Hart, Mallory Dorn

by Jasmine on the Wind

  She reached up to smooth back from his brow the dark tumble of hair, then slid her hand slowly down his face and put her fingers to his lips. She saw his vivid eyes deepen to indigo and darken with his urgent need. His hand fumbled with the waistband of her pantaloons. She helped him and kicked off her sandals as well. The little jacket and low-necked bodice came off too, hurriedly, and so did his leggings and embroidered shoes.

  He took up her slim hand and kissed the henna-red palm and then the inside of her wrist. He kissed the tender inside of her elbow, breathing in the jasmine scent there. He pressed his lips to the glimmering valley between her breasts where an enameled charm dangled on a gold chain, the only jewelry she wore besides her ear drops. His lips moved up her perfumed skin to kiss her throat where the pulse hammered and then reached her mouth. But he did not kiss her, for first he drew her to him, molding her against the muscled length of his body so she could feel the strength of his chest, belly, and hard thighs and his male desire, and then his lips were close to hers again—barely touching as they lay facing each other, but touching enough so that their breaths mingled sweetly, and the firm smoothness of his mouth just brushing hers raised the sensitivity of her own lips so exquisitely that shocks of excitement raced through her.

  He was arousing her even more quickly than the night before, for now she knew what she wanted, that wild, pulsing, delirious convulsion that seemed to shoot her body through the eye of a needle to leave her gasping and emptied and joyous on the other side. Feeling her response he kissed her more deeply, using the tip of his tongue to invade her mouth with his passion, and she welcomed him, her heart bursting with love. She wanted to melt into him, to become one with his bone, blood, and tissue so that nothing could separate them.

  Her ears knew he made the same hungry, urgent, enraptured, soft noises that she did. Her nipples yearned toward his touch and his mouth, and when the heat of his hand covered the wet throbbing between her thighs her breath was propelled from her in a strangled gasp. Now he loomed above her, his half-closed eyes devouring her, and she strained up to meet him. She offered her body with wild abandon and he took her just as desperately, thrusting his manhood deep into her again and again until, in a frenzy of excitement, quivering taut as a bow, she released her soul and at the same time so did he, and they rode out the storm of their passion together.

  When their breathing finally quieted they fell apart. She was damp with a thin film of sweat, whether her own or from his she couldn't tell. He turned on his side and threw a possessive arm over her and she snuggled her face into his chest, kissing the warm, damp skin. She loved him achingly.

  Later she woke from a light doze and found him leaning on his elbow and gazing down at her. The lamp was behind him, his expression was shadowed.

  "You think me wanton," she whispered into his silence.

  "I think you magnificent," came his immediate, soft response.

  "I am your concubine," she mourned.

  "You are my—querida, my darling."

  "I am not a lady."

  "You are a passionate, beautiful woman, which is more."

  She longed to say, "I love you," but she forced the words back. He could not answer in kind and she could bear his disdain more than his pity.

  He took her silence for regret and with his strong, warm fingers stroked back the tendrils of auburn hair that clung to her cheek. "You have nothing to reproach yourself for, querida mía," he gruffly soothed her. "It is I who am the sinner, I who have seduced a young woman under my protection, I will have to answer to God. In His eyes you are innocent."

  It was not God's eyes she cared about at that moment but his. Nevertheless she couched her need in his terms. "Do you not think that God would bless us in the joy we have of each other, Francho, even without sacrament? Is not the tenderness of lovemaking more worthy of His name than the blood and clangor of battle, or the terrible fires of the Inquisition?"

  She could feel the somber intensity of his gaze even before she looked up into his eyes.

  "Do you wish to discontinue, doña? I will honor whatever you wish."

  Unwilling to allow the least annoyance to spoil the moment, she ignored a tickle of irritation at such acquiescence and asked, in a small voice, "And where would I go to forget what has happened?"

  "You have the shelter of the harem. We need never see each other further."

  Never. She threw her arms about his neck in distress at even the thought of being separated from him and told him in a fierce whisper the naked truth, "I only want the shelter of your heart. If you will cherish me for what time there is, then that is all I want and I am content."

