Charlotte sat bolt upright, forcing the other woman to draw back. She saw then that Alev was heavily pregnant.
“I’m not sharing anybody’s couch,” Charlotte said fiercely. “I’m a friend of Captain Trevarren’s and I’ll be leaving with him when he sails.”
Alev looked Charlotte over again, this time with a pitying expression. “You are very naive,” she said, “but you will learn the ways of men and of harems in time.”
Charlotte blinked, covering herself as best she could with the blanket. It was made of some gossamer fabric, white and loosely woven, smooth against the skin. “I’m not staying,” she insisted.
Alev patted her hair, which had curled in the humid air. “Whatever you say,” she agreed, with an indulgent sigh. “It’s very nice here, you know. We have every luxury, and Khalif is not a bad master.”
“Who are you?” Charlotte asked, unable to believe she was in such a place, having such a conversation. She frowned at Alev’s fair hair. “You can’t have been born here, in Riz.”
The other woman sighed and sat on a nearby couch, smoothing her skirts with elaborate care. “Once, I was called Olive. I was sailing from England to France as a girl, to attend a special boarding school, and our ship was overtaken by pirates.”
Charlotte’s throat constricted with horrified sympathy. “How old were you?”
“I was sixteen,” Alev answered, in a detached tone, as though such things happened every day. And maybe in that part of the world, Charlotte reasoned, they did.
“You must have been terrified!” Charlotte couldn’t help taking one of Alev’s hennaed hands in her own. “Why didn’t the government do something?”
Alev smiled contentedly. “Governments are not as eager to save individual citizens as we would hope. And yes, I was frightened, but I have since learned to enjoy my luxuries. I’m pampered here—I have a slave and apartments of my own. Khalif sees that I am given all the sweetmeats and chocolates I want, and he is…” She paused, blushing, and averted her eyes. “He is very handsome, and he knows how to make a woman happy.”
Charlotte blushed, too. She knew about intimate relations between men and women, of course, because she’d grown up in the American West and attended school in Paris. Still, she’d never had what she and all her friends called the Experience, and there were definite mysteries attached. “Happy?” she squeaked, curious even though she knew it was rude to pry.
“You will see,” Alev said, with a look of wicked mischief in her eyes. “When you lie with Khalif, he will show you what a glorious thing it is to be a woman.”
Charlotte was hardly comforted by these words; no matter
how appealing Khalif might be, she had no desire to “lie” with him. She’d never thought of any man in those terms, except, of course, for Patrick. She clenched her fingers tightly to her palms. Had the captain been untruthful in promising to take Charlotte with him when he sailed away from Riz?
“You are hungry,” Alev observed, quite rightly. “Things will not seem so hopeless when your stomach has been filled.” At this, she clapped her hands together smartly, and a young, dark-eyed girl appeared.
Alev spoke to the woman-child in rapid Arabic, and she scuttled off to obey the command. Like Alev and the other women Charlotte had seen, the servant wore simple, airy robes.
“Pakize will bring refreshment,” said the future
kadin.
“Now, tell me—how did you come to be taken captive?”
Charlotte swallowed a rush of protests at Alev’s choice of words; after all, she
had
been abducted in the marketplace that ill-fated day when she had so arrogantly chosen to ignore the warnings of her elders. Briefly, and with searing guilt, she thought of Bettina, and wondered how the poor creature was faring.
Folding her hands on top of the blanket that still cosseted her otherwise naked person, Charlotte explained that she’d been on her way home from Paris, in the company of family friends, and that the Richardsons had decided on a side trip to Riz at the last moment. Shame-faced, she admitted that she’d all but dragged poor Bettina to the
souk
one morning, and there the two of them had been seized. Later—and just the memory of this was such an affront to Charlotte’s pride that it brought bile rushing into her throat—she’d either been sold or given to Patrick Trevarren like a cigar or a glass of wine.
Alev barely reacted to the story; no doubt she had heard similar ones many times before. Her own history, after all, was no less dramatic. “You were an American, then,” she said. “I thought so, by your speech.”
“I
am
an American,” Charlotte corrected. “I’m going back there, and when I get off the mail boat at Quade’s
Harbor, I swear I’ll kiss the ground and never think of the place as boring and provincial again.”
