Prayer-Cushions of the Flesh

Chapter Two THE PERFUMED BATTLEFIELD

He walked in front of the mutes down the Passage Where the Jinn Consult and stumbled slightly on the uneven flagstones. High bottle-glass windows let in a greenish light. Orkhan’s eyes drank in the details of unfamiliar stonework. As he walked, he kept his arms tense against his sides, for he was waiting for the descent of the bowstring. Yet nothing happened and he kept walking. It seemed that the invisible Jinns who consulted in this corridor had decided on life for Orkhan.

At the end of the passage stood a tiny man.

‘Hail, Sultan Orkhan, Lord of the Empire in the East and in the West. Greetings to my new master, raised from the dead and born again. Squinting my eyes in astonishment, I behold the earthy clods fall away from your body as your august mother, the Valide Sultan, confers on you the shining robe of a second life. Then accept her gift and follow me.’

As the dwarf turned to lead the way, Orkhan saw that the strange little man was also humpbacked. He followed the dwarf out of the passageway and, taken aback at finding himself in such a vast open space, he reeled. Though at first his eyes could not comprehend what it was that they gazed upon, he soon came to understand that he was walking in a large garden.

He reached forward and spun the dwarf round,

‘Who are you?’

‘I am your Vizier for as long as I can behold my shadow in the sunshine of your favour, but God knows that, whatever the angle of the sun, the shadow that a body like mine can cast must always be a short one.’

‘How am I Sultan? Is Selim dead? What has happened to Barak?’

‘Alas for the Sultan Selim. Indeed the parrot of his great spirit, breaking the bonds of its sensual cage is obliged to set out for the eternal city.’

‘You mean that my father is dead?’

‘Even a Sultan must one day step off from the world of being into the abyss of non-existence.’

‘Where is Barak?’

‘You will shortly behold him face to face.’

‘Why have I been freed?’

The Vizier responded impatiently,

‘Who has said that you were free? You are not free. The Sultan is the least free of all mortals, being burdened with the cares of justice and government. The good sultan will always be a slave to his subjects.’

Now the impatient vizier turned and broke into a trot, heading towards a pavilion made of porcelain in the centre of the garden. Orkhan’s brains boiled with unanswered questions, but there was no time to ask them before he followed the dwarf through the door.

A baby gazelle was skittering across the porcelain floor, its legs splaying out as the little creature was unable to find any hold on such a smooth surface. Servant girls knelt around the gazelle trying to catch and calm it. A raddled, older woman sprawled back on a cushioned bench at the far end, laughing at the unavailing efforts of her servants. Orkhan found that he did after all remember her.

‘Mother, don’t you recognise me?’

The Valide Sultan nodded and waved her hands apologetically, yet she could not stop laughing. This was the woman who had let him be taken off to prison and left him to languish there for fifteen years. At last, one of the servant girls caught the gazelle, scooped it up and carried it out of the pavilion. Now the Valide Sultan’s eyes came to rest on Orkhan. Indeed, all the women in the pavilion were slyly watching him from beneath darkened lashes. No one said anything. He for his part stood transfixed, looking at the women. They were not like the women in the picture books he and his brothers used to study in the Cage. The ones in miniature paintings were slender, stick-like figures who gazed out expressionlessly from the pictures. But the real women in the pavilion were heavy, fleshy creatures, who, despite their size, did not seem to have quite outgrown the shapes of babyhood. Orkhan, seeing women for the first time in so many years, experienced pity for them, since all that softness, those fragile wrists, pendulous breasts and heavy bottoms ill-equipped such creatures for survival in a man’s world.

At length, remembering himself and guessing at imperial etiquette, Orkhan bowed to his mother. He came closer to seek her embrace. As he did so, she raised herself from the cushions and placed a finger on his lips.

‘You have been a long time in the Cage. Even so, explanations can wait. After fifteen years in the Cage, you must be impatient for a girl.’ She put on an expression of mock solemnity. ‘Very impatient… The Vizier will find you one.’

And she waved her hand in dismissal.

Outside in the garden, Orkhan told his Vizier that the girl could wait. The first thing he had to do was summon a council of ministers.

