“What is it?”
“A message. You must go to the dey,” Jawharah said, her voice laced with caution and a strange excitement verging on dread.
“He is not — dead?”
“Not yet. He is asking for you. You must hurry.”
“Yes,” Julia said, her voice catching in her throat. “Yes.”
The sleeping chamber of the dey was filled with people.
Julia recognized Ismael the physician and several others of the same ilk. Kemal was there with a pair of his companions. The grand vizier, the captain of the Janissaries, and a number of the court nobles spoke in whispers in a corner. There was no sign of Ali Pasha.
Basim led her straight to the head of the couch on which Mehemet Dey lay. He pushed aside the tasseled bed curtains to make a place for her. As she knelt, he stood at her shoulder.
“Mehemet Dey, Ruler of the Time,” the dwarf intoned. “Your slave Jullanar, whom you call Kobah, awaits your recognition.”
Slowly, the eyes of the dey opened. They were unfocused, the color already fading, Julia saw, as he turned his head in search of her face. He made a slight movement of his right hand, and Julia reached to take the hot, dry claw in her gentle fingers. The rasp of the elderly man’s breathing was loud and labored. His grip tightened a fraction as he gathered himself for a final effort. His tongue crept out to moisten his lips.
“Kobah, bringer of delight,” he said, his voice a husky thread of sound. “I waited for you. Close my eyes with your cool hands, kiss me, and speed me to paradise.”
The instant the breathing stopped and the thin chest was still, a clamor broke out around the bed. Kemal tore his clothing, slapped his own face, pulled at his beard, and began to weep, calling upon Allah to witness his grief. The commander of the Janissaries left the room with hasty strides. Slaves, hidden until now in the shadows, came forth with tears streaming down their faces to view the calm and lifeless face of their master.
Basim touched Julia’s shoulders. In a low voice, he said, “It will be best if you return to the harem now. There is much that I must do here. When the time is right, I will come for you.”
Julia nodded, getting to her feet with difficulty. As she left the room, she heard Kemal issuing orders while the grand vizier addressed him with the title so recently given to the dead man.
Abdullah had escorted her to the royal apartments. He had not remained at his post outside the door, delegating the responsibility to his second in command, a friendly, outgoing man whose soul had been unscarred by the mutilation which made him a eunuch. He had often shepherded Julia to and from the dey’s apartments, and was not above exchanging a few friendly comments on the way. As Julia walked beside him now, she reached up to unpin the bee which held her veil. When they were beyond the hearing of the guards outside the great cedar door, she stopped and, staring straight ahead, said, “My friend, would you do a service for me, and perhaps also for yourself?”
“I have ever been a slave to beauty, O Keeper of the Honey.”
“It may be that if you will take this bee and present it to Ali Pasha with the news that the dey is dead, you will receive a prize worthy of the risk.”
He stood beside her in silence for so long that Julia grew afraid he meant to refuse. If he did, the consequences to herself would be unthinkable, for surely Kemal, with ample time to group his forces and spread his bribes, would become the next ruler in fact as well as in name. Already, he resented her influence and suspected her loyalty to Ali Pasha. If he could prove that she had acted against his interests, his retaliation would be swift and cruel.
The eunuch held out his hand. “It is meet,” he said as he accepted the bee. “I hear and I obey, not for the sake of the prize, but because you ask it who have never looked at me with scorn, but always smiled upon me. And, because I have not always been as I am now, but was once such a hawk among men as Ali Pasha!”
The moment she stepped into the common room of the harem, a serving girl approached her. “The Lady Fatima requires your presence,” she whispered, her face pale. Turning, she scurried in the direction of the woman’s apartments.
The reason for the girl’s distress was not hard to discover. The senior wife of the late dey of Algiers was in a towering rage. She whirled on Julia as she entered and made her obeisance.
“The rumor has come to me that the dey is ill, in extremity perhaps, and that he sent for you.”
“This is so, O relict of Mehemet Dey, the greatest ruler of his time.”
Slowly, the woman’s hand went to her throat. “The relict. You do not mean—”
“Mehemet Dey sups tonight in paradise.”
“You were with him when he died? They sent for you, and not for me?”
