Chapter 64: Back With The Emir

My mobile rang the following day. It was Kelly. "Hi," she said. "I didn't know you were going to the Fetish Fair. Why didn't you say? We could have gone together?"

I made some, eh? who? what? noises and said that I would have called her but I had to be there on business. (Which was true.) I'd been looking over the hall as a possible venue for an exhibition that one of my clients was planning. (Which wasn't.)

She asked if I'd seen Hettie's "kidnapping". I didn't want to tell too many porkies — besides that might have been where she'd seen me - so I said, "Sure."

"Wasn't it just a hoot!" said Kelly. "One of the best things I've seen. Those people knew how to put on a show."

"I was impressed," I said, "more elaborate than any of our games."

"Maybe but we still have fun. When are we getting together again? Assuming that you want to?"

"Sure, sure," I said. "I'm sorry I've been busy lately. You know how things are. When are you free?"

"I've got to be down in London for a couple of nights next week. Tuesday and Wednesday. Maybe we could meet up?"

"Mmm, Tuesday's good for me," I said. "Tell you what, text me where you're staying and I'll catch up with you at some point in the evening."

"Sound like fun," she said. "Why do I think that might not be just you buying me dinner?"

"Send me a text and you'll see," I said. She laughed and hung up. I headed off to find Freddie.

Freddie and I turned up at the Castle in plenty of time for the engagement announcement. Hettie had been brought along too, in the back of a van, in some very special packaging. We'd also brought a transport case for Lauren in case the Emir needed it.

The biggest surprise was that Lauren was waiting in the lounge dressed in full traditional Kushtian woman's dress. True the robe and veil that she wore were goth-black and the pill box hat appeared to have been fashioned from leather and was decorated with studs rather than the coins which symbolised an unmarried girl's dowry, but at least she was making the effort we thought. There was one incongruous feature of her appearance, however. From each ear, the trademark white wires of iPod earphones snaked down to disappear beneath her robe.

"Hello, Lauren," I said. "Nice to see you. Is your father around?"

She looked at is as if we had just crawled out from some stone or other. She didn't bother to turn down the volume on her iPod. "Whatever," she said waving her hand in the general direction of the garden. "He's out back. Looking for that rank gimmer. He's probably mounting a sheep or looking for a yak to freshen up his breath with."

I assumed she was referring to her, still unknown, intended. Freddie and I took ourselves off in the direction of her wave.

We found Brad in the garden. "Hi," he said you haven't seen Kushnati, have you? There was a terrible row earlier on with Sarah. She wouldn't dance for him. He starts in at her in that dialect of his. I couldn't understand much of it. Hell, I've only got to chapter five on 'Teach Yourself Kushtian' and that only covers the version spoken in Kolin and the surroundings. She tries to explain and he isn't having any. He drags her off. I assume he's gone down to the dungeon to give her a taste of some of my toys so I think it's better if he gets it out of his system. Anyway, I've just been down there and there's no sign of them. Lauren said they came through this way but there's no sign of them in the garden."

We set off in different directions in search of Kushnati or Sarah or both.

I went towards the golf course. I was the first to find them. As I reached the first tee, there were sounds of raised voices coming from my right somewhere on the approach to the eighteenth green. As I crossed the green a bizarre sight confronted me in the deep bunker at the edge of the green. Standing in the base of the bunker clutching a spade and a jar of some kind was Kushnati. He had a disapproving scowl on his face. At his feet was all that could be seen of Sarah, her head. For a moment I thought he had sliced it off with the spade but the lack of blood and the fact that she was grunting animatedly from behind a ball gag told me I was wrong. She had been buried up to her neck in the bunker. In deference to the etiquette of the course, at least Kushnati had raked the sand where he had been digging; so the man wasn't a complete barbarian.

There were two of the other slaves alongside her. Femke Toos and Greetje Van Bruijn, both wearing bikinis, were kneeling either side of her head. Kushnati gestured at the two girls. Femke unfastened Sarah's gag. Toos leant forward with a drinking bottle.

"Oh, thank, you, thank you," said Sarah trying to move her head sufficiently to take the drink. She sipped from the bottle and immediately spat the liquid out. "Oh! No, no, it's horrible," she yelled. Kushnati barked at the two girls urging them on. Femke grabbed hold of Sarah's nose and pinched it shut. Unable to breath Sarah could do no other than gulp at the air and the drink that Toos was pouring into her mouth. Once the bottle was empty, Toos jammed the ball gag back into Sarah's mouth. Kushnati waved them away. Sarah was shaking her head in discomfort. I watched as the two girls walked off, laughing together, no doubt remembering their discomforts in the dungeon as a result of Sarah's initial refusal to betray her friend.

For Kushnati, Sarah's discomfort was not yet enough. He upended the contents of the jar he was holding over her head. From the way that ants, flies, bees and wasps were immediately swarming about her, I guessed it was honey. I could understand Sarah's gagged screams and yells. I thought I'd better fetch Brad.

I took both him and Clegg back to the bunker by the eighteenth green. Kushnati was still there staring down at Sarah who was gasping hysterically into her gag at the centre of a cloud of flies.

Brad tried to discuss things with Kushnati using his limited command of Kushtian. A great deal of gesticulation was going on from both of them. Eventually Kushnati calmed down and he and Brad dug Sarah out. She'd been tied into a ball, so the hole Kushanti had dug wasn't as deep as I'd thought. For all of his sixty eight years, though, he was obviously fit.

Brad called into his mobile phone. Femke and Greetje were sent back out, this time with a brush and hose. Together they untied Sarah, hosed her down and brushed the sand from her. As they took off her gag, she retched and threw up whatever unpleasant drink, Kushnati had forced down her. Even from where I was standing I could smell it.

Brad was still remonstrating with Kushnati but eventually came across to explain. "Sorry about that guys," he said. "Just a bit of a domestic. Sarah refused to dance for him, like I said. I've told him to use the stuff in the dungeon if he needs to but he doesn't trust these new fangled things as he calls them. Things like this have been good enough for his tribe for at least fifteen centuries. He doesn't see the point of changing to stuff that's only five hundred years old as long as the old ways work."

"No problem," I said. "Is it Freddie?"

"Hmm. What? Oh, errr, sure," Freddie responded. He was obviously miles away, thinking that he really needed to find a way to talk to Kushnati to see if there were any other ideas he could pick up from him.

"I'm surprised at Sarah though, she's normally quite obedient and she quite likes dancing, I thought."

"It was the snakes," said Brad. "She didn't like the snakes. She's scared of snakes."

"Snakes?" I said.

"Yes, it's the Pythork, a fertility dance from the hill tribes. Some people reckon it comes from the same roots as the Minoan religion. The dancer performs her dance with two live snakes and finishes with the 'snake' of the person she is performing the dance for. Kushnati was keen she should perform it for him."

"Ah," I said.

"Let's go back inside," said Brad. "I've told Sarah to clean herself up and then come and apologise. Properly. Poskalic," he said to Kushnati.

We went back to the pool side bar. The Emir played the host and served us all drinks. Kushnati's humour improved with each one that he downed.

Sarah reappeared. Kushnati's first instinct to growl was interrupted by his sight of her in the costume of a court dancer. "Arrgn!" he exclaimed with approval.

Sarah stood at the edge of the room. She wore an elaborate head band around her brow. Coins dangled from it across her forehead. Her veil was fastened so that it looped down from the head band to cover her face and then draped down in long folds to be fastened at either side to heavy bracelets that circled her arms above the elbow.