The Mer- Lion

by Lee Arthur

  Angus spoke up unexpectedly. "Now that seems no bad deal to me!"

  "Nor me," Ogilvy confirmed. "I agree. Me too." All seemed to speak at once. "You don't have to marry the Amira?" Carlby hung in there like a terrier with a rat. "It wasn't mentioned."

  "And why should it be?" Drummond continued to protect his friend. "A princess wouldn't marry a slave!"

  "Not very likely," John the Rob agreed.

  Still Carlby persevered. "Were we mentioned?"

  De Wynter did not have to answer as guilt, grief, agony chased each other across his unguarded face. But he did. "Mentioned and included."

  He was not prepared for his friends' reaction. They were smiling and pounding each other on the back. De Wynter could not believe his eyes. They acted as if he had just done them a favor. If he could believe his ears, their only regret was that the princess would not be at stake. Romi, of all people, confessed that he had visions of sharing the Amira's harem in an orgy of fruit and wine and writhing female bodies dancing to the strains of horns, drums, and strange stringed instruments.

  John the Rob agreed. "I could look forward to a life where the only thing I would need to steal would be a kiss." His attempt to make his monkey-face the picture of passion set the others to laughing.

  Cameron proclaimed, "Once set free, I may just turn around and woo the princess yet. From what I saw, she looked ravishing."

  Menzies retorted, "Ravishing is right. That's the only way you'll ever know a princess. As for me, I ache only for the fight."

  "Aye, Angus and me, we're with you on that. We want no parts of that lady. Of course, my idea of a good fight does not include performing in a bloody circus."

  "Aye, give Ogilvy and me a castle to defend, up there where the mountain breezes keep a man cool and comfortable, and we'll make the hills ring with our swords."

  The rest were astonished. They did not think of those dark, dour Highlanders as harboring such poetic thoughts.

  Of the group, only Carlby was silent. Drummond took him to task. "What of you, priest? Will your religion keep you from joining us?"

  Carlby snorted. "Not likely. I am committed to fighting the heathen wherever I find them. I only pray that only heathens face my sword—"

  "Don't ask 'em their religion," was Angus's practical advice.

  Ogilvy seconded it. "If you don't know different, they'll all be heathens to you."

  Carlby smiled his agreement. He knew wisdom when he heard it.

  Later that morning, the group resumed its normal workday, rebuilding the third tier. Down in the shady part of the arena, some of the contestants had assembled in the cool of the day to test their skills. De Wynter, his chest heaving, his arms numb with an exhaustion more the result of his ordeal than the rebuilding, stumbled and sank to the ground, resting against one of the larger blocks. Rest periods were forbidden, but the silent ones made no move to prod him back to his feet. Instead, they let him sit and catch his breath and watch the contestants below.

  What he saw did not bode well either for the Terrible Ten nor, for that matter, for the Amira's marital future. The slaves had imagined the event would attract younger sons of noblemen who thirsted after adventure, knights who might have fallen on hard times, young and athletic scholars eager to make their mark in the world. But no, this motley crew might claim noble blood but they showed little of it.

  There was a killer instinct about them, and they were older. Much older. The average age seemed to be about thirty. Their faces bore scars, and their arms and backs bore testimony of many a nick with a blade or crush with a mace. The Scottish earl decided that he and his fellows would face tough fighting. But, he reminded himself, they had youth on their side. And Ali's conditkming. When the contestants returned to the camp to relax and sip wine during the heat of the day, the slaves were being issued weapons. De Wynter, whose drawn face testified to his exhausted state, was excused—the others being set two on one in threesomes. The royal box was empty this day as the Amira and her mother supervised last-minute preparations of the palace set aside for the Moulay and his harem of litde boys. However, Ali ben Zaid was present and he summoned de Wynter to his side.

  "Your friends know?"

  De Wynter nodded.

  "And they agree?" He took de Wynter's silence as acquiescence. "Good."

  He turned to leave, but de Wynter had a question. "Amir Val-assa, when do we join the contestants in camp?"

