Bertrice Small

by Unconquered

  She almost laughed, but he meant to be kind. “Please,” she begged him, “just a little sweet tea. I am so thirsty.”

  He got to his feet as another sharp pain knifed through her. Marfa returned with a stocky, capable-looking woman who said briskly, “I’m Tasha. Is this your first?” Miranda shook her head and held up two fingers. Tasha nodded. Kneeling, she drew the cape back to examine her patient. “Your waters must have broken while you slept,” she observed. “It will be a dry birth.” She probed her patient gently, finally announcing, “The baby’s head is down in position. It is just a matter of your pushing.”

  Temur brought her a tiny bit of tea, which she drank greedily. Her lips were dry and cracked. He moved behind her and, kneeling, propped her body up with his. Tasha nodded approval. “At the next pain, I want you to push,” she said. Miranda thought back to her son’s birth, and was barely conscious of the pain of this one. She followed Tasha’s instructions and after a while heard her calling, “It’s a girl!” Then Miranda heard one weak cry, but nothing more. She slid in and out of consciousness until, finally, she fell into a restful sleep.

  When she awoke again it was with a feeling of great relief. She was free again, and now she must gather her strength, for they would reach Istanbul in several more weeks. She would escape. She would be free.

  A whimper by her side made Miranda turn her head. With a shock she saw a small, swaddled bundle tucked in next to her. The child! Why had they not removed it? Then her mind began to clear. Only on the farm would they have taken the child away. Here in the Tatar camp the child was believed to be the offspring of her lawful husband, and she could hardly reject it. Damn! The brat would slow her up. Oh well, she could always leave it behind with Marfa when she fled into the city.

  The baby whimpered again. Rolling onto her side, she drew the infant closer, gently loosening the swaddling clothes around it, remembering as she did her first inspection of little Tom. This child was beautiful—tiny, so very tiny, but beautiful. Her downy hair, barely visible, was Miranda’s own silver gilt—or was it Lucas’s? Her eyes were violet, but Miranda immediately noticed something strange about those lovely eyes. She passed her hand across the child’s face, but the baby didn’t react at all. Was the baby blind? The child had a tiny cleft in her chin, as both her parents had. Miranda touched the soft rose-tinted cheek so like her own, and the infant turned its small head, revealing an enormous dark purple bruise.

  Miranda sighed. Kuyuk’s vicious blow had found its mark after all, injuring her child. As she rewrapped the baby securely she suddenly realized what she had been thinking. Her child? Yes, it was her child, and she couldn’t deny it any longer. It had been forced upon her in a frightening, degrading way, but the baby was just as much a victim as she had been.

  Miranda struggled to a sitting position and, unbuttoning the front of her caftan, put the baby to her breast. Although the child seemed to nuzzle at her, it made no attempt to take the breast and suck. Gently Miranda forced her nipple into the baby’s little mouth, and then began to milk herself. Suddenly the infant understood, and began to suck weakly. A smile lit Miranda’s face. “There, my little one,” she cooed at the child. She spoke in English. Her daughter was an American. Yes, she realized again, her daughter.

  Prince Arik came into the light of her campfire and squatted next to her. His eyes moved admiringly over her. By God, he thought, this is a real woman! She looks as fragile as an early rose, but she is as tough as iron. He motioned toward the baby. “Let me see her,” he said.

  Miranda turned the child from her breast for a moment.

  “She is beautiful,” he said, “but the midwife says she won’t live. You shouldn’t waste your strength nursing her. Let us leave her on the hillside when we leave this place. It is more merciful.”

  Her sea-green eyes blazed furiously. “My daughter may also be blind. Blind from the Tatar blow. But she will live, Prince Arik. She will live!”

  He stood up, shrugging. “The weather is clearing,” he said, “and we will leave tomorrow. I have told Temur you are to ride in the cart for a few days until your strength returns.” Then he turned abruptly.

  “Thank you,” she called as he left.

  She spent the rest of the day dozing and feeding the baby. Marfa brought her a mug of rich beef broth. “Temur gave me a piece of meat from a heifer they slaughtered. I’ve boiled it for several hours with some greens and wild onions,” she said proudly.

  Miranda sipped the broth. “It’s delicious, Marfa, thank you. I’m hungry, too. Will you get me several slices of that beef, the rarest you can find, and some of the juices if you can?”

  Marfa was able to do just that, even bringing Miranda a full cup of the beef juice. She also found a small patch of wild strawberries to bring to her mistress. Miranda stuffed herself shamelessly. She was already feeling stronger, and twice rose to move around their shelter, leaning on Temur’s shoulder.

  In the hour just before the dawn she awoke to feed her child. The infant’s skin was so very pale, and she seemed barely to be breathing. All Miranda’s mother instinct welled up, and she cradled the baby protectively. “I won’t let you die!” she said fiercely. “I won’t!”

  Temur reloaded the cart, leaving enough room for her to ride comfortably. Cutting more pine boughs, he made her afresh new bed and settled her. Once again, the days took on a pattern.

  One thing Miranda had done since the Tatars had captured them was to keep close track of the days. The farm had been raided on the fifth of May, and her baby was born thirteen days later, on the eighteenth of May. Ten days after the baby’s birth, she guessed they were still two weeks from Istanbul. Miranda grew stronger, and soon she was even walking all day, carrying the baby daughter in a sling that nestled her close to her heart. She worried constantly. The little one didn’t seem to gain weight, and was really too quiet.

  Strangely it made her think of her son. Little Tom was now thirteen months old, and she had missed his babyhood. She was, she decided, no more mature than Jared, who had missed the early months of their marriage. Perhaps now they had both finally grown up, and when they began anew, they would behave in a more sensible manner. If they began again, she reminded herself.

  Excitement began to build as they neared the Turkish capital. Finally they came in sight of the great and ancient city of Constantine, the Rome of the East captured by the Turks in 1453 and held by them ever since. The Tatars camped that night by the ancient walls of the city which were locked for the night. They would enter the city the next day, and their captives would be taken to one of the best slave merchants there.

  The days of wandering and raiding were just about over, and Prince Arik was wise enough to see it. His tribe needed money to purchase land so they might settle somewhere permanently. Some of them, he knew, would return to Asia, and align themselves with other wandering bands of Tatars, but as leader of the Batu clan he had made a decision for his people. The great days were over, and would never return. They were now stories to be retold about the campfires, but nothing more.

  “My lord?”

  Prince Arik looked up. “Yes, Buri?”

  “The fine lady, my lord. Do you want a guard on her now?” Buri asked.

  “It is not necessary. Her ladyship has stated her case and, being a noblewoman, is used to being listened to. She assumes that I will do her bidding, and we will allow her to continue believing that. We will take the others into the city first, and arrange with Mohammed Zadi for their disposition. I will explain to him about our fine lady, and he will arrange a private auction for discriminating buyers. When the time is arranged we will get her to the baths on a pretext, drug her there so she will be docile, and it will be over quickly. I expect such a beautiful woman, with an infant at her breast to attest to her fertility, should bring us a fine price.”

  Buri nodded in agreement.

  The two men continued to talk while deep in the shadows Miranda slipped silently away. Thank heavens she had learned thei
r dialect! She had waited in the darkness for several hours after sunset, hoping to learn their plans, and she had certainly gotten more than she had bargained for! She decided it would be better to leave immediately. Tonight the Tatars were still concerned with their camp full of captives. Yes, tonight was her best chance.

  She reached her small campfire. Just beyond its shadows she could see Temur and Marfa entwined in an embrace. To her good fortune, they had become enchanted with each other in the last several days. She suspected the young Tatar would buy the plain, sweet Marfa for a wife. At least they would keep each other busy tonight.

  Miranda sat down by the campfire and nursed the child. Another good thing was that the baby hardly ever cried. It would make escape easier. Miranda was beginning to suspect that she was deaf as well as blind, but she couldn’t let herself think about that now. Perhaps the baby was simply weak.

  Finished with the feeding, she quickly changed the baby’s napkin and, reswaddling it, rebound the sling tightly against her chest. Then she carefully scanned the camp. All was quiet, but she forced herself to wait seated by the fire for another hour to be absolutely sure.

  A waning moon was half risen, and offered her just enough light to see her way. She cut a wide swath around the camp in order to avoid detection by anyone who might be awake, and it took her time to work her way back onto the well-worn path. Once there, she quickly covered the final distance. Reaching the gate, she sat down with her back against the wall, pulling her dark cape around her to camouflage them so she might doze in relative safety.

  The noise of carts arriving early the next morning awoke Miranda, just as she had intended. Feeding and changing the child, she then joined the crowd waiting for the gates to open. She could see the name “Charisius” carved deeply into the marble at the top of the ancient gate.

  The new sun climbed over the eastern hills with slender, golden fingers, and from the heights of every mosque in the city the muezzins sang praise to God and the new day in a wailing chorus. About her, all fell to their knees, and Miranda followed suit, anxious not to be singled out. Then the gates creaked open, and Miranda hurried through with the rest of the crowd, eyes lowered as befit a modest, lowly woman. She had cut a rectangle of cloth from one of her caftans, and this was fixed in place across her face by her hair ornaments. With the hood of her cape pulled low to her eyebrows, she appeared a respectable woman garbed in the traditional black yashmak of the poor. She was no different than a hundred other women, their yashmaks making them anonymous to curious eyes.

  She had no idea where she was, but she realized that she must reach the English Embassy as quickly as possible, for as soon as her captors knew she was gone, Prince Arik would realize where she was fleeing to and hurry to head her off.

  Miranda looked around for a shop, not one catering only to neighborhood trade, but a shop that would be attractive to a visitor, whose owners would probably speak French. Her eye lit upon a jeweler, and she boldly entered the shop.

  “You, woman! Begone! Begone before I call the sultan’s police! This is no place for beggars.”

  “Please, sir, I am a respectable woman.” Miranda imitated the whining cry she had so frequently heard from her elegant carriage in London. She spoke a crude French, badly accented. “I merely seek direction. I am not of this city. Your fine shop obviously caters to the ferangi infidels so I assumed you could direct me safely.”

  The jeweler stared at her with a little less hostility. “Where are you going, woman?”

  “I must find the embassy of the English. My cousin, Ali, is their doorkeeper, and I have been sent to fetch him. Our grandfather is dying.” She paused as if thinking, and then said, “No one else could be spared from the farm to come.”

  The jeweler nodded. It was the growing season, and no man could be spared even in an emergency. “You came in through Charisius, eh?”

  “Yes, sir, and I know the English Embassy is located at the end of the Street of Many Flowers near the old Hippodrome, but I do not know how to get to this Hippodrome.”

  The jeweler smiled a superior smile. “The street outside this shop is called the Mese, woman. It is the old commercial avenue of this city. I know that because I am Greek, and my family has lived in this city for a thousand years.”

  He paused. Knowing what the pompous fool expected, she widened her eyes and said, “Ohhh!” Gratified, the jeweler continued.

  “You have but to follow the Mese across the city, and at its end are the ruins of the old Hippodrome. The avenue goes right at the Church of the Holy Apostles, so don’t be fooled and go to the left or you will be lost. A pleasant neighborhood has been built up around the ruins. One street before you reach these ruins is a small street to the right. That is the street you seek. The embassy is at its end. It is quite near the sultan’s palace.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Miranda said politely as she left the shop, trying not to run. Now she knew! Across the city, he had said.

  She glanced fearfully toward the gates but there was no sign of unusual activity. Miranda began walking, reassuring herself as she went of her safety. Every woman on the street was as muffled as she was, and they were all quite indistinguishable. If the Tatars sought a woman with a baby she was also safe, for the child slept peacefully in its sling beneath her enveloping cloak, out of sight.

  Behind her she heard a troup of horsemen coming up, and her heart seemed to swell painfully in her throat, almost stop, then thump violently. She somehow managed to scramble frantically to the side of the avenue with the rest of the pedestrians as a group of men in red and green cloaks cantered past on their dark brown horses.

