by Tom Holland
‘And then, of course, I remembered she was not. Slowly, I parted my lips from hers. “Why has the Pasha left us alone?” I asked.
‘Haidée stared up at me, her eyes wide. “Because he hopes that you will deflower me,” she said simply.
‘“Deflower?” - and then, after a pause - “Hoping?”
‘“Yes.” Her brow darkened with sudden bitterness. “I was unlocked tonight, you see.”
‘“From where?”
‘“From nowhere.” Despite herself, Haidée laughed. She crossed her hands chastely in front of her. “Here,” she said. “What lies here - it is my master’s, after all, not mine. His to do with as he pleases.” She raised her hands, then lifted up her skirts - around both her wrists and ankles were delicate rings of steel, not bracelets as I had thought before, but fettering bands. Haidée clasped her hands again. “The chains can be fitted to lock up my thighs.”
‘I paused. “I see.”
‘She stared at me, her wide eyes unblinking, then pulled me tight against her. “Do you, though?” she asked, reaching up to comb the curls of my hair. “I cannot - will not - be a slave, My Lord - and not his slave, no, not his.” She kissed me softly. “Dear Byron - help me - please help me.” Her eyes blazed suddenly, with fury and tortured pride. “I must be free,” she whispered on a single breath. “I must.”
‘“I know.” I held her tight. “I know.”
‘“Do you swear?” I could feel her shaking as she pressed against me. “Do you swear you will help me?” I nodded. Such passion, like a tigress’s, combined with the prettiness of a goddess of love - how could I fail to be stirred? How, indeed? I glanced across at the bed. And yet, as before, the same uneasy prompting in my mind - why had we been left alone? - the Pasha scarcely seemed the man who would take kindly to the bedding of his favourite slave by a guest. And I was high in the mountains, in a strange land, virtually alone.
‘I remembered what Haidée had said before. “The Pasha,” I asked slowly, “he truly hasn’t made love to you?”
‘She looked up at me, and then away. “No, never.” There was distaste in her voice, but also, unmistakably, a sudden hint of fear. “He has never used me for - that.”
‘“Then for what?”
‘She shook her head gently, and closed her eyes.
‘I pulled her round to face me again. “But why, Haidée - I still don’t understand - why has he left you unchained with me?”
‘“You really don’t see?” She looked up at me with sudden doubt in her eyes. “Surely you do? How can a slave have love? - slaves are whores, my Byron. Do you want me to be your whore, my Byron, my sweet Lord Byron, is that what you want me to become?” God, I thought, she’s going to cry, and I almost took her there and then, but no, she had the strength and passion of a mountain storm, and I couldn’t do it. If she’d been some drab, some London bitch, well - I was rake enough already to know that a woman cried generally just to lubricate herself - I would have pressed her. But Haidée - she had the beauty of her land - but she also had more, something of the spirit of old Greece, which I had waited for so long to find, and now, in this slave girl, I held it, rays of that light which had led the Argonauts, and inspired her ancestors at Thermopylae. So beautiful, so wild - a creature of the mountains, restless almost to death in her cage. “Yes,” I whispered in her ear, “you will be free, I promise it.” Then, under my breath: “And I won’t even make love to you until you want me to.”
‘She led me across to a balcony. “So we are agreed, then?” she asked. “We will escape together from this place?”
‘I nodded.
‘Haidée smiled happily, then pointed up at the sky. “We must wait,” she said. “We cannot leave while the moon is full.”
‘I looked at her in surprise. “Whyever not?”
‘“Because it isn’t safe.”
‘“Yes, but why not?”
‘She raised a finger to my lips. “Byron, trust me.” She shivered, despite the heat. “I know what has to be done.” She shivered again, and glanced over her shoulder. I followed her stare, and saw a tower jagged against the moon, a red light glowing from its very top. I crossed to the balcony edge, and saw how the tower rose sheer from the promontory edge. Far below flowed the Aheron, its thick waters unstained by the moon; I peered over my own balcony’s side, and saw that the drop into the chasm below was as sheer as that along the rest of the walls. Haidée held me, and pointed; I looked up again; the red light from the tower had disappeared. “I must go,” she said.
