The Dancer of Hafiz Chapter 5
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5. The Elephant Palace
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(Late Winter, 1179)
The jarring carriage ride rocked Abana of Hafiz from side to side. Despite being ferried by two of Governor Ganu's finest thoroughbreds the long flagstone road beneath its wheels was cracked and potholed by years of use and abuse. Like much of the city, its paving was hundreds of years ago during the reign of the Abyyabids and was in dire need of repair.
A distinct samite fabric lined the carriage walls. It was spell-woven, a transparent shroud from within and an opaque russet tarp from without. He watched the Kazara River flow by. Boyhood fishermen snatched whelks at its sandy banks as ferryman sailed reed-woven barges across its waters and old men cooled themselves in the shade of its palm trees. It was a whimsical sight in a city that boasted precious few of its like. Abana availed himself of it. Anything to distract himself from the forceful hand slipping beneath his tunic into his under-linens. His whole body tensed.
"My lord-" The dancer was cut off by a smothering kiss, Ganu dragging Abana to him by his jaw and crushing their lips together. His instinct was to pull away, but his body did not heed it, and instead ran a hand into Ganu's thick black beard and whimpered a coquettish sigh. Years of practice had honed his seduction skills to a poniard's edge. Abana knew what signals to send.
"Sweet boy," said Ganu (when he finally saw fit to drag his tongue out of the boy's mouth). "By Mnenomon's grace I shall have you again tonight."
They had danced three times the night prior. The first time Abana's mouth brought the governor to climax, the second time his hands, and the third time? The Kushwari had fallen asleep foolishly thinking his ministrations were over for the night only to be awakened by the sudden plunge of seven meaty inches into his anus. Abana recalled himself grabbing fistful of silk bedding and crying out into the night as the master of Umayyah-khamat rode him hard in the moonlit shade.
Ganu's lusts were gormless and persistent – he was like a jackal in heat when his blood was up.
`Bastard,' thought Abana. `Maliq, my love, I pray you yet love me when we finally have our vengeance."
The carriage took a hard left turn off the flagstone road by the river then turned east again as it passed by the bustling Azarashapur Market. They were close. Ganu reluctantly let his new plaything go, who took the time to put on his veil – an unkempt appearance upon arrival would be taken as a sign of disrespect.
Beneath the folds of his sable cloak he was dressed in a plum-coloured tunic trimmed with gold pattern work around its shoulders, chest, and sleeves – a gift from Ganu. It was not difficult to feign appreciation with him. Like most Tehraqi nobles he was decidedly susceptible to false smiles (and a warm mouth).
The carriage kept on until the sun hit its apex and turned a final corner into a wide quadrangular sandstone courtyard lined along its high walls by portico columns and palm trees. The horses whickered ahead as the driver brought them to a stop.
"We are here," said Ganu.
*********
(Early Summer, 1176)
"We are here," said Rahab of Mahmun. "Step out."
The four male slaves carrying the golden palanquin slowly lowered it to the ground. At his new master's ushering, Abana the Slave climbed out of the curtained litter and placed his sandaled feet upon the flagstones of the Elephant Palace for the first time. As he marvelled at the courtyard's size and its palm trees and its marble water fountains; Rahab lumbered out of the palanquin and with a single clap of his hands had its four slaves quickly carry it away.
Abana dared not look him in the face.
Rahab of Mahmun was the most intimidating man he had ever had the misfortune to meet. At a height of over five cubits he towered over everyone and bore down upon them with that ivory-masked face and its misshapen frowning-smile. His humble auburn cassock (belted at the waist by knotted cord) withheld a gaunt figure right down to his immense bare feet. The only possession upon him was a book: a 500-page text bound by dragon's leather and kept within a pouch attached to a harness mounted around his waist, a book he would one day know as the Tome of the Ancients. Truly, he looked more like a monk than a ruler – but he was the governor of the Yaghazu Dominion, the homeland of the ancient Abyyabid dynasty that was now barely more than a barren desert filled with crumbling ruins.
"Come with me," said Rahab to Abana.
The boy followed his master across the courtyard into a small arched foyer where two others stood in wait for them – a thin Tehraqi man dressed in homespun cotton robes... and a comely, sword-armed Jafari man in riveted plate armour. Both knelt before the Seer.
"Arise," said Rahab. "Both of you."
