The Persian Girl

by Felix Baron

  How he reconciled my clumsiness with my reputation, I’ll never know, but he made his decision. Kashk said something to Lom, who backed off further and rested his hand on the butt of my revolver. With a flourish, Kashk tossed my swordstick to me. I made to snatch it from the air but missed. He waited patiently for me to retrieve it before charging at me with a wild flurry of cuts.

  Somehow, seemingly by a series of fortunate accidents, I avoided both his edge and his point. The ebony shaft of my weapon suffered a few nicks but proved strong enough to deflect his steel. My training almost tricked me into making a counter-riposte but I covered that error by tripping over my own feet.

  He feinted at my wagging cock. I gasped in alarm as I took a backward leap. Lom, having finished one entire dish of blancmange, paused for a gurgling laugh at my expense before turning to the buffet for a second dessert. I watched him from the corner of my eye. Although holding both a dish and a spoon took his hand from my revolver, he made sure to keep twenty feet between me and himself.

  I went into a precipitous retreat, stumbling a full circuit of the chamber. Kashk was having a fine time of it, pursuing me. Lom let me get within fifteen feet that time. After I stubbed a toe on the leg of the divan and had to hop out of Kashk’s way, howling, Lom allowed me within twelve.

  Panting, I lowered my weapon and gave Kashk a pleading look. He wasn’t ready to grant me a rest. He advanced, waving the point of my sabre at me in what he considered a menacing way. I backed up, passing Lom but keeping ten feet from him. Kashk, striding towards me, was also about to pass Lom when I beat the sabre aside and thrust. My blunt brass ferule plunged through his throat. Without a pause, I rounded on Lom. My thumb pressed the release of my stick’s spring-loaded sheath. Instead of ducking or ignoring the missile that was flying towards his face and drawing my Dragoon, he threw both arms up in defence. Belatedly, he tried to snatch them down again. My naked blade’s point pierced his left eye. Not wanting to take any chances, as he was so large a man, I waggled my weapon, scrambling his tiny brain.

  When I turned, Kashk was on the floor, choking up blood. It seemed a shame to cut the horrid little man’s agony short, but I dispatched him swiftly for expediency’s sake.

  A gong sounded.

  Kashk’s keys released my left wrist. His clothes were blood-soaked so I took Lom’s, wrapping his sash around my waist thrice to approximate a fit. The fat man proved to be a treasure trove. My two-shot Derringer had been concealed under his sash. I had no right to his razor but he had no further use for it, so I took it. My Bowie was sheathed beneath his sweaty armpit. I rinsed it with cold coffee and dried it on a red satin cushion.

  For the very first time, I ventured beyond the arch at the far end of the chamber. I discovered ten luxurious cells, a water-closet and a sunken Roman bath that had been emptied, unfortunately. I craved a good soak.

  There was no exit that way.

  I’d just started retracing my way back to my cell when the gong sounded again. The Child’s pet wolves were loose.

  I’d been waiting for that signal. Now that it was after curfew, I’d be unlikely to meet up with any minions. It wasn’t that I’d be reluctant to slay any I encountered. They were enemies of my Queen and so deserved to die, but a clear path would give me a better chance of finding my way out and of executing the crude plan I’d formulated.

  Past my cell, I came to the door I’d managed to glimpse into when the man in black had emerged. It was latched, but only with a simple piece of wood. My second jerk snapped it.

  With naked steel in each hand, I crept down the spiral staircase. It went deeper than I expected, thirty-five steep steps down. Perhaps the fortress only had three levels – the first and lowest down the sloping tunnel I’d seen Honey carried into; the second would be the ‘below the stairs’ entrance and armoury level; and the third was the living quarters.

  The fewer the levels, the easier it would be to find my way out. On the other hand, the fewer the levels, the greater my chance of bumping into The Child’s lupine pets. My ears strained for the scratch of claws on stone.

  The staircase exited into a passageway that ran both right and left. I tried left and came to a vast kitchen with its oven fires still smouldering. A cupboard yielded a roast leg of lamb. I took it with me, both to gnaw on and with some vague thought of using it to distract the wolves, should I meet them.

