' Had I but known, nothing would have induced me to leave Egypt.'
Zanthe raised her head and said in surprise, '1 did not know you had. Have you been far? '
He nodded. ' Yes. General Bonaparte sent me on a mission. It necessitated a long voyage. It was soon after landing, on the night of my return, that Djezzar's men captured me.'
Again she lowered her head and began to sob. ' And then . . . and then I saw you there in the courtyard. You were in different clothes, you hair disordered and in a terrible state. I did not recognize you until you spoke. Oh, Allah be praised that you cried out to Djezzar when you did. Had you not, you would have been impaled before my very eyes. My heart came up into my mouth. I nearly fainted . . .'
' But, brave girl that you are, you didn't. You kept your head and saved me.'
'1 know; but at what a price.'
'1 pray you, forget that. It is all over now. At least . . Roger added, with sudden uneasiness, '1 hope so.'
'Yes; yes. You have nothing more to fear. That is, provided it is not discovered that you have not been made a eunuch.'
' Am I then supposed to have been? '
' Of course; otherwise I could not have kept you in my private apartments. The horrid business is supposed to have taken a week. By then that string they tied about you would have done its work, had not my faithful Gezubb come up here and cut it off. A further week would be needed for your recovery; so it is expected that tomorrow you will come down and take up the duties I shall give you.' Again her tears began to flow as she added,' It is I who should be your slave, not you mine. And to begin with, I shall have to treat you harshly. For that I implore you not to hate me. I . . .'
Putting his hand gently over her mouth he checked her lamentations and said, ' Hush! I could never hate you. Use me as you will. Allot me the meanest tasks. The worse you treat me, the less likely it is that anyone will suspect the truth. A smile from your lovely eyes when no one is looking is ail the compensation I ask.'
Her tears had ceased and suddenly she gave a low laugh. '1 can come to you secretly at night, like this, and only old Gezubb will know of it. Then you can ask of me smiles, kisses, caresses and every pleasure imaginable. Tell me, my beloved one, are you now well again and all your poor wounds fully healed? '
He laughed in reply. '1 have never felt better, as I will show you if you wish.'
'If I wish! ' she echoed. 'How can you know the restraint I have put upon myself this past fortnight? For me to have come to you while you were still in pain could only have proved a terrible frustration for us both. At least for both had I found you willing to forgive me. My most awful fear was that you might not, and had you cast me aside I think I would have killed myself. But in more sanguine moments I imagined myself again lying in your arms. Night after night my heart has beat near to bursting-point at the thought of it. Allah alone knows the strength of my passion for you; and now . . . now that I can feel your hands upon me I have become a furnace of desire.'
Next moment their mouths met in a long, fierce kiss. Breathless, they drew apart and she stood up. With a swift movement she threw off her robe. Beneath it she had on only a voluminous pair of almost transparent Turkish trousers. Undoing her girdle she slid them down, stepped out of them and kicked off her sandals. While they had been talking the moon had risen and a beam of moonlight coming through the arrow-slit silvered her magnificent body as she stood beside him, naked. The light flickered in tiny blue sparks in the valley between her breasts and Roger exclaimed:
' Why, you are wearing the little diamond I procured for you.'
' Of course,' she laughed. ' It is my most treasured possession and I shall always wear it.'
He threw back the coverlet of the divan and pulled his shirt off over his head. As he did so she moved round to the foot of the divan, fell to her knees, took both his feet in her hands and began to kiss them.
Striving to pull them away, he cried, ' No, no, beloved, you must not do that. Come here this instant and let me take you in my arms.'
' Nay,' her low laugh came again. ' This is my rightful place. Did you not know that, when the Sultan sends for one of his women, they greet him by kissing his feet then, humbly conscious of the honour he does them, steal gently up upon him until they can kiss his chest? And you are my Sultan.'
'1 am also your slave/ he laughed back. ' Enough of that.' Then, sitting up, he stretched out his hands and drew her swiftly to him.
Later, lying side by side and still embraced, they talked in whispers. As he had supposed, her husband, like many Turks, had cared only for young boys. He had married her solely for the prestige that an alliance with the Imperial House would bring him and had had two other wives, but never slept with either of them. Instead he made his wives flog the boys with rods and birches and it was the performance of this cruel task that had made her hate him.
She had made up the story of her flight from Cairo. The truth was that, after the news of her husband's death had arrived, the guard of Janissaries left at the palace had deserted. Fearing that the palace would be attacked by the mob, she had decided to seek safety with the Viceroy and had urged the other two wives to accompany her. But they had been too frightened to face the streets without a proper guard. So she had set off on her own, accompanied only by her maid and one faithful manservant; on their way they had had the misfortune to be seized by the Sergeant.
She then told Roger that her mother had been a Mademoiselle Aimee Dubucq de Rivery, born in Martinique. In 1780 she had been sent to finish her education in France with the Dames de la Visitation in their Conent at Nantes. After some years there she was on her way home when the ship in which she was travelling nearly sank in a violent storm. The passengers were rescued by a Spanish trader which took them round into the Mediterranean. There the Spanish ship had been captured by Corsairs and everyone in her taken as prisoners to Algiers. When the Bey— Baba Mohammed ben Osman—had heard that among the prisoners there was a beautiful, golden-haired, blue-eyed French girl of noble birth, he had sent for her and at once decided that he would win high favour by sending her as an offering to his overlord, the Sultan.
On hearing this, Roger exclaimed, ' But this is amazing! I know your mother's story. She is a cousin of the Vicomtesse de Beauharnis, who is now Madame Bonaparte, and who was also born in Martinique. She is a friend of mine and told me once how, while still in her teens, she, your mother and a third young girl all went to an Irish sybil to have their fortunes told. It was predicted that both Madame Bonaparte and your mother would become the wives of great Sovereigns and that their children would become Kings and Queens.'
' In my mother's case,' Zanthe replied, ' the first part of the prediction came true. In the Sultan's harem there are always several hundred odalisques, each one picked for her looks; yet my mother was so lovely that they named her Naksh, which means '' the beautiful one ", and my father made her his favourite Kadine.'
' Since you must take after her, I don't wonder. She must also be a woman of great character to have survived the jealousy and intrigues of so many rivals.'
'She is; but she had the help of two powerful allies: Son Altesse Noire, a most intelligent Nubian who is Chief of the Black Eunuchs, and the Circassian Kadine, the widow of my father's predecessor Mustapha III. It is her son, my cousin Selim, who is the present Sultan and, as his mother, she wields great power. She is known as the Sultan Valideh—the head of all the veiled women of Islam. These two put my mother forward as a good influence to help sweep away many barbarous old customs and open the way for Turkey to receive the new scientific knowledge from the West. They hoped, too, that she might gain France's support for Turkey against our hereditary enemies, the Russians. It is owing to her that we now have many French officers in the Turkish Army.'