Nan Ryan (35 page)

The girl’s head lifted and she looked at Temple with big dark puffy eyes that were red rimmed and swimming in tears. Temple was horrified. This was not a woman, but a child. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen. What was an innocent child doing in the evil emir’s harem?

Temple spoke softly but could tell immediately that the young girl didn’t understand English. Temple switched to French, the only foreign language she had studied in college. Immediately the young girl’s sad eyes lighted a little and she nodded.

Quickly Temple untied the silken sash spanning the girl’s narrow waist and lifted it to dry away her tears, all the while speaking French in soft, low tones. She put her arms around the shaking, sobbing girl, drew her close, and continued to soothe her.

When the girl had stopped crying and was calmer, she began to talk. To answer Temple’s questions.

Her name was Samira, and she was fifteen years old. She clung to Temple as she related the horror of how her brothers had been murdered and she had been kidnapped by the sultan’s Ottoman brigade.

Samira confided that she was now a
guzdeh
, a girl who had been noticed by but not yet bedded by the sultan. She had, she said, already been forced to spend miserable hours alone with the Turkish ruler while he leered at her, teased her unmercifully, and told her of all the frightening things he was going to do to her once she was in his bed.

Feeling extremely protective of the terrified young girl, Temple comforted Samira. “The fat Turk will
not
be allowed to bed or harm you, Samira,” she promised, though how she could keep her promise was a mystery.

Consoled by Temple’s presence and promise, Samira ceased her crying. With Temple’s help she dragged her hassock closer to the pink-and-gold sofa. As Temple stretched out tiredly, Samira, seated on the floor nearby, told her with a child’s guileless honesty that up until now she had had only one friend in the harem.

“The other women, they hate me,” she said. “They are mean to me, all except one. A kind woman named Leyla. Leyla keeps the others from constantly tormenting me.” She paused, looked down, and added sadly, “When she is able.” She looked up and, with tears again welling in her red eyes, explained, “Leyla is in the infirmary. Again. The sultan is cruel to her. He beats her and he cut off part of her earlobes.” She shuddered.

“Don’t … worry, Samira,” Temple said sleepily. “No one is … going … to … hurt you.”

Unable to hold her eyes open a moment longer, Temple fell asleep. Samira, feeling safer than she’d felt since being brought to the palace, laid her head on her hassock, and she, too, was soon sleeping.

The patterned sunlight spilling through the high latticed windows had turned from the hot white of afternoon to the pale pink of evening when Temple was rudely shaken awake.

She was taken from the chamber by the chief black eunuch while Samira, watching helplessly, knowing what was in store for her newly made friend, looked after them anxiously. Wishing she could save Temple from her terrible fate, knowing that she could not, Samira hugged her knees to her chest and bit her lip, shivering with fear.

Fighting him every step of the way, Temple was led to the bathing chamber, where she was stripped and carried, kicking and screaming, into the pool. The chief eunuch’s intent was to bathe her personally, as ordered by his master. But Temple put up such a fierce battle that the pinched, slapped, bitten, and bewildered chief eunuch finally gave in and allowed her to wash herself and shampoo her own hair.

When she was clean, she was dressed in gauzy harem pants of vivid green and a vest of rich green velvet trimmed with glittering emeralds and shiny gold spangles. On her feet were gold slippers without heels, pointed and curved slightly at the toe and richly embroidered with gold and emeralds.

Her long blond hair was parted down the middle, brushed out loose over her bare shoulders, and held in place by a golden rope encrusted with emeralds that was wound around her forehead and temples, the long ends flowing down her back.

Her lips were painted a bright blood red with henna, her large emerald eyes accentuated with kohl shading. Rings of gold and emerald were slipped onto her slender fingers, and a coiled snake of gold mesh with emeralds for the eyes was wrapped around her bare upper arm.

