The Tournament

by Matthew Reilly

  ‘Like my father?’

  My teacher hesitated. It was one of the rare occasions when I saw him uncertain, unsure.

  ‘You may speak freely, sir,’ I said. ‘I will not tell. I ask only to learn. I am keen to know your thoughts on these matters.’

  Mr Ascham looked hard at me. ‘Yes, like your father.’

  ‘Please elaborate.’

  He turned back to face the cardinal’s rooms as he went on. ‘Your father—with respect—has indulged his carnal whims almost every night of his adult life, whether with his wives, other men’s wives, the queen’s ladies of the bedchamber or the occasional kitchen girl. He does not respect other men’s marriages or maidens’ reputations. For him, free and ready fornication is one of the natural perquisites of being king. Perhaps the only time he ever restrained himself was when he was courting your mother.’

  ‘What of queens, then?’ I asked. ‘Are female rulers any different?’

  My teacher pondered this. ‘A good question. I’d have to say a life of such carnal abandon is more difficult for queens to maintain.’

  ‘Why!’ I said, almost indignant. ‘Are you saying that a male ruler can happily indulge his sensual appetites while a female one cannot without being called a whore?’

  ‘Sadly, that is exactly what I am saying,’ my teacher said. ‘I would hasten to add that a more reasoned foundation for my position is that the consequences of behaving in such a carefree manner are far more long-lasting for a woman than for a man. If a king plucks every girl he sees, the consequence is perhaps a dozen bastards whose paternity he can happily deny. But if a queen indulges in regular copulation, she might fall pregnant and that is a condition she cannot hide. Nor can she deny ownership of the child.’

  ‘The Egyptian queen Cleopatra was a famous ruler,’ I said, ‘and she bore sons to both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.’

  ‘And look at how she fared: she lost her empire to Augustus, both she and Mark Antony committed suicide, and she has gone down as one of history’s greatest whores.’

  I said, ‘What of a happy marriage, then, to a loyal and faithful husband? Can a queen accomplish that in these times?’

  Mr Ascham pondered that for a moment. ‘It is possible, I’m sure, but I would also say it would be difficult to achieve.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because as you well know, a queen rarely gets to choose her husband. Royal matches are usually made when a princess is young, in a bargain between her father and the ruler of a foreign land for political reasons, not loyalty, love or fidelity. To marry for love is not common for a queen. It is the price of a royal life.’

  I frowned. ‘It would seem, then, that perhaps the best course of action for a queen might be to abstain from any sort of intimate relations entirely. Then one can be neither a vessel for producing the next king nor a harlot.’

  In the darkness, my teacher slowly nodded. ‘That might well be the answer—wait a moment, what is this?’

  My teacher’s eyes narrowed as he watched the cardinal’s rooms.

  A new participant had entered the upper left-hand room.

  My eyes widened as I recognised him.

  It was impossible not to. It was Darius, the famous Persian wrestler who had performed at the opening banquet. He was handsome and enormous, his muscles bulging. He strode into the room and stood before Cardinal Cardoza, wearing only a small white cloth to cover his modesty.

  The cardinal said something and the cloth was removed.

  Darius stood naked before the cardinal. The cardinal bit his whip’s handle, smiling lasciviously at what he saw.

  Then he took Darius into the right-hand room. We watched as he circled the great wrestler, who just stood there staring stoically forward. It occurred to me that Darius had not come there willingly. The cardinal stroked the wrestler’s hairless chest. Still the wrestler just stared forward.

  Then the cardinal instructed the wrestler to bend over a chair, which Darius dutifully did.

  ‘Bess. Turn away,’ my teacher said sharply.

  ‘But—?’

  ‘Turn away. Now. This is not for innocent eyes.’

  I ducked below the rail, and so I did not see what happened next between the cardinal and the wrestler. I did, however, see the look on my teacher’s face as he continued to watch for a few moments. It was a look of the most profound revulsion.

  He stood abruptly, turning away from the sight. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘I have seen enough of this foulness.’

