The King Read online

  Mahdolia’s retinue wished the queen happiness with this turn of events. The triumph was seen as a firm slap in the face of the vizier. Sheikh Aqasi’s prestige rose, and he was treated like the new vizier by all and sundry. No one doubted that upon his return the shah would be transferring all responsibility from the current vizier to the sheikh.

  In a speech at the victory celebration that the sheikh had organised on behalf of the shah, he went to great lengths to praise the shah’s courage in the presence of all the princes, politicians and great merchants of Tehran. He explained how the Persian cavalry had forced the gate of Herat and taken the city. He announced that the shah would remain in Herat until the city’s governing structure was restored and to enjoy his beloved city.

  Sheikh Aqasi visited Tehran’s Jameh mosque the next day, where the ayatollah of the city prayed for the health of the shah in the presence of thousands of believers.

  Celebrations were held throughout the country for ten days and ten nights. Trees were decorated and flags fluttered above the government buildings.

  The shah took up lodgings in a castle in the centre of Herat where, until quite recently, the British commander had lived. He assumed personal responsibility for the running of the city. Now that he had so much to do he felt vital and energetic. In his own palace he had been bored, but in Herat he felt like a king of consequence. Every day he rode through the city, inspected the barracks and stood on the high tower, gazing through his binoculars at the Indian border where the British army was stationed.

  Everything was going according to plan, except that it was suspiciously quiet on the Russian side. The shah knew the Russians could not stomach the fact that the British had taken the bodies of some of their officers back to India. It was also surprising that, one week after the victory, the Russians had returned to their own country and hadn’t been heard from since. The shah tried to reassure himself with the thought that the Russians were preparing to march into Afghanistan to prevent a possible attack by the British. Or perhaps they wanted to see how London was going to react to the defeat.

  Yet his sense of unease remained. For although the Persian army had done extremely well in Herat, the shah also realised that if the British had wanted to they could have stopped the Persian troops and beaten them. Had he walked into a trap whose scale was greater than he could imagine?

  Then came the report that an attempt had been made on the tsar’s life in Moscow. The tsar was unhurt, but the incident made the shah wary. His flush of victory vanished and was replaced by anxious nights. The shah sensed that something was about to happen.

  Finally the Russians made contact. The Russian embassy in Tehran sent a third-class civil servant to the shah’s mother to tell her that the tsar was in good health, that the Russians were pleased with the victory in Herat, that the tsar sent his greetings to the shah and that Moscow was ready to meet any military response from London. The ambassador also wanted Mahdolia to know that if the British were to attack Herat again, the Russians would immediately deploy their troops across the northern Afghan border.

  It was a curious way of sending a message. Although it could be interpreted as an insult, the shah was reassured and found he could sleep again.

  A few days later the shah received news from one of his spies that filled him with happiness. The Indian soldiers along the border had risen up in revolt and were refusing to fight the Persians. The report was of such significance to the shah that he wanted to meet the messenger personally. The messenger was promptly brought to the castle. The man, who looked more Indian than Persian, stood trembling at the door, terrified at the sight of the shah standing in the middle of the room with a stick in his hand.

  ‘Farsi baladi?’ asked the shah.

  ‘Yes, I speak Persian,’ answered the man shyly.

  ‘But you are Indian?’

  ‘No. Yes. I am an Indian, but I am Parsi,’ answered the man.

  ‘Funny. You speak Persian with an Indian accent.’

  The man was a descendant of Persians who had fled to India thirteen hundred years earlier as followers of Zarathustra when the Arabs invaded the Persian Empire. These Indian Persians were called Parsi.

  ‘We have heard the report of the protests of the Indian soldiers, but we would like to hear it once again from your own lips. Listen carefully to what we say. If you are lying, if you utter one false word, we will have you hung. Do you understand?’ asked the shah coolly.

  ‘Your Majesty, I don’t dare say anything. I’m afraid I’ll say something wrong,’ said the terrified man.

