Michel Déon - The Foundling Boy

‘What kind of car is this?’

‘Hispano-Suiza. Have you ever seen one like it?’

‘Never. It’s beautiful. It must cost a lot of money.’

‘I don’t know. They bought it for me. I’m a very lazy man. I don’t buy anything myself.’

‘Then people must steal from you.’

‘Perhaps, but never mind. That’s the price of my peace of mind.’

The man coughed into his closed fist. He peeled off one of his tan kid gloves to take a phial out of a small box next to him, from which he dripped a few drops onto a handkerchief. A strong medicinal smell filled the car.

‘Are you ill, Monseigneur?’

He nodded his head, put the handkerchief over his nose and breathed in deeply before answering.

‘I have asthma.’

‘Can’t the doctor cure you?’

‘No.’

‘That’s very sad!’

‘You are a very kind boy.’

Jean looked at him intensely, and the man smiled back.

‘Can I ask you a question?’ Jean said.

‘Yes, but I cannot promise I’ll answer it.’

‘How do you become a monseigneur?’

‘It’s a very old story. I didn’t become a “monseigneur”. My father was a prince. And my grandfather, and my great-grandfather. You would have to go a long way back into history to find the first of my ancestors who became a prince, in the year 318 of the Hijra, which is to say in AD 940, which you will understand better, I dare say, being a little Christian. At that time there reigned at Bab al Saud an extremely powerful king, named Salah el Mahdi. He was good, but arrogant, and had a serious fault, which was never to know when people were lying to him. When I say “serious fault”, it was almost an illness with him, he made so many mistakes about other men. Haroun, his vizir, who looked after the affairs of the kingdom in the company of a dozen or so emirs who had sworn loyalty to him, used his position to accumulate an immense fortune by extorting money from country people and merchants alike and by using the royal fleet for pirate raids across the Mediterranean, as far as the coast of France. The king suspected nothing. He believed that his kingdom’s finances were prospering, because the vizir very skilfully denied him no luxury. When the vizir offered him a sumptuous present he did not suspect that it was the hundredth fraction of the pirates’ booty, of which the wretched band in power kept the other ninety-nine hundredths. His harem was populated with beautiful, pale, almost diaphanous creatures captured from Christian ships, whom Haroun assured him were gifts from foreign kings dazzled by his reputation, when they were really poor Greek girls snatched from their families or passionate light-skinned Sicilians kidnapped by the crews of pirate feluccas. Haroun and his henchmen were so greedy that after several years had passed they began to believe that what they were giving the king was still too much, that the hundredth of the spoils that they were forgoing to keep him happy would do just as well in their own chests. So they arrested Salah el Mahdi and would certainly have cut his head off if a prophecy known to everyone had not promised that decapitated kings would turn into vampires when it got dark and return to suck their executioners’ blood. Instead they shut him up in a fortress where he was to be guarded by a company of warriors, the fiercest in the kingdom, incorruptible mountain fighters commanded by an officer who knew only his duty. The poor king understood nothing of what had happened to him. Shut up in a narrow cell where he hardly had room to lie down, he was only allowed to walk for two hours each night, chained to his gaolers. A hole in the wall allowed him to glimpse a tiny square of sky and a mountain peak, which he saw covered in snow three times before the vizir, deciding that it was another unnecessary expense to keep under such heavy guard a deposed king who was too lazy to escape, dismissed the warriors and ordered their commanding officer to escort him to his tribe. That officer, Abderrahman al Saadi, which means the Avenger of the Just, was my ancestor. He knew only his orders and that, as he had been told, the king was responsible for the country’s great misery. He treated him like a slave and made him clean his weapons, forcing him to carry out tasks that normally were only done by women. The king humbly accepted his lot. The years of captivity had matured his spirit and he recognised his error — a capital error for a sovereign — in having surrounded himself with double-dealers, toadies and grasping officials. He never complained, suffering his ill-treatment with resignation. Then one day it happened that Abderrahman al Saadi discovered that his prisoner, even though he was famished himself, was sharing his miserable rations with a hunting dog that had been wounded during a chase and could not compete with the other dogs for its supper. He was astonished that such a vile being, whose cruelty and rapacity had been so vividly described to him, could have any such impulse. He had him brought to his tent, and the two men talked all night. Abderrahman al Saadi understood the injustice of which he had been made the instrument. He prostrated himself before Allah and swore to deserve his name of Avenger of the Just, and then went to the king to beg his pardon for having so insulted him. Within a few weeks Abderrahman had raised an army of fighters, every man among them as fierce and as courageous as could be. This small army represented less than a tenth of the vizir’s army, but on its side it had faith and the desire to avenge a king too easily abused. Instead of confronting the regular army head on, Abderrahman decided to act by stealth. He invited Haroun to a great celebration at the gates of the capital. His best horsemen were to compete against each other at a game of skill that would later be called polo. Flattered and pleased to be entertained without it costing him a penny, the vizir accepted, and a great camp was set up in a field. Abderrahman insisted that Haroun come with his personal guards, who would be massed around the main stand. These were all black warriors of two metres in height, chosen for their colossal strength and skill with a spear. On the appointed day Haroun arrived at the celebration and watched the game and then the races until nightfall, when Abderrahman announced an archery competition. Mounted on galloping horses and led by a masked rider, the competitors were to fire their hundred arrows at a target in the middle of the hippodrome, held by an impassive warrior. Filled with enthusiasm for their skill, the vizir asked for the crack bowmen to be introduced to him. Led by the masked rider, the archers formed up in a line in front of the vizir’s stand.

‘“Who are you?” Haroun asked.

‘“Do you truly want to know?”

‘“It’s an order. Who are you?”

‘“Your king!” cried the rider, tearing off his mask and firing an arrow straight at the heart of Haroun, who collapsed dying as the hundred horsemen took aim at the vizir’s guard and planted a hundred arrows in their bronze breastplates. Night was falling, and the crowd’s cries of terror turned to panic as they saw that the city was burning. Abderrahman’s spies, making the most of the dignitaries’ absence, had set fire to the palace and the barracks. The zeal of the incendiaries was doubtless somewhat excessive because, in the space of a day and a night, the whole capital burnt down. Salah el Mahdi, having regained his throne but without a palace, decided to live in the mountains with the warriors who had given him back his kingdom. He built himself a fortress and entrusted the country’s administration to my ancestor, whom he made a prince so that the word “vizir” would never again be heard in the country. There you are, Jean Arnaud. That’s how you become a prince.’