by Davyne DeSye
“Mistress,” she said, her voice quivering so the word was unintelligible, even to herself. She swallowed and tried again. “Mistress?” This time her voice was quiet, almost calm. “I was wrong to doubt someone as powerful as yourself,” she said, feeling at once that her words were foolish, but willing to say any foolishness to stop further pain. “I have known from the start that you are powerful – far more powerful than I have ever been.”
The Sultana’s eyes stopped their roving examination of her body and rose to meet Christine’s.
“Yes, of course,” she said matter-of-factly.
“And now you have won,” Christine continued. She had the Sultana’s attention, and intended to keep it. “You have won in every way against me. You have taken my husband from me, and now you have taken my beauty as well.” She inhaled and continued, imagining that she saw some semblance of sanity returning to the eyes, even if only in the form of self-satisfaction. “Even if you had not already taken my husband from me, which I cannot doubt as you are a much more powerful and beautiful person than I, he could not continue to love me as I am.” She hiccoughed, and finished, “As ugly as I am.” She dropped her eyes as they welled with fresh tears. The warmth of their flow from her eyes to her hair joined the warmth of the blood on her cheeks. She toyed with a final phrase, first deciding to say it, then deciding against it, fearful of the response it might illicit, hopeful that she understood the Sultana well enough to accomplish an end to the torture. She thrust the sentence forth, not certain that at the moment she did not mean it.
“You have won so completely over me – perhaps it would be better if I were to die, here, now.” She held her breath and pressed her lips together, then released both as the pain in her cheeks flared again.
The final sentence worked even better than Christine hoped. It seemed to descend upon the Sultana like a slap waking her from a trance. A frown creased her forehead as she stood. Without looking at Christine again, she said, “Release her.” Looking to the nearest guard, she said, “Fetch the surgeon. Tell him to do his best work.” She beckoned to the other three guards and said, “Come.” Christine heard her final words as the wicked woman and the guards strode out of the room. “I will not ruin my bargain for a bit of fun.”
Alone again, Christine pressed both sides of the pillow up and against her cheeks, pressing as hard as she dared against her bleeding wounds. And again she wept, but this time out of profound relief as well as pain.
I must find a way to escape soon. I may not be able to stop her next time.
CHAPTER 24
IN MAZENDERAN
By the time they reached Baku on the western edge of the Caspian Sea, Erik and Petter had donned disguises and looked as Moorish as the Persian himself. Faraz wore no disguise at all other than a change of costume. Petter had darkened his skin using one of Erik’s tints, and Erik, of course had donned yet another mask – this one complete with false beard.
Erik laughed as Petter wriggled his nose and contorted his mouth in his effort to manipulate the skin of his face.
“Why do you laugh?” Petter asked pettishly. “This tint itches unbearably, and you’ve told me not to scratch.”
“I told you not to scratch while it was wet. It is dry now. Feel free.” He chuckled again.
“It did not itch this much when it was wet!” Petter lifted his darkened forefinger and rubbed it back and forth over his upper lip. “You only need wear it around your eyes, while I am covered in this abysmal concoction. What is it made from, anyway?”
“Don’t ask,” Erik answered, and this time both he and the Persian laughed. Petter scowled as he continued to rub at his cheeks and at the tips of his ears. It was the first time Erik had seen his son seeming less than enthusiastic since London, but he could not blame him. The unguent did make the skin itch.
“Petter, if you cannot bear it, remove it,” Erik said.
Petter sobered, and after one final rub at his chin, lowered his hands. “I can bear it,” he answered. He reached up and adjusted his turban. “At least, other than this turban, the clothing is comfortable. Far less constraining than suit coats and shirt collars.”
They obtained passage south on a boat going to Mazenderan. It had two planned stops along the coast, but seemed the fastest way to reach Mazenderan without drawing undue attention.
Once in Mazenderan and having secured several adjoining rooms near the palace, the Persian donned what little disguise he intended – a beard, like Erik’s, although far fuller and covering more of his face.
