“In the past, economics-wise, we have been victims, we have been at death’s door, but now our guests pledge to pull us through and usher in a new era of prosperity. We welcome Lord Grady and his potentates, for they are deluxe people. I truly believe that there is not one second-rate scuffler among them, trying to pass himself off as an expert in Assama. So we can relax, we can rejoice together in the knowledge that we won’t have to eat them as our brave forefathers did to protect themselves against the plunderers of the past.” He smacked his lips.

I swallowed nervously. Derek’s bright eyes ransacked the pitiless trees beyond the square, searching for sanctuary. But Grady’s countenance in the torchlight maintained the serenity of a saint.

“And so,” bin Zaki went on, “we raise voices of joy, voices of shout…”

It is so insolently easy to record the misspeak of people who mangle English. I draft the poet’s words, fully aware that he speaks my language a hell of a sight better than I’d ever speak his. But to get on: bin Zaki’s was the only voice of shout. At the edge of the clearing the people were silently, cautiously malevolent. Their tan skin held a patina of grayness. “Why are they gray?” Gorelik asked.

I could answer that one: “Ashes,” I told him. “They smear their bodies with ashes to keep off mosquitoes. There are fifty-eight known species of bloodsuckers in Assama.”

“Fun City,” Gorelik said.

“Where is the King?” Daphne asked.

“You’ll meet him,” Abdul said, turning to me. “My father, like your Andrew Jackson, does not understand diplomacy.”

A sudden wind swept across the square. The trees tossed their branches, leaves like elephant ears swung in slow tranquillity, nature’s answer to the mobile. The glow of the torches dwindled, creating dense pockets of darkness, reducing the dignitaries to silhouettes. The torches drank what light they could siphon out of the darkness, their flames darting, plunging, writhing.

A muster of warriors stormed onto the square. They screamed in a savage falsetto, and their faces shone with sweat. Their robes billowed like sails as they galumphed about, scimitars flashing. Each man was further armed with a scrawny chicken, which he twirled above his head like a terrified pinwheel. The wind died again, the torches flared. The thick silhouette slouching toward Gorelik took corporeality and became General Qazwini, rotund, dripping with medals. Responding to his presence as if to a command, the warriors tore the chickens apart and in a flurry of squawks ate them alive.

“You will review my troops?” he ordered. “I have army of two hundred and ten men and four women who would to be men, you know?”

“Not me,” Gorelik said. “I don’t know one end of a troop from the other.”