In addition, there was the marriage of Barbara Cornaro to the Sultan’s new protégé. Suleiman had sent ambassadors to Venice to inform the Doge of his intention to marry the heiress to his favourite Christian commander. This was seen as a politic act, to which the Venetian Council of Ten could hardly take exception, and indeed, a reply was quickly received offering the happy couple felicitations and a handsome present of gold plate.
Hawkwood conceived that he had fallen entirely on his feet. He only wished his mother to be as happy as himself. That she was enjoying herself in supervising the restoration and renovation of the Hawk Palace was obvious. But that she had been nervous at the thought of having to share it with another woman, who would have at least equal rights with her own, had been equally obvious. Now those fears were laid to rest.
“She is clean and quiet, very well bred…well, what would you expect in a lady of such lineage? And utterly charming. She is also beautiful, Anthony. I could not have picked better myself.”
“And is she also happy, dearest Mama?”
Felicity frowned. “Well, as to that I really cannot say. Her mother is something of a dragon, anxious to prove to me that she is a great lady — or was a great lady, at the least. I was equally anxious to convince her that her daughter could not possibly make a better marriage, at least in Istanbul. The girl seemed to understand this. But as to happiness — what business has a bride to be happy? At least until after the event.”
*
“Well, girl, are you ready?”
Beatrice Cornaro’s tone suggested that her daughter was about to ascend the scaffold.
But was she not? Barbara reflected. The Vizier had made much of the fact that Hawk Pasha, though an Englishman, was at least a Christian, but it could not be argued that Anthony Hawkwood was a Turkish pasha, the latest of a long line of Turkish pashas — a man renowned as a pirate and a renegade, as had been his forebears. He might pay lip-service to the Pope, but he could hardly be described as a Christian.
“He will seek to use you in heathen ways,” Beatrice had warned. But she had not specified what those ways were.
Thus, however she had attempted to prepare herself during the days of waiting, Barbara needed all her strength, of mind as well as body, to accompany her father down the stairs and into the waiting carriage, with her pageboys anxiously gathering the long train of her white satin gown as she moved.
She was entirely veiled, and for this she was grateful. It was necessary for her to ride through the city streets to the Roman Catholic church which Suleiman — in pursuit of his belief in religious toleration — had allowed to be built, and the crowds which applauded her undoubtedly knew her purpose.
Strangely, there were crowds outside the church as well, although the congregation was relatively small — composed entirely of the Roman Catholic residents of Istanbul. No Orthodox believer would enter a church blessed by the Pope.
The Venetian ambassador was waiting to greet them, together with Barbara’s confessor, officiating for the very last time — and looking like a condemned convict bound for the gallows. This duo proceeded up the aisle in front of her, and there, waiting at the altar, was her prospective husband.
Barbara quite lost her breath. Hawkwood was dressed as a Turkish pasha, and might have been going to fight a war. His tunic and breeches were blue silk, his boots a matching shagreen. His cuirass was inlaid with gold and silver, and sparkled in the sunlight drifting through the stained-glass windows above him. His head was bare, since this was a Christian ceremony; but his groomsman, who was a Turk and clearly bewildered by the whole thing — in fact Admiral Ali Monizindade — still wore his steel helmet wrapped in a turban, and carried Anthony’s in the crook of his arm.
A gold-hilted scimitar hung at Anthony’s side; a matching dagger from his girdle.
But, though these were the outward trappings of his position and power, it was the man who mattered. Barbara had never seen a man so tall and broad; she was fairly tall herself, but her first reflection was that he could crush her to death.
But, then, she felt she had never seen a man so handsome — in his flowing red hair, his big strong features, his great blue eyes. As he took her hand she could feel the immense physical power flowing from his fingers into hers. She thought: if I am indeed being sacrificed to an anti-Christ, then I am at least being given to the best of them.
In later years she realised she had fallen in love with him at first sight.
*
To her surprise, Anthony made no effort to lift her veil and look at her face; perhaps he was even more of a Turk than she had feared. Yet he gazed into her eyes while making the responses, and she surmised at least anticipation in his face.
For the wedding breakfast the entire congregation returned to the Cornaro palace, and here they were joined by the Grand Vizier and several other pashas.
Here, too, at last she could raise her veil and allow her new husband to see what he had been granted.
He kissed her hand. “I must be the most fortunate man alive today,” he remarked.
But he still had not kissed her mouth or shown any sign of passion…while she was consumed with an anxious eagerness. Her fate was now decided for the rest of her life, and she wished it made certain by the consummation. Such a consummation, with some chosen man, had been her ordained fate since the age of puberty; now that it had at last arrived she felt strangely impatient to experience it.
But the speeches were tedious, and so were the toasts. She scarcely ate a morsel of food and did nothing more than wet her lips with the wine. She gazed in front of her, from time to time stealing a glance to left and right. Her husband scarcely looked at her, but her mother-in-law constantly smiled at her reassuringly.
