The Harem Bride (10 page)

“
By God, that lying Vizier vowed they
did not have her!” Jason cried, bounding to his feet.

“
He did not, lord. The girl was only
given to the Sultan today.”

“
Today? She has been gone for nearly a
fortnight!”

“
Yes, lord, but it would have been
necessary to prepare her—”

“
Prepare her
?
What does that mean?” the viscount barked.

“
She must be properly bathed and
dressed, lord. Her—ah, body hair must be removed. She must be
taught how to give obeisance . . .” At the horrified look on
Viscount Lyndon’s face, Faik’s voice faded to a halt.

“
Body hair?” Jason inquired
faintly.

“
Hair is allowed only the head, my
lord,” Faik murmured, fixing his gaze on a point over the
viscount’s left shoulder.

“
Good God,” the viscount
breathed.

“
Is not so bad, my lord. The women use
a paste of
rusma
and lime,
which they apply to—”

Jason held up his hand. “That is quite
enough, Faik. More, in fact, than I wish to know. “Pray tell, what
else must Miss Blayne learn?” he added in a tone that could only be
termed ominous.

“
To crawl up from the foot of the
Sultan’s bed, how to bring him pleasure—”

“
Stop!” Jason pounded a fist into his
palm. “Dammit, Faik, there has to be some way to get her out. Tell
me how!”

The stalwart guide shook his head. “First, my
lord, we must know she is truly there. I can think of only one way
to be sure.”

“
And that is?”

“
The only women from the outside who
may go into the harem and come out again are merchants, those who
sell their wares to the Sultan’s women. They are mostly Jews, my
lord. They are called ‘bundle women,’ because they carry great
bundles of goods.”

“
Tell me where to find one, Faik,” was
the viscount’s eager reply. “Just tell me where to find one of
these ‘bundle women.’”

~ * ~

Miss Penelope Blayne had indeed learned a
great many things in her twelve days as an odalisque in the harem
of Mustafa Rasim. A brisk swat on her bottom and a hard shove to
her back had soon taught her the efficacy of mastering the art of
prostrating herself. Sharp raps on her knuckles taught her to use
only the fingers of her right hand when attempting to eat without
knives, forks, or spoons. She learned how to apply kohl around her
eyes, how to wash her hair with a special clay mixed with
rosewater, lavender and rosebuds. How to apply a beauty mask made
from dates and goat’s milk. She was, however, still working on
mastering the skill of walking on the exceedingly high wooden
pattens the women wore when negotiating the slippery floors of the
bathing chamber. Most of all, she learned to do as she was “told”
by the actions of the women and eunuchs surrounding her.

Her degradation was complete, Penny decided,
on the second day of her captivity when two older women applied a
paste to all the hair on her body except that on her head. Even her
nostrils were not exempt. Nor, to her total mortification, were
those parts where no one’s hand should go. When the horrid-looking
mess was scraped off, to Penny’s astonishment, her body hair came
with it. She was now as naked as it was possible to be. Surely this
was as vulnerable and exposed as a female could get. In the midst
of a crowd, she was alone. No one spoke English, French, or
Italian. Penny tried them all. And, in spite of the languid luxury
of her prison, she might as well have been incarcerated in the
deepest dungeon. Like the lost princes in the Tower, she would
never be seen again.

Nor was she spared shocks beyond the
imagination of her maidenly innocence. Exposing her mind, she
discovered, was even more degrading than exposing the full
nakedness of her body. Beginning on the fourth day of her
captivity, she watched in stunned silence as detailed
demonstrations—employing the services of the harem’s less mutilated
eunuchs—taught Miss Penelope Blayne that hands did, indeed, wander
to very intimate places.
Dear God, was
this what men and women did together?

These experiences led to several inevitable
conclusions. Penny eyed the scimitars hanging from the guards’
belts and did the only thing a sensible sixteen-year-old could do.
She submitted. And prayed most heartily that Aunt Cass had not
given up hope. That Lord Elgin would help. And Viscount Lyndon. In
her dreams the golden-haired Jason Lisbourne became her very own
knight errant, the forlorn hope to which she clung, even knowing,
in her heart, how foolish it was to dream of rescue.

