All the Sweet Tomorrows (50 page)

Niall marveled afterward that he had not thought to cooperate with his captor before. For all her position and wealth and power, Turkhan was like any other woman in love. Niall knew that he would have to move very carefully else he arouse suspicion. Already young Hamal questioned his motives.

“I do not understand this sudden turnabout,” Hamal said. “For months you have battled with Turkhan to regain your freedom.”

“While you, our lovely mistress, and everyone else here has told me that regaining my freedