Her Pirate Master (3 page)

Uneasy is the sleep of kings and queens. He’d heard it repeated often enough, but the saying could have been written by an Egyptian. Ptolemy himself had once fled to Rome seeking refuge from his enemies. He had been lucky the Romans considered him a friend. Caesar and Pompey supported his claim and restored his throne to him. But not everybody was glad about the influence Rome had gained over their country. When Ptolemy died, Cleopatra, the present queen, had with Caesar’s help fought off the claims of her own brother and sister and ascended to the throne amid a storm of controversy. Her siblings wanted to rule the United Lands and drive Rome out, and there were many Egyptians who liked the sound of that. The brother and sister had managed to raise an army, but the brother was killed fighting Caesar’s legionnaires and the rebellion collapsed. Caesar sent the sister to Rome, a captive. Eventually, she was freed and left the city, but where was she now?

Seleucus racked his brain trying to remember any snippet he might have heard about the mutinous princess. He didn’t think Cleopatra had allowed her back into Egypt. The people of Alexandria had rallied behind Arsinoe before. Cleopatra would not risk their doing so again. That meant that, if she was alive, Arsinoe was a princess in exile and, thus, a princess in need of friends. And where better to look for those than in the East? At Ephesus, where his lovely captive wanted him to take her. He remembered then that Ptolemy, Arsinoe’s father, had also sought sanctuary in that beautiful city during his troubles. Arsinoe might have thought she could find supporters there. Friends of her father’s who hadn’t returned when he did, enemies of Cleopatra, and plain old troublemakers who would ally themselves with her. Seleucus turned on his side to stare at Imi’s beautiful ivory box, but any answers it contained were not revealed to him. The questions, however, continued to race through his mind until, finally, he fell asleep from exhaustion.

*****

Imi clambered up on the deck of the small galley. She staggered over to the railing, hoping she’d find her sea legs long before the ship left the Roman coast behind. Looking out over the waves, she took a couple deep breaths. She needed to steady her nerves and gather her thoughts.

Why had the Great Mother not come to her aid? Did she not realize they faced the failure of all their plans? Did she not care? But Imi could not face that thought, would not allow herself to even imagine that perhaps the Great Mother had deserted Arsinoe’s cause. That could not be. Arsinoe was the chosen one of Egypt’s gods. The Prophet of Amun in Memphis had declared it when she was still a child, long, long before the Great Mother’s Ephesian servants had seen her and said the same thing. Yet it was Cleopatra, Arsinoe’s sister, who sat on the throne; a woman who saw nothing wrong with prostituting herself and the country to the Romans. To help Arsinoe gain the throne, Imi had to get back to Ephesus with the icons. The princess had trusted her with the task, her and no one else. Who would suspect her, they had reasoned? A young woman, alone? And now she teetered on the brink of failure. Imi winked back tears and turned to survey the deck. She had to think, to come up with a plan. This was no time for tears.

A small knot of men and women huddled to the side of the deck farthest from her. They were roped together by their necks. Imi stifled a horrified gasp as she stared at them. Slaves! Bound for the market at Delos! As she was unless she could change the pirate captain’s mind.

Stripped of much of the treasures that were hers by right as a king’s daughter, Arsinoe had barely enough to feed herself and those loyal to her. Imi had been sent to Rome with just what she needed to get her there and back. She had nothing with which to bargain for her freedom. In Rome she had depended on the kindness of the Great Mother’s priests and on the friendship of those who supported the princess’s cause. The talents she’d promised to the pirate were what she thought Arsinoe could raise once the sacred articles were in her hands. Surely, rich and powerful men would rally to her then, knowing that investing in her cause would pay off in the future when she was queen of Egypt, with the riches of that land at her disposal. That was what Imi had counted on when she sought to bribe the pirate, but he’d turned her down flat.

Imi scanned the faces of the pirate crew, seeking a sympathetic face, even perhaps a countryman who could be persuaded to help her. But most of the men who busied themselves about her had the olive skin and fierce, hawk–like features of their captain. They were Cilicians like him, and Cilicians were the traditional enemies of Imi’s people. There was no reason any of them should help her, not when they risked the displeasure of their captain. The rest of the crew had the long hair of the Parthians, a race of which she knew little and who could thus not be counted on for help. The Hittite had manhandled her. She would not ask him for anything. She had to come up with another idea.