There were odd moments, however, that had
their attractions, as much as Penny scolded herself for enjoying
anything this lavishly appointed and scented prison had to offer.
Having her body massaged with scented oils was an astonishingly
pleasant experience, once she got over the initial shock. And the
food was surprisingly delicious. Small pastries filled with lamb,
cheese, or spinach. Rice dishes, vegetables cooked in olive oil,
and eggplant served in a variety of tasty ways. And always an
assortment of fruits and exotic sweets, including some so chewy
they took quite five full minutes to eat.

By the time the day came when there was
great excitement in the air—much hustling and bustling in the
normally lazily quiet women’s quarters, featuring whispers,
giggles, and sly looks—Penny was beyond shock. If this great to-do
involved herself, it could only mean one thing. And
that
she resolutely shut from her
mind. Impossible as it seemed, at that moment she would have chosen
to remain a slave in the seraglio for the rest of her life to being
thrust once again into the notice of her captor, whom she now knew
was called Mustafa Rasim. She could not, positively could not,
do
that
with him!

But she would. Most certainly she would. If
she did not wish to be put in a sack and thrown into the Bosphorus
or, even worse, be given to a whoremaster in one of the city’s
brothels, she would do what was expected of her. That had been made
perfectly clear by the only words of English, haltingly spoken, she
had heard since she had been dumped at the feet of Mustafa Rasim.
Though some might say Miss Penelope Blayne suffered from a flaw in
her stout English character, Penny discovered she had something in
common with the legendary Aimée de Rivery. Sixteen was too young to
die.

So after suffering yet another bath,
followed by more massage with redolent oils, she allowed herself to
be dressed. First, diaphanous azure silk
shalwar
, embroidered in gold, the full drawers
revealing more than they concealed. Then a smock of white gauze,
with long flowing sleeves, almost medieval in style, followed by a
fitted waistcoat of elaborate royal blue brocade, fringed in gold
and fastened with a pearl button. Next came a robe of the same
diaphanous azure as the
shalwar
, followed by a wide girdle of shimmering
gold, with gems set among the elaborate blue and red embroidery.
Penny was quite certain that even two layers of the fine silk did
not constitute sufficient covering to maintain her
modesty.

One of the women threw a nearly
transparent veil of white silk over Penny’s head, while another
placed a
kalpock
of white
satin, covered in pearls and diamonds on top of it. A third woman
stepped forward to tweak her veil in place, fastening it with a
loop to one of the pearls on the satin cap. All three women stood
back, nodding and smiling, plainly pleased with their handiwork.
Penny, filled with misery, could only follow blindly as the women
led her toward the draperies covering the archway onto the
loggia.

She was the virgin sacrifice, going to her
doom.

But not quite yet.

Mustafa Rasim, resplendent in a robe of
heavy scarlet silk, embroidered in gold and silver and studded with
pearls, and an immense turban from which glittered a ruby almost
large enough to be called a third eye, merely frowned as he
examined Miss Penelope Blayne from head to foot before giving a
sharp nod of satisfaction. A pink
feradge
was suddenly dropped over Penny’s head,
enveloping her completely, leaving only a tiny slit for her eyes.
And then she was whisked into a litter, the women who had
accompanied her from the harem demonstrating, with gestures, how
she should recline among the cushions. Curtains swished shut around
her, cutting off light, air, but not all hope. She was going
outside
?
She had been found.
Ransom paid, she was going
home!

The litter jerked, rose off the floor, began
to move. Surely, surely, this meant she was being freed. Oh, dear.
Poor Aunt Cass was going to be so shocked by her costume!

After days inside the seraglio, the heat, the
smells, the noise of the streets assaulted Penny’s senses. Oh to be
once more in her beloved Kent, in that quiet, gentle green
countryside. She would never venture away from home again.