“It is so, by the wish of your husband and my master.”
“Why? Why was I not informed? I was his wife. I had the right to be with him in his last moments, to bid him farewell. Why was I kept from him? Why?” Her face twisted in grief and rage, the Lady Fatima began to stride about the room. She pulled at her hair, dragging it down over her face. She tore rents in her clothing and clawed at her arms. Tears spurted from her eyes, but her face was congested with such a variety of emotions it was impossible to tell what caused them.
“I am sorry, my Lady Fatima. I did not think. I only obeyed the order that was brought to me.”
“You lie!” the woman screamed, fast whipping herself into a frenzy. “You kept the messengers from me. You wanted him to yourself, wanted his last thoughts to be of you. He would not have done this to me. Though it is many years since we were last man and wife, he would not have dealt me this insult for the sake of the position I hold, if for nothing more. I know he would not!”
It would have been too cruel to insist that there had been no message, that no thought of his wife had crossed the mind of the dey as he lay dying. “I swear I did nothing to intercept the message, though I cannot say what others may have done. The fact remains that it is over. We must now decide what we are to do.”
“We? We? You expect me to care now what becomes of you, to include you in the plans to be made, when you have given me such a mortal blow? Get from my sight! Now, before I call the guards and have the skin flayed from your bones. Get out, I say! Get out!”
The woman could not be reached in her present state. There was nothing to do except obey. Still, Julia realized that Lady Fatima’s threat showed plainly that she did not believe Julia was at fault — else there would have been no threat, merely a command. The fact that her husband had not sent for her was at the bottom of her senseless rage.
The day begun so early crept forward. As the dread news spread through the harem, crying and wailing was heard. There was much rending of garments and tales told over and over of each woman’s moment in the sun of the dey’s smile. But behind it all lurked the hysteria of fear. In corners, the women whispered of the fate of other harems. They patted and hugged each other for comfort, clinging together in small groups. In every pair of wide and staring eyes, there lurked the question: What is going to happen to us now? Only Mariyah seemed immune to the prevailing despair. She did not say so aloud, but the contempt with which she looked upon the others made it apparent that she did not fear she would share their fate.
Set apart from them by the preference shown for her, Julia watched the women with pity. Why did it have to be this way? she wondered in distress. Why did the death of one man make these women who had been pampered and cosseted, dressed in the costliest of fabrics and fed the richest of foods, suddenly useless? It was as if they had no value within themselves, as if their worth depended on their attachment to that one man. Surely, there were tasks they could perform, services of some kind they could render about the palace to earn their bread. After keeping them mewed up in useless luxury for years, it was bestial to simply push them out. And for what? Kemal’s beautiful young men? Or, would Ali Pasha install his wives and other women here only to have the same tragedy repeated a few years hence?
; Toward the evening of the first day, the news came of fighting in the city. Out in the garden, the acrid smell of smoke was strong, and cinders drifted down upon their upturned faces. From far away, they could hear a noise like the buzzing of locusts, accompanied by the rattle of gunfire. To their strained ears, it seemed the sounds came ever nearer.
No one slept. Conflicting reports, brought on the palace grapevine maintained by the servants, kept the women in a state of confused uproar. The city was burning, the palace would be next; they would all be charred in their beds. Kemal had taken the throne with the blessing of the Janissaries. The army had pinned Ali Pasha and his followers in a cul-de-sac in the city, and were slowly massacring them all. No, it was Ali Pasha who had been the choice of the Janissaries. He had the aid of a naval vessel in the harbor which, if he desired, could turn the palace into a pile of rubble if Kemal did not surrender. Already, the French consulate had been shelled because of a French adviser with Kemal who had promised the backing of France. With the grand vizier and a group of the court nobles, Kemal was leading the loyal palace guards in a pitched battle. False. Kemal was cowering in his private apartments, making plans with his young men for an escape route in the eventuality of defeat. In the meantime, he had kept the palace guards to defend him while graciously allowing the court nobles and their hired minions to fight Ali Pasha. No, he was sitting upon the dais issuing orders, as though he had no doubt of the outcome of the fighting. One of these orders, it was said, called for the arrest of Basim the dwarf. The charge against him? Administering a tasteless poison to the dey, his master, in a handful of dried dates. Was the rumor true? It must be, for though a day and night had passed since Mehemet Dey had closed his eyes in death, Basim still had not come.