Imi sought a quiet corner of the deck to think. She was about to crouch down behind a great coil of rope when the Hittite came up to her.

“Are you wanting anything?” he asked.

“Yes,” she snapped. “My freedom. Land. My friend Lucius. My home. Food. My own bed.”

The man grinned. “A long list. And beyond such as me to grant. But, if you did thirst, I have wine.” He held up a jug.

Imi frowned.

“I would have water or nothing. Thank you.”

“Water, then. I will bring it directly.”

He was as good as his word, returning minutes later with a gold, ruby studded goblet in one hand and another jug in the other. He handed her the goblet.

“From your recent raid?” Imi asked, unable to prevent the sneer in her voice.

“A fine treasure. We have no complaints.”

Imi bet they didn’t, but she kept the thought to herself.

The water was clear and refreshing, and she gulped it down thirstily.

“Thank you.” She handed back the goblet.

“Perhaps now you will grant me a favor.” His eyes glittered.

Oh, no, Imi thought, here it comes. She should have known better than to think the man’s kindness sprung purely from the goodness of his heart.

“You are a priestess of Isis, are you not? Do not dissemble,” he said, when she started to deny it. Her! A priestess! “We know who you are.” His face grew avid. “We know also that the priestesses of Isis know all the myriad ways in which to please a man. You are taught the tricks of the East, is it not so?”

Shocked beyond words, Imi shook her head.

“No,” she said. Would these rumors persist through eternity? Only in a few temples did those who served the goddess offer themselves to her worshippers, and only at certain times of the year, but everywhere she went, the ignorant believed it a common practice. “In any case, I am not a priestess.”

“I don’t believe you.” The man’s small eyes narrowed. “I want . . . “ His voice hoarsened. “I want you to . . . “ He reached out to grab at her breast. Whatever else he was going to say was lost as she raked her nails down his cheek and spun away from him.

“By the castrated balls of Attis, catch her,” he shouted to his shipmates. Imi ducked under a sail and jumped nimbly over a crate, evading the grasping hands of the leering men who laughed and shouted to each other. It was a game to them—and she had become their plaything—but when they caught her, and Imi had no doubt they would, things would turn serious and she would have nowhere to turn, no way to evade the intent she could hear in their voices. They cornered her near the other captives.

“Me, first,” said the Hittite. She spit on him. The gob landed on his cheek, but he didn’t even seem to notice. He spun her around, pinning her right arm to her back. His cock pushed against her bottom. Imi twisted and turned, but he was too big and powerful. He bent her forward and pulled up her tunic to the cheers of the men behind him. He ripped her undergarment away and threw it into the sea.

“Hold, Sahman.” A voice cut through the ribaldry like a dagger through silk. “Hold, I say.” The captain strode through the suddenly silent knot of men. Imi squirmed, embarrassed that he should see her like that, her behind bared to the world. Sahman suffered no embarrassment. With a quick thrust of his pelvis, he attempted to spear her. Imi threw herself forward. Sahman hissed in frustration. He yanked her back to him, twisting her arm. Imi grunted in pain. Then just as quickly as she’d been caught, she was freed. Imi stumbled, then caught herself and smoothed her tunic down around her hips even as she turned to see what was happening.

“Did you not hear me, Sahman?” the captain asked, in an almost–conversational tone. He gripped the crewman’s shoulder in one hand.

“I . . . I did.”

“So, you chose to ignore me?”

“No, captain, I . . . ah . . . I thought . . . you cast her out. I thought . . . “

“It is not for you to think,” the captain said. Before Imi even saw it coming, the captain’s fist flashed out and connected with Sahman’s face. The sailor crumpled to the ground, screaming, as blood flowed from his nose.

“Come,” the captain grabbed Imi’s hand and pulled her behind him to his cabin. He pushed her in and then strode back on deck. Imi didn’t hear what he said to the sailors, but silence greeted the low rumble of his voice.

