The Mer- Lion (61 page)

It was John the Rob's turn and the rest watched him closely. Taking a deep breath, be stepped forward. "John the—" He cleared his throat and started over. "John, Richard's son, of England. No proof of nobility. Age 32."

The scribe, reviewing his records, noted duly, "No man has proof of nobility. What demonstration have you that you are of noble blood?" The slaves, puzzled, stared at each other in confusion.

Ali ben Zaid, prepared for this, stepped forward and emptied a pouch on the low writing table. "This!" The gold coins danced about the table, several rolling off to be chased by scribes, weighers and measurers.

The scribe avariciously fingering the one coin he had recovered, swallowed hard and reluctantly added it to the gleaming pile before him. "Proof accepted. Let them be weighed and measured and sworn."

Ali intervened. "No need for that, they are slaves. Let them sign the scroll. Then, let the gold be distributed among all of you, including these." Addressing the astonished slaves, he added, "After you sign, you may name that which a gold coin would buy for you this night."

He was surprised and pleased at the alacrity with which the slaves signed the scroll. He had hoped that promising each the satisfying of a desire would keep them from reading it. What he did not know was that the slaves feared he would change his mind and make them take the oath, which Carlby as a priest and Cameron as a married man could not do.

Then, they named what they would have: six wanted women; Gilliver and Carlby each a
Bible,
John the Rob six absolutely spherical, totally identical balls. Only de Wynter was silent

"What?" Ali asked, secretly pleased the slave had not named a woman, which would have been difficult to explain to Aisha. "There is nothing you would have before you risk your life?"

"Could you transport a son or a king's mistress thousands of miles to here?"

"Nay, you know not even a
djinn
could do that. But you could buy that which would make their memories fade."

"Ah, but I wish just the opposite. No, your money cannot buy what I desire."

Despite his words, a bottle of potent
lagmi,
a palm wine, and four pottery cups arrived on the tray bearing the two books and six balls that the other three had requested. The half dozen who had requested women were quartered elsewhere, their desires sated by Ali ben Zaid's own concubines. For a long time, the bottle sat ignored on the tray. Then John the Rob removed the wax seal. "What the hell, tomorrow we may die; tonight, let's numb the thought."

De Wynter swirled the honey-colored liquid around in his cup, then echoed John the Rob's sentiments. "What the hell, here's to numbness!"

There was not enough wine to do that. And that night he again dreamed of those three figures. The same dream as before. But this time, his horse refused to move forward. Spur it, beat it, no matter what he did, the horse would not take him closer to his loved ones. Unknown to himself, that night in his sleep, he cried out a woman's name, but the three who shared his room never revealed it.

Within the camp of the contestants, women were absent; Aisha's decree had seen to that. Therefore, no reasonably young slave boy was safe while the
lagmi
flowed without stop. The contestants lounged in their tents munching on
merguez,
hot grilled sausages spiced with hot peppers and cumin, that called for a swig of
lagmi
with every bite.   

Camel-calves and whole sheep roasted over spits, sending their tantalizing aromas throughout the camp. Couscous bubbled in enormous hammered copper pans while cooks roasted peppers and tomatoes on the red-hot coals. To one side,
yo-yos
soaked in thick lemony honey syrup before receiving a final dusting of grated orange rind. And while the food cooked, native musicians played and the wine flowed. This would be a night to be remembered.. .or not, depending on the
lagmi
consumed.

The Moulay followed no such austere regimen. He expected and received the same dishes he would have supped upon in Tunis at the Bardo. For him, candy wine to wash down scrambled eggs with hot sausage and peppers. Piece by piece he fed
brik,
the paper-thin turnovers filled with ground lamb and white eggs, to his latest favorite. Lamb kabobs and pigeon pie, a chicken tajine and fish cooked in almond paste, oranges and marinated radishes—this was the second course to be followed by five more. Between each
course, there was sherbet to clear the palate and more wine. Not even in his deepest alcoholic stupor did the Moulay forget to make obeisance to the letter of the Prophet's law—never to let the first drop of wine pass his lips—he fed it lovingly to his favorite, the her/him.

