The goddess of Mavisu

by Rebecca Stratton

  `You don't know that you won't meet anything,' Clifford argued firmly. 'There are other things than goats on the slopes of the hills, Delia, and I don't like you going up there alone!'

  Neither of them had raised their voices above a normal quiet conversational tone, but Kemal was looking at her suddenly and she knew without doubt that he had overheard, and also that he would find the temptation to intervene too much to resist. She studiously avoided looking at him, but for all

  that her cheeks warmed with colour under his scrutiny and she hated herself for being so susceptible.

  'If you mean to go into the woods, hanim, you would be wise to have someone with you,' he said quietly, and flicked a brief glance at Clifford seated beside him. 'I regret that I cannot offer my services in this instance because I have an appointment elsewhere, but you would be better advised not to go alone—these woods are not as much like your English woodland, as you might suppose.'

  'There's no need for her to go alone,' Clifford told him shortly. 'I've already said I'll go with her!'

  Professor Crompton and Sadi Selim had momentarily abandoned their own discussion and were now taking an interest in what was being said, possibly attracted by the edge of sharpness on Clifford's voice and his unmistakable tension. Thanks to Delia's intervention Clifford had taken two days off from the dig recently and driven with her to Perge and Aspendos to see the ancient city ruins and the theatre, but the professor was likely to look askance at yet another request for absence.

  He frowned discouragingly at Clifford, his short sighted eyes peering at him through their lenses. 'I hope you're not making any rash promises, my boy,' the professor told him, and Clifford shrugged, almost as if he was already resigned to seeing his plans quashed, and in the circumstances Delia could not help feeling sorry for him.

  'Delia can't go alone; Professor,' he insisted. 'We don't really know what's in those woods.'

  `I suppose there is some element of risk involved,' the professor allowed, and looked at his host enquiringly. 'Your mountain forests aren't quite like our innocent landscape, eh, my friend?' he asked, and Sadi Selim nodded agreement.

  `One can never be certain,' he said, but his dark eyes smiled kindly at Delia, as if to let her know that he joined in the general plan to discourage her only for her own good.

  Nodding as if he considered the matter closed, her uncle peered at her closely, shaking his head. `Then I think you'd better forget the idea for the moment, my dear,' he told her. 'Wait until I can spare Clifford again and then go, hmm?'

  Unwilling to abandon her planned outing, Delia merely shrugged, but her disappointment was obvious and Clifford still frowned at her doubtfully. The professor, never one to dwell on a subject other than his own for very long, had already forgotten the matter and returned to his earlier discussion with his host, but Clifford leaned towards her once more and tried to catch her

  `Delia,' he said, glancing fleetingly at the professor as he spoke, 'please don't do anything silly, will you?'

  `I wasn't intending to do anything silly,' Delia retorted crossly, 'only go a few yards along the road, that's all! '

  `But you won't go now?' Clifford insisted, and Delia did not answer.

  Madame Renoir, her brown eyes warm with understanding, pressed a plump consoling hand-

  Over hers and smiled. 'It is well to wait for Monsieur Aitkin to go with you, chérie,' she told her gently. 'Or someone else—as long as you do not take chances, huh?'

  'I suppose so,' Delia sighed reluctantly. It was the only drawback to Turkey, she thought, this reluctance to allow equal freedom of movement to men and women, and Clifford seemed as determined to follow it as Kemal or any other of his countrymen.

  The tavuklu pildv was a delicious concoction of chicken and rice, and Delia did justice to it, but she was conscious all the time she was eating that Clifford was not the only one watching her. Sure enough, as soon as the meal was over the men went their various ways and Madame Renoir followed her into the salon, her brown eyes bright with friendly curiosity.

  She took a seat in one of the deep comfortable armchairs near the window, but Delia chose to curl herself up on one of the huge colourful cushions that still scattered the floor of the salon, despite, its partial Westernization. It was comparatively cool here with a soft wind blowing across the scents of the gardens from the sea, and Delia decided it was quite her favourite room in this huge, exotic house.

