The Sultan's Daughter (50 page)

It was on April 3rd, about midnight, that he was roused from a deep sleep. He had not heard the door being unlocked and opened his eyes to find a figure bending over him. The starlight coming through the arrow-slit was just sufficient for him to make out that his visitor was clad in flowing robes, but he could not tell if they were worn by a man or a woman. His heart began to hammer wildly, for his first waking thought was that Zanthé had sent one of her people either to murder him or fetch him to be further tortured in front of her.

Suddenly the figure flung a pair of arms across his chest and fell in a kneeling posture beside his divan. There came a loud sob, then a heart-rending cry.

‘Oh, monsieur! Can you ever forgive me for what I have done to you?'

‘Zanthé!' he exclaimed and, struggling up, instinctively put his arms about her bowed shoulders.

‘There was no other way,' she sobbed, ‘no other way. Having saved you from Djezzar, what else could I do? Had I not had you treated as I did, the eunuchs would have betrayed me and you would have been taken away to your death. I could justify keeping you here only because I said that you had insulted me and I wished to be revenged upon you. Oh, my poor love! How you must have suffered! And I, forced to order all that was done to you, then be a witness to it.'

For a moment this extraordinary revelation, that she had saved him from impalement not out of hate but out of love, left Roger tongue-tied. That she had then been compelled to
carry through the role she had adopted needed no further explaining. Finding his voice, he murmured:

‘Think no more of it. Cease your tears, I beg. I owe my life to you and you love me. That is all that matters.' Then with one hand he started to stroke her hair and added, ‘But … but when did you find that you loved me?'

Her sobs ceased and she began to speak in a breathless voice. ‘Love begets love. That first night, I could not help but be drawn to you. Your looks, those fine shoulders and slim hips. They would attract any woman with warm blood in her veins. That … that was why, in the end, I gave myself so fully. How could I not? But that is not love. I counted you no better than any other soldier who had not lain with a woman for months, and would have taken any little slave-girl just as fiercely. And you, an uncircumcised Christian, had robbed me, a Princess of the Imperial Line, of my virginity! I saw it as my people would—a crime unthinkable. My passion spent, I hated you for it and determined to escape. As you must know, while you were away in Alexandria the merchant ben-Jussif, who owned the house, and his sons rescued me. I sought asylum with the Viceroy's ladies. Then, during the October rebellion, you broke into the seraglio. By then I thought you would at least have found out that I was the widow of the Commander of the Cairo garrison and a woman of high rank. But you claimed me as your slave. Can you wonder at my resentment?'

‘I cannot now,' Roger said gently. ‘But what then?'

She stifled a sob and went on, ‘Being carried off by you again re-aroused my passions. I could not stop thinking of that night in ben-Jussif's house. I wanted you to take me again, to possess me utterly. But I would not show it. I am by nature proud. The very thought that I should wish to give myself to a man who wanted me as nothing more than a concubine degraded me in my own eyes. After what had passed between us I would have died of humiliation had I been weak enough to give you the least sign of encouragement. But there came the morning of your return. You were placed under arrest by that Colonel Duroc. Before you left the house you said to me that, whatever your punishment, you would do the same again for an hour in my company. I
knew then that it could not be only as a plaything that you thought of me. It came as a revelation that you must really love me. I felt a dizziness, and my heart melted within me.'

‘Had I but known, nothing would have induced me to leave Egypt.'

Zanthé raised her head and said in surprise, ‘I did not know you had. Have you been far?'

He nodded. ‘Yes. General Bonaparte sent me on a mission. It necessitated a long voyage. It was soon after landing, on the night of my return, that Djezzar's men captured me.'

Again she lowered her head and began to sob. ‘And then … and then I saw you there in the courtyard. You were in different clothes, your hair disordered and in a terrible state. I did not recognise you until you spoke. Oh, Allah be praised that you cried out to Djezzar when you did. Had you not, you would have been impaled before my eyes. My heart came up into my mouth. I nearly fainted …'

‘But, brave girl that you, are, you didn't. You kept your head and saved me.'

‘I know; but at what a price.'

