Gulanar was an ungainly runner and soon fell behind the others and, when she looked back, this slowed her yet further. Orkhan was almost upon her and ready to lunge and catch at her waist when, with a squeal of alarm, she leapt sideways and hurled herself into the water. Najma and Parvana now stopped running and waited until Orkhan was almost upon them before following Gulanar into the pool. The breasts of the trio of concubines seemed to float on the water and the sunlight rippled over their bodies in quavering patterns. They splashed up at Orkhan.
‘You have not caught us yet!’ taunted Najma. ‘You will have to join us in the water.
‘Please come and play with us here,’ added Gulanar.
And then the three maidens began to sing a strange, senseless song of enchantment,
As they sang, they swam towards the pool’s edge where Orkhan was standing.
‘It is better under water,’ said Parvana and she pulled at Orkhan’s ankles so that he toppled in.
They swam around him, splashing water in his face. They were laughing at him, but he stood terrified and hesitating, for he had never been in a pool of water before. Their soft bellies and thighs trembled in the water’s movement. He made a lunge for Najma. She dived below the surface and, after hesitating an instant, he followed. He had his hands around her hips, but then he was being pulled back by one of the other concubines, and eel-like Najma slithered free of his embrace. Orkhan turned to confront Gulanar who continued to undulate seductively beneath the surface and baited him with her breasts. He waded towards her and then plunged beneath the surface. He felt something nip at his inner thigh. It was Parvana who nibbled at the insides of his legs with her teeth. He was about to turn on her when a pair of hands closed over his eyes. He had to break free and surface for air.
Gulanar stood a few feet away from him,
‘Over here my lover! Over here!’ I can give you what you want, but, as he waded towards her, she slipped under the surface and skimmed away.
‘Choose me! I am prettier than her,’ sang out Parvana now behind him.
And so it continued. At last, Orkhan confessed himself defeated and pulled himself out of the pool and he lay on its edge, finding it difficult to get his breath back in the sulphur-laden air. With a start, he saw reflected in the water what he took to be a white spectre hunched behind him on the edge of the pool. Among so many naked women, this figure shrouded in damp, clinging white cloths seemed like an annunciation of death.
Turning round, he saw that Anadil had arrived to stand beside the spectral figure.
‘Surely you recognise Mihrimah?’ asked Anadil. ‘However much she covers herself up, her shape gives her away. But I am afraid her arrival signals that our time for games is almost over. It only remains for us to massage and perfume you in preparation for the final ritual.’
Then sensing Orkhan’s apprehension and hostility, she continued,
‘I know that these last two days have been hard for you. But all your ordeals are going to end very soon. Trust me. Trust us. It is very important for you to be relaxed now. That is why we are going to massage you.’
And Anadil and Mihrimah led him to a large stone slab set on brass feet, surrounded by braziers of burning spikenard. They began with him lying on his front, while she walked up and down his back, digging her toes into his back as she did so. He felt his body buckle and slowly soften under her feet. By the time she had finished this exercise and clambered down, Parvana, Najma and Gulanar had clustered round the slab and together the four of them set to pummelling and kneading the body of Orkhan with their hands. Mihrimah stood looking on. Anadil, as she worked, kept whispering to Orkhan about how important it was that he relax himself utterly, that he feel himself to be soft and weak.
‘For the seducer always seduces from a position of weakness.’
The concubines rolled him over and the fingers of the women moved inexorably towards his groin, probing and exploring. His testicles were gently squeezed by Parvana while Anadil anointed his penis with a yellowish unguent. He entertained the fantasy that he was floating in the air, his body being kept up by thousands of tiny butterflies trapped inside him, which flapped and beat their wings.
Finally Mihrimah raised her wide sleeved arms, so that she looked like a great white cormorant about to fly. It was a signal that the massage could be prolonged no further.
‘There is just barely time to show you the Rapturous Chamber,’ said Anadil. ‘It will be best if you see it first, for the unknown is always so frightening, is it not? But if you have seen the place, it will be easier for you to envisage what is going to happen in it.’
Orkhan walked shakily between Anadil and Mihrimah back into the tepidarium. Here he was handed a plain white cotton robe which he slipped on. Then from the tepidarium they passed through a door he had not noticed before into a reception chamber, and without pausing, the three of them entered the Rapturous Chamber.
The walls and vaulted ceiling of the Rapturous Chamber were covered in mirror-mosaic, whose glass fragments were framed in intricate tendrils of silver arabesque. Hundreds of candles burned and glittered in niches set into the walls. The floor was surfaced in porphyry. Most of the surface, however, was occupied by a great pool of quicksilver on which floated an inflated mattress, covered in silk and tethered at its corners by silken cords. So silver burned on silver and it was some moments before Orkhan, dazzled, realised that a woman stood at the far end of the quicksilver pool. The woman wore a plumed turban and was sheathed in a tight silver dress whose long train fanned out over the porphyry. The woman, seeing Orkhan stare at her, made an exultant gesture with her raised and clenched fist.
It was Roxelana. Orkhan turned to Anadil.
‘Oh Orkhan! How can you be so boring and stupid?’ Anadil was pouting in exasperation. ‘Of course it is Roxelana. It just happened to be her turn to play the animal girl. We all take turns at the different parts. Sometimes I am the one who laughs; sometimes I am the one who sheds tears. Otherwise it would be too boring… though it is true that Babur seems to like Roxelana best. She, like the rest of us, is a masquerader — part of the Harem’s spiritual theatre. As a Prayer-Cushion, however, she is on a lower level than Mihrimah, so, after you failed your night of vigil with Mihrimah, we realised that you could not have been ready for such an exalted sexual experience and we chose Roxelana to take you through something lower and more physical. It was my fault. I thought that you might have been ready for Mihrimah, when clearly you were not. Still Roxelana probably gave you what you needed… ’
She looked as though she was going to say a lot more, but at that moment a ragged fanfare of shawms accompanied by cymbals sounded outside the Rapturous Chamber.
‘The Valide Sultan has arrived,’ said Anadil, looking apprehensive. ‘I only hope we are not approaching the final ritual performance too quickly.’
Chapter Eight
DYING OF PLEASURE
When Orkhan in the Cage had fantasised about life outside its walls, he had had no idea that the reality would be so strange. Together with Anadil, he passed through the outer reception room and emerged into daylight once more. The Valide Sultan, dressed in heavy black and red brocade and flanked by attendant concubines and eunuchs, stood waiting on the grass. This was the first time that Orkhan had seen her when she was not laughing. She stepped forward to brush at his hair with an anxious gesture. Then she embraced him, before pulling back a little, so that her hands rested on his shoulders, and she began to address him,