‘At that moment, there was a knock on the door. Haidée fell on her knees to unlace my boots. “Yes,” I called.
‘The door opened, and a creature came in. I say creature, for although the thing had the form of a man, there was no sign of intelligence in its face, and its eyes were more dead than a lunatic’s. Its skin was leathery, covered in tufts of hair; its nose was rotted; its fingernails curved like claws. Then I remembered that I had seen it before, the same creature, slumped at the oars of the Pasha’s boat. It was dressed now as then, in greasy black, and it held a tub of water in its hands.
‘“Water, master,” said Haidée, her head bowed. “For you to wash.”
‘“But where is my own servant?”
‘“He is being taken care of, master.” Haidée turned to the creature, and gestured to him to lower the tub. I saw her stifle a look of horror and disgust. She bent down, to remove my boots, then rose and waited, her head bowed again. “Will that be all, master?” she asked.
‘I nodded. Haidée glanced at the creature; again, the same stifled expression of shock. She crossed the room, and the creature followed, then passed her, shambling onto the stairway outside. Haidée brushed past me. “Visit my father,” she whispered. “Tell him I am alive.” Her finger stroked my hand; then she was gone, and I was left alone.
‘I felt so agitated, and my spirits so confused by desire and doubt, that I was certain I would never sleep. But I must have been more tired from my journey than I had realised, for I only had to lie on my bed that night and I was deep in slumber. No nightmares visited me, not even the breath of a dream; instead, I slept without break, and it was late in the morning when I finally awoke. I crossed to my balcony; far below me, black as before, was the Aheron, but all other colours, the tints of the earth, the hues of the sky, seemed dyed with the beauty of paradise, and I thought how strange it was, in this land formed for the gods, that man should have marred it with such tyranny. I glanced up at the tower, as jagged against the morning sky as it had been against the stars; in this spot at least, I thought, gazing at the beauty of the landscape again, it is as though the fiend has prevailed against the angels, and fixed his throne in a heaven, to rule it as though it were Hell. And yet, I thought - and yet - why did Vakhel Pasha fill me with such dread, that I could call him a demon, and feel it to be more than just an idle word? It was other people’s fear, I thought - the rumours I had heard - his own loneliness and mystery - all these things - the blighted marks of his dark command. Had it not always been claimed, after all, and I known for sure, that the Devil was an aristocrat?
‘I dreaded, and anticipated, having to meet him again. Yet when I descended to the domed room of the night before, there was only the old servant-woman waiting for me. She handed me a note; I opened it. “My dear Lord Byron,” I read, “you must forgive me, but I am unable to join you today. Please accept my profoundest apologies, but I am caught up in business which I cannot drop. The day is yours; I will see you tonight.” The signature was scrawled in Arabic.
‘I asked the servant-woman where the Pasha was; but she began to shake, and seemed so nervous as to be incapable of speech. I asked about Haidée; then about Fletcher and Viscillie; but she was too scared even to understand me, and all my enquiries were in vain. At last, to her relief, I allowed her to serve me breakfast; having eaten it, I dismissed her, and was left alone.