Two palace guards appeared to escort Temple down a long corridor to the bedchamber of the sultan. Alwan was there, just outside the door, waiting to usher her inside. He leapt up from his chair when he saw her, and his eyes sparkled with delight. Nodding, murmuring happily to himself, the pleased majordomo circled her, staring, clasping his hands in approval, straightening an errant lock of golden hair, fussing with a fold of her gauzy harem pants.

Then, taking a deep breath, he stepped in front of her and swung open the heavy door into the sultan’s bedchamber.

Temple balked, refused to enter. The guards stepped up beside her, forced her forward. As soon as she glimpsed the robed ruler lolling indolently on some odd kind of tilted resting board, she looked away, refusing to meet his gaze. She didn’t see the expression that came into his beady black eyes. His mouth gaping open, his breath coming fast, Mustafa ogled her and the hot blood immediately pounded through his fleshy body, causing an instant erection to spring up beneath his satin robe.

He gaped at her with greedy lust, eager to make her his
odalisque
, his love slave. Yet at the same time he gazed on her with adulation, as if she were a golden angel to be worshiped and idolized.

After what seemed an eternity to Temple, the half-reclining sultan motioned Alwan to his side.

“This beautiful woman is far too precious to be only an
odalisque,”
he said, his eyes never leaving Temple. “I shall make her my first wife! My only wife! I will marry her and we will sire many fine sons and daughters! I will be the most envied man in the Middle East! In all the Ottoman empire! Start planning our wedding. Command all my far-spread subjects to be present for the festivities! Make it clear to those who are prosperous that they are to bring expensive gifts. Oh, it will be a joyous occasion. The happy sultan and sultana!”

“Yes, Excellency.”

Mustafa grabbed Alwan’s robe front and said, “I will prove what a strong and disciplined ruler I am and how much this beautiful woman means to me. As tradition demands, I will not touch her until after we are married.” He looked from Alwan to Temple, almost weakened, and then ordered anxiously, “Take my priceless beauty away before I change my mind about waiting until we are wed!”

Puzzled by her unexpected reprieve, Temple was returned to the harem. There the young Samira hurried to meet her, asking in French if she was all right. Had His Excellency hurt her the way he had hurt poor Leyla?

Assuring Samira that she was fine, only very tired, Temple returned to the pink-and-gold sofa to lie down.

“Je suis fatiguée.”

Samira nodded, asking, “It is all right if I stay here close to you?”

Temple smiled, touched the child’s cheek, and said, “We are friends, Samira. Of course it is all right.”

Leyla, the beautiful Circassian who had suffered at the sultan’s fat hands, was returned to the harem from the clinic the next morning. After hugging her, Samira eagerly introduced her to her new friend, Temple. Leyla, too, spoke French, so the three of them were able to communicate.

From Leyla, Temple learned more of the evil man who held her fate in his hands. As Samira napped that hot afternoon, Leyla spoke frankly with Temple. She told of the horrors she lived through. She revealed some of the bruises, old and new, that covered her flesh. She showed Temple where her earlobes had been painfully clipped.

“He is,” Leyla whispered, “the most depraved, selfish, cruel, rapacious man alive.”

She glanced at the sweet, slumbering Samira and lowered her voice even more when she said, “I’m so afraid of what he may do to Samira. He is vile and he does unspeakable things. He fortifies himself with aphrodisiacs, and he has a secret chamber deep in the palace that is covered entirely with mirrors to stimulate passion.”

“Oh, dear God,” Temple murmured.

“One of his favorite games is to strip twenty or thirty of his women naked and make them pretend they are mares while he, also naked, trots among them, acting the part of a stallion for as long as his energy permits.”

“The vile, perverted pig,” said Temple, making a sour face.

“After food, sex is his main interest in life,” Leyla continued. “Another of his favorite harem games is to have naked women skid down slides onto their waiting lord and master. Him.”

“Let’s kill him,” were the next words out of Temple’s mouth, her green eyes narrowed with hatred and disgust.

