Authors: Johanna Lindsey
E
arly in the afternoon four days later, the Grand Vizier was still receiving the more important supplicants requesting an audience with the Dey when his clerk informed him a desert sheikh had arrived with tribute in the form of two Thoroughbred horses. Omar was not impressed and would have put the sheikh off until another day, but his clerk insisted he must see these particular animals himself—they were even now being admired in the outer court.
Omar could not help being annoyed. Jamil’s own clerk had obviously thought this fellow important enough to send to him, when all he had to do was accept the tribute and send the sheikh on his way. But then he could see the clerk’s dilemma. Most of the desert tribes that paid tribute to the Dey according to their respective treaties did not send their headmen to do so. That this sheikh had come in person with his gifts could only mean that he wanted something from the Dey.
So be it. Jamil’s policy was to appease these desert tribes whenever possible, which kept the peace. The desert sheikh might not even be aware of what was happening in Barikah, or why this was not a good time for the Dey to receive his gifts personally.
Impatiently, Omar stepped into the room adjoining his office that had a fretted window facing the outer court. There he could see the horses clearly, for even though a crowd of palace officials and servants had gathered around them, they kept their distance, the
two young Arabs in attendance having difficulty keeping the high-spirited animals under control.
Omar was finally impressed. They were magnificent, pure white Thoroughbreds of the like never before seen in Barikah. And then he realized the reason they couldn’t be controlled. One was a stallion, the other a mare. By the Prophet’s beard! This was a breeding pair.
He shook his head as he returned to his office and bade his now smiling clerk to show the sheikh in. Was it possible the man didn’t know the value of such a gift, a tribute worthy of the Sultan himself? These weren’t desert Arabians, by any means. Where could they possibly have come from?
And then Omar groaned heavily as it dawned on him how this gift was going to affect Jamil, who was a superb horseman but had had to give up his daily rides since the trouble began. He was going to be delighted with this pair, ecstatic in fact, until he realized, as Omar just had, that he couldn’t ride them now and wouldn’t be able to for some time to come. This was going to make his present disposition even worse.
Understandably, Omar was glowering by the time the tall desert headman was brought before him. His name had been given as Ahmad Khalifeh; it was a name Omar could not immediately recall, nor find among his papers at first glance. He might have been able to recognize him if it weren’t for the bulky burnoose, the hooded robe of the desert that covered him from head to toe, and the fact that he kept his head lowered so that the hood fell forward to further enshroud him.
In his irritation, Omar dispensed with the customary preliminaries of welcome and came right to the
point. “Your name is not familiar to me. From which tribe do you come?”
He was answered with a question. “Is that you, Omar?”
The Grand Vizier stiffened. That voice he recognized all too well. “Jamil? What games do you play?”
Laughter greeted this, full and deep. How long had it been since anyone had heard Jamil laugh? Omar frowned darkly, for the man’s head had been thrown back, and it was a smooth-shaven chin he could see under the shadowed hood.
“Who are you?” Omar demanded in an ominous undertone.
“Come now, old man, you can’t have forgotten me. It’s only been nineteen years.”
Omar’s mouth dropped open in utter amazement. No one spoke to him in such a disrespectful tone. No one! He stood up to call the guards to have the arrogant dog removed, but was arrested by the sight of the hood being thrown back and a pair of laughing green eyes that met his without fear or contrition. He sat back down, or rather, dropped back down on his cushioned pillows, his mouth again hanging open.
“Kasim? Is it really you?”
“None other,” came the cheeky answer.
Omar leaped up again and went around the long, low table littered with official documents and letters of petition. “You came! Allah be praised, you actually came!”
“Did you think I wouldn’t?” Derek got out before he was enthusiastically embraced. For a little old man twice his age, Omar had sufficient strength left to make him grunt, he was squeezed so hard.
“We didn’t know,” Omar said, standing back to
fill his eyes with the many changes nineteen years had wrought. “We couldn’t know. So many messengers were sent out, so many found dead.”
“So Ali ben-Khalil told me.”
