The mulberry empire - Philip Hensher

A stranger was there, out there somewhere, in the haphazard overlapping streets of Kabul. Down there, somewhere in the carpet-mass of pattern and direction, a European stranger had arrived, disguised, and the town was talking and talking about the new arrival until the muted babble of discussion mounted the hill to the imperial palace and reached the ears of Amir. And to be Amir, the arrival of the new European was like the dropping of a rock into an opaque pool of water, ruffling the surface immediately, disturbing its depths in ways which could not be seen or understood.