after a few days they are made alive. Even so, it sometimes happens that there is a cub which cannot be licked into shape.’
‘You mean that it was the Valide Sultan who had my brother killed?’
‘A mother kill her own son! And she is your mother too! How could you think such a thing of your own mother?’ The Vizier did indeed seem genuinely shocked. However he continued, ‘Even so, it is always rewarding to contemplate the ways of the animal kingdom. The beasts of the desert and jungle have much to teach the politic man.’
‘But what have you to teach me? Who did kill Barak?’
‘Wild surmise will infallibly miss its mark. Barak was like a man making his way along a precipitous mountain ledge in a snow storm. Then he looked down and, having looked down, he lost his nerve and, having lost his nerve, he lost his footing and with it his life. It is best to think of your brother as an unlucky mountain man. Alternatively, you may think of your brother as a man seated at his ease and feasting at a party. Then Death the Butler comes round with a bitter cup. Your brother seizes the cup and drinks deeply from it. Yes, perhaps that is better — to think of your brother as a man leaving a party.’
Suddenly Orkhan thought of Anadil. He did not want her reporting on what had taken place in the ice-cell, or, for that matter on the conversation he was now having with the Vizier. He turned towards her, intending to have her placed under immediate arrest, but she was no longer anywhere to be seen. He turned back to the Vizier,
‘That girl, Anadil, who was with me, I want her placed under close confinement under the guard of deaf mutes.’
‘I shall lose no time in carrying out your command, O Sultan,’ said the Vizier, looking thoughtful. ‘So, she did not please you? I did think that you would have been better off with an ugly woman. The thing about ugly women is that it takes longer to achieve… ’
‘Tell me some other time! Your next task is to summon the ministers to an immediate meeting.’
‘I will lose no time in dealing with this also. The ministers long to bask in the radiance of your newly risen sun. But they are dispersed throughout the city and it will take time to have them fetched and, besides, you must be hungry. Yes, surely it is time to eat, for you have not eaten since you came out of the Cage. I will arrange for food to be brought to you.’
‘See to it then, and the summoning of the ministers and the arrest of the girl. I must be busy. I am impatient.’
‘Yes, you are like your brother.’
Then the Vizier led him to another small room. Most of the floor was covered in cushions in the midst of which there was a low table. Having ushered him in, the Vizier was about to hurry away, but an afterthought struck him,
‘One last thing, you did not, by any chance, let the viper drink at the Tavern of the Perfume-Makers?’
‘Certainly not,’ lied Orkhan impatiently. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’
‘All may still be well then,’ said the Vizier.
A few moments later, mutes appeared, bearing vast silver trays covered with snacks. Orkhan ate and dozed. Then he was being shaken awake. The Vizier was bending anxiously over him.
‘The Valide Sultan wants to see you. I will come with you and wait for you, so that I can conduct you from her august majesty’s presence to the audience chamber where the council of ministers will meet’.
Once again they made their way across the garden to the porcelain pavilion. This time Orkhan found it impossible to advance more than a couple of steps beyond its door. A great carpet — the Carpet of Mirth — now covered most of the porcelain floor of the pavilion and a writhing mound of shrieking and giggling young women tumbled across it, displaying, as they did so, parts of their bodies which should not be seen in public. At every moment more women, having taken their turn at casting the dice, threw themselves upon the heap. The fall of the dice determined where, on which squares, they should place their hands and feet. From the bottom of the heap of writhing bodies, voices could be heard vainly pleading to be let out to throw the dice again and improve on their position.
At the far end of the room the Valide Sultan looked on with indulgence. Seeing Orkhan, she pointed to the heap of women in between them and said,
‘Would you like to join them, Orkhan?’
He shook his head vigorously.
‘But there is a playmate of yours somewhere in there, I think.’
In answer to these words, Anadil’s triumphant head emerged from the shifting mass of robes and limbs. Though she smiled brightly up at him, he looked on Anadil and her companions who sported on the Carpet of Mirth with revulsion. He was thinking of Barak suspended in the ice.
The Valide Sultan seemed perfectly oblivious to Orkhan’s hostility. She lolled back comfortably on the cushions and smiled lazily. She had to raise her voice above the squeaks and giggles of the young women,
‘Poor Anadil has not had much luck on the Carpet this afternoon. But I hear she had better fortune in her games with you this morning. I hear you two had a little wrestle — and she trapped your head in a leg-lock. That counts the same as a fall in wrestling, does it not? So what shall be her prize?’
Orkhan wanted to say that Anadil deserved nothing less than arrest and impalement, but in the situation he now found himself in, faced by the Valide Sultan and this horde of laughing women, such a thing seemed all but impossible to say. He hesitated. Then, he reflected that he was, after all, the Sultan. So he took a deep breath and said it,
‘She deserves nothing less than death. Anadil will be arrested and these follies are now at an end.’
There were cries of dismay from the floor.
‘So no one may laugh and Anadil must die, in order that you can keep your miserable self-pride!’ the Valide Sultan cried out. She was not smiling now. ‘A beautiful woman in her youth is to be slain to protect my prince’s sulks!’
Orkhan did not trouble to reply. He hurried out of the door and angrily confronted the Vizier who was waiting anxiously.
‘Wretched slave, I thought I had told you to arrest Anadil.’
‘Alas, my Sultan, I am indeed a wretched slave, for I have had the eunuchs search high and low for her, but they have not been able to find her.’
‘She has been in the pavilion playing silly games with the other concubines. Arrest her now — and I want the Valide Sultan escorted to her chambers and placed under close confinement. She is to communicate with no one.’
‘I will lose no time in carrying out your commands. I go like an arrow shot from your bowstring. I become the words of your commands floating on the breath of your will, for the fulfilment of your will is the height of all our desires. Would you like to proceed to the council chamber now?’
The Vizier tugged at Orkhan’s sleeve. As they walked away from the porcelain pavilion, the Vizier continued to speak in a low mutter — as if he were speaking to himself,
‘There are gates which should never be entered. There are certain keys for which there are no locks. There are hidden places within the women’s quarters which are not safe for a man. There are certain passageways into which a man should not stick his nose. This palace has doors which can take a man out of this world… But you tell me that the viper has not entered the Tavern. That at least is good.’
‘Speak plainly or keep silent,’ Orkhan commanded.
The Vizier looked hard at Orkhan.
‘Well, I see that I will have to be plain with you. You must understand that the festering idleness of the Harem girls engenders wicked thoughts, so that they do all sorts of things that they should not. Flowers of evil grow in a bed of boredom. One of the concubines’ wickedest tricks is that they smear an addictive paste between their thighs, so that a man having put his face where he should not and having tasted the drugged potion which is on offer at the Tavern of the Perfume-Makers, soon becomes addicted. That man will end up begging for more, kneeling before them with his tongue hanging out. Nothing will seem more important to him than to be allowed to have another taste. So the girls of the Harem can turn their master into their slave. It is all part of this abominable Prayer-Cushion business.’
‘What Prayer-Cushion business?’
‘Ah, here we are at the council chamber! The ministers will surely be coming along shortly. As your Vizier, I
