Chapter 9: Dinner

The moment the Embassy car dropped Derek at the main entrance to the Golden Palace, no side doors for this visit, he was escorted by an obsequious guard through the Throne Room and to a door behind the dais. From there a eunuch escorted him along a corridor into a large, well-appointed dining room whose walls were decorated with beautiful fine mosaics depicting scenes of sexual excess.

The Emir rose from the table and said, "Good. I'm glad you could come. There is something I want to talk to you about."

"Yes, sir?" said Derek, "How may I help you?"

"Oh, later will do for the business talk. I'm quite hungry. Let's eat first."

Derek had little choice but to agree; the last thing he wanted was to appear rude. The conversation mostly ranged over Derek's background, and his life as an undergraduate. It seemed that the Emir was comparing it with life as an undergraduate twenty-five years earlier.

As they chatted, Derek began to relax, and finally dared to ask something he had been wondering about, "I understand that you were surprised to succeed to the throne, sir?"

"Yes," said the Emir, "It was a complete surprise; not just the sudden death of my uncle and grandfather, but that I was ever realistically in line to inherit."

"Surely you must have know that?"

It was out before Derek could bite his tongue.

The Emir was quite unperturbed, and continued, "I thought that the line of succession would be similar to the English one but in the male-only lines of course. The heir would be the eldest son, his sons, their sons, then the next eldest son, his sons and so forth. Like that I have worked out that I was sixth in line, since my uncle Gamel was still alive and he had two official sons and a grandson, and then there was the one official son of my late uncle Ali, then me. However, it doesn't work that way. When the Emir dies his eldest surviving son inherits. If he has no surviving sons, his grandsons are all treated as equals and the eldest of them inherits. So when my uncle Gamel died before my grandfather, I went from sixth, not to fifth but to heir apparent, then my grandfather died a day or so later. At least that was the official version. I have often wondered how accurate that was."

They sat on opposite sides of a table which could have accommodated eight people, but was laid only for two. A quartet of servants came to each of them with the first course, which consisted of none too generous helpings of caviar on tiny toast points. These vanished in seconds and a further course arrived, this time equally tiny portions of smoked salmon, this time on toast points of a spiced bread which enhanced the delicate flavour of the fish.

About the meal they were eating, Derek soon realised three things which intrigued him. The portions were all tiny, but there seemed to be a never-ending stream of them, sometimes with repetitions if the Emir nodded to a particular eunuch. The women serving as waitresses were all wearing sheer clothing made of fine cream gauze, which might as well have been absent for all the concealment it gave, showing clearly the varying hues of their skin which ranged from the bluish black of a Nubian girl to the peaches and cream of a European girl. And finally, the woman actually serving the food on to his plate would take a minuscule sliver of each dish and eat it herself before Derek was permitted to taste it.

He worked out that this last was a proof, at least nominally, that the food was not poisoned. The total visibility of the women's bodies was partly explained when the Emir reached out and stroked one breast of the woman who had just served him with his third repeat portion of roast duck.

Looking up and seeing Derek watching, the Emir said, "Feel free to help yourself to the women. It is what they are for, but it is considered bad form to move from the table and copulate during meals."

Hearing this, Derek almost choked on his food, but a few minutes later he stroked a conveniently placed buttock. The waitress immediately froze in place until he released her, whereupon she continued serving as though nothing had happened. After that he cupped a breast of one of the others and found that, as he had thought, she was really rather fat by Western standards.

It was during the eighth, or perhaps the ninth, different course that the accident happened; Derek couldn't remember the exact details of each course afterwards, there were so many of them. What happened was that one of the serving girls, a fairly ordinary looking olive skinned, plump woman, whom Derek judged to be about his own age, bumped into another serving girl as she backed away, and spilled some wine on the Emir's shoulder.

She gave a horrified gasp and everyone around the Emir froze for a horrified moment. Derek thought he could understand their being upset; it is very embarrassing to spill anything on a diner when serving at table, doubly so if the person spilled upon is the ruler of the country, and in his own palace, and multiplied immensely by it happening in front of guest. Derek's accountancy oriented mind calculated that somebody was in for a serious ticking off. Just how little he understood the ways if the country whose Emir he now served was brought home to him by what ensued.

The unfortunate woman was dragged off to one side by two of the eunuchs who always stood round, but never did anything, while a third one dabbed ineffectually at the stain. The Emir stood up and stripped off his kameez and, to Derek's surprise, by the time he had handed it to the eunuch, a clean one was passed to him. Within a very few weeks, Derek would come to understand and marvel at the time and effort spent by the staff of the Golden Palace in anticipating the Emir's every wish. The amount of coffee made but not served to the Emir amounted to hundreds of gallons a year, just so that a freshly made cup was always available should he ask.

Whish ... THWACK!

The sound from Derek's left was unmistakable, even for someone who had never witnessed a whipping before. The woman who had been so unfortunately clumsy was bent over a sort of low pommel horse he had not noticed before. Apparently she was not fastened to it in any way, but she did not make any attempt to escape the blows as a eunuch laid the stroke across her back with considerable ferocity.

Whish ... THWACK!

A dark red line, soon turning black appeared across her two arse cheeks, but a gasping intake of breath was the only sign of the pain she must be feeling.