  "You don't You will not live there. Later, you and I will visit it so you may see what you compete against, but you remain here in the slave quarters." The two men looked deep into each other's eyes as if taking measure of the other. De Wynter had no choice but accept the man's word as final. As he turned to leave, it was his turn to be called back by a question. "Know you anything about camels?"

  "Nothing."

  "Then team fast. Tomorrow, camels instead of horses."

  "Ali ben Zaid? If you hate me so, why do you do this?’

  The dark eyes above the veil were inscrutable and for a moment de Wynter thought the man would refuse to answer. Then, Ali spoke: "I would rather a slave win than scum!"

  Impulsively, de Wynter held out his hand to this man who had just subjected him to the ordeal in the cage. Ali hesitated just a second before taking it A handshake had not the same meaning in the Arab world, but these two were in agreement.

  That night, forewarned, the slaves pooled what little they knew of camels, mostly what they had gleaned on the long trip from Tunis via Kairouan to al Djem. It was precious little.

  Ten men against one camel. The fight was lopsided, for only the camel knew what it was doing. And what it was doing was failing to cooperate. She spat, she bit, she kicked, she spewed her cud a full five feet, showering the dignified Carlby with green slime. As he stood there, shocked, wiping the glop from his eyes, garbled croakings and cacklings—unmistakable sounds of laughter—issued from behind the veils of the silent ones.

  "Almost," Carlby admitted later that night, wrinkling his nose as he caught a vertigial whiff of that odorous slime that had saturated his hair, "almost it was worth it just to discover the Ikwan are human."

  Although Ali had the responsibility for the restoration of al Djem and the actual running of the games, Aisha herself planned the contests. And she plotted some unlikely and unpredictable ones. Assured there would be blood aplenty, the Moulay had gladly washed his hands of all preliminaries to the games and stayed in Tunis. Besides, he liked to be out from under the queen's disapproving eye, free to indulge unhindered in his debaucheries in the Bardo.

  Thus, until the games actually began, the Amira and Ali were able to make crucial decisions without fear of contradiction, other than from Ramlah. However, the queen's prime concern was—as it had been since her own bloodied wedding day—to see the throne secured for a Berber-blooded dynasty. To accomplish this, Aisha must marry and give birth to a male heir. To achieve this end, Ramlah would accede to almost anything, including slave participation in the contest.

  The games proved to be more complicated than originally envisioned. Were it not for an immense corps of eunuchs and slaves, unlimited sums of money, and the resources of one of the wealthiest countries in the world, they could not have been held. But by dint of meticulous attention to detail and the smooth-running organization of the beardless ones, all was coming to fruition on schedule... except for one thing. Aisha, whether deliberately or accidentally, had made no provision for her wedding week.

  Ramlah took this on as her special province. She discarded hundreds of sheepskins until the perfect white one was found for the marriage bed. When Aisha protested, "No need for special care there; no sheepskin will be displayed after my Wedding night," Ramlah only smiled and said, "Be quiet, my child. There are ways if husband and wife are agreed." Aisha looked askance but held her peace.

  The final week before the start of the games, the roads to al Djem were thronged with people and animals. Messengers heading elsewhere were long delayed or forced to go cross-co
untry to avoid the herds of food on the hoof—mile-long camel trains bearing provisions and the utensils needed to cook and serve it to several thousand people of many different stations. Food was only part of what was requisitioned and brought: rugs, hangings, pillows, cushions, beds, divans—everything needed to restore a few of the villas of al Djem to satisfactorily luxurious substitutes for the Bardo and the Dar al Bey. Although the Amira and the Moulay actively discouraged visitors—for different reasons—those that would come must be accommodated along with their staffs.

  Finally, one last caravan assembled in Tunis. More than 150 ships of the desert grumbled noisily under enormous loads of goods. Twenty slaves, ten to a side, shouldered the carrying bars of litters as large as a room, and twenty more men trailed close behind to exchange with the bearers every five miles. Easily a thousand slaves brought up the rear and as many horse-mounted guards walked to either side of the caravan but 500 meters away so that the dust cloud they raised would neither mar the view nor disturb sensitive royal nostrils.

