Red Magic (34 page)

"What—?"

"Later!" Ayhan delivered one of
her cautions in the form of a fierce pinch.

The body was carried away by the same
servants who had walked her in. The remaining eunuchs hauled the other woman
onto her feet and up to the dais. Caterina tensed, fearing she was to witness
another execution.

The captive now faced the reclining pashas.
For a moment, Caterina wondered if Selim would strangle this one himself.

With a smile, as if nothing unpleasant had
just happened, he drew the woman down to kneel before his friend, and
unfastened her veil. Cat saw the woman's face, the pale flesh and translucent
skin baby-like. She had often seen this handsome concubine walking arm-in-arm
with the dead woman.

Faik Pasha put a hand under the woman's
chin, turned her face from side to side. The kohl with which she had lined her
gray eyes now ran down her cheeks. Pasha Selim turned and spoke to his friend.
The words "gift" and "pleasure" were two that Cat
recognized. Then two strange blacks, ones that Cat had never seen before,
entered and threw a long black federage over the woman's clothes and led her
away. Next, the two pashas rose. Arm in arm, they followed them out.

Cat thought this would end the awful
ceremony, but then something unexpected happened. The curtain at the end of the
gallery parted, revealing that kadins had been seated on the other side. From
their midst, a tall woman appeared. On every side concubines and slaves knelt,
foreheads to the floor.

"Down!"
Ayhan hissed. "It is the Lady Mother!"

Although curious, Cat was too frightened
not to obey. The alarm on every side was palpable.

* * *

"Leave us at once!"

This was followed by more words Caterina
did not understand, although she thought she heard the words "Ayhan"
and the scornful "Red Mare." Ayhan put a restraining hand on her arm
while, in a hiss of silks, the others crawled away backwards, slipping behind
the far curtain.

From her position face down, Caterina heard
the great lady rustle onto a low couch, the one which the black kadin had
earlier occupied. To her great surprise she heard the woman speak in heavily
accented German.

"You may sit and look at me." The
Lady Mother struck Caterina's shoulder with a fan.

When she obeyed, a long fingered hand
covered with jewels reached to draw the veil away from Caterina's face. Next,
to her even greater surprise, the Lady Mother unveiled, revealing white teeth,
a generous painted mouth, alabaster skin and moon-shaped black brows. Her
forehead was decorated with a glittering band of gold coins and jewels; her
black eyes flashed with an icy intelligence. The sight of that gorgeous skin
and black eyes reminded Cat of a French noblewoman she'd once met in Passau.

"You are pretty, but far too
tall."

"I, ah—thank-you,
Lady Mother."

"You have so many freckles! That is
not to the Pasha's taste."

Cat didn't know what to reply to that, so
she humbly lowered her head.

"You also have too many muscles."
The great lady glanced away to her attendants then laughed, and they obediently
laughed with her, although they certainly had no idea what she'd said.
"Ayhan says you are clever, but far too stubborn, and that is not a
good—trait—in a woman. You saw today what happens to those who dare to put
themselves before the will of their Lord and Master. Do you understand what
happened here today, to the Odalisque Nukhat?"

"It was an execution, My Lady, a show
of force."

"Not tactful, are you? Where you will
go, the quality may be tolerated. As for the concubine Nukhat and the concubine
Leyla, well—Ayhan will explain why one was mercifully allowed to live while the
other paid the price for disobedience. Let it teach you the power of my son,
who gives life or death as it pleases him. Now," she added after a pause,
"you may kiss my robe and depart like the others."

"Am I not to stay here, Lady
Mother?" It had suddenly occurred to Caterina that she might dare a
question.

"Do you think, Red
Jadi,
that
I would allow such as you to stay?" Abruptly, the older woman
was angry. Her black eyes flashed. "Today two troublemakers have been
dealt with, so why should a new one stay? You will be given, as Leyla was, to one
who has a taste for the unusual—to a man who desires a red freckled woman as
big as a horse. Now, GO!"

She threw her fan at Cat's head.
Reflexively, Cat ducked. With Ayhan frantically tugging her, she crawled away
as fast as she could, sliding at last beneath the curtain.

They scrambled to their feet and hurried
away along the corridor and down the stairs. Ayhan pinched her arm and hissed,
"Are you mad? You could be beaten for asking the Lady Mother a question!
She asks and you answer! Otherwise, do not speak!"

"Ayhan, when am I to leave here?"
It had occurred to her that any transfer would provide some chance for escape.

She had to know!
And—what
unusual tastes?
The implied threat hung over her head like a sword.

"No! I know nothing! Now, be silent
until we reach your room!"

* * *

"Is that how Muslims treat their
wives?" She couldn't stop herself from speaking as soon as she and Ayhan
cleared the door of her room. The image of the dying woman, so lovely,
twisting, shuddering, contorted in the grip of those strong black hands filled
her mind.

Ayhan stared for a moment and then laughed.

"Do you still understand nothing?
Leyla was an odalisque, promoted to the Pasha's bed and the rank of concubine.
Nekhut was only a slave, another odalisque, like you. The Lord does what he
wants with slaves. He sells them, kills them, whatever is his pleasure. Leyla
was infatuated with her slave and it offended our Pasha. Besides, that Nekhut
was a troublemaker, creating jealousy with her viper tongue. Wherever there was
quarreling among the wives or concubines, she was at the bottom of it. She was
so beautiful and attentive; all the kadins wanted her." Ayhan paused,
reflecting upon the cautionary tale she was about to deliver.

"Did she not—know her—place?" Cat
had a pang of guilt remembering what she'd done to Josefa. Although I sometimes
felt like it, I didn't go so far as to strangle her, she thought, but I acted
judge and jury and exiled her from her family and her childhood home...