The two did as commanded and stood.
"This slave is called Abana, my recent purchase from Qazyr," Rahab gestured towards the Tehraqi man. "This is Ishfan, steward of the Elephant Palace's slave staff," then he gestured to the armoured man. "And this is Maliq, my captain of the guard. Maliq, your report?"
He nodded. "Master, the Palace is secure, and I have assembled a guard host for your return to the Sun Court. They await your word."
"Good. Make the final preparations then tell the men to await me here in the courtyard. I have some work to complete in my laboratory before I depart."
The man called Maliq nodded "yes" then excused himself to depart for the palace barracks. A hushed Abana watched him go.
"Ishfan."
The steward stood to attention. "Master?"
"Take Abana with you. Show him the palace and his quarters then prepare him for his new duties. I want him ready for service by the new year's festival."
Ishfan bowed gracefully. Although he was at least half-a-century old there was a tell-tale softness to his voice. He was probably a eunuch.
A chill ran down Abana's spine.
"It will be done, master."
The steward of the slaves retained his respectful poise and demeanour until the distinctive slap of Rahab's bare feet took him out of the foyer – then his face turned to Abana and soured.
"You will follow me now," said Ishfan.
And follow he did... through almost the entirety of the Elephant Palace... and it was nothing if not impressive. Ishfan introduced Abana to its throne room ("Here is where the master receives his guests.") and its great hall ("Here is where we host the master's feasts") as well as its library, replete with hundreds of books, its internally-heated bathhouse, the well, the pantry, the larders, the kiln, the slave quarters, and the shrine. A network of arched corridors interlocked these chambers, their echoing floors paved in reflective black marble.
Like Qazyr there were slaves everywhere Abana looked. They dusted the terracotta idols and polished the floors and kneaded the dough and lit the sconces. They performed their duties like marionettes. No life lived in their eyes.
"There are some places you may not go without permission," said Ishfan. "The treasury, armoury and guard barracks especially. If you are ever unsure come to me first. You will be punished if you trespass whether by mistake or design. Remember that."
By then Abana had followed Ishfan down an enclosed nook to a beaten wooden door barely hanging from its hinges. The steward opened it and showed Abana to the palace forge – full of tools, anvils, and billows. Horseshoes and sabre blades hung from the walls as the hearth cast its smothering heat upon a burly blacksmith hammering at his molten workpiece before dropping it steaming into a slack tub. Two sweat-soaked slave boys (apprentices of a sort) attended him.
Abana saw hot pincers by the fire.
"W-why are we here...?"
"We all came here at first," Ishfan pointed at the boys. "Zabaqi and Zaqabi? It is time. Hold him steady."
Without a word of protest the two slave boys grabbed Abana's arms and pushed him to his knees. They were too strong to push off. The tears that Abana had held back since his arrival started to fall. "Please! I'm begging you! Please don't geld me!"
"Calm yourself," said Ishfan. "You are not being gelded. Tehraqi nobles favour boys with their bits intact."
"T-then w-what are you...?"
At the slave steward's utterance, the blacksmith pulled a long metal rod from his forge fires – a branding iron. The smithy boys Zabaqi and Zaqabi tightened their grip as their teacher reluctantly pressed the scorching hot iron onto Abana's nape. Not even the roar of the forge could drown out the scream that followed.
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(Late Winter, 1179)
Since the day Abana of Hafiz first escaped the Elephant Palace he knew the day of his return was fore-ordained. Whether for vengeance or by re-capture it was a moment fated to occur – but that inevitability did absolutely nothing to sooth the noxious mix of anger, hatred, disgust, and fear churning in his heart as he beheld that awful place once more.
The sight of it made his slave brand itch.
A grinning Ganu took the younger man's hand and helped him out of the carriage like a doting husband assisting his wife. The governor was proud of his new trophy – but not proud enough to notice how much this place disgusted him.
The Elephant Palace was much the same as he had left it (imposing and threatening) yet time had wilted its flower somewhat. He saw cracks in those once perfectly attended flagstones and the palm trees were beginning to brown. One of the windcatchers was gone (perhaps destroyed by a sandstorm) but not replaced. Fewer sentries guarded the grounds and those that did wielded the same hand-me-down spears and sickle swords as their predecessors, many of them flaking with rust. The signs of decay were subtle but clear.
