The Mer- Lion (87 page)

As Ali and de Wynter left the arena by the Gate of Death, Aisha and Ramlah hurried out of the royal box. There were wedding preparations to be made. The crowd too, the games over, gathered their belongings together and prepared to make their way home. Only the Berbers and the Moulay lingered. The former because they were in no hurry. They and their sheikh would not leave until the morrow when he hung the bloodstained sheepskin upon the pole outside the wedding tent. Besides, here where the events were still fresh in their minds, they could compare and rehearse the stories they would bring back to their campfires, there to be retold, fact after fact, from beginning to very end—the six days of the games of the Amira Aisha.

The Moulay lingered longest. He was still there when the galleries emptied of all other spectators, and slaves entered carrying in huge stakes arid armfuls of wood. Where the target had been dug for the javelin throw, fresh stakes were sunk in the ground. Where the three circles had been for the gladiator fights grew a ring of more stakes. Where the camels had waited to be milked or ridden or loaded, tall empty stakes stood waiting. Where the two ostriches had been beaten to death a pair of stakes were pounded into the ground. Where Gilliver had bled his last, and the Sicilian had taken the dagger through his throat
...
there the two largest stakes were sunk through the red-colored sand into the ground.

The Moulay looked on approvingly. Now the arena was ready for games of his kind. And through the gates at the far end came men bound together by ropes about their necks. Some had been losers in the actual games; others were losers by association—the servers and slaves who had inhabited the camp of the contestants for the last six days—they were here now to lose a final time and give up their lives for the amusement of a madman.

CHAPTER
39

While de Wynter slept as if dead in Ali's tent and hundreds of other men died the death of the damned in fire and torment within the arena, six of the remaining survivors watched as the silent ones dug two graves and gave Cameron and Gilliver Moslem burials. In its shallow grave, each body, washed and wrapped in a simple shroud, lay curled on its side, facing toward Mecca. As an
iman
spoke the simple words of the Islamic faith, attesting to their belief, too, in a life after death, Carlby's church-trained voice, beginning quiedy, gained momentum and soon overpowered all others:

"Man, that is born of woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; hefleeth as if he were a shadow'and never continueth in one stay. Unto you Almighty God, we commend the souls of Henry Gilliver and George Cameron departed, and we commit their bodies to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

For a long moment, there was silence, none daring to breathe deeply or rasp sand by shifting his weight from foot to foot. Then, Fionn's deep voice began, "Our Father who art in
..."
He spoke—as Gilliver and Cameron and Drummond and Menzies would have wanted it—not in Latin but in Scots-Gaelic, and Angus and Ogilvy joined in.

John the Rob, like Carlby and the Taureg, knew not the words of this language other than a scattering of oaths and obscenities learned
the hard way: alongside the Scots toiling in the galleys, crossing the desert, rebuilding al Djem, fighting in the games. Thus, though keeping his head properly bowed, the beggar chief had time to study the row of silent ones surreptitiously. And out of the comer of one eye, he saw one man's lips move in concert with the Scots. It gave him something to think about as he and the others joined Eulj Ali in the baths. Now—in the latter's presence—was no time for serious conversation; however, there would be ample opportunity later. Only three of these—Eulj Ali, the Taureg, and Fionn—were ordered by Ali to attend the nuptial feast.

Ali did not allow de Wynter to sleep long. There was much to do and not much time in which to do it. "Come, my friend, it is time to be up." A sleepy, yawning de Wynter stretched and sat up, looking about, trying to orient himself. He was in a tent
...
not large but lavish. The walls were hung with a kaleidoscope of carpets, woven in shades of green and brown and blue and the earth reds of Ali's beloved iron-rich mountain homeland. The divan upon which de Wynter sat was covered with another rug, one woven of wool as soft as silk; his feet rested on still another that made the ground seem soft. Ali, watching de Wynter take it all in—the trays set up here and there, the plush cushions and ottomans scattered about the floor, the elephant foot that held scrolls in one corner—said quietly, "My tent. It is yours, it and anything within it."

