Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part Three: Constantinople (2 page)

Omar Reis spoke to his daughter for a long time.

A need to piss began to creep into Swan’s hierarchy of needs. And his posture, folded in the trunk, was growing painful. His lower legs were bent back under him. His knees burned.

She said something imperious. Swan had been an adolescent – he knew that tone. She said something like
Fine! Do whatever you want
.

More footsteps. Male. And many of them.

After a while, he decided that soldiers or servants were searching the place.

‘How dare you! Not in my room!’ she said, with all the drama of the young, in Arabic.

The cedar doors crashed open.

I’m going to die naked, in a fancy trunk, with a raging hard-on
. Swan couldn’t decide whether to be more terrified or to laugh aloud.

Drugged. For sure.

Drawers were opened.

A trunk was opened. Then another.

Then a new voice – calm, level, and wheedling.

Idris.

Then Khatun Bengül – a shriek of adolescent righteousness that crossed language and cultural barriers.

In a blaze of light, his trunk was opened.

A crack.

Swan’s fear made him virtually unable to breathe.

Someone’s hand held the trunk open just a little. Idris’s voice – quite close. All Turkish. Swan had no idea what Idris was saying.

He lay there, waiting for the trunk to be opened farther. The top was ajar about the breadth of a man’s fingers.

Khatun Bengül was weeping. She said – something – through her tears.

Idris sounded agitated now.

The fingers inside the trunk lid were those of a middle-aged man – the nails were clean, but there were scars across all four, and a great ring of silver, gold and a blood-red stone engraved – beautifully engraved – with a running horse. In Greek, the letters by the horse said ‘Eupatridae’. The well-born. The jewel of some Ancient Greek aristocrat, two thousand years ago. On the finger of a Turkish warlord. It had to be Omar Reis’s hand.

Swan had time to read the stone, admire its age, and say three Ave Marias.

The trunk slammed shut. He heard Khatun Bengül’s sobs, and her brother’s gentle remonstrances, and then – silence.

Time passed.

His cramps grew greater than his fear, and then his need to piss grew greater than either.

Time passed without a rush of feet, or the blaze of light that would herald his death.

The last footsteps died away – there were no more shouts from the courtyard.

The trunk lid was thrown back, and Khatun Bengül leaned in. ‘My poor Englishman,’ she said. She extended him a slim hand, and he took it, and to his immense mortification, he couldn’t rise out of the box. His feet and lower legs were pinned under him, and there was no feeling in them at all.

‘You must come,’ she said.

He raised himself on his arms, and she pulled on his legs until they came free. He couldn’t feel them at all – it was the oddest, and in some ways the most terrifying, feeling. He couldn’t stand. She couldn’t carry him.

‘You must do better! If my father finds you here, he will have to kill you.’

Swan looked at her for a moment. ‘My lady,’ he said in Arabic, ‘you brought me here.’

She looked at him and wrinkled her nose. ‘So?’

‘I was in no – ahem – danger. Where I was.’ His Arabic wasn’t well suited to the situation. He didn’t know any words to convey anything salacious.

‘Auntie intended to fuck you and then sell you to the Armenians,’ Khatun Bengül said, matter-of-factly, in prim Italian. ‘I assumed you would prefer to remain free and alive.’ She smiled, utterly desirable. ‘Perhaps Auntie’s body is worth your life?’

His legs were beginning to tingle.

‘I can’t move until I get feeling back in my legs,’ he said.

‘Ah!’ she said. She looked him over. ‘Are you always so . . . solid?’ she asked with a giggle.

‘I’ve been drugged,’ he said. He was finding it difficult to sound dashing, romantic, or even clever.

‘I wonder what she gave you?’ Khatun Bengül said. ‘She must have been very . . . exciting.’

His feet were tingling, and his upper legs were hurting. A great deal.

He gritted his teeth. ‘You are far more beautiful than your auntie,’ he said.
Time to take the offensive
.

‘Bah – you just say that. You would have rutted with her like a dog. Why did I even save you?’ she said. She leaned over him. ‘Are you going to be sick?’

He shook his head. ‘Have you ever gone to sleep on your arm?’

