27
I heard a determined shuffling behind me. The Great One broke eye contact with me and looked over my shoulder. His face took on a look of slightly annoyed bafflement.
I looked round. Theophanes and Martin had moved apart and now stood facing each other at each side of the tent.
‘We are honoured,’ cried Martin in a bright voice, ‘after hearing so many stories of his might and nobility, to be called at last into the presence of the Great One. We wish to perform for him as we have so often performed in the presence of Caesar himself.’
With that, the pair of them launched into song. It was a lyric popular at the time – ‘Watchman at the Gates of Love’, it was called. They sang together while Martin clapped his hands to keep time.
As they moved from one verse of cloying sentimentality to another, Martin sang in a pleasant light baritone. But the obvious star was Theophanes. Powerful, yet clear, the eunuch voice can carry every note from higher bass to soprano.
Theophanes was somewhat past his best for singing, and his voice cracked on some of the higher notes. But he covered this with a superb artistry, moving the more daring trills into a lower register.
During one note that he seemed to hold for ever without wavering, I glanced back to the Great One. He sat entranced. The two girls looked on, their mouths open with astonishment.
As they moved into the final long refrain, Theophanes broke off and began to dance about the tent, stamping his feet rhythmically and waving his arms in time to the music. Keeping his shoulders still, its angle never changing, he moved his head from side to side.
When, at last, the song ended, he took up three of those shrunken heads and, still dancing, started to juggle them. As he did so, Martin began one of those crooning, throbbing songs you hear in the better class of brothel. It’s the sort that begins slowly and builds gradually to a clashing of metres that, handled properly, can imitate the sexual act.
Keeping time with the huge, undulating mass of his body, Theophanes threw the heads higher and higher, so I thought they would hit the roof of the tent and he’d lose them all. Yet, even at the climax of the song, when the dance movements must grow increasingly rapid and abandoned, he dropped not one. He began with three. He ended with three.
It was, all considered, a most remarkable performance. Perhaps, on balance, the world had been the poorer when Theophanes progressed from dancing boy to police state functionary.
As it finished, Theophanes and Martin threw themselves down in a perfectly timed and most elegant prostration.
The Great One squealed with joy, bobbing up and down as he clapped. He hauled himself up and lurched forward to pull Theophanes to his feet. He stretched up to plant a slobbering kiss on the eunuch’s cheek. Then he reached into his robe and pulled out a red amulet to hang round Theophanes’ neck. After a momentary hesitation, he added one of the shrunken heads. The Yellow Linguist interpreted the stream of appreciation that followed.
Puffing very slightly from the exertion, Theophanes acknowledged all this with a respectful bow. He added something about treasuring the gifts all the days of his life. If this was a discreet enquiry as to how many days this might be allowed to be, he got no definite answer.
But he had gained for the moment at least high praise where it seemed to matter.
Then it was back to business as usual. Rearranging himself on those nasty cushions, the Great One settled into place, and the audience continued.
‘The one without stones in his pouch will go outside to recover himself in the dawn air,’ said the Yellow Linguist. ‘You’ – he pointed at me – ‘will also perform for the Great One.’
I wondered what on earth I could do to match what had just been offered. I thought of some of the more tuneful ballads I’d used to bawl in taverns on the Wessex borders.
But it wasn’t my voice the Great One had in mind. As Theophanes went out of the tent and half a dozen of the other Yellow Barbarians filed in, he kicked at one of the girls who sat at his feet. Toying with one of his shrunken heads, he hissed a stream of orders. When she remained squatting at his feet, with no apparent inclination to obey, he kicked her again. She landed about a yard before me and looked up into my face with a cold fury that made me want to sit down and fan myself.
At last, she got silently to her feet and began tugging at the laces that held the tunic to her body. In an instant, she stood before me stark naked, a closed, sullen look on her yellow face.
The servant who’d sounded the gong pulled out some more of those cushions and began scattering them on the ground.
I didn’t need that poke in the back to tell me what kind of performance was expected of me. Clothes off and folded neatly beside the cushions, I was soon hard at work with the girl, making the beast with two backs while everyone else looked on.
You may ask how I was up to anything in that dreadful place. My answer is that I was young. I was also quite aware that this was not an occasion for polite excuses. And if I was about to die, I might as well take the chance of a good last fuck.
And if you’ve never tried it for yourself, I’ll assure you that fear can be a tremendous aphrodisiac.
I might add that the girl was remarkably fetching. She stank like a dead fox – but I was no scented flower myself. And though very young, she was no virgin. After a few moments of hesitancy, she threw herself into the task appointed. She knew what she wanted, and I made very sure to give it to her – heart and soul, and all the usual graces.
After a while, it quite escaped me that everyone around me was cheering and wanking as I slowly brought the girl to a huge, shuddering orgasm. As she slid from underneath me and reached for her clothes, she looked decidedly more cheerful. Then her fingers probed her black hair and she pulled something out which she offered me in a closed fist. She opened it close to my face. The mass of crawling blackness on her palm was lice. With a gesture I took as intended to be friendly, she popped the things straight into her mouth and crunched. As she drew her lips back for a smile, I could see the still moving black specks all over her filed teeth.
Wheezing and drooling, the Great One lay back on his mountain of cushions. I stole a look at the curtain behind him. It hung still.
‘You have obliged the curiosity of the Great One with his eldest daughter,’ the Yellow Linguist explained in a halting voice. ‘It is an honour that few are permitted.’
His daughter! Well, some of these more distant barbarians can have odd ways. But who was I to judge of these?
I glanced at the other daughter. Scared as I was, it was mildly flattering to see the jealous look on her face. It wouldn’t be all sisterly love when they finally retired to the privacy of their tent.
That was the end of my part in the entertainment. Sitting up again, the Great One clapped his hands. Our audience filed out and Theophanes was brought back in.
No particular surprise on his face, he gave me an abstracted look before turning his attention to another long prostration.
As Martin helped me back into my clothes, I could feel a certain reserve in his manner. But it was only for a moment. It was prostration time again all round.
‘You may leave us,’ the Yellow Linguist said once we were back on our feet. ‘We will accompany you to the place from where you may find your own way back to the camp of the Others. If the Great One desires your presence again, He will send for you.’
Cheering words! Two good fucks that night – and another chance to bolt for the City walls.
Outside, the drizzle had stopped. The sun was coming up and the mist had retreated to a chill whiteness around our feet. The fires had burned down to smoking embers.
Those children were still hard at play with their victim. But the wretch had now fallen down. Not even poking him with hot embers could raise more than an exhausted groan.
‘He brought tidings from Caesar,’ the Yellow Linguist explained, following my glance. ‘They showed insufficient respect for the Great One.’
