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  THE FATHER OF LOCKS

  Andrew Killeen was born and lives in Birmingham. He studied English at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and has spent most of his career working with homeless and disadvantaged children.

  In his spare time he makes music, and can occasionally be found performing as a singer, musician and DJ. He supports Birmingham City FC, as karmic punishment for sins in a past life.

  The Father of Locks is his first novel.

  CONTENTS

  Title

  Map of the World as known to Ismail al-Rawiya

  Prologue: The Tale of the Witch and the Jeweller’s Daughter

  One: The Tale of the Thief in the House of Wisdom

  Two: The Tale of the Eunuch, the Wazir and the Chief of Police, which includes, The Marvellous Adventures of Ismail al-Rawiya

  Three: Concluding The Marvellous Adventures of Ismail al-Rawiya, and, The Tale of the Eunuch, the Wazir and the Chief of Police

  Four: The Tale of The Ring of The All-Seeing Eye

  Five: The Tale of Three Gentlemen and a Musician, which includes, The Tale of Iblis, the Father of Bitterness

  Six: The Postman’s Tale, which includes, The Tale of the Righteous Ones

  Seven: The Tale of the Visitors

  Eight: The Tale of the Deserted Camp

  Nine: The Tale of the Khalifah’s Feast, which includes, The Tale of the Poet and the Three Boys, and, The Tale of the Horn of Hruodland

  Ten: The Tale of the White Ghost in Blissful Eternity

  Eleven: The Tale of the Red Cloth

  Twelve: The Tale of The Great Demon Time, Devourer of All Things, which includes, The Tale of the Game of Four Divisions

  Thirteen: Concluding, The Tale of the Game of Four Divisions, and, The Tale of The Great Demon Time, Devourer of All Things

  Fourteen: The Tale of the Shower of Petals, including, The Tale of the Cock and his Hens

  Fifteen: Concluding the Tale of the Cock and his Hens, And, The Tale of the Shower of Petals

  Sixteen: The Tale of the Boy in the River, including, The Tale of the Father of a Muslim

  Seventeen: The Tale of the Birthmarked Boy, which includes, The Tale of the Raiders

  Eighteen: The Tale of The Royal Hunt

  Nineteen: The Tale of the Dog-Headed Demon

  Twenty: The Tale of The Prisoner and the Guard

  Twenty One: The Tale of the Saint and the Sinner, which includes, The Education of a Poet

  Twenty Two: The Tale of the Brass Bottle

  Twenty Three: The Tale of the Door That Should Not Have Been Opened

  Twenty Four: The Tale of the King and Queen of Darkness

  Epilogue: The Tale of the Boats

  Historical Note

  A Note on Names

  Glossary

  Copyright

  Map of the World as known to Ismail al-Rawiya

  Prologue

  The Tale of the Witch and the Jeweller’s Daughter

  Once there was a jeweller, who was known for his good fortune. He was an attractive man, blessed with quick wits, a strong body, and a full and luxuriant beard. He could catch fish simply by putting his hand in the river, and find water by pushing a stick into the ground. His name was Ali, but his neighbours called him al-Mubarak, the Lucky One.

  Al-Mubarak did not rely solely on his luck. He worked hard and prospered, and the fame of his merchandise spread throughout the land. Amirs and Shaikhs travelled to his shop to purchase tokens of love for their concubines or catamites. When it came time for Ali to take a wife, he married the most beautiful girl in his town. She had hair soft as spring rain and eyes as bright as lightning.

  A year after they wed, she fell pregnant. When al-Mubarak learned that his wife was with child, he began to weep. His wife said:

  “Husband, why do you not rejoice at this news? Have I offended you in some way?”

  He looked up from his tears and answered:

  “No, wife. I weep because God has favoured me better than I deserve. There are many who never know the happiness of wealth, love and fertility. I pity them, yet I believe it is harder to have such things and see them taken from you. Now I weep for fear that God will test me as he did the Prophet Ayyub. Would that I could protect my family from disaster and disease!”