  “Damned, arrogant Yeni-cheri,” muttered the man next to her, and she almost laughed aloud in her relief. She felt the chilly perspiration of fright rolling down her back. God, how she longed for a bath! It had been five-and-a-half weeks since her capture, and in all that time she hadn’t been able to bathe. Her hair was also filthy, and she wasn’t totally sure it wasn’t lice-ridden at this point. She walked doggedly on, fascinated in spite of her fear, and the need to hurry, in this marvelous city about her.

  The street noise was incredible, a mad cacophony of loud voices, each shouting in a different language, each with something very important to say. The shops were just as varied and fascinating. She passed a street where the shops were all tanners and shoemakers and leatherworkers. Then, farther along, there were linen drapers, men who sold only the finest silks, goldsmiths, silversmiths, jewelers. The open-air bazaars were a wonder, offering everything from fish to figs to old icons. It was growing hot now, and odors rose from everywhere. There were the pungent smells of cinnamon, cloves, nutmegs, and other spices, melons, cherries, bread and honeycakes, gillyflowers, lilacs, lilies, and roses.

  She walked on, and the establishments began to lose their big-city elegance and become shops of a residential neighborhood. She was getting closer. Dear God, let the Tatars not be there before her! Up ahead she could see the old chariot racetrack of the Hippodrome now made into a small neighborhood open-air market. She began to check the street signs at each crossing. They were done in both flowing Arabic script and French. There it was! La Rue des Beaucoup Fleurs. The Mese was empty here, and cautiously she approached her destination, peering down the narrow little street for any sign of an ambush. But the small birds in the flowering vines that hung over the blank walls on either side of the street were active and noisy, a sure sign of safety.

  Miranda turned and looked back down the Mese for signs of pursuit, but there were none. She hurried down the Street of Many Flowers toward her destination—a black iron gate set in a white wall. As she neared it she could see the shining bronze plaques on either side of the gates. In three languages, they announced His Majesty’s Embassy.

  Reaching the gates, she pulled boldly on the bellcord, and was instantly greeted by the gatekeeper, who popped like a jack-in-the-box from his little gatehouse. One look at her set him to shout “Begone, misbegotten daughter of a she-camel! No be
ggars! No beggars!”

  Miranda didn’t understand his words, but she understood his meaning well enough. Tearing the veil from her face she threw back her hood, and shouted back at him in English, “I am Lady Miranda Dunham. I am English. Let me in quickly! I am being pursued by Tatar slavers!”

  The gatekeeper looked stunned, then frightened.

  “Please,” pleaded Miranda. “I am being pursued! My family is wealthy. You will be well rewarded!”

  “You have not escaped from the seraglio?” demanded the gatekeeper, half fearfully.

  “The what?”

  “The sultan’s harem.”

  “No! No! I have told you the truth! For God’s sake, man, do women come to your gate each day looking as I look, speaking correct English? Let me in before my captors catch me! I swear you will be well rewarded!”

  Slowly, the gatekeeper began unwrapping the chain that held the gates together.

  “Achmet! What are you doing?” An English naval officer strode down the gravel-lined embassy driveway.

  “This lady claims she is English, my lord.”

  Miranda looked up and suddenly recognition made her legs give way. She grabbed at the gatekeeper for support. “Kit!” she called out. “Kit Edmund! It is Miranda Dunham!”

  He stared hard at the woman on the other side of the gate. “Lady Dunham is dead,” he said stiffly. “Lady Miranda Dunham is dead.”

  “Christopher Edmund, Marquis of Wye!” she shouted at him. “Brother of Darius, who loved my twin sister, Amanda. I am not dead! The body in St. Petersburg was someone else. Kit,” she begged,” for God’s sake let me in! I am pursued by my captors! Do you remember how you brought Mama and Mandy and me to England from Wyndsong so Mandy wouldn’t miss her wedding to Adrian?”

  He stared past her, his face whitening. “Jesus,” he swore, then turning shouted, “Mirza! To me! Hurry!”

  Miranda felt her arm grasped in an iron grip. “So, my fine lady,” hissed Prince Arik, “I suspected we would find you here.” He began to pull her away, back down the street. She could see horses waiting. “You’ll go on the block tonight, my fine lady, make no mistake about it!”