  ‘Don’t be such a baby. Tell us from whom you heard this report!’

  ‘From an Indian soldier who himself is stationed in the barracks,’ said the man.

  ‘Did the Indian soldier tell you this personally?’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  ‘That’s good. That’s clear. Tell us then, word for word,’ said the shah.

  ‘The Indian soldier said, “We were in the barracks cleaning and oiling our rifles when more and more of the men began to feel uncomfortable about fighting the Persians. The rumour spread that the oil we were using to oil our rifles was made of cow fat. Everyone was shocked. Later came the rumour that the oil we spread between our buttocks and toes to prevent blisters was made of British pig fat.”’

  ‘Fantastic,’ said the shah, laughing. ‘Keep going, tell us more.’

  ‘The Indian soldier continued, “I saw everyone put down his rifle and stand up.”’

  ‘Splendid,’ cried the shah.

  ‘“We began to rub the oil from our hands and feet with dirt from the ground. The British sergeants tried to force us to pick up the rifles, but we refused. Finally they moved us to the rearguard.”’

  ‘And then?’ asked the shah.

  ‘That was all, Your Majesty.’

  The shah walked up to him and ordered him to open his mouth. The man, who thought he had not understood the order, stared at the shah in confusion.

  ‘Open your mouth wide!’ repeated the shah.

  Trembling, the man obeyed. The shah popped a couple of gold coins into his mouth and said, ‘You may go now, but always remain a Persian.’

  With the gold coins still in his mouth the man bowed and walked backwards out of the room.

  Now the shah could go back to enjoying his stay. He gave himself permission to spend his nights with the women of Herat, who made him forget his loneliness. This peace and quiet soon evaporated when the shah heard that the Russian troops had left the steppes north of Afghanistan and had gone back to Russia via the Caspian Sea. No sooner had he recovered from the shock than he learned that England, with the permission of the Afghan tribal leaders, had billeted thousands of Anglo-Indian soldiers in Afghanistan.

  What took place next was a nightmare. The shah was forced to stand by helplessly as decisions concerning his own country were made behind his back. The Russians had deserted him; they had sold him to the British. But in exchange for what? The shah was almost sick from all the uncertainty. He couldn’t eat, his hookah lost its flavour and the beautiful women of Herat no longer excited him. He realised that for the time being he could not leave Herat.

  In the meantime the people of Tehran were busy with other things. They had also heard the alarming news, and everyone was trying to secure his own future. Some of the princes sought closer ties with the British embassy, others with the Russians.

  Sheikh Aqasi, who had heard about a treaty between England and Russia, tried to strengthen his position in this new balance of power. He managed to get hold of a document from the British embassy, which stated that the vizier was in close contact with the Russian People’s Movement. The go-between was one of the students the vizier had sent to Moscow.

  The name of the student was mentioned in the report, and it was alleged that he had attended meetings of the Russian People’s Movement. The report confirmed earlier reports that the mother of the shah had received through her informants.

  Sheikh Aqasi wa
nted the shah to read the reports and documents as soon as he returned. Everyone in Mahdolia’s circle was waiting for the vizier’s death blow, now that the shah was stuck in Herat. Sheikh Aqasi fed the rumours by telling Mahdolia, ‘The vizier has placed a number of cannons in front of his palace. He has sent his wife and children to his father-in-law in Farahan. Something is probably about to happen of which we have not yet been informed.’

  30. England’s Surprise Move

  London had been eyeing the southern province of Persia for a long time. In much of the brutally hot, uninhabitable south, the soil was so dark brown that everything seemed to have been rinsed in crude oil. The fact that the shah was still stuck in Herat worked out very well for the British.

  The report of the attack on the south had reached the British officers in India. It took a whole week before the shah heard about it from a messenger. The exhausted courier fell to the ground at the shah’s feet and said, ‘The British have invaded the port of Bushehr.’

