While they waited for the depilatory to do its work, India’s hair was thoroughly washed, and then toweled almost dry. Azura admired the girl’s tresses, for India had hair that curled naturally even to the end of its length, which was about midback. The older woman lifted a handful of the curls admiringly, feeling its texture and thickness.
“It’s lovely,” she said. “Here in the sultan’s realm maidens with golden or flame-colored hair are usually the most valuable, but your marvelous ebony curls are quite wonderful,” Azura told the younger woman. “These curls are truly your crowning glory, my child.”
The pink paste was washed away, and India found herself feeling shy again as her Venus mound was suddenly so prominently displayed. Azura led her into the bathing pool, which was warm and quite relaxing. India was surprised to see what a fine body the older woman had despite her age.
“When you are feeling relaxed, we shall leave the pool, and the slaves will massage our bodies with sweet oils,” Azura explained.
“Do you do this every day?” India asked her.
“Yes,” Azura replied. “Bathing is a very social amenity. The poor go to the public baths, the hours being specified for men and for women. There they wash, and exchange gossip and just talk.”
“Does the dey heed your words, my lady,” India asked. “He must if he entrusts his harem to you. You must tell him that I am a very wealthy girl and can buy my freedom. I must be returned to my family. Since Adrian and I snuck away just as my family was to return home to Scotland, it is just possible that no scandal has arisen from our behavior. If I could just get back home again it would be all right.”
Azura was very quiet for a long moment, and then she said, “I will not lie to you, my child. Caynan Reis has not need of your wealth, for he is wealthy beyond all. It is highly unusual for a young and beautiful woman to be ransomed out of Barbary. Once I thought as you did. My heart was broken, and only when I accepted my fate was I able to be happy again. You are not like the little fools peopling his harem. You are clever, and you are intelligent. You can win him over with those qualities if you will but try. I do not believe he has ever loved, which is why it is so easy for him to give his women away when he tires of them, and that is often, for they bore him. I suspect he may have once been betrayed by a woman he was beginning to care for, and so he trusts no woman entirely, not even me. If you displease him enough, he will dispose of you by offering you to someone he wishes to honor, or if you anger him, he will give you to his soldiers to be a barracks whore. He has done it before.”
“Has he no heart then?” India asked, a little frightened now.
“Oh, he has a heart,” Azura answered the girl, “but it is buried deep within the ice of his soul. Someone must touch him, and melt that ice one day. I think that someone could be you, India.”
“I don’t know how to make love to a man,” India half whispered. “And how can I allow a man I do not even know the freedom of my body?”
“Of course you don’t know how to make love,” Azura said with a gentle laugh. “You are a virgin, and such knowledge has not yet been imparted to you. Once you have been unburdened of your maidenhead, I will tutor you myself in the arts of love. I have never before done this for any girl, but I believe you can become the dey’s true favorite.” She patted India’s cheek comfortingly. “Come now, and let us have our massage, my child. You will feel ever so much better after it.”
They stepped from the warmth of the pool to be dried with thick, fluffy, warm towels such as India had never before seen. Then they lay down upon separate benches, each of which had been padded with a small mattress, and the masseuses began to knead their bodies with fragrant oils, their strong fingers digging deep into muscles, and India finally began to relax. She was being seduced by this delicious luxury, and she knew it, but she didn’t really mind at this point in time.
When the masseuses had finished, they arose to be dressed. Azura chose for India a coral-colored silk garment that she called a kaftan. There were wide bands of gold thread embroidery at the wrists of the flowing sleeves, and at the keyhole design of the neckline. Azura now ordered India’s curls to be brushed, and a gold band was fit about her forehead. A slave brought Azura a jewel case, and the older woman chose a pair of earbobs, which she carefully fixed in India’s earlobes. They were gold, and shaped like stars. Gold bangles were pushed onto both her arms. Then the mistress of the baths personally pared India’s finger- and toenails as short as she could without cutting her.
“There, my lady Azura, she is ready,” the bath mistress said.
Azura, who had dressed herself in a deep purple-and-silver kaftan turned to look at her charge. “Ahhh, yes, she is lovely,” she said. “My compliments, Fatima. As always, your work is perfection.”
The bath mistress beamed, well pleased.
“Come, my child,” Azura called to India, and she led her back into the main room of the harem.
The other girls were now asleep, lying upon their mattresses within their curtained alcoves.
Azura settled India within her cubicle. “I will return for you when it is time,” she said softly.
“Time for what?” India said quickly, her nerves tightening again.
“Why, my child, surely you understood that the dey wishes your presence this evening,” the harem mistress said. Then she patted India’s flushed cheek. “It will be all right, India. You must trust me. I have only your best interests at heart.” Then she was gone.
India was horrified. She didn’t know this man, nor he her, and yet he would take her to his bed tonight? What kind of a world was she in now? Once again she wished she had obeyed her parents instead of forcing the issue to obtain her own way. She suddenly remembered asking Lady Stewart-Hepburn what it was like to be in a harem. Had it been exciting or awful? Both, her stepgrandmother had replied, but Cat Leslie hadn’t been a virgin when she had faced the passions of a powerful Turk. And while it had been exciting to experience the baths with the lady Azura, what lay ahead was too awful to contemplate. Once she had been in the dey’s bed, there was no turning back for her. She could never go home again. Never see her parents, or her brothers, or Fortune. The tears came, silent and soundless, for India would allow no one to hear her sorrow, or her pain.
But perhaps there was yet hope. Perhaps the lady Azura would take pity on her despite her honest explanation to India that there was no going back. If Azura pitied her, she would surely speak to the dey. It was India’s experience that the rich always wanted more, with few exceptions. Surely this dey was not so wealthy that he couldn’t use more wealth. Exhausted, India lay upon her mattress and dozed, praying as she slipped into sleep that the dey might relent and send her home in exchange for a ransom.
Azura had left her charge and gone directly to the dey’s apartments. He waved her to a chair, and a servant put a goblet of fresh juice into her hand. Azura sipped the liquid, and then, looking up at the dey, said, “She is terrified, but she will not admit to it, my lord. You must treat this maiden very gently.”
“You know I am not rough with my women,” he replied.
“My lord, Allah has surely sent you this maiden,” Azura told him. “She is of your own race, your own class, and if you can but win her over, she would make you a fine wife. She is very beautiful, my lord.”
“I had little time to notice,” he said mockingly. “I was too busy defending my life from the little wildcat.”
Azura laughed. “Her aim was very poor, my lord. She did not even scratch the skin, the physician tells me.”
“You like this wench, don’t you, Azura? I have never known you to care for one of my women,” the dey said.
“Perhaps I am getting old,” Azura replied. “This girl could be the daughter I never had, my lord. I barely know her, and yet I like her. There is something about her that touches me. Mayhap it is her courage, for though she is frightened, she conceals it well. When those silly creatures in your harem insulted her this afternoon, she contempla
ted aloud which one of them she would kill first and set them into hysterics.” Azura chuckled. “It was quick witted of her, and most deftly done. They will think long and hard before attacking her again. Yet she responds well to reason and kindness. I have had no difficulty with her at all.”
He was thoughtful a moment, and then he said, “So you think I need a wife, do you, my dear Azura? Why?”
“Surely you want sons, my lord. Every man wants sons,” she answered him. “Perhaps one day you may go home to your England again, and bring your sons to your father’s house.”