  With a great sigh he hugged her to him. "Querida—" For a second she thought he was going to say more, but he did not.

  They had nothing to eat that night. Nor did they crave any food.

  ***

  It was the cat who really deserved the credit for the coup, a scrofulous beast who bespoke his misery in carrying yowls that broke into Dolores's reverie as she sat in the blossom-strewn verdure of Zemel's garden. She was waiting not too patiently for Jamal ibn Ghulam to conclude his business with the instrument maker, for then he was going to take her to the Grand Souk, where they would watch the snake charmers, hear the speechmakers, and wander along between the stalls still filled with marvelous wares. She was excited about the outing; the Sultan's intimate was seldom given time to himself during the day, but when he had it he had no objection to transporting her out of her gilded prison and taking her about the city for a change of atmosphere.

  She had, as was proper, a voluminous but lightweight peach-colored mantle thrown over her head to conceal her body and a yashmak to hide her face below the eyes, but the exhilaration of leaving the confines of the palace for a while canceled out the discomfort of going so warmly shrouded in summer. With nothing to do but lounge on the tiled garden bench and wait, she let her mind drift along. It was so pleasant to be out in the city. Although she yet had lessons in Arabic and embroidered and gossiped with the harem ladies, the small orbit of her life between the harem and Francho's chamber sometimes caused her boredom. Not that she wished to change it. Her lips curved in a smile. Without fail her boredom always disappeared the moment Francisco Jamal strode into the room.

  She stretched out her feet in front of her and looked up lazily at the sun dappling through the waving branches of the myrtle tree above, and it suddenly recalled to her the little courtyard at her father's inn, where she had bathed in a barrel under such a tree, with her aunt standing guard against any incursions by her brothers or that young thief with a devilish grin and a battered lute.

  Francho. Now she was his lute; his hands stroked her and tuned her and drew such harmonies of passion from her body as she had never imagined. Perhaps, as he insisted, she inspired his mastery, instructing him by her response, but she was sure she was merely the ecstatic instrument to his soaring inventions.

  The warm summer, cooled by breezes from the surrounding white peaks, had passed swiftly, leaving a polychrome riffle of happy memories. They played chess and checkers, at which he often caught her cheating; they read to each other from manuscripts in Spanish he brought from the palace library; and he repeated to keep her amused the gossip and ripe intrigues of the Sultan's circle. For her part she listened carefully to the blind storytellers sitting cross-legged in the harem and then retold the exotic tales to her bemused lover. And she saw always that Selim obtained from the kitchens the tastiest dishes for the meals Francho took with her. They teased each other. They found almost everything a source of gay laughter (except for some of the storyteller's tales which ended in tragedy and caused her mouth to droop), and he allowed her to attend the many banquets at which he performed for the Sultan and the ruler's delighted guests, and where she sat with other of the favored women from the royal harem and smiled with pride. They stared often at each other, warm pleasure, pain, and wonder in both of their eyes, and they made frequent and ecstatic love.

  But i
n her heart she knew the unreality of it.

  She saw the envy flare in his eyes as they watched from the battlements the miraculously swift construction of a permanent Christian camp, a flag-flying, palisade-protected city of wooden buildings and towers that was so much larger and more solid than the siege camp at Baza it was even given a name by its army: Santa Fe, so it was reported. In spite of it being two leagues distant, one could see squadrons of knights pouring from its gates every day to clash with Muza Aben's hectoring forces, to prevent them from rolling up bombards. As she stared at him Dolores knew Francho was hearing the noise and clangor of the bloody melees in his head; it was evident he longed to sit astride a charger again and lower visor and lance in a furious, straightforward charge at the enemy, to earn his glory with a knight's weapons rather than with the treachery of guembri and lute. Although he spent time every day at wrestling and swimming, often in company with the Sultan, who took pride in his own athletic ability, yet the inaction of doing little otherwise but performing and lounging about at the Sultan's beck and call was beginning to chafe him.