Elsewhere, in another restored villa, in the quarters of the Amira, Aisha was the unwilling participant of the first of six rituals— "Ordeals, you mean," Aisha complained under her breath—that culminate in a Berber wedding. Aisha had used every argument she could think of to avoid them, but Ramlah was adamant, even appealing to Ali ben Zaid. The latter's obvious shock at the proposed breach of tradition had been convincing; Aisha had reluctantly agreed.

She had not agreed, however, to stifle her giggles when her oma's paintbrush daubed henna on a ticklish left foot. Ramlah frowned reprovingly and Aisha bit her lip and tried to suppress her laughter. The
ama
appealed to the queen, "She fidgets so I cannot guarantee keeping the lines straight."

At Ramlah's genuine concern lest the charm would be marred, Aisha swallowed her laugh and smoothed the smile from her face. She even tried to hold her foot rigid in the ama's lap while she painted the
ukda,
a charm against the foot straying from the paths of goodness.

To forget the feel of the tickle, Aisha thought about the morrow, Day One of the competition. The contestants would compete in the Greek manner—nude, their bodies oiled, without weapons. Her nostrils flared as she thought of her trip to the slaves' showers. Fifteen times as many broad shoulders, narrow waists, and muscular buttocks would she view on the morrow. But would any approach the bodily perfection of those two fair-haired ones?

As the
ama,
finished with the first charm, began to paint the other foot, Aisha speculated on why the Olympians must compete nude. Aisha had to smother another giggle, Ramlah's disdainful snort adding impetus to her resolve. What, she wondered, would the judges do with that hermaphrodite who presently shared the Moulay's feast and couch? Disqualify her/him for her feminine-organs
...
or admit him/her for his masculine ones?

Two down, two to go. The
cam
had finished with both feet, now for her palms. Because these were even more ticklish, the charms painted there were less intricate than the maplike traceries adorning the Amira's insteps. On her left palm went a red egg, symbol of woman and fertility, on the right, a red arrow, symbol of man and potency.

Seated behind a curtain was the
hafiz
Ramlah had hired. Taking as his subject the broad one of marriage, he began reciting from the
Koran
in a thin, reedy singsong. He had scarcely begun when Ramlah grew furious. His text was not one to inspire a reluctant bride.

"From the fourth Surah as revealed at al-Madinah, between the end of the third year and the end of the fifth year,

Verse 23:

Forbidden unto you are your mothers, and your daughters, and your sisters, and your father's sisters, and your mother's sisters, and your brother's daughters and your sister's daughters and your foster-mothers and your foster-sisters and your mothers-in-law and your stepdaughters who are under your protection born of your women unto whom ye have gone in—but if ye have not gone in unto them, then it is no sin for you to marry their daughters—and the wives of your sons who spring from your own loins. And it is forbidden unto you that ye should have two sisters together, except what hath already happened of that nature in the past Lo! Allah is ever Forgiving. Merciful.

Verse 24:

And all married women are forbidden unto you save those whom your right hands possess. It is a decree of Allah for you. Lawful unto you are all beyond those mentioned, so that ye seek them with your wealth in honest wedlock, not debauchery. And those of whom ye seek content by marrying them, given unto them their portions as duty. And there is no sin for you in what ye do by mutual agreement after the duty hath been done. Lo! Allah is ever Knowing, Wise.

Verse 25:

And whoso is not able to afford to marry free, believing women, let them many from the believing maids whom your right hands possess, Allah knoweth best concerning your faith. Ye proceed one from another, so wed them by permission of their folk, and given unto them their portions.-..

