Golden Lion (27 page)

udith was taken through the streets of Zanzibar in a carriage whose windows had been covered so that she had no idea where she was going. There came a point, however, when she heard orders being barked, a gate opened and then the echoing of hooves and wheels as the carriage passed beneath an arch, crossed some kind of open courtyard before passing through a second gate and only then coming to a halt.

The door of the carriage was opened and before her stood a portly, middle-aged man with a chin as perfectly hairless as his shaven scalp. In a high, effeminate voice he said, ‘Follow me. His Highness wishes to see you, but he will not wish to set eyes on you looking like that.’

He’s a eunuch
, Judith thought and then, as she was led into a large, marble-floored room, strewn with soft rugs decorated with intricately woven patterns and heady with the scent of roses, amber and musk wafting from the candles that cast a golden glow over the half-naked women draped in poses of idleness and boredom on the cushions and divans with which it was furnished, she realized,
I’ve been taken to a harem
.

The man led her into a chamber in the middle of which was a pool filled with softly steaming water and strewn with rose petals. Two young women, servants or handmaidens of some kind, she supposed, were waiting for her. ‘See that she is prepared for His Highness,’ the eunuch commanded, sounding less like a man than a petulant child.

‘Your bath has been prepared, my lady,’ one of the servant girls said. ‘May I take your gown?’

Judith’s immediate instinct was to reply, ‘No, you may not!’ But there was no purpose in picking a fight with underlings who lacked the power to do anything that might help her. Her quarrel was with the man who ruled them and the only way she was going to see him was if she allowed herself to do what the eunuch deemed necessary. So Judith bathed and was then dried and scented oil was rubbed into her skin. One of the servants asked her to sit and then smoky black kohl was painted around her eyes, rouge was dabbed on her lips and her hair was pinned up and draped in strings of pearls like fabulously extravagant versions of the headdress she had worn to greet Hal at Mitsiwa, just a few weeks earlier. The girls placed ornately jewelled pendants in her ears and then asked her to stand so that they could dress her.

‘Oh, my lady, you are so beautiful,’ one of the servants said, as Judith stood naked before her. ‘The prince will be overwhelmed by desire.’

‘Aleena will be wild with jealousy!’ the other girl giggled. ‘You are bound to be his new favourite!’

They dressed her, if it could be said to be dressing, in a short-sleeved bodice that resembled the ones Judith had seen Indian women in streets of Zanzibar wearing beneath their saris. Those tops, however, had been cotton or silk, whereas this one was a barely visible wisp of sheer gauze, dotted with golden sequins and tiny jewels that barely even covered her breasts. Nor was her modesty preserved by a sari, for the only other garment she was given was a pair of loose pantaloons that hung low on her hips and was gathered at each ankle made from the same material and sprinkled with even more sparkling, glittering decorations. Her outfit was completed by a pair of silken Turkish slippers, embroidered with golden thread.

‘Come … look at how magnificent you are,’ said the first servant girl, leading Judith by the hand to a full-length mirror in a richly carved wooden frame that stood on the far side of the chamber. Judith gasped at her own reflection. She had imagined that she had gone to great lengths to look pretty for Hal but this was something quite different and she found herself both shocked but also fascinated by the blatantly erotic way in which she had been transformed. She had become a dancing-girl, a
houri
, a concubine and she did, indeed, look extraordinary. Had it been Hal waiting for her she would have been thrilled. Just the knowledge of the effect that she would have on him, looking like this, would be enough to arouse her before she even stepped into the same room as him. But to look like this for a stranger, a man who had abducted her by force, felt like a form of violation, as if the act of rape that she was now fearing had already begun.

She was still lost in troubled thought when the eunuch reappeared, examined her – his lips pursed in a thoughtful pout – gave a little, ‘Huh!’ as if surprised by her presentability and then for a second time said, ‘Follow me.’

She was led back through the large salon where she could feel the gaze of all the other women on her and sense them sizing her up and deciding where she ranked in their pecking order. The eunuch wafted a limp hand back and forth to hurry her up and took her down a long corridor to a set of double doors which he opened and ushered her through before following her into the room that lay beyond them, closing the doors behind him as he came.

Judith found herself in a smaller, but infinitely more ornate version of the salon where the concubines were all waiting, just in case they should be required to serve at their master’s pleasure. Every surface, everywhere was covered in carvings and inlays that were a priceless profusion of gold, marble, onyx, jade, deep black obsidian, pure blue lapis lazuli, shimmering mother-of-pearl and sparkling mirrored glass. As she walked past one mirror and saw the light glinting off the precious stones, sequins and pearls in which she herself was covered she felt as though she too were just one more perfect, decorative object designed to enchant the jaded senses of the man for whom it had all been brought into being.

The eunuch bowed low before a golden divan upon which a man was sitting and said, ‘Your highness, here is the woman who was brought to me earlier this evening. I hope she meets with your satisfaction.’

With that, he scurried away, leaving Judith to look at her captor. The prince, as the serving girls had called him, was dressed in finery that was almost as jewelled, though a great deal less revealing than hers. He wore a bright pink silk coat with matching trousers and at the front of his turban a brooch was pinned consisting of the largest diamond Judith had ever seen, set in gold and surrounded by a ring of smaller stones, above which was a plume of egret feathers.

He was, she estimated, in his thirties and had strong, handsome features, just beginning to be softened by the fat being laid down by a life of limitless self-indulgence. As a young man he must have been very attractive indeed. Even now it would not be the greatest torment imaginable for a concubine to give herself to him, aside, of course, from the shame and abasement that the very state of concubinage brought upon a woman.

