The Necromancer's Grimoire (18 page)

Nadira blinked rapidly, trying to take in so many questions and wondering which to answer.

“Will you not say?”

“I have come to Istanbul with the foreigners.” That much was true.

“Which one is your husband?”

“I am under the protection of the dark one, as you suspected.” Nadira chose her words carefully. “And also under the protection of the Padishah.”

Thedra tipped her head and was silent for the briefest moment. Her eyes danced. “There will be time for you to tell me. Now here is another curiosity. When your name was mentioned, the
reis
's face became very strange.” Thedra challenged her to explain this.

Nadira was taken aback. “Oh.”

“Yes. I was watching him as they spoke, who could not? He is a delight for the eyes like almonds and honey for the tongue. But whenever he said your name his voice would…” Thedra paused, remembering, “sound like he was singing a sad song.” She looked at Nadira, almost accusing. “I am jealous. I admit to it. He will never speak to me, I have tried many times to speak to him, to get him to look at me. Always he nods politely but will not meet my eyes. It is like he thinks I will bewitch him. Yet he comes here and immediately asks for you. He demanded that the Senore must bring you out and was angry when he was sent away.” She pouted prettily as they continued down the walkway to the edge of the courtyard. “These servants will accompany us to the stables and then to the baths. The Senore says I must have three escorts. Can you believe that? One would think he does not trust me to find my way back.”

The
reis
had asked for her. She wondered what he had wanted, and why he was refused.

The stables were impressive and the horses beautiful, but it was the baths that made Nadira stop and widen her eyes with wonder. “Oh my.” She covered her mouth with her hand. “I was not expecting this.”

“How could you?” Thedra smiled back. “You have never been here.”

Thedra led her into the cavernous room. Openings in the stone high above let in shafts of light that illuminated the large pool of clear water in the center. Nadira held tightly to Thedra's hand as the young woman led her deeper into the vast space. Their feet in soft slippers made no sound on the smooth stone. Only the dripping and splashing of water echoed in the chamber.

“Do men and women bathe at the same time?” Nadira whispered.

“No,” Thedra answered, “well, they are not supposed to,” she added with a sly smile. “Women bathe in the mornings and men in the afternoon. We are here now after the women have gone and before the men arrive. The men are most likely in the antechambers with their servants.”

“How do they keep the water so clean?” Nadira paused to kneel by the side of the great stone pool. She tickled the clear surface with her fingers.

“Here.” Thedra directed Nadira's eyes to the east wall. “The stream actually flows through the baths. You can't see it inside like this, but if you were in the water you would feel the current. It flows in here,” Thedra turned around and pointed to the west side of the great basin, “and out here.”

“This is a great wonder.”

Thedra's laugh was like tiny bells. “Perhaps. I have not lived here my whole life. It is a wonder to me as well. You are a wonder to me. How is it that you have these men who follow you about as though you were a goddess? How is it that you can read what our great scholars cannot?”

Nadira stood and brushed her skirts. “I have studied for many years,” she answered the last question truthfully and avoided the first. She smiled at her new friend. “Now tell me how it is that you came to live in that beautiful house in this beautiful city.”

Thedra dimpled. “You will have to sit down for that story.”

“Did you not say that men would soon be coming? Should we not leave?” The baths were empty but for a few servants moving about carrying urns of water and bundles of cloth.

“Don't you want to see them?”

Nadira laughed. “Perhaps, but I know I do not want them to see me.”

“And they won't. Come.” Thedra led Nadira up a short flight of stairs carved into the stone but instead of following them to the right where they disappeared into the women's quarters she made a sharp turn to the left. Nadira watched as she inserted a slippered toe into a hidden cleft between the stones and pulled herself up and onto a cleverly designed ledge. She put her own slipper in the same cleft and followed Thedra as she made her way along the hidden walkway. The stones were set in such a way as to create a channel hidden from the bathers. They travelled the narrow trench until they reached a beautifully carved wood screen set in the stone. Nadira looked back and realized this screen appeared as a decoration set high in the wall to anyone below and around the basin. Now they sat themselves on the stone behind the screen and peered through the tiny holes.

