Soleiman opened his mouth to say that even if the Shah’s men were after him, he did not care to flee to the edge of the earth. He would stay here, be buried next to Gold Dust. But his visitors had vanished into the night.

43

Behind the partitions, countless stars bled through the dark canvas of the skies. The din of Raven’s thoughts disturbed the calm. Her heavy breasts, erect nipples, and the response of her flesh to her exploring fingers were alien and sweet. The craving. The thirst. The demons in her mind blotted her of the last drop of moisture. She consumed large amounts of sherbets, teas, and wine. She took long baths and swam often in the river. It was useless. Her body was a desert.

She had slept with lethargic women and eunuchs who roamed the harem, half-men whose organs had been left intact although their testicles had been removed. She preferred these eunuchs to sound men because they knew how to prolong her pleasure. They had groveled between her legs and feasted on her with their tongues. They had promised to quench her thirst without piercing her maidenhood. But the drought in her veins persisted.

Yesterday, after her swim with the sharks, Cyrus, the naked diver, had carried her to the top of the cliff and licked the shark ointment off her body, his tongue circling her underarms and nipples, teasing her navel and mound, and darting in and out of her until her screams had exploded.

But the thirst persisted. So she fabricated another excuse, another urgent reason to visit her father. A drop of sweat in the cleft of his chin, or an accidental kiss from his lower lip, where saliva gathered, would momentarily replenish her with moisture. Why did he resist her?

Her eyes swept the skies and stopped at the horizon. She threw her arms up, turning her back to the window. She didn’t understand the sadness she felt for a mother who refused to accept the truth, who refused to acknowledge that her daughter was no longer a child. If not for her mother, the king would have noticed the drought in her. Last week her fingernails had a healthy sheen to them. Now they were brittle and yellow. Her scalp felt taut. Her skin was losing its suppleness and threatened to strangle her. She would not stand idle while this demon robbed her of her youth and beauty.

Spreading her thighs, she rubbed the lips with the balm of musk and sprayed a mist of the essence of cloves, nutmeg, and ginger on her body. Wrapping a diaphanous veil of lilac around her breasts, she fastened the gold chain with the jar of shark ointment around her waist. In the straps of her sandal, she adjusted a dagger. The snake of gold with ruby eyes clasped her arm.

She glided through the dim corridors of the Secret Passage. The night was hot and humid, which made it difficult to breathe. Hardly acknowledging the presence of the eunuchs who stepped aside, she slipped into the royal chambers.