“Then he was the one to finally reach you? The sherbet seller?”
Derek nodded, grinning. “He insisted I lock him up, after he had seen me.”
“A smart man. And you were wise enough to come in disguise. I was afraid you would not, but there was no way to warn you in the message without making the simple code obvious.”
Derek shrugged. “It seemed the thing to do to avoid confusion.”
“Jamil was sure you would realize.”
“How is he?”
“Still unharmed, though there was still another attempt on his life last month.”
“Do you know who’s behind it?”
Omar threw up his hands in disgust. “We have learned nothing. Nothing! Whoever is hiring these assassins does not reveal himself to them.”
“Is it Selim?”
“We can think of no other, but then no one is above suspicion.”
“Where is he?”
Omar sighed. “He was last seen in Istanbul at the Sultan’s court. We have a veritable army out looking for him now, but he hides himself well.”
“Have you considered the possibility that he has already been eliminated?” Derek ventured. “How old is Mustafa’s last-born son now?”
“Murad is only eleven, and yes, we have considered that, and all of Jamil’s enemies, too.”
“And his wives?”
Omar chuckled. “You still think like a Muslim, Kasim.”
“I can remember my mother telling me of the fierce rivalry among Mustafa’s wives and how twice Mahmud nearly died from poison.”
“And did Jamil later write you that it was Mustafa’s fourth wife who was responsible, and that she also was foolish enough to make an attempt against him, which earned her a grave at the bottom of the sea?”
Derek grunted. No, he hadn’t been told, but he wasn’t surprised. To be trussed up alive in a weighted sack and dropped into the sea was the Sultan’s favorite mode of doing away with the women of his harem who had displeased him, women kept veiled from other men in life—and so in death as well. Why should Mustafa be any different? Rarely was a woman executed any other way.
Omar continued. “But Jamil’s wives? Of course it has been thought of, and security in the harem has been increased also, but Jamil will hear nothing said against them, and I am inclined to look there only as a last resort, too. First, they each of them adore Jamil. But more to the point, none of their sons would benefit unless Selim and Murad both died as well as Jamil, and although Selim is missing, Murad is here in Barikah, and no attempts have been made on
his
life.”
“But if every one of Mustafa’s sons died?”
“It would be up to the Divan to decide whether to accept Jamil’s firstborn.”
“It is not unheard of for a
kadine
to rule through her son,” Derek reminded him.
“But he is only six years old, Kasim. If he were older…It is more likely the Divan will choose a new Dey, and Mustafa’s line will rule no more.”
“But your vote could sway them either way?”
Omar laughed. “By Allah, you are bringing new thoughts to this problem that even I have not considered. Yes, it is true I could sway the Divan. After thirty-five years of serving as Grand Vizier of Barikah, I assure you my opinion is second only to the Dey’s. But it is also true that no one can know how I could vote, least of all Jamil’s wives, when I haven’t even thought of this possibility myself. But come, Kasim, sit down, sit down. We will have ample time to discuss who is causing all this trouble. Tell me, how did you get here? No new ships have arrived these past few days, and all those before I have had checked.”
“A friend of mine got me passage on one of the Royal Navy’s warships. I would have been here yesterday…only we ran into a little trouble with some Algerian corsairs and became separated from our escort. I imagine they’ll arrive either later today or tomorrow, once they regroup. I was dropped off up the coast late last night and rode in this morning. I needed a good enough excuse to get in to see you, and what better way than as Ahmad Khalifeh, come in from the desert with tribute for the Dey?”
“Ah, the horses!” Omar chuckled. “Wherever did you find such magnificent beasts?”
“Find them?” Derek’s lips curled with a touch of pride. “I raise them. And Jamil had better be around long enough to start a new line in Barikah.”
“
Inshallah
,” Omar replied in all seriousness.
“Yes,” Derek agreed, just as seriously now. “If God wills.”