  The Moulay had decided to make a great sacrifice: to go direct to al Djem with no stops at coastal ports, no sumptuous overnight accommodations. To ease his suffering, slaves were sent ahead along the royal route to wait with sherbet to cool the royal throat, wine to drown the royal thirst, delicacies to tempt the royal appetite. The only stop occurred at Sousse, when four fifths of the journey was behind them, and this only so that the Moulay might receive gifts of gold from the tribes of the South who had been exhorted to demonstrate materially the honor conferred by having their Jalala al-Malik travel among them.

  At last, on January 12, in the year of our Lord 1533, but by Moslem count, the fourth day of the month of Jamada in the year of the Hejira, 939, the Moulay arrived at al Djem on his first trip ever taken out of Tunis, there to be greeted by a Berber-Arab princess. Hated father and unloved daughter had come together to preside over history's most bizarre mating game. To watch and judge, as inside the gigantic oval game board called al Djem, players from every comer of the Mediterranean sharpened their moves and dreamed of being kinged.

  CHAPTER. 87

  The quality of the free-willed contestants did not improve materially in the weeks after Ali had first condemned them roundly to Aisha and Ramlah in the all-but-deserted arena.

  However, there were more of them daily. Five days before the contest began, they numbered more than 100, not counting the slaves. Each day, more men approached the Gate of the Gladiators leading into al Djem. There, scribes, seated cross-legged before low wooden writing tables, took down each man's name, age, country, and whatever proofs he might have of his noble blood. He was then measured and weighed. If accepted by one of the dozen elite of the Ikwan as a valid entrant, the man must then swear on Bible, Torch, or Koran that he was free to take a wife. In the case of the Taureg, who admitted already having two wives, an imam was summoned so that the man might divorce those far-distant wives by the formula first decreed by the Apostle of Allah. Aisha was not prepared to be wife number two, three, or four.

  The criteria for acceptance were few. First, a man must be whole; loss of a limb or castration was cause for invalidation. Second, he must be of proven noble birth or own the armor, horse, and trappings thereof. Third, he must swear on the book of his religion that he had no other wife. Fourth, he must sign his name—or make his sign—on a scroll painted in elaborate Arabic.

  Those who asked what they were signing were assured it was an agreement that once one entered in the actual competition, he would not withdraw. In actuality the scroll was the result of weeks of work by the ulama. In the most elaborate, convoluted, subtle, devious terms possible, it committed the signer not just to compete so long as he was able, but, win or lose, to relinquish to the Amira and Moulay his future. One particular clause might even be interpreted to mean that each signer accepted the Islamic faith as an entity... and as his own. To have come this far, few entrants, even those few who could read Arabic, chose to read it, much less cavil at signing the scroll. Instead, they made their X or scrawled their names and rode off to join the great tent-city that sprawled ever farther into the desert.

  Two days before the games, the list of entrants had swelled to more than 145. That day, Ali and de Wynter, wearing the white garb of the silent ones, rode off to inspect the camp of the contestants. De Wynter, who was young and healthy, had quickly thrown off the effects of his ordeal underground and, in fact, today rode the wild mare he had conquered in the arena. Naturally the twosome was surrounded by other mounted Ikwan. These Ali took more for protection than escape-prevention. If he read this fakir right, the presence of the other slaves still back in the arena would stand hostage for the jamad ja'da's behavior.

  The original plan was for the tent city to grow up around paths set like the spokes of a wagon wheel, thus giving easy access from the city to the amphitheater and back. However, the contestants themselves had wrought havoc on the organizational plan. A tent assigned to a spot deemed by its haughty owner to be inferior in view or orientation to the sun was moved left, right, back, or forward.

  The long straight access lanes planned soon became short, crooked ways. As Ah and his men navigated these, the Amir I'al-assa's eyes grew stern above his veil. De Wynter was glad for his own veil although he had smelted these smells before: the typical rotting food-fecal smells that perfumed most of the cities of Europe. Despite the assignment of slaves to clean up horse dung and bury other refuse, the contestants insisted on tossing garbage wherever they wished, of squatting and watering at will, of letting their followers, even the four-legged ones, do the same.