The Vizier, however, disagreed,

‘You are master of the Empire from the Euphrates to the Danube and there is certainly much to do, but first you must be master of your Harem, for a man who cannot master his Harem cannot master himself, still less an empire. Besides you need an heir as soon as possible. Now, would you like an ugly concubine or a beautiful one?’

‘What? Why would I choose an ugly one?’

‘Well, they say beauty fades, but that ugliness is eternal. Are you sure you would not prefer an ugly concubine?’

‘I am quite sure. Bring me a beautiful girl.’

‘Aha! You remember that earlier in the garden I told you that you were not free? Now you must see the truth of my words, for you must admit that you are not free, for you are not free to prefer ugliness over beauty. Aha! Caught you there!’

‘I see that I have much to learn,’ replied Orkhan carefully, thinking as he did so that on the following morning he would dismiss his Vizier. ‘Now, find me a beautiful girl. Let us get this over with quickly.’

‘I think I have a good girl for you on your first day. She is a Georgian. Since your Empire is at war with Georgia, she will be good training for you. Learning to ride her is like learning how to conquer Georgia. She will be the horse that will take you into the heart of their lands. Oh! One last thing. Do everything you please with her, except that, whatever you do, on no account should you let the viper drink at the Tavern of the Perfume-Makers.’

After washing and perfuming himself, Orkhan was conducted into a tiny rib-vaulted cell, which was richly hung with velvet embroideries, but yet not so different from the rooms he had been familiar with in the Cage. On the far side of the cell was a raised marble platform. On this platform was a bed and at the foot of the bed there was a lectern which supported a large open book. The place seemed surprisingly cold. Then, as he walked towards the platform, Orkhan looked down and saw that he trod on ice. The bed and the velvet hangings notwithstanding, the place was really just a cellar for the storage of ice. Mystified, Orkhan carefully made his way to the bed and waited. In the Cage he had read about the ice-pits of the sultans and how ice in great blocks was brought by racing camels from Mount Olympus and then packed down and stored in deep pits within the palace — all this merely so that the sultans could enjoy iced drinks throughout the summer. But why should he be here?

Orkhan had not waited long before he saw the door open and something come slithering across the ice towards him. In the half-light it might have been a dog or a jinn. Then the thing raised its head, and he saw that it, or rather, she was a woman who was dragging herself towards him. Her heavy earrings and bracelets jingled as she did so. She knelt on the edge of the marble and kissed his feet, before raising her face to him.

‘I am Anadil,’ she said.

She had large eyes and dark curls peeped out from an intricately-made cap of gold and silver filigree.

‘It is a pretty name,’ she continued. ‘Do you not think so? It means “Nightingales”.’

Orkhan tried gently to pull her up to his level, but she resisted.

‘Tell me first that my name is pretty.’ She was pouting.

‘Your name is pretty. Now come and sit beside me.’

Reluctantly she joined him on the bed. Again, Orkhan made to pull her towards him. Even though she was not strong enough to resist him, she still protested,

‘Not so fast! You are like a beast from the depths of the forest. I am not to be treated in this way.’

‘I treat you how I like. I am your Sultan.’

And Orkhan pressed himself against her, his swelling member against her thigh. He wanted to bury himself in Anadil. His hands moved over her body, seeking a way to strip her of her costume, but she looked sulky and kept shifting under his hands and, though her yellow silken robe with its unfamiliar hooks and catches, was flimsy enough for him to have ripped it off her, she was additionally protected by what amounted to jewelled armour. A girdle of pierced coins and amulets encircled her waist and heavy, many-layered necklaces hung over her breasts.

‘Slow down! It is as if you had never seen a woman before.’ Then she tittered as she realised what she had said. ‘But, of course, in the Cage there are no women! A body like mine is unfamiliar territory to such a one as you… Even so, if you have waited fifteen years for me, a few more hours’ dalliance is but a little thing. You have to please me.’

‘No, you have to please me. I am your Sultan,’ Orkhan insisted once more.

‘It is the other way around. Otherwise I will be unhappy and I will make you unhappy. It is no disgrace for a sultan to submit himself to a concubine, if he desires her, for that is the way of courtly love. In any case, I can see that I please you already,’ pointing to the swelling between his legs. ‘What have you got down there? It is very big, is it not? Is it not big because it likes me?’