  'Delia, ma chière!' Madame Renoir smiled, and reached out to touch her head gently with one hand. Delia fully expected a discourse on the excellence of the advice she had been given, but she knew Madame Renoir understood how she felt, much better than anyone else did. 'You are thinking of disobeying your uncle,' the Frenchwoman

  guessed, and smilingly shook her head. 'He means only to act in your interest, ma chère, you should believe that.'

  'Oh, I do, of course,' Delia agreed, and smiled ruefully. 'But it doesn't make it any easier to accept, madame, I'm just not used to being so—so looked after all the time.'

  `And you do not like to be looked after?' Madame Renoir's smile looked as if she doubted the truth of that, and she shook her head slowly. 'You should appreciate being treasured, petite, it is not every woman's privilege to be so.'

  'I know, madame.' Delia looked up and smiled. `And I do appreciate it, it's just that

  `You do not like to have your freedom curtailed, hmm?' The older woman smiled understanding. 'But you cannot—how do you say?—have your cake and also eat it, yes?' She laughed softly and shook her head. 'It is not possible, petite, even for such a pretty child as you are.'

  'I suppose not,' Delia agreed reluctantly, and gazed out of the open windows pensively, her hands clasped round her knees. 'I just wish the thought of those icy cold streams wasn't so tempting, that's all! ' She had been so preoccupied with her own disappointment that she had not heard anyone else come into the room and did not realise they were no longer alone until Madame Renoir spoke.

  `Ah, Kemal, mon cher, you are leaving?'

  Delia turned quickly, startled by the unexpected, and she met Kemal's dark, reflective gaze warily. He seemed quite incredibly tall standing almost on

  top of her as he was, and something in her responded instinctively to that stunning aura of uncompromising masculinity, the fierce proud look in his eyes. Despite the civilising effect of a cream suit that fitted his lean figure as only an expensive tailor could have made it, and a brown shirt and silk tie, there was something savagely feudal about him that suggested a much earlier age and a less civilised one.

  `So you have decided to be sensible about your outing to the forest, Delia Hanim?' he said quietly, and the lesser formality of her name set her heart fluttering anxiously as she looked up at him.

  She had already decided in her own mind to bow to popular opinion and wait until Clifford was available to take her, but somehow Kemal's rather paternal approval aroused the spirit of rebellion again, and she shrugged carelessly. 'Oh, I shall probably go for a walk presently,' she told him, and tried hard to steady her voice.

  Kemal's dark eyes held hers steadily until she could no longer bear the scrutiny and hastily lowered her lashes. 'Even though your uncle has forbidden you to go?' he asked.

  `Not forbidden, Kemal Bey,' Delia argued, 'only advised.'

  He dismissed any difference with a large hand and frowned- down at her. 'But you would defy him?' he insisted.

  `It isn't a case of defying anyone,' Delia said. 'I don't have to account to anyone for my movements, Kemal Bey, I'm quite capable of looking after my-

  self, you know—I'm not a child! '

  `You tried to tell me so once before,' Kemal reminded her quietly, 'but if you remember, hanim, I was not convinced!'

  'His meaning was unmistakable and his dark eyes glittered at her swift intake of breath and the bright warm colour in her cheeks. It was unforgivable of him to have reminded her of her own inexperience and the way she had been stunned into weakness by his kisses, and her h
ands trembled as she clasped them together in front of her.

  She was aware that Madame Renoir was watching her closely, obviously intrigued by Kemal's reference, although she could not possibly have known anything about their meeting on the hill road. Something in her manner suggested that she guessed there was some episode she did not know about but whose existence intrigued her, and her dark eyes speculated on possibilities.

  `You were angry,' Delia said, very quietly and with a hint of defiance in her eyes as she looked at Kemal. 'I wasn't quite sure why, Kemal Bey, and I'm still not.' Her eyes widened and although her heart was hammering uncontrollably at her side she held his gaze determinedly for a long moment. `Perhaps you're right about me, after all,' she suggested softly. 'I'm too much of a child to understand! '

  Kemal lifted his chin, his head held arrogantly high, and looked at her down the length of his autocratic nose for several moments with eyes that glittered as black as jet instead of their customary deep

  brown, and Delia shivered involuntarily. Then he turned to his aunt and inclined his head in that slight formal bow that Delia now recognised as a sign of his displeasure.