D
erek Sinclair, Earl of Mulbury and future Marquis of Hunstable, was riding an incredible high in spirits, and had been ever since he had entered the city this morning. The sights, sounds, and smells that greeted him made him realize how much he had missed this part of the world and how easily it was to slip back into the shoes of a Muslim Turk.
There was nothing English about the bazaars he had passed through, where sandalwood and gum scented the air from the spice stalls, camels plodded along with noisy complaint, bells tinkled in the breeze that turned the silk merchant’s stall into a waving riot of bright color. It was a sea of turbans and kohl-eyed women enshrouded in mystery. It was the din of merchants haggling over prices, the sweet song of nightingales in bamboo cages, the bubbling of fountains on each comer. It was Barikah, which Derek had never thought to know again.
And the Dey’s palace, spread out over more than twenty acres on the highest hill of the city, brought back a wealth of memories long forgotten. Derek moved through the labyrinth now, following in Omar’s wake. When he first arrived, he had only gotten as far as the outer court, enclosed in high walls that protected the arsenal, mint, bakery, guards’ barracks, and other service buildings. But Omar had taken him through several rooms off his office that led directly into the inner palace, thereby avoiding the
second court, where only officials and ambassadors ever penetrated.
Unlike the outer court, which was usually easily accessed by the public, the second court was a cloistered garden with avenues running over its lawns to gates and low buildings. Gazelles and peacocks wandered at will under tall cypress trees, lavish pavilions stood in readiness for any state occasion, and slaves bent over flower beds, toiling beneath the hot sun.
The second court housed the offices of the palace officials and the council chambers where the Divan met several days each week. There foreign diplomats were entertained, the Dey’s sons were circumcised or his daughters married, and all ceremonies were performed. And from this courtyard was the iron-studded gate that led to the harem.
Beyond the second court was another gate leading into a third courtyard, the one Derek was most familiar with. It was a more intimate garden with chestnut and medlar trees, and cypresses hung with ivy. The treasury was located there, as well as the throne room and the palace school. And through yet another gate were the richly tiled corridors leading to the Dey’s apartments, which abutted the harem.
Omar took Derek instead through the heart of the palace, through a maze of corridors and chambers that skirted the domed kitchens, the baths, the harem, the courts, and finally led to the very corridor that the concubines used to reach the Dey’s apartments.
At last they stopped before a large cedarwood door, flanked on each side by two stiff-backed Nubians. It was only because Derek was accompanied by the Grand Vizier himself that he hadn’t been detained at least twenty times by now by the army of guards they had passed at different points along the way, espe
cially when he had remained hooded and with lowered head, a thoroughly suspicious-looking character.
“I hope you have some password or the like to alert these fellows if all isn’t right,” Derek remarked thoughtfully before Omar could announce them.
“You were searched for weapons before you entered the palace, weren’t you?”
“Yes, but what if someone had found a way to get to one of your wives or children, and so coerced you into bringing them in here?”
Omar chuckled. “There is indeed a signal that would have had you or anyone else beheaded in an instant, but I am glad that you are taking such an interest in our security measures. You must feel free to mention anything that concerns you.”
A questioning brow rose. “Your family is protected? Killing the one who tells you your family is taken will not save your family.”
Omar nodded. “My sons, my grandsons, my great-grandsons, all are as safe as it is possible to make them. My wives?” He shrugged fatalistically, though there was now a twinkle in his gray eyes. “It would be no great loss were anything to happen to
them
.”
Derek suppressed a grin and nodded toward the door. “I suppose you have to announce me?”
“It would be wise, unless you want his personal guards pouncing on you the moment you walk through the door.”
“I think I can do without that,” Derek replied dryly.
“Yes, it doesn’t pay to surprise the Dey, but nonetheless he will be surprised. With so many messengers killed, he had given up hope that one might reach you, Kasim.” At the sound of his name, Derek looked pointedly at the guards, but Omar shook his head.
“Those who guard Jamil’s door are mutes, as are his personal guards.”
