Adora (29 page)

This was the moment he had dreaded, the moment in which he must tell her. There was no way to soften the blow he must inflict on her proud spirit. “Highness,” he began, “do you acknowledge that your sister is the current head of the Cantacuzene family, now that your father and brother have left the public life?” She nodded, puzzled. “Then I must tell you,” he hesitated a moment, drawing a deep breath, “I must tell you that in her capacity as head of your family the empress has sold you into bondage for ten thousand gold Venetian ducats and one hundred perfectly matched Indian pearls. You are now, legally, Sultan Murad’s slave,” he finished.

She could only gape at him. Fearful for her sanity, he reached out and touched her gently. She started, then turned her beautiful eyes on him. “My sister has sold me into slavery?”

“Yes, Highness. It is all…quite legal.”

“I never realized that she hated me so much. I thought—She is my sister, flesh of my flesh, we have the same mother and father. To sell me into slavery—” A violent spasm shook her and she turned a frightened face on the eunuch. “Give me a dagger, old friend! A bit too much of the poppy!” She was begging, desperate. “Don’t make me live in shame. I loved my lord Alexander. I can never love Sultan Murad like that. He
hates
me, hates me for something I could not prevent. Help me, Ali Yahya!
Please
.”

But he was firm. She was in shock. When she regained her composure she would accept the situation and avail herself of the opportunity offered her. She might have loved the Greek lord to whom she had been married, but he also knew that, despite her denials to the contrary, she loved the young sultan. If Murad would but reassure her—and Ali Yahya would try and see to that—all would be well between them.

“There is no shame,” he said, “in being the sultan’s favorite.”

“Are you mad?” She began to sob. “I was
wife
to a sultan. I was
wife
to the despot of Mesembria. I will not be Sultan Murad’s whore!”

“You will be whatever I desire and command,” came Murad’s voice from the entry. “Leave us, Ali Yahya!” He strode forward.

“No!”

He laughed at her cruelly. “You may have been born a princess, Adora, but you are now my slave. It is time you began to behave like one. It will give me great pleasure to school you properly. Neither of your husbands did. They indulged you, but I will not.”

He turned again to the eunuch. Ali Yahya bowed and departed.

For a moment they stood surveying each other. Her heart was pounding wildly. She looked hard at him, desperately
trying to find any sign of the tender young man who had once loved her. He was handsomer than he had ever been. The years he had spent as a soldier had hardened his body. His dark hair showed no sign of gray.

His jet eyes frightened her. There was no warmth in them. They surveyed her coolly, as they would any possession. And suddenly it hit her that that was exactly what she was—his property. She shuddered.

He laughed. It was a mirthless sound. “I will come to you tonight,” he said quietly.

“No,” she could barely speak, and her voice was a whisper.

“Come here to me,” he commanded coldly.

“No!” She defied him.

Suddenly he laughed gently. “In the end,” he said softly, “you will have to obey me, my dove. I can make you, you know.”

Her violet eyes were dark with fright, yet she wordlessly fought with him. Murad was both pleased and amused. Whatever happened between them, he did not want to break her spirit. But she would obey him. Her reluctance surprised him. She was no virgin. And he was not aware that she had loved either of her husbands. Why must she play the reticent widow?

Holding her gaze in his like a wolf with a lamb, he slowly narrowed the space between them. She could not move. Her legs had become paralyzed. His arm reached out and tightened about her. A strong, square hand imperiously lifted her chin up. His mouth swooped down and closed over her lips.

Deep within her he touched a familiar chord. Unable or perhaps unwilling to struggle, she let him claim momentary possession of her very soul. At first his mouth was warm and surprisingly gentle but then his kiss deepened, becoming demanding, almost brutal. With a sudden cry she struggled to escape him, and when she scratched him he swore angrily,
“Little bitch! You belong to me now. You’ll soon learn that, Adora! You are mine!
Mine
!” And he turned furiously and left the tent.

