“Because she is afraid of you. She holds you in such awe she hardly dares speak to you.”
“Have you taken leave of your senses? She is never quiet, except when you are here, and then, she is silent only because she has been taught that lordly males require it.”
“That was not the way I heard it.”
A suspicion flitted across Julia’s mind, but she hardly dared give it credit. “The way you heard it? From whom?”
“From Isabel herself.”
Julia’s brow cleared. “I think I begin to see,” she said slowly. Skirting the couch, she moved to the window casement, letting the soft night breeze fan her heated forehead.
“What are you talking about?”
“Suppose, Rud, that you were a Moor, and quite without any English notions of the tender sensibilities of young girls. Suppose you had two slave girls, one of whom — pleased you, while the other, though attractive in her own way, did not. And, suppose further that there was discord between the two women, minor disturbances which upset your household and put your favorite into a temper. What would you be inclined to do about it, if you were a man of the east, a Circassian, perhaps?”
“If you are trying to make me say that I would get rid of the cause of the disturbance, the other woman, then I will remind you that I am not a Moor.”
“No, I realize that, but I don’t think Isabel does.”
Scowling, Rud made no immediate reply. After a time, he walked to where she stood beside the window. Finally, he said, “You are trying to say that Isabel may be manufacturing a disturbance in order to encourage me to do something about her?”
“I think it quite probable, having learned a little something of the way her mind works. She would not want to tender you the insult, you realize, of asking you point-blank to let her go. For then, you would lose what the Arab women in the harem called izzat, or face, and it would be made to appear also that she had no feeling for you, which would not be true. She respects you and is grateful for your chivalrous attitude toward her, though she does not entirely understand it. These things being true, she still requires more.”
“Women!” he exclaimed, a single word that was both a curse and a prayer. A wry smile curved his mouth as he turned to face her. “Julia, my love, I suppose if you are right I must see what can be done. But, if you are not right, I will be back to discover why you went to such lengths to deny that you were jealous.”
Julia could only swing her head to stare at him and breathe a silent entreaty to whatever gods there might be that she was right.
What Rud said to Isabel, Julia did not hear and had no way of knowing. The girl was subdued for several days and had trouble meeting Julia’s eyes, although she wore also an air of quiet satisfaction. This mood soon wore away to one of high anxiety, and Isabel, forgetful of the wrong she had done Julia, began to seek her out once more, plying her with questions. The scope of her curiosity was wide, encompassing everything from the etiquette of the harem and the bedchamber to best ways to please a man. Julia answered as best she could.
Exactly a week after the climactic visit of Ali Dey, a messenger presented himself at the door with a note for Julia. It was from Rud, who had been on duty in the audience chamber all morning. It instructed her to make Isabel ready to transfer to the harem of the Illustrious Ruler of Algiers.
Within the hour, the master of the harem waited outside the door. This post was no longer held by Abdullah. The Turkish eunuch had been demoted and imprisoned at the time of Kemal’s defeat. His second in command served now at this high post, the same man who had taken Julia’s message to Ali Pasha long months before. They exchanged a smile and a few words; still, this did not keep Julia from being attacked by sudden apprehension.
As Isabel stood ready to go, Julia put her arms around the young girl. “Are you certain this is what you want?” she asked, her voice tight with worry. “It is not too late to change your mind.”
The look of amazement Isabel gave her told plainly how preposterous the suggestion was. The girl’s dark eyes shone with anticipation, and her few meager belongings had been tied into a bundle for nearly four days.
“Don’t weep for me, Jullanar,” she said, seeming suddenly older than her years. “All will be well. Armed with what you have told me, I will turn the dey about my finger. He shall be my slave, instead of I his. I shall have magnificent jewels and fabrics of an exceeding richness to drape about my body. I shall wax and grow fat, presenting many sons to my husband, sons which shall provide my comfort in my old age. I wish I knew your future could be has happy as mine, for I owe to you my most profound gratitude. Without you, I could not have achieved this, the desire of my heart.”