  Here and there, of course, there were oases of sanity and cleanliness within the city. One, on the outskirts, was that of the Taureg who chose to camp with, not in, a city of contestants. The other, almost in the center, was an elaborate establishment that belonged to a small wiry redhead whom Ali pointed out without comment. De Wynter's eyes widened and he choked. But under orders not to break the mute law of the Ikwan, he swallowed the words Eulj Ali before they passed his lips.

  Only temporarily. Once free of the camp, Ali asked the cause of his distress. De Wynter hesitated, weighing the benefits or disadvantages of sharing his knowledge with the other. Then, praying that naming the corsair would buy his fellows some advantage later, the Scots earl identified the redhead as Barbarossa's son. When this information was passed on soon after to Aisha, she bristled. "Obviously, he has been sent by his father," she surmised.

  "What if he entered on his own?"

  "I care not. How dare he enter my competition?" Her usually attractive face was twisted into an ugly mask. "These games wouldn't have been held except for his father's message. Think you I would marry the son? I would kill myself first."

  "What would you have us do?"

  "Kill him first, idiot!" Instantly she regretted the rashness of her tongue. "No, I didn't mean that. The killing part, yes, the other no. Ali, if you love me, you must see that he does not win."

  "But he looks to me like one of the few good competitors."

  "That may be. But marriage to him would be catastrophic for Tunisia. We would be handing over our country to his father. He must not win. You must arrange it. And if you don't, I will," she vowed emphatically.

  Ali could only share her sentiments. "I shall do what I can, short of murdering turn. Would you bring his father's wrath down upon Tunisia? If the son dies other than in the competition, we could be sure of reprisal."

  "Perhaps we might find another wife for him." He wasn't sure what she meant, but he liked neither her words nor the look on her face. If he were Eulj Ali, he would depart the camp immediately, or, if he remained, sleep lightly.

  Ali left Aisha's surprisingly austere quarters, those she had selected for herself rather than those outfitted for her by Ramlah. His own, he decided, were much more elaborate. But then, he had the women of his harem to consider. These concubines—he dared not take a wife—would turn any quarters into a haven, a harem of posh luxury.
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  The slaves within their even more austere quarters were delighted with de Wynter's news. Gladly would any one or all of diem slit Eulj Ali's gut for him. Looking around the stone room with its ten pallets of stone, de Wynter remembered the luxury he had seen within the camp of the contestants. "They, at least, have means to combat the cold." The slaves did not. They were forced to burrow into the straw to keep warm, being allowed neither fire nor extra clothing. Their main concern, however, was weapons. Although each fought all day with sword and mace and dagger, the weapons were blunted. Nor did each man get the same weapon every day. As Carlby, made Turcopilier of the Order of St. John as much for his knowledge of weapons as his birth, reminded them, "A blunt sword maims, not kills. A strange sword must be mastered before it can maim, much less kill. We are handicapped before we begin."

  All but John the Rob drank in his words as if they were the breath of life. John the Rob, as he knew full well, was paying now for a childhood slanted more toward cajoling or stealing alms rather than earning them at weapon point. Carlby had tried to teach the beggar the fundamentals. And against a clod, the beggar might win. Against a trained swordsman, he'd be skewered. Therefore, against Carlby's general principles, he agreed when de Wynter offered to show John the Rob a couple of tricks which no gentleman or knight would ever use, but which, in this case, the Turcopilier agreed, might give the beggar a fighting chance against a more experienced opponent.

  Of greater advantage to the beggar and the rest would have been foreknowledge of the games. But on this Ali ben Zaid refused to comment, having been sworn to secrecy by the Amira. No use telling the slaves that already, by virtue of their unorthodox training, they had knowledge of the games. Or at least of those Ali knew were in the offing.

  Early, Aisha had informed everyone that the exact makeup of the games would be a closely guarded secret. Only she knew in detail what each day was to unfold.

  Carlby, appointed tactician of the group by de Wynter, requested of the Amir I'al-assa that he, Carlby, be allowed to discuss the