  'Au revoir, Tante Yvette,' he said in a flat, tight voice, and turned and strode back across the room without saying another word to Delia and closing the door behind him with such infinite care that his very control suggested violence.

  'Mon Dieu!' Madame Renoir breathed as soon as his footsteps had died away outside. 'What has happened, enfant? Why is my Kemal so—so passionate, huh?' She was looking at Delia in such a way that it was obvious nothing short of a full explanation would satisfy her. One soft plump hand rested on Delia's head and she shock her head slowly. 'You can tell me, Delia, yes?'

  Delia was reluctant and Madame Renoir recognised it, but it did not lessen her determination. The gentle brown eyes had an unfamiliar resoluteness and she sat upright in her armchair waiting while Delia sought for words. 'It's all rather a storm in a teacup, madame,' she told her, and hurried on to explain when her listener looked puzzled. 'It's a lot of fuss about nothing very much.'

  'Kemal seems not to agree with you, mon enfant,' Madame Renoir told her quietly, and Delia shook her head.

  `It started because I argued with Clifford the other day and walked off and left him,' she explained, looking down at her own entwined fingers on her lap. I—well, I was rather silly, I suppose. I

  walked down the hill outside instead of coming back to the house, almost without realising what I was doing, and I was standing a little way down the hill when ' She glanced up swiftly and caught the bright gleam of understanding in Madame Renoir's eyes.

  `You came back with Kemal, of course,' she said. `Ah, now I remember! ' Her head shook slowly as she gazed at Delia, and she half smiled. 'It was then, ma petite, yes?'

  `It was then,' Delia admitted with a sigh. 'Kemal took exception to the way I was dressed, he seemed to think I had gone out in shorts with the specific intention of seducing his countrymen! He—he seemed to think—he said I should learn what could happen if I insisted on going about Turkey half dressed, and—' She was finding it much more difficult now that she came to the part she would rather not have talked about, and Madame Renoir seemed to understand how she felt.

  She was shaking her head and smiling, that hint of mischief sparkling in her eyes again. 'I can imagine that Kemal cast himself in the role of your instructeur, hmm?' she suggested, and Delia nodded but did not say anything. 'Then why such anger, enfant?' Madame Renoir asked gently, then almost immediately answered the question herself. 'No, no,' she said, 'I can imagine why, Delia! He is ashamed to have behaved so with a guest of his grandfather's house, no? And to have done so without the lady's consent—mon Dieu! He is angry with himself, not with you, ma chère!'

  `Not entirely,' Delia denied. 'He—he made some remark about my not telling Uncle Arthur about it, about me taking it all very lightly and—and not caring, and I couldn't resist being sarcastic.' She sat for a second with her hands held in front of her looking down at the fingers she was clasping and unclasping with restless repetition. 'I think Kemal Bey is convinced I'm not only promiscuous,' she said in a small slightly unsteady voice, 'but too young to realise I am.'

  'Oh, what nonsense!' Madame Renoir declared firmly, and reached out to cover Delia's restless hands with one of her own. 'Kemal is man enough to realise you are not a child, but he finds the realisation too ' She shrugged her plump shoulders, searching for the right word. 'Give him time, ma chère,' she said softly, and with such meaning that Delia looked up swiftly, her eyes big and round with astonishment.

  'Oh, but, madame,' she said breathlessly, 'there's absolutely no reason for you to suppose—I mean, you have no cause to think that ' She waved her hands helplessly and remembered Clifford's certainty that Madame Renoir had her own reasons for organising that trip to Antalya with Kemal. Hastily she got to her feet, smoothing down her dress with hands that were far from steady. 'I hope you haven't gained the wrong impression, madame,' she said without looking at the older woman. 'If Kemal Bay has given you the impression that

  'Kemal has said nothing,' Madame Renoir assured her quietly, 'and be assured he will not, ma

  chère.' The gentle brown eyes only hinted at curiosity and she smiled. 'But if there is something that you wish to tell me, Delia, I am what you call a good listener, hmm?'–