Omar finally knocked on the door, then waited a full ten seconds before opening it and stepping inside, with Derek following close on his heels. It was a typical Eastern room, large and uncluttered. Finely sculpted onyx columns supported a ceiling that was painted with floral motifs. Stucco panels of floral and geometric designs alternated with bands of calligraphy on the walls. Carved grilles covered the windows but still allowed in ample light to flood the marble floor, in the center of which was set a magnificent mosaic of a hunting scene. What little furniture there was, a few low tables and a single tall cabinet against one wall, was inlaid with mother-of-pearl. There were no chairs or sofas to sit on, nor even a divan in this room, just a low dais strewn with pillows where the Dey was sprawled in relaxation.
But the room was not empty by any means. The coffeemaker was there, Jamil’s pipe bearer, and a half-dozen other attendants, all personal slaves. Also present was one of Jamil’s concubines, who had had time in the ten seconds Omar had waited before entering to veil herself, and was sitting at Jamil’s side with her head demurely bowed.
“Did we have an appointment, Omar, that I have forgotten about?” Jamil broke the silence that had fallen over the room with their entrance.
“Not at all, my lord. But we do request a private word, if it would not be inconvenient. Even your guards should leave, I think.”
Jamil raised a brow at this request but did not ask why. He simply nodded his head and the many servants began backing out of the room, the customary way to leave the Dey’s presence, salaaming as they
went. Even the woman left in this way and managed not to reveal her chagrin at having her hour with Jamil terminated by the Grand Vizier. Jamil wouldn’t have noticed in any case. His eyes were on Omar’s mysterious companion, whose eyes were likewise on him, though he couldn’t tell that with the hood of the burnoose drawn down so low.
The moment the room was empty, Jamil demanded, “Well? Has someone
finally
come forward with information on this cursed plot to see me in an early grave? What did he have to tell you, Omar?”
“Just that he had a pleasant voyage, if more than a month at sea can be considered pleasant without any women aboard to aid a man’s comfort.”
Jamil scowled at his Grand Vizier. “Is this your idea of a joke, old friend?”
Omar couldn’t help himself; he laughed delightedly, then sputtered to a mere grin when Jamil’s scowl darkened. He turned watering eyes on Derek. “Reveal yourself before he thinks I’ve gone mad.”
Derek raised a hand and tugged back his hood even as he began walking forward. Jamil sat up, then stood up. One step brought him down from the dais, but he moved no farther than that. Derek had reached him, and they stood eye to eye, one pair of green eyes incredulous, the other identical pair moist with emotion.
“Jamil,” Derek said simply, but there was a wealth of meaning in that one utterance.
Jamil slowly smiled, and then he let out a great shout and crushed Derek in a bear hug powerful enough to crack the bones of a smaller man, and grunted when the same hug was returned.
“Allah’s mercy, Kasim! I never thought to look on you again.”
“Nor I you.”
And they both burst out laughing, for one had only to look in a mirror to see the other. Of course, that was not the same thing as being together.
“Nineteen years,” Derek continued, his eyes still roving over Jamil. “God, I’ve missed you.”
“No more than I have you. I don’t think I ever forgave our mother for separating us.”
“It made an old man very happy, Jamil,” Derek said in a subdued voice.
“What is that to me when I nearly destroyed myself in my grief?” Jamil demanded in a burst of resentment that he had never been able to overcome. “Did you know that they tried to convince me, too, that you had died, as they did everyone else? Me? As if I couldn’t sense the truth. I thought I was going mad, with even Rahine insisting you were dead, when I knew, I knew
here
”—he struck his chest hard—“that it couldn’t be so. She finally had to admit what she had done.” That was the day he had stopped calling her mother.
“You should have told me.”
Jamil waved that aside. “I was fifteen before she would even tell me how I could contact you. I didn’t want to bring up feelings that had been buried for five years, feelings that I knew would be read by others before my letters could reach you.”
“And I was afraid to ask why you never answered my letters, which I began writing immediately.”
“I never received them. Our father saw to that, again at Rahine’s request.”
“Why?” Derek demanded, some of his own resentment resurfacing.