At last the feast was over, and it was time for her to leave her parents’ home for the last time. Her chosen maids had already hurried on to the ferry, and across to Galata and the Hawk Palace, to await her arrival.
Barbara was finally escorted upstairs for a last moment of privacy, of confession. “Keep the faith, my child, keep the faith even while incarcerated in the fiery furnace,” said the priest. And then a last embrace from her mother.
“Be brave,” Beatrice admonished.
“I shall, Mama,” Barbara promised.
But I am going to happiness, she told herself. The faith will have to wait on that.
The entire congregation was now assembled in the courtyard, and if the ceremony had been a Roman Catholic one, Hawk Pasha owed it to his rank and to his Sultan to take his bride home as a Turk.
The horse was richly caparisoned, and apparently docile, Barbara was glad to observe. To the applause of the onlookers, Anthony held her waist and swung her lightly into the side-saddle, himself inserting her right shoe into the raised stirrup, then doing the same for the other. It was the first time she had ever sat a horse in a gown rather than a habit, and wearing slippers rather than boots — the sensation was a strange one.
But, then, it was the first time her husband had touched any part of her body other than her hand, and that sensation was even stranger.
There were more cheers as Anthony led the horse from the courtyard, and Barbara was alarmed to discover that the street outside was packed with people, who also wished to cheer and offer advice. And, although her parents spoke only Italian within their house, she had learned enough Turkish from the servants to understand that a good deal of what was being shouted at her was obscene.
Once again she was grateful for her veil.
The journey down to the ferry was the longest of her life, for her husband never once turned his head to look at her, and she had to depend on his two attendants to keep the mob from approaching too close — even reaching out to touch her and trying to tear away pieces of her dress as souvenirs.
Then at last they were on the water, and she could relax a little — tensing again as she saw the lights of the Hawk Palace which rose above the hillside.
In Galata the streets were somewhat wider
than in old centre of Constantinople, and there were fewer crowds. Now she could concentrate upon the coming minutes…and hours…the coming lifetime.
Anthony Hawkwood led his bride up the hill and into the courtyard of his palace, where his servants awaited him. He turned to her for the first time since they had left the Cornaro palace, and lifted her down. Instead of setting her down on the ground, however, he swept his left arm under her knees and carried her up the great steps to the high-roofed portico, while his people cheered.
She put her arms round his neck to assist him, and gazed into his face. As he looked down at her, she smiled at him, but there was no response in his tense features.
He is more nervous than I, she thought in amazement.
They climbed wide interior steps and entered a large, light, airy apartment. At the far end of the room, curtains had been drawn back from an inner room which was raised by a matter of two steps, and there waited the sleeping divan, wide and long, half concealed beneath a profusion of brightly embroidered cushions.
There waited her three maids, bowing low as their mistress was led into the room.
“You may go,” Anthony told them abruptly.
They straightened in consternation, gazing at Barbara.
“Who will attend me, sir?” she asked in a low voice. It was the first time she had actually addressed him.
“We will manage between us,” he said.
She felt her stomach muscles tighten with apprehension, but he was her lord, who now possessed powers of life and death over her.
“Go,” she told the girls.
They hurried off, whispering amongst themselves.
Anthony waited for the door to close, then carried her across the room and up the steps to the divan. On this he laid her with considerable gentleness.
Then he straightened up, and looked down at her.
“I know nothing of the education of a Venetian lady,” he said.
“I assure you that it is sufficient, sir, for all the eventualities she is likely to meet,” Barbara replied timidly.
She could only hope she was telling the truth.
“What do you know of me?”
As he spoke, he reached behind him to unbuckle his cuirass. Barbara wondered if she also should begin to undress, but she preferred to lie on the soft cushions for the moment, and gaze at him, and wait for her nerves to settle.
He laid the cuirass on a chair, then returned to the bedside to look down at her. She sat up.
“Has your education prepared you for the embrace of a heathen?” he asked.
“I had not supposed you so, sir.”
“Yet, do you understand that to be your fate?”
She wetted her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I understand that, my lord, and am prepared for it.”
Their eyes held each other for several seconds, then suddenly he lent forward and kissed her, taking her face between his hands.
It was a violent, indeed a savage kiss. Her mouth parted and his tongue sought hers, while she felt his hands on her body. Uncertain how to respond, she fell back, and he was lying on her and then beside her, still kissing her. His hand stroked across her breast and then slid down her belly and across her groin.
Instinctively her legs came up, and were caught and held, his fingers sliding through the material to find her flesh. She gasped, and he moved his mouth, looking down, and using his other hand now, entirely to uncover her legs and then her thighs. He still held her legs in the air, and they gazed at her nakedness together, while she panted from a mixture of fear and excitement.
This was more violent than she had anticipated. More passionate, as well. And, yet, strangely gentle.
She was still exposed from the navel down, and reached for her skirt, but he caught her arm.
“I wish to look at you,” he said.