  And, in spite of his careful silence, she could easily interpret his occasional faraway preoccupation. Sometimes he fingered a blossom with such abstraction she knew he was not thinking of her. Leonora de Zuniga dwelt deep in his heart, she knew that, as surely as she was painfully aware that never did he utter the word "love" to her.

  Francisco de Mendoza was as much a prisoner of the Alhambra as she. The difference was he longed to be free, and he cursed the strength with which Granada defied her attackers. "And so, too, must I wish for freedom from these walls," Dolores thought sadly, "for the longer we are together the less I will remember that in spite of his delight in me, he did not choose me. He chooses her. If this idyll will end I must escape it now while some vestige of awareness and pride is left to me." Now? Her head drooped. Granada could hold against siege for more than another year, Francho had said.

  She heaved a sigh. What a miserable confusion, to fiercely desire one thing with her heart and the opposite thing with her head.

  A clinking as she shifted position made her pat the pocket in her pantaloons to feel for the two glass vials inside. The Andalusian attendant in the harem had earlier given her the location in the Grand Souk of a maker of nostrums, and this worthy had prepared for her a potent preventative of pregnancy, two white powders mixed and taken with wine, which so far had proven successful. The vials she would now refill at the market—a preparation to keep the skin unblemished she had given Francho to believe. A pang clawed at her heart as she thought of the sweetness of bearing a child to this man, a boy baby with bright cerulean eyes and a lusty voice, the child a part of Don Francisco de Mendoza that would be forever hers to love, Leonoras and the unitings of great families be damned. She suffered loss because cold reality and care for her own future snuffed out her heart's desire.

  Her life was in alarming disarray, having been suspended in a void from the moment she fled the hunting castle at Torredonpedros. She'd learned that Medina-Sidonia had been informed of her whereabouts and that she was held safely and that he had made a difficult and unsuccessful attempt to ransom her. But much could happen to the Duke's interest before a future Christian victory finally released her, and he was, she could see now, her greatest bulwark against the world's cruelties. If it could be helped she would not further complicate her future with Francho's bastard child she had nowhere to hide. She bit her lip and distractedly brushed a fallen leaf from her mantle and wished she could so easily brush away the heavy thoughts that assailed her.

  And then, from a nearby bush, a warbler poured forth his rolling song, and the lilting beauty of it helped her to throw off her mood. No. No, it was too lovely a day and much too soon for considering reality. She would concentrate on anticipating Jamal ibn Ghulam's imminent exit from Zemel's workshop and how soon they would both greedily enjoy the little honeyed cakes he would purchase in the market, and the gifts he would buy her of fine perfume and fabrics....

  It was then the racket began. She sat up straight, turning her head about at the loud, frightened mewling emanating from a very distressed cat. Believing the animal had caught a paw in something, she jumped up and began to search among the hedges and bushes in the garden to release the poor beast. But it was Francho, emerging onto the gallery to join her while Zemel repaired his guembri, who, finding her wandering perplexed on the paths among the flower beds, stood frowning and listening for a moment until his more sensitive ears found the direction. Pushing through a cluster of tall acacia bushes they discovered that part of the wall surrounding Zemel's garden had been built on a low earthen mound now thickly overgrown with creepers, and it was at the base of this mound where the frantic meows sounded loudest. Tearing away the stubborn, leafy vines Francho brought into sight a wood and iron hatch of respectable diameter whose handgrips were secured by a strong-looking iron lock.

  "What is it?" Dolores questioned over his shoulder as Francho squatted on his haunches to examine the port in the earth bank.

  "I don't know. But see these smooth ceramic bricks rimming the edge? I think the cat has somehow got itself into an old tunnel, mayhap one of the irrigation conduits for which the Moorish engineers were renowned."

  "Can we get the poor creature out?"

  Francho gave the hatch a hard pull by the secured handles. "It's fitted very solid, but the hinges are sound and made of wood. In spite that it must be ancient I think it would open if we could remove the lock."

  "Do you think Zemel would have a key?"

  "Possibly." He stood up, brushing off his hands, and eyed this closure to some sort of burrow under the wall speculatively, brows drawn together; there was a tense set to his stance that started a tingle in her scalp.