  ‘What did you say?’ cried the shah.

  The man was too frightened to tell him the rest. From his inside pocket he took out a letter from the vizier sealed with red wax and handed it to the shah. With trembling hands the shah removed the sealing wax and read the letter. The British had left Herat for what it was and had invaded the country six thousand kilometres away.

  ‘Why there?’ cried the shah, utterly perplexed.

  British warships had sailed into the Persian Gulf and occupied the Persian island of Kharg. The British seamen had bombed the port of Bushehr from their ships and had driven off the local population. Hundreds of soldiers from the Anglo-Indian army had occupied the abandoned city centre, where British flags were now flying.

  Although the vizier felt his opponents breathing down his neck, he could not desert his country. He set out for the south without delay, and in his letter he wrote, ‘England has touched a nerve. The future of our homeland is in danger. It is essential that the shah return to Tehran.’

  The shah promptly summoned his warlords and gave them the necessary instructions. He appointed a colonel as his deputy and let him know he was leaving. Early in the morning, when the streets were still dark, the shah left the city. Upon reaching the gate he got off his horse, picked up a handful of earth and put it in his pocket as a precious memory of Herat. He kissed the gate’s wooden door and, with tears in his eyes, began his journey back to Tehran, which would take almost a week.

  While this was going on the British managed to defend themselves against local resistance in the port of Bushehr and to strengthen their position. England’s plan was to use the port as a military base in the Middle East and as their gateway to the Far East. They also had their eye on two important cities, Khorramshahr and Borazjan, suspecting there were large oil fields there.

  Until five years before England had only been interested in India and had scarcely paid any attention at all to Persia. But now, although they couldn’t be certain, everything they were learning about the soil along the Persia–Iraq border pointed to the presence of enormous oil reserves there. It was a British state secret that had not yet been made public. To realise their plans the British would have to come to an agreement with the Russians, and the invasion of Herat was a perfect moment to begin those negotiations.

  For decades Russia had been at war with the Ottomans around the Black Sea, and the British had always sided with the Ottomans. England proposed to terminate this support if Russia would withdraw its troops north of Afghanistan and leave the shah of Persia high and dry. The tsar, who had his hands full with domestic uprisings, agreed to the offer. Russia withdrew its troops from the steppes north of Afghanistan and gave England a free hand.

  Nor had the vizier been sitting idle. He managed to raise an army in the city of Khorramshahr to guarantee the safety of the population. In Tehran it was thought that England had invaded the country by way of the Persian Gulf as a retaliatory action. The vizier was preparing to fight like a lion.

  The British showed no mercy. The vizier was defenceless in the face of the British cannons, so he changed tactics. He pretended to be defending Khorramshahr, but at the same time he ordered his men to hide in the cellars and passageways below the city and to prepare for hand-to-hand combat. He wanted to let the British capture the city so they would blithely make their way through the streets as victors. Then he would strike.

  Working in great haste he sent messages to the tribal leaders and nomads in the area around the city, telling them that their country urgently needed them. ‘Put down your glass and ride with your men to Khorramshahr.’

  The tribal leaders joined forces. Following the tracks that had been left by the British horses, soldiers and war carts, they finally arrived at Khorramshahr.

  The enemy was under the misapprehension that the Persian soldiers had abandoned the city via the side gate, so they raised their flags and began to ready their cannons for a possible counterattack. Suddenly the Persian soldiers popped out of their hiding places and opened fire on the intruders. The British soldiers sought shelter, but they were waylaid by sharpshooters. There was no other way to escape from the city.

  The vizier tried to buck up his troops. He hoped that the tribal leaders would come to their rescue in time, and his hope was confirmed. Now the British found themselves between two fires. A real battle broke out, with the vizier spurring his men on. Suddenly a British officer recognised him, aimed his pistol and fired three shots. Two of the bullets hit the vizier. Someone managed to get him on a horse and move him behind the front lines.