She sucked air into her lungs, made herself lie still, as he stood up and discarded his clothing. She had no brothers, and thus little knowledge of the masculine body. Her mother had informed her of the concomitants of the marriage bed, but had recommended she pay as little attention to the male sexual function as possible, even to the extent of closing her eyes.
But how could she not stare at such a magnificent physique, or such a terrifying phallus.
She sat up, unable to lie still a moment longer.
“Do I frighten you?” he asked, returning to the bedside.
He was close enough to touch, only inches from her face.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Then I will be gentle — if I can. Take off your clothes.”
Once again she found herself panting. She reached behind herself for the ties for her gown, while he took the cap from her head and released her hair, allowing it to tumble past her shoulders.
Then he held the shoulders of her gown and drew it forward, away from her neck. She stood up, and the gown slipped down to her thighs, and then the floor. She gazed at him as she did the same with the petticoats, one after the other, until the last. Now she hesitated. He was staring at the outline of her breasts, the upright nipples, clearly visible through the thin linen.
He reached for her again, gathered the garment up from her thighs and lifted it over her head, then threw it on the floor.
Eyes closed, she stood before him; naked, trembling slightly from shoulder to toes, quite the most beautiful object he had ever seen.
For a moment he was afraid to touch her, and her eyes slowly opened as she stared at him.
“Do I please you, my lord?” she whispered.
“Please me?” he asked. “Please me?”
He slowly extended his hand to touch her nipple and, as it responded, to circle the breast and hold it gently. Then his palm slipped up her shoulder, and round her back, and she was in his arms, held tightly against him as he sought her mouth.
She felt his hands sliding down her back to her buttocks, even as she felt him against her groin. Sensations she had never before experienced drifted through her mind, jostling against each other; the sensuous awareness of being helpless, the excited desire somehow to participate, the breathless uncertainty of what was going to happen next, the swelling bud of eroticism which was threatening to burst within her, all merged to rob her of the ability to think, leaving her only able to feel.
She felt herself lifted from the floor and once more laid on the bed. She looked up at the man above her, his face serious and yet suffused with passion. She felt rather than saw him part her legs, gasped as he used his fingers tentatively, and yet still with that utter gentleness.
He held her buttocks to raise her from the bed for his entry, and her legs instinctively dosed on his body, hugging him as tightly as she could, while she gave a start at the sudden pain, and twisted her head to and fro on the pillows, as he surged back and forth.
When he stopped, suddenly, she stopped too, gazed at him, panting, aware of great heat and damp.
To her relief, he was smiling at her.
“Yes,” he told her. “You please me very much.”
18
End of an Era
“Come in and sit down,” Felicity invited her new daughter-in-law.
Barbara felt hesitant. This was the first day since her marriage — a week ago — that Anthony had abandoned her. Today he had gone down to the harbour to resume his duties as flag-captain of the Ottoman eastern fleet.
Thus she was alone for the first time. She had scarcely noticed anyone else in the house during those seven days of rapture.
Even the maids who had bathed her in preparation for another bout of love-making — women she had known all her life — had seemed as nothing more than a dream. Reality was only to be found in Anthony’s arms.
But now he was gone, and she was summoned to the apartment of her new mother — who had with her, as always, the Arab woman who was her shadow.
She bowed to Felicity, but would not do so to Ayesha.
“You have greatly pleased my son,” Felicity told her.
“My lady is too kind,” Barbara murmured.
“I am but repeating what he has told me, girl,” Felicity said. “But that he is so happy with you makes me happy as well. So now I would ask you this: does he please you equally?”
Barbara had long determined her answer to this question. “How could any woman not be pleased by such a man, my lady?” she asked in turn.
Felicity studied her for several seconds, then patted the divan beside her. “Sit down.”
Barbara obeyed, her hands in her lap.
“You are, perhaps the first Christian wife ever taken by a Hawk without violence,” Felicity remarked.
Barbara frowned at her.
Felicity smiled. “Oh, indeed, I was plucked from my father’s house at swordpoint by Harry Hawkwood. I even fired a pistol at him. And yet I lived to love and honour him. So you see, my dear girl, you have an advantage over the rest of us.”
“Yes,” Barbara murmured thoughtfully.
Felicity continued to study her, then she said, “Ayesha, I need some more of this crimson thread. Would you fetch it for me?”
Ayesha rose and left the room.
“Are you equally pleased with the role your husband fulfils?” Felicity asked in a low voice.
“It is not my place to criticise my husband,” Barbara answered primly, suspecting a trap.
“It behoves you to do so, Barbara,” Felicity said. “He fights for a man who is also utterly ruthless. He may well please his master, but who can tell when that will change, and you may discover your beloved with a bowstring knotted round his neck?” She sighed. “As was my fate. Yes, he fights for a heathen who is ambitious of ruling the world. Who can tell when Suleiman’s greedy eyes will again turn on Venice? Then would your husband lead his fleet into the Lagoon itself to bombard St Mark’s. Can you regard that with equanimity? Will you sit by and watch your sons brought up as Turks, your daughters sent into a harem?”
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