It was the desert-dwellers greeting and Ali, de Wynter was sure, at that moment meant it. De Wynter at another time and under other circumstances might have allowed his sense of humor to take control and have asked for the gift of the owner of the delightfully feminine voice he could hear speak in bits and snatches. But not today. "My friends?" was all he could summon up the energy to ask.

"They have already bathed. And if you are ready, we shall go there, too, to cleanse your body inside and out." Ali took de Wynter's silence as assent and gestured him to lead the way through the hangings he pulled aside.

At first, he thought night must have just fallen, for the sky to the west was still reddened by the setting sun. A second glance—taking in the stars—made de Wynter wonder. He would have been horrified to learn that the Moulay's games this evening were being lit by more than a hundred dying human torches. Ali preferred not to discuss the
subject and so hustl
ed his charge toward the east and the Roman baths, where Aisha and Ramlah had spent the last hours. Ali headed for a different section. These rooms were set aside just for men and were much more modem and Tunisian than ancient Roman. In an outer room empty except for divans built against the wall, de Wynter and Ali stripped, handing their clothes to a servant. Each took the measure of the other's well-modeled body and decided he was in better shape. Each then was given a
foukah
to wrap about his hips and high wooden clogs to protect his feet from the hot floors. "The water and the floors are heated from beneath,'' Ali explained, leading the way into the first of three hot rooms. De Wynter was prepared for the difference in temperature, but not for the silence broken only by the splash of water in a marble fountain and the faintest scuffling of the naked feet of the male bath attendants.

"If you need to relieve yourself?" Ali tactfully suggested, and de Wynter nodded, following him into the latrine. It was a room such as he had never been in before. The basins carved of marble stood at many different heights along the wall, so that each man might relieve himself without undue splashing. Gold animal heads served as water faucets to wash the urine away.

"Another need?" Ali asked, pointing to a series of marble seats, again of many heights.

De Wynter shook his head and the two returned to the hot room. There-they took their places at opposite ends of a long, narrow marble tub, filled halfway up with extremely hot water. Immediately an attendant began ladling in boiling water, gradually raising the temperature of the water until de Wynter swore he was about to be parboiled like a prawn. But if Ali could take it, so could he. Leaning back, each man rested his head against the tub's ledge, attendants carefully lifting his head to put towels beneath to protect the neck. Then, each was left with his thoughts. Ali thought of the night yet ahead when he would gain the
jamad ja'da
but lose Aisha. De Wynter daydreamed about his loving reception by Anne Boleyn in England short weeks from now when he disembarked from the first ship he could find heading that way.

How long the two men rested there, de Wynter had no idea. But too soon Ali murmured, "The water grows cool," stepped out of the tub, and led him to another room containing two marble slabs set
upon pillars. He stretched out face down on one and gestured for de Wynter to take the other. Then, two masseurs went to work, rubbing the men down with a glove of fur. No part of de Wynter's backside was missed, from his neck to his anus to his big toes. And when he thought he'd been rubbed to death, the real massage, bare-handed, began. Was this, de Wynter wondered, just a continuation of the games? Powerful fingers worked the shoulderblades until they cracked; the backbone was pressed on, hard, here and here and here and here, until de Wynter listened for the telltale crack of a broken back. Abandoning the back for his arm, muscles were prodded by persistent fingers, the elbow jerked, the fingers cracked, the arm itself stretched until de Wynter thought he'd have to yell, "Give it back." In fact, only the sight of Ali being put through the same torture, arm for arm, leg for leg, kept de Wynter there. Then, the agony was over. The masseur took thick, soft, perfumed soap and lathered it in from head to toe, turning his victim over so as to do the front. Their work finished, the masseurs disappeared to let the two men rest.