The dey’s face darkened. “I shall never go home again, Azura. How can I with a charge of murder hanging over me? I need no sons for Oxton, nor a proper English wife. What I want is revenge, and I have the means of enacting that revenge. The young man I sentenced to the galleys this morning, the one your India longs for, he is my younger half-brother, now my father’s heir. If he lives long enough for me to ransom him. He did not recognize me, of course, for ten years have passed since we last saw each other. I should not have recognized him, either, but for his pompous bleating about his importance. Aruj Agha has been told, and will look out for him, but Adrian will row his hands raw for a few months before I inform his dear mother that he is a captive in Barbary. And when she pays his ransom, for MariElena will move heaven and earth to redeem her precious offspring, only then will I reveal myself to my sibling.”
“And India?” Azura asked.
“Her very presence here will have ruined her reputation in England,” the dey said.
“She tells me that her family was returning home when she ran off with your half-brother, my lord. She believes her reputation could be yet salvaged if she could be ransomed. Take your revenge upon your brother, and send India home to her family. You do not need this particular maiden in your bed,” Azura concluded. She had had no intentions of pleading for India until she heard the dey’s plans. It disturbed her that he could be so vindictive. True, he was a hard man, for to rule he had no other choice, but this was cruel.
“No,” Caynan Reis said implacably. “It is going to give me double pleasure to tell Adrian how delightful a bed partner I found his little betrothed. Of course, being the swine he is, he doesn’t want her now. He believes she gave herself to Aruj Agha because the agha was kind to her while she was in his charge. Kindness is a quality with which my half-brother is not familiar. Still, he was never one to share his possessions even when he tired of them. The knowledge that I have had the girl when he has not will enrage him, and give me great satisfaction.
“I also suspect that the girl’s family did not approve of him, and so he cajoled the silly creature into running away with him to be married. When they learn he has been ransomed, and she is my captive, I suspect his life will not be worth a great deal anymore. My stepmother will not be able to protect him from the lady India’s father and her brothers.” Caynan Reis laughed grimly. “I can but imagine her terror and her eventual pain.”
“But what of your father?” Azura said quietly. “If India’s family kill your half-brother, who will follow your father?”
“I know not,” the dey replied. “As for my father, he was quick to believe the worst of me, and under the influence of that bitch he married after my own mother died, he disinherited me, I was told. He deserves to have his line die out. How could he believe I was so lacking in honor that I would kill a man over the favors of a well-known court strumpet? That we quarreled over her is true, but neither Lord Jeffers or myself would have killed over such a woman.
“I had not realized before how deep your pain, my lord,” Azura said gently.
“The girl, India,” Caynan Reis changed the subject. “Do you believe she is really a virgin? If Adrian could convince her to leave her family, perhaps he also convinced her to part with her virtue.”
“I cannot answer that question without the physician examining her, my lord,” Azura told him truthfully, “but if I were to hazard a guess, I would say absolutely yes. She is a virgin. Her demeanor is modest and quite innocent.” She reached out and took his big hand, saying pleadingly, “Promise me, my lord, that you will treat her with kindness.”
“Do you know me for a beast?” he demanded curtly, pulling his hand from hers. His blue eyes were indignant.
“You are angry, my lord, but the girl is English,” Azura said wisely. “Remember, you yourself believe she was cozened by your half-brother, who probably acted on your stepmother’s instructions. She is as much their victim as you once were. Be kind to her, my lord.”
“No wonder Sharif Mohammed loved you,” Caynan Reis said. “Your heart is too good, Azura, but I will promise you that I shall not harm the girl. Provided, of course, that she does not attempt to harm me again,” he concluded with a small smile. “I shall make certain I am not wearing any weapons when we meet later this evening.”
“Then I shall bring her to you, my lord?”
“I must first bathe, Azura. I have not had the time today before now. Bring her to me in an hour’s time, and then you may go to bed. Tell Baba Hassan that I will keep her with me until dawn. He is to come for her then, and escort her back to the harem.”
Azura arose, and bowed to the dey. Then she hurried from the room to find the chief eunuch. Baba Hassan was ensconced most comfortably in his own elegant quarters, smoking on a water pipe, when the lady Azura joined him. Wiping the mouth of the pipe, he offered it to her as she seated herself opposite him. Drawing upon the hookah, Azura pulled the water-cooled tobacco into her mouth, and then released it. It was most soothing. Rubbing her essence from the mouth of the pipe, she passed it back to the eunuch.
