Chapter One
I suppose it said quite a bit about my state of mind that not a year after Christine had gone to live with her foolish man-child I decided to return for a time to Persia, and partially at the request of the Khanum. She had sent a party of men overland all that great distance, laden with gifts of course, and a note which promised me something even greater should I agree to return with them to Court. It mattered little to me what that greater thing might be; the draw was in familiarity, in being wanted somewhere, in escape from crushing disappointment and society news items in the papers about a certain viscount and his new bride. Time had worn down my fury at small-minded courtiers and even the Great Lady herself, and I had occasionally found myself missing the climate, the language, the marketplaces, the blue-domed mosques. Leaving behind an exasperated Nadir and all but my most basic possessions, I set out with with the Khanum's men in a mood one could almost call light-hearted, at least when compared to nearly ten months of romantic lament, fits of bitter jealousy and moments of angry regret. I reminisced a bit with the older guards, jested with the overly serious younger ones, showed off bits of magic I hadn't trotted out in years and caught up on the latest courtly gossip. The prospect of the journey across Europe and the Ottoman Empire made me feel young again. At times it felt like the last few years had never occurred at all, as if she had never entered my life and blown the lid off of all of my years of carefully cultivated self-control.
Weeks on the road, however, will have the effect of wearying a person; one tires of one's traveling companions, one wishes for the creature comforts of home, one has time, too much time, in the long hours of riding or resting to ruminate once more on bad decisions past, which now included both murderous Eastern dowagers and determinedly innocent ingenues. By the time I arrived in Tehran I was thoroughly regretting my decision and wishing instead I had remained at home, or at the very least had the good sense to abandon my caravan at some point on the road and set off in search of new adventures on my own. In Tehran I was trapped. It is quite easy to disappear into a city of this size, to be swallowed up into an underground network, filled with all sorts of interesting and admittedly suspicious characters, if one of course has the good fortune to be born Persian and more physically innocuous. Alas, even in hooded disguise and with my natural linguistic skills working to neutralize my accent, there are too many who know me as the Khanum's man, and too high a reward at stake for them to turn a blind eye should I attempt to live among them. On the final leg of the journey I felt more of a captive than an adventurer, which in retrospect I suppose I had been all along, ever since six of the Shah's own guards had located me in my hiding place thousands of kilometers from the Golestan Palace.
Upon our reunion in the harem courtyard and then her private quarters, I found the old witch to be as mad as ever she had been, and much older than the picture I had carried of her in my mind. She still ruled her eunuchs and the ladies of the harem with all the fervor of years past, she still emitted both a sense of largeness and power as well as all the telltale hallmarks of smallness and petty intrigues. She had always been a great lady as well as a limited one; almost all of her life having been spent in one compound and surrounded by sycophants and schemers. She was the perfect Queen for the charming courtier or the plotting half-man, the perfect match for the lesser princesses and noblewomen who wished to see their status rise, the perfect bitter old widow to chaperone a barrack of beautiful slave girls. She was also, however, somehow changed from the woman she had been when I knew her. Vicious still, but timeworn, I suppose. She was also more direct, as if she had no longer had time for the limits imposed by her station. When I met with her in her chamber, she banished her eunuch sentry entirely for the first time, and did not bother with drawing fully shut the curtain panel that had always separated me from where she reclined upon her chaise. It was unsettling to feel her eyes upon me directly, especially since, as ever, my mask was not permitted inside her harem walls. Though she still wore her veil in my presence, I could see from the skin surrounding her intent eyes that her face had further wizened, that now no trace remained of the young woman she must once have been.
Our first meeting was brief, coming as it did so soon before the dinner hour, and mercifully I was able to escape to the large and comfortable room I had always stayed in early enough to wash and change before sitting to table. The shah was in good spirits and I was treated well enough by the other dinner guests that I found the meal pleasant and felt a little more hopeful that perhaps I had not made such a terrible mistake in coming here as I had begun to fear. Indeed, I went to bed that evening more contented than I had been in some time, glad that time and distance was finally beginning to supplant some of my incessant thoughts of my former love with other considerations and fonder memories.
When the first morning came, I was pleased to find that I was not immediately sent for, and spent a leisurely few hours in the palace courtyards, feeding the peacocks, eating dates straight from the palm orchard, and examining the fine desert horses of the Shah's grand stables. When finally I entered the Khanum's chamber for the second time I felt better prepared for her than I had the day before, exhausted as I had been from traveling and from regret. As I had so many times before, I took my customary chair opposite her great chaise.
