He handed her the cup and sat beside her again while she sipped from it. When it was finished, she set it down and lay back.
“Have you really lain with as many men as they say?” she asked drowsily, after a little while.
Raoul started. What was Forida Mufiz supposed to be?
“I’m sure they exaggerate,” he said cautiously. “What do they say?”
“That you’re the greatest courtesan in the east and that there’s no way of pleasing a man that you don’t know. That was what Rebecca told me this morning when they let her in to see me.”
“Is Rebecca your friend?”
“Sometimes. But sometimes she’s cross. Why?”
“Do you think perhaps she was trying to scare you? What did you say to her when she told you that?”
“That I wouldn’t listen. That I’d sooner die!”
“What did she do then?”
“She laughed and went away. Oh! I see what you mean! Was she just making it up, to upset me? She said you were fat and old as well – and you’re not, are you?”
Raoul chuckled.
“No, I’m not. And whatever Rebecca said, I’m just here to comfort you and help you.”
She lay back quietly for a while.
“Why did they tell me that you couldn’t be found?” she asked suddenly.
“I don’t know. To persuade you to return here more willingly perhaps?”
“Yes, that would be it. I told Khaliq that I wouldn’t stay here with you; that it was an insult to my purity.”
“And is it?”
“No, I’m sorry I said that now. You’re very kind.”
“People are not always quite as bad as they seem at first, Aysha, you know.”
She yawned and stretched herself out more comfortably.
“What will the end of my story be, Forida?”
As she gazed up at him with her big sad eyes, Raoul felt a wave of tenderness for this naive, lovely girl, and also the first stirrings of desire.
“I don’t know, sweetheart. Who can tell?”
He had a feeling that she might become a devoted wife if Khaliq handled her carefully enough.
“I won’t let him do those things to me. You can’t persuade me to,” she said, almost echoing his thought.
“I promise you, I won’t even try. You should try to sleep now, Aysha, it’s late.”
Raoul climbed off the bed, and began to blow out the lamps.
“Help me, please.”
She clambered down and stood patiently, like a doll, while he unfastened and removed her tunic, short spangled top and diaphanous pantaloons. Once she was naked, he had to unbraid and brush out her long hair. It was like black silk, like Kamala’s, and reached right down to the pale swell of her buttocks. By the time he had finished, his hands were shaking and he was trying desperately to think of other things, mundane, boring, uninteresting things. He turned away and returned the brush to one of the cupboards, fussing with its contents while he tried to regain control over his too responsive body.
“Forida, would you like to sleep here, beside me?” the girl called from across the room. “It’s a very big bed.”
She was stretched out beneath the thin satin sheet, her dark hair spread out over the pillows, her arms raised above her head. Every contour of her slender body could be seen in the flickering light of the remaining lamps.
Raoul swallowed and walked quickly towards the curtained arch which led into the closet.
“You will be more comfortable alone, lady,” he muttered, trying still to sound like Forida.
“Please, please, Forida!” She rolled over and gazed beseechingly up at him as he paused in the doorway. “I’ll be so lonely.”
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Raoul said abruptly, plunging through the curtain into the dark room beyond. “Goodnight!”
“Goodnight! Sweet dreams!”
Raoul sank down onto the bed with a groan.
Very early the next morning he was awoken by the black cat jumping onto his chest and miaowing loudly. Out in the garden was a deafening chorus of birdsong and in the distance the sound of muezzin summoning Damascenes to the first of the day’s prayers. Raoul pushed the cat off and sat up, remembering what had happened with something close to disbelief.
What should he do? Should he go to her, now, and explain who he really was and ask for her help? Instinct told him that it would be a grave mistake. She had only just begun to trust him. How could he demolish, so soon, the little faith she had? If he was careful, perhaps she need never know. They might bring the real Forida and then, perhaps, he could get away. And presumably someone would bring food. He must do nothing hasty but his first priority, if he was to keep up the pretence, must be to shave.
The only light in the closet came through a little grille, set high up in the wall and there was no mirror. He parted the curtain and peered cautiously into the outer room. Aysha was still fast asleep, curled up with her hand under her cheek. As he paused, looking down at her, the cat sprang up onto the bed. Hastily, Raoul scooped it up and flung it out through the doorway; it scuttled away into the shadows, mightily offended. Silently, Raoul offered it his apologies and promised to make amends later.
Back in the bedchamber, Aysha still hadn’t moved. He crept through into the bathing room, found soap and a towel then drew out his dagger. As in the bath-houses in Byzantium and Antioch, pulling a lever caused hot water to gush out of a pipe above the tub. Running some into a basin, Raoul wished he dared strip off his clothes and get properly clean. But he could not. He lathered his face and shaved, quickly but carefully, alert for any sound of the girl stirring in the room beyond. There was none.
When he had finished, he combed and tidied the long hair of his wig, making sure it was securely in place. He then tucked his dagger back into its sheath, drew a deep breath and prepared to face the day. His main problem now was that he was ravenously hungry.
“Forida! Where are you?”
“Here, my lady.”
She was sitting up in bed, the sheet loosely wrapped round her. She was frowning when he emerged from the bathing room.