  We left the balcony with Latif in tow. As we did so, my teacher frowned in thought. ‘I do not understand. The cardinal treats the great Darius with contempt, using him as a plaything, and the wrestler just obliges. How can this be?’

  I bit my lip uncertainly. ‘I might know why,’ I whispered.

  My teacher turned to me as we walked, cocking a surprised eyebrow before he glanced sharply at Latif and said to me in German, ‘Later.’

  I nodded.

  He shook his head. ‘God save me, I hope I have not completely corrupted your innocent mind by bringing you to this godforsaken city. One can observe cruelty for only so long before one loses one’s own sense of decency. Bess, please learn from this night: these men are scoundrels, not because of their unnatural urges—men have loved men since the time of the Greeks—but because they use their status to take other people’s bodies for their own gratification. Let us away now and sleep, for we must be alert tomorrow.’

  Following my teacher, I stole one final look back at the embassy—

  I froze.

  As my gaze passed over a series of lattice screens to the left of the embassy at the edge of its surrounding lawn, I thought I glimpsed a figure behind one of those screens, a tall man-shaped shadow standing deathly still and looking directly up at us.

  My eyes raced back to the lattice screen, but by the time I found it again in the moonlight, the figure—if there had been one at all—was gone.

  I wasn’t sure if it was my mind playing tricks on me or a quirk of the late evening shadows, so I didn’t mention it to my teacher, but as I followed Mr Ascham back to our quarters, I had a most unsettling feeling that for the whole time we had been watching the embassy, we ourselves had been watched.

  We returned to our rooms.

  No sooner had Mr Ascham closed the outer door, leaving Latif outside, than he turned to me and whispered, ‘Talk to me. What do you know about Darius?’

  I shrugged. ‘I know how palaces work. Secrets are many and when they are discovered, keeping them is achieved through payment: sometimes with gold, sometimes with favours both political and carnal.’

  ‘And what do you know of this situation?’

  ‘I am reliably informed that Darius and the queen are lovers,’ I said.

  My teacher’s eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘And how did you come to be aware of this?’

  I nodded at the room I shared with Elsie. ‘One of our party has witnessed them together.’ I went on. ‘Perhaps Cardinal Cardoza discovered their affair and now he is holding this knowledge over Darius’s head like the Sword of Damocles: the cardinal demands Darius’s affections or else he will tell the Sultan of the affair.’

  ‘By God, Bess, you know far more about such matters at the age of thirteen than I did at your age. What has become of the world!’ He paused in thought. ‘But it is a fair surmise, and one that might, just might, provide us with another suspect in our investigation.’

  ‘It does?’

  ‘You will understand better tomorrow.’

  ‘Wait, you have a theory about the cardinal’s murder, then?’ If he had one, I did not yet know of it.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘And . . . ?’

  Mr Ascham bent forward and whispered in my ear. ‘I think Cardinal Farnese was murdered by mistake.’

  I leaned back, contemplating this. ‘By mistake, but then . . .’

  Mr Ascham stood. ‘Thank you for your help, Bess. You are proving to be a most capable assistant in this investigation
.’ He made for his room.

  ‘Sir, one more question. Why did you not want me to mention this while Latif was present?’

  ‘Even though Latif stands at our side, do not be fooled. Our escort works for the Sultan. Be assured that everything we see, hear and say in Latif’s presence is being relayed to the Sultan. There are schemes afoot in this palace and the Sultan himself may not be entirely innocent of them. I imagine he is a dangerous chess player himself and oftentimes, the best chess players feign ignorance when in fact they know everything.

  ‘Now, off to bed with you, young lady. It is time to get some sleep. With the first round completed, tomorrow is a rest day as far as the chess is concerned. As such, it will give us time to further our investigation.’

  I liked how it had become our investigation.

  ‘What do you plan to do?’ I asked.

  ‘I have two threads that I would like to pursue. First, I would like to speak with the defeated Austrian player, Maximilian of Vienna: I would like to know why he would wish to speak with the unfortunate chef Brunello on four separate occasions.’