Julia prepared for Rud’s homecoming that evening with some misgivings. She expected his mood to be somber, if not downright surly. That being so, she gave instructions that Basim and the serving women set out their evening meal and then retire to their quarters. She would be better able to deal with his doubts and recriminations without an audience.
She need not have bothered to assure such privacy. Rud did not mention Isabel until they had nearly finished eating, and then in a manner more casual than not.
Was Isabel happy to leave us today?” he asked, surveying the golden fruit platter for a suitable dessert to top off his meal.
“Deliriously so,” Julia answered.
“Ali jumped at the opportunity of taking her into his harem. He has the means now to support many more women than he has yet discovered. When I left him, he was excited as a bridegroom at the prospect of what awaited him tonight.”
Julia glanced up. “So soon?”
“He did not want her trained — yet. Interesting, the things the Turks teach the women of their harems — or didn’t you find it so?”
“Yes, very,” Julia answered, her eyelids lowered as she watched Rud select a fig and pop it into his mouth.
“If I were the dey, or the sultan of Constantinople, how do you suppose I would go about persuading my slave girl to demonstrate what she had learned?”
Julia pretended to consider. “I expect you would simply issue a command.”
“Very well. Demonstrate!” he commanded.
“Everything?” she inquired, slanting him an amber glance.
“Everything!”
“I hear and obey,” she answered in a voice as subdued as she could make it. “Have I your permission to leave the room first?”
With a gesture consciously, or perhaps unconsciously, regal, he gave his consent.
Retreating to their sleeping chamber, Julia threw open the clothing chest. From its depths, she drew a barracan that she had purchased in the bazaar. Of a curiously woven transparent silk, half-gray, half-gold, it was weighted at the armholes and around the floating hem with gold and silver beads. Chuckling to herself, she divested herself of her bodice and pantaloons and released her hair from her fillet, so that it fell unimpeded to below her hips. Lifting the barracan, she settled it around her. It molded itself softly over the peaks of her breasts and swirled about her ankles. As she moved, the silk rippled with gold and gray shadows, a fascinating interplay of brightness and darkness. Through the shimmering material, her shape gleamed pale and more nudely inviting than total nakedness.
Leaving the chamber, she picked up a dulcimer, also purchased in the bazaar. Carrying it like a shield before her, she returned to the gulphor.
Rud glanced up as she entered. His eyes widened a fraction, and he followed her with an intently searching gaze, but said nothing.
Seating herself like a tailor on the divan across from him, Julia placed the dulcimer across her lap and began to play, choosing a plaintive melody in a minor key. Monotonous and unending, it was designed to be played as an aid to digestion during a meal. A quarter of an hour dragged by. Julia heard Rud move restively on his couch, but she did not look up. Her hair drifted over her shoulder, partially screening her lovely, absorbed face. Her breasts rose and fell with her steady, even breathing, causing d
ancing shadows of gold and gray to play across them.
“Enough,” Rud growled at last. “I am sure you play that blasted instrument well, but is that all you were taught?”
Julia raised innocent, gold-flecked eyes. “I could dance for you, but there is no music.”
“And, a good thing too!”
Setting aside the dulcimer, she allowed her wrists to lie on her parted knees while she knitted her brow in a frown of concentration. “Did you have something else in mind? Let me think. Ah, I know.”
Uncurling lithely from the divan, Julia started toward him. Her movements were fluid, marked with deliberate, feline grace. With some difficulty, Rud lifted his gaze to her face. What he saw there caused a wary look to come into his eyes. Already resting on one elbow, he pushed himself to a sitting position.
Julia placed one knee beside him on the couch. Her hands went to his shoulders. Holding his eyes with her own, she let her fingers slide to the fastening of his tunic. With a few competent movements, she stripped it from him. The sash that held his scimitar followed, and then, his pantaloons. Trailing her nails across his chest, she lowered her head so that her fair fell silkenly across his lap and her lips were a warm fraction of an inch from his mouth. And then, she whispered, “I may have been given to you as your slave, but I do not perform on command!”
