Prayer-Cushions of the Flesh Read Online Free Page B

to come to a climax within this strange creature, that he was by now ready to offer up himself for slow impalement on the morrow, if only he could have what he wanted now. Nothing else mattered. Now. Finally he came in a hot thick torrent.
    ‘Oh, my Sultan!’
    They lay together briefly collapsed in each others’ arms. Then Anadil wriggled impatiently under him.
    ‘Now my bottom is cold. You can warm it for me.’
    And slipping out from under him, she rolled over in the melting slush. He ran his hands over her wet rump and smoothed away tiny particles of ice.
    ‘That will not warm my bottom. You can spank it, if you like.’
    He pulled himself up on his elbows and, as he contemplated her soft little bottom, he felt desire stirring within him again. But, suddenly, even before Orkhan could raise his hand to deliver the first slap, she uttered a brief cry. Then she looked over her shoulder at Orkhan. Her face was grim and her teeth were chattering so much that she was impossible to understand at first. Finally Orkhan heard her say,
    ‘There is a face in the ice! We have been making love upon someone’s tomb! Look at it! You have to look!’
    Peering over Anadil’s shoulder, Orkhan could now with difficulty just make out the body through the still thick layers of ice. He saw Barak grinning fiercely up at him.

CHAPTER THREE
     

Outside in the corridor, a pair of mutes barred their way. A third, seeing them emerge from the ice-cell, disappeared back down the corridor. In a little while, he returned with the Vizier. The Vizier started talking before Orkhan could open his mouth.
    ‘Now, you have beheld your brother face to face, just as was promised. In this place promises are always kept. Alas, that they are almost never kept in the way one is expecting. Yet the showing of your brother was meant kindly.’
    ‘Kindly!’
    ‘Yes it was meant to be a clear and vivid warning for you. I think that it is like the rearing of lion cubs. As everyone knows, the cubs are always born dead, but the loving lioness tends them and licks them into shape and after a few days they are made alive. Even so, it sometimes happens that there is a cub which cannot be licked into shape.’
    ‘You mean that it was the Valide Sultan who had my brother killed?’
    ‘A mother kill her own son! And she is your mother too! How could you think such a thing of your own mother?’ The Vizier did indeed seem genuinely shocked. However he continued, ‘Even so, it is always rewarding to contemplate the ways of the animal kingdom. The beasts of the desert and jungle have much to teach the politic man.’
    ‘But what have you to teach me? Who did kill Barak?’
    ‘Wild surmise will infallibly miss its mark. Barak was like a man making his way along a precipitous mountain ledge in a snow storm. Then he looked down and, having looked down, he lost his nerve and, having lost his nerve, he lost his footing and with it his life. It is best to think of your brother as an unlucky mountain man. Alternatively, you may think of your brother as a man seated at his ease and feasting at a party. Then Death the Butler comes round with a bitter cup. Your brother seizes the cup and drinks deeply from it. Yes, perhaps that is better – to think of your brother as a man leaving a party.’
    Suddenly Orkhan thought of Anadil. He did not want her reporting on what had taken place in the ice-cell, or, for that matter on the conversation he was now having with the Vizier. He turned towards her, intending to have her placed under immediate arrest, but she was no longer anywhere to be seen. He turned back to the Vizier,
    ‘That girl, Anadil, who was with me, I want her placed under close confinement under the guard of deaf mutes.’
    ‘I shall lose no time in carrying out your command, O Sultan,’ said the Vizier, looking thoughtful. ‘So, she did not please you? I did think that you would have been better off with an ugly woman. The thing about ugly women is that it takes