Then, as it was a lifetime ago, two figures of the palace household stood in wait for their new guest. Ganu waved for his guards (ten Wahdi spearmen) to see to the wagon and horses before acknowledging the pair.
The first was a powdered and thin-smiled eunuch of Xianese origin who spoke with a well-practiced Tehraqi tongue. "Greetings and salutations, Governor. Welcome to the Elephant Palace. I am Tsun'sen, steward of the slaves. This man with me is Ghassar, our captain of the guard. I trust your journey was pleasant?"
"By Mnenomon's grace it was swift," Ganu looked around with slight displeasure. "Have you not yet begun preparations for King Qattullah's banquet?"
In the days before a Tehraqi palace's feast its courtyards were typically logjammed with carts full of produce: hundreds of bottles of wine and dozens of barrels of beer; six or seven men's weight in rice, wheat and potato sacks; terracotta jars full of spices and carcass after carcass of freshly slaughtered animals.
But all they saw today was an empty courtyard.
"Not as yet," said Tsun'sen. Abana misliked his smile. Years of practice warned him that there was a secret hidden behind it. "Master Rahab is sequestered within his laboratory at present. Preparations will begin at the end of the day once you, your men and the Kushwari dancers have been attended to."
Abana was not familiar with Tsun'sen. But Ghassar, the Tehraqi-born captain of the guard, he did recall. Fortunately for Abana, Ghassar did not recall him. With his riveted dome-shaped helm under arm and his scabbarded sabre rattling against his armour he at least looked the part.
`You finally got the post Maliq never wanted,' thought Abana. `Congratulations.'
Ghassar saluted Ganu. "My men are fully ready to co-ordinate with yours in preparation for tomorrow night's banquet, governor. We are fewer in number since Master Rahab's ascension as grand vizier but rest assured, we shall not disappoint the king."
"Indeed," said the governor. He then coughed suddenly, an oily and wracking cough churned out from his throat – the bitterblack poison was slowly taking effect. "See that my horses are watered... then show us to our chambers."
*
Ganu had him again that night.
Abana did nothing to warrant it. No faint touches, no compliments, no coquettish smiles – and no sooner was he in their carefully prepared bed then Ganu was on top of him. There were no pleasantries either. The Governor ordered Abana on all fours as he poured oil onto two of his fingers – then carefully prised open the dancer's hole with them. "Am I not considerate?" He muttered. Abana glanced over his shoulder and watched that barrelled chest rising and falling between heavy breaths. Ganu lined up his girth with that tight pink ring of flesh and thrust forward.
It was over before long. The governor's sluggish movements grew slower and slower until the exertion begat a coughing fit that forced him to stop. He had Abana pour him some water (which helped control his breathing) then he ordered Abana to finish him off with his mouth – and that helped too. The dancer reluctantly worked his mouth up and down the governor's manhood until its bell head shot thick ropes of seed into his throat – and a few moments afterwards he was asleep.
"Paralysis will start tomorrow, lord..." said Abana as he slipped out of bed and spat the semen out of his mouth. "And death the day after. Curtesy of Lady Yahya."
What was left of his clothes lay in scattered puddles across the rugged floor. Abana dressed back into his tunic and sandals before swathing his body in his sable cloak. He then crept out of Ganu's chambers.
The moon was high, and the guest wing was quiet. Hardly any of Ganu's men walked a patrol and the few who did were too slow to see the figure darting from shadow to shadow along the corridors of the Elephant Palace. He travelled by its alcoves and blind spots with an unwanted familiarity. Masters often likened their slaves to rats – and who knew a building better than its rats?
Abana snuck out of guest wing and emerged in the courtyard through a hidden passage within the cellars. The night air cooled his skin. Two Wahdis approached and Abana hid himself behind a hey cart until they were gone. He then traced his way around the grounds, moving from the kiln to the barracks to the stables before reaching a secluded spot beneath the eastern watchtower where a mount sun-baked bricks stood. Abana removed them one at a time to expose a hidden hatch which he unbolted and pulled open by its iron ring. The door swung open and a cloaked figure scaled the lengthy rope ladder tracing down to the bottom of the shaft, 20 cubits deep.
Maliq.
When he got to the top Abana threw himself into the swordsman's arms and buried his face in his armoured shoulder. Jahanshah rattled against his thigh.
"My love!" He said. "I missed you so..."