She laughed. ‘I see. So you are in pain.’

‘Yes,’ he said, somewhat tartly.

‘I wish I might discover what drug my auntie used,’ she said. Indeed, his tumescence hadn’t reduced – not from pain, nor time. She sat next to him on the edge of the trunk. ‘How much longer, do you think? Before you can walk?’

He could barely speak. ‘Soon,’ he said, in Arabic.

‘Does it hurt very much?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he admitted.

She leaned over and brushed her lips against his.

It was
remarkable
how instantly his concern for his legs and the pain there receded.

Her left hand went around his neck and stroked down – shoulder blade, spine – one nail just scratching along the lines and troughs of his muscles.

Her tongue brushed his.

Her right hand . . .

Voices in the courtyard. She stood up and pulled him to his feet. Flowers of pain blossomed at his ankles and ran down – and up – and he stumbled and fell, despite her grip on him.

But he got a foot under himself. Pushed to his feet.

Grabbed her, pulled her to him, and kissed her. He put his right hand on her left breast, through her robe felt the nipple, and she moaned.

‘Khatun Bengül?’ called a voice in the courtyard. She stiffened.

‘Don’t forget me,’ Swan said. He tried to find something from the Greek poets – something to say – but his brain was on fire with lust and his legs were afire with pain.

‘Khatun Bengül?’ came Omar Reis’s voice.

‘We’re dead,’ Khatun Bengül said. She was clearly shocked to her core. ‘It should be my brother out there.’

‘Window?’ Swan asked.

‘There are no windows in a virgin’s rooms – none that face out.’ She reached for him. ‘We are going to die.’

Swan had the oddest feeling – that this had happened before. Perhaps it had.

Of course, it might be that a doting father would kill only the lover – the foreign lover.

Whose death would nicely suit the political situation, discrediting the embassy
.

Christ, I’ve been had at every level. Auntie wasn’t going to sell me to the Armenians. Auntie was going to play the outraged sister and pass me to the Wolf of Thrace
.

‘Windows into the yard?’ he asked.

She pointed mutely at the ornate curtained frame visible through her chamber door. It let directly on to the courtyard. He went to it as swiftly as his feet allowed and peered through the curtain. He could see Idris, six feet away, with a sword, and a trio of Turks – hard men with lined faces and curved swords.

‘Khatun Bengül? I’m coming in,’ her father said. ‘My sister is very angry.’

Khatun Bengül was petrified. She wasn’t playacting. She was literally unable to move. ‘I’ll be stoned to death,’ she sobbed. ‘I never thought father would come back. He said . . .’

He looked around. She had her own apartment with her own slaves and servants – six rooms, all of which opened off a single door to the second-floor balconies that lined the arched colonnades of the courtyard. Bedroom, sitting room, clothes room – he was stumbling from room to room, now – slaves, pretending to be asleep, a small workroom with steps going down.

‘That’s the first place they’ll look!’ she cried. ‘The kitchen!’

‘Go and talk to your father,’ he said. He put an arm around her waist and kissed her. ‘We won’t die.’ He let go, and ran down the steps, his unwanted erection bouncing along like an extra limb.

The outer door of the apartment opened. ‘Khatun Bengül!’ roared Omar Reis.

Swan came to the bottom of the steps. There wasn’t even a separate window to the courtyard. He’d have taken his chances with that – but he was in a stone chamber lined with shelves. A pantry.

There were two curtained doorways.

‘If he’s here, he’s a dead man,’ Omar Reis said. ‘Auntie says you have polluted yourself.’

There was something in Omar Reis’s manner – even through his terror, Swan realised that the Turk
knew
. He knew – everything.

I’ve been had
.

Curiously, the knowledge that the Turkish lord had set him up – probably set him up to be caught with the auntie – wheels within wheels – stiffened his spine. He grew calm.

If I get through this alive, I’m going to get that bastard
.

He heard the sound of soft Turkish boots on the stone steps.

Two doors.

He slipped through the nearest.

It was dark. He tried to feel his way – silently – around, hoping against hope that there was a trunk, a barrel, anything to give him a chance. He began to consider fighting.

