“Ahh!” She leaned over the table and got a firm grip on the evidence with both hands, pulling the silk of the pantaloons tight about it like a sheath. “You’re an impostor!”
My body tensed to bolt and run. I couldn’t think of anything to say. All I knew was that if a bogus eunuch was discovered in the harem baths, the penalty would probably be severe—very possibly so severe as to turn me into a eunuch for real! From what I knew of the period and the place, that might well be the least of the punishments meted out to me.
But the lady wouldn’t let go. My obvious alarm at being discovered only caused her to grasp me more firmly. “Don’t worry,” she hissed. “I won’t give you away. Do you know how long it has been since I have held such a spear? There are forty-seven girls in the harem. And the Emir isn’t getting any younger. I am fortunate if he comes to me once in six months. The rest of the time I am surrounded by women and eunuchs. Just stay and let me hold you and you will be safe. But if you try to flee, I will reveal you for what you are!”
“But the others will see,” I protested.
“Wait.” She draped a towel over the edge of the bench and drew me closer. “Now you are concealed.” Her hands got busy under the cover of the towel and freed the object of her obsession from the folds of silk which had been covering it. “Bend low over me and continue with the massage,” she commanded.
She contrived it so that one of my hands was beneath her. She fit herself to it and writhed with such enthusiasm that I was sure we would be detected any moment. Her own two hands were squeezing and stroking so frantically that soon I was seized with a prolonged spasm of release that filled her palms with nectar. It was just at this moment that a teen-aged boy in the garb of a noble appeared in the doorway behind us and was greeted by the head eunuch.
“My Lord Saladin.” The head eunuch bowed low, almost prostrating himself.
“I have need of a eunuch,” Saladin told him. “That one will do.” He pointed straight at me.
The head half-man clapped his hands and I understood that it was a command to place myself at the young lord’s disposal. I patted the harem girl’s derrière by way of reluctant farewell, kept the towel carefully draped in front of me to conceal my lack of eunuchdom, and followed Saladin from the bathing hall. He led the way out of the palace to the gates of the city and beyond. Twilight had merged into night by the time we reached the desert sands. We mounted a dune and Saladin paused to contemplate the scene in the distance.
Young though he was, there was a royal and imposing demeanor about the lad as he poised there. He was large for his years and husky-muscular, his body the body of a man. His face, however, despite the craggy features and the toughness burned into it by the desert sun, still had the pouty, sullen look of a little boy. Now he discarded the royal trappings of his outer clothing and stood in breechcloth and turban, a knife sheathed at his waist and a garotte -- a long, silken cord knotted at each end—held in one hand. He continued to stare out across the desert, his brow furrowed as if he was trying to decide how to proceed.
In the distance were the new-lit fires of the Crusaders’ camp. They had arrived at sundown and entrenched themselves. Now they rested and waited for dawn to attack the city.
After awhile Saladin nodded to himself as though he’d arrived at some plan. Crouching low, he started across the sands towards the Crusaders’ camp. He motioned to me to follow and I did, not knowing what he was up to, Wondering what my part in it was to be.
When we reached the Crusaders’ outermost guardposts, I learned the answer. Bellied down behind a sand dune to conceal ourselves, Saladin told me what he wanted to do. “Stand up to your full height with your hands over your head,” he instructed me, “and walk directly towards the guard. I will be right behind you, but crawling low so as not to be seen. While you distract the guard’s attention, I’ll finish him off.” He snapped the silken cord in his hand.
“But he might decide to kill me first and ask questions later,” I protested.
“Well, we have to take some chances,” Saladin pointed out.
“I don’t think I like the odds.”
“There are worse odds you might face, eunuch.” The knife flashed from its scabbard and the blade nibbled at my belly.
I sucked in my stomach to keep from being punctured. “Okay.” I got the point.
“And don’t change your mind, eunuch,” Saladin cautioned. “I am a master at throwing the blade.”
I had no choice. I did what he wanted. I sprang to my feet, held my hands high in the air and started for the guardpost. Behind me, Saladin moved silently to take advantage of the distraction.
“What do you want, infidel dog?” They were the last words the Crusader sentry spoke. His lance was still solid against my ribs as Saladin leaped on him from one side and strangled him to death.
That then was my role, the reason he’d brought me along. I was the decoy. As far as Saladin was concerned, if the gambit hadn’t worked, it meant only the loss of one eunuch-—-and eunuchs didn’t count much in his world. Fortunately for me, his reflexes were good. We repeated the ruse successfully three more times before we gained the inner circle of the Crusaders’ camp.
We paused in the shadow of the tents while Saladin studied the layout. Then he pointed out one tent to me as our goal. Saladin did the talking. He told the sentries there that we had been sent by King Louis to fetch the queen to him. His manner was so imperious that they didn’t even question his authority. They simply stood aside and Saladin led the way into the tent.
The fabled Eleanor of Aquitaine was asleep in a lavish canopied bed. Saladin shook her gently by one shoulder and bent low over her so that she might see his face. Her eyes widened and she stood up immediately, an imposing figure in a billowing white nightdress.
Saladin indicated that I should guard the inside of the entrance to the tent. Then he told Eleanor to change her clothes. She gestured towards me as if to say that she couldn’t possibly dress with me watching. “He’s only a eunuch,” Saladin told her. “Ignore him.”
Evidently they were on intimate enough terms so that it didn’t faze the lady to reveal her body in front of Saladin. History had been accurate in its tributes to Eleanor’s beauty. She was a tall blonde with a long, voluptuous torso marked by wide hips and large breasts that were perfect spheres. Her skin was very fair and smooth, her face strong of feature, classic, yet smoldering with an earthy desire. Her eyes were very blue and they sparkled in the light from the flickering torch Saladin had lit. There was mischief in them as she pulled off her nightdress and took her time replacing it with a blue velvet gown. However, she didn’t take the time to put anything on underneath the gown.
We marched her from the tent as if she was our prisoner and we her guards. A royal crest identified the tent of King Louis and now Saladin led the way straight towards it. However, when we reached it, we ducked behind it, broke into a trot and slipped out of the camp by the route Saladin had established when we entered.
We were about halfway back to the city walls when we stopped running. We took cover behind a sand dune and got our breath. The interlude was a lesson in realpolitik19 .
“Have you come to rescue me?” Eleanor asked Saladin. “Or to hold me hostage?”
“A little of both,” the youth told her. “First we must dispense with the menace your husband presents. Then I shall share an Arabian idyll with you to outshine our memories of Byzantium.”