The Mer- Lion (48 page)

With a move surprisingly fast for such an obese man, the Moulay pulled the bed clothes away to reveal the naked body beside him. It was that of a child of not more than 10 or 11, scarcely past puberty. The slave had been a gift from Barbarossa, accompanying his proposal of marriage to the Princess Aisha, and had been chosen to appeal to the Moulay's well-known debauched taste.

The child was indeed a rarity—as the Moulay noted with awakened desire—neither all male nor all female it had organs of both. Where the Bey's gaze traveled over the cringing slave, his small, pudgy, brown hands followed. Then lunging atop the child, he pressed his fat slobbering lips against the tender, dry, childish mouth, suppressing the child's scream.

Up above the palace, the living gargoyles of Tunis shivered on the city's minarets as they continued to watch for the first ray of the dawn. At the Moulay's direction, the call to prayer in Tunis had

evolved into a deadly game. Each slave purchased for the game was given ninety days in which to be first to spot the dawn and begin the first Adhan of the day, the chant,
"Assalatu Khairum Hinan Nawn
(Prayer is better than sleep)."

The game was simple, having but three rules.

The first provided suspense. Which and how many of the miserable slaves would win another ninety days of life and of competition?

The second gave the populace variety. The unsuccessful slave was executed on the ninety-first day. To the delight of the people of Tunis, the Moulay himself decided on the means of death, and his inventiveness was such that word of these public executions had spread throughout the Mediterranean. Beheading English-style or burning at the stake in the French manner were too tame for him. He preferred his victims to die slowly and noisily. Some he had trussed and turned on a spit so that the flesh blistered and charred; then they were doused with water so as to prolong the suffering. Impaling was another favorite, especially for a slave who was small and skinny. The weight of his own body would slowly drive the sharpened stake higher and higher up into his body.

The third rule of the game gave the loser a fitting punishment. The slave who wrongly woke the people of Tunis by issuing the call prematurely lost his tongue.

Naturally, there was great competition among the unfortunate slaves to be first to spot that initial streak of the dawn's first light. And frequently, a slave started the chant prernaturery—as had happened this morning—desperately gambling that the elusive ray would flash the same instant. If his timing were perfect, hundreds of voices joined his own, his life extended for another three months. Sometimes, as had happened this morning, the solitary voice faltered
...
broke
...
and silence was restored to the city. The Tunisians, appeased by the public spectacle of detongueing, had grown accustomed to such false awakenings and stoically had learned to turn over and go back to sleep or to indulge themselves in other pastimes, as the Moulay was doing.

Today's unfortunate was an English yeoman captured by Barbarossa's pirates and sold to the keepers of the Great Mosque better than two months ago. Cringing, he could hear the booted footsteps of the guards slapping against the tiles of the courtyard as they approached
the base of the minaret on which he perched. They would not bother to climb up and drag him down, he knew. Instead, they would wait for him to descend as he would have to do one day, one way or another.

Edwin Godwin pulled his scant rags around his still-strong body to ward off the chilling gusts sweeping in off the Mediterranean and wished himself back in his native England. Desperately, he pondered his fate. Fear of falling had kept him awake through the early morning hours, and fear of failing had fooled his eyes into believing they had seen a lightening of the sky in the east.

Now, he had three choices left to him: to cling to his perch and eventually, growing light-headed from lack of food and drink, topple off to his death upon the tiled courtyard seventy-five feet below; to end his misery quickly by throwing himself off the minaret; or to make his way down the stairs and surrender to his fate.

Tempering his decision was the knowledge that from among the speechless victims of the Moulay's game came a selected few members of the mute bodyguard of the princess, his daughter. If one were young and strong, once the stub of a tongue had healed, life as a member of this elite group was reported to be easy and luxurious. "Suppose her bodyguard is full
...
or I am not thought young and strong enough?" He shook his head to clear away such defeatist thoughts. He had gambled and lost with his premature chant; he would have to gamble again.

Then, even as he inched his way around the parapet toward the opening to the stairway, a streak of light seemed to pierce the darkness. Here was a second chance and even if false, he could lose his tongue but once. His voice rang out surprisingly clear:

"God is most Great!

God is most Great!

I bear witness that there is no god but God,

I bear witness that Mohammed is the Apostle of God.

Come to prayers.

Come to good works.

Prayer is better than sleep.

God is most Great!

God is most Great!

There is no god but God!"

In the depths of the bed in the Bardo, the Moulay halted his thrusting and raised his head: it was the same voice. The Moulay

was furious. Then, the single voice was drowned by a chorus of voices, their chanting filling the air: "God is most great. I bear witness that there is no god but God." .

Now the Moulay was indeed maddened. The call was genuine; the slave had escaped his fate. But worse than that, the interruption had robbed the Moulay's unstable manhood of its ability to continue. As the slave stared in terror, the lust-filled features above him twisted into a mask of rage and the slave rightiy feared for his life.

But then, the monarch remembered the night before. Not for many years had he been able to so sustain and prolong his lustings. It was the novelty of this boy-girl's body. Such novelty might serve him well again. As such, he decided he would be foolish to take the child's life. Even as he prepared to tell the slave as much, he was interrupted again. By a sound. More a clearing of the throat than a cough. The Moulay froze. His voice, high-pitched, was menacing: "Who loves life so little he dares disturb the Moulay?"

The oily face of the roly-poly eunuch quivered with fear, but the voice, his most unctuous, gave no hint of it. This was not the first time he had interrupted his master in his devoirs, but each time he feared that it might be his last. "It is audience day, Magnificence."

The Moulay sighed and rolled over onto his back. Released, the youthful slave bolted from the bed for the door. The eunuch instinctively grabbed for him, but the Moulay shook his head, allowing the child to go.