Alev simply patted Charlotte’s hand, as if to say it was a nice fantasy that would soon be discarded in favor of reality.
The servant girl returned, carrying a brass tray loaded with sliced fruit, melons and bananas and a few things Charlotte didn’t recognize, along with an assortment of cheeses, a small bowl of olives, and a dish of sherbet made from some purple berry. Setting the food on a small table near Charlotte’s couch, Pakize took an ornately decorated cup from the tray and extended it.
“That is
boza,
“ Alev explained. “It’s made from barley, and it’s very sour—-deliciously so.”
Reluctantly Charlotte accepted the chalice, nodded her thanks. The drink was cool enough that a mist had formed on the cup, and she smelled cinnamon as she lifted it to her lips. She took a cautious sip and found the tartness of the
boza
very refreshing.
After her thirst had been satisfied—Pakize immediately refilled the chalice from a matching carafe—Charlotte consumed sherbet, fruit, and cheese with exuberance. Alev had been right; she was hungry. Once the nourishment began to reach her bloodstream, she was again certain that everything would turn out all right in the end. Patrick would not leave without her; indeed, he would see that she got home to Washington Territory.
Once Charlotte had finished eating, a golden robe of the same delicate fabric the others wore was brought to her, along with wooden sandals Alev called clogs.
Charlotte donned the robe gratefully, but she looked at the clogs with concern. The soles were four inches thick.
“I’ll fall and break my neck if I wear these,” she said bluntly.
Alev shrugged and sent Pakize away with the sandals. “Come then,” she said, clapping her hands at Charlotte now, though not in quite such an authoritative way as she had with the servant. “I will show you the seraglio.”
Charlotte was still anxious, but she was interested, too. How many Americans—female or otherwise—got a first
hand look at the inside of a harem, after all? Why, she could write a book about her experiences when she reached home, perhaps even go on the lecture circuit, like those women who had been taken captive by Indians and later released. She would be a person of notoriety and renown, inciting controversy everywhere she went.
“These are the baths, of course,” Alev was saying, pointing out other pools, all sizable and all lined with richly painted tiles. There were couches everywhere, and thick cushions dotted the splendid marble floor, so cool and smooth under Charlotte’s bare feet. At least a dozen other women watched their passing with open curiosity.
“Unlike many Europeans and Americans,” Alev continued, “we bathe every day, sometimes more than once. It is a very pleasant ritual, often taking hours.”
Charlotte thought of her own bath and shivered with residual pleasure. She’d never had a more sensually soothing experience.
They walked under another great archway, ornately decorated, and entered a huge room.
“This is the
hamam,
where we gather to socialize, sew, play games, watch various entertainments that are arranged for us—things of that nature.”
The walls of the
hamam
were high, like those of a great room in an English castle, and beautiful weavings hung between towering, arched windows. Here, too, women lounged on beautiful couches, or talked and laughed softly in little clusters, but there was a new element.
A handsome black man stood on a dais, arms folded, watching the goings-on with a placid expression.
Charlotte tugged at Alev’s sleeve. “A eunuch?” she asked, recalling the stories she’d read.
Alev smiled. “Yes.”
God knew, she’d never have laid eyes on a real, live eunuch in Quade’s Harbor—wait until she told Millie about this! “Is he a servant, like Pakize?”
Alev laughed and shook her head. “No. Except for Khalif himself, and the
sultana valide,
his mother, no one has more authority in the harem. Rashad keeps order among us
mainly, and arbitrates disputes, so that Khalif and the sultana needn’t be bothered.”
After the
hamam,
Alev led the way to a spacious courtyard, where palm and date trees offered blessed shade, along with a single stately elm. Here, still more women sat on benches, embroidering or simply keeping quietly to themselves.
“Why does one man need so many wives?” Charlotte whispered. She was looking at the elm tree as she spoke. It was close to the stone wall, and might lend an avenue of escape, should the need arise.
After all her cordiality, Alev was impatient with the question. “They are not wives,” she said tersely, reining in Charlotte’s attention by her tone alone. “Some of them will never be called to Khalif’s apartments. Others will be sold or traded or given as gifts. Only the special ones become
odalisques,
let alone favorites or
kadins. “
The words “sold or traded or given as gifts” stuck in Charlotte’s mind like stinging nettles. “You are slaves,” she said. “All of you, no matter how much favor you might enjoy!”