Stiffening her arms, she pushed against his chest, sending him onto his back on the couch as she whirled and started from the room. She got no more than a few feet. She was caught and swung around. For long moments, Rud stared down at her flushed and mutinous face, registering the hurt that lingered at the back of her eyes.
Abruptly, he gave a nod. “I was wrong,” he said. “I am sorry, O dearest of my dreams.”
His unexpected understanding brought a rise of slow tears. With a rush, Julia went into his arms, clinging to him while she hid her face in his neck. “So am I,” she murmured.
Sighing, Rud kissed her hair, smoothing his hands down the long, silken curtain. Bending, he lifted her and carried her from the gulphor into the sleeping chamber. Much later, in the warm spring night laden with the scent of flowers and the cries of insects, came a sleepy voice: “Go to sleep, Madam Thorpe. If you will not perform on my command, will you at least stop on it?”
A soft laugh was his answer. In the space of a moment, his own low-pitched laughter blended with hers, a sound of shared joy in the night.
The pink fingers of dawn crept into the chamber, Slowly, carefully, Julia slipped from the couch and walked to the window. She rested her forearms on the casement, shivering a little at early morning coolness of the stone. The garden outside was touched with an opalescent light, the heads of flowers and patches of grass shining with dew. In the quiet could be heard the soothing tinkle of water in the fountain, which Basim had repaired. It was a restful scene, and yet, like the stale air enclosed within the walled garden, it was a dull, stifling peace.
Another dawn, another day in Algiers. All was not the same, however. She was not the same. There was something which should, which must, be faced. She loved Rud. She had fallen in love with the man who was her husband, Captain Rudyard Thorpe, Reuben Effendi. It was a ridiculous thing to do; she was under no illusions on that score. One fine day, their adventure would finally be over and they would be allowed to go home. Her attraction for him would fade. He would no longer desire her. His reason for wedding her would be done, completed at last after their beginning in New Orleans three, yes, three whole years ago now. Oh, she did not think he would cast her off penniless. There would be a ticket to New Orleans, an allowance of some form, a monthly or yearly stipend which would salve his conscience and keep her from the workhouse or the cruel charity of relatives. She could expect little more; she did not want even that much.
Would he divorce her? It would cause a scandal, require special dispensation from the church. Still, he must, if he wanted his freedom, if he ever desired to take a woman of his own country, England, to wife. Rud must have planned originally on an annulment when his marriage to her had served its purpose. That was before his lust had overcome his scruples. No, perhaps, she was being unjust. Rud was not an insensitive man. There was every probability that he would hold to his marriage vows, regardless of his own wishes. The question was, would she accept the sacrifice? No, she would not. To love a man who did not love her would never be enough.
Pride. It could be a strong ally, and as strong an enemy.
The rustle of the bedclothes behind her told her that Rud was no longer asleep. His voice reached her, the words dropping like stones in the thick, somber quiet. “I forgot to tell you last night, Julia. The man on St. Helena is dead.”
21
Jawharah reached for a peach from a silver platter. It was the fourth she had taken in the half hour Julia had been sitting with her.
“Truly, I know I should not,” the woman said, giving a rueful grimace as she caught Julia’s eye. “But I am so hungry now that I am eating for two. Ah, Julia, to think of a child at my age. It is a miracle! I am blessed among women. Sometimes my joy is so great I cannot bear it, and must cry to confuse the evil jinn who hate happiness.”
This delightful news had been the reason for a summons to Julia to visit. Having already said everything that was appropriate for such an occasion, Julia now asked, “and your husband, what does he think?”
“His pride is great, though he says little. He walks taller, and smiles often. His first wife, long dead, gave him a son, who is now married and has children who will be older than this babe. My first child. A year ago, who would have dared predict such a thing? It is passing strange, the way life treats us, is it not?”
Julia could only agree, sharing the woman’s wonder with a smile.
“I often think of the other women of the harem, and wonder how they fare,” Jawharah went on. “It is as if I had two hundred sisters, some dear, some not so dear, and yet, all of my blood.”