  'Oh -no, there's nothing! ' Delia declared hastily. She stood beside Madame Renoir for several seconds, smoothing her hands down her dress and brushing back the hair from her forehead, aware that those gentle, inquisitive brown eyes were watching her as she coped with the fluttering beat of her heart. Those few moments beside the hill road had meant little or nothing to Kemal and Delia wished she could dismiss- them as easily, but she found it impossible. 'I—I think I'll go out for a while,' she said, and Madame Renoir extended an anxious hand

  'Delia! ' She would have stayed her, but Delia wanted to get away somewhere on her own and try to bring some kind of order to her chaotic thoughts.

  She shook her head slowly, smiling reassurance in case the older woman should think herself responsible for her sudden departure. 'I'll be perfectly safe, madame,' she said. 'I'm not going very far and I shall be in the shade for most of the way once I leave the road.' She glanced down at her bright lime green shirt-dress and smiled. It was made of thin cool cotton, but it buttoned fairly high in front and reached to her knees although it was sleeveless. 'I don't think even Kemal can call this dress seductive,' she added, and laughed a little unsteadily. `Au revoir, madame!'

  Delia walked only a short distance along the road from Mavisu before turning off into the thick clustering trees that came down the steep hillside right to the edge of the road. It was cooler among the trees, as she had guessed it would be, but there were any number of little grassy hillocks and outcrops of rock that made it essential to watch every step.

  Here everything was as lush and prolific as it was in the gardens at Mavisu, and Delia knew she had been right to come. Occasionally there were odd sounds among the thickness of the vegetation that gave her a few seconds' misgiving, but she determinedly dismissed all thoughts of anything dangerous and went on.

  Climbing the steep incline made her breathless after a while, but she found the exercise remarkably exhilarating and the effort was well worth while, for occasionally among the thick muster of trees she came across small grassy dells that were bright with wild flowers and soft green ferns. It was not long either before she came across not one but several mountain streams, splashing and gurgling their way down the hillside among the rocks, and trees.

  It was blessedly cool and she even toyed with the idea of taking off her shoes and walking in the water for a while, but the pebbly beds of the streams looked as if they would be uncomfortable walking, so she changed her mind. She did, however, take off her shoes and sit for a while with- them in her lap while she dabbled her toes in the running coolness, smiling with pleasure at the sensation.

  Something, some sound,
indistinct as all the sounds were in the forest, made her start and she looked across to where she thought it came from. She could see nothing, but the noise had seemed louder and more heavy-sounding than anything else she had heard so far and her heart was beating quite breathtakingly hard as she listened: Her eyes flitted anxiously among the surrounding trees, but still found nothing untoward from her place on the bank of the stream.

  Then it happened again—a loud cracking sound as if something had trodden on a fallen branch and snapped it, and Delia jumped to her feet, drawing in a sharp breath as she again scanned the trees opposite for some sign of the intruder. Maybe it 'was some wandering villager in search of kindling and he meant her no harm, but the warnings she had been given would keep coming to mind and she felt quiveringly nervous.

  Then, as if making an entrance on to a stage, a large, long-haired goat stepped into the clearing and stood for a second quietly chewing and staring at her with big, pale eyes, only mildly interested. 'Oh, you idiot! ' Delia breathed the words aloud and let out a long sigh of relief as she watched the creature move off.

  It was another second or two before she realised that in her anxiety to identify the goat she had been careless enough to forget all about her shoes on her lap and she stared down at her bare feet in dismay. Several yards along from where she stood in the water her shoes were racing away on the swift-

  flowing stream and were already well out of her reach, becoming more impossible to catch every minute.

  Instinctively she started forward along the bed of the stream in pursuit, but she already knew it was in vain and she bit her lip in an effort not to cry out when she stubbed her toe on a particularly large stone and winced in pain. Sitting down on the bank again, she nursed her bruised foot and spared only a brief hopeless glance for her vanished shoes. There was nothing for it but a long, painful walk back to the road.