With 176 verses to the Surah called "Women," why pick these three? At first, Aisha thought the selection chosen out of ignorance. Now she wondered. Was Rami ah trying to warn her through the words of the
Koran
against the slaves?

Just then, the
ama
finished. Ramlah gave her alms and sent alms to the hafiz with thanks for his inspirational reading. As she hoped, once paid, he stopped his recital. The two women were now alone, except, of course, for the usual handmaidens and eunuchs and slaves that shared the quarters of the royal.

"Tell me, Mother. Do you not find something contradictory in the painting of primitive charms during the reciting of the
Koran?"

Ramlah looked pained. "Of course not. Before we had the revelations of the Apostle of Allah—upon whom be Allah's blessings and peace—we had the charms. The two tonight depict continuity, just as you and I depict the continuation of the blood of our fathers."

Aisha examined the egg on her left palm, cracking it into hundreds of pieces by simply clenching her fist
...
the same with the right. "These symbols do not seem very solid," she observed.

"Their appearance deceives you. The egg must break to produce the offspring; the arrow, though collapsed, springs back. That is what your grandmother would say. I say, try washing them off before you complain of their impermanence."

Aisha stared at her mother. "You mean I shall go through the next week with these marks on my hand?"

"At least the next week, maybe longer, your skin being so fair. You did not ask why we use the henna. That too is symbolic. Of the blood which makes the two of you one." Here, Aisha snorted inelegantly but effectively. Ramlah frowned at her daughter and continued on as if never interrupted, "And which each of you must
be willing to shed for the other, the wife in childbirth, the husband in battle."

Aisha vowed to herself, once her mother was gone, to aid the disappearance of these blood-red symbols with an application of pumice. To her dismay, scrub though Zainab, her maid, might, the henna lost little of the brilliance of its hue.

Later, Aisha lay naked and sleepless between the silken sheets of her enormous bed, brought in pieces from the Dar al Bey and re-assembled here. By the light of the braziers, just beyond the thin bed hangings, she slowly opened and closed her hands, watching egg and arrow shatter and spring forth renewed. She found both disquieting. When Zainab arrived the next morning upon the final words of the
muezzin's
call, Aisha was already awake.

BOOK THREE

The Great Games of Aisha 11 Jamad II,
a.h
. 939/ 19 January,
a.d
. 1533

al Djem

CHAPTER
88

At daybreak, 180 contestants, including the ten slaves, were awakened by the call to prayer by
muezzins.
Some staggered from their beds still drunk. Simple food awaited them: bread, fresh-churned butter, camel's milk, cold meat, fruit, plus strong coffee and sickly sweet tea with mint, but from fear or hangover, many did not eat.

When slaves gave cry to the-call-to-play, the men gathered with their retinues outside the Gate of Gladiators. As their names were read off by the scribe, the contestants—but not their attendants— were admitted through the Gate of Gladiators. Once inside, they were ushered down a ramp into a large barren chamber and told to strip. "No clothes, no weapons, no jewels, not even
ukda
or crucifix or Taureg veil will be allowed within the arena. The only exception, a band for your hair, we will supply."

The reaction was immediate. Since men when swearing and making love are most comfortable in their native languages, de Wynter and the others identified Spaniards, Greeks, Latins, Frenchmen, Byzantines, Slavs, Africans, and more. So multilingual was the group that ten slaves, speaking Scots and English, did not stand out.

Not until the goose-fleshed group of naked men emerged onto the sand-strewn arena floor to stand gratefully in the warmth of the sun, did the tanned, athletic bodies of the slaves mark them as different from the generally pallid, battle-scarred, heavy-muscled men about
them. Ali, from his place, standing behind Aisha, was not surprised to see several paunches and one or two bodies outright fat. Aisha, veiled like a silent one, had expected that gazing on 180 naked men would be exciting. She realized, to her surprise, that secretly watching de Wynter and Fionn bathe had had far greater appeal. Would that still hold true, she wondered, and vowed to find out.