He held the dancer close. "Are you alright?"
"I am fine. You're with me again..."
Maliq leaned in to kiss him.
"...No." He still tasted Ganu's seed on his tongue and he would not soil their reunion with that vulgarity. "There isn't time. Between Ghassar's men and the Wahdis there's over sixty soldiers guarding the palace – we have to kill Rahab now."
"Very well," said Maliq. "Are you prepared?"
Abana nodded. "Let us finish this."
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(Early Summer, 1176)
Until that time Abana the Slave knew little of the concept of sex. That was not to say that he did not have some small conception of it in his mind. He knew (for example) that you made babies with it. He knew that people who sold their bodies for it were called `whores' and he knew that people who hadn't had it yet (like himself) were called virgins. He once had the misfortune of overhearing his father doing it to his mother. He knew those things.
But... Abana never really knew.
The tutelage began a few short days after his branding. He was asleep in his straw cot in the slave quarters when Ishfan dragged him out of the cotton covers and ordered him to go to the east wing's central chamber after breakfast. "Do not keep the Silk Court waiting," he said. It was not Abana's intention to do so. He had seen enough slaves on the wrong side of the whip to know better – he was taken there without quarrel.
What he found defied expectation he did not even know he had. What he found was a court within a court; a sun-kissed peristyle built around the glimmering waters of a reflecting pool. Baskets of plum-coloured desert flowers and intricately carved bas reliefs of ancient goddesses and half-nymphs decorated its walls. Incense fumes flowered the air from golden burners suspended by chains as a beautiful plucked the strings of a harp that an even more beautiful Jafari woman sang to. Four muscular eunuchs stood guard at each corner. The Elephant Palace had heretofore been cold and modestly ornate but this...
`What is this?' Thought Abana.
He was approached a comely Tehraqi woman in a faint samite dress that did little to shield the buxom body beneath it from view.
"Welcome to the Silk Court," she said. "My name is Hamami. And you are... Abana, correct? Come Abana, let me introduce you to the others."
One by one she presented to him the other five members of the Silk Court – a Kushwari harpist named Pasha, a Jafari songstress named Zanza, a Xianese poet named Li and two Northlanders: herbalist Roswyn and her brother Qabus the masseur. And they were all of them beautiful.
"I am to join this court?" Asked Abana.
"If you can," Hamami smiled sweetly. "We are not like the other slaves here, Abana. Do you know what our purpose is here at the Elephant Palace?"
"T-to serve Master Rahab?"
"Yes, but... do you know how we serve him?"
`Tehraqi nobles favour boys with their bits intact,' reverberated Ishfan's words. "A good head for numbers – and very pretty for those so inclined," Hakkan once said. There was a picture unfolding that he could not see and the more he tried to put it into words the more his words failed him.
Abana shook his head.
"Come," said Hamami. "You have much to learn."
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(Late Winter, 1179)
Abana of Hafiz stayed within Maliq's shadow as he crept through the narrow corridors of the Elephant Palace. The palace guard was light that night with patrols of only two men per area per hour, even with the extra men Ganu's host supplied – the remaining men guarded the palace from without.
As soon as a patrol passed them by, they ducked within the shadows of the columns and the archways to evade sight, then pressed on when the route was clear.
Abana and Maliq kept on until they located a niche in the wall hidden behind a moth-eaten standard of the Yaghazu Dominion (a clutched black fist over a red sun). Abana lifted the flag as Maliq pressed six loose bricks in a specific order (5-2-1-6-3-4) and prompted the hidden magical energies within. The arched niche began to glow. Bright white light shimmered through and bombarded the corridor as the wall stones slowly dislodged from each other to reveal a darker, narrower corridor behind it. Maliq took Abana's hand and led him through. Once they were on the other side the glow subsided and the wall stones re-sealed themselves behind the flag.
It was pitch black within the secret corridor. Maliq drew out the hessian torch from his belt and lit it with some flint. The flames crackled to life to reveal a rotted and half-developed substructure within the Elephant Palace's walls. The foundational timber supporting its construction were never removed – leaving them speckled and decrepit with wood rot. Spools of rope and abandoned tools littered the dusty floor. There were no signs of life – no cobwebs or mice droppings – not even the vermin could scurry their way in.