Again, it was Ali who finally sat up and led the way into the steam room. Compared to this, the water in the marble bath was cool. Now, the cleansing from the inside out began. As de Wynter sat sweating, gentle hands began scraping the lather and sweat off his back
...
his arms
...
and legs.... working up to his chest. Then without warning, someone emptied a bowl of water over his head
...
and another and another. He sputtered and stood up protesting, but Ali, laughing, said, "Relax, it's p
art of the bath."
From the hot room, they made their way through a series of cooler rooms, gradually accustoming their pink skin to normal air. Then, oh another marble slab where he was toweled dry. Turning over onto his back, he discovered the toweler was, as he had suspected, a woman. A naked woman. At that moment, she reached down and pulled off his
foukah,
leaving him as naked as she, with the expected results.

Ali, watching, laughed. "So you are a man with a man's desires after all."

But de Wynter couldn't answer, his face was being lathered up. The almond-eyed, dark-haired girl then took up a straight razor and prepared to shave him. Nervously, he awaited the first stroke. It was smooth and firm and gentle. Relaxing, h
e felt but could not see other
hands on his body. More lather or oil or something was being rubbed into his armpits and on his chest and about his outstretched manhood. Why, he didn't know, and with the razor on his neck, didn't dare ask, lest in moving his mouth he slit his own throat. Another head bent over his face to look into his blue eyes, then gentle hands began working his hair, combing and, judging from the scraping sound, cutting and shaping it.

The man who stood up when all this was done—his body washed off and oiled, his nails paired and pumiced, his teeth scrubbed and gums rubbed—did not look as though he had spent the last months rebuilding an amphitheater under the burning sun, except of course for the bronze of his skin. Nor did he look like a man, he thought with shock, looking down where his pelvic hair had been! Even as he stood there staring, the slave girls took giant puffs and began powdering his body, powder making little clouds that tickled his nostrils. Fresh puffs patted the excess off. At last, he and Ali were ready to return to the room of the divans, w
here male servants waited for th
em with fresh clothing. Ali's were the garb of the silent ones, but the fabric was the finest wool. De Wynter's garments were of silk, the trousers so thin he was almost glad there was no hair there to show through. Over them hung a long loose wool robe, embroidered at hem and cuff and neck in silver and edged with smoke gray pearls. The slave wrapped a girdle about his waist, and about that a rope of pearls. As two more men brought white leather slippers for his feet, de Wynter commented, "You dress your guests well."

"It gives me pleasure," was Ali's diplomatic answer.

"Why?" De Wynter's eyes narrowed as he waited for the reply.

"Why does it give me plea—"

"No, why do you dress me this way?"

Ali had hoped to avoid such questions until they had made their way at least as far as Aisha's tent, but he realized he now had no choice but to answer and pray that Allah guided his tongue. "You are to be a guest at a banquet tonight—"

"The Amira's?"

Ali reluctantly nodded.

"I'm not going. Take those sandals away and bring me back my old tunic. I shall go nowhere near that woman."

The slaves, in a quandary, looked to Ali for instructions. He gestured for them to stay as they were. As de Wynter began to shrug the heavy robe off, Ali shook his head, and the two attendants firmly pulled the robe back up onto de Wynter's shoulders.

"Y
ou have no choice, my friend—"

"Don't call me that. You are not my—" de Wynter continued to try to disrobe.

"But I am. Believe me, I do this for you." Ali's claps brought reinforcements for the attendants, de Wynter kicking and squirming within their grasp. But he was at too great a disadvantage. When de Wynter's futile struggles finally ceased, Ali had the man bring the slippers forward again. "Put them on him," Ali commanded, and the two men squatted to do so. The first one picked himself up with a howl of pain as de Wynter's heel caught him on the side of the jaw. The other avoided such a kick only by falling back on his haunches. Two more attendants entered the fray, wrapping their arms around de Wynter's legs and using their body weight to prevent further kicking. Now, he was lifted bodily, the slippers placed on his feet. Silken ties, brought at Ali's command, bound his wrists and ankles. Rather than risk losing him or mussing him, Ali decided to carry the man to the Amira's tent like the trophy he was—slung like a dangerous cat from a trophy pole fashioned from a cluster of the silent ones' spears. De Wynter's arriving like this, Ali guessed, would set the Amira's teeth on edge and do more to furt
her the selection of Fionn. Ali
was not adverse to influencing her choice right up to the very end.