  ‘And the second thread?’

  ‘Having heard what you have just told me,’ he said, ‘I would like to contrive an audience with Her Highness, the queen.’

  I went into my room, my mind bouncing between visions of naked priests, shadowy figures, dead chefs and the prospect of my teacher questioning the formidable Queen Roxelana.

  Of course, Elsie was not in our room when I arrived there, but I didn’t care. It was very late and I quickly fell asleep.

  When I awoke to the dawning sun, however, there she was, lying in her bed in the deepest slumber, with the most serene and contented smile on her face.

  QUEEN

  JUST AS THE BISHOP was once an elephant and the castle a chariot, the piece that we know as the queen was originally the ‘king’s minister’.

  It is believed that the transition from minister to queen coincided with the rise of several strong queens in Europe. Some have suggested that the queen in chess owes her all-powerful status to Queen Adelaide of Burgundy, the most powerful woman of the tenth century.

  Given that in many medieval kingdoms only sons could inherit the throne, it is somewhat astonishing that in such times it was happily accepted that the most powerful piece on a chessboard should be the only female one.

  From: Chess in the Middle Ages,

  Tel Jackson (W.M. Lawry & Co., London, 1992)

  Just look at how well she governs! She is only a woman, a mistress of half an island, and yet she makes herself feared by Spain, by France, by the [Holy Roman] Empire, by all.

  – POPE SIXTUS V, ON QUEEN ELIZABETH I

  A MOST UNUSUAL MORNING

  SHORTLY AFTER I AWOKE, there came an insistent rapping at the door.

  I waited in my room as Mr Ascham answered it. I was unable to hear the quiet exchange that followed but I did make out my teacher saying ‘Thank you’ and a moment later, he appeared in the doorway to the room I shared with Elsie.

  ‘Bess,’ he said. ‘It seems you have made quite an impression on someone.’

  He held up a golden envelope. ‘You have been invited on a morning tour of the Sultan’s menagerie—his famous collection of exotic animals—to see His Majesty’s new Russian bear.’

  ‘I have been invited?’ I asked.

  ‘It appears that the invitation came not from the Sultan but from the donor of the gift. The Sultan’s messenger said he specifically requested your presence on the tour.’

  ‘The donor of the gift?’ I thought for a moment. ‘That boy? That insufferable boy, Ivan?’

  My teacher grinned. ‘I imagine he took a liking to you.’

  At this point, Elsie, who I did not realise was even awake, sat up in her bed. ‘Oh, Bessie, you have a little admirer! How positively adorable!’

  ‘An admirer?’ I blurted. ‘But I was mean and horrible to him. And he was most appalling to me; appalling and obnoxious and rude.’

  ‘Little boys who like little girls often behave in such a manner,’ Mr Ascham said.

  ‘Big boys do, too,’ Elsie said with a smirk.

  ‘I could not possibly go,’ I declared.

  ‘Oh, no, you most certainly will go,’ my teacher said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You will go on this excursion to the menagerie,’ he said as if it were the most obvious and natural thing in the world.

  ‘But I don’t like this boy. He is a backward eastern duke from a backward eastern duchy—’

  ‘Oh, come now, you only met him once and one cannot gauge any person’s character from a single meeting. No. This is something you should definitely learn. Go, it will be good for you. Besides, what have you to lose? Today is a rest day for the tournament so you will not miss any chess and I have inquiries to make. It seems other royalty will be there, too, including the Sultan and his son, the Crown Prince. It would be of benefit to you to observe them.’

  Elsie’s head snapped up at the mention of the Crown Prince. ‘I can go with Bess, sir. As—well—as a chaperone, if you like.’

  ‘Why, that would be splendid, Elsie,’ Mr Ascham said. ‘Excellent. An escort from the Sultan will be here in an hour to collect you both. I shall see you after lunch.’

  Sure enough, an hour later a member of the Sultan’s personal guard came to collect us. He escorted us out of the inner palace and across the First Courtyard to a heavy studded gate set into its northern wall.