She sank to her knees, shaking uncontrollably. How long she huddled there, clutching herself and sobbing pitifully for Alexander, she did not know. Then strong arms raised her. She saw that a large oaken tub had been brought into her quarters and filled with steaming water and fragrant oils. Her clothes were stripped away and she was lifted into the tub. The slavewomen who served her were all older than she. They treated her gently as they scrubbed the dust of her journey from her body and hair. She was then seated and a pink paste, smelling of roses, was rubbed over the haired areas of her body. Her long, dark hair was rubbed with a linen towel and then brushed and rubbed with silk until it was dry, soft, and shone with reddish-blonde lights.

The depilatory paste was rinsed from her body, her hair was pinned atop her head with jeweled pins, and she was stood in the tub while cool, scented water was sluiced over her. A warm towel was wrapped about her. She was carefully dried, then led to a bench where she was stretched prone and massaged with a pale green cream smelling of nightblooming lilies.

Theadora was weak with shock and the kindly attentions of the bath attendants when Ali Yahya entered the tent carrying a garment. She flushed under his careful scrutiny. Although she should have long been used to these maleless men viewing her nudity, she was not. At a glance from the eunuch, the slavewomen quickly departed.

Ali Yahya shook his head in disbelief as he ran a soft hand over her body. “You are perfection, Highness. Your body is without flaw. Magnificent! The sultan will be very pleased.” He bent and fastened a thin gold chain about her just above the curve of her hips. From this he hung two ankle-length pink gauze veils shot through with silver threads. One covered her buttocks, its mate covered her lower belly and thighs. Kneeling,
the eunuch slipped several gold bangles about her ankles. Then he stood and nodded, satisfied.

“The sultan will join you momentarily, Highness,” he said formally. Then, lowering his voice, he said urgently, “If this were not your fate, princess, it would not be happening! Accept it, and climb to greatness.”

“In the sultan’s bed?” she asked scornfully.

“It has been the way of women since the world began. Are you any more or less than other females?”

“I have a mind, Ali Yahya. In my Greek heritage, women of intelligence were sought after, appreciated. Here a woman is a body upon which a man may sate his lust and nothing more. I will not be just a body.”

“You are still very young, my princess,” smiled the eunuch. “What does it matter the road one takes as long as one arrives safely at one’s destination?

“You say you do not wish to be just a body, but what is it you do wish to be? Win the sultan first with your beautiful body, my princess. Then use your intelligence to gain whatever goal it is you seek—if you even know what it is you seek.” He then turned abruptly and left her alone to contemplate his words.

“You look ready to do battle, Adora.”

She whirled about, forgetful of the fact that her breasts were naked. Briefly his eyes caressed the proud high, coral-tipped cones, bringing an unwilling flush to her cheeks. He laughed. “How will you fight me, Adora?” he asked mockingly.

“What kind of a
man
are you?” she hissed at him. “Knowing that I hate you, you would still take me?”

“Yes, my dove, I would!” His even white teeth flashed in his wind-bronzed face, and he stripped off the red-and-gold-striped robe he wore, baring an equally bronzed chest with its tangled mat of dark hair. Beneath the robe he wore soft white
wool pantaloons and dark leather boots. Seating himself on a chair he commanded her, “Take off my boots.”

She looked shocked. “Call a slave to do it. I do not know how.”

“
You are my slave
,” he said deliberately, his voice even. “I will show you how.” He stuck out his foot. “Turn your back to me, and take my leg between your legs. Then simply pull the boot off.”

Hesitantly she obeyed him, and to her secret delight the boot easily slid off. Confidently, she grasped the other boot and pulled, but this time the sultan mischievously placed the sole of his boot on her pretty bottom and pushed, sending her sprawling into a pile of cushions. She had no time to voice her outrage for, laughing, he was atop her. Quickly turning her over, he kissed her slowly and deliberately until she scrambled to her feet, her eyes large with a mixture of outrage and fear.

She backed away from him. His black eyes narrowed dangerously. Standing up, he stalked her slowly across the tent. The situation was ridiculous. She had no place to run. Sobbing involuntarily, she stood waiting for him to reach her. He towered over her, looking sternly down at her. His hand reached out to snap the thin gold chain above her hips, allowing the gauze to slide to the floor. She was completely naked. The big hand moved up to pluck the jeweled pins from her head, and dark hair swirled about her down to her waist.