Thedra whispered. “Pull your veil around your mouth. The stones echo terribly. With cloth over your mouth I can hear you, but they cannot. The sound of the dripping water will mute our voices.”

Nadira obeyed and the two women again peered through the screen. She turned to Thedra, “Your husband allows you to wander alone like this?”

Thedra's eyes were naughty above the veil. “The Senore is not my husband, he is my master. The servants wait for me at the door. I am at the baths. What trouble can I get into here?”

Nadira thought that Thedra was probably a great deal of trouble to her master. She smiled, “I do not wish to cause you to worry him by your absence.”

“Senore Borelli is old and fat. You have seen him. If I appear when he calls for me, I am free to do as I please the rest of the time.”

“How free?” Nadira was intensely interested in the answer.

Thedra's cheery smile faded a little. “To be honest, my cage is comfortable, but I am not as free as when I was a child. Those days are gone and will never come back.”

“Where were you so free?”

“My father was a great man in Macedonia. He had a large estate, many olive orchards, sheep, horses. I am his youngest child and was born in the autumn of his years. My many brothers and sisters had already grown and been used for political gain and advantageous business connections. When I was young I was not attended to as they were, and spent long warm sunny days following the servants around. I rode his horses, played in his trees and hunted rabbits with my bow.” She smiled with the memory.

“But then word was sent to my father that Angelo Borelli would arrive with his retinue to sell him fine horses to improve his breeding stock. While he was a guest, he caught a glimpse of me. I became part of the transaction.”

“He caught a glimpse?”

“I was always running around, and when the horses arrived I was there to see them. Of course I wanted to see them! Senore's horses are well-known for their quality. You saw them! They are gorgeous animals, their eyes are full of fire and their hooves float upon the ground with tails held high like banners as they gallop. Of course I was there to see them when they came off the ship.”

Nadira saw the leaping and running horses in her eyes. She prompted, “And then?”

“Oh, I suppose he thought I was beautiful too, or something like that.” Thedra gave her a sidelong look, “My father had me scrubbed down and dressed up and made me serve old Angelo Borelli his
ouzo
. I saved my father a great deal of coin that night.”

“You were traded for horses?” Nadira asked.

“Well, not traded… for even I am not worth so much, but I became part of the price. Do not make a face like that. It could have been much worse. There were two other men my father was negotiating with at the time. I am happier here, as you can see. And the Senore is happy.”

“I suppose he is.” Nadira could see how this spirited girl could make an old man feel young.

“Oh yes,” Thedra confirmed. “I can make him stand when he is limp for his other women. I have learned things,” she wiggled her fingers, “That are not in books.” Nadira colored deeply behind her veils. Thedra laughed at her.

Nadira turned her eyes away. “I have sipped a bit of that wine,” she admitted. “I know it is good.”

“Hmmm, better than good,” Thedra answered with a dreamy voice.

Nadira turned back, surprised. “A fat old man can please you so much?”

“The Senore? Oh no…” Thedra laughed loudly, then lowered her voice. “Do not be silly. The old goat puffs and wheezes his way to his own pleasure. No. I learned long before I came here.”

Nadira extended a curious tendril into Thedra's heart. She saw images of handsome young shepherds and the well-muscled bodies of her father's horse trainers. She began to feel a spark of excitement behind her navel that she understood was Thedra's pleasure. One of the shirtless horse trainers reached for her, his muscles moved gracefully under his bronzed skin. Thedra touched her arm. “That's enough of that!” she said, laughing, “The servants told me you could look into the minds of others, but I did not believe them. That is my memory,
Sultana
, not yours.” She tilted her head at Nadira, “Did you learn to do that from a book?”

“In a way,” Nadira thought of the black-speckled end papers. “The knowledge came from a book.”

Her friend nodded. “That is a skill I could use. A very handy skill, I should think. Perhaps I will get someone to teach me to read.”