  The jeweller’s forebodings proved to be well-founded; for his wife died giving birth. (We are from God, and to him we return.) The baby survived, but instead of the son he had hoped for it was a sickly girl.

  Devastated by his loss, the jeweller poured his love and sorrow into the girlchild, whom he named Nadiyya, meaning Delicate. Against expectation she thrived, and grew to be more beautiful even than her mother, with skin like silken sheets and eyes as dark as hunger. Al-Mubarak’s brothers and cousins brought their handsome sons, offering them as prospective husbands for the girl, but he turned them all away. Nobody was good enough for his daughter.

  The jeweller became obsessed with finding her a husband who would be able to keep her safe from all harm. Having refused all the young men of his town, he began to travel further afield, in search of prospective sons-in-law. His business suffered, and in time he had to sell his shop. With nowhere to call home they trekked from town to town, selling trinkets from a cart.

  In summer they slept under the stars, but winter was hard. Al-Mubarak found lodgings for his daughter, but could not afford to sleep indoors himself. So it was that the girl came out one morning to find that her father had frozen to death on the street in front of her door. (We are from God, and to him we return.)

  As she was weeping over his body, a merchant by the name of Khalil happened by. He had just returned from a voyage which had brought him vast riches, and was on his way to the masjid, to give a share of his gold to the poor. He sent one of his servants to discover the cause of the girl’s distress. When he learned of her misfortune, he thought:

  “Surely God has put this girl in my path as a test of my charity. I shall take care of this orphan, and bury her father with all due ceremony.”

  Khalil had the jeweller’s body washed and wrapped in rich cloth. He ordered his household to put on mourning weeds, and they prayed over the body before placing it in the grave. For the next three days, no work was done, and the women of the huram wailed and tore at their clothes as if the stranger were one of their own. That was the end of Ali al-Mubarak, the Lucky One.

  The merchant Khalil took the jeweller’s daughter into his house, a spacious mansion of broad halls and pleasant gardens. He had fallen in love with her dark eyes before she had even stepped across his threshold. However he waited for four months and ten days, as if she were a widow, before offering her the brideprice: a heavy ring of gold, in which was set a sapphire the size of a ram’s testicle. They were married with great feasting and revelry, and two hundred guests attended the celebration.

  Al-Mubarak’s life had ended cruelly, but some of his good fortune lingered. In death he had finally found the son-in-law he had been seeking. Khalil treated the girl as if she were a rare orchid, and tended to her every need. His attentions to her brewed bitter jealousy in his first wife. She had never borne him a child, and when her younger, prettier rival conceived, envy turned to hatred.

  The first wife began to dream that Nadiyya had died, by accident or from illness. In the morning she would wake to find her husband gone from her side, and in her grief she would pull at her hair till it lay on her pillow, like a rebuke. At last she sent her maid to buy poison, saying that she could hear rats in the garden. The first wife of Khalil the Merchant dug a hole in the skin of a sour orange, and impregnated the fruit with the venom. Then she sent her maid to take the orange to Nadiyya, saying:

  “My new siste
r may think that I have been cold towards her. Let her accept this gift, so that there can be the beginnings of love between us.”

  The maid went to Nadiyya, where she sat in the garden with Khalil, under the shade of a fig tree, and spoke as her mistress had directed her. Khalil’s heart filled with joy, and he cried out:

  “Now we can live in harmony! Let us share this gift between us, as a token of the peace in which we shall live!”

  But Nadiyya disdained the bitter fruit, and Khalil ate it alone. That evening he lay with his first wife, because he was pleased with her gesture. In the depths of the night he began to buck and puke. His screams brought his slaves to the chamber, but it was too late. Khalil the Merchant opened his bowels and died. (We are from God, and to him we return.)

  The first wife saw what she had done. As the smell of sickly shit filled the room, she turned and walked away. She passed through the vestibule and onto the street, alone and unveiled. By the time anyone asked where she had gone, she had already waded into the river, to her thighs, to her waist, to her neck. When the dirty water began to fill her mouth she panicked and began to struggle, but her clothes were heavy and dragged her down to the mud.

