In the Palace of the Khans Read Online Free Page A

Rick. “Don’t try it, ’less you want your face spat in.”
    There didn’t seem to be any shops, but every open space, however small, seemed to have a sort of mini-market in it, with a few stalls. And there weren’t any advertisements, apart from enormous posters of the President on every blank wall. The man with the donkey-cart shouted cheerfully back as the two ancient vehicles edged past with millimetres to spare.
    â€œThird cousin of Janey’s—that’s the wife,” explained Rick. “’Nother thing about being here—you get real families. Like it was back in Antigua, ’cording to my mum. England, you get folks dun’t know how many kids their brothers an’ sisters got, pretty well.”
    â€œWhat do they think about the President? Do they all call him the Khan, like you did?”
    Rick took his right hand off the steering-wheel, lowered it as if he was fiddling with his seat belt, and pointed urgently with his thumb towards the back seat. Nigel had forgotten about the bodyguard.
    â€œYeah, he’s the Khan all right,” said Rick. “Never had a President did ’em any good. Doubt the old khans were much better, but they’ve forgot about that. They respect this one. He’s done all right by them, anyone can see. Hospitals, schools, steady jobs, food in the markets. Step out of line, mind you, deal drugs, anything like that, and you’ll get it in the neck.
    â€œGetting there soon, lad. That’s it across the river—fancy bit of building, dun’t you think?”
    Without warning they had emerged into openness. It was as if the narrow, twisting street down which they had been driving, with its higgledy-piggledy houses, had been chopped short to create a modern tree-lined boulevard running beside the river. The trees were saplings, and the glass-walled offices and government buildings looked only a few years old.
    The water-front opposite was utterly different. The river was about the size of the Thames in London, and along its further shore the buildings were any old age and crowded right to the water: wharves with derricks; the backsides of a couple of mosques, built as if they hadn’t expected to be looked at from this direction; warehouses; one or two cafes actually fronting the water; a few ordinary little houses like those in the old city; and in the middle of it all, looking across at this handsome new boulevard, the Palace of the Khans.
    Nigel thought it was the most beautiful building he’d ever seen, more beautiful the Empire State in New York or the Parthenon in Athens or Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. It was three tall storeys high, built mainly of a pale, fawn-coloured stone, exactly right to support the astonishing blue of the domes—lapis something, he vaguely remembered—a big one at the centre and two smaller ones either side. They were bordered with gold round their lower rims, ribbed with gold and topped with little golden spires. The entrance doors were set back under an archway reaching almost to the rim of the central dome and supported by two pairs of blue lapis-something pillars. Four narrower arches ran up the façade on either side, filled in with a delicate carved-stone lattice, a pattern like frozen flames.
    â€œWow!” said Nigel. “What’s it like inside?”
    â€œNever been, meself,” said Rick. “You’re one of the lucky ones. S’posing you come out again, o’ course.”
    It was a joke. Didn’t mean anything.
    Two turbaned sentries stood at the top of the steps, with their guns slung behind their backs and purple sashes running slantwise from shoulder to hip over their khaki uniforms.
    â€œYou wait there, lad,” said Rick. “We’re on parade again.”
    He got out, walked round in front of the Rover, climbed the three steps and spoke to one of the sentries, then came back, opened the passenger door, saluted as Nigel got