Alev returned Charlotte’s gaze with coolness. “If we are slaves, so are you,” she said, in an even tone. “No matter what your captain may have told you.”
A chill spiraled down Charlotte’s spine, but she refused to give in to her fears or sacrifice her principles to circumstance. “You should revolt, all of you,” she whispered. “You should stand together, all the women of the harem, and—”
Alev interrupted with a roll of her eyes and an impatient sigh. “You Americans are such rabble-rousers. You have no concept of tradition. Well, let me tell you something: If I could snap my fingers and be back in England in the next instant, I wouldn’t do it.” She took Charlotte’s sleeve and tugged her away into a quiet corner of the courtyard. “You mustn’t ever speak of rebellion again,” she warned, in deadly earnest. “If the sultana hears of it, she will have you punished. Here, we do as we are told.”
“If you do as you’re told,” Charlotte countered, “why do you need a eunuch to keep the peace?”
Alev’s nose was within inches of Charlotte’s, and her breath smelled of sweet spices. “Those who do not behave themselves are soon sorry for it,” she said, and then she turned in a whirl of robes and walked away.
Charlotte stared after her for a few moments, feeling a confusing mixture of liking for the other woman and anger, and then turned her gaze back to the tall elm tree next to the wall.
Patrick sat cross-legged on a thick cushion in Khalif’s quarters, his second cup of
boza
in one hand. The tangy, slightly fermented drink was one of the many things Patrick enjoyed about visiting the palace.
“So she was originally to be sold to Raheem,” Khalif said, frowning. He wore ordinary clothes, much like Patrick’s, instead of the robes and turban a stranger might expect, and his dark hair was cropped. His black eyes showed concern.
Patrick nodded, then smiled. It seemed he smiled whenever he thought of Charlotte, provided she wasn’t there to see. “One of my men won her, gambling, and presented her to me as a gift.”
Khalif sighed and came to sit facing Patrick on another colorful, fringed cushion. “Do you know of Raheem, my friend?”
“I’ve never met him,” Patrick responded, with a shrug. He knew Raheem was a pirate and a no-good in general, but in this part of the world, those traits were common.
Khalif still looked worried, distracted. “He is a very brutal and vengeful man,” he reflected, apparently saddened by the pirate’s shortcomings. “If his men took your Charlotte from the
souk,
it was probably because Raheem had ordered them to bring him a light-skinned woman. No doubt he is furious that his desires have been thwarted.”
Patrick frowned and set aside his cup. It wasn’t like Khalif to be troubled about such matters; he had a kingdom to rule and he took his responsibilities seriously. Although the sultan was by no means a cruel man, he simply didn’t have the time or energy to concern himself with every kidnapping that took place in his domain.
“Are you afraid of this man?” Patrick asked, and he
smiled when, in the next instant, he saw rage kindle and then blaze in Khalif’s eyes.
Khalif muttered an Arabic curse, one of the many he had taught Patrick when they were rooming together at Westhaven School for Boys just outside of London. “I fear no one,” he glowered, “and least of all an ignorant pirate such as Raheem. But I can see that you care about this girl you speak of, and I must warn you as a friend. Raheem will stop at nothing to avenge what he surely sees as an injustice. He would not be above slitting the woman’s throat and having her remains delivered to you in a basket.”
Like Khalif, Patrick feared no other man—not, at least, for himself. Charlotte had added a disturbing new dimension by her appearance in his life, however; she had endeared herself to him just enough to become a liability. “I’ll protect her,” he said angrily, all his masculine instincts roused. He even laid his hand on the hilt of the knife he carried in a leather scabbard attached to his belt.
Khalif raised his eyebrows. “Yes, if you are with her when Raheem strikes. But you are often busy with your trading, Patrick—can you drag a woman with you wherever you go and watch over her constantly?”
Patrick found the idea of having Charlotte at his side oddly appealing, considering that she was one of the most irritating females he’d ever had occasion to deal with. “No,” he said. “What are you suggesting?”