In the Palace of the Khans by Peter Dickinson Page A

hostess this afternoon and see that our guests are amused. Mizhael will make any arrangements. Now, if you will forgive me …”
    He rose, so they did too. One of the maids came across with a tray, picked up the remains of his meal and followed him out.
    â€œSo, what will we all do?” said Taeela brightly, already playing the hostess for all she was worth. “When the rain stops, His Excellency will catch fish for our supper, yes?”
    â€œI don’t guarantee to catch any,” said Nigel’s father, joining in her game.
    â€œYou will catch three fine fish for my supper, your Excellency. I wish this. Mizhael will tell the cook that you bring … are bringing them.”
    â€œYour wish is my command.”
    â€œGood. And Mrs Ridgwell and Nigel will look for birds. I will come too. We will ride my horses. What birds do you wish to see, Mrs Ridgwell?”
    â€œOh, anything. It doesn’t matter.”
    â€œCome on, Mum” said Nigel. “You’re talking to the Khanazhana. If she says you would like to see a great pink hoopoe, someone will make sure it happens.”
    â€œI don’t think they get hoopoes up here, darling.”
    â€œCome on, Mum!”
    â€œOh, well. A black-throated kingfisher, I suppose. They’re very local, but there might be some here.”
    â€œYou shall see a black-throated kingfisher. I will speak to Mizhael,” said Taeela, laughing. “Now I’ll stop being the Khanazhana. I’m Taeela. I’m Nigel’s friend.”
    â€œWell, in that case I’m Lucy and this is Nick. That’s what Nigel’s other friends call us. What about when your father is here?”
    â€œAh … Perhaps you ask him, uh, Lucy.”
    â€œAs soon as I get the chance.”
    They’d lunched very late, and the rain and wind had begun to ease by the time they’d finished. A guard and driver were waiting for Nigel’s father with a Jeep, and he was off before the last drops fell. When the sky cleared Taeela, in full riding kit and looking like an advertisement in a glossy country magazine, met Nigel and his mother in the front hall, and they were driven the few hundred yards to the stables, where three absurdly handsome ponies were waiting for them, along with a couple of bodyguards, a woman and a man, with two more ordinary-looking horses.
    Nigel had ridden a bit in Chile, and his mother had apparently been horse-mad when she was a kid, but then got interested in too much other stuff to keep it up. Taeela, of course, rode like a princess, because that was what her father expected of her.
    They followed a trail up through the trees, and out onto the open mountainside like the one on the video of the snow ibex, a vast slope twinkling with little rivulets after the rain and strewn with boulders, tussocks of scrawny grass clinging to whatever soil had lodged there, and scattered clumps of stunted bushes. Their emergence surprised a large bird that must just have caught some small mammal and started to tear it apart. It looked round with shreds of meat hanging from its beak, then lumbered into the air and soared away with the limp carcass dangling from its talons. A steppe eagle, Nigel’s mother decided.
    The track turned and led them slantwise across the slope. The air up here seemed magically clean. They could see for uncountable miles in every direction except to the south-west, across the lake, where about ten miles away the next instalment of the storm was working its way towards them.
    There were plenty of birds to see, active after the rain. Taeela must have longed to put her beautiful horses through their paces and show her guests what they could do, but she kept to a sedate walk beside Nigel’s mother, halting when she wanted to use her binoculars, borrowing them so that she could look too, and asking questions about the birds. Nigel, still stiff from his swim, was happy not to have to do anything more demanding.