Read In the Palace of the Khans for Free Online

welcoming. The old eunuch was Taeela’s guardian. For him she must have been the last of a long line of women and girls he had watched and protected, and so, perhaps, the most precious. The kiss told Nigel that he had passed another test, been judged, and accepted.
    Taeela laughed again and flung her arms round the eunuch and hugged him. He stood for a little while nodding his head slowly and smiling at Nigel, then gently released himself and went back to his stool.
    Taeela bundled herself up like a puppy into the corner of the sofa and patted the cushion beside her.
    â€œNot close,” she said. “Fofo …”
    She laughed and shrugged and rolled her eyes.
    Nigel was happy to settle onto the other end of the sofa. He’d never been comfortable with girls and their private language of gestures and glances.
    â€œHow do you want to do this?” he said. “I suppose we just talk about stuff and see how we get on. Do you want me to tell you when you get a word wrong? It’ll slow things down no end.”
    â€œNo, no! This is not lesson. I do so many lessons. No! We … just talk about stuff and see how we get on.”
    She got it dead right. He could even hear a whisper of his own voice saying the words.
    â€œTell me where you are born,” she said.
    â€œIn London, but I don’t remember anything about it because we moved to Madrid before I was one. I was a mistake, if you want to know. My sisters are much older than me—Libby’s grown up and married now, and Cath’s at university—and my parents didn’t mean to have another one.
    â€œI don’t remember much about Madrid either, just one particular smell. There’s a sort of magnolia. Most of the year it’s big boring bush—almost a tree—but then suddenly in summer it produces these amazing huge white flowers—this big—and absolutely reeking of some kind of lemon syrup. One whiff of the right thing and I’m back in this stifling hot little courtyard full of dusty sunlight and this smell. And that’s Madrid.”
    â€œI know this tree, Terry. No, is stupid, this. I call you Nidzhell. You teach me how I say it …”
    The morning slid by. At one point a small, dumpy woman brought in a tray with a jug of ice-cold fizzy fruit drink and some crisp little almond biscuits. At another, when he was talking about his time in Santiago, she said “This is good … great! I get … I’m getting two lessons in one time. English, Geography. I tell … I’ll tell my father.”
    He noticed the self-corrections with satisfaction, and even more so how, by the time she was talking about her own earlier life, she was saying things like “I’m” and “Don’t” as smoothly as if she’d done so always. She went to a little school in the palace, with ten other kids, roughly her age. Both girls and boys, which apparently wasn’t the custom in Dirzhan. Only the President could have got away with it, Nigel guessed. She loved riding, and had her own ponies both in Dara Dahn and at a hunting lodge in the hills. Nigel was taken by surprise when the eunuch answered a tap on the door and Mr. Dikhtar was standing just outside with a phone handset in one hand and the other beckoning him over.
    â€œThe President-Khan is ready to receive you, Mr. Rizhouell,” he said. “I have spoken to your mother. She would like you to call her.”
    He dialled a number and handed the telephone over.
    â€œNigel?”
    â€œHi, Mum. I’m having a great time. I’m just going off to play chess with the President. Is that scary or is it scary? I like Taeela a lot. I have to say that because she’s listening.”
    Taeela looked up and came scampering across holding out her hand for the mobile, the picture of affront.
    â€œHang on, mum. She wants to talk to you. You mustn’t believe a word she says.”
    Taeela snatched the