‘I wondered what to do - or rather, what I would be allowed to do. The disappearance of
my two followers was disturbing me more and more; the absence of Haidée gave rise, if possible, to even darker thoughts. I decided that I would explore the castle, the vast extent of which I had been given some impression of the night before, to see what traces of them, if any, I might find. I left the domed hall, and began to walk down a long vaulted passageway. Arch after arch seemed to lead off from it, opening out only to yet further passageways, and yet further series of arches, so that there seemed no end to them, and no way back or out. The passageways were lit by vast braziers, whose flames rose high along the sides of the walls, and yet which gave off no heat, and only the dimmest light. My imaginings began to crowd me; the thought of the colossal weight of rock above my head, and the flickering gloom of the maze itself, was convincing me that I was lost for ever in some vast sealed crypt. I called out - my voice scarcely echoed in the musty air. I called out again; and then again; for even as I felt myself to be alone in this prison, so also I had the sense of eyes, unblinking, observing me. Into the pillars of some of the arches, statues had been carved, very ancient, their form Greek and yet their faces, where these had survived, ones of extraordinary horror. I stopped by a pillar, to try to understand in what this horror lay, for there was nothing apparent, nothing monstrous or grotesque, about the statue’s face, and yet just to look at it made me feel ill with disgust. It was the blankness, I realised suddenly, which with remarkable skill had been combined with an expression of desperate thirst; at once, I saw that the statue reminded me of the Pasha’s servant, the creature in black who had come to my room the night before. I looked around - then stumbled on. I began to imagine that I could see other such creatures in the shadows, watching me with their dead man’s eyes. Once, I was so certain of their presence that I called out, and thought I saw a creature slipping away, but when I followed it through an archway, there was nothing ahead of me but torchlight and stone.
‘Yet the light seemed deeper than it had done before, and when I walked on through the archways, the stonework winked as though inlaid with gold. I studied the walls, and saw that they were decorated with mosaics, done in the Byzantine style, but long since defaced. The eyes of the saints had been chiselled out, so that they too had the familiar stare of the dead. A naked Madonna clutched a Christ; the infant smiled with cunning malignance, while the Virgin had been given a face so seductive I could scarcely believe it was mere artwork on a wall. I turned away, then felt drawn to glance back, at the same whorish smile, the same glint of hunger in the Madonna’s eyes. I turned away a second time, forcing myself not to glance round again, and hurried on through a further arch. The light was richer now, a deeper red. Ahead of me was a brocade curtain, screening my way. I brushed it aside, and walked on, then stopped, to gaze at what lay all above and around.
‘I was in a vast hall, empty and domed, its far end so distant from me that it was shrouded in dark. Colossal pillars, obtruding from the walls, loomed like shadowed titans; archways, of the kind I had just come through, seemed openings onto night. Yet the hall was lit - as in the passageway, braziers burned without heat, their flames rising in a pyramid to the very pinnacle of the dome. Directly below this point, in the centre of the hall, I glimpsed a tiny altar made from black stone - I walked towards it, and saw that it was the only thing standing in that whole colossal place. All else was bare, and there was no sound, in the hall’s lofty, heavy emptiness, but the ringing of my feet.
‘I reached the altar - and saw that I had misjudged its size, so far away from it had I originally been. It was no altar at all, but a small kiosk, of the kind Mohammedans sometimes build in their mosques. I couldn’t read the Arabic script carved around the kiosk door, but I recognised it from the evening before - “And Allah created man from clots of blood.” Yet if the kiosk had indeed been built by a Mohammedan - and I could see no other possible explanation for its presence there - then the other decorations on its walls left me uncertain and surprised. It is forbidden in the Koran to represent the human form - and yet there, carved on the stone, were the figures of demons and ancient gods. Directly above the doorway was the face of a beautiful girl, as whorish and cruel as the Madonna’s had been. I stared up at it, and felt the same strange prickings of disgust and desire as I had done before the mosaic. I felt that I could stare into the girl’s face for ever - and it was only with an effort that I was able to break my glance away, and cross the doorstep into the darkness beyond.
‘I thought I heard movement. I looked into the shadows, but could see nothing. Directly ahead of me were steps, leading down into blackness; I took a pace forwards, and then heard the movement again. “Who’s there?” I called out. There was no answer. I took another step forwards. I was starting to feel conscious of a terrible fear, worse than any I had experienced before, rising almost like incense from the blackness ahead and clouding my nerves. But I forced myself to walk on, towards the steps. I took my first pace down. There was a foot-tread behind me, and I felt dead fingers holding my arm.