“She wanted no reminders. There were two of us,
so one was easily sacrificed. But she wanted no reminders.”
Derek looked away before saying, “I remember her words when she took me down to that ship.” ‘I can’t go back, Kasim,’” she told me. “ ‘And even if I could, I can bear no more children. You are the only one who can carry on my family line, and that means as much to the English as it does here. Jamil was the firstborn. Your father would never let him go. But you, you are all I can give my father, and I love him, Kasim. I can’t bear to think of him dying alone, with no hope for the future. You are all that he will have of me. You will be his heir, his joy, his reason to live. Please, don’t hate me for sending you to him.’”
“She had no right!”
“No,” Derek agreed softly. “But I also remember her tears as I sailed away.”
They looked at each other for a long, silent moment before Jamil finally admitted, “I know. I often heard her crying when she thought she was alone, but I was young and unforgiving then. I hardened my heart to the fact that she missed you as much as I did. I refused to believe that she could still love you after what she did. And I hated Mustafa for a long time for letting her convince him to go along with it.”
“He had many sons at that time, even if we were his favorites.”
“Don’t make excuses for him, Kasim. Serves him right that he began to worry later when half of those sons died before they left the harem.”
That spiteful statement made them both suddenly grin. “You don’t mean that,” Derek said.
“No,” Jamil replied. “But he did finally bemoan the fact that he only had five sons left, one of which
he had willingly given away, and as everyone believed this son dead, he might as well be. Of course he could rail at Omar, the only other one to know about it, for not stopping him from being so generous with his favorite
kadine
.”
When they both turned for Omar’s comments on this, they found that he had quietly left them alone for their reunion. They smiled at the old man’s thoughtfulness and moved onto the cushions scattered about the low dais. Jamil offered a long Turkish pipe with an amber mouthpiece, but Derek declined. He sprawled back in a very English pose, leaning on one elbow, his other hand resting on a bent knee. Beneath his now-open burnoose was revealed a white linen shirt with open collar tucked into clinging buff-colored trousers, likewise tucked into knee-high boots.
Jamil’s Turkish trousers were large and loose, ending at the knee, easily accommodating the Eastern fashion of sitting cross-legged, as he did now. His feet were bare, his collarless tunic green silk and lined with yellow gems about the neck and in several layers about the cuffless sleeves. An emerald the size of a walnut was in the center of the turban that he removed now that they were alone, giving his head a shake to loosen coal-black hair that was worn at least three inches longer than Derek’s.
When their eyes met again, Jamil asked pointedly, “Did
you
forgive her?”
“I think I understood her motives better once I came to know Robert Sinclair. I came to love him, Jamil, just as she does.”
“And how I hated him for being the reason you were taken from me.” This was said quietly, without the earlier heat Jamil had displayed.
“I did, too, at first. I hated everything English. But
then a little girl of no more than six put me in my place, demanding of me, ‘What have you to be so high and mighty and god-awful arrogant about? You’re just a boy, and an orphan at that.’”
“An orphan?”
“It’s the story our grandfather put out, to explain why I showed up alone on his doorstep. My father was supposedly a foreign diplomat my mother had met and married while abroad, and both parents died, leaving the Marquis to raise me. It kept things simple and generated sympathy. Ah, the sympathy.” Derek chuckled. “When I was only twelve, there was the prettiest little kitchen wench who insisted on showing me how very sympathetic she could be.”
“Twelve?” Jamil snorted. “And our father made me wait until I was thirteen before any female slaves were allowed to serve me.”
They both grinned, remembering their first attempts at making love and how very hesitant and scared they had been at that early age. Then Jamil added, “And the unwise female child who insulted you?”
Derek laughed. “She became my closest friend.” He laughed harder at Jamil’s incredulous look. “It’s true. She made me realize what an utter ass I was for taking out my loneliness and resentment on everyone around me. I was there, and there to stay, so I began to make the best of it.”
“But a female friend, Kasim? I know Europeans feel differently about women, but you’re only half English.”