"This was the corridor I used when you and I first met," said Maliq. He held the torch aloft as he led Abana's way deeper down into the structure. "Lady Yahya learned of its existence by buying the palace plans off a descendant of the original architects. They built it on top of an old Abyyabid mausoleum for disgraced highborns."
Abana smiled. "That was not the first time we met."
The corridor carried on for another fifty or sixty paces before turning right into a slight of descending steps planked with more rotted wood. "For you to fret over such things now... stay focused, beloved."
He had never been so focused his entire life. Since his father's betrayal all the agony and abuse that Abana endured had led to this moment. This had to be the end of it. It was finally time to settle his debt with the last and worst of his betrayers and torturers – Rahab of Mahmun. Then and only then could he be free to build a new life with the man he loved.
Abana took his hand again.
"Stop." He said.
Maliq paused. "Abana, what is it?"
Their fingers still intertwined, the Kushwari dancer leaned up to the tips of his toes and brought his soft lips to those of the Jamaran swordsman.
This time, he could not resist.
"I love you," whispered Abana. "I love you and only you. Any evil I've done... any blood I've spilt... all was in service to the life I seek with Khamali Maliq Moromaya."
"Abana..."
"I could not have done this without you."
"Yes, you could," said Maliq. "You are the strongest person I have ever met. Today may end in death... but tomorrow will begin with life. Come. Let us go."
They descended the steps together, hand in hand, and crossed the threshold into a towering stone chamber yet rigged with timber and rope. Along its walls sixteen different archways led to sixteen different corridors extending well beyond the confides of the Elephant Palace. And suddenly Abana understood how well chosen this site was. The mausoleum had corridors extending out into the city reaches which made for perfect escape tunnels.
As they bypassed the central annex and pressed on through a new tunnel, Maliq held the torch higher to grant the way greater light. Together they followed that dank tunnel to another flight of stairs spiralling up towards a wooden hatch in the ceiling. Maliq shoved it. It would not budge. So, he handed the torch to Abana and rammed his armour-plated shoulder into it. The plywood door broke into splinters and its iron lock flew off into the murky flagstones of a new circular chamber. It was too dark to see without light – as soon as Maliq climbed up he held out a hand for Abana and pulled him up.
Then someone's fingers snapped.
The first sconce came alight with a scouring roar. Then the next. And the next. And then suddenly all thirty scones around the circular room blazed bright, expunging the darkness, and showering the chamber with light. Only then did Abana and Maliq realize they were surrounded. Twenty palace guards armoured in riveted jerkins and iron helms. Their spearpoints gleamed in the torchlight. With his arms folded at the contingent's rear was a smirking Ghassar – and standing next to him, taller by two heads at least – was the man whose very sight filled Abana's heart with dread and rage.
Rahab of Mahmun.
"And so," the enormous sorcerer chuckled softy behind his ivory mask. "The wayward rabbit returns..."
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(Early Spring, 1177)
As was ancient and customary in Tehraq, its citizens commemorated the new year with a three-day celebration. From taverns to temples the city was brimmed with lofty toasts and merriment... and in the year of 1177 no feast was more extravagant than the one Rahab of Mahmun hosted on its final day. But this was no ordinary new year's feast. Gathered there that day, for the first time since Rahab's appointment as Grand Vizier, were ten of the twelve governors of the High East: Governors Zahmoud-Zafar of the Shamshad Dominion, Muza of the Nyssinia Dominion, Marwan of the Khrat Dominion, Yshamput of the Lower Pushan Dominion, Azarajh of the Ashura-Kharnankana Dominion, Shapur of the Black Coast Dominion, Idrisi of the Salt Coast Dominion, Kakkar of the Gale Coast Dominion, and Hamza of the Bloodsands Dominion. Only two were absent – Governess Yahya of the Jawwaz Dominion and Governor Ganu of the Wajjashid Dominion – but despite that Rahab had the banners of all twelve dominions hung from the great hall's walls.
The slaves suspended dozens of golden burners from ropes along the vaulted ceiling to scent the chambers with jasmine and wildflowers. All two hundred of its sconces were lit with tallow candles and its floors adorned by brilliantly embroidered rugs, tasselled throw pillows and velveteen reclining chairs. All three of its massive lacquered tables (each one big enough to seat sixty nobles) were full to a man with an abundant banquet laid out before them with treats and delicacies from across the High East and beyond; minced beef and dumplings, flatbread, salted chicken breast portions and guineafowl thighs, wild rice by the bowl, chickpea and lentil mash, braised flamingo smothered in date sauce. Dozens of silver platters boasted cheese wheels, raisin bread, cinnamon buns, peaches, apples, and grapes. Water was at hand by the ewer – as was freshly brewed beer and wine.