  We are from God, and to him we return.

  Nadiyya was left in possession of his estate, and the Eunuch brought her the keys to the house. In the merchant’s bedroom she opened a cedarwood chest to find it full of gold dinars. Every day his slaves would come to her for the household expenses, and she would take money from the chest and give it to them, before carefully locking it again. In this way time passed, and Khalil’s child grew within her, swelling her belly.

  Eight months after the death of her husband, Nadiyya gave birth to a girl, as beautiful as her mother and grandmother before her. The labour was difficult, and for weeks afterwards the jeweller’s daughter lay close to death. When at last she recovered her strength the slaves begged her to give them money, as the household was in much debt. It was not until she opened the chest that she realized the merchant’s treasure had dwindled to a few coins, and there was not enough to pay their creditors.

  Nadiyya knew no way of acquiring wealth other than to marry a rich man. So she sent the Eunuch into the town to find her a husband. However, the men of substance wanted virgin brides, and nobody was interested in the pretty but impoverished widow.

  She complained of her problems to the wetnurse, as she suckled the baby girl. The wetnurse looked at her for a long time, as if making a decision. Then she spoke.

  “Mistress, there is a woman in this town that might help you. Her name is Qamra, and she is a witch. If you wish I will take you to her, but her services may cost you dear.”

  Eagerly the jeweller’s daughter begged to be introduced to the witch. So it was that the two women set out after nightfall, with no escort and only a small lamp to guide their way through the dark streets. They came at last to a small hut on the edge of town, and the wetnurse said:

  “You must go in alone, or the witch will not speak to you.”

  Nadiyya entered the hut. Inside she was dazzled by the blaze of sixty-six candles, and at first could not make out the huddled shape seated on a carpet. Her eyes cleared though as she sat down, and the jeweller’s daughter beheld the face of the witch. Nadiyya had imagined her as an old crone, but Qamra was a young woman, who would have been attractive were the left side of her face not scarred, as if she had been burnt by fire. The witch addressed her.

  “You seek a husband who will keep and protect you. That is no easy matter. What payment have you brought me?”

  Nadiyya produced the ring which Khalil had given her, the one with a sapphire the size of a ram’s testicle. Qamra took it and squinted at it in the candlelight, before secreting it in her robes. Then she took a disc of lead, and scratched into it three symbols. The jeweller’s daughter could not read, but knew these were no letters of Arabic. The witch passed her the disc.

  “Put this under your pillow, and sleep on it for three nights. On the morrow after the third night, your husband will come to you.”

  At those words the sixty-six candles all went out at once, and Nadiyya stumbled blindly from the hut in terror. For a month she hid the disc in a jar, too frightened to use it. But in the end, she reflected that she had spent her bride-price on it, and it seemed disrespectful to her husband not to make use of it. So she placed it under her pillow, and tried to forget what she had done.

  Four days later, there came a banging at the door in the middle of the day. The Eunuch opened to see a tall figure silhouetted by the sun. The man at the door gave his name as Nuri, and said that his horse had gone lame in the street. He would pay for refreshment and a farrier to look at his animal.

  This sudden apparition sent the whole household into a frenzy, like a termite’s nest poked with a stick. Nadiyya ordered a curtain hung across the vestibule, and food and drink brought to the visitor. She sat behind the curtain and conversed with him, refusing all payment, while her stable boy treated the horse, which had merely caught a stone in its hoof.

  Nuri returned the next day, and the day after, and the day after that. Each afternoon he sat on one side of the curtain, and Nadiyya on the other. They talked, and sang each other songs, while the slaves brought sherbet and sweetmeats. After sixty-six days of visiting, he offered her a bride-price: a chain of gold twice as heavy as Khalil’s ring, studded with six rubies, each the size of a ram’s testicle. Nadiyya considered that she had got good value from the witch, and accepted his offer.

