Prologue

Those readers familiar with the history and geography of Kobekistan can safely skip this prologue.

The Emirate of Kobekistan in the early part of the twenty-first century is one of those wonderful places where a visitor feels that they have stepped back into a more leisurely, more dignified era of history, but without sacrificing any of the more useful gadgets of modern civilisation. Air-conditioning protects the inhabitants from the rigours of a sub-tropical climate. Motor cars whisk them from one building to another. Desalination provides ample water. The most modern medical advances are practised in the hospitals. Television shows umpteen channels. Education utilises the most modern computer-aided systems. Childbirth is no longer as dangerous as it used to be, even though eunuch doctors are the only ones available to the women of the harems. Becoming a eunuch is very rarely a fatal operation since it is carried out by experts in surgical conditions second to none. A girl being cut and sewn to make her incapable of sexual pleasure and virtually unusable by a man (except for sodomy) now has a less than one in a thousand chance of contracting a dangerous infection. Moderation in all things is the watchword. Toleration extends to allowing alcohol to be sold to foreign workers in the country, though only within their company compounds. Women are even taught to read and write, at least in some harems.

Of course, these facilities are not all available to all the population, but for all those who matter, the better families, they are taken for granted. A field slave might not benefit from all of them, but the medical services ensure that a slave no longer has to be put down if an over-enthusiastic owner damages it somewhat while administering discipline.

The disadvantages of 'civilisation' as it is understood in the West are nevertheless kept at bay. Advertising is negligible. Tourists are not permitted to enter the country. Women are not allowed to show their faces on the streets. Marriages are arranged by parents, who are wiser in their choices than the impulses of youth would be. There is none of the political brouhaha so frequent in democracies since the country is ruled by the Emir whom Allah has appointed. His word is law, literally; were he to say "Off with his head," the miscreant would be executed in public within the hour.

All of this is made possible by the oil on which the Emirate rests. When all the oil reserves have been extracted, in some centuries' time, the level of the land will have been lowered by an average of ten feet. The oil is a 'heavy crude' which is dug out of the ground in lumps, looking for all the world like treacle toffee. There is none of the messy liquid to process and no unsightly wells.

The Emir, His Magnificence Mahmoud Abdullah and his heir Crown Prince Gamel were travelling together, which was unusual, in one of the Emir's private 747s on the way back from a trip to Monte Carlo. The chauffeur delegated to collect them at the Kobek International Airport was a little over-enthusiastic and raced along the runway after the aeroplane. Air Traffic Control spotted it and panicked. The military also panicked and ordered the pilot to take off again, fearing an assassination attempt. The pilot did his best, but was short of room and as the aeroplane tried to take off, it hit the lights at the end of the runway and cart-wheeled into an expensive shambles of broken and burning metal.

Some days later the new Emir, His Magnificence Mahmoud Abdullah (known in England as David Ransome), may he live for ever and have many sons, arrived in Kobekistan from Oxford, England, where he had been studying advanced mathematics. None of the more important personages in Kobekistan knew him, since it had always been assumed that Crown Prince Gamel would succeed his father or, if necessary, some other son would be selected and trained for the throne. The succession went by generation and seniority; because the Emir left no living sons, the eldest of his living grandsons inherited, regardless of the relative age of his father. Now, because of the unfortunate accident of the Emir and his heir dying together, the Emir was succeeded by his grandson. The boy was the son of the late Prince Abdullah and his English first wife. Soon after her husband had died playing polo, the mother had left Kobekistan taking her son with her back to England, where he had lived from the age of four until his accession at twenty-three.