‘I pray you, forget that. It is all over now. At least …' Roger added, with sudden uneasiness, ‘I hope so'.

‘Yes; yes. You have nothing more to fear. That is, provided it is not discovered that you have not been made a eunuch.'

‘Am I then supposed to have been?'

‘Of course; otherwise I could not have kept you in my private apartments. The horrid business is supposed to have taken a week. By then that string they tied about you would have done its work, had not my faithful Gezubb come up here and cut it off. A further week would be needed for your recovery; so it is expected that tomorrow you will come down and take up the duties I shall give you.' Again her tears began to flow as she added, ‘It is I who should be your slave, not you mine. And to begin with, I shall have to treat you harshly. For that I implore you not to hate me. I …'

Putting his hand gently over her mouth he checked her lamentations and said, ‘Hush! I could never hate you. Use me as you will. Allot me the meanest tasks. The worse you treat me, the less likely it is that anyone will suspect the truth. A
smile from your lovely eyes when no one is looking is all the compensation I ask.'

Her tears had ceased and suddenly she gave a low laugh. ‘I can come to you secretly at night, like this, and only old Gezubb will know of it. Then you can ask of me smiles, kisses, caresses and every pleasure imaginable. Tell me, my beloved one, are you now well again and all your poor wounds fully healed?'

He laughed in reply. ‘I have never felt better, as I will show you if you wish.'

‘If I wish!' she echoed. ‘How can you know the restraint I have put upon myself this past fortnight? For me to have come to you while you were still in pain could only have proved a terrible frustration for us both. At least for both had I found you willing to forgive me. My most awful fear was that you might not, and had you cast me aside I think I would have killed myself. But in my more sanguine moments I imagined myself again lying in your arms. Night after night my heart has beat near to bursting-point at the thought of it. Allah alone knows the strength of my passion for you; and now … now that I can feel your hands upon me I have become a furnace of desire.'

Next moment their mouths met in a long, fierce kiss. Breathless, they drew apart and she stood up. With a swift movement she threw off her robe. Beneath it she had on only a voluminous pair of almost transparent Turkish trousers. Undoing her girdle she slid them down, stepped out of them and kicked off her sandals. While they had been talking the moon had risen and a beam of moonlight coming through the arrow-slit silvered her magnificent body as she stood beside him, naked. The light flickered in tiny blue sparks in the valley between her breasts and Roger exclaimed:

‘Why, you are wearing the little diamond I procured for you.'

‘Of course,' she laughed. ‘It is my most treasured possession and I shall always wear it.'

He threw back the coverlet of the divan and pulled his shirt off over his head. As he did so she moved round to the foot of the divan, fell to her knees, took both his feet in her hands and began to kiss them.

Striving to pull them away, he cried, ‘No, no, beloved, you must not do that. Come here this instant and let me take you in my arms'.

‘Nay,' her low laugh came again. ‘This is my rightful place. Did you not know that, when the Sultan sends for one of his women, they greet him by kissing his feet then, humbly conscious of the honour he does them, steal gently up upon him until they can kiss his chest? And you are my Sultan.'

‘I am also your slave,' he laughed back. ‘Enough of that.' Then, sitting up, he stretched out his hands and drew her swiftly to him.

Later, lying side by side and still embraced, they talked in whispers. As he had supposed, her husband, like many Turks, had cared only for young boys. He had married her solely for the prestige that an alliance with the Imperial House would bring him and had had two other wives, but never slept with either of them. Instead he made his wives flog the boys with rods and birches and it was the performance of this cruel task that had made her hate him.

She had made up the story of her flight from Cairo. The truth was that, after the news of her husband's death had arrived, the guard of Janissaries left at her palace had deserted. Fearing that the palace would be attacked by the mob, she had decided to seek safety with the Viceroy and had urged the other two wives to accompany her. But they had been too frightened to face the streets without a proper guard. So she had set off on her own, accompanied only by her maid and one faithful man-servant; on their way they had had the misfortune to be seized by the Sergeant.