“Having been gone so long, and with this beard, I do not believe I will be recognized,” the Persian said after examining the effect in a small mirror.
“I do not recognize you as the same man I traveled with yesterday,” Erik answered. In fact, the addition of the beard highlighted the man’s cheekbones and filled in the gauntness of his cheeks. Even Faraz’s eyes seemed to deepen in his face. “However, I worry that your plan is too rash, given the Sultana’s warning against your coming to Mazenderan.”
“Someone must conduct reconnaissance, and I am best suited for the task. I feel I can trust the several people with whom I have maintained a correspondence,” the Persian answered. “I will succeed where you would not.”
“It is easy to maintain a friendship when the correspondent is in France. That trust may not withstand the strain when your friend discovers you here and endangers his own life by assisting you,” Erik said.
The Persian did not answer. He turned for another look at his beard, used a small amount of tint to further darken his eyes, and strode to the door. “I shall return… soon. In truth, the longer I am away the better indication of my success.” He paused and fondled his beard as though it was a normal addition to his face. “Unless of course, I lose my head in the palace courtyard,” he continued, and then flashed a smile.
Erik scowled. He did not think the jest at all humorous.
“I will not be longer than two days,” Faraz finished.
“Be careful, honored friend,” Erik murmured as Faraz stepped through the door.
Faraz did not return that night, nor did he return the following morning. In that endless time of waiting, Erik fretted and paced, and castigated himself for not coming to Mazenderan alone. He would likely have succeeded without the Persian’s information. He would likely succeed – despite his injuries – without his son. His injures were no longer crippling and with his current level of tension, he regretted having brought either man. He thought the Persian dead, and could not shake the waking nightmares that his son, too, would perish here. He spent hours watching Petter as the boy studied the palace diagrams. He looked away whenever Petter raised his eyes, afraid the boy would too easily read the haunted look he knew must scream from his eyes. He would wait the two days Faraz had indicated – until the following morning – and then he must find a way to send the boy home.
Faraz returned that evening, just as Erik and Petter prepared to step out for a hasty supper. Erik’s tension broke not with relief, but with anger.
“Faraz! Damn you, man. Where have you been!”
Faraz backed a step, surprise evident on his face, but did not answer. Erik looked from the tall man to Petter. His son was smiling.
“It is good to see you well, Mr. Akhtar,” Petter said, and gestured that he should come further into the room. The calm statement brought Erik to his senses. He exhaled, allowing his relief to gain the upper hand.
“Yes, Faraz, yes. Come in. You had me worried, my friend, so I bark when I should leap with joy.” He stepped forward and embraced Faraz and pressed his masked cheeks to each of Faraz’s bearded ones. When he backed again, Faraz was smiling, although weary. His eyes seemed even darker than when he stepped from the room a day and a half ago, and Erik guessed the man had not slept since that time.
“Success?” Erik asked, the doubt plain in his tone.
Faraz lowered himself into a chair with a groan before answering. “Success of a kind, I suppose,” he
answered. “I stand before you with my head.”
Erik forced himself to sit rather than to pace, or worse, to shake the information from the Persian. He did not speak.
“But,” Faraz said, sighing and bending to remove his boots, “nothing more.”
“Nothing? You could not reach your friends?” Erik asked.
“I spoke with several, to include a friend still employed in the palace,” Faraz answered. “I have discovered that the Shah-in-Shah does have a son, and found where the mother and child are sequestered in the palace – she has her own quarters with the boy, because the Shah does fear for the boy’s life.” Faraz looked about as though searching for something and said, “I will show you on your diagram later, if you wish.”
“Christine?” Erik asked.
“Nothing,” Faraz answered. “She is unknown to any with whom I spoke. There are not even rumors of a golden haired woman visiting the palace. It seems certain that she is not being kept in the dungeons – this, third hand of course, from a guard who would know. She may not be in Mazenderan at all, for all I learned of her.”