It was such an overwhelming event – the laughter, the chatter, the songs, the music, the dancing, the sweet scent of wine and food. It the largest feast Abana the Slave had seen but he was given little time to admire it... as he and four other slaves danced for their master's honoured guests. Even as he twirled and pranced behind Tamami's lead (it was hers to lead as no one in the Silk Court was as fine a dancer as her) he broke the trance from moment to moment to eye the spectacle – knowing full well that as a slave he was permitted to enjoy none of it.
Aside from Qabus all other members of the Silk Court were in attendance; Roswyn fed dates to the loud and rotund Governor Zahmoud-Zafar whilst a giggling Zanza and Li clung to the wiry embrace of Governor Shapur. Pasha and her flute sat with a trio of Tehraqi musicians – a man with a zither, another with a hand drum and the last with a harp – providing music for the festivities. After the last dance they switched songs to something more luxurious, Siren's Sigh, a song only Hamami knew the steps to. Abana and the others stopped to light applause. From the corner of that bustling hall he saw Ishfan waving for him and the other dancers to attend the governors and their wealthy retainers. As soon as he caught his breath Abana grabbed a grape platter went from man to man offering further refreshment to their guests.
"Wonderful!" Said the aging governess Yshamput, "You've put on a fine feast for us here today, Lord Rahab! This wine alone is exceptional!"
Rahab, seated at the head of the long table upon a small lacquered stool, nodded to her. "Your compliments are warmly received. My only regret is the absence of Lord Ganu and Lady Yahya, and of course his majesty."
"Ganu is with the king, leading the fray against that pocket of rebels in Jafara, no?" said Idrisi. "And what of Lady Yahya?"
"Still licking her wounds in self-imposed exile," said Marwan. "She hasn't set foot inside the capital since she fell out of favour with his majesty. I think-"
Marwan paused as Abana passed him by with the grape platter. He offered some to Governor Hamza (who refused, citing a bellyful of pheasant meat and rice) and then to Marwan who took a whole vine for himself before sending the boy along with a slap to the arse. Some of the others chuckled. Rahab observed closely.
(`Marwan favours you...') Abana's spine froze. Little frightened him more than when his master projected thoughts into his mind. (`Indulge the pervert.')
"M-my feet are tired from the dance, my lord governor," Abana painted on his best smile. "May I sit with you a moment to recuperate?"
Marwan patted his lap. "Indeed, you may..."
The seat was warm and (if the rumours were true) notoriously receptive to boys and men. Abana felt the governor's swollen manhood rub up against his backside as he sat down on it. Marwan's lusty groan filled his ear as he looked to Li and Zanza playing the part of tittering bed wenches to Shapur and followed their lead. He giggled like they did, smiled like they did, and fed Marwan his grapes with the same teasing playfulness that they were so well practiced at.
"Is there any word on when King Qattullah is set to return to the capital?" asked Governor Idrisi. "Sustaining Tehraq's slave stock and reining in Kushwar were doubtlessly important moves but there are other matters to attend to. The bad harvest has lowered the food reserves in my dominion and dissidents are growing restless. They protest openly in front of the Mnenomonic temples and no matter how much you beat or torture them they keep coming back."
Rahab mused on this news. "You think the king's absence emboldens them?"
"Indeed, it does," quoth Zahmoud-Zafar. Roswyn played kittenish games with his bushy grey beard as he spoke. "I have similar dissenters in Shamshad. They call themselves the True Sons of Mnenomon and I fear their zealotry is infectious. That infection must be cut out, Lord Rahab... but we cannot do that with half our armies abroad."
"...Your concerns are heeded," said Rahab. "I will send word of this to the king and ask his return to Tehraq. I shall also assign additional soldiers to your dominions to sustain you in the interim. I can spare 500 men for each of you but no more. Do with them what you will."
