Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part Three: Constantinople

fingers.

Khatun Bengul was weeping. She said – something – through her tears.

Idris sounded agitated now.

The fingers inside the trunk lid were those of a middle-aged man – the nails were clean, but there were scars across all four, and a great ring of silver, gold and a blood-red stone engraved – beautifully engraved – with a running horse. In Greek, the letters by the horse said ‘Eupatridae’. The well-born. The jewel of some Ancient Greek aristocrat, two thousand years ago. On the finger of a Turkish warlord. It had to be Omar Reis’s hand.

Swan had time to read the stone, admire its age, and say three Ave Marias.

The trunk slammed shut. He heard Khatun Bengul’s sobs, and her brother’s gentle remonstrances, and then – silence.

Time passed.

His cramps grew greater than his fear, and then his need to piss grew greater than either.

Time passed without a rush of feet, or the blaze of light that would herald his death.

The last footsteps died away – there were no more shouts from the courtyard.

The trunk lid was thrown back, and Khatun Bengul leaned in. ‘My poor Englishman,’ she said. She extended him a slim hand, and he took it, and to his immense mortification, he couldn’t rise out of the box. His feet and lower legs were pinned under him, and there was no feeling in them at all.

‘You must come,’ she said.

He raised himself on his arms, and she pulled on his legs until they came free. He couldn’t feel them at all – it was the oddest, and in some ways the most terrifying, feeling. He couldn’t stand. She couldn’t carry him.

‘You must do better! If my father finds you here, he will have to kill you.’

Swan looked at her for a moment. ‘My lady,’ he said in Arabic, ‘you brought me here.’

She looked at him and wrinkled her nose. ‘So?’

‘I was in no – ahem – danger. Where I was.’ His Arabic wasn’t well suited to the situation. He didn’t know any words to convey anything salacious.

‘Auntie intended to fuck you and then sell you to the Armenians,’ Khatun Bengul said, matter-of-factly, in prim Italian. ‘I assumed you would prefer to remain free and alive.’ She smiled, utterly desirable. ‘Perhaps Auntie’s body is worth your life?’

His legs were beginning to tingle.

‘I can’t move until I get feeling back in my legs,’ he said.

‘Ah!’ she said. She looked him over. ‘Are you always so . . . solid?’ she asked with a giggle.

‘I’ve been drugged,’ he said. He was finding it difficult to sound dashing, romantic, or even clever.

‘I wonder what she gave you?’ Khatun Bengul said. ‘She must have been very . . . exciting.’

His feet were tingling, and his upper legs were hurting. A great deal.

He gritted his teeth. ‘You are far more beautiful than your auntie,’ he said. Time to take the offensive.

‘Bah – you just say that. You would have rutted with her like a dog. Why did I even save you?’ she said. She leaned over him. ‘Are you going to be sick?’

He shook his head. ‘Have you ever gone to sleep on your arm?’

She laughed. ‘I see. So you are in pain.’

‘Yes,’ he said, somewhat tartly.

‘I wish I might discover what drug my auntie used,’ she said. Indeed, his tumescence hadn’t reduced – not from pain, nor time. She sat next to him on the edge of the trunk. ‘How much longer, do you think? Before you can walk?’

He could barely speak. ‘Soon,’ he said, in Arabic.

‘Does it hurt very much?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he admitted.

She leaned over and brushed her lips against his.

It was remarkable how instantly his concern for his legs and the pain there receded.

Her left hand went around his neck and stroked down – shoulder blade, spine – one nail just scratching along the lines and troughs of his muscles.

Her tongue brushed his.

Her right hand . . .

Voices in the courtyard. She stood up and pulled him to his feet. Flowers of pain blossomed at his ankles and ran down – and up – and he stumbled and fell, despite her grip on him.

But he got a foot under himself. Pushed to his feet.

Grabbed her, pulled her to him, and kissed her. He put his right hand on her left breast, through her robe felt the nipple, and she moaned.

‘Khatun Bengul?’ called a voice in the courtyard. She stiffened.

‘Don’t forget me,’ Swan said. He tried to find something from the Greek poets – something to say – but his brain was on fire with lust and his legs were afire with pain.

‘Khatun Bengul?’ came Omar Reis’s voice.

‘We’re dead,’ Khatun Bengul said. She was clearly shocked to her core. ‘It should be my brother out there.’

‘Window?’ Swan asked.

‘There are no windows in a virgin’s rooms – none that face out.’ She reached for him. ‘We are going to die.’

Swan had the oddest feeling – that this had happened before. Perhaps it had.

Of course, it might be that a doting father would kill only the lover – the foreign lover.

Whose death would nicely suit the political situation, discrediting the embassy.

Christ, I’ve been had at every level. Auntie wasn’t going to sell me to the Armenians. Auntie was going to play the outraged sister and pass me to the Wolf of Thrace.

‘Windows into the yard?’ he asked.

She pointed mutely at the ornate curtained frame visible through her chamber door. It let directly on to the courtyard. He went to it as swiftly as his feet allowed and peered through the curtain. He could see Idris, six feet away, with a sword, and a trio of Turks – hard men with lined faces and curved swords.

‘Khatun Bengul? I’m coming in,’ her father said. ‘My sister is very angry.’

Khatun Bengul was petrified. She wasn’t playacting. She was literally unable to move. ‘I’ll be stoned to death,’ she sobbed. ‘I never thought father would come back. He said . . .’

He looked around. She had her own apartment with her own slaves and servants – six rooms, all of which opened off a single door to the second-floor balconies that lined the arched colonnades of the courtyard. Bedroom, sitting room, clothes room – he was stumbling from room to room, now – slaves, pretending to be asleep, a small workroom with steps going down.

‘That’s the first place they’ll look!’ she cried. ‘The kitchen!’

‘Go and talk to your father,’ he said. He put an arm around her waist and kissed her. ‘We won’t die.’ He let go, and ran down the steps, his unwanted erection bouncing along like an extra limb.

The outer door of the apartment opened. ‘Khatun Bengul!’ roared Omar Reis.

Swan came to the bottom of the steps. There wasn’t even a separate window to the courtyard. He’d have taken his chances with that – but he was in a stone chamber lined with shelves. A pantry.

There were two curtained doorways.

‘If he’s here, he’s a dead man,’ Omar Reis said. ‘Auntie says you have polluted yourself.’

There was something in Omar Reis’s manner – even through his terror, Swan realised that the Turk knew. He knew – everything.

I’ve been had.

Curiously, the knowledge that the Turkish lord had set him up – probably set him up to be caught with the auntie – wheels within wheels – stiffened his spine. He grew calm.

If I get through this alive, I’m going to get that bastard.