Nadira nodded absently. Thedra had interrupted her exploration, but the warm glow in her middle had not faded when the images did.

Thedra pointed to a group of men entering the bathing area. “Here they are. What I have been waiting for.”

Nadira was surprised to see her companions enter the baths. “It's them,” she covered her mouth with her hand; afraid she had spoken too loudly. Thedra laughed quietly.

“Of course it is. I brought you here precisely because I knew they would be here.”

“How did you know?” She shifted behind the screen to see the men better. It was easy to pick out Montrose, and easier to locate Alisdair with his shining red hair. Beside her Thedra gasped as the men came around the pool to lounge directly in front of the screen that hid the two women.

“The red one, good. He has come with them. Is he red all over? And those spots…”

“Yes, he is red all over, and spotted all over, too.”

“I have never seen a man that color before. His skin is as white as milk, and the orange spots…so bright…We have horses like that. Are there many like him where you come from?”

“Not where I come from. He is from a place called Scotland. I don't think the red ones are common where he comes from either. I have never seen another.”

“And he is so large. Very large.” The rest of her commentary on Alisdair's anatomy was lost in her veil.

Nadira pressed her face to the screen to see better. Montrose, Alisdair and Garreth had entered with small cloths tied around their hips. William followed, fully clothed in his cassock, and DiMarco followed him wearing some kind of wrap around his middle. All the men were accompanied by smaller dark servants in white tunics carrying shallow bowls and more folded cloths. Corbett and Calvin followed with two servants behind them.

“What are the servants going to do?” she whispered.

“They will seat the men over here,” Thedra pointed to the side just a few steps away where square blocks of stone like low tables dotted the edge of the pool. “They will scrub the men with scented soap and cloths and rinse them with the bowls of water from the pool. The soiled water runs in channels to a cistern outside. When the men are clean they will enter the pool.”

“Ah…I see that now.” She had wondered how the water was kept so clear even with a stream flowing through it. She watched with naughty glee as Montrose dropped his cloth and turned to seat himself on the stone.

“My goodness! This one is yours, is he not? ” Thedra lowered her veil and pressed her eyes to the screen. “Your lord is a fine man. And his shoulders…excellent. Nice long legs, narrow hips, well-muscled thighs…a very fine man. Yes, indeed. Those arms…he looks like he could throw an ox across the hippodrome.”

Nadira stifled a little laugh, “You talk as if he were a fine animal.”

“And of course he is. But this big dappled one. I find myself taking a liking to him. He is like one of the Frankish chestnuts that pull the heavy wagons.” Alisdair had also shed his loincloth and was sitting on a stone waiting for a servant to scrub him. His broad shoulders covered in bright freckles were only a few paces from the hidden women. His hair was, indeed, a glowing red-blond all over. His thick muscles tensed and relaxed in waves of flesh as he stretched, turning his chest one way and then the other to loosen his spine.

She gave Thedra a sideways look, “And he may take a liking to you as well.”

“Ha.” Thedra's eyes narrowed as she took in the long Scotsman. “I want to see those spots up close.”

Nadira covered her mouth and her shoulders shook with suppressed laughter.

All the men were seated on the stones, bent over and holding their knees against the force of the scrubbing they were getting from the attendants. William appeared to be the lone holdout against nakedness. He remained fully clothed and instead of washing, began to pace about the baths, peering at the decorated tiles and the architecture. He seemed as interested in how the pool was designed and maintained as Nadira had, but he had no guide to help him.

“And that one, so golden, like honey in the sun. He is beautiful, too, though much smaller.” She shrugged. “But the small ones try harder and last longer. They have their own delights, like
baklava
. That one is your friar?”

“Why does everyone call him that?” Nadira whispered in annoyance. “He is not ‘my friar'. He is William of London, a follower of Saint Francis and a very learned man in his own right. And he has taken a vow of chastity. Do not disparage his piety by speaking of his ‘delights'.” Nadira bristled.