Sheherazade in the caliph's garden, and didn't she know it, just?
'Yakub is not here,' says she, before I'd even had time to state my business. 'He has ridden out with the others to talk with Buzurg Khan; perhaps by evening he will have returned.' She stroked the kitten. 'Will you wait?'
It was an invitation if ever I heard one—and I'm used to them. But it was unexpected, and as I've said, I was something wary of this young woman. So I hesitated, while she watched me, smiling with her lips closed, and I was just on the point of making my apology and withdrawing, when she leaned down to the kitten and said:
'Why do you suppose such a tall fellow is so afraid, little sister? Can you tell? No? He would be wise not to let Yakub Beg know it—for it would be a great shame to the Atalik Ghazi to find fear in his blood brother.'
I don't know when I've been taken more aback. I stood astonished as she went on, with her face close to the kitten's:
'We knew it the first night, at Fort Raim—you remember I told you? We felt it even in his mouth. And we both saw it, last night, when Yakub Beg pressed him into our venture—the others did not, for he dissembles well, this angliski. But we knew, you and I, little terror of the larder. We saw the fear in his eyes when he tried to persuade them. We see it now.' She picked the kitten up and nuzzled it against her cheek. 'What are we to make of him, then?'
'Well, I'm damned!' I was beginning, and took a stride forward, red in the face, and stopped.
'Now he is angry, as well as frightened,' says she, pretending to whisper in the brute's ear. 'Is that not fine? We have stirred him to rage, which is one of the seven forbidden sins he feels against us. Yes, pretty tiger, he feels another one as well. Which one? Come, little foolish, that is easy—no, not envy, why should he envy us? Ah, you have guessed it, you wanton of the night walls, you trifler in jimai najaiz.*(*Illicit love.) Is it not scandalous? But be at ease—we are safe from him. For does he not fear?'
Kutebar was undoubtedly right—this one should have had the mischief tanned out of her when she was knee-high. I stood there, wattling, no doubt, and trying to think of a cutting retort—but interrupting a conversation between a woman and a cat ain't as easy as it might seem. One tends to look a fool.
'You think it a pity, scourge of the milk bowls? Well … there it is. If lechery cannot cast out fear, what then? What does he fear, you ask? Oh, so many things—death, as all men do. That is no matter, so that they do not cross the line from 'will' to 'will not'. But he fears also Yakub Beg, which is wisdom—although Yakub Beg is far away, and we are quite alone here. So … still he wavers, although desire struggles with fear in him. Which will triumph, do you suppose? Is it not exciting, little trollop of the willow-trees? Are your male cats so timorous? Do they fear even to sit beside you?'
I wasn't standing for that, anyway—besides, I was becoming decidedly interested. I came round the fountain and sat down on the grass. And, damme, the kitten popped its face round her head and miaowed at me.
'There, brave little sister!' She cuddled it, turned to look at me out of those slanting black eyes, and returned to her conversation. 'Would you protect your mistress, then? Eyah, it is not necessary—for what will he do? He will gnaw his lip, while his mouth grows dry with fear and desire—he will think. Oh, such thoughts—there is no protection against them. Do you not feel them touching us, embracing us, enfolding us, burning us with their passion? Alas, it is only an illusion—and like to remain one, so great is his fear.'
I've seduced—and been seduced—in some odd ways, but never before with a kitten pressed into service as pimp. She was right, of course—I was scared, not only of Yakub Beg, but of her: she knew too much, this one, for any man's comfort, and if I knew anything at all it wasn't just for love of my brawny frame and bonny black whiskers that she was taunting me into attempting her. There was something else—but with that slim white shape tantalizing me within arm's length, and that murmuring voice, and the drift of her perfume, subtle and sweet as a garden flower, I didn't care. I reached out—and hesitated, sweating lustfully. My God, I wanted her, but -
'And now he pants, and trembles, and fears to touch, my furry sweet. Like the little boys at the confectioner's stall, or a beardless youth biting his nails outside a brothel, and he such a fine, strong—nothing of a man. He -'
'Damn you!' roars I, 'and damn your Yakub Beg! Come here!'
