Golden Paradise

Karakilisa, Turkey

 
July 1877

T
he medieval fortress at Karakilisa, home to each powerful Khan of the region since the time of the Crusades, commanded the only natural elevation for miles. But over the centuries more civilized owners had refined its functional design, and within its rough walls an elegant white marble palace stood.

And inside that graceful palace, in a high-ceilinged, shaded room built to mitigate the intense summer heat, Lisaveta Lazaroff was packing—or, more aptly, directing the three serving maids in that task. In Javad Khan's palace no guest ever lifted a finger.

"This," she said, and "that," pointing at a single change of chemise and drawers.
"And just one blouse, no petticoats."
She was taking no more than the bare essentials, traveling light with only the contents of two saddlebags to see her through to Aleksandropol on the Russian border.

Could she afford the weight?
she
wondered, holding her favorite copy of Hafiz in her hand. No, she decided in the next heartbeat, she couldn't. But once the war was over she'd come back for everything she had to leave behind.

"You won't change your mind?"

Lisaveta turned sharply at the sound of the male voice. Then, seeing her father's old friend Javad Khan, she relaxed visibly. "No. Although it's no reflection on your hospitality," she added with a smile. Javad Khan's hospitality was in fact lavish, but his nephew Faizi Pasha had stopped to billet his troops for two days and had decided Lisaveta would make a fine addition to his harem.

"My apologies for Faizi," Javad said, advancing into the large room, which overlooked a fountained courtyard lush with blooming roses. "His father was Turkish."

This latter statement might seem oblique, but Lisaveta understood all the unspoken and disparaging nuances. Javad Khan, overlord of western Azerbaijan, was wealthy, cultured and Persian. He viewed the Turks as parvenu, perversely orthodox barbarians.

"I can protect you from Faizi," he said. "You needn't leave."

"Thank you," Lisaveta replied, choosing her words carefully. "But I don't wish to be the cause of enmity in your family." She also didn't wish to take the chance that Faizi and his troops might win this particular battle.

Javad shrugged. Family genocide was a cultural reality in his society, where power was often gained at the expense of numerous and bloody rivalries. "My tribesmen are more than a match for Faizi's troops." And as a man with a harem of his own, he couldn't be expected to understand Lisaveta's horror when faced with the prospect of being locked away in a harem herself.

"I don't want any bloodshed over my presence." She smiled again to soften her refusal. "It's best if I leave. Once the war is over I'll return to continue my research in your library. I'm so grateful you gave me the chance." Javad Khan's collection of Hafiz, Persia's greatest
poet,
was the most extensive in the world, the most lavishly illustrated… and the most private. Only she and her father had ever been allowed access.

"Your father and I were good friends," Javad Khan said simply. "And I've known you, my dear, since you were a babe in arms. My home is your home." His deep voice was without inflection, but she knew that he was quietly offering her.
the
full extent of his hospitality, including the formidable weight of his warrior tribes' military prowess.

"I know." Lisaveta's expression acknowledged the honor bestowed on her by his offer. "And if I weren't compelled by feelings more powerful than rational, I'd stay." Her golden eyes held his. "I hope you understand. With the Russian army garrisoned in Aleksandropol only a hundred miles away, I'd feel safer—" She didn't know how exactly to explain she wasn't willing to trust her life completely to his protection, that the risks of riding through the war zone seemed less daunting than Faizi Pasha's plans for her future.

Maybe that was it. If she left for Russia, she would be in control of her own life, however perilous her journey. In the grip of Faizi Pasha, should that terrible eventuality come to pass, his harem door would clang shut, the world would be locked out, and she'd be a prisoner until she died. She wasn't gambling one risk against the other; her flight was the result of prudently weighing alternatives. As a first-class rider she knew she could reach Aleksandropol in less than a day, and once there she could expect the aid of her countrymen.

Javad was silent for a moment, the serving girls standing at attention as they had since he'd walked through the doorway. For just a brief moment, Lisaveta, Countess Lazaroff, Princess Kuzan if she chose to use her mother's title, felt incongruously as if she'd fallen into a vignette from
The Thousand and One Nights.
Could she assert her authority against Javad Khan, who ruled in the fashion of a medieval prince,
if he
chose to disagree with her wishes? She would be defying a man familiar with life-and-death mastery over his people. And even as sophisticated as he was, the position of women in his milieu was subservient.

