The Tournament (24 page)

My teacher grinned. ‘I imagine he took a liking to you.’

At this point, Elsie, who I did not realise was even awake, sat up in her bed. ‘Oh, Bessie, you have a little admirer! How positively adorable!’

‘An admirer?’ I blurted. ‘But I was mean and horrible to him. And he was most appalling to me; appalling and obnoxious and rude.’

‘Little boys who like little girls often behave in such a manner,’ Mr Ascham said.

‘Big boys do, too,’ Elsie said with a smirk.

‘I could not possibly go,’ I declared.

‘Oh, no, you most certainly will go,’ my teacher said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You will go on this excursion to the menagerie,’ he said as if it were the most obvious and natural thing in the world.

‘But I don’t like this boy. He is a backward eastern duke from a backward eastern duchy—’

‘Oh, come now, you only met him once and one cannot gauge
any
person’s character from a single meeting. No. This is something you should definitely learn. Go, it will be good for you. Besides, what have you to lose? Today is a rest day for the tournament so you will not miss any chess and I have inquiries to make. It seems other royalty will be there, too, including the Sultan and his son, the Crown Prince. It would be of benefit to you to observe them.’

Elsie’s head snapped up at the mention of the Crown Prince. ‘I can go with Bess, sir. As—well—as a chaperone, if you like.’

‘Why, that would be splendid, Elsie,’ Mr Ascham said. ‘Excellent. An escort from the Sultan will be here in an hour to collect you both. I shall see you after lunch.’

Sure enough, an hour later a member of the Sultan’s personal guard came to collect us. He escorted us out of the inner palace and across the First Courtyard to a heavy studded gate set into its northern wall.

I fumed as I walked. I couldn’t believe my teacher was forcing me to go on this excursion. I dreaded the thought of seeing the short Russian boy again.

Elsie thought my discomfort was most amusing. ‘Oh, Bessie, what’s worse: having the attentions of a rude boy or the attentions of no boys at all?’

The question actually extracted me from my seething.

‘In all honesty, I am not sure,’ I answered. I was young, yes, but I had always watched people closely, and on this trip—out in the world, beyond my cloistered life at Hatfield—I had watched them more closely than ever. And the previous night’s conversation with my teacher about kings and queens had also left a mark on me. ‘I am not entirely convinced that sensual or carnal attentions have
any
worth. And marriage might have the least worth of all.’

‘What!’ Elsie said. ‘What on earth do you mean, Bessie?’

‘On this trip alone, we have been witness to a married couple where the wife, Mrs Ponsonby, reigns over her husband like a tyrant. He is not her equal. He is not even her friend. He is her servant. I do not think marriage is meant to be like that. It should be a bond between equals.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘I have seen a brothel, where in return for payment to the owner, the customer uses the prostitute’s body for his own gratification. I have seen men of God using others’ bodies to satiate their desires.’

Elsie made to speak again, but again I cut her off.

‘And, lastly, you have spoken at length about your nocturnal adventures, where copulation is a pastime. An enjoyable one, clearly, but a pastime, an idle game, an act of mutual pleasure engaged in solely for pleasure’s sake.’ I paused. ‘The conclusion I have drawn from all this is that our very animal nature drives us to engage in carnal activities. It is like eating or sleeping and entirely natural. The
problem
, as I see it, are the twin human creations of marriage and religion. It is marriage and religion that make copulation complex and hurtful. Marriage brings up notions of trust, cuckoldry and ownership, while religion makes certain kinds of intimacy sinful. It makes me wonder if my life would be better if I were never to marry at all.’

I turned to Elsie, offering her the chance to respond.

But she just looked dreamily up at the trees and the sky and said, ‘Honestly, Bessie, you think overmuch and it will make you miserable. Life is so much sweeter and easier when you let the wind sweep you along.’

