“A man in my country, indeed in all the civilized lands of Europe, does certainly have more rights than a woman, but we are not powerless.”
“Can women in your land own property and goods?”
“We can!”
“But a man manages those properties and goods.”
“Not always,” she said quickly. “My sister-in-law is one of the wealthiest women in Europe. She has made her own wealth, and she manages that wealth, too!”
“But,” he said with a small smile, “did she not begin with a man’s portion?”
Aidan laughed. “You are absolutely correct, my lord, she did; but she increased that portion!”
“And you, Marjallah, did you manage your own lands and wealth?”
“Since I was my father’s only heir he thought it wise I know such things, but until he grew too ill to do things himself I only oversaw his work. I freely admit that he did it himself.” She nodded to Marta who was holding a decanter of fruit sherbet, and anxiously wondering where to place it. “Here, Marta, upon the table. You may pour the prince a gobletful.”
“Yes, my lady.” Marta never raised her eyes to them as she set her tray down. Little Fern hurried up with a plate of almond cakes, and scampered away as quickly, but not before she had flashed a shy smile at the prince and Aidan.
“She is a pretty child,” remarked the prince.
“I bought Marta and her two daughters this morning. You said I might have women to serve me.” Aidan passed him a cake.
“I expected you to come back with a dozen giggling maidens, Marjallah. Are this woman and her daughters really enough to serve you?”
“To serve me personally? Of course, my lord. Why would more than three be necessary? If, however, you wanted me to obtain servants of a lower order to serve you, and to keep the palace in order you should have told me. I do not know what my duties are here yet.”
He smiled a slow smile at her, and said, “Your duties are to please me in any way that I should so desire, Marjallah,” and then he sat back to enjoy the slow blush that suffused her cheeks. He reached out, and gently touched her burning face. “I believe that you were given to me to be a houri, and not a prim little housekeeper.” She was temporarily rendered speechless, and it amused him to have done so, not that he was angry at what she had said for he was enjoying her openness and her blunt speech, but he had not felt in command of the situation before, and now he did. A wife she might have been, but not, he suspected, an experienced one. He was going to enjoy finding out
everything
about her. “I came to ask you to have supper with me tonight, Marjallah. We will dine at seven.” He drained his goblet, and popped the almond cake whole into his mouth. Then standing he left the room without another word.
She was stunned. Had she angered him? What was a houri? She looked to Jinji, her only guide in this strange new world of which she had become a part.
The young eunuch’s features were filled with delight. “You have pleased him, my lady Marjallah! I did not think he would take you to his couch so quickly for his servants say that he mourned his family deeply.”
“What happened to them?” she asked.
“I do not know,” he said. “I do not feel it is important. What is of import is that the prince favors you, and now is your time, my lady Marjallah. You have no rivals, and it is possible to bind him to you before his attention wanders. You must have a son! If you bear his son, you will never lack for anything no matter how many women he may take to his couch.”
A son, she thought. I wonder if Conn’s baby was a son? She turned her head away from Jinji a moment so he might not see her tears. The reality was beginning to really seep into mind. Unless Conn walked through the door of the harem this minute, believed that she had been untouched so far in this adventure, and carried her off back home to
Pearroc Royal,
it was going to be indeed as Safiye had said. She would be dead to her husband. She sighed. She was dead to him. She simply had to face it. How could she escape? There was no way at all, and her common sense told her so. She had to make peace with herself, and this situation. If she displeased Javid Khan he could dispose of her. She did not think he would sell her for she had been a sultan’s gift, but what use would she have in this house if she could not please him? She would be at the mercy of any other woman, or women who attracted him. Jealous, spiteful women who knew better than she did the ways of the harem. Suddenly she understood the not-so-subtle battle between Nur-U-Banu and Safiye for supremacy with Sultan Murad, and she was a little afraid.
“We have not much time,” Jinji was chattering. “We must bathe and perfume you so that you will be a delight to the senses! Aiiii! I have so little with which to work. Why did I not think to buy musk and ambergris when we were in the city this morning? I must go back tomorrow. If we did not live at this distance from Istanbul then the bazaar women would come to us, but here!” He looked greatly aggrieved. “Here I must do everything myself.”