  Thus it was that when I did come across them, I was armed with my sabre in one hand and a large piece of meat, instead of a weapon, in the other.

  Neither beast snarled nor barked. In deadly silence, they charged. The male, in the lead, leaped at me. I met it with a lunge, wrist high, point low. My sabre passed between its slavering jaws and exited through its belly. The animal’s weight and momentum wrenched my weapon from my hand. The bitch was already in the air, paws extended. My two hands snatched out and caught both of its forelegs by its pasterns. Its teeth gnashed together an inch from my nose. I flung my arms out to both sides. There was a rather unpleasant sucking sound as the bitch’s shoulders dislocated. Canines aren’t built to spread their forelegs.

  Pressing my advantage, I forced the animal’s own bones inward, to pierce its brisket. The damned beast dropped atop my roast, where it’d fallen from my hand. So much for my snack!

  I recovered my sabre. I am not a superstitious man but I severed both wolves’ heads with my silver-inlaid blade. My sabre was sticky with gore. I wiped it on the male beast’s decapitated corpse. It’d need cleaning again before I sheathed it, for all I’d achieved with my wipe was to cover it in wolf hairs.

  There were a few wrong turns for me to make before my nose caught the acrid odour of gunpowder. I crouched and crept towards the smell. The broad high tunnel was dark but I have good night vision. Its far end showed a faintly paler shade of black. My nose told me when I passed the powder magazine. My ears caught a snuffling that told me that there was at least one mule tethered close by. By then, the opening was distinctly grey. Two short figures showed in silhouette. When I got closer, they resolved into a pair of guards, seated companionably on the edge of the cliff, feet dangling, their pikes set aside. They were smoking pipes that were doubtless forbidden and had a tobacco pouch and an oilskin envelope of Lucifers on the ground between them.

  I set my sabre down carefully. With my swordstick’s blade in my right hand and my Bowie knife in my left, I padded forward. It was convenient that they sat so close together. Both of my hands struck at once. There is a pad of muscle at the base of a man’s skull that if pierced vigorously and at an upwards angle, kills him so swiftly that he has no time to cry out.

  My victims tumbled into the abyss. To my regret, they took their pipes with them, but they left their tobacco behind. I had the weed but no means to smoke it. My vice aside, their Lucifers were more valuable booty.

  I used them to light a lamp, keeping the wick short so that it wouldn’t shine too brightly. By its dim light, I led the mule I’d passed earlier towards the entrance, tethered it to the cannon and hitched it to a cart, ready. Three trips with my arms full conveyed enough hay into the cart to keep the beast fed for a day or two.

  Back at the gunpowder magazine, I found a pair of felt slippers and was shod for the first time in months. My nails teased some long threads from Lom’s sash. I tied one end around a bag of powder that I set against the wall. Being sure to keep it a few inches above the stone floor, I stretched the line right across the tunnel and into the magazine. Three more bags of powder served to hold my cocked Derringer firmly. It was aimed at the closest hogshead. A scattering of hay concealed my trip thread. I tied a running noose about my pistol’s twin triggers and hoped that no one stumbled over it before Honey and I had escaped.

  The side tunnel curved down and debouched upon a lamp-lit set of luxurious cells, similar to the ones my girls had been kept in. An old man sitting on a three-legged stool kept guard with a flintlock musket by his side. As he was facing his cells, he was easy to creep up on and dispatch.

&n
bsp; I opened Honey’s cell and shook her awake.

  ‘Shh! It’s me, Richard,’ I hissed. ‘I’m rescuing you. Get up!’

  ‘I don’t want to be rescued.’

  ‘She’s going to give you to a company of Cossacks, to be their toy.’

  ‘I know.’ She took a deep breath and opened her mouth.

  I had no choice but to punch her silly head.

  The silk rug that her cell had been furnished with was magnificent. It had to have taken a family three generations, perhaps four, to hand-knot. I rolled Honey up in it and slung her over my shoulder. Running as fast as I could, I raced to my cart, threw Honey in the back and led my mule out into the night.