She whirled on the spot as she said this, a carefree twirl, and I looked at her askance and wondered if I did indeed think too much on things. I also wondered if perhaps Elsie did not think
enough
. She delighted in her late-night gatherings, for instance, and in her scheme for snaring Crown Prince Selim, but like a chess player who forgets that his opponent also has a plan, had she considered how
others
might be perceiving her behaviour at those gatherings?

I further pondered whether or not Elsie was mentally capable of keeping up with me and my overthinking. Even though she was four years my senior, had I outgrown my friend? Had she even been my friend in the first place?

‘Since we’re on the subject,’ I said, ‘where did you get to last night?’

‘Oh, Bessie,’ she said excitedly, her attention fully regained now that we were talking about her. ‘I’m getting closer.’

‘Closer to what?’

‘Closer to bedding the Crown Prince!’ she whispered eagerly.

‘Last night’s frolic was in his private bath-house and, goodness, it was even more delicious than the first two gatherings! Imagine, Bessie: marble baths polished to perfection and filled with steaming hot water heated by furnaces beneath the floor; rose petals scattered across the surface and the most soothing, relaxing oils scenting the air.

‘It was a delight to the senses just to walk in there, but, of course, there were other delights on offer. It was a smaller crowd than the previous night and the rising steam from the baths made all of the lithe young bodies there glisten with perspiration. And goodness, Bessie, sweating bodies make for the most divinely slippery couplings.’

‘Is that so?’ I said. ‘What happened with the prince?’

‘Well, as I did the night before, I spotted the Crown Prince in the steamy mist and made sure I caught his eye. A short time later, I found his good friend Rahman in a corner and once again mounted him and brought him to a delighted climax. But the whole time I was riding Rahman, I kept my eyes locked on the prince across the room as if to say, “Look at the pleasure I could be giving you.”’

‘And what happened then?’

‘A short while later, after the prince had a whispered discussion with Rahman, Selim asked for me to come before him and spread my legs so he could examine me—which I am told is what he does.

‘I lay before him and stretched my legs wide. I’m glad I have always danced, Bessie, for I can spread my legs wider than most other girls and I saw that this impressed him greatly. Then he waved me away with a grin and the words, “Perhaps tomorrow night, English rose.”

‘Honestly, Bessie, I spent the rest of the evening in a state of dreamy repose, lying on a hot marble island, beads of sweat glistening all over my naked body, with my head thrown back and my toes drawing circles on the surface of the water, but always keeping my eyes on the prince, even as he occupied other girls. I am making him desire me, Bessie.’

‘You do appear to be close to snaring him, Elsie.’

‘I most certainly am and I cannot wait for the next gathering tomorrow evening!’ Elsie said excitedly. ‘For when it comes, I aim to get the Crown Prince between my thighs and if I can do that, I like my chances of becoming his queen.’

We arrived at the gates to the Sultan’s private animal enclosure, where we were met by a party headed by Ivan, the diminutive Grand Prince of the Duchy of Muscovy. With him were some local palace officials and a few foreign dignitaries.

The Sultan’s menagerie stood to the north of the palace complex, not far from some military docks on that shore of the headland and it was enclosed by a high brick wall. The gates to the enclosure rose before us—black cast-iron bars set into a soaring arch. Behind the wall, animal sounds could be heard: the trumpeting of an elephant, the growl of a jungle cat, the agitated tweeting of birds surrounded by elephants and jungle cats.

Ivan saw me and smiled broadly. During the whole of our previous unpleasant encounter, I had not seen him smile once. It made me suspicious.

‘Princess Elizabeth!’ he said brightly, in heavily accented English. ‘I am so pleased you could come. When we met before in the queue to meet the Sultan I did not know who you were, but I asked after you and discovered you are a princess of England, daughter of King Henry himself. I am a keen student of England and a great admirer of your father’s achievements. Please forgive me if I was rude when we last encountered each other. My party was late and I was angry with my men and then you and I met in unfortunate circumstances. I humbly apologise and beg your forgiveness.’