“Have I angered you, my lady?”
“I thought you were my friend. Will you not call me by my name?”
“Gladly, Aysha, but I did not wish to be too familiar.”
“Silly Forida. I hope we will always be friends.”
“So do I, Aysha, so do I,” said Raoul and sincerely meant it. “Aysha, will someone bring food? I’m sure you must be hungry.”
“I told my husband that I would not eat but I expect there will be food if you want it. They will have brought it to the gate.”
“May I fetch it?”
“Of course.”
Trying to stop himself from actually running, Raoul left the pavilion. A laden tray was placed just inside the single, smaller gate. What he had not noticed previously was that the bottom part of it could be opened separately, allowing a tray to be slipped through without the rest of it opening at all. The bottom section was far too small for Raoul to get through, though he resolved to watch when they next came to see exactly what was done. Could he use Aysha as a hostage and force them to unlock the gate? Reluctant even to consider it, he picked up the tray and turned away.
Consciously trying to behave in a lady-like way, with Aysha’s permission he seated himself on the bed, the only place to sit in the main chamber, and began to eat.
“You seem hungry, Forida,” Aysha observed.
“I am. And these little cakes are very tasty. Won’t you try one?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever known poverty,” Raoul remarked after a while. Having eaten two cakes, some sweetmeats and a piece of fruit, he picked up a dish of creamy yoghurt sprinkled with almonds and took a spoonful. From the way Aysha was watching him, he guessed she was as hungry as he had been – but wouldn’t admit it.
“No, of course not,” she said. “My father is very rich. I have alwa
ys had anything I wanted.”
“When I lived with my grandmother I was rich too. But I ran away and lived with poor people. There I learned to appreciate good things if ever I had the chance to – and it wasn’t very often. I was usually cold and hungry.”
“What did it feel like?”
Raoul set the spoon down.
“It hurts, Aysha, like a wolf gnawing at your guts. You can’t sleep; you can hardly walk; you dream of spicy cakes and fresh baked bread and then you wake up to water and thin gruel.”
She was silent for a moment, gazing at the still laden tray.
“Are you going to eat any more of that yoghurt?” she said suddenly. “Could I just have a little taste?” He passed the dish and the spoon to her. “I mean, they’re going to think I’m eating anyway if you’re having it – so it doesn’t make any difference, does it?”
“No difference at all.”
“And I don’t want you to be hungry, Forida, do I?”
“I hope not.”
He got up and began to fold her discarded garments, hiding a smile. By the time he had finished, she had eaten almost everything that was left on the tray. Only a few sugared almonds remained.
“That does feel better, I must say,” she said, throwing back the sheet and stepping naked to the floor. “Come with me now, Forida. I want you to help me bathe. It’s so difficult to manage on your own.”
Anticipating a worse ordeal than that of the previous night, Raoul hesitated, desperately trying to think of some excuse for refusing.
“What are you waiting for?” she demanded. “I thought you wanted to help me.”
“Yes, Aysha,” Raoul said, forcing himself to smile, “of course I do.”
Chapter Twenty Five
In the bathing-room Raoul busied himself with filling the tub and selecting a perfumed oil to pour into the steaming water. When the temperature was right and Aysha had stepped in, he hurried out through the curtain into the room beyond, apparently on some urgent errand. He went to the doorway and sat down on the cool marble floor, congratulating himself on having escaped. But his relief was short-lived. Soon he heard her calling plaintively to Forida. Should he simply walk away, pretend he hadn’t heard? No, it would be useless. She would only come looking for him and he had already ascertained that there was nowhere in the garden to hide. With a sigh, he got up and went to find out what she wanted.
She was lying on the marble slab, her face pillowed on her folded arms, her long hair coiled on the nape of her neck.
“Use the oil perfumed with lavender, please,” she said. “It’s in the blue and silver bottle.”
Without replying, Raoul picked it up, poured a little onto her back and began to smooth the skin gently with his hands. He thought of the techniques used by the masseurs in the Miah family’s bath-house. At times it had almost been painful, he recalled, as they had used their considerable strength to knead and pummel his muscles. But perhaps ladies were treated differently. As he worked the oil down the length of her body, he tried to keep his mind neutral, trying to remember the content of philosophical tracts he had read in Antioch with Shahin, the curlicues and complexities of Arabic script, anything to distract himself from the slender limbs and satin-smooth caramel-coloured skin beneath his palms.
“Do it harder, please,” she said softly after a while.
He pressed down more firmly.
“Mmm, that feels so good.”
Raoul’s good intentions were instantly shattered. How could you think intellectually with a beautiful girl lying naked in front of you like this? He stopped abruptly and she rolled over, eyes tightly shut but with a sensuous smile on her face.
“Now the front,” she said, stretching languorously.
He picked up the oil then hesitated, for a moment allowing himself to gaze down at her: small, firm breasts, their dark nipples erect, flat stomach, narrow hips, her pubic region, as with all Islamic girls, hairless as a child’s. She raised one knee, slightly parting her legs, and wriggled, impatient for the massage to continue. It was too much. He set down the bottle with a crash.