  "What is it?" she asked. "What are you thinking?"

  "Dolores, listen, this garden is perhaps a hundred paces from the city wall, which here overlooks the banks of the Xenil, and there is no more than two or three hundred paces of brush and reeds between the walls and the river. If this is an old water conduit, it must surely have an opening on the river, forgotten but in some way passable, since the flea-bitten beast got in there in the first place without drowning." He turned to face her, eyes glinting with excitement above the trim, dual-pointed beard. "I have long been planning a venture which would drastically reduce Granada's food supplies, but I had no help to implement it. Now I am sure God has sent us a messenger in the form of a cat to demonstrate a way to bring in aid. My plan could wreak enough damage to force open the city's gates to our army in six months! If the tunnel has not collapsed somewhere."

  Wide-eyed, intrigued, she could only stare at him, hardly hearing the cat's wailing anymore.

  "Stay right here," he instructed her. "And pray Zemel has a key to this lock. A heavy bar could break it, but he might value keeping the lock intact more than rescuing that miserable animal."

  He strode away toward the house. Dolores hunkered down meanwhile, trying to comfort the cat by tapping on the hatch and crooning to it. Quicker than she expected she heard two sets of footsteps returning down the flagged path and got to her feet. In a moment Francho insinuated his bulk through the small break in the high bushes, followed by Zemel, a bent but agile little Moor whose wrinkled cheeks formed two rosy mounds atop his white beard and broad smile. Settling his tipping turban straighter and totally ignoring Dolores as was courteous, the old man exclaimed, "Dear me, what a racket. How good of you, sayed, to have heard the creature's pitiful cries; I am a touch deaf and might not have noticed until too late. Allah bless us, how did he get in there?"

  Over Zemel's head Francho winked at Dolores. "Master Zemel fortunately has a key."

  "Yes, yes, this place was handed down from my grandfather's father and according to his nature all his descendants have been taught there is a place for everything and everything in its place, and never throw anything away." Zemel pulled a clinking pouch from his sash and, dipping into what sounded like a collection of several keys,
proudly produced a plain and surprisingly small rusty iron key. "In my ancestors' time the city was not so crowded. They and their neighbors owned more land and were able to grow considerable onions and turnips here, as well as some rice. This conduit brought them river water when they needed it. When I was a child I was aware it was here; children, you know, find everything. But in the years I had forgotten." Clucking his tongue at the renewed cat yowls he drew a small flask from his sash, pulled the stopper with his brown-tinged teeth and liberally doused the rusty keyhole with olive oil. He inserted the key, turned it, and grunted with surprise when the bar on the lock creaked open then and there. But his tentative tugs on the iron handgrip, once he had removed the lock, were not so successful. "A younger, stronger arm, perhaps? This cover seems solidly set," Zemel admitted with a rueful, wrinkled smile and backed away with a gesture to his willing guest.

  Picking up a stone Francho pounded heavily along three edges of the hatch to bring loose some of the crumbling brick that hugged it tight. He deliberately poured some oil on the hinge joints, and then, grabbing the handle with both hands and bracing one foot at the base of the mound, gave a mighty heave from the shoulders. With a loud creak the hatch swung open on its hinges, and Francho had to leap back as a terrified, angry yellow cat flew spitting from the tunnel and streaked past them to disappear through the hedge, accompanied by their startled laughter.

  The cover was fitted back on, the lock put in place and secured. Zemel took the pouch again from his sash and slipped the key back into it. "Thank you, sayed, you have saved the life of one of Allah's small creatures." The old man showed his bad teeth in a smile.

  Dolores saw Francho's eyes follow the man's hand as it tucked the pouch back in the sash over his belly, and then his stare bored into her as she stood behind Zemel; and as the instrument maker creakily bent to retrieve the olive oil flask from the ground with his turban falling askew again, she realized Francho was urgently mouthing the silent word "key" at her and sliding his glance toward Zemel. Her eyebrows raised in momentary confusion. And then sudden comprehension widened her eyes and set off a delighted grin under the yashmak. She winked at him and was rewarded with a jaunty wink back just as their host straightened up.