Orkhan nodded.

‘I am pleased that it likes me. Does the rest of you like me?’

He nodded. Though her childish catechism exasperated him almost beyond endurance, the smell of Anadil, intimate and bitter, was working on him like a spell of subjugation, so that whatever she wanted, she could have, if only he could have her.

‘Well, smile then — and you will have to learn to talk properly and not just shake your head. I think I will have to teach you how you must speak to a concubine. You are so innocent — just a boy really. But there is no need to be frightened of me. All you have to do is tell me that I am pretty and which parts of me are especially pretty.’

‘You are the most beautiful women I have ever seen’. This was no great concession on Orkhan’s part. As he contemplated her, he was struck by the delicate colouring of her face and the soft vulnerability of her arms. If only the catechism could be over, then he might be in full possession of this softly, enchanting curvy creature. Although she was telling him not to be frightened, he still sensed something frightening in the supernatural quality of Anadil’s beauty, which was like the beginning of terror. She seemed to him to be a visitant from another world.

‘Well, that will do to begin with. Now, if you take your hands off me, I will undress myself for you.’

Stepping away from the bed, she stood to let cascades of gold, silver and brass drop to the marble platform, followed by her yellow robe. In a few moments she stood naked before him. Then she turned away, and looking over her shoulder, she said,

‘In the Harem, we girls like to read before we go to bed.’

She went over to the lectern and came back to the bed bearing the book. She sat close beside Orkhan and spread the book between her thighs.

‘It is called ‘The Perfumed Battlefield: or Questions Posed by the White Sultan to the Dark Girl,’ she said, spelling out the words with difficulty.

She turned the pages. The book was illustrated. Together they contemplated exquisite little pictures of women surrounded by ditches and ramparts, men advancing with battering rams and long, hooked implements, and brightly coloured smokes drifting across fields strewn with flowers and corpses. In flimsy looking castles men and women encountered one another in hand-to-hand combat. There were also abstract diagrams painted in gold and black with arrows of direction and schematic flags. On the last page was the image of a man, painted all gold. A woman knelt in front of him, her face pressed to his groin, and another stood behind him, peeping over his shoulder, and he was grinning madly — a silvery gleam in a golden face. Having reached this image, Anadil hastily riffled backwards through the pages.

‘Here,’ said Anadil, leaning heavily against Orkhan, is “The Chapter on the Need for Good Intelligence” and this is “The Section on the Naming of Parts”.

One hand moved across the page, marking her place as she read. She was stroking her breasts with her other hand.

‘What are these called?’

‘They are called breasts,’ replied Orkhan, unable to keep the irritation out of his voice.

To his astonishment, she slapped him lightly on the face.

‘Only the vulgar call them that. These are my moons. It is the language of love and poetry. Look here, it says so in the book. You have to practise. Say to me, I love your full moons.’

And she offered them up to be kissed.

Now, since she was now sliding a hand underneath his robe and fumbling between his legs, there was no power in Orkhan to refuse. Even if he thought that her games were silly, she could be indulged for a few moments more. He was prepared to crawl over the ice, bark like a dog and sit up to beg if only she would grant him what he desired. Her breasts were soft and came to delicate points.

‘I love your full moons,’ he repeated obediently and kissed them.

‘And what is this between your legs?’

‘It is my cock.’

She brought her hand up from between his legs to slap him again.

‘That is very vulgar. I would be ashamed to call it that. In the Harem we call it the pigeon, or, sometimes, the one-eyed man, or sometimes the cherry-blossom branch, or again the weeping one. It has many names. Here they are in the book.’

Then she let the book drop to the floor and, leaning over him, she delicately forced her tongue between his lips. At the end of the kiss, she drew back a little and sticking out her tongue again, she pointed to it.

‘What do we call this?’

‘I do not know and I do not care.’

‘We call this the coral branch, or the viper, or the honey-spoon. But I can see that you are impatient to begin. So just one last lesson, just one more word to memorise.’ She threw herself back on the bed and pointed between her legs. ‘Would you like to know what this is called?’