"You cannot know how glad it makes me that you decided to come," the old woman said in her deep, husky voice before pulling aside her veil to to breathe deeply from an enormous gilt qalyan. Tilting her head to the ceiling, she blew out the smoke before dropping it again to flash me a mischievous and nearly toothless smile. I had never seen her mouth before.
"I am not well, you see. Every day is harder than the last. Who knows if I have a thousand more sunsets, or a hundred? Death is a camel that lies down at every door." Another pull from her qalyan. "But you, Erik, are a most welcome distraction. Few things have brought me pleasure like your company. My old ears needed to hear that voice of yours again. Much effort has been spent in trying to locate you, and in procuring for you such a gift as might make you willing to remain here with me until I no longer have need of agreeable companionship and beautiful voices."
I started to speak, to tell the old crone that I would stay as long as it suited me and no longer, but a movement in the left field of my vision arrested my thoughts. Some thirty yards away a woman stood, veiled and bejeweled, but otherwise entirely bare. Head and shoulders obscured by sheer fabric, wrists and ankles weighted with gold and precious stones, round and full breasts exposed; a narrow waist, which for all the world appeared to have been shaped by corseting, a taut belly, shapely hips, oiled skin which shone in the light that flowed through the trellised walls. Like a queen or ghost she stood, her posture regal, confident, provocative.
I tore my gaze from her, meeting the Khanum's laughing eyes. I opened my mouth to speak, but the odalisque had moved again, had began to take slow and sylph-like strides toward where I stood. I was transfixed! I was quite accustomed to the Khanum's girls running from my footstep, scattering upon my entrance into a room like frightened children. I was not accustomed to nudity, to unhurried steps, to company besides the Khanum's. I wondered if the girl was blind. I wondered if she were disfigured as well under the veil.
When she stopped, not four feet away from where I sat, I saw that she was not blind, not disfigured. Eyes moved beneath the veil, a brief nose tented the fabric between her cheeks. The Khanum uttered a command, "Off!" and the girl reached a lazy arm above her head and drew off her cover slowly, as if revealing a painting, but what was beneath was infinitely more beautiful than any masterpiece created by human hand. A young and soft oval face, brilliant green eyes which gazed upon my unmasked visage without trace of fear or surprise, a little smirk which played up the ends of a lovely and sensual mouth. She was not Persian, but European (French, perhaps!), her hair hung plaited between her shoulder blades and down her spine, priceless sapphires swung from small ears; she smelled of lush and fragrant garden flowers.
I stood up, awkwardly, too hurriedly. I felt a pulsing in my wrists, my temples, my groin; I swallowed deeply, covered my mouth with a nervous hand. Once again my eyes darted to the Khanum, my eyes questioning, a powerful surge of adrenaline now coursing through me at the presence of an unclothed woman so near to me I could close the distance in two strides, so near I could almost touch.
The Khanum's eyes glowed with victory. She barked another command I could scarcely hear over the pounding of my head. Without hesitation the gorgeous creature came and knelt before me; deft hands reached for the opening of my trousers and loosed them, soft lips encircled the swollen shaft between my legs. My hand pressed itself more tightly over my stunned face, my body shook with unleashed nerves, I felt the warmth and wet and suction of her mouth drawing every ounce of blood in my body to one magnificent pulsing point. My hand dropped to rest in the air above her head, hovered in place for a moment, and finally laid itself upon her flaxen head gently but possessively, as if she were my own. I felt the suction increase at my touch, the promise of my unused body began to fulfill itself, a noise that startled even myself exploded through my open mouth, a pounding of blood, a rolling of eyes, and finally, a hot white release that left me swaying on my feet. I steadied myself on her slim shoulders and she lifted her angel's face, or devil's face, to meet mine with a serene smile. My heart, so rapidly pounding a moment before, had slowed so that I thought it might cease beating.
"Go now," the Khanum's voice cut through my slow and woozy thinking. Obediently the girl rose to her feet again, veil in hand, and without another glance at either of us strode away across the cool tiles. Slack-jawed, I watched her go.
"Is she reason enough to stay?" The triumphant voice inquired. Wordlessly, I dropped back into my seat.