  A full moon was rising behind the fortress. My hackles rose at the ill-portent but I blessed the light it shone on the narrow bridge. My instinct was to race across but the surface was cracked and pitted. One good jolt could skew our path. If a wheel ran over the edge, I doubted I’d be able to drag it back.

  I contented myself with a walking pace and tried not to hold my breath. We’d just achieved the secure footing of the far side when the faint sounds of distant shouting reached me. I leaped up into the seat and slapped the reins, urging my beast onward.

  Fifty feet into the ravine, it stopped dead in its tracks.

  I looked back. There were lights moving within the tunnel. I slapped the reins on the mule’s back again. It still ignored me. There was nothing for it but to jump down and drag on the stubborn beast’s harness. That achieved nothing. The shouts behind me grew louder. In desperation, I put two fingers up one of its nostrils and my thumb up the other. With a good grip on the animal’s septum, I pulled. That worked. Compelled by the agony I was inflicting on its nose, it followed me.

  Walking backwards, I watched the fortress. If my trap failed and someone decided to fire that great cannon before we turned a bend, we were done for. It couldn’t miss the cart, which I needed. Worse, I knew that in the days of yore, flying slivers of wood had killed and maimed more sailors than cannon balls ever had. If the ball hit the cart, it’d become a grenade.

  I saw a flash. The vast maw of the fortress became the crater of an erupting volcano. The ejected cannon turned end-over-end in the air. A great heat hit me and then a noise that was no noise, for it deafened me, lifted me, the mule and the cart a few inches off the ground before dropping us back in place. Staggering to keep my feet under me, I watched in awe as the cannon, falling, smashed clean through the bridge. The enormous tower of rock that housed The Child and her cohorts lurched like an arthritic and ancient priest kneeling for vespers. Slowly, shedding boulders the size of houses, it settled down and sank into the vast chasm.

  The mule never balked again. Perhaps it credited me with saving its life. More likely, I’d intimidated it. Whichever, I named it Dobbin, after an old nag my parents once owned, and climbed back up into the cart’s seat. A gentle slap of the reins set us moving. Our return trek across half of Asia commenced.

  Epilogue

  Burton dictated very little about his arduous journey West. I suspect that as it involved no more erotic encounters, he considered it not worth the telling. Honey divided her time between trying to escape him and trying to seduce him. As a result, she spent much of the journey wrapped in the rug.

  The golden sovereigns from his swordstick’s ram’s head bought provisions wherever they were available.

  Dobbin expired a dozen miles from the western edge of the Taklaman Desert. Burton carved off a hind leg to sustain himself and Honey, though she preferred to go hungry than to eat raw mule meat. He took Dobbin’s place between the cart’s shafts. I can’t imagine the determination it took to drag that weight for two long days, one of them through burning sand, while wearing forty-odd pounds of gold.

  On the third day he was attacked by three mounted bandits and thus acquired two horses. The third animal ran off before he could secure it.

  He avoided Baghdad, taking a circuitous route out of caution. Before entering Kurdistan, he painted the sign of the peak and three wavy lines on the side of his cart and thus passed unmolested.

  Benim welcomed Richard with open arms. Datis, Honey’s father, greeted him with screamed accusations of having debauched his daughter and attacked him with a knife. Burton’s defensive punch broke the man’s puny neck, putting paid to the promised talent of gold. Benim took Honey into his household and hustled Burton out of Turkey with all dispatch. A week later, he was in the arms of his beloved Isabel, who insisted he delay having his golden restraints removed for at least a fortnight.

  When they were, the gold proved to be only fourteen carat, but forty-two pounds three ounces still realised a tidy sum. Most of the proceeds were spent on chemists’ attempts to duplicate The Child’s formula. I regret to report that they failed.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9780753518885

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  This book is a work of fiction.

  In real life, make sure you practise safe, sane and consensual sex.

  Published by Nexus 2008

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  Copyright © Felix Baron 2008

  Felix Baron has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  First published in Great Britain in 2008 by

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 0 3523 4501 1