Читать онлайн «Herald of the Storm»

Richard Ford

Herald of the Storm

PROLOGUE

Massoum Abbasi hated the sea. The sickly salt smell and the incessant noise bothered him more than he could ever express. He was a Dravhistan nomad, a man of the desert, used to the silence of sand, a parched and arid landscape, and endless blue sky. Roiling cloud, clashing wave and screeching gull were alien to his experience, but Massoum was willing to endure this, for the reward was great indeed.

The fastest route from the Dravhistan port of Aluk Vadir to the cityport of Steelhaven was by ship, and so reluctantly Massoum had paid for his passage and embarked on his voyage. A man could suffer much for riches, they said, and Massoum had believed them, right up until the first storm hit. The Reigning Sceptre was almost entirely crewed by brash westerners who could laugh in the face of the lashing winds and the rumbling skies. Though the caravel was picked up and tossed from wave to towering wave, its crew went about their duties unaffected, as though it were routine.

For Massoum it felt as if the world was ending.

He had clung to the rigging for grim death, his fingers white from the fearsomeness of his grip and the chill of the storm winds. The robes he wore to pass himself off as a merchant were covered in vomit and his headscarf had blown away in the gale, exposing his long hair to the elements, but he cared little. Survival was all that mattered. And, of course, despite the raging torrent that threatened to fling him from the deck at any moment, he had survived.

But then, Massoum Abbasi was a born survivor — a man used to taking risks and claiming the consequent rewards. In the past his skills had been much sought after, his benefactors generous with their payments.

Abbasi had been trained in the differing philosophies of war by the Shadir of Gul Rasa and been military adviser to three desert princes. He had brokered peace between the warring sultanates of Jal Nassan, acted as diplomat to Kali Ustman Al Talib in the court of the Han-Shar Sunlords and been herald for the Egrit of Rashamen. Over the years his reputation had grown so that the mere rumour of his arrival was enough to spur the richest sultan’s court to greet him with a flower-strewn path and a sumptuous banquet. Times had indeed been good, and Massoum had lived the noble’s life, lauded as the wisest of counsellors and surrounded by men of influence and opulence who called themselves his friends.

But all that had changed.

Such a trivial act had brought him low: the slightest of smiles towards the Kali’s twelfth wife — not even his favourite — but it had been enough to spark rumour in court, enough to have the viziers whispering and the eunuchs chortling in their high-pitched voices, and that was that. Banished. Cast out to the four winds. At least he had been spared the executioner’s blade; that was one thing he could thank the Kali for.

The last few years had been hard for Massoum. There was little use for his talents on the filthy streets of Dravhistan’s cities. Where before his honeyed words and impartial wisdom had been much sought after, now they were of little use. Hunger and fear were his constant companions and he had almost become desperate enough to consider manual labour; but just when it looked as if the light of Asta’Dovashu had abandoned him completely, the god of the Desert Wind had suddenly smiled down.