"Most generous, grand vizier, most generous!" It was Muza, governor of the Nyssinian borderlands, who said it. Nyssinia – the old fiefdom of Fouzan ibn Mushegh; Abana's grandfather. Abana could have been in Muza's place if the gods had not seen fit to make it otherwise. "It has been many-a-year since our noble King Qattullah felled the Black Bitch queen Hamra lo'a Daiira and ended the slave drought! Now he has brought Kushwar into the fold! Let him return home as the glorious hero he is!"
"Indeed," Rahab raised a cup. "To the king."
"TO THE KING!" Cried the governors.
The feast was not unguarded. Four spearmen took the hall's four corners and Maliq (tall and dutiful in his red silk and riveted armour) kept watch from the main doors. Abana caught his eye for a moment, just a moment, before he looked away.
`It is as though I am the only one you cannot see,' thought Abana. He wondered (and not for the first time) what the Jafari guardsman thought of him... or so he did until Marwan's sweaty hand reached inside of his linens and groped him.
It was like that for much of the night. The governors gorged upon wine and politics and nubile slave flesh as the feast went on into the faintest hours of the night before slowly ebbing down. When the music stopped the dancing and drinking stopped by then most of their guests were asleep. Ishfan ordered a retinue of male slaves to clear up the mess, all the smeared plates, platters, and empty ewers. Fowl bones, pips, grape vines, and plum stones littered the floor. Abana wanted to help (or go to sleep), anything to get away from the inebriated Marwan but the Governor of Khrat had only seen fit to let him go once that night – and that was to relieve his bladder.
(`Take him to his chambers and ride him'), spoke Rahab of Mahmun into Abana's mind. The seer sat at the foot of his long table as Zanza, Li, Roswyn, Hamami and Pasha were doing the same with their own respective governors. The boy had no choice. He helped Marwan to his feet and followed the others out of the great hall and towards the guest wing of the Elephant Palace.
His room was at the end of the corridor, giving it a beautiful moonlit view of the rear court. A four-poster bed draped with silken coverings occupied the room's centre. Water and wine were left for him (as were spare clothes and boiled cloths). Abana lumbered Marwan over to the bed where he flopped over like a caught trout. His eyelids lulled shut. His breathing was deep. He looked like he was asleep.
Abana perked. Maybe he did not need to do this. Maybe the lord governor was too tired from too much wine. But when Kushwari boy went to leave a firm hand pulled him back by his wrist.
Abana gasped, landing back first into cotton sheets and tasselled pillows. The bed groaned beneath shifting weight as Marwan climbed on top of him and crushed their lips together. The kiss was not tender. It was brutal and smothering and Abana wretched at the taste of beer and beef as Marwan's tongue sank deep into his throat and muzzled his whimpers. It was so sudden and so forceful (and so unwanted) that Abana could not help but try to push him off.
A small pair of hands shoved Marwan back by the chest and dislodged his lips from the boy's mouth. The governor's eyes sharpened. Only then did Abana realize the gravity of the mistake he had just made – a slave refusing a highborn Tehraqi nobleman his nightly due.
"Milord flustered me..." he muttered. "I-I meant no disrespect..."
The Governor of Khrat was no longer interested in pleasantries or flirtations. With a frustrated growl he flipped Abana from his back onto his belly, kicked apart both his legs, and held down his thin wrists with a single veiny hand. Abana could not move. He barely heard anything over the blood pounding in his ears. All he saw were the silk white sheets smothering his face. All he felt was a bite of cold air as the lower half of his clothing was torn off his hips – and then Marwan's bell-shaped head, slickened with spittle, split open a tight ring of wrinkled brown flesh. It was all Abana could do to grab fistfuls of the sheets and scream into them as the governor ploughed inside him.
`Your virginity is a veil,' Hamami said this during his courtesan training. `And somewhere out there is the man who is destined to strip it away from you. Prepare yourself and be ready.'
The Silk Court showed him what to do. How to tease, how to stimulate, how to control his breathing, how to relax his muscles to accept a man's girth... he even practiced it on a lacquered effigy with an eight-inch phallus. The Dance of Flesh was like any other dance, with cues and steps and beats. He thought he was ready.
But he wasn't.
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* Hi, thanks for reading! Comments and constructive criticisms always welcome, please e-mail me at stephenwormwood@mail.com. If you enjoyed this, please read my other stories on Nifty = Wulf's Blut, The Harrowing of Chelsea Rice and The Dying Cinders (gay, fantasy/sci-fi) and The Cornishman (gay, historical).