“Not forever. But there is something to be said for saving a few virgins up to celebrate a special occasion-such as the sacking of Vienna.”
“But wouldn’t there be plenty of virgins to be rustled in Vienna?”
“From the tales told by the secret agents that the Wazir sent into the city, he feared that there would be none at all.”
Jack was inclined to be suspicious. But it was no less plausible for the Vizier, or the Wazir as Blue Eyes called him, to have English virgins than it was for him to have ostriches, giant bejeweled cats, and potted fruit-trees. “These soldiers haven’t gotten to you?” asked Jack. He waved the saber around at the dead Turks, inadvertently flicking bullets of blood from the tip.
“They are Janissaries.”
“I’ve heard of ’em,” Jack said. “At one point I considered going to Constantinople, or whatever they’re calling it now, and joining ’em.”
“But what about their Oath of Celibacy?”
“Oh, that makes no difference to me, Blue Eyes-look.” He was struggling with his codpiece.
“A Turk would already be finished,” the woman said, patiently observing. “They have, in the front of their trousers, a sort of sally-port, to expedite pissing and raping.”
“I’m no Turk,” he said, finally rising up in the stirrups to afford her a clear view.
“Is it supposed to look like that?”
“Oh, you’re a sly one.”
“What happened?”
“A certain barber-surgeon in Dunkirk put out the word that he had learnt a cure for the French Pox from a traveling alchemist. My mates and I-we had just got back from Jamaica-went there one night-”
“You had the French Pox?”
“I only wanted a beard trim,” Jack said. “My mate Tom Flinch had a bad finger that needed removal. It had bent the wrong way during a naval engagement with French privateers, and begun to smell so badly that no one would sit near him, and he had to take his meals abovedecks. That was why we went, and that was why we were drunk.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“We had to get Tom drunk so he’d make less of a fuss when the finger went flying across the barber-shop. The rules of etiquette stated that we must therefore be as drunk as he.”
“Pray continue.”
“But when we learned that this Barber could also cure the French Pox, why, codpieces were flying around the place like cannonballs.”
“So you did have the said Pox.”
“So this barber, whose eyes had gotten as big as doubloons, stoked up his brazier and began to heat the irons. While he was performing the amputation of Tom Flinch’s digit, the irons were waxing red- and then yellow-hot. Meantimes his young apprentice was mixing up a poultice of herbs, as dictated by the alchemist. Well, to make a long story short, I was the last of the group to have the afflicted member cauterized. My mates were all lying in a heap on the floor, holding poultices over their cocks and screaming, having completed the treatment. The barber and his apprentice tied me into the chair with a large number of stout lines and straps, and jammed a rag into my mouth-”
“They robbed you!?”
“No, no, missy, this was all part of the treatment. Now, the afflicted part of my member-the spot that needed cauterizing, you understand-was on the top, about halfway along. But my Trouser-Snake was all shrunk into m’self by this point, from fear. So the apprentice grasped the tip of my Johnson with a pair of tongs and stretched old One-Eyed Willie out with one hand-holding a candle with the other so that the site of the disease was plainly visible. Then the barber rummaged in his brazier and chose just the right sort of iron-methinks they were all the same, but he wanted to put on a great show of discretion, to justify his price. Just as the barber was lowering the glowing iron into position, what should happen but the tax-man and his deputies smashed down both front and back door at the same instant. ‘Twas a raid. Barber dropped the iron.”
“’Tis very sad-a strapping fellow such as you-strong and shapely-buttocks like the shell-halves of an English walnut-a fine set of calves-handsome, after a fashion-never to have children.”
“Oh, the barber was too late-I already have two little boys-that’s why I’m chasing ostriches and killing Janissaries-got a family to support. And as I still have the French Pox, there’s only a few years left before I go crazy and die. So now’s the time for building up a handsome legacy.”
“Your wife is lucky.”
“My wife is dead.”
“Too bad.”
“Nah, I didn’t love her,” Jack said bravely, “and after the Barber dropped the iron I’d no practical use for her. Just as I have no practical use for you, Trouble.”
“How do you suppose?”
“Well, just take a look. I can’t do it.”
“Maybe not as the English do. But certain arts have been taught to me from Books of India.”
Silence.
“I’ve never had high regard for book-learning,” Jack said, his voice sounding a bit as though a noose were drawing tight around his neck. “Give me practical experience any day.”
“I have that, too.”
“Aha, but you said you were a virgin?”
“I did my practicing on women.”
“What!?”
“You don’t think the entire harem just sits around waiting for the master to stiffen up?”
“But what’s the point-what is the very meaning -of doing it when there is no penis available?”
“It is a question you might even have asked yourself,” said Blue Eyes.
Jack had the feeling now-hardly for the first time-that a Change of Subject was urgently called for. He said, “I know that you were lying when you said that I was handsome, when really I’m quite bashed, gouged, pox-marked, rope-burned, weather-tanned, and so on.”
“Some women like it,” Blue Eyes said, and actually batted her eyelashes. Her eyes, and a few patches of skin in their vicinity, were the only parts of her that Jack could actually see, and this magnified the effect.
It was important that he put up some kind of defense. “You look very young,” he said, “and you talk like a girl who is in need of a spanking.”
“Books of India,” she said coolly, “have entire chapters about that.”
Jack began riding the horse around the chamber, inspecting its walls. Scraping away packed earth with one hand, he observed the staves of a barrel, branded with Turkish letters, and with more digging and scraping he found more barrels stacked around it-a whole cache of them, jammed into a niche in the chamber wall and mortared together with dirt.
In the center of the chamber was a pile of timbers and planks where the Turkish carpenters had built the reinforcements to prevent the chamber from caving in. Diverse tools were strewn around, wherever the Turks had dropped them when they’d decided to flee. “Here, make yourself useful, lass, and bring me that axe,” Jack said.
Blue Eyes brought him the axe, staring him coolly in the eyes as she handed it over. Jack rose in the stirrups and swung it round so it bit into one of those Turkish kegs. A stave crumpled. Another blow, and the wood gave way entirely, and black powder poured out and hissed onto the ground.
“We’re in the cellar of that Palace,” Jack said. “Directly above us is the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor, and all around us are his vaults, full of treasure. Do you know what we could get, if we touched this off?”
“Premature deafness?”
“I intend to plug my ears.”
“Tons of rock and earth collapsing atop us?”
“We can lay a powder-trail up the tunnel, put fire to it, and watch from a safe distance.”
“You don’t think that the sudden explosion and collapse of the Holy Roman Emperor’s Palace will draw some attention?”
“ ’Twas just an idea.”
“If you do that, you’re going to lose me, brother… besides, that is not how you become ennobled. Blowing a hole in the palace floor and slinking in like a rat, with smoke coming out of your clothes…”
“I’m supposed to take advice on ennoblement from a slave?”