The Mer- Lion (59 page)

Eventually, he slept. Not long, he thought, but he was thirsty and cramped when he woke. As he moved to relieve the cramp, he disturbed the other occupants of this underground prison. He could only hope that that rustling sound meant mice, not snakes nor large-sized vermin. Awkwardly he climbed to his feet within the confines of his cell, and stood for a while dancing up and down to start his circulation moving and to discourage any unwanted creeping, crawling visitors. The dust he disturbed swelled about him like a cloud of smoke and set him to coughing feverishly. He would have given much for a drink of brackish water. At last, he slept again.

How many days he spent in that cell he couldn't guess. Once he heard sounds in the distance and feared his rescuers had become lost in the maze, so he called to them. The echoes of his voice were his only reply.

He was asleep when they finally came for him. The point of a spear woke him up. The light of their torches dazzled his eyes.

"Jamad ja'da,
you sleep soundly," said a voice not far from his ear.

He opened his mouth to make a witty reply, but nothing came out.

"I assume," Ali ben Zaid continued, "you would like to come out and stretch your legs."

De Wynter could only nod; his swollen tongue couldn't answer. Nor was he sure his legs would respond if he tried to rise.

"Maybe even have a drink with me?"

The sound of water pouring into a cup stirred the crouching man. Frantically his hands clawed at the bars of his cage while his eyes searched for the cup he knew was out there somewhere. Yet, even under this impetus, he could not force his throat to speak.

"There is only one problem."

De Wynter's blue eyes focused now on the dark brown ones looking at him over the folds of the veil. Ali had his full attention. "The princess has been defiled by your touch. She would have had those lips of yours sewn together permanently, but I dissuaded her." Ali did not care to remember that angry discussion. "She has agreed you be freed from this cell and given water, but only under one condition."

The blue eyes had not once looked anywhere but at his own.

"You are to enter her contest. Hundreds of men will compete. Most will die. Chances are you will, too." The blue eyes didn't even blink.

"But, I am not finished. You and your friends—The Terrible Ten, I believe you call yourselves—you all will compete. Those of you who live through it will no longer be the Amira's slaves. I assured the Amira you would agree. Nod if I am right
...
and then I'll give you water."

The blue eyes stared fixedly into his, then just as Ali was about to give up hope, they partially closed as the man laboriously nodded his head. When they reopened, they seemed to have gone dead, as if the light behind them had been extinguished. Ali could not meet that stare. Getting to his feet, he issued orders.

"Open the door. Bring the cup here and give him a drink. Not too much. Now, you two lift him up to his feet. You will have; to carry him, I fear. More water. Not too much. He'll be sick." The rest was a blur to de Wynter.

Finally, he was back in the cell he had shared with his friends. The daylight forced him to squint. Gratefully, he sank down onto the bed of straw, relishing the feel as though it were a featherbed. The anxious looks about him told him he must be a frightening sight.

Drummond, kneeling down and adjusting the straw to make a better pillow for his friend, asked, "Was the kiss that good? Was it worth it?"

Good, kind, unimaginative Drummond. De Wynter managed
a
smile. "No."

CHAPTER
86

If Carlby had warned him as he crouched in the cage with nothing to do but sleep that he would sleep little
...
or that once his ordeal was over, he would sleep around the clock, de Wynter would have laughed in the priest-physician's face. But when next those blue eyes opened, it was once again daylight. The first face he saw was the kind, open one of Drummond.

"Welcome back. Thirsty?''

With the support of his friend's arm, de Wynter drank greedily, pausing only long enough to ask, "How long?"

"That you slept? A full day."

De Wynter shook his head, then drank more.

"You mean before? Six days. Finished?"

As Drummond eased him back onto his straw bedding, the other eight gathered around.

"Are you up to answering a few questions?" That was Carlby's solicitous voice

He couldn't look them in the eye. How can you tell your friends that to save your own life, you have risked theirs? That by so doing he had given them a chance to win their freedom did not ameliorate his crime.

"Do you know where you were?"

"In an animal cage
...
under the floor of the arena."

"Ali swore we'd never see you again. Why did he change his mind?"

"I don't know." "Don't you?"

In his weakness, his face betrayed his every thought, his internal struggle. Finally he confessed. "I agreed to their terms."

Carlby persisted. "Speak up. What terms?"

De Wynter was saved from answering by Drummond, who turned angrily on the older man. "He agreed to compete, that's what. You know that's what they wanted. John the Rob read their signs."

Carlby ignored the outburst "Did you?"

De Wynter could not look the priest in the eye, instead nodding his head wearily.

"And if you win?" Carlby was insistent.

"I would be freed."

Angus spoke up unexpectedly. "Now that seems no bad deal to me!"

"Nor me," Ogilvy confirmed. "I agree. Me too." All seemed to speak at once. "You don't have to marry the Amira?" Carlby hung in there like a terrier with a rat. "It wasn't mentioned."

"And why should it be?" Drummond continued to protect his friend. "A princess wouldn't marry a slave!"

"Not very likely," John the Rob agreed.

Still Carlby persevered. "Were we mentioned?"

De Wynter did not have to answer as guilt, grief, agony chased each other across his unguarded face. But he did. "Mentioned and included."

He was not prepared for his friends' reaction. They were smiling and pounding each other on the back. De Wynter could not believe his eyes. They acted as if he had just done them a favor. If he could believe his ears, their only regret was that the princess would not be at stake. Romi, of all people, confessed that he had visions of sharing the Amira's harem in an orgy of fruit and wine and writhing female bodies dancing to the strains of horns, drums, and strange stringed instruments.