‘I swung round, raising my cane. A ghoulish creature, blank-eyed and slack-jawed, was behind me. I struggled to free my arm, but the grip was implacable. I could feel the creature’s breath, thick with the smell of dead flesh, on my face. Desperate, I swung my cane down on the monster’s arm, but he seemed not to feel it, and pushed me so that I stumbled and fell outside the kiosk door. Furious, I picked myself up and swung at the creature again; it shuffled back, but then, as I moved towards the flight of steps, it bared its teeth, cracked and black but jagged as a mountain range. It hissed, a loathsome sound of warning and thirst, and at the same time, from the blackness of the steps, I felt a fresh cloud of terror swirling at my nerves. Now, I’ve always held myself a brave man, but I realised then, confronted by the darkness of the steps and their hideous guard, that even the bravest should know when it’s time to retreat. So I withdrew and the creature at once lapsed into his torpor again. I breathed in deeply, and brought my terror under control. Yet I had been a coward - and knew it. As is ever the case in such situations, I longed for someone else to blame.
‘“Vakhel Pasha!” I called out. “Vakhel Pasha!”
‘No answer came but the sound of my own voice, echoing round the vastness of the hall. I could see now, obscured by the shadows of a distant wall, a creature like the thing in the kiosk, and the one who had brought the water to my room - it was bent on its hands and knees, scrubbing at the flagstones, oblivious to me. I crossed to it. “You,” I said, “where is your master?” The creature didn’t look up. In my anger, I sent its tub of water flying with my cane, then reached down to pull at the creature’s black rags. “Where is the Pasha?” I asked. The creature stared at me, slapping its lips together wordlessly. “Where is the Pasha?” I yelled. The creature didn’t blink, and began to smile with a dumb animal thirst. I loosed my hold, controlling myself, and stared around the hall again. I saw a staircase, winding up one of the colossal pillars; another creature, on its hands and knees like the first, was scrubbing it. I followed the stairway’s curl, and saw how it left the pillar and arced away, through the flames of the torches, along the side of the dome, before dropping into nothingness. I looked at other pillars, and again, up at the rim of the dome; I saw what I had not done before, that there were stairways everywhere, patterns of them, a lattice of futility, soaring high, leading only at last into empty, hopeless space. On each stairway, like lost souls in some prison of the damned, hunched figures were scrubbing at the stones, and I remembered my dream, how I too, seeking to climb impossible steps, had found myself lost and abandoned on them. Was this to be my fate, then, to join these creatures in their mindless bondage, and never to scale that dark realm of knowledge which had been hinted at to me? I shuddered, for at that moment I felt to the depths of my soul a certainty of the Pasha’s hidden wisdom and power, and knew for sure, what previously I had said without understanding, that he was a being of a kind I had never met before. But what? I remembered that single Greek word, never uttered but in a low whisper of horror - va
rdoulacha. And was it possible - truly possible - that I was now the prisoner of such a thing? I stood there, in that monstrous hall, and felt my fear becoming violent rage.
‘No, I thought - I couldn’t surrender to the terror of the place. In my dream, I had been abandoned, but the Pasha had still found a stairway to climb. And so I looked up at the dome of the great hall again, at the drop of the steps into nothingness, at each one - and then I saw it - the single stairway that did not drop away. I hurried towards it, and began to climb. Up and up it wound - a narrow flight of steps carved out from the pillar, and then soaring out around the edge of the dome. There was no one else - nothing else - to pass on the way - no hunched thing in black: I was alone. Just ahead of me, the stairway disappeared into the wall. I looked down at the great hall below me, at its dizzying expanse of stone and space, and felt a sudden repugnance at the thought of entering a passageway as narrow as that which lay ahead of me now. But I bowed my head and entered it, and then, in virtual darkness, climbed up and up.
‘I felt a strange excitement of anger and doubt. The stairway seemed endless; I was climbing the tower, I realised, the one I had seen lit red the night before. At last, I reached a door; “Vakhel Pasha!” I shouted, rapping on it with my cane. “Vakhel Pasha, let me in!” There was no answer; I pushed at the door, my pulse throbbing, my heart pounding with dread at what I might find inside. The door opened easily. I walked into the room.