And I grabbed her round the body, one hand on her breast, the other on her belly, and pulled her roughly to me. She came without resistance, her head back, and those almond eyes looking up at me, her lips parted; I was shaking as I brought my mouth down on them, and pulled the robe from her shoulders, gripping her sharp-pointed breasts in my hands. She lay quivering against me for a moment, and then pulled free, pushing the kitten gently aside with her foot.
'Go find a mouse, little idleness. Will you occupy your mistress all day with silly chatter?'
And then she turned towards me, pushing me back and down with her hands on my chest, and sliding astride of me while her tongue flickered out against my lips and then my eyelids and cheeks and into my ear. I grappled her, yammering lustfully, as she shrugged off the robe and began working nimbly at my girdle—and no sooner had we set to partners and commenced heaving passionately away, than up comes that damned kitten beside my head, and Ko Dali's daughter had to pause and lift her face to blow at it.
'Does no one pay heed to you, then? Fie, selfish little inquisitive! Can your mistress not have a moment to pleasure herself with an angliski—a thing she has never done before?' And they purred at each other while I was going mad—I've never been more mortified in my life.
'I shall tell you all about it later,' said she, which is an astonishing thing to hear, when you're at grips.
'Never mind telling the blasted cat!' I roared, straining at her. 'Dammit, if you're going to tell anyone, tell me!'
'Ah,' says she, sitting back. 'You are like the Chinese—you wish to talk as well? Then here is a topic of conversation.' And she reached up and suddenly plucked off her turban, and there she was, shaved like a Buddhist monk, staring mischievously down at me.
'Good God!' I croaked. 'You're bald!'
'Did you not know? It is my vow. Does it make me -' she stirred her rump deliciously '- less desirable?'
'My God, no!' I cried, and fell to again with a will, but every time I became properly engrossed, she would stop to chide the cat, which kept loafing around miaowing, until I was near crazy, with that naked alabaster beauty squirming athwart my hawse, as the sailors say, and nothing to be done satisfactorily until she had left off talking and come back to work. And once she nearly unmanned me completely by stopping short, glancing up, and crying 'Yakub!' and I let out a frantic yelp and near as anything heaved her into the fountain as I strained my head round to look at the archway and see—nothing. But before I could remonstrate, or swipe her head off, she was writhing and plunging away again, moaning with her eyes half-closed, and this time, for a wonder, the thing went on uninterrupted until we were lying gasping and exhausted, in each other's arms—and the kitten was there again, purring censoriously in my ear.
By then I was too blissfully sated to care. A teasing, wicked-minded sprite she might be, but Ko Dali's daughter had nothing to learn about killing a chap with kindness, and one of my fondest recollections is of lying there ruined in the warmth of that little garden, with the leaves rustling overhead, watching her slip into her robe and turban again, sleek and satisfied as the kitten which she picked up and cuddled against her cheek. (If only the English dowagers of my acquaintance could know what I'm remembering when I see them pick up their gross fat tabbies in the drawing-room. 'Ah, General Flashman has gone to sleep again, poor dear old thing. How contented he looks. Ssh-hh.')
Presently she got up and went off, returning with a little tray on which there were cups of sherbet, and two big bowls of kefir—just the thing after a hot encounter, when you're feeling well and contented, and wondering vaguely whether you ought not to slide out before the man of the house comes back, and deciding the devil with him. It was good kefir, too—strangely sweet, with a musky flavour that I couldn't place, and as I spooned it down gratefully she sat watching me, with those mysterious dark eyes, and murmuring to her kitten as it played with her fingers.
'Did cruel mistress neglect her darling?' says she. 'Ah, do not scold—do I reproach you when you come home with your ears scratched and your fur bedraggled? Do I pester you with impertinent questions? Mmm? Oh, shameless—it is not proper to ask, in his presence. Besides, some little evil bird might hear, and talk … and what then? What of me—and Yakub Beg—and fine dreams of a throne in Kashgar some day? Ah, indeed. And what of our fine angliski? It would go hard with all of us, if certain things were known, but hardest of all with him …'
'Capital kefir, this,' says I, cleaning round the bowl. 'Any more?'
She gave me another helping, and went on whispering to the cat—taking care that I could hear.