Then again, the woman kneeling on the divan by the prince’s side, with her lips nibbling at his ear and her hand running playfully over his thighs and groin, did not appear to feel ashamed or debased. On the contrary, Judith thought to herself, she seemed to be enjoying her work.

Judith imagined that there must be bodyguards and servants somewhere nearabouts and there was music coming from somewhere off to one side of the room, but there was only one more person visible: the Buzzard. He stood behind the divan, his one arm straight down at his side, his only movement that characteristic, bird-like nodding and darting of the head.

‘My dear General Nazet,’ the prince said, and Judith noticed that Aleena – for she assumed that this was the favourite that the servant girls had mentioned – stopped what she was doing at the mention of the word ‘general’ and frowned in her direction, ‘how strange to think that our lives and fates have been so closely intertwined for the past two years and yet we are only now meeting for the first time. I am the Maharajah Sadiq Khan Jahan. Your old adversary, Sultan Ahmed El Grang, leader of the Omani Arabs, served me as you served the child who called himself Emperor of Ethiopia.’ The prince sighed and shook his head. ‘You know, a woman of your beauty is really wasted on the battlefield.’

‘No,’ said Judith, ‘a soldier of my experience is wasted in this glorified whorehouse.’

‘Please, beloved, I do not understand,’ said Aleena, sitting up straight. ‘Why do you call this woman “general”? Why does she say that she is a soldier?’

‘Because, my precious, not only is she your match in loveliness, she was El Grang’s match as a soldier. She commanded armies while you just command the guardsman who stands to attention between my legs. Now, go! I must talk to the general. I will call for you later if I need you.’

‘Do not wait too long,’ Aleena purred, ‘for every hour without you is an eternity to me.’

She got up off the divan and made her sinuous, bottom-wiggling way out of the room, barely breaking stride as she passed Judith and yet flashing her a wordless glance of raw hostility that was as much a declaration of war between women as any ruler’s opening of hostilities against another man’s kingdom.

The prince smiled complacently as his plaything departed, then, leaning forward and looking directly at Judith, said, ‘I am a civilized man and I pride myself that I act with honour and in accordance with the laws of God. But I confess I find myself in something of a quandary. Were you a man of general’s rank, whom I had captured in battle, I would hold you prisoner. If I felt it was safe to do so, I would offer you back to your people for ransom and, in exchange for the required sum, and your solemn word of honour that you would not bear arms against me or my people ever again, I would release you back to your family. Of course, for a commander of your eminence the ransom would be many, many lakhs of silver rupees: so many, in fact, that I doubt the treasury of the Emperor of Ethiopia himself could possibly meet the price. So that would leave me with the less pleasant option of granting you a swift and honourable death. You would not be tortured or mistreated and you would die like a man.

‘But you are not a man and that complicates the issue … You are regarded, both by your people and mine, with an awe that no man would ever enjoy, as though you are somehow magical, more than human. A young woman, little more than a girl, who nevertheless leads great armies to victory: truly she must be something more than human. Your people – and of course I talk now about the common folk, rather than the higher class of educated individuals – believe that you have come down to them from heaven, like an angel.’

‘And yours think I am a she-demon from hell. I am well aware of that,’ said Judith. ‘But I am neither angel nor demon. I am a woman, plain and simple. So what are you going to do with me?’

The prince gave a contemplative sigh. ‘Ah, there’s the question … I admit I have thought a great deal, over many months, about what I would do if you ever came into my hands. I have changed my mind on more than one occasion, and I may even change it again.’

‘And …?’

He shrugged. ‘The temptation to sell you into slavery, to whomever will bid the highest sum for you is a very powerful one. To think of one who has been exalted on high, as you have been, brought to the very depths of human existence … who among those who have suffered at your hands would not take pleasure at that? But to give you away like that … what a waste! And what pleasure would it really bring me?

‘Then again, you are a woman of remarkable beauty and, I am told, fecundity, too. Those are valuable commodities and I could gain great favour by offering you as a concubine to my brother the Great Mogul, or even the Sultan in Constantinople. Were either of them to have a son by you, what a man he might be. But why should I let either of those two men gain such advantage? Surely, since I have you, I should just keep you for my own use.’

Judith almost spat rather than spoke her next words. ‘I would rather die than be your concubine. And I would kill my own child, too, rather than let it be raised in your court and under your god.’

‘Yes, that was what I feared,’ the prince said, nodding his head. ‘And in any case, I could hardly keep you as a member of my harem, unless it were in solitary confinement. You’ve already made a mortal enemy of Aleena, and although she is as pretty as a kitten, she is dangerous as a tigress. Then there are my other concubines to consider. These are young women from many lands, but all have come from very modest backgrounds. The life they lead here is paradise compared to the ones they left behind and all they have to do in return is to please and obey me. They do not doubt that is a very fair bargain and they would never rebel in any way. Yet you might plant ideas in their head that would make them unhappy, disobedient and unwilling to please. This would cause me great inconvenience, not least because I would have to kill them all and find replacements.’

‘I’m sure I would hate to put you to such trouble,’ said Judith with heavy sarcasm. ‘But now that you have told me all the various possibilities you have rejected, what fate have you chosen for me?’

‘First, you will join me for dinner. I should like to hear your account of your Ethiopian campaigns – the disposition of your forces, the tactics you planned in advance, the fresh decisions you were obliged to make in the heat of battle, and so on. I shall treat you with respect and ask no more of you than your military insight. Is that acceptable?’

‘Do not expect me to enjoy your company, Prince Jahan. But yes, I will engage in conversation at least.’