Raised
by an indulgent father, educated beyond the standards of most men, granted not only the normal freedom of her wealth and position but the additional prerogatives her scholarship allowed, Lisaveta had lived a life distinguished for its independence.

She would rather die than be trapped in a harem.

"I would have had to leave within the month anyway, to attend the Tsar's ceremony in Saint Petersburg honoring Father's work," she said prosaically. "And the siege of Kars has been lifted, Faizi said. Now should be an excellent time to travel, since there's a lull in hostilities between Turkey and Russia. It's only ten hours," she added in defense of her position.

"The area is still alive with troops."

"I'll travel at night."

"The irregular cavalry raids at night. It's in their blood."

"Javad," Lisaveta said very softly, "I wish to leave, for maybe incomprehensible reasons—but I
cannot
stay."

Javad Khan was very tall, and the straight fall of his silk robes accentuated his height. He gazed down at her for a long moment. "Then you'll need an escort," he said into the quiet of the room.
"And my best horses."
He smiled.
"And Allah's prayers."

Lisaveta grinned back, relieved and strangely elated. There was pleasure in taking action. "Thank you," she said.

His dark eyes beneath his white brows were amused. She'd always been a headstrong young girl, but maybe that was a portion of her charm. "You'll need some peasant clothes," he continued, his own grin matching hers. "If you look like that—" he indicated her gaily flowered summer frock and dainty blue slippers "—you'll be captured two miles down the road… for someone else's harem."

Russia, Transcaucasia

H
ell would have been an improvement.

There was not a tree in sight, not a blade of grass, just a relentlessly barren plateau too close to the sun and too high for rain.

Prince Stefan Bariatinsky was hot. He was beyond hot. He was bone weary, sweating hot, exhausted hot.

And he'd been swearing under his breath for the last half mile.

"Are you going to make it?" Haci, his lieutenant, asked.

"Hell, no.
I want a big funeral." Stefan smiled, mitigating the harsh severity of his face, which was swarthy by birth and further bronzed by years of soldiering for the Tsar. Although he had his tunic unbuttoned so that it hung open, his heavily muscled chest was sleek with sweat beneath the silver-trimmed uniform, and his leather riding breeches felt slippery against his skin. "With Gypsy girls to dance over my bier," he added with a facetious lift of his black brows.

Not that Stefan had ever restricted himself to Gypsy girls. He was in fact, next to the Tsar, the most feted man in the Empire, adored by a great variety of women, and not just for his rank and wealth.

He was the most fearless officer in the Empire.

And handsome as sin.

Too handsome, men said, watching their wives' eyes dwell on him.

Too handsome, jealous young ladies said, watching him flirt with a rival.

Too handsome, like his father, older wags remarked, remembering the scandalous ways of the elder Prince.

But impetuously charming, they all agreed.

"It's not much farther," Haci pointed out, for forty of the fifty miles from Kars to Aleksandropol were now behind them. "And in a few days you'll be at the lodge, with Choura dancing on your—well—wherever," he finished with a grin.

Stefan's Gypsy lover was waiting for him at his mountain retreat and she was capable of taking one's mind off any mundane problems. "That thought," Stefan returned, his mouth quirked in a smile, "might just keep me alive until Aleksandropol."

"You only have to last ten miles."

"Don't say 'only.' Right now it seems the end of the earth." Stefan shifted slightly in his saddle, flexing his broad shoulders in an attempt to ease the discomfort of aching muscles and fatigue. It was a hundred and two degrees, and he was so covered with dust that the sweat trickling down his body was leaving paths. His formerly white Chevalier Gardes uniform was now an indistinguishable color that would have been a court martial offense on the parade ground. But he and his personal bodyguard of Kurdish irregulars were riding north toward Tiflis, capitol city of Georgia, for a badly needed furlough after the three-month siege of Kars. Their first night's stop in Aleksandropol would at least afford him the luxury of a bath, food and a woman—in that exact order, his libido tempered by personal demands for comfort first.