He was prepared to relate many more dramatic details, but at this point he faltered because there’d been a violent shifting-around of the contents of the tent, exposing, up towards its summit, a complex arrangement of silk handkerchiefs: one tied over the bridge of the nose, hiding everything below, and another tied round the forehead, hiding everything above. Between them, a slit through which a pair of eyes was looking up at him. They were blue eyes. “You are an Englishman!” she exclaimed.
Jack noted that this one was not preceded by a “Sir knight.” To begin with, Englishmen were not accorded the respect given naturally to the men of great countries, such as France or Poland-Lithuania. Among Englishmen, Jack’s way of speaking, of course, marked him out as No Gentleman. But even if he spoke like an Archbishop, from the nature of the yarn he’d just been relating to her, concerning his scavenging-trip to Qwghlm, it was now obvious that he had been at some point an actual Vagabond. Damn it! Not for the first time, Jack imagined cutting his own tongue out. His tongue was admired by that small fraction of mankind who, owing to some want of dignity or wit, were willing to let it be known that they admired any part of Jack Shaftoe. And yet if he had merely held it back, reined it in, this blue-eyed woman might still be addressing him as Sir Knight.
That part of Jack Shaftoe that, up until this point in his life, had kept him alive, counseled him to pull sharply on one rein or the other, wheel the horse around, and gallop away from Trouble here. He looked down at his hands, holding those reins, and noted that they failed to move-evidently, the part of Jack that sought a merry and short life was once again holding sway.
Puritans came frequently to Vagabond-camps bearing the information that at the time of the creation of the Universe-thousands of years ago!-certain of those present had been predestined by God to experience salvation. The rest of them were doomed to spend eternity burning in hellfire. This intelligence was called, by the Puritans, the Good News. For days, after the Puritans had been chased away, any Vagabond boy who farted would claim that the event had been foreordained by the Almighty, and enrolled in a c?lestial Book, at the dawn of time. All in good fun. But now here Jack Shaftoe sat astride a Turkish charger, willing his hands to pull one rein or the other, willing his boot-heels to dig into the sides of the beast, so that it would carry him away from this woman, but nothing happened. It must have been the Good News at work.
The blue eyes were downcast. “I thought you were a Knight at first,” she said.
“What, in these rags?”
“But the horse is magnificent, and it blocks my view somewhat,” Trouble said. “The way you fought those Janissaries-like a Galahad.”
“Galahad-he’s the one who never got laid?” Again with the tongue. Again the sense that his movements were predestined, that his body was a locked carriage running out of control down a hill, directly towards the front entrance of Hell.
“That is one of the few things that I have in common with that legendary Knight.”
“No!”
“I was gozde, which means that the Sultan had taken note of me; but before I was made ikbal which means bedded, he gave me to the Grand Vizier.”
“Now I am not a learned fellow,” said Jack Shaftoe, “but from what little I know of the habits of Turkish Viziers, it is not usual for them to keep beautiful, saucy young blonde slaves about their camps- as virgins.”
“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.”