The Sultan's Daughter

by Dennis Wheatley

  For a time he lay where they had thrown him, drenched in sweat and half comatose, his head throbbing as though about to burst. Gradually his greater torments took first place in his consciousness. His feet caused him such pain that had he had a hatchet he would have been tempted to hack them off; his testicles, too, throbbed violently. With an effort, he sat up and endeavoured to untie the string which bit into the flesh at their base; but it was thin and waxed, so he found it impossible to unpick the knot.

  Knowing little about castration, he had always supposed that the operation was performed with a knife; but he now thought that that could only be in the case of young boys, such as those the Pope annually ordered to be castrated so that they could continue to sing in the choir of the Vatican. From what Zanthé had said it seemed probable that the Turkish method with fully grown men was to restrict the flow of blood, tightening the string a little each day until the testicles became partially atrophied, and could then be cut off without the risk that the victim would die from loss of blood.

  For what seemed an age he lay there, slowly turning his tortured body from side to side and groaning as the tears seeped out of the corners of his eyes. Then the door opened. Raising his head a little he recognised the old negress. In one hand she held an oil-lamp and in the other a large basket. Setting them down, she pulled open his coat and had a good look at him. Producing a small pair of clippers she cut the string confining his testicles, bringing him swift relief in that quarter. From her basket she then took a pot of salve, with which she anointed the soles of his feet and his lacerated wrist. Having bandaged them, she went to her basket again, took from it a bowl of warm, highly spiced soup and lifted his head while he gratefully drank it down. As she let his head fall back he muttered his thanks but she made no reply and, having collected her basket, left the room.

  With his pains considerably lessened, he lay still for some moments and soon became drowsy. The sensation told him that the soup must have contained opium or some other Eastern drug and before he could consider the matter further he fell asleep.

  When he woke it was past midday. He felt terribly stiff and his feet still pained him badly; but on a small chest beneath the window he saw that food and drink had been left for him, and he now felt hungry. He swung his legs off the divan and gingerly tried his weight on them. He could not have walked any distance but, advancing on tiptoe, he reached the chest and sat down on a stool within reach of it.

  The food consisted of some pieces of cold meat on a skewer, a dish of sweet cakes and fruit. A jug contained a mixture of orange and lemon juice that went down like nectar. As he ate he peered out of the arrow-slit window. Only a small section of the bay was visible through it and the wall it pierced was as thick as his arm was long; so he had to give up any idea of trying to attract the attention of one of the ships in the bay. When he had finished his meal he made his way unsteadily back to the divan and lay down, to be racked again by unnerving thoughts.

  From the treatment he was now receiving he could only suppose that Zanthé, with a typically Eastern refinement of cruelty, was fattening him for the kill, or at least enabling him to recruit his strength so that he might the better support further torment. If, too, his new theory about methods of castration was right, the string had been removed from his testicles only temporarily. It now seemed probable that to apply it only for a few hours each day would, in due course, have sufficient effect to make the final operation possible without danger. Grimly, he forced himself to accept that he must soon expect a visit from the eunuchs; but the afternoon wore on into evening, and they did not come.

  As twilight deepened he fell into a doze, but started wide awake filled with apprehension when, an hour or two later, he heard footsteps outside the door. To his relief it proved to be the old negress. In her basket she had brought him up another meal. Setting it on the chest, she examined his feet and wrist, put more of the healing ointment on them and re-bandaged them. Noticing that the chamber-pot which stood in a corner had not been emptied, she picked it up and deftly pitched its contents out through the arrow-slit window.

  This time he was able to thank her more coherently for her ministrations, but she again remained silent. When he asked her name she grinned at him, opened her mouth wide and held up the lamp so that he could see into it. To his horror she had no tongue. It had evidently been torn out at the roots, to make her a mute and ensure that she did not disclose any secrets she might learn while in the seraglio.