“I like it better,” said Aidan frankly. “It means that I can sometimes visit the city which I could not do if we lived there. I wouldn’t like being cooped up all the time.”
Jinji was not listening too attentively to her, however, for he was far too busy rumaging through her things, seeking bath oil, and soaps, and lotions with which to soften her already soft skin.
“What a way for a woman to have to live,” said Marta expressing Aidan’s own thoughts.
“But we are here,” she answered, “and there is no help for it, Marta. I do not think I can change the prince’s ways, do you?”
“No, my lady, I do not. It is easy to see that he is a strong man, and,” she added, “a handsome one, too. Having seen some of the creatures who lurked about the slave markets I can tell you honestly that you are very well off. My daughters and I, too, for that matter.”
Aidan submitted herself to the ritual of the bath although Jinji complained that without trained attendants, and the proper soaps and oils he wondered why he was lavishing his time and skills. He made Aidan laugh, and even Marta smiled at the eunuch’s fussiness, while Fern and Iris giggled behind their hands, half-afraid that Jinji would see them for the two little sisters were very much in awe of the eunuch even if they did not understand him. Jinji took their teasing good-naturedly for he actually did have a good disposition, and he was, Aidan suspected, only imitating older and more experienced creatures of his kind for their inexperience in harem matters really made him their superiors.
“Never has a woman been so fortunate as you, my lady Marjallah! Do you know how rare it is for a woman to have such a chance as you do with a man of experience? Usually this opportunity only comes to some silly chit first chosen by a sultan, or a sultan’s heir.”
“You are telling me that I must go out of my way to both please and attract the prince tonight, Jinji, is that not it? But what if a companion at his supper is all he really wants of me? Will you then be disappointed?”
Jinji handed her a pair of beautiful midnight-blue trousers that had small metallic gold thread moths woven into them. “I do not believe at this moment in time that even the prince is aware of how he desires the evening to proceed. That, I suspect, will be up to you, my lady.”
“Am I to seduce the prince then, Jinji?” Aidan drew the silk pantaloons on.
“Gracious, no!” the eunuch cried, his dark eyes rolling so far back in his head that only the whites showed for a moment. “That would be considered much too forward. The prince will lead you along the path that he wishes to, my lady. You have but to follow.” He helped her into a sleeveless bolero of the same deep blue silk as her trousers. It was edged with delicate gold fringe. Kneeling he fastened about her hips a wide belt of gilt kid that was lavishly sewn with small pearls. Then while Marta knelt to fit Aidan’s feet into matching kid slippers, Jinji sat his mistress upon a stool, and personally brushed out her long, soft hair. Carefully he braided her tresses, weaving into the one thick braid a small strand of fine seed pearls which were affixed to a ribbon of gold. “Please stand, my lady Marjallah,” he said. Then hurrying to a chest he drew forth from it a leather case, and opening it displayed to her two ropes of pale pink pearls, and a pair of wonderful earbobs to match. “They are a gift from the valideh to you,” said Jinji pridefully, and he bedecked her with the jewelry, adding some gold and silver bangles that were also in the case.
“The sultan’s mother gave me these?” she was astounded. “Why?”
“Because she would be your friend. She is jealous of the lady Safiye’s attempt to befriend you, and so she attempts to woo you away from her son’s favorite.”
“I think,” said Aidan, “that I must tread a fine line between these two warring ladies. Both must be my friends. Is that not so, Jinji?”
The eunuch nodded. “Exactly! The favorite is likely to outlive the valideh, but one can never be too certain of these things. Life’s path has a funny way of turning when you least expect it. You can gain another benefit by this tact. Stand between both of these great ladies, showing no favoritism, and causing no difficulty, and you will gain the sultan’s favor, too. That would not be a bad thing, my lady Marjallah, and it would be of great advantage to the prince. Who knows what his needs will be with regard to his ambassadorship. That, too, can endear you to him.”