“They should have provided you with proper servants,” he said angrily, with difficulty retaining something close to Forida’s tones.
Aysha’s eyes flew open in surprise.
“I am a famous courtesan, not a slave. If you want to be rubbed with oils, do it yourself!”
Without waiting for her to reply, he left the room and stormed out of the pavilion into the bright, sunlit garden. Careless of the wig, he stuck his head under the spray of cold clear water falling from the fountain. But this gave him only a brief respite – with an unpleasant shock he realised that the spray was pouring from a jug held by a beautiful naked girl. Her shape was plumper than Aysha’s, and made of cold white marble rather than living flesh, but the sight of it did nothing to help him.
He turned abruptly away and flung himself down in a patch of shade behind the pavilion.
Some considerable time later Aysha came to find him. When he heard her calling he sat up and tidied his clothing, wondering in what way he should now speak to her. It didn’t sound as if she were offended.
“There you are,” she said, rounding the corner with a cheerful smile. “See, I have brought the food for us.”
She set a tray down beside him and sat cross-legged on the ground next to it. She was dressed in filmy pantaloons and an embroidered top which covered her breasts but left her midriff bare.
“Thank you,” Raoul said quietly, accepting the bowl of food that she passed to him. “Aysha, I am sorry I was angry. It’s just...”
“I understand. And of course you are right. I was acting as if you were my servant and that was unfair.” She helped herself from several aromatic dishes and began to eat hungrily. When her bowl was almost empty she looked up and smiled.
“Tomorrow I shall make amends,” she said decisively, “I shall be your bath-attendant.”
“That’s not necessary, Aysha, really.”
“But I insist: it will give me pleasure.”
“No, really, it isn’t possible.”
“Why not?” Her eyes narrowed.
To his relief, an explanation suddenly occurred to him.
“I have made a vow,” he said. “I shall not bathe or change my clothes until the next new moon and then Allah will forgive me for my sins. As you rightly said yesterday, my life has been unchaste. Your purity has set me an example: I shall mortify my body for the good of my soul.”
Did Muslims do that? Raoul wondered. He knew pious Christians did – but Christians hardly ever washed anyway.
Aysha was gripping her hands together in delight.
“Oh, I am so glad that I have helped you see how wicked you were. But,” she wrinkled her nose, “you are not going to smell very nice, are you? It’s days and days until the new moon!”
“That cannot be helped.”
“I don’t think I shall offer to share my bed with you again,” she said with a giggle.
“No. It might be better if I stayed away from you.”
“But not too far away! Dear Forida...” She sprang up and came over to Raoul, put her arms round him and kissed his cheek. “You must stay close to your friend.”
“Of course I will, Aysha,” he muttered, his nostrils filled with the scent of her.
“Oh, Forida, you’ve got a scar across your cheek. I hadn’t noticed it before.” She traced it with her finger-tip. “How did you get it?”
To his relief, she went and sat down again, selecting an apricot from the platter of fruit on the tray.
“It’s rather a long story.”
“I’m sure it was some wicked man who wanted to harm you.”
“It was indeed.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t think it would be quite proper for me to tell you.”
“Please, Forida, I’m sure...” She broke off suddenly, her attention distracted. “Oh look, here’s the little cat! Mimi! Come here!”
&n
bsp; “Should the empty dishes be taken somewhere?” Raoul stood up and put them back on the gilded tray.
The black cat was sitting down beside Aysha, ecstatically submitting to her caresses, its amber eyes half-closed. Raoul could imagine how it felt.
“Yes, just put them beside the gate. I put back the other things, and my soiled clothes.” Her slightly petulant tone told Raoul that she really didn’t consider it to be her place to do this.
“How often do they bring food for us?”
“Three times: at dawn, mid-day and at sunset. Yes, Mimi, that’s nice, isn’t it?” The cat was purring loudly. “Your fur is so soft and silky! Have you been chasing those silly birds again, naughty one?”
“Did they bring food last night?”
“I don’t know. I told them not to. But I said I wouldn’t eat again ever and they brought food today so perhaps they did.”
“Who brings it?”
“I’ve no idea! Slaves, I suppose. I don’t really care.”
“Who were the men who brought you here?”
“They weren’t men, silly,” she giggled, “they were eunuchs. If you’d seen them you’d have known. They’re all enormous and have breasts like women but they’re terribly strong. Imraz opened the gates, of course, as he’s the chief one, and there are two others as well: brothers called Ashvaq and Sadek, they’re Persian slaves.”
“Do they bring the food?”
“For the love of Heaven, Forida, what are you asking this for? I really don’t care about any of it. No-one is going to come in and speak to us. You know that. It’s to be just you and me, alone, for forty days and forty nights – well, thirty nine now.”
“If you wished to ask for forgiveness from your husband, what would you need to do?”
“What are you saying?”
Suddenly suspicious, she pushed the cat away and got to her feet.
“I’m not asking you to do it; I’m just saying if you wanted to, how would you let him know?”
“I will never...”
“HOW, Aysha? That’s all, just tell me how.”
“I would leave a white flower on the tray as a token of my submission and then they would take me to him.”
“Very poetic.”
The Rightful Heir Page 40