“Is it poison, Majesty?”
She looked coldly at him. “Will you obey me?” Numbly, he nodded. “Very well then, Zeno, you are dismissed. Be sure that no one sees you leaving my suite.” He stumbled to his feet and fled toward the door. “Remember, Zeno,” she warned, “that Mesembria is yet a part of the empire, and my reach is a long one. My spies are everywhere.” The door closed.
Alone again, Helena laughed to herself. She had won. The serving man was terrified and would obey. She would dispose of him later.
On the following day Helena stood next to her husband and bade Theadora and Alexander farewell. She was calm and appeared most loving. Afterward Adora voiced her ever-present suspicion of her older sister, but Alexander laughed. “You will be far away from Constantinople to allay the royal virago’s fears. Soon something else will catch her eye-a fancied slight, or a young man with beautiful thighs.”
Now she laughed! His easy assessment of Helena’s character made Helena seem so unimportant that her fears slid entirely away. He slipped an arm about her waist, and they stood quietly watching their little villa recede until it seemed no larger than a toy. Ahead of them the Bosporus widened somewhat as it opened into the Black Sea. Adora felt her heart quicken at the great expanse of rolling dark-blue water. Sensing this, Alexander turned her to face him.
“Don’t be frightened, beauty. It is majestic and awesome and there are no tiny islands to give the comfort of constant land in sight. It is not like our turquoise Aegean. This great sea can be the most treacherous and wicked of bitches, but she can also be a good friend. The trick is not to take her for granted like a woman of the streets. But we will not venture out into her this time, my love. We follow the coastline to our own city.”
“This time, Alexander? Then you do not mean to give up the sea?”
“The sea is Mesembria’s lifeline, beauty. We cannot live on the profits of Phocaea forever. There are three trade routes across the Black Sea, the most important from my mother’s city of Trebizond. If I offer the merchant traders a better price for their goods than Constantinople and a shorter voyage to boot, they will come to me instead. We will then take these goods into Constantinople and they will have to pay our prices, for there will be no other choice.”
Adora’s eyes widened with surprise and admiration. “Is this the sort of thing a loyal subject of the emperor should do?”
“My first loyalty must be to Mesembria, beauty. For too long has Constantinople sucked her vassal cities dry and given very little in return. Young Emperor John has enough on his hands contending with the Turks. By the time Constantinople realizes what I have done, it will be too late for them to do anything.”
“You are ruthless, Alexander,” she smiled. “I had not realized it before.”
“I did not become the pirate king of Phocaea by chance, beauty. To survive in this world one must understand that it is populated for the most part by ruthless people. And one must think like them or else be eaten alive.” He fingered the silk of her gown, and his voice softened. “Enough of this debate, Adora. We are still on our honeymoon, and the ship is well captained. Let us amuse ourselves in our cabin for we are only in the way here.”
“Ship’s cabins are small, my lord, and bunks are hardly conducive to the sort of entertainment you propose,” she teased. “After all, Alexander, you have not the privilege of the captain’s cabin this time.”
“No, beauty, I don’t. I have instead the privilege of the prince’s cabin!” And he pulled her along up several steps to the deck above. The deck had only about six feet of open deck because a cabin took up the rest of the space. Two small arched doors of carved and gilded oak served as an entry. He turned the gold handles and ushered her into a room of unbelievable luxury.
Above the room was a cloth of aquamarine silk, woven with pale gold and silver stars. It gave the ceiling the appearance of a tent. The lamps that hung by thin gold chains from this silken ceiling were of light amber-colored Venetian glass. A bay window with leaded-crystal diamond panes, also of hand-blown Venetian glass, graced the wall opposite the door and offered them a private view of the sea. Built into the window alcove was a great bed covered in a deep blue coverlet embroidered with gold and silver scenes of Neptune and all his court. There were nymphs riding seahorses, mermaids combing their long hair while their mermen lovers watched, leaping dolphins, and flying fish all merrily cavorting across the rich dark-blue velvet. The deck beneath their feet had been covered entirely in the soft white fleece of unborn lambs. It seemed to Adora that she stood in a swirl of seafoam.
At the foot of the bed were two small flat-topped twin trunks lined in fragrant cedar, bound in polished brass. Atop each in goldleaf was the royal insignia of the House of Mesembria. Beneath were the words “Alexander, Despot” on one and “Theadora, Despoena” on the other. On the wall opposite the bed was a long rectangular table that jutted out into the room. It was made of highly polished ebony, and its legs were heavily carved. A great silver bowl with a raised relief design of Paris, the three goddesses, and the golden apple sat in the center and was filled with large round oranges, fat purple figs, and bunches of plump pale green grapes. On either side of the table were matching arm chairs with gold-colored velvet cushions.
It was an exquisite room and as her eyes swept over it they widened again and she cried out with delight, for on the wall to the left of the door was the most beautiful dressing table she had ever seen. Attached to the wall, it was an open, golden scallop shell. Its mirror, set into the upper half of the shell, was of highly polished silver. Its base in the shell’s lower half was carefully inlaid squares of pale pink mother-of-pearl. A smaller half-shell with a coral silk cushion filled with sweet lavender made the seat.
“From your people, beauty. I understand they made two. One for the ship and another with a glass mirror for your rooms in our palace. They already love you for you are going to be the mother of their ruling house.” His deep voice vibrated with passion, and she felt herself growing faint with the longing she had begun to know so well.
His aquamarine eyes held her spellbound, and she never even heard the doors to their little world close or the bolt click home. He reached out and drew her into the circle of his arms. She lay her dark head against the hollow of his shoulder-her breathing slow, but increasing in tempo as he began to undress her gently. When she finally stood naked before him he stepped back to view her, delighting in her rosy blushes. There were no worlds between them. The only sounds came from the distant voices and movement of those who ran the ship and from the slap of the waves and the gentle whoosh of the wake behind them.
She stepped forward now and began to remove his clothes. He stood quietly, a tender smile on his, lips, his eyes alight. But when he stood stripped and she slid to her knees and bent down to kiss his feet, her long dark hair swirling about his legs, he broke the silence.
“No, beauty!” He drew her to her feet. “You are not my slave or my chattel. You are my beloved wife, my queen, and my equal. We are two halves of a whole.”
“I love you, Alexander, yet words are simply not enough to express how I feel!”
“My foolish Adora,” he said tenderly. “What makes you think I do not know how you feel? When our bodies are one and I look into your beautiful eyes, I see all the love and hear with my heart all the words for which there are no words. I know these things because it is the same for me.”