“How?” asked Leyla. “Do you really suppose he plays these dirty games without armed palace guards being present in the room?” She shook her head. “Believe me, you’ll be murdered where you stand if you dare to make an attempt on his life.”

“There are,” Temple said thoughtfully, “some things worse than death.”

Temple lay awake that night
long after the others had gone to sleep. Her troubled thoughts turned naturally to the Sheik. She saw his handsome face in the darkness as if he were beside her. Aching for his gentle touch, yearning for the safety of his strong arms, she wondered if she would ever sleep with him again, ever hold him in her arms.

And then it came to her. She
would
see Sharif again. It defied all reason and proof, but she knew it was true: Sharif would come and save her.

The Sheik would come.

Sharif
, she murmured soundlessly in the darkness,
please come. I’m so frightened, Sharif. Save me, darling. Come for me, my beloved Sheik
.

Temple fell asleep with his name on her lips.

She was awakened early the next morning and taken away while Leyla and Samira watched worriedly. Still groggy from sleep, Temple was again escorted to the royal reception room, where the obese emir sat upon his gold-and-scarlet throne.

Alwan was present, as was Jamal, the interpreter. A half dozen palace guards manned the exits. Temple was marched down the long red carpet until she stood directly below Mustafa.

He began speaking immediately, waving his hands about excitedly, looking at her, his beady black eyes gleaming.

She glared at him, shrugged, and tapped her foot impatiently. But her breath caught in her throat when Jamal told her what His Excellency was saying.

“You are to be his wife,” Jamal explained. “The wedding will take place—”

“There will be no wedding!” Temple interrupted angrily. “Tell the sultan I would sooner die! I will
never
marry him!”

Jamal translated quickly.

Mustafa was unfazed by her refusal. He chuckled merrily, more aroused than ever. Finally here was the fiery female he had dreamed of all his life. Never before had he had a woman like this haughty foreign princess. Not a single one of the hundreds of beautiful women he had bought or stolen or recruited from childhood had shown such fearlessness, such spirit.

Grinning, he said affectionately, “Ah, you sting me so! Thy mother must have mated with a scorpion.”

Glaring, Temple replied bitingly, “You repulse me so! Your mother must have mated with a swine.”

Mustafa continued to smile. And through his interpreter he assured Temple that she would indeed become his bride and the mother of his sons. Many sons.

Temple was just as vehement, just as forceful. No matter what he did to her, no matter how badly he might punish her, she would
never
marry him!

The sultan finally tired of the quibbling. He attempted to snap his short fingers, failed, and irritably shouted commands that Temple could not understand. Then all was quiet, and Mustafa sat there on his throne, grinning down on her as if he knew some delicious secret.

Temple flinched when she heard the heavy doors behind her open. She saw the heads of the guards turn. She spun around. Young Samira was being ushered up the long red carpet. Temple felt her heart kick against her ribs. What did the evil bastard have in mind? Why was Samira being brought here?

Too soon she found out.

The terrified young girl was taken directly past Temple and up the steps to the throne. She was placed atop one of the sultan’s fat, spread knees, and as the guards moved back a step, Mustafa wrapped a short arm around Samira, squeezed her narrow waist, and gave her bare shoulder a slobbery, sucking kiss.

A sob tore from Samira’s lips and Temple gasped in horror when the emir then drew from the folds of his robe a diamond-hilted scimitar. The long curved blade gleamed in the morning sunlight. Temple’s hand flew to her thudding heart when he placed the sharp blade directly against Samira’s throat.

“You sick son of a bitch!” Temple shouted, and started up the steps.

She was stopped and held with her arms behind her back.

His tongue darting out to lick his heavy bottom lip, Mustafa carefully pricked the flawless olive flesh of Samira’s smooth throat, just below her right ear, with the blade’s sharp tip. Samira screamed. A drop of bright red blood beaded on her neck. Temple shrieked and strained furiously against the strong hands that held her, desperate to get to the terrified Samira.