“I have just come from the dey. He will keep the girl until dawn when you are to escort her back to the harem.”
“So,” Baba Hassan said with a smile, “you have put your little plan into operation, have you, my old friend?”
“I will not reveal to you what I have heard from his lips this night,” Azura told her companion, “but he desperately needs to love, and be loved in return. Of this I am convinced. I believe this girl may be the one to find his heart.”
“It is not a good time, Azura, for him to be distracted from the business of governing El Sinut,” Baba Hassan said. “I hear whispers on the winds. There is trouble coming.”
“What do you hear?” she asked him.
“It is the janissaries again,” Baba Hassan said wearily. “They are planning yet another revolt against the Sublime Porte. Their people have been all throughout the empire seeking secret support, attempting to find weaknesses in the vassal states. I am told they will promise the rulers of Barbary autonomy, and freedom from paying tribute to Istanbul, in exchange for their aid.”
She did not ask from where he had obtained his information, or if the source was reliable, for Baba Hassan would not have brought it to her attention if it were just idle gossip. Her only question was, “Does the dey know yet?”
The chief eunuch shook his head in the negative. “So far no emissary has come from Istanbul to El Sinut.”
“And Aruj Agha?” she questioned him. “Do you think he will be loyal to the sultan or to his fellow janissaries?”
“Aruj Agha has been in El Sinut as long as Caynan Reis has,” the eunuch said slowly. “I think he would be loyal to the sultan, but the camaraderie of the corps is strong, and his family has a history of service to it.”
“And who would they replace Sultan Murad with, Baba Hassan?”
“The Valide Kiusem had three sons by Sultan Ahmed. Murad has two younger brothers, Ibhrahim and Bayazet.”
“But it is the Valide Kiusem who is the true power in Istanbul right now as Sultan Murad is just thirteen,” Azura said. “What difference does it make which one of her sons rules if she rules for them?”
“They intend to murder both her and Sultan Murad,” Baba Hassan replied. “Then they will put their own people in place, and rule for the next sultan, who will be of their own choosing, and much too young to rule for himself.
They might even slaughter the other prince to prevent any rival faction like the Siphatis from springing up. The janissaries are not merciful. Remember young Osman whom they brutally murdered a few years ago, my lady Azura? They have grown very powerful in the last hundred years, and as their strength has increased, so has their influence. They are rapacious in their desire for wealth, and for domination over the empire. If they could rule without a sultan, I truly believe that they would.”
“Then perhaps it is a good time for the dey to fall in love, Baba Hassan,” the mistress of the harem said thoughtfully. “Right now, his heart is cold, his memories of his family and his homeland bitter. He could act rashly, for what has he to lose? But if he loved the girl, if she bore him a child, then his actions would be wiser, for he would not want to lose this new family to capricious fate, as he lost his old family.”
“I cannot fault your instincts in the past, Azura,” the eunuch said slowly. “Mayhap you are right now, and perhaps the rumors will come to nothing and the janissaries be content for a time.”
“The janissaries are never content,” she replied, “but Istanbul is a long way from El Sinut. With luck we will escape the plotting and the inevitable betrayals that will come about from this latest conspiracy.”
“I pray to Allah, the most merciful and compassionate, that you are correct, Azura,” Baba Hassan answered fervently.
She smiled slightly. “So do I,” she said. “Now our main goal is to see that India and Caynan Reis find love together.”
“They are two difficult young persons. I suspect dealing with the janissaries may be easier,” he told her with a small chuckle.
Chapter 8
India had been dozing. She was feeling very relaxed, and the soft fabric of the kaftan against her skin was soothing. Then, to her annoyance, she was shaken awake, and she heard Azura’s voice in her ear.
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