Her heart still racing, Imi searched the armoire for a strip of cloth she could use to fashion a new undergarment. In the back, crumpled in the corner, she found a piece of coarse linen that was the right size if not the best material. She tied it around herself and sank onto the bed, feeling better now that she was again modestly covered.

The sailors thought her a priestess of Isis, and, more than that, one who had been initiated into the sexual secrets of the East. Imi closed her eyes. Great Goddess, how tired she was. There was nothing she’d have liked more than to sleep, but an idea was already germinating in her head. The captain had not tried to rape her, but he was not immune to her either. And if he thought she was some sort of expert in sexual matters, well, surely that could be turned to her advantage. She could not offer herself to him outright without breaking her vow to the goddess, but there were other things between a man and a woman. There was much she could do without becoming an oath–breaker. The more she thought about it, the more she thought it could work. She was no mistress of seduction, but she had traveled much and was no innocent. She could pull this off. She had to. And then she would return to Ephesus, her oath unbroken, the sacred articles still safely in her possession.

Imi went over to the small table where her box still sat and opened it. The sistrum, the gold coffin, the uraeus, all were still there. She picked up the coffin and opened it. Inside lay a small lock of thick, black hair. Isis’s hair. She stroked it reverently before re–closing the coffin and secreting the box away in the armoire. The pirate captain had no idea how important the box and its contents were. Her lips curled. To any member of Egypt’s royal family, the box and all it contained was worth a hundred—no, a thousand—of the gold goblets from which she’d drank, but he didn’t know that. And she must keep him from ever knowing or her plan could fail. Imi sat back on the bed, rehearsing what she would say.

Seleucus pushed open the door to his cabin, stepped inside, and stopped short. His eyebrows drew together in a frown. His captive sat on his bed facing him, a small, welcoming smile on her face. He didn’t even know her name, but already he knew her well enough to be suspicious.

“Yes?” he said cautiously.

“Come, come.” She waved her hand expansively.

“Thanks for inviting me into my own room.” He crossed to the chair farthest from the bed. “You want something.” He didn’t make it a question.

“Well, of course, I want something,” she started tartly then appeared to recollect herself and beamed sweetly at him once more. “I want my freedom.”

“We already discussed that. It’s not on the table for negotiation.”

“Not even for a deal with you?”

“What deal can you possibly make? You have no money and, for all I know, no hope of getting any. I will make a sweet bundle off you, particularly if you really are a temple priestess trained in the art of pleasure as my men think.” But he didn’t believe that, not really. There was an innocence about her that contradicted such a past.

“Ah,” she turned up the glow. “That’s exactly it. I will put myself at your disposal, yours alone.” She repeated, narrowing her eyes for emphasis. Seleucus found her effort to look stern and intimidating endearing. In the pit of his stomach, the flame of desire stirred.

“I will show you all the delights of the Orient if you will but free me when we reach Delos and speak no more of selling me, for I am not a slave. Certainly, I am not your slave.”

Seleucus grinned. “You forget one thing. This is my ship. I can force myself on you, whether you will it or no.” Taking a woman by force was not something he approved of, but he could make an exception for her. She would fight him with everything she had, but that would only make his victory over her all the sweeter. His mouth dried as an image of her, naked, flashed before his eyes.

“You could try, and you might even succeed.” She smiled sunnily at him. “But it would not be the same. There would be little pleasure in it for you and even less for me. I know that it adds to the man’s delight if the woman also enjoys herself. Is this not so?”

Seleucus shrugged. Of course she was right. It was one of the reasons why he’d never had a taste for rape. That, and the fact that there was little joy in bedding a woman who’d made it clear she didn’t want you.

“Still.” Seleucus baited her. “Still, I would have that little pleasure, which is more than I had before, and also the profit from your sale. I think I could live without the knowledge of your contentment.”

Her face fell, and Seleucus’s lips twitched. Did she have any idea how delightful she was? Her face showed every expression. Seleucus would have liked nothing better than to stroke her frown away and kiss her slightly over–large mouth, but he couldn’t resist teasing her some more.

“I do not see how what you offer me could possibly match, much less better, the coin I will trade you for. Particularly if I stress to buyers that you are a priestess of Isis, trained in her secret arts.”