Caliphate (22 page)

"Look, I didn't make the world," Caruthers said testily. "I don't even approve. I just observe and report. They sell us—we buy from them— redundant human organs and we should balk over a little incidental voyeurism?"

Rocking his head from side to side, Hamilton grudgingly agreed. "Okay. Sure. Go on. What's her name, by the way?"

"Zheng Ling."

"Petra, Honey, wake up," Ling said, while gently shaking the girl awake.

"What is it, Ling?" Petra asked sleepily.

"I just got the word. There's a big group of new-minted janissaries coming to the castle for their graduation party. We have to prepare. It's going to be a busy few nights."

Petra groaned. After all, she was still sore.

"Oh, stop it, you. At least they'll be young, strong and virile, with normal urges, and not grotesque, smelly, perverted old men. Now get up, lazy bones, and start making yourself
gorgeous
. There's money to be made and
fun
to be had."

"I don't want to have any 'fun.' The money, on the other hand . . . "

"
Exactly!
" Ling said. "Now pull on a robe and let's get down to Costuming and Jewelry before all the nice things are taken."

Sometimes Petra thought she could see elaborate paintings under the plain, off-white of the walls. Certainly the gilt, the blue and purple columns of what some of the staff still called "the Throne Room," suggested that the original builder—of whom Petra knew precisely nothing—had intended something very elaborate. Yet the masters insisted on "no graven images," and took this to include paintings of living creatures. She understood that if there ever had been paintings on the walls, these would have been covered up or destroyed.

Hurrying with Ling along one covered and arched walkway, framed by blue columns on one side and walls covered with erratic geometric shapes on the other, Petra stopped for a moment to gaze down at the "Throne Room."

It's makes no sense . . . it was not part of the builder's design . . . that this room should be only color. It calls out for something . . . more . . . something
alive
.

"Hurry, silly!" Ling demanded, impatiently.

Most of the girls were still asleep from the night's revelries. Of those who were awake, not all had heard of the arrival of a large party of janissaries. Of those who had heard, not all cared. Of those who cared, none had quite the fire of Ling.

She raced through Costuming and Jewelry, pulling this dress from that rack, that dress from this. Some she held up to herself. Still others,
more
others, actually, she sized and colored to Petra. For herself, Ling settled on a simple but painstakingly embroidered black silk, thigh-length tunic, the embroidery being of golden dragons and silvery phoenixes. Ling had learned over the years to accentuate her exoticism. The little voice in her head, the one she never told anyone about, pushed her in that direction as well. Ling sometimes wondered about the double standard the masters showed regularly: paintings on walls of real things were right out for them; embroideries of mythical beings for infidels were just fine.

Petra though . . . she was classic and only classic, in Ling's opinion, would do. For the
Nazrani
slave, Ling selected an ankle-length gown of white, crumply material, mostly silk as well, cut in the Empire fashion (the
French
Empire, not the American). The gown was high- waisted, with a golden belt just under the breasts. Those the gown left half-exposed, covering only the nipples and—were a girl a bit daring—not necessarily all of them.

"Try it on! Try it on!" Ling urged. "I've wanted to see you in this for
ages
."

Once satisfied with the fit of Petra's gown, Ling dragged her to Jewelry. There she selected pearls—earrings and necklace both—for herself, and golden pendants for Petra. Unsatisfied with just the pendants, however, Ling insisted that the slave managing the Jewelry department also produce a pair of gold torques for Petra's upper arms. For her necklace Petra could continue to wear the crucifix she always did.

"Classic," Ling said when Petra had donned both gown and gold. "Now take it all off and change back. We have time to make love before everything is ready and before we have to report to Cosmetics and Hairdressing—yes, I've already made us appointments. And you're too beautiful for me not to show my appreciation for it."

"Really, Abdul Rahman," Rustam said, "this is just too much. Sure, it's beautiful but when I think of the cost—"

"Oh, be still," the senior janissary trainer said. "The boys have done well. They deserve this bounty. Soon enough they'll be going off to different schools . . . or to face the infidels across the English Channel, or the Russian border or the Balkan Front. There'll be little enough beauty there. Let them enjoy."

"But the
expense
. . . "

"Twenty score gold dinar for three days of carousing? Seems fair to me."

"But . . . "

"You didn't bitch when Captain Masood brought
you
and
your
mates here, Rustam."

The junior sniffed. "That was
different
."

Abdul Rahman laughed aloud, the sound echoing off the rocky steeps surrounding. "Oh, yes, of
course.
Then it was
your
dick getting wet. I see it all clearly now. That makes all the difference in the world. You are absolutely right, Rustam. Go fetch the busses. We're heading back to the barracks . . . "

"Well . . . let's not be hasty," Rustam said, setting his face and his feet upon the steep upward path.

"Quick, boys," Müller said. "Paradise is on the top of this hill."

"Or if not Paradise," answered another, "a reasonably close facsimile. I hear the houris up there put those of Heaven to shame."

"I doubt that," Hans said, even while thinking,
I doubt there are any houris at all in the
real
Heaven.