“I hear news of them now and then,” Julia replied. “I understand a few, a very few, were married like yourself. A dozen or so became servants in the palace, primarily in the nursery of Ali Dey.”
“And Mariyah, what of her?”
“According to the grapevine — and you may judge for yourself how accurate the report may be — she was sold to a slave trader who took her to Beirut. There she was bought by an Arab princeling and disappeared into purdah.”
One after another, names were mentioned. This woman had been sold to Constantinople, that one to Tripoli, to Tartary, or even to far-off Cathay. A few were to be seen in the houses of prostitution about the harbor, where they appeared resigned to their lot, if not content. In each case, Ali Dey, true to his word, had allowed the women to keep the valuables given to them by the old dey. Though he had not precisely set them free in the way Julia had envisioned, his disposition of the women had been humane in the eyes of Islam and had gone far to correct the earlier impression he had made of being less than a moderate ruler.
Jawharah shook her head. “Of them all, I fear you and I have come out best. We have both been accepted by men we can respect and, in the recesses of our hearts, even love.”
Julia turned her gaze to the wise eyes of her friend. “Is it so obvious?” she asked after a moment.
“It isn’t obvious at all. You do not look as happy as such knowledge should make you. At the same time, you no longer seem barren of feeling. I see in you a new grace, though not the harmony of content. Tell me if I am wrong.”
“No, you are not wrong. I love the man called Reuben. The only difficulty is that my love is not returned. Speak to me in your wisdom, my friend, and tell me how to make a man love me.”
The other woman sighed and tossed her peach pit over the parapet, which surrounded the roof on which they sat. There came a yelled curse from the street below; it had struck someone. Jawharah ignored it. Licking her fingers free of juice, she said, “This problem is an ancient one. Some would say you must hold yourself ready to be of service to your lord at al
l times, assuring clean clothing to soothe his body and good food to fill his stomach. Certainly, a man must appreciate such attention to his comfort, but his mother did as much for him, and you do not wish to be regarded with the same sort of fondness as the woman who bore him. Then, there are those who hint that the gratification of his physical desire is paramount. Still, cannot that be provided by any woman of the streets? Others expound on the necessity of engaging a man’s mind, of appealing to his intelligence, but love is not a product of the brain alone, any more than it is of the stomach or the loins. Must a woman strain to satisfy every particular, then? No, I think not. A man loves a woman not for what she does, or even for what she is, but for the way she appears in his own eyes. Therefore, a man cannot be made to love a woman; he either does, or does not.”
For long moments, Julia was silent. At last, she asked, “Under unusual circumstances, could he not love without being aware of it, without admitting it even to himself? I am sure this is so, for I did not recognize what I felt for Reuben until a short time ago.”
“All things are possible,” Jawharah said, “if it be the will of Allah, whose name be exalted.”
Julia interpreted this to mean that Jawharah did not think so in truth, but would not deny Julia the comfort of thinking it might be possible. She smiled and changed the subject.
They fanned themselves against the summer heat, and switched at flies attracted to the bowl of sticky peaches. In a desultory manner, they spoke of many things — the weather, childbirth, Isabel the Circassian and the ease with which she had settled into the harem of Ali Dey.
In time, Jawharah said, “I have heard that on an island in the sea, the great ruler who presented the gift of the bee to your mother has died. This news came to you also?”
“Yes, I heard it.”
“You are saddened by the death of this man, it may be?”
“Greatly saddened,” Julia replied, thinking of Eugène Robeaud and his gentle courage. She prayed that his suffering had not been more than he could bear, and that he had not come to regret his sacrifice. Had M’sieu Robeaud and the others ever realized what had happened to Napoleon Bonaparte? How long had it been before they had recognized that there would be no return to power, no restoration of the emperor’s glorious reign? What must it have been like on that hot, sea-washed island when hope was gone, and still, the impostor lingered, preventing the release of Napoleon’s entourage? Were they loyal to Robeaud? Did they stay? Or, did they leave him to die alone?
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 1 (Love and Adventure Boxed Sets) Page 41