"When Pakize Kadin found she did not
satisfy, she gave her, as a slight, to Leyla, who was a mere concubine. At
first, Nekhut was content, but it never lasted with her. I even heard, although
I could not believe it, that Leyla tried to avoid her turn in the Pasha's bed.
Then, last week, Nekhut was caught trying to sell at brooch to one of the
bundle women."

"For a brooch—she was strangled before
her beloved friend?"

"More than a friend,
foolish child.
Listen to me! Leyla was fortunate
that Faik Pasha liked what he saw when she was unveiled. "

"She is now his slave?"

"She was a slave here; she is a slave
in Faik Pasha's house. Call yourself kadin, odalisque or concubine, there is no
change, except in masters. It is said Faik Pasha indulges tastes for things
which the Koran forbids, but it is not for me to express an opinion upon any
great man."

"She just stood there—" Cat
couldn't get it out of her head.

She would have fought them to her last
breath!

"It was a quick death. In the Grand
Seraglio, she would have been sewn in a sack and tossed into the Bosphorus for
insulting her Lord and Master—her lady love with her! It was Kismet, written on
her forehead from the day she was born. Nekhut accepted her death because she
knew there was no escape, just—" Ayhan paused for effect, "as you
have been delivered captive to the Lord Pasha. Accept your destiny, Red Mare.
You can no more change it than you can turn back a wave of the sea."

Having made the point, Ayhan turned back to
the door.
Caterina, at her usual station, the single window
that looked down onto the garden courtyard, felt tears rise.
Not wanting
her guardian to see, she looked away.

No weakness! Show no weakness!

Ayhan sighed with exasperation and with a
final backward glance, knocked. Sulmah, eternally outside, opened. Suddenly,
Cat knew she had not answered the most important question.

"Ayhan!
What is "Jadi?"

Although she'd veiled herself, Cat knew by
the way she turned that Ayhan had on one of her malevolent smiles.

"It means "witch," Red Mare.
The Lady Mother believes you are a witch, although I have seen nothing—and
believe me, I have watched. Why else do you think you are kept in a room by
yourself like a kadin, instead of being kept in the common room of odalisques,
sleeping and eating with the others? Just remember, with us as with you, the
punishment for a witch is burning."

With that chilling pronouncement complete,
she marched through the door. Sulmah, baring his sharp white teeth, grinned as
he closed the door.

Chapter Nineteen

That night, despairing, Cat took the blade
out, did the exercise and wondered if she had the strength to kill herself.
She'd ended weeping in frustration at what she was beginning to believe was a
fatal weakness. She just couldn't do it.

She thought, as she often did, of Goran,
but this time not only of his unnecessary death and of her guilt. Now she
remembered his training, his will to survive, his will to be a man other men
feared—even as he was, with one leg. If she was to be given to this "Ban
Nijaz" there would be a transfer, a moment when she would be outside this
fortress, a time she would have to—somehow—escape or die trying.

* * *

A scrape of a key in the lock brought her
rushing back to consciousness and she sat bolt upright. Her hand flew to the
locket. Had the fatal moment arrived?

Was hers to be the life of a slave, to be
broken, emptied of will, used?

But the open door revealed a slender erect
figure, one that was all too familiar. A rolled rug was under his arm. He
whispered, "Keep silent!"

Caterina, hand on the locket, stared,
wondering if she was again drugged. She had eaten very little but bread since
she'd learned what sauces might contain.

Had she, perhaps, eaten enough to be
seeing—this?

With a toss, Rossman unrolled the carpet.

"A rug the housekeeper rejected. I'm
going to carry you inside of it. I'll put you in a cart and we'll drive away.
Put on your slippers, and then let me roll you up."

"What kind of trick is this, traitor?
Who let you in?"

"Hush. No trick, Lady. I swear. They
had to trust me, or they'd never have given me the freedom I needed to send a
message. Three days ride from this place, your husband will meet you."

Caterina's heart soared like a hunted bird.
Nevertheless, she hesitated. In the last weeks she'd heard many, many stories
of intrigue and betrayal.

"You're their man. You betrayed me. Is
it your intention now to get me killed?"

"I have never served those pigs. I
saved you, saved you from the soldiers, saved you from the marketplace, by
convincing them to bring you here. Now come. I have paid the bribes. It's now
or never."

"With what have you paid?"
Catherina spoke the words while
wondering,
"Now
what am I being talked into—Herr Rossmann or whoever you are today?"

"I have money here, in the street of
the Jews."

"And you have used it for me?"

"Your husband and I are more than
master and servant, Lady. We are friends."

It was a chance, a thin one, perhaps, but
it was the first she'd seen in a terrifying month.

"In three days you will see your
husband. This I promise. Now, put on your slippers and this." A feradge
was tossed at her and a peremptory gesture was made towards the chamber pot
which peeped out from under the bed. "And pee. I know women."

In the dim light of the night lamp, Cat
found her slippers, then squatted and obediently tried to do as he said. After
throwing the black cloak of the feradge over what she was wearing, she groped
her way to the carpet. It was new, smelling of dye.

"No matter what, don't make a sound.
Pray to every god you know. If we're caught, I'll give you a quick death,
quicker than the eunuchs will."

Calloused hands brushed her as he rolled,
then he dragged the rug through the door. She heard the click as he locked it.
When he hoisted her over his shoulder, she inadvertently grunted.

"Shhh!"

How had he got in there, got the key?

Cat had seen a cluster of these hanging on
the housekeeper's belt.

Where were the ever watchful guards?