  For several years they lived in happiness. Nuri never spoke of his business, although he would sometimes disappear for weeks at a time. He took possession of the keys to the house, the slaves and the livestock. Nonetheless there was always gold in the cedarwood chest, and the jeweller’s daughter wanted for nothing.

  The wetnurse remained in the huram long after the child was weaned, looking after the daughter of Khalil the Merchant. Then one afternoon she took the girl to the river, to fish for minnows. Her friend came and sat with her, and the two women gossiped. When next they looked around, the little girl was gone.

  The women ran up and down the riverbank, calling her name. Frantically, the wetnurse plunged into the river, fearing the child had met the same fate as her stepmother. However, there was no sign of the girl, and the nurse’s friend begged her to return to the bank before she was swept away.

  Weeping with shame the women returned to the house to take the grim news to Nadiyya. The jeweller’s daughter felt her blood turn cold. Unveiled she ran into the street, shrieking and begging for help. Her neighbours came out of their shops and houses, and milled around, asking each other what was wrong.

  Soon Nuri rode up on his horse. When he was told of the girl’s disappearance, he organized the neighbours into search parties, scouring the town. Then he rode to the river and persuaded the fishermen to drag the riverbed with their nets. All was to no avail. That night Nadiyya and Nuri held each other tight, and made desperate, unhappy love.

  The next morning the people of the town returned to their occupations, but the girl’s stepfather continued his search. Every day he rode further afield, following rumours and reports. The jeweller’s daughter waited anxiously for his return, but each day he came in shaking his head sadly.

  As days turned to weeks Nadiyya began to be troubled by a slow, thudding sound from the walls, as if the house had a beating heart. She told Nuri about it one evening, but he said to her:

  “I hear nothing. Listen –”

  They fell quiet, and she realized he was right. The house was silent. Nuri told her:

  “You are tired, my love, and wracked with grief. You must rest more, then these strange noises will cease.”

  And he gave her opium, to help her sleep. However the next day the beating returned. Now it seemed to pulse and echo, like the thud of a drum in a deep valley. Again she told Nuri on his return, and again he pointed out that the house was silent. He told her:

  “Perhaps some vermin has made its home her
e. I will arrange for the ratcatcher to visit.”

  But the next day the noise was unbearable. It felt to Nadiyya as if her brain was battering at the inside of her skull, in a bid to burst free. She went to the Eunuch and begged him to help her find the source of the din, but he told her:

  “The master has the keys.”

  She seized his arm and dragged him after her, as she followed the sound through the courtyards of Khalil the Merchant’s sprawling mansion. At last they came to a small wooden door, which led to a storeroom. Nadiyya begged the Eunuch to open it, and reluctantly he battered at the lock with his cudgel until the frame splintered and the door burst open.

  It was dark in the room, which had no windows. As her eyes grew used to the gloom the jeweller’s daughter saw what she thought was a pile of rags. She drew closer, and realized it was her daughter, bound and gagged, red eyed and filthy. The little girl tapped on the floor with one foot. This tiny sound, magnified and reverberating in the mother’s ears, was what had drawn her to the room. Then a gasp from behind her caused her to turn round.

  In the doorway stood her husband Nuri, knife in hand. At his feet lay the body of the Eunuch, his life bleeding and whistling out of a gash in his neck. Nuri laughed at the expression on her face, a harsh, heartless laugh.

  “That look of surprise marks you out as the hypocrite you truly are. You sought a husband by magic. What kind of man did you think would be summoned by the twisted charms of witchcraft?”

  Nadiyya was too frightened to speak, and her husband continued.

  “I too once asked the help of Qamra the Witch, and in consequence I was possessed by a Ghul. It was the evil spirit within me that answered your call. The Ghul must feed on the blood of children, or both the spirit and my body will die. All these years I have only been waiting for the child to ripen, like a side of beef hung at the butcher’s shop, while I hunted elsewhere for my prey.