“She is,” Erik said, no longer looking at the Persian, but gazing at his own entwined hands. He pounded a fist into his open palm, and said, “She must be here.” Lifting his head, he said, “She is here. I am to meet with Naheed to gain the details I will need for the murders, and Naheed assured me she would bring Christine to the meeting as proof of a bargain kept. She is here!” Erik slumped as he sat. “I had hoped to free Christine without need of seeing the Sultana, but that is not to be.” Erik remained lost in his thoughts until Faraz spoke again.
“I must sleep,” he said, rising to return to his room.
“Yes, of course,” Erik said. “Thank you for your efforts, Faraz. You learned much, although not all.”
Before the evening was over, Erik had written the coded letter to “Gohar,” and signed with the name Abadan, as directed, and had the letter messengered to the palace. There was nothing more left to do except wait. Erik expected the wait to be overlong, knowing the Sultana’s propensity for torture – even such indirect torture as making Erik wait. In this, at least, he was wrong. The return letter arrived the following day, indicating a meeting time that same evening. He refused to consider allowing either Petter or the Persian to accompany him.
Erik waited at the appointed time in the exclusive restaurant the Sultana had indicated. He had been shown to a private room with a large low table and sufficient space and cushions to seat more than a dozen. He ignored the tea he had been served, and instead fingered the Punjab lasso and dagger where they lay hidden beneath his tunic. The time for the meeting came and went, and Erik’s impatience mounted to rage. Knowing the need for calmness and rationality in the upcoming meeting, he closed his eyes and began a meditative sequence timed to follow the tick-tick-tick of his fingernail against the point of his knife. Each slow intake of breath and each slow exhale contained an inaudible two-syllable word: “Chris-tine.” He would see her soon. Soon.
He opened his eyes at the sound of a faint rustle. There, before him stood Naheed, veiled this time, but recognizable to Erik, nonetheless. He looked past her before saying, “Where is my wife?”
The Sultana did not move or respond.
“Naheed, where is my wife?” This time the words were an impatient growl.
“Ah, darling Erik,” she answered, lifting the veil and moving toward him. “I was not sure it was you, but I could never mistake your voice burred with anger.” She smiled and moved around the table as if she intended to seat herself on the cushions beside him, but paused. She bent to peer into his eyes, and – apparently not trusting what she saw there – she turned and lowered herself to the cushions at the opposite side of the table. She wriggled as she pulled several cushions into better positions and settled herself. “That is a mask, is it not? Quite ingenious.”
Christine cannot be dead! A flush of fear thrilled through him, and purged whatever calmness he had managed to achieve. His rage reawakened, and his own breath came in pants as he envisioned leaping the table and snuffing the life out of the monster before him. Incongruously, he also envisioned Petter – Petter who had tried on so many occasions thus far on their journey to sooth Erik’s explosive rage – and felt an immediate return of his composure. Taking a deep breath, he said, “My wife.”
“Ah, yes, your wife,” she answered. She twirled a bit of her long black hair around one finger watching the motion as though fascinated. “It occurred to me that you intended a rescue. And further, that I might not live through the rescue attempt… and I intend to live a long, long life.” She smiled as she spoke as if she were discussing some inconsequentiality, rather than accusing Erik of contemplating her murder.
Erik’s face flushed at her words – he was thankful for the covering of his mask – for that had been his plan. Not the murder of the Sultana, unless it became necessary, but certainly the rescue of Christine.
When he made no answer, the Sultana laughed and said, “You see, my love, we know each other so… intimately.” She shrugged one shoulder and licked her lips in a long, slow motion.
“We had a bargain,” Erik said.
“Yes, her life for your deed,” she answered, still smiling, smiling.
“And that you would bring her to this meeting,” he said.
“No. You,” and here she jabbed a finger in his direction, “added that condition, and it is a condition of which I do not approve.” Her eyes flashed at him, and her smile turned cold but remained.
“I will not do the deed,” he said.