She then told Roger that her mother had been a Mademoiselle Aimée Dubucq de Rivery, born in Martinique. In 1780 she had been sent to finish her education in France with the Dames de la Visitation in their Convent at Nantes. After some years there she was on her way home when the ship in which she was travelling nearly sank in a violent storm. The passengers were rescued by a Spanish trader which took them round into the Mediterranean. There the Spanish ship had been captured by Corsairs and everyone in her taken as prisoners to Algiers. When the Bey—Boba Mohammed ben Osman—had heard that among the prisoners there was a
beautiful, golden-haired, blue-eyed French girl of noble birth, he had sent for her and at once decided that he would win high favour by sending her as an offering to his overlord, the Sultan.

On hearing this, Roger exclaimed, ‘But this is amazing! I know your mother's story. She is a cousin of the Vicomtesse de Beauharnais, who is now Madame Bonaparte, and who was also born in Martinique. She is a friend of mine and told me once how, while still in her teens, she, your mother and a third young girl all -went to an Irish sibyl to have their fortunes told. It was predicted that both Madame Bonaparte and your mother would become the wives of great Sovereigns and that their children would become Kings and Queens.'

‘In my mother's case,' Zanthé replied, ‘the first part of the prediction came true. In the Sultan's harem there are always several hundred odalisques, each one picked for her looks; yet my mother was so lovely that they named her
Naksh
, which means “the beautiful one”, and my father made her his favourite Kadine.'

‘Since you must take after her, I don't wonder. She must also be a woman of great character to have survived the jealousy and intrigues of so many rivals.'

‘She is; but she had the help of two powerful allies:
Son Altesse Noire
, a most intelligent Nubian who is Chief of the Black Eunuchs, and the Circassian Kadine, the widow of my father's predecessor Mustapha III. It is her son, my cousin Selim, who is the present Sultan and, as his mother, she wields great power. She is known as the Sultan Valideh—the head of all the veiled women of Islam. These two put my mother forward as a good influence to help sweep away many barbarous old customs and open the way for Turkey to receive the new scientific knowledge from the West. They hoped, too, that she might gain France's support for Turkey against our hereditary enemies, the Russians. It is owing to her that we now have many French officers in the Turkish Army.'

‘What of the latter part of the prophecy?' Roger asked. ‘Have you a brother who is likely to succeed the present Sultan?'

‘I have one brother, Mahmoud, but he is not the heir
apparent. The Sultanate passes not from father to son, but to the eldest male member of the Osmali family. Mustapha, my father's eldest son by a Turkish Kadine, is the next in line. Only should he die first will my brother ever come to the throne.'
¹

‘I wonder,' Roger mused, ‘if the prophecy will come true for Madame Bonaparte. In Paris, a few years ago, when the General was almost unknown, another sibyl named La Nor-mande made a very similar prediction about her future. I think, though, that the General has a long way to go yet before he can make himself a King. Tell me, now, how is the siege going?'

‘There was most furious fighting up to a few days ago,' Zanthé replied. ‘But the garrison is holding its own; largely, I believe, owing to the help given by the English. It is said that the Admiral Sir Smith often comes ashore and says how the fighting should be conducted. He has, too, several able Lieutenants. There is a Colonel Phélippeaux who has mounted many cannon on our walls and a Captain Miller who commands the British gun teams that have been sent into the city to help in its defence. Even so, the French are making progress in the north-east quarter. I expect you heard that terrible rumbling a few days after you were put in this room. That was a part of the great tower tumbling down in ruins after the French exploded a mine under it, and since then they have held a small section of the outer wall.'

For a few moments they fell silent, then instinctively they began to kiss and made love again. When their passion was temporarily spent Roger remarked:

‘From the way in which Djezzar addressed you as “my beautiful one” when he granted your request to spare my life, I imagined that, as you had become a widow, he had taken you as one of his wives.'

She shook her head. ‘That he has lustful thoughts about me is true. His eyes devour me whenever he sees me, even at a distance. He sent his Chief Eunuch to me shortly after I arrived here, offering to divorce one of his wives and take me
in her place. He is a most horrible man, so naturally I declined his offer.'