Naked, against a professional
.

He stubbed his toe. Hard.

Fell against cool stone, and smelled . . .

Water.

A well cover.

Open. Why not? It was indoors.

Turkish voices. Ten feet away. Two of them.

He jumped into the well.

If you ever want to understand the true meaning of
fear
, jump into a deep hole in total darkness and test your feelings as you fall.

Swan fell.

His right shoulder impacted heavily on something that hurt him, and then he was in water – deep, cold water. He struck it badly, and it knocked the wind out of him, and he went too deep, sputtering. It was all he could do not to breathe.

He didn’t know which way the surface was. He didn’t know if he had enough air in his lungs to allow him to float.

He was losing it.

A great bubble escaped him – a gob of air lost. It rippled past his face . . .

I’m upside down. Bubbles rise
.

He reversed himself, let out another tiny bubble of air, and swam – a panicked, wild, thrashing swim.

But his head broke the surface.

And smacked into something stone, in pitch darkness.

He took three breaths. Then he had to swim, and his fingers hit stone over his head. When he tried a shallower stroke, he hit his head again.

It finally came through.

I’m going to die here. I’m in a well
.

He took another breath, and reached up. He ran his fingers across the stone, using his buoyancy to press him against the ceiling.
I fell from somewhere, damn it
. Somewhere within a few feet was an opening.

He scraped an elbow, bumped his shoulder, and the feeling of the air on his face changed.

His head bobbed free.

There was something under his left hand, and he held it – an edge. For a very long time, he simply clung to the edge, resting. Breathing.

It was a ledge. It was quite wide, and under only a few inches of water.

He reached up as far as he could reach, and there was no ceiling.

He got a knee up on the ledge. It seemed the hardest thing he’d ever done.

He half lay on the underwater ledge for many, many breaths.

Then he got the other leg up. He knelt.

The drug had finally worn off, he was pleased to note.

He crouched on the ledge. He wasn’t dead, but that was about all he could say. He was now bitterly cold and very tired. It was completely dark. Utterly dark.

How, exactly, do I get myself into these things?

He began to explore, cautiously. His rational mind said that he would be weaker later.

His questing arms found a column. He put his back against it and stood cautiously, waiting for the feeling of stone against his head all the way, but when he was standing tall, he felt as if there was still a great deal of space above him.

There was another ledge above the one he was on. It was six feet above him, and he only found it because his hands were feeling for the ceiling. He got his fingers over the edge, and then his hands, and then his arms.

He didn’t make a conscious decision. He jumped, pushed with his arms, and he was lying on cool, dry stone. He instantly revised his chances of survival. This was . . . intentional. This shelf – it was like . . .

A path.

He crawled six feet and felt the drop just in time. The shelf ended abruptly. It fell away to the water.

Swan knew that, at this point, if he went back to the water, he’d die. He was just barely managing to keep the panic in check, but under the clarity of his thinking was an abyss of pain and fear. He was close to losing it. The thought
I’m going to die alone in the dark
was fully formed and very close.

He turned, with infinite patience, and crawled very slowly back the way he’d come. He knew he was on ‘new ground’ when he came to rock with no water on it. He crawled.

And crawled.

After ten minutes, he knew that he was going – somewhere.

Further, it occurred to him that the air was fresh.

I’m not in a well
, he thought. Or rather, hoped.

At the next column, he pulled himself into a crouch, and then sat with his back against the pillar. After a while, his back warmed the pillar. He wrapped his arms around himself and shivered.

He tried to think of Khatun Bengül’s body. Of her lips. Or Violante’s or Tilda’s.

But the darkness was all around him, and he was cold, and it is very hard to be brave in the dark, alone, when you are cold and wet.

But he must have slept.

Because he woke.

And there was . . . light.

Not much light. But after hours of complete darkness, it might have been direct sunlight.

He wasn’t in a well – he was in some sort of underground canal. The canal had a ledge underwater – probably for workmen to stand on while they cleared obstructions and pollutions. Above that was a walkway, on which he’d crawled. He looked back. He could see the end, about forty feet behind him.

He’d crawled forty feet.

He sighed.