and Adonis,” by William Shakespeare.

  Behind the white curtains Isobel Hunt draped herself over the bed. She affected her opening pose and attempted to look comfortable which required a lot of concentration, because the bed wasn’t a bed, but the touring trunk for the company’s costumes covered in a blue sheet, and the slats that made the trunk secure dug into her skin. She wore a short white cotton shawl and a long blonde wig that wound around her body and made her skin tickle.

  Behind her, five “handmaidens,” also dressed in white cotton shawls, though not wigs, giggled as they took up their positions around the stage.

  “Ready ladies?” James Turney winked at Isobel as he prepared to open the curtains. She winked back and nodded.

  “Here we go then.”

  The curtains clattered apart to reveal the first tableaux of the evening; “The Goddess Venus Awaking at Dawn with her Handmaidens in Attendance.”

  The heat and tobacco smoke enveloped Isobel like a blanket, though she didn’t let her discomfit show. She liked to think of herself as professional, and she had the audience’s complete attention. She affected a look of dreamy wistfulness, as though unaware of her surroundings. She had perfected this technique over the last few months and knew that audiences liked it. They stared at her without feeling guilty, and it stopped her from laughing. All those eyes gazing at her as if she really were a Goddess.

  She smiled as she remembered her first performance at a courtesan’s house in Paris the year before. She had felt no shame and no fear, just silly. James called her a natural actress. She glanced at him, standing at the side of the stage, his black floppy hair falling into his eyes, and pouted. He blew her a kiss.

  The gentlemen leaned forward.

  Her body ached. Pins and needles tingled in her left leg. She turned to her “handmaidens,” and, keeping her face in profile to the audience, lifted her right arm in a dreamy languid sweep. This was the cue for the nearest “handmaiden” to step forward, take hold of her white shawl and draw it away, slowly revealing her naked body.