By midmorning of the second day, the Lady Fatima had collected her belongings and quitted the harem. She made no farewells, leaving women she had known for more than thirty years without a backward glance. She had majesty, the widow of the dey. But Julia, seeing the villainous-looking soldiers who had come to escort her dare to exchange smug glances behind the woman’s back, wondered how she would fare without the protection of her illustrious husband.
The harem was visited by a second soldier’s escort. A pair of men bearing the insignia of officers of the Janissaries presented themselves at the carved door shortly after the departure of the Lady Fatima. It was a measure of the uncertainty of the times that they were treated courteously and permitted to speak to Abdullah instead of being attacked by the guards on either side of the door.
Julia, lying alone in her chamber, did not see them. It was Jawharah who hastened to her with the tale. The soldiers had asked for the blonde Frankistani woman. Mariyah, the only fair-haired woman present in the common room, had stepped forward. She was not Frankistani; still, after a moment or two of communication with Abdullah, she was allowed to leave with the Janissaries.
There had been such an air of hurry and secrecy about the proceedings that no one had had time to consider or raise a protest. Few had noticed the token one of the Janissaries had shown to Abdullah.
“I saw it,” Jawharah said. “With my own eyes, I saw and recognized what the man held, and I came at once to tell you, Jullanar. I swear by the sacred name that the ornament which rested on the hand of the soldier was a brooch of gold formed in the shape of a bee, your bee, my dove.”
“You are certain they were Janissaries?” Julia asked.
“Indeed yes,” Jawharah said with the echo of a coquettish smile. “I once knew such badges of rank well.”
“It may be it is true that the Janissaries have chosen Ali Pasha.”
“It may be,” Jawharah agreed, more to encourage the thoughtfulness she saw in Julia’s face than because she could see evidence to support such a belief.
If it were true, then Ali Pasha, in recognition for her warning, had sent the Janissaries for her to lead her to safety. Perhaps, Mariyah had grown tired of waiting for Kemal to fulfill his promise. It was even possible that she had identified herself as the blonde Frankistani at first in an honest expectation that the escort was for her. Discovering her mistake, she had persuaded Abdullah in some manner to let her take Julia’s place. How? Had Abdullah been her accomplice in the arrangement of her meetings in the garden? It would certainly explain the ease with which they were conducted. Or, was it simpler than that? Had the Turkish eunuch some outside knowledge of the way the fighting was going? Had he seen that Kemal would be his new master, and trimmed his sails accordingly, favoring one who might be thought to have some influence with the grandson of the old dey?
The issue could not have been settled yet, or Ali Pasha would not have been able to send his men.
What would Mariyah do when the deception was exposed? Would she try to brazen it out? Would she shed contrite tears and plead a terrible mistake? Or, did she intend to try for an escape before the time when she must face Ali Pasha? What would Ali Pasha do? Would he consider that his debt was paid by the attempt to rescue her? Would he command the soldiers to try again to infiltrate the palace for her sake? There was one other possibility: that he would not discover the substitution of the wrong woman until it was too late.
18
The doors to the harem crashed open. Abdullah entered, followed by what appeared to be his entire command of eunuch guards, marching in a double row. There was a shrill outcry from the women as the body of men penetrated into the common room, and then quiet. Absolute stillness.
Abdullah pushed his thumbs into his scabbard sash. Standing with his feet wide apart, he said, “You will each of you gather the personal belongings you brought with you to the harem of Mehemet Dey, leaving behind all jewelry, ornaments, furnishings, carpets, and clothing given by the Illustrious One. You may each have one change of raiment, and one only. When you have made your bundles, you will each return here to the common room and form a line. Make haste! Those who are not ready when I give the command to leave must carry only what they have in their hands.”
As he spoke, the eunuchs spread down the sides of the room. Each had his scimitar, a jeweled dagger in his belt, and a kurbash in his hand. There was no exit from the room, either into the garden or to the chambers, except through these formidable lines.