  Roger spent a better night and the day that followed differed from its predecessor only in that he was awake when the negress brought him his morning meal. With it she brought a basin of water for him to wash. From then on for a fortnight his days and nights kept the same pattern. His many bruises disappeared, the soles of his feet healed and his wrenched wrist returned to normal. He had nothing to read and no means whatever of employing himself; so he could spend his waking hours only in an endless series of speculations.

  Having considered the possibilities of an attempt to escape, he had soon concluded that it would prove hopeless. The window was so narrow that he doubted if he would have been able to force his body through it and, even if he could, he could not have made from the material available in the room a rope anywhere near long enough to reach the ground. As his money-belt had been taken from him he could not bribe the old negress to help him, even if she had proved bribable. After the way in which she had tended him he could have brought himself to stun her only if his life had depended on it and, even if he had ruthlessly overcome her, his chances of escaping from the citadel and out of the city would have been infinitesimal.

  His only means of judging the progress of the siege were from the sounds that reached him. On the fourth day of his confinement he heard gunfire and as it did not, as far as he could tell, come from the ships in the bay, he judged that Bonaparte had begun to bombard the city with such light field artillery as he had been able to bring overland with him. Next day he caught a rumbling sound, as though a small earthquake were taking place. It lasted for two or three minutes, and he guessed that one of the great towers must have collapsed. That would have meant a breach in the walls, enabling the French infantry to launch an assault. The thought raised his spirits considerably for, much as he would have wished the Anglo-Turkish force to succeed in holding Acre, his life or, hardly less precious, his virility was at stake and his only hope of saving one or the other lay in the French capturing the city and rescuing him.

  During the week that followed it was obvious that they were doing their utmost to capture Acre, for Sir Sidney’s Squadron and, close inshore, the gunboats he had captured were almost constantly in action. Then, towards the end of the month, the firing died down, from which Roger judged that the assaults had all been repelled by Phélippeaux’s cannon on the walls and the enfilading fire from the ships. So Bonaparte had failed in his attempt to take the city by storm and had been reduced to approaching the walls by a system of trenches, from which mines could be laid beneath the fortifications.

  Such an operation would take weeks, so Roger’s hopes for himself sank again. By then he had recovered physically, but at times was harassed by black periods of depression and fear. He could only suppose that, as no further steps had been taken towards his castration, Zanthé was playing a cat-and-mouse game. He dare not hope that she had either forgotten or pardoned him and, if his reprieve could be explained by her having fallen ill, that could only mean a postponement of his martyrdom.

  It was on April 3rd, about midnight, that he was roused from a deep sleep. He had not heard the door being unlocked and opened his eyes to find a figure bending over him. The starlight coming through the arrow-slit was just sufficient for him to make out that his visitor was clad in flowing robes, but he could not tell if they were worn by a man or a woman. His heart began to hammer wildly, for his first waking thought was that Zanthé had sent one of her people either to murder him or fetch him to be further tortured in front of her.

  Suddenly
the figure flung a pair of arms across his chest and fell in a kneeling posture beside his divan. There came a loud sob, then a heart-rending cry.

  ‘Oh, monsieur! Can you ever forgive me for what I have done to you?’

  ‘Zanthé!’ he exclaimed and, struggling up, instinctively put his arms about her bowed shoulders.

  ‘There was no other way,’ she sobbed, ‘no other way. Having saved you from Djezzar, what else could I do? Had I not had you treated as I did, the eunuchs would have betrayed me and you would have been taken away to your death. I could justify keeping you here only because I said that you had insulted me and I wished to be revenged upon you. Oh, my poor love! How you must have suffered! And I, forced to order all that was done to you, then be a witness to it.’

  For a moment this extraordinary revelation, that she had saved him from impalement not out of hate but out of love, left Roger tongue-tied. That she had then been compelled to carry through the role she had adopted needed no further explaining. Finding his voice, he murmured:

  ‘Think no more of it. Cease your tears, I beg. I owe my life to you and you love me. That is all that matters.’ Then with one hand he started to stroke her hair and added, ‘But … but when did you find that you loved me?’