Iris stood before her holding up a round polished silver mirror. She looked into it, and Aidan was quite surprised by her own appearance. For the first time in her entire life she felt beautiful. Perhaps she was not, but the lavishness and at the same time the simplicity of her Oriental garb, seemed to flatter her.
“You are pleased with what you see,” said Jinji, “but wait for there is one last thing I must do. Sit down again.” He turned to little Fern. “Bring the kohl and the brushes that I showed you earlier,” he ordered her gently using the words as Aidan told him so the child would understand, and she ran to do his bidding. When she returned she held the small alabaster pot of kohl for the eunuch while he carefully made up Aidan’s eyes. When he had finished he said, “Now, my lady, look!”
The transformation was amazing. She was exotic-looking, and she could barely believe it. Oh, she thought, if only Conn and those silly girls I served with at court could see me!
“Now,” said Jinji proudly, “you are fit and ready to go to our master. Come! I will escort you.”
To her surprise Marta gave her a quick hug before she left her apartments, saying, “God go with you, my lady!”
Jinji walked her the short distance from the harem quarters to the prince’s apartments, and opening the door into those rooms ushered her inside while pulling the door closed back behind her.
“How formal your Jinji is,” the prince said coming forward to greet her. “He might have simply brought you across the garden,” and he gestured with a hand through the wide glass windows.
Aidan realized that the overgrown garden she saw from the harem was also shared with the master of the house which she thought made a great deal of sense. “I think Jinji feared we should get lost in the undergrowth,” she said with a smile. “Do you think it would be possible to hire gardeners from the countryside to clear that tangle ? I should very much like to see what is actually there.”
“Do you like gardens?” He was seated at a low table wearing a comfortable, white robe that was embroidered about the deeply cut open neckline in gold threads, and Persian lapis that matched his eyes.
“I like gardens,” she answered him softly.
He waved her forward. “Come and sit by me, Marjallah,” and his eyes approved her dress. When she had seated herself next to him he reached out and touched her hair. “I almost expect it to be hot,” he said with a half-smile. “It is a most wonderful color. My mother was a Frenchwoman, and she had hair like silvered gold. I always believed that no other color could match it, but now I see I was wrong.”
“I know nothing about your land or your people,” she said. “Where is the Crimea? What kind of people live there?”
“My land is north of here on the Black Sea, and its peoples migrated long ago out of Asia. We are called Tartars, and yet we are today as different from our brothers to the east as a black man is from a white man. Although our customs have not changed, the appearance of the Crimean Tartars was due to our intermarriage with the women of the region, and of course other women slaves, like my mother, who have come into our possession. Our people are proud, fierce, and loyal. We are herdsmen by both instinct and by our nature. When we settled in the Crimea, however, we began to become men of the cities, too.” He slipped an arm about her slender waist. “Do you really want a lesson in the history of my people tonight, Marjallah? Perhaps one thing that you should know about them is that Tartar men are passionate and vigorous lovers.” He dropped a kiss upon her shoulder.
Her first instinct was to pull away. She was a married woman, but then she forced herself to remain still for her old life was over, and this man was the key to her future. So far he had done nothing to incur either her distrust or dislike. “I have never had any lovers,” she said softly.
“Was your husband not your lover?” His mouth lingered warm and teasing upon her skin.
“Yes,” she said upon reflection, “he was, wasn’t he?”
The prince turned her so that they were facing each other, and then he took her face between his two big hands. “Did he tell you that your eyes reminded him of storm clouds, and the flecks of black and gold within them are like leaves caught in the wind of that storm?”
For a very long moment Aidan thought that she would suffocate for it seemed that she was unable to draw a breath. He had the most incredible bright blue eyes she had ever seen, and he was gazing at her with those eyes. Gazing? No! It was the wrong word. He had caught her with his eyes, and she felt as if she was drowning in his look.
Releasing her face from his grasp he smoothed his hands beneath her bolero, brushing his palms across her breasts as he did so. “And,” he continued, “you have skin that is the softest I have ever felt. It is like the finest Bursa silk, Marjallah, smooth, and cool, and flawless to the touch.”