‘People who are not poets call it the cunt,’ said Orkhan.

‘Oh, we have a prettier name for it than that. It is the Tavern of the Perfume-Makers. Come close to examine it carefully please.’

Surely this lesson, this inspection, was absurd. But Orkhan thought that there would be no real harm in indulging the girl’s whims for now. Even if her chatter was tiresome, her body was certainly desirable. Her face was like a glorious promise of nobility and intelligence, yet her prattle was sheer childishness. How was it possible for anyone to be simultaneously so beautiful and so silly? Well, he would indulge her for now. But then, to ensure that no one else in the Harem should hear of the humiliations she had put him through, he would have her executed on the following morning. As he lowered his face between her thighs, he pictured himself watching her execution on the morrow. He would give the mutes instructions for her slow impalement. Unaware of the madness in his head, Anadil sighed and spread her legs a little further.

‘Does the sight please you?’ she enquired coyly.

‘It pleases me very much,’ and he might have said more, but she pulled his face closer yet and Orkhan found himself tasting her. The flavour was unfamiliar, bitter, strangely seductive.

‘Now we are ready,’ she sighed and she was indeed moist between the legs.

But no sooner had Orkhan thrown off his robe than she sprang away.

‘Yes, yes, we are ready. But not here. Down there,’ she said pointing to the surface of the ice pit.

Anadil stepped down from the marble platform and, wincing slightly, lay back upon the ice.

‘Come back, Anadil. Not on the ice. What is wrong with the bed? Come back here!’

‘It is better on the ice. That is why we are here. The coldness delays the climax and increases the pleasure.’ She wriggled seductively. ‘Come on lover.’

‘This is madness!’

Anadil looked up at him sulky and disappointed.

‘We Harem girls heard that all you princes in the Cage were men of stone, ready for anything and invulnerable to cold, hunger or pain. But now a little girl like me can lie on the ice and you dare not.’

‘It is madness,’ Orkhan repeated stupidly.

‘Come on, don’t be boring. It is more fun on the ice. Besides I will be beneath you as your prayer-cushion or above you as your blanket. But don’t let me get cold here alone.’ She reached up her arms to him in supplication.

Orkhan could feel a fire melting his insides. He had to have her. He descended to the ice and she fingered his torso appreciatively before wrapping herself around him. Then she reached down for his branch of plum blossom, or whatever it was she had called it, and guided it between her legs. Although, even before entering Anadil, Orkhan had thought that he was on the very edge of exploding from desire, it was as she had predicted; the ice delayed the climax as their bodies could get no purchase on its surface and she slithered about under him. Droplets of water covered both their bodies. As he kept moving inside her, he thought he glimpsed something dark and motionless in the depths of the ice below. A big fish, or just a shadow in the mind. It was a strange kind of race, he thought, between the heat of his desire and the freezing chill of their strange bed. The fun and mischief had now gone out of Anadil’s face. Her legs were now locked round his back and she was crying in frustration as he thrust within her. He, for his part, felt himself so desperate to come to a climax within this strange creature, that he was by now ready to offer up himself for slow impalement on the morrow, if only he could have what he wanted now. Nothing else mattered. Now. Finally he came in a hot thick torrent.

‘Oh, my Sultan!’

They lay together briefly collapsed in each others’ arms. Then Anadil wriggled impatiently under him.

‘Now my bottom is cold. You can warm it for me.’

And slipping out from under him, she rolled over in the melting slush. He ran his hands over her wet rump and smoothed away tiny particles of ice.

‘That will not warm my bottom. You can spank it, if you like.’

He pulled himself up on his elbows and, as he contemplated her soft little bottom, he felt desire stirring within him again. But, suddenly, even before Orkhan could raise his hand to deliver the first slap, she uttered a brief cry. Then she looked over her shoulder at Orkhan. Her face was grim and her teeth were chattering so much that she was impossible to understand at first. Finally Orkhan heard her say,

‘There is a face in the ice! We have been making love upon someone’s tomb! Look at it! You have to look!’

Peering over Anadil’s shoulder, Orkhan could now with difficulty just make out the body through the still thick layers of ice. He saw Barak grinning fiercely up at him.