  Her sobs ceased and she began to speak in a breathless voice. ‘Love begets love. That first night, I could not help but be drawn to you. Your looks, those fine shoulders and slim hips. They would attract any woman with warm blood in her veins. That … that was why, in the end, I gave myself so fully. How could I not? But that is not love. I counted you no better than any other soldier who had not lain with a woman for months, and would have taken any little slave-girl just as fiercely. And you, an uncircumcised Christian, had robbed me, a Princess of the Imperial Line, of my virginity! I saw it as my people would—a crime unthinkable. My passion spent, I hated you for it and determined to escape. As you must know, while you were away in Alexandria the merchant ben-Jussif, who owned the house, and his sons rescued me. I sought asylum with the Viceroy’s ladies. Then, during the October rebellion, you broke into the seraglio. By then I thought you would at least have found out that I was the widow of the Commander of the Cairo garrison and a woman of high rank. But you claimed me as your slave. Can you wonder at my resentment?’

  ‘I cannot now,’ Roger said gently. ‘But what then?’

  She stifled a sob and went on, ‘Being carried off by you again re-aroused my passions. I could not stop thinking of that night in ben-Jussif’s house. I wanted you to take me again, to possess me utterly. But I would not show it. I am by nature proud. The very thought that I should wish to give myself to a man who wanted me as nothing more than a concubine degraded me in my own eyes. After what had passed between us I would have died of humiliation had I been weak enough to give you the least sign of encouragement. But there came the morning of your return. You were placed under arrest by that Colonel Duroc. Before you left the house you said to me that, whatever your punishment, you would do the same again for an hour in my company. I knew then that it could not be only as a plaything that you thought of me. It came as a revelation that you must really love me. I felt a dizziness, and my heart melted within me.’

  ‘Had I but known, nothing would have induced me to leave Egypt.’

  Zanthé raised her head and said in surprise, ‘I did not know you had. Have you been far?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. General Bonaparte sent me on a mission. It necessitated a long voyage. It was soon after landing, on the night of my return, that Djezzar’s men captured me.’

  Again she lowered her head and began to sob. ‘And then … and then I saw you there in the courtyard. You were in different clothes, your hair disordered and in a terrible state. I did not recognise you until you spoke. Oh, Allah be praised that you cried out to Djezzar when you did. Had you not, you would have been impaled before my eyes. My heart came up into my mouth. I nearly fainted …’

  ‘But, brave girl that you, are, you didn’t. You kept your head and saved me.’

  ‘I know; but at what a price.’

  ‘I pray you, forget that. It is all over now. At least …’ Roger added, with sudden uneasiness, ‘I hope so’.

  ‘Yes; yes. You have nothing more to fear. That is, provided it is not discovered that you have not been made a eunuch.’

  ‘Am I then supposed to have been?’

  ‘Of course; otherwise I could not have kept you in my private apartments. The horrid business is supposed to have taken a week. By then that string they tied about you would have done its work, had not my faithful Gezubb come up here and cut it off. A further week would be needed for your recovery; so it is expected that tomorrow you will come down and take up the duties I shall give you.’ Again her tears began to flow as she added, ‘It is I who should be your slave, not you mine. And to begin with, I shall have to treat you harshly. For that I implore you not to hate me. I …’

  Putting his hand gently over her mouth he checked her lamentations and said, ‘Hush! I could never hate you. Use me as you will. Allot me the meanest tasks. The worse you treat me, the less likely it is that anyone will suspect the truth. A smile from your lovely eyes when no one is looking is all the compensation I ask.’

  Her tears had ceased and suddenly she gave a low laugh. ‘I can come to you secretly at night, like this, and only old Gezubb will know of it. Then you can ask of me smiles, kisses, caresses and every pleasure imaginable. Tell me, my beloved one, are you now well again and all your poor wounds fully healed?’

  He laughed in reply. ‘I have never felt better, as I will show you if you wish.’

