Then, seeing the expression on Orkhan’s face, she continued,
‘Do not worry. We know what to do. It is all in The Perfumed Battlefield, in the last chapter which is entitled “How to Give Ultimate Pleasure to your Man”.’
Anadil interrupted,
‘It is true that things went wrong with Barak, but that was because he lost his nerve at the last moment and struggled, so that I could not keep my mouth round his cock, and thus his seed was wasted on the floor. But, if you do not struggle, all shall be well. You have had enough wine though. I think I gave you just the right amount to drink and you should be relaxed.’
‘You have to lose yourself completely to find yourself, according to The Perfumed Battlefield,’ Mihrimah continued. ‘If our earlier charades have had any purpose, other than beguilement, it was to teach that the one who loses wins and that the one who wins loses. It is always like that in the warfare between the sexes.’
‘Well, I do not really understand such matters,’ replied Orkhan. ‘But I have had enough of talk and I see no path open to me, save the one which leads to the Rapturous Chamber. I suppose the sooner that I reach my predestined end the better it will be for me.’
Hearing this, Mihrimah raised her arms and the concubines and eunuchs who stood outside the hammam began to sing a strange song, which began with the words ‘I have drunk the waters of the Beloved and She has drunk from mine.’
Emerald pointed back to the door of the hammam and Orkhan began to walk towards it. As he did so, concubine after concubine threw herself in front of him, so that he trod upon the spines of Gulanar, Najma, Parvana and others whose names he did not know. He was walking upon a carpet of human flesh. Nevertheless, Orkhan did not glance at the backs of the women he trod upon but instead looked up at the sky overhead.
Passing through the ante-room, Orkhan led them back into the Rapturous Chamber. Anadil and Roxelana stripped him of his white robe and tossed it into the pool. It rested on the bubbling surface a few moments, before abruptly vanishing. Multiple reflections of gold and silver on silver made Orkhan dizzy. Mihrimah waited on the far side of the pool, until he was ready to assist in her undressing. His fingers trembled as he set to work removing the layers of cloth and she had to tell him not to be in such a hurry.
She smiled at what she took to be his lustful impatience,
‘In desiring my body, you have learned to love the transient and that is a good and necessary stage. But it is a stage that you must pass beyond, for, in the end, only the Devil loves what is passing.’
Finally, Mihrimah’s white robe, veil and shawl lay at her ankles and she stood naked and very beautiful. However, he was not suffered to linger at her side. Anadil beckoned him back to the other side of the pool. Beside her stood Roxelana, resplendent in her silver dress. In one hand Roxelana held up the train of the dress, in the other she dangled the silken bowstring.
‘Turn to face Mihrimah,’ she said as Orkhan walked towards her.
He did so and Anadil knelt in front of him and reached for his cock, which fear had made small and soft.
‘Do not worry,’ said Anadil. ‘It becomes hard in an instant.’
And she pressed her lips to it.
‘Look to the lustrous Mihrimah,’ said Roxelana, who now stood directly behind him.
Mihrimah stood at the far end of the chamber, radiant and glorying in her nakedness.
Orkhan sensed rather than saw Roxelana stretching to raise the silken bowstring above his head. She began to speak,
‘In the name of the Holy Rapture — ’
As the cord came over his head, Orkhan reached for it and pulled hard. At the same time he bent double, so that Roxelana was pulled onto his back. Then he had her by her wrists and brought her over him and down on top of the kneeling Anadil, and together the two women were sent tumbling into the quicksilver pool. Its momentarily turbulent surface closed over their heads in interlinked rippling whorls. Glittering bubbles rose and exploded.
Next Orkhan went after Mihrimah. She attempted to escape by running round the far side of the pool, but she was less agile than Parvana, Najma and Gulanar had earlier proved themselves, and Orkhan, having caught her at the door, swiftly had his arms round her throat.
‘Is there a way from here to the laundry?’
Her voice was wheezy in reply,
‘The laundry? Yes, if you go back to the tepidarium. I think there is a passage from there to the laundry. The slaves use it to fetch fresh towels.’
‘You are going to take me there.’
The handful of the women lying cooling in the tepidarium did not give them a second glance. Orkhan walked behind Mihrimah with his hands encircling her throat down the passageway which led out of the tepidarium and through a series of doors into the laundry. They entered the hall full of vats that Orkhan had previously glimpsed on his way to the hammam and, as they did so, the women who worked there started shrieking and throwing up their hands. Perizade, who seemed to be their overseer, came hurrying up to deal with this bizarre intrusion.
‘Perizade, I need your help. I need you. Together we are going to try and escape from the Harem.’
‘It is death to even think of such a thing,’ she replied.
Even so she did not hesitate. First, she dismissed the other laundry-women from the hall of vats. Secondly, she began to tear up strips of cloth and together she and Orkhan set to gagging and tying up Mihrimah. They were not kind to her and, despite her moist, pleading eyes, their knots were tight and the cloths bit deep into her soft flesh. She was bound in such a fashion that her face was pressed down over her knees with her arms tied behind her back.
Orkhan was bent low over Mihrimah, checking the knots when he was knocked over, by a cracking blow to the side of his face. He rolled over and looked up. It was Roxelana. Her eyes glittered and her face had a curious greyish look about it. Tiny drops of silver fell from her dress with every movement.
‘I now know that I was too gentle the last time,’ she said. ‘This time it is going to be really bloody. The jinns in me are parched for your blood. They are going to suck your soul out through your arse.’
She hitched her dress to deliver a kick, but, even so, her kick was constrained and had little force. She was panting heavily and she seemed to be having difficulty in seeing Orkhan. Nevertheless, she threw herself upon him and began to pound at him with her fists. He fought back, yet not as strongly as he should have done, for he felt himself unmanned, half-mesmerised by this strange, lead-grey creature, more demon than woman, who chanted in a strange language as she beat at his chest and face. She was trying to kill him, yet still he felt the stirring of desire and he wanted to kiss her even as they fought. Then suddenly it was as if one of the jinns in her body had made away for another. The glittering eyes softened and she fell forward on him.
‘I am too weak to resist you. I want you inside me,’ her voice was pleading.
Her mouth was questing for his and with one of her hands she was seeking to hoick her skirt further up.