  I fumed as I walked. I couldn’t believe my teacher was forcing me to go on this excursion. I dreaded the thought of seeing the short Russian boy again.

  Elsie thought my discomfort was most amusing. ‘Oh, Bessie, what’s worse: having the attentions of a rude boy or the attentions of no boys at all?’

  The question actually extracted me from my seething.

  ‘In all honesty, I am not sure,’ I answered. I was young, yes, but I had always watched people closely, and on this trip—out in the world, beyond my cloistered life at Hatfield—I had watched them more closely than ever. And the previous night’s conversation with my teacher about kings and queens had also left a mark on me. ‘I am not entirely convinced that sensual or carnal attentions have any worth. And marriage might have the least worth of all.’

  ‘What!’ Elsie said. ‘What on earth do you mean, Bessie?’

  ‘On this trip alone, we have been witness to a married couple where the wife, Mrs Ponsonby, reigns over her husband like a tyrant. He is not her equal. He is not even her friend. He is her servant. I do not think marriage is meant to be like that. It should be a bond between equals.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘I have seen a brothel, where in return for payment to the owner, the customer uses the prostitute’s body for his own gratification. I have seen men of God using others’ bodies to satiate their desires.’

  Elsie made to speak again, but again I cut her off.

  ‘And, lastly, you have spoken at length about your nocturnal adventures, where copulation is a pastime. An enjoyable one, clearly, but a pastime, an idle game, an act of mutual pleasure engaged in solely for pleasure’s sake.’ I paused. ‘The conclusion I have drawn from all this is that our very animal nature drives us to engage in carnal activities. It is like eating or sleeping and entirely natural. The problem, as I see it, are the twin human creations of marriage and religion. It is marriage and religion that make copulation complex and hurtful. Marriage brings up notions of trust, cuckoldry and ownership, while religion makes certain kinds of intimacy sinful. It makes me wonder if my life would be better if I were never to marry at all.’

  I turned to Elsie, offering her the chance to respond.

  But she just looked dreamily up at the trees and the sky and said, ‘Honestly, Bessie, you think overmuch and it will make you miserable. Life is so much sweeter and easier when you let the wind sweep you along.’

  She whirled on the spot as she said this, a carefree twirl, and I looked at her askance and wondered
if I did indeed think too much on things. I also wondered if perhaps Elsie did not think enough. She delighted in her late-night gatherings, for instance, and in her scheme for snaring Crown Prince Selim, but like a chess player who forgets that his opponent also has a plan, had she considered how others might be perceiving her behaviour at those gatherings?

  I further pondered whether or not Elsie was mentally capable of keeping up with me and my overthinking. Even though she was four years my senior, had I outgrown my friend? Had she even been my friend in the first place?

  ‘Since we’re on the subject,’ I said, ‘where did you get to last night?’

  ‘Oh, Bessie,’ she said excitedly, her attention fully regained now that we were talking about her. ‘I’m getting closer.’

  ‘Closer to what?’

  ‘Closer to bedding the Crown Prince!’ she whispered eagerly.

  ‘Last night’s frolic was in his private bath-house and, goodness, it was even more delicious than the first two gatherings! Imagine, Bessie: marble baths polished to perfection and filled with steaming hot water heated by furnaces beneath the floor; rose petals scattered across the surface and the most soothing, relaxing oils scenting the air.

  ‘It was a delight to the senses just to walk in there, but, of course, there were other delights on offer. It was a smaller crowd than the previous night and the rising steam from the baths made all of the lithe young bodies there glisten with perspiration. And goodness, Bessie, sweating bodies make for the most divinely slippery couplings.’

  ‘Is that so?’ I said. ‘What happened with the prince?’

  ‘Well, as I did the night before, I spotted the Crown Prince in the steamy mist and made sure I caught his eye. A short time later, I found his good friend Rahman in a corner and once again mounted him and brought him to a delighted climax. But the whole time I was riding Rahman, I kept my eyes locked on the prince across the room as if to say, “Look at the pleasure I could be giving you.”’