John the Rob agreed. "I could look forward to a life where the only thing I would need to steal would be a kiss." His attempt to make his monkey-face the picture of passion set the others to laughing.

Cameron proclaimed, "Once set free, I may just turn around and woo the princess yet. From what I saw, she looked ravishing."

Menzies retorted, "Ravishing is right. That's the only way you'll ever know a princess. As for me, I ache only for the fight."

"Aye, Angus and me, we're with you on that. We want no parts of that lady. Of course, my idea of a good fight does not include performing in a bloody circus."

"Aye, give Ogilvy and me a castle to defend, up there where the mountain breezes keep a man cool and comfortable, and we'll make the hills ring with our swords."

The rest were astonished. They did not think of those dark, dour Highlanders as harboring such poetic thoughts.

Of the group, only Carlby was silent. Drummond took him to task. "What of you, priest? Will your religion keep you from joining us?"

Carlby snorted. "Not likely. I am committed to fighting the heathen wherever I find them. I only pray that only heathens face my sword—"

"Don't ask 'em their religion," was Angus's practical advice.

Ogilvy seconded it. "If you don't know different, they'll all be heathens to you."

Carlby smiled his agreement. He knew wisdom when he heard it.

Later that morning, the group resumed its normal workday, rebuilding the third tier. Down in the shady part of the arena, some of the contestants had assembled in the cool of the day to test their skills. De Wynter, his chest heaving, his arms numb with an exhaustion more the result of his ordeal than the rebuilding, stumbled and sank to the ground, resting against one of the larger blocks. Rest periods were forbidden, but the silent ones made no move to prod him back to his feet. Instead, they let him sit and catch his breath and watch the contestants below.

What he saw did not bode well either for the Terrible Ten nor, for that matter, for the Amira's marital future. The slaves had imagined the event would attract younger sons of noblemen who thirsted after adventure, knights who might have fallen on hard times, young and athletic scholars eager to make their mark in the world. But no, this motley crew might claim noble blood but they showed little of it.

There was
a
killer instinct about them, and they were older. Much older. The average age seemed to be about thirty. Their faces bore scars, and their arms and backs bore testimony of many a nick with a blade or crush with a mace. The Scottish earl decided that he and his fellows would face tough fighting. But, he reminded himself, they had youth on their side. And Ali's conditkming. When the contestants returned to the camp to relax and sip wine during the heat of the day, the slaves were being issued weapons. De Wynter, whose drawn face testified to his exhausted state, was excused—the others being set two on one in threesomes. The royal box was empty this day as the Amira and her mother supervised last-minute preparations of the palace set aside for the Moulay and his harem of litde boys. However, Ali ben Zaid was present and he summoned de Wynter to his side.

"Your friends know?"

De Wynter nodded.

"And they agree?" He took de Wynter's silence as acquiescence. "Good."

He turned to leave, but de Wynter had a question. "Amir
Val-assa,
when do we join the contestants in camp?"

"You don't You will not live there. Later, you and I will visit it so you may see what you compete against, but you remain here in the slave quarters." The two men looked deep into each other's eyes as if taking measure of the other. De Wynter had no choice but accept the man's word as final. As he turned to leave, it was his turn to be called back by a question. "Know you anything about camels?"

"Nothing."

"Then team fast. Tomorrow, camels instead of horses."

"Ali ben Zaid? If you hate me so, why do you do this?
^’

The dark eyes above the veil were inscrutable and for
a
moment de Wynter thought the man would refuse to answer. Then, Ali spoke: "I would rather
a
slave win than scum!"

Impulsively, de Wynter held out his hand to this man who had just subjected him to the ordeal in the cage. Ali hesitated just a second before taking it A handshake had not the same meaning in the Arab world, but these two were in agreement.

That night, forewarned, the slaves pooled what little they knew of camels, mostly what they had gleaned on the long trip from Tunis via Kairouan to al Djem. It was precious little.

Ten men against one camel. The fight was lopsided, for only the camel knew what it was doing. And what it was doing was failing to cooperate. She spat, she bit, she kicked, she spewed her cud a full five feet, showering the dignified Carlby with green slime. As he stood there, shocked, wiping the glop from his eyes, garbled croakings and cacklings—unmistakable sounds of laughter—issued from behind the veils of the silent ones.

"Almost," Carlby admitted later that night, wrinkling his nose as he caught a vertigial whiff of that odorous slime that had saturated his hair, "almost it was worth it just to discover the
Ikwan
are human."

Although Ali had the responsibility for the restoration of al Djem and the actual running of the games, Aisha herself planned the contests. And she plotted some unlikely and unpredictable ones. Assured there would be blood aplenty, the Moulay had gladly washed his hands of all preliminaries to the games and stayed in Tunis. Besides, he liked to be out from under the queen's disapproving eye, free to indulge unhindered in his debaucheries in the Bardo.

Thus, until the games actually began, the Amira and Ali were able to make crucial decisions without fear of contradiction, other than from Ramlah. However, the queen's prime concern was—as it had been since her own bloodied wedding day—to see the throne secured for a Berber-blooded dynasty. To accomplish this, Aisha must marry and give birth to a male heir. To achieve this end, Ramlah would accede to almost anything, including slave participation in the contest.

The games proved to be more complicated than originally envisioned. Were it not for an immense corps of eunuchs and slaves, unlimited sums of money, and the resources of one of the wealthiest countries in the world, they could not have been held. But by dint of meticulous attention to detail and the smooth-running organization of the beardless ones, all was coming to fruition on schedule
...
except for one thing. Aisha, whether deliberately or accidentally, had made no provision for her wedding week.