Even so, Hans trudged up with his pack—light marching order only—on his back. He made an effort to seem as enthusiastic about losing his virginity as any of the rest of the boys. Indeed, he seemed quite a bit more enthusiastic than some. Those? Well, put any couple of hundred young boys together and some of them are going to discover that they prefer the company, in all senses, of boys. Still, even those five or six put on a fair show of interest.

The janissaries made rather less of such things than the Caliphate for which they worked though, of course, they would hang any boys actually caught in any of a number of forbidden acts. They simply refused to infer such acts from extraneous behavior. In any case, such hangings were, in practice, rare. Only two of Hans' original company, for example, had been put to death for homosexuality and that had been years ago. Far more boys had been killed in training.

Within half an hour the point of the column, led by Rustam, reached a magnificent brick gate, framed by graceful minarets. From the right of the gatehouse, where Rustam formed up the company, Hans could see the upper third of a large golden dome, glittering in the sunset's light. Despite the minarets, the dome seemed out of place, as if it had been grafted onto a non-Islamic or a pre-Islamic building.

While Rustam formed the company and made sure nobody had drifted off, Adbul Rahman met by the main gate with a very fat man with two young children in tow.

"
Can
your establishment handle all one hundred and fifty-seven of my men, plus thirteen cadre?" Abdul Rahman asked. "I understood that you could."

Latif answered, "No problem, Abdul Rahman von Seydlitz. I've pulled in another thirty-two houris from some of my outlying establishments and had several servant's quarters done up as boudoirs. I've got a girl for each of you. That said, the girls are of varying qualities. Would you like to make assignments or would you prefer a lottery? Or would you prefer to let the boys pick their own?"

"They've had little enough choice in their lives," Abdul Rahman answered, "and will get little more in the future. Let us let them select their own temporary wives, but by rank in the corps and the class."

"As you wish, so shall it be," answered Latif. "I have on hand enough mullahs for the required services. And now the little matter of payment?"

Wordlessly, Abdul Rahman passed over a bank draft. "Four hundred gold dinar," he said, "as agreed."

* * *

"Riiighghght . . . FACE!" Rustam ordered. "Column of files from the left . . ."

"Follow me," said one of the section leaders, the leftmost one, while the others, including Hans, shouted, "Stand fast!"

"March!"

As the boys marched forward from the left, Hans kept his head and eyes fixed over his left shoulder. When he saw the third from the last man of the section to his left come up parallel, he gave the order, "Forward . . . March," and stepped off. Rather than giving commands for minor movements, Hans simply followed the last man of the previous section even as his men followed him. In a short time, he had led them through the massive gate and into a courtyard dominated by a huge mosque with an outsized golden onion dome perched above. This was the same dome he had glimpsed from outside.

Ahead was a broad stone staircase, hunched up against one wing of the castle. Up this the janissaries marched, then through a magnificent doorway, before entering a great hall.

None of the janissaries had eyes for the hall or for its decorations. Instead, they only had eyes for the girls lining each side.

Müller spoke for nearly all when he said, aloud, "I have died and gone to Heaven."

Ling nudged Petra discreetly. "Didn't I tell you this would be better than nasty old men?"

Petra didn't answer. Instead, she looked with shock upon one, in particular, of the boys filling the great hall. After a few moments' shock she managed to whisper, "I've got to get out of here."

"I don't understand," Ling said. "After hundreds of filthy perverts I thought—"

"One of them is my
brother
!"

"Oh . . ." The almond eyes widened. "Oh! Oh,
shit
!"

Gabi wrote in her journal:

My life has turned to absolute shit.

Mahmoud was serious about going to America. I thought it was just a passing fad but I was wrong. He didn't tell me until yesterday. I think he was in doubt until then.

It was the bombings in London. He expected the British to crack down on Muslims, to start rounding them up. When it didn't happen he still said, "We'll see. The people who once ruled a quarter of the world are not going to bend over for this. Give them two months to get the machinery in place."

Yesterday he said, "Even
they
lack the will to defend themselves."

That's when he told me that he'd gone to Frankfurt late last year, to the American consulate, not on orders from his company, but to apply for a work visa. And apparently his company decided better to send him overseas, and let him take a job from an American, than to keep him here and keep a "good German" out of work. I'm sure that's what they were thinking.

Since Mahmoud is a Christian now, it seems the Americans are a little more willing to let him in than they otherwise might be. Racist bastards! I
told
Mahmoud they were, too, and he said, "No. It has nothing to do with race. They just have a proper sense of caution . . . and the will to defend their homeland."

Why can't I make him
see
?
What's missing in him that he can't see that "homelands" are not worth defending; that only people are?

He says that I'm blind.

Ooo, he makes me so
angry
sometimes!

I tell him that if he leaves, he's helping bring about a self-fulfilling prophecy; that if all the most reasonable Moslems or ex-Moslems leave then only the lunatics will remain. He tells me that some prophecies are destined to be fulfilled, and that those who don't heed them suffer for it. He tells me to look to the number of Germans who are leaving Germany, the number of French who are leaving France, the number of English that are leaving England, and then to deny that this prophecy
will
be fulfilled. He says to look to the birthrates and tell him that this prophecy won't be fulfilled.