It finally occurred to Penny’s numbed mind
that she was alone in the litter. There was no one to scold if she
peeked out to see where she was. A few moments later, she gasped
and let the curtain fall, for what she had seen was familiar. Not
the harbor and a ferry, as she had hoped, but the Blue Mosque in
Sultanahmet Square, with the walls of the Topkapi Palace rising
behind it. Her heart plummeted. What a foolish child she was to
believe, even for a moment, that this tale would have a happy
ending. Too appalled to cry, Penny sat, stiffly quiet, while her
bearers—eunuchs from the harem of Mustafa Rasim—passed through the
well-guarded gates of the Topkapi Palace, home of Sultan Selim the
Third, ruler of the Ottoman Empire.

When the litter came to a rest, the curtains
were thrust back and two pairs of hands reached in to help her up.
Penny did not care where she was, or why. All that pounded through
her head was that this was not home. There was no Aunt Cass, no
Jason. No rescue from the nightmare into which she had fallen.

Though enveloped in misery, Penny was
aware she was in an audience chamber, that someone of great
importance sat on a great divan of gold, set on a raised dais. A
someone with a long black beard, dressed more magnificently than
Mustafa Rasim, his sleeveless outer robe edged in sable and an
aigrette of diamonds sparkling in his white turban. Even the dais
on which his gold throne rested was higher and more ornately
decorated than the one her captor had sat on the day she was
stripped naked before him. Was that to be her fate once again?
Barely visible through the slit in her
feradge
was Mustafa Rasim, making his obeisance
to the Great Man on the broad gold throne. Her captor stood upright
and began to speak. Penny, fearing the worst, retreated inside
herself, seeing nothing, hearing no one.

Suddenly, the
feradge
disappeared in a rustle of silk. Exposed
to the view of the fifty or more men in the audience room, Penny
stood frozen. Truthfully, garbed as she was, she felt almost as
naked as if she were indeed wearing nothing at all. A sharp shove
on her back brought her momentarily to life. Automatically, as she
had learned over her near fortnight in captivity, Penny prostrated
herself before the Great Man, palms flat on the floor, forehead
touching the tiles, backside up, knees tucked under. A ridiculous
position. She hated it.

And then, with the aid of the eunuchs, she
was on her feet, being motioned forward to the foot of the dais.
The Great Man—the Sultan himself?—waved his hand, one of the
eunuchs unfastened her veil. The Great One nodded, the veil was
replaced. A giant black man paced forward. Even in her near stupor
Penny recognized that his garments were even finer than Mustafa
Rasim’s. She also noted that her captor was looking exceedingly
pleased with himself. Whatever had just happened must have gone the
way he had planned.

Numbly, Penny followed the magnificently
dressed black man, with two eunuchs close behind—not the same men
who had accompanied her litter. Once again, she was alone amidst
complete strangers. Their route, along yet another arched
colonnade, was short. Penny was ushered into a relatively small
chamber comfortably furnished with a divan and many large colorful
cushions. The giant black man, wearing a white headdress even
taller than a shako, lowered himself onto the plumply upholstered
divan. Penny stood before him, while the eunuch guards remained
outside the open archway, which was covered by a curtain of
rose-red damask.

“
Parles-tu
français?
” the giant inquired, speaking the familiar
French one might use to a child.

Penny was so delighted to hear words she
understood, she nearly fell to her knees and kissed the hem of the
giant’s elaborately embroidered robe. And recognized on the same
instant that her mind had been shockingly affected by her twelve
days in captivity. The proud, independent, carefree Miss Penelope
Blayne was already fading into a person from another world.
Horrified at her weakness, Penny thrust out her chin, straightened
her shoulders, and informed this man that she did indeed speak
French.

“
You are in the Topkapi Palace,” he
told her. “A gift from the merchant Mustafa Rasim to his
magnificence, Selim, Sultan of all lands of the Ottomans. You are
an odalisque. Do you understand this word?”