  ‘If I wish!’ she echoed. ‘How can you know the restraint I have put upon myself this past fortnight? For me to have come to you while you were still in pain could only have proved a terrible frustration for us both. At least for both had I found you willing to forgive me. My most awful fear was that you might not, and had you cast me aside I think I would have killed myself. But in my more sanguine moments I imagined myself again lying in your arms. Night after night my heart has beat near to bursting-point at the thought of it. Allah alone knows the strength of my passion for you; and now … now that I can feel your hands upon me I have become a furnace of desire.’

  Next moment their mouths met in a long, fierce kiss. Breathless, they drew apart and she stood up. With a swift movement she threw off her robe. Beneath it she had on only a voluminous pair of almost transparent Turkish trousers. Undoing her girdle she slid them down, stepped out of them and kicked off her sandals. While they had been talking the moon had risen and a beam of moonlight coming through the arrow-slit silvered her magnificent body as she stood beside him, naked. The light flickered in tiny blue sparks in the valley between her breasts and Roger exclaimed:

  ‘Why, you are wearing the little diamond I procured for you.’

  ‘Of course,’ she laughed. ‘It is my most treasured possession and I shall always wear it.’

  He threw back the coverlet of the divan and pulled his shirt off over his head. As he did so she moved round to the foot of the divan, fell to her knees, took both his feet in her hands and began to kiss them.

  Striving to pull them away, he cried, ‘No, no, beloved, you must not do that. Come here this instant and let me take you in my arms’.

  ‘Nay,’ her low laugh came again. ‘This is my rightful place. Did you not know that, when the Sultan sends for one of his women, they greet him by kissing his feet then, humbly conscious of the honour he does them, steal gently up upon him until they can kiss his chest? And you are my Sultan.’

  ‘I am also your slave,’ he laughed back. ‘Enough of that.’ Then, sitting up, he stretched out his hands and drew her swiftly to him.

  Later, lying side by side and still embraced, they talked in whispers. As he had supposed, her husband, like many Turks, had cared only for young boys. He had married her solely for the prestige that an alliance with the Imperial House would bring him and had had two other wives, but never slept with eit
her of them. Instead he made his wives flog the boys with rods and birches and it was the performance of this cruel task that had made her hate him.

  She had made up the story of her flight from Cairo. The truth was that, after the news of her husband’s death had arrived, the guard of Janissaries left at her palace had deserted. Fearing that the palace would be attacked by the mob, she had decided to seek safety with the Viceroy and had urged the other two wives to accompany her. But they had been too frightened to face the streets without a proper guard. So she had set off on her own, accompanied only by her maid and one faithful man-servant; on their way they had had the misfortune to be seized by the Sergeant.

  She then told Roger that her mother had been a Mademoiselle Aimée Dubucq de Rivery, born in Martinique. In 1780 she had been sent to finish her education in France with the Dames de la Visitation in their Convent at Nantes. After some years there she was on her way home when the ship in which she was travelling nearly sank in a violent storm. The passengers were rescued by a Spanish trader which took them round into the Mediterranean. There the Spanish ship had been captured by Corsairs and everyone in her taken as prisoners to Algiers. When the Bey—Boba Mohammed ben Osman—had heard that among the prisoners there was a beautiful, golden-haired, blue-eyed French girl of noble birth, he had sent for her and at once decided that he would win high favour by sending her as an offering to his overlord, the Sultan.

  On hearing this, Roger exclaimed, ‘But this is amazing! I know your mother’s story. She is a cousin of the Vicomtesse de Beauharnais, who is now Madame Bonaparte, and who was also born in Martinique. She is a friend of mine and told me once how, while still in her teens, she, your mother and a third young girl all -went to an Irish sibyl to have their fortunes told. It was predicted that both Madame Bonaparte and your mother would become the wives of great Sovereigns and that their children would become Kings and Queens.’

  ‘In my mother’s case,’ Zanthé replied, ‘the first part of the prediction came true. In the Sultan’s harem there are always several hundred odalisques, each one picked for her looks; yet my mother was so lovely that they named her Naksh, which means “the beautiful one”, and my father made her his favourite Kadine.’