The comedy continued. With the sultan she seemed a model of decorum, but even so, in more subtle ways she enticed, and the sultan melted into a parody of a sexually desperate man. He sent his aide away and tried to have her then and there, but she evaded him in a passage funny enough that the Kalif might have laughed, except for its allusions. Finally, out of his mind with desire, the sultan asked the prisoner to marry him, and she accepted.
One after another, his friends came to remonstrate with him. He in turn introduced them to his sultana to be, and without exception they relented. Her effects on them were actually quite amusing, in a low way. They couldn't speak, or if they could, their tongues got twisted. Seemingly they got erections, and tried to avoid them being noticed. They could hardly get away to privacy quickly enough.
The comedy went from risque to lewdly impossible on their wedding day, though falling short of pornography.
Later, as a sort of epilogue, it was learned that all the women in the enemy army were prostitutes, and received promotions based on how many men they serviced. The new sultana had been the highest ranking woman in the army.
Carefully the Kalif handed the book back to Jilsomo. "You're excused from council this morning," he said quietly. "Find out who printed this. Who wrote it and who published it. And especially, find who paid to have it done. Find out if it's been put in shops, and if it has, have it removed. If you can learn where it's stored, seize it. Make arrests as appropriate, but not arrests that might jeopardize a full investigation."
At council meeting, it was apparent that three of the five exarchs had seen the book. They had trouble looking directly at the Kalif, and weren't surprised when, after a very short session, he dismissed them all.
Afterward the Kalif left the Sreegana, forbidding his bodyguards to follow, and walked the streets nearby. Mostly people stared at him in passing; it was almost unheard of for the Kalif to walk about the city, even escorted. But already there were three or four who looked away, embarrassed. He stopped at a book shop, where the shopkeeper greeted him with astonishment and pleasure. The Kalif bought a book-something about cats.
Another bookshop was locked up; apparently Jilsomo was moving fast.
Finally he went home and had lunch with the kalifa. It was obvious she didn't know. He was poor company, saying little, and that little scarcely more than monosyllables. She let him be, without commenting on his mood. When they'd finished eating though, he reached across the table for her hand.
"I've decided to attend the Diet this afternoon. Will you come with me? You might find it interesting, and if it's not, we'll take advantage of a break, and leave."
The invitation surprised her, particularly given his mood. "Why yes, I'd like that. Are you going to speak?"
"I have no plans to. We'll sit in the gallery. That way they're unlikely to pepper me with questions."
She got up from the table. "I'd better get ready then. How much time do we have?"
He hadn't thought of that. "Barely an hour," he said.
She left, and when she reappeared, only twenty minutes later, it seemed to him he'd never seen her lovelier.
They applauded her introduction, most of them. And some of the nobles, after the session, made a point of meeting and talking cordially with her. When finally she left with her husband, she was flushed with pleasure.
"They are very nice men, Coso," she said. "Most of them. It's hard to believe that some of them don't like you."
He grunted. "Which ones weren't nice, would you say?"
"Well, I'm not sure I can tell nice from not nice at a glance. But some of them looked unpleasant. Surly. In a section on the far right."
His laugh held no humor. "I'd say you did very well at a glance," he told her. And said no more about it.
Thirty-two
"It appears there was no publishing firm, Your Reverence," Jilsomo told him. "The publisher listed on the copyright page is fictitious. Apparently there were simply some men, still unknown, who arranged the preparation, printing, and distribution of this one book.
"We've had the book examined by a senior editor in the Imperial Publications Office, for clues as to who might have published it. He says that while it's literate, it's quite unprofessional-lacks niceties of editorial style and format. He insists that even very hurried production by an actual publishing firm wouldn't account for the technical idiosyncracies."
The Kalif grunted. "I assumed it wasn't an established firm," he said. "An established firm would be ruined by something like this, and its executive staff in prison or worse. They'd know that."
Jilsomo nodded. "The shipper had received the book in sealed boxes, delivered at their warehouse by an unmarked truck. With a talkative driver who apparently didn't know what, exactly, he was delivering; that's how we learned who the printer was.
"He's in your waiting room now-the printer, that is-along with Commissioner Somisthanoku and several officers. In case you wish to question the man yourself. He's thoroughly frightened, and been questioned under instrumentation; it seems he doesn't know who paid him to print it. He was paid in cash, not unheard of for a small firm like his. Paid three times his standard price for special handling, no doubt to help him agree to it.
"Normal distribution lines weren't used. The book was printed four days before it appeared on the streets, boxed and held in storage for pickup.
"Varatos Shipping Company delivered it to 327 bookshops over much of the planet. Varatos had never delivered books before. They were paid a large premium to deliver at the hour each store opened, paid by a bank draft on an account set up for that one transaction. If we can determine who set it up, we may well have the publisher."
The Kalif grunted. Whoever it was would have taken great pains to forestall just that.
"All that Varatos Shipping saw were the cartons," Jilsomo went on. "We're satisfied they didn't know what the books were. Just books. Each store was to be given a sizeable discount to open the carton at once and display the books on their counter immediately. Actually, although they didn't know it, the discount was meaningless. The invoices they signed were fakes, and the billing agency fictitious. Actually they were getting the books free!
"Obviously this project cost someone, or some group, a great deal of money, with no means of getting it back regardless of sales. The purpose was entirely political."
The Kalif nodded, his eyes stone-hard.
"The stores have all been raided, the unsold books confiscated, and the store locked up if it had, in fact, displayed the book for sale.
"In a number of cases, local authorities had learned of the book from customers, and had it impounded before we notified them. In some cases the retailer notified the authorities himself. In still others, book sales went on for more than a day.
"Ten thousand came out of the press. Deducting spoilage and ten copies kept for the printer's records, 9,573 books were boxed and shipped, and 200 others were held for a man with a letter of authorization, presumably the copies distributed free to people in the vicinity of the Sreegana. All told, 6,943 were confiscated. That means about 2,600 were sold or given away."