I was momentarily speechless. The rude boy had vanished and a most pleasant young man had taken over his body. Mr Ascham, curse him, might have been right.

‘You are lucky that I do not make judgments of people based on first meetings,’ I said smoothly. ‘I have found it is sensible to view someone at least a second time before I make an adverse conclusion as to their character.’ I ignored Elsie’s stifled cough behind me.

Ivan seemed relieved. ‘You are as wise as you are beautiful. Again, I am so pleased you have come.’

No-one had ever called me beautiful before. With my orange curls and pale freckled skin, not even I considered myself to be beautiful. But when this boy said it, it made me feel, despite my previous misgivings about him, far more partial toward him. I quite liked being called beautiful.

At that moment a horn blared, and we all turned to see the Sultan and the Crown Prince coming down the winding path from the palace, leading an enormous retinue of guards, officials and other hangers-on.

Ivan said to me, ‘Please excuse me, Elizabeth. I have duties to perform. But I do hope we shall get the opportunity to converse later.’

With a smile, he went off to greet the Sultan.

Moments later, the great iron gates to the menagerie were opened and, led by the Sultan, Crown Prince Selim and Prince Ivan, we were ushered through them. As he passed by, the Sultan saw me and gave me a silent nod of recognition, while the Crown Prince spied Elsie and gave her a different kind of nod.

We went inside.

THE SULTAN’S MENAGERIE WAS
, essentially, a large four-sided courtyard that was open to the sky. It had barred cages on three sides and on the fourth was the arched entry gate. A paved path, framed by cleverly planted bushes that prevented one from seeing every cage at once, meandered past all the cages before arriving back at the main gate.

Upon seeing Suleiman’s menagerie and his collection of exotic animals inside it, I vowed that should I ever become Queen of England, I would open up the animal menagerie in the Bulwark of the Tower to the public at large. Every man and woman, no matter what their station in life, should be able to see the wonders of the animal kingdom.

The Sultan’s collection of exotic beasts was simply extraordinary.

He had two elephants and one giraffe, five fearsomely large snakes, a dozen monkeys, cheeky and playful, a vast collection of birds from all over the world, a zebra, two ostriches, an aurochs, an oryx, and not one but two varieties of tiger—one from the jungles of India and a larger white one from the chill lands far to the east of Russia. In one of the bigger cages, I beheld three wolves: they had grey coats, powerful shoulders and cruel stares. They watched every individual who passed them by with calculating interest, their pale eyes unblinking. I found them quite unnerving.

Taking pride of place in the very centre of the beautiful compound, surrounded by the ring of bushes and with its own inner path so that the Sultan could make an uninterrupted circuit around it, was a brand-new and very high iron cage.

In it was Ivan’s gift to the Ottoman ruler: the mighty Russian bear.

It was, I must admit, a most magnificent beast. It paced on all fours inside its enormous cage, but then upon seeing the Sultan and the crowd gathered behind him, it rose onto its hind legs, standing a full twelve feet tall, and bellowed angrily in the Sultan’s face.

The Sultan stood his ground.

‘He likes you,’ Ivan said in Greek, grinning. The Sultan snorted a laugh. The crowd chuckled nervously. ‘But please don’t get too close to the bars. He has a considerable reach,’ Ivan added.

As I looked at the great bear in its massive cage, occupying pride of place in that remarkable menagerie, I thought of the way my countrymen used bears: they tormented them, tied them down to stakes while fighting dogs were permitted to attack them for sport and wagers. I felt ashamed.

‘The Russian bear,’ Ivan said in common Greek so all could understand, ‘is the largest predator to walk on land. It can kill a man with a single swipe. Fortunately for us, bears rarely kill men. They eat mainly berries and roots and sometimes young deer, but most of all, big bears like this one love salmon.’ On cue, the animal keeper beside Ivan threw a dead salmon at the bear. With surprising speed, the bear reached through the bars, caught the fish in its claws and ripped it clean in two with a great crunching bite. The crowd gasped in awe.