Approaching the bed, the eunuch knelt. Quickly, with the speed ol one doing familiar tasks, the eunuch deftly put slippers upon his master's chubby feet. And then, with the eunuch's help, the Moulaj sat up.

While the city's inhabitants, like all Moslems throughout the world, made their obeisances to the East, touching their foreheads to the floor in worship of Allah, Tunisia's ruler yawned and watched a: the eunuch knelt between his knees. Gendy, the eunuch lifted hi: master's flaccid member with his left hand and pointed it toward the bejeweled crystal night-soil jar he held in his right hand.

As the stream of urine swished noisily in the urn, the Moula] looked about him. The heavy silk hangings, the thick rug with if famed blue Kairouan design, the cushions embroidered with goh thread, the copper braziers burning merrily to make the room warn
as noon—everything that he saw pleased him. He loved this place from the depths of his being. He much preferred its light, airy, decidedly effeminate beauty to that of the Dar al Bey, his official residence in the center of the medina. Here amid splendid gardens nestled away from the heat and stink of Tunis, he had privacy to indulge his wildest perversions.

Besides, the Dar al Bey meant too many unpleasant memories for the depraved monarch.

As the heir apparent, the first forty years of his life had been spent at the Dar al Bey, mostly confined to the small but luxurious one-room "Prince's Cage," in a remote spot in the palace gardens. His companions had been aging concubines, confirmed sterile, the droppings of his father, the Moulay Harhid. Other than food, the prince found his only pleasure in sex, especially in the company of his male slaves and guards. His environment, if not his genes, turned him into a confirmed homosexual before his youth had progressed to manhood.

The big break in his wretched, boring existence came as the result of a revolt by the savage Berbers in the south. Surging out of their mountain holdings with surprise as their ally, they quickly overcame all resistance in the oases and tent cities of the outlying tribes.

Soon they moved on the capital city of Tunis itself, took it by storm, killed its ruler, Moulay Hamid, and took the victors' revenge on both inhabitants and property.

But the Berbers were no city dwellers. Having plundered to their hearts' content, they were soon restless for the cool, clean air of their mountain homes. The problem was how to return and still retain their hold on Tunis. The answer lay in sacrificing one of their dutiful daughters for the good of the whole tribe.

Released from the Prince's Cage, Prince Hassan was led into the throne room. There, frightened and bemused by the fierce looks of his captors, he was married to a Berber princess named Raralah. And then, in accordance with Berber custom, the two were taken to a bedroom for the consummation of the marriage before the eyes of the tribe's elders. It was then that the Moulay Hassan learned what a powerful aphrodisiac fear could be.

The brief coupling over, the prince could barely control his nausea. But all thoughts of his stomach fled when he saw his wife's

father, a wild mustachioed man, start toward the bed. Fear made him deaf to the man's words. It was the Berber princess who heard the request, and, in utter disgust for her new husband, surrendered to her father the bloodstained sheepskin from the marriage bed.

Without another word, not even a glance backward at the newly-weds lying on the bed, the father spun around and left with his fellows to hang the bloody trophy on a pole before the palace gates. Thus was the grand and glorious Dar al Bey reduced to just another Berber marriage tent. The ancient custom was supposed to prove to the world the sanctity of the bride and the manliness of the husband. In this instance, it was only half right.

Alone at last with his young bride, the Moulay could no longer contain himself and spewed out the contents of his stomach over the bed, himself, and the glistening beautiful body of his bride. To compound matters, the prince broke into tears.

Perhaps if she had been older and wiser—or not a Berber— Ramlah might have swallowed her pride and taken him in her arms and comforted him, winning a husband by acting the mother. But the reeking vomit, the tears and the animal-like nature of her
lailat al-jilwa
were too much. She leaped from bed and fled the room. When she fled, she left behind all chance of ever reaching rapprochement with the Moulay.

Weeks went by without the two seeing each other. Restless though they were, the Berbers still camped outside Tunis. They seemed indifferent to the fact that the Moulay and Ramlah maintained separate living quarters.

Then, the news swept the city. The young princess was with child. With that, the Berbers packed up and left. The succession to the throne was assured.

Once the Berbers were gone, the Moulay prepared to indulge himself as never before had been possible while confined to the Prince's Cage. And his indulgence included neither his wife nor a harem of women.

His first step was to find other living quarters—far away from the accursed Dar al Bey. The Palace of the Harem, once emptied of its feminine inhabitants, he decided, would best satisfy all his needs. Far enough from the city, yet close enough for him to maintain
control, it would be redecorated and replanted to suit his own tastes and staffed with a choice selection of unusual slaves and guards.

His plans formulated, the Moulay sent for his bride. He received her in an anteroom just off the huge audience chamber. If she felt fear, she did not show it, refusing to prostrate herself before him. In the duel of stares, he was first to look away. Totally unnerved by her demeanor the Moulay found himself staring at her belly. Was it his imagination or was it distended with child? His child! His son was growing there. The thought gave him courage.

"Now hear me, woman," he blustered. "This child you bear must be a male. I command it. Do you every procedure known to man to assure it. Make no mistake, I will have you watched night and day, and shall punish your first wrong move." His insane giggle gave his threat peculiar potency, yet the Berber princess did not deign to reply. Uncertain how to interpret her silence, the Moulay hastened on with his tirade. "You will live here at Dar al Bey, confined to the harem wing and its gardens, while I live elsewhere. The guard will kill you if you attempt to leave without my permission. Now get out of my sight."

The queen eyed her husband as if he had just crawled from beneath a rock. Then, to the Moulay's relief, she nodded and walked unhurriedly from the room.