Sweeping her up in his arms, he strode across the tent through silken hangings and deposited her on the bed. “If you make any further move to escape me, Adora, I’ll beat you myself.” He began to slip his pantaloons off.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” she snarled at him. “You’d like an excuse to beat me!”

He bent and thoughtfully stroked her round bottom. “It’s tempting, I will admit, my dove. But there are other things I would far rather do. Things I’ve waited ten years to do.”

“You’ll have no joy of me, infidel!” she spat.

“I think I will,” he countered. Naked now, he stood over her, a mocking smile on his handsome face.

She looked him over as boldly as he did her. Dear heaven, he was magnificent! There wasn’t an ounce of fat on the tall, well-formed body. His legs were firm, rising up into shapely thighs, slim hips, a flat belly, and the broad hairy chest. Between those beautiful thighs, within a dark triangle, nestled his manhood and, as she had suspected, he was large even at rest. When excited he would be enormous, like a damned stallion. She flushed with her thoughts and the sultan laughed as if reading her mind.

He lay down next to her and drew her into his arms. She stiffened, but he did nothing further. This only increased her suspicions. Then suddenly one hand began a gentle stroking motion, soothing the tenseness from her back and buttocks. She was confused. He should be ravaging her now. Her eyes sought his, silently questioning.

“Once long ago,” he said quietly, “in a moonlit orchard I loved an innocent maiden. She was taken from me once, and then I lost her another time. But now she is once more in my arms. This time no one will take her from me!”

She swallowed the lump that was rising in her throat. “I am no longer an innocent maiden, my lord,” she whispered. Why was he doing this to her?

“No, Adora, you are not innocent in the true sense of the word. You were brutally robbed of your maidenhead. You lived as my father’s wife and bore him a son. As to the Greek lord, he could not love you as I do. I believe that in your heart you are yet a virgin.”

“How can you know of these things?” she asked him tremulously.
Tell him nought of Alexander
, an inner voice warned her.

“Am I not correct, my dove?” And when she did not answer him he continued, “I am a fool, Adora! Knowing you, how could I believe you had betrayed our love? Yet I did. I
believed you ambitious, and when I thought of you coupling with that obscene old man I nearly went mad! There was nothing l could do.”

“There was nothing I could do either, my lord,” she answered.

They lay quietly for a few more minutes, and her heart sang with joy. It was going to be all right. She knew the reason for his change of attitude. Ali Yahya had obviously told him what she had been too proud to tell him. Knowing the truth of her marriage to Orkhan, Murad’s anger had dissolved. She would be his wife now. She glanced at him shyly. “Will we be wed as soon as we return to Bursa, or have you already wed me?” she asked him.

She felt him start against her. “I will take no wife in either the Christian or Muslim sense and neither will my descendants. The Ottomans grow more powerful each day, and no longer need make political alliances through marriage. I will take kadins as did my ancestors.”

Angry, disappointed, and hurt, she pulled away from him. “Two men have wanted me enough to wed with me, my lord Murad! I will not be your whore!”

“You will be what I want you to be! Adora, Adora, my sweet, little love! Why do you deny the truth of your feelings for me? Will some words mumbled over us by a holy man make those feelings any different?”

“I am not some ignorant peasant girl to be honored by the sultan’s attentions,” she raged. “I am Theadora Cantacuzene, a princess of Byzantium!”

He laughed. “You are first a woman, Adora. And second, my dove, though you are not used to it yet, you are legally my slave. It is,” he teased her, “your duty to please me.” Pulling her back into his arms he kissed her. But it was like kissing a doll for she stiffened her body and compressed her lips tightly together.

Tenderly he rained kisses on her face, hoping to weaken her. It took every ounce of willpower she had to remain impassive to the soft lips that gently touched her closed eyelids, her forehead, the tip of her nose, the corners of her mouth, her stubborn chin. Angrily she turned her head away from him, foolishly exposing her slim, white neck to his mouth, and he quickly availed himself of the opportunity she presented. Deep within herself she felt the beginnings of a tremor as his lips moved swiftly down to nibble on her earlobe, then further down to her breasts. She managed to fight down the trembling, but panic was fast setting in, and her hands tried to push him away.