  The local tribal leader took command and pursued the enemy deep into the night past the fields of date palms. When the new day broke there wasn’t a single British or Indian soldier to be seen.

  England then sent its ships to the important southern port of Bandar Abbas and stormed the harbour. No Persian soldiers had been stationed there. Two reports were sent to the shah, neither of them good: ‘The vizier has been fatally wounded, and England is in control of the Persian Gulf.’

  31. The Woman

  Before the crowing of the cock Mahdolia rode in her coach to the palace of the shah. She had been having trouble with her knees of late and could no longer walk long distances. She sought the support of the handrail and tried to pull herself upwards. The shah came to meet her and to offer his assistance. Still on the stairs Mahdolia threw her arms round him and wept, ‘O, my son. O, my poor king.’

  ‘Mother, where is your dignity?’ whispered the shah. ‘The guards are looking at us.’

  ‘Let them look, son. Our country is in need. I weep for the country, I weep for the shah,’ she said even louder.

  Once in the conference room Mahdolia dropped into a chair with a sigh.

  ‘O, my son, if only I were dead I would not have to see you in this difficult situation,’ she whimpered.

  The shah stood at the window, visibly moved.

  ‘Your silence is crushing me, son. Talk to me. Pour out your heart.’

  ‘What is there to say, Mother? My army is stuck in Herat. Our ports on the Persian Gulf are occupied and I haven’t got a bullet left to fire. What am I to do? I don’t trust anyone any more. You see, Mother, how the Russians have abandoned us? How they toyed with us? The tsar received you into his family. He spoke with you privately and then turned round and stuck a knife in my back.’

  ‘I don’t believe the tsar did this. He fought alongside us in Herat. You must look elsewhere for the cause. This plot was hatched within our own circles,’ said Mahdolia vindictively.

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘Don’t be naive, my son. By the vizier!’

  ‘Mother, stop this morbid spitefulness. I often think we have treated the vizier badly, and that he does not deserve it. I have sent him a letter and thanked him for his courage. The man is seriously wounded. He may die.’

  ‘He may be wounded, but dying is something else. Even that is intended to pull the wool over your eyes! Go out into the street. Put your ear to the ground. The
n you’ll understand what your mother is talking about. Your army is stuck in Herat, the Persian Gulf has been taken, our nation is being threatened, but people are talking about the vizier. He’s become a hero, everyone is calling him the real king. Did anyone tell the shah? No, no one. No one dares tell you the truth. I am here, son, to remove the scales from your eyes. I am your mother, the only one who will not deceive you. The only reason I came was to comfort my child.’

  The words of Mahdolia touched the shah. Tears ran down his cheeks. He turned to the window to hide his sorrow. The queen mother struggled out of her chair, hobbled to the king, took his hand, kissed it and said, ‘This country didn’t just drop into our lap. Great men from our tribe, men who came before you, held the country together with the edge of their swords. We will not give it up. The story of this ancient land is a long one. It did not begin with you, and it will not end with you. Stand tall and endure.’

  The shah nodded without looking at her.

  Mahdolia pulled her son closer and whispered, ‘Think carefully. Now it is your turn. It is your duty to save the throne. You must be as brutal as your grandfather was. Leave everything to the vizier for the time being. Give him the freedom to do as he likes. Let him be cheered as a hero by these thick-witted people. Then the shah must act. Later I shall return to tell you what to do. It will not be easy, but if everyone else abandons the shah someone must stand by him, and I am that person!’

  The shah straightened his back and placed a gentle kiss on Mahdolia’s cheek. He led her outdoors. The fresh air did him good. He took a deep breath, breathed out again and said, ‘I thank you for coming, Mother.’

  Mahdolia’s visit had lifted the shah out of the doldrums. He felt good again, and after so many sleepless nights he was able to get a proper night’s rest. When morning came he was ready for a hearty breakfast. As he ate he felt a poem taking shape in his head. Straightaway he called for a pen and paper.