Jawharah, seated beside Julia upon a divan, reached to squeeze her hand. “The time has come,” she said. “Our fate is upon us.” All around them there was now a rising crescendo of sound as women protested and questioned this edict.
“Silence!” Abdullah roared, slashing the air with his kurbash. “Silence! And hear me well. We will proceed from here with order and swiftness. Anyone who lags, or fails to heed this warning, will live to regret it.”
The women were instantly quiet again, though they sat unmoving, as if stunned. Slowly, Julia rose to her feet. Placing her hands together, she made a ceremonial bow. “We hear and obey, effendi,” she said. “But, as you hope for the mercy of Allah, whose name be exalted, in the afterlife, will you not extend mercy to us and tell us what is to be our destiny so we may fortify our spirits to face it with dignity?”
“Jullanar, Keeper of the Honey,” he sneered, “you go to a hive where many robber bees wait, ready to strip your comb bare and steal away the sweetness which has been protected so long. It is the wish of Kemal Dey that you, and all these other fat and lazy slugs called by the name of women, be taken to the barracks, there to provide amusement for the men who have so ably defended against the pretender, Ali Pasha.”
It was a sentence to rough and continual misuse at best, and at worse to death from repeated rape. As at all desperate tidings, the women did not weep or wail, but accepted it with white-faced numbness. Like those in the possession of an afreet, they moved to gather their belongings, returning to the common room with their pathetic bundles.
Flanked by the double row of eunuchs, they marched from the harem. For some, it was the first time they had been beyond its walls for five, ten, even fifteen years. They walked the corridors with a fearful shrinking, starting at ever
y shadow and noise, huddling within themselves and trying to stay close to each other.
As Julia walked, she listened. From far away, she could hear the sound of rapid gunfire and an occasional explosion like the landing of some far-flung cannon ball. If it had not been for Abdullah’s calm imperturbability, she would have sworn that at least a portion of the sounds came from within the walls of the palace itself. Kemal’s seat upon the throne was none too firm, if she was right. It made little difference to the women of the harem. Kemal, the despiser of women and lover of boys, had reigned long enough to seal their doom.
The barracks were empty. Julia had the pleasure of seeing Abdullah disconcerted. The women smiled at each other in unconcealed relief at this respite, however brief. Staring around at the signs of hasty departure, the equipment chests left open, the empty weapon racks, the scattered sleeping mats lying on the floor, Julia felt a rise of hope. It looked as though there had been an unexpected call to arms, perhaps a surprise attack mounted against Kemal’s defenses. Pray God, or even Allah, God by another name, that it was so. Let Ali Pasha be triumphant!
Abdullah hurried away, leaving them under guard. The women looked around them at the huge, open room, at the plain tall columns which supported the ceiling, and the windows lining the walls for air. One by one, they sagged down upon the sleeping mats, resting their backs against the walls beneath the windows. Jawharah chose a prayer-rug-covered mat near one of the central columns, and taking Julia’s arm, steered her in that direction. “We may as well be comfortable,” she said.
“What do you think is happening?” Julia asked quietly when they had settled down, leaning against the column.
Jawharah shrugged. “Who can say? It is not something which we can alter. For now, we must look to ourselves, and give praise to Allah for His mercy.”
“You can’t be serious?”
“You think not? Then, you cannot have considered. If that swine Kemal had not been kept frantically busy in the last few hours, if he had not seen the need to assure the loyalty of the palace troops, then, he might have be thought himself of some more dramatic way to be rid of us. A favorite means of disposal for men, as you know, is to impale them through the chest and leave them hanging in agony as from a meat hook. It is possible for women to be impaled for sport also, my dove, though not through the chest. Some decadent rulers have discovered that the skin of women makes a fine leather, especially suitable for binding books and for marvelous money and tobacco pouches. Drowning, fighting the sack whose opening has been sewn shut, is a most final disposition of a woman, as in their way are the waterfront brothels where women are chained in their stalls. If maltreatment does not shorten their lives, disease will as they service customers to their last breath. Do not doubt that such a monster of cruelty as Kemal would seek to make himself remembered with an act equal to these of which I speak, or that he would lose the opportunity to accommodate his sadistic nature.”
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 1 (Love and Adventure Boxed Sets) Page 35