“You condemn your wife to slow death,” she answered. Their words lashed at each other like the blades of two duelers. But Erik knew he had lost. He lowered his head.
“If I do as you ask, what assurances do I have that you will return Christine to me. Alive. And unharmed.” He added the last two phrases in full knowledge that the Sultana would find a sick humor in returning Christine’s corpse.
“I will do as I say,” she answered, and running a fingertip along the tabletop toward him, she asked, “Do you not trust me, my love?”
Erik huffed a small derisive laugh, lowered his head, and raised it again to meet her fluttering eyes. “If you do not, I swear to you now, I will kill you myself. Look into my eyes and understand that I make this oath with the greatest of solemnity.”
A spark of fear crossed the usually impregnable face, and Erik hoped the fear did not arise from her own certain knowledge that Christine was already dead. But then, her smile returned, and with it, the confidence she always carried.
“Why speak to me thus, Erik? We have loved each other too long to quarrel in this manner.” She affected a pout, and walked two fingers toward him on the tabletop. “I have already told you I intend to live a very long life. I tell you again, you silly man. Christine is my special guest” – Erik shuddered at the words, remembering well how she treated her “special guests” – “and will remain so. If you do as I ask, I will do as I say.”
Erik nodded once. “Do you have a plan?”
“Of course,” she answered. Smiling and raising herself she said, “Shall we dine, or…”
“Speak, Naheed. I will break no bread with you.”
Again, the pout, but she lowered herself to the cushions again. In a languorous manner and sugared with many endearments, the Sultana explained. She named the night for the deed – only three days hence, which seemed to Erik both impossibly far away and surprisingly soon. She explained in excellent detail where he would find the mother and child, and how to move past the guards of those quarters. She did not refer to the hidden tunnels, and neither did he. If she remained unaware of their existence after all these years – her father, the Shah, not having trusted her with the information – so much the better. She told of her own alibi: a reception for a visiting ambassador where she was sure to be seen. Through all this, Erik listened, having no intention whatever of committing the deed, but waiting to learn the conditions of Christine
’s return. When the Sultana finished her account without that explanation, Erik’s patience ended.
“And my wife is returned when? How?” He barked the words.
“I wish to see proof of the deed,” she said, “naturally.” She explained her desires to Erik’s growing horror. “Then, my love, I will take you to your wife.” She paused, and with an arch of her back and the lifting of one knee, she said, “Unless you wish to claim another prize?”
Again Erik fought the recurrent urge to leap across the table, to strangle the creature before him. He felt confident that the Sultana had left orders for Christine’s immediate death if she failed to return from this meeting. Erik conjured the earlier calming vision of Petter – Petter’s concerned eyes, his placating hand to a shoulder. With a shuddering exhale, he said, “I have never wanted you, Naheed.” He stood and walked around the table, feeling ill. He needed fresh air. He needed to be quit of her presence and her scent.
“Oh, Erik, you lie,” he heard her soft words behind him, uttered with sadness. “You lie. We have always been lovers in our hearts.” He closed the door behind him and heard no more of her mad utterances.
CHAPTER 25
CHRISTINE PLANS FOR ESCAPE
Christine had dared much since the Sultana had cut her face. Tonight she must dare more – for now she had a plan.
She brought her hands to her cheeks and shuddered as she recalled those horrible woundings.
The Sultana had only come to her room once since that morning, and had stayed only a moment. Christine melted into violent shivers as the Sultana approached her, unable to speak even to plead, her mind tearing and twisting in an incoherent tangle of terror. But the Sultana just ordered the bandages to her face removed so that she could inspect the stitches. Then she demanded the bandages replaced with new ones, and without meeting Christine’s stricken gaze, had spun and left the room. As the lock turned in the door, Christine had shaken in one great final spasm and vomited up her lunch, spattering her clothing and the bed linens. She had crawled away from the mess to the cushions at the far side of the room and had wept, careful to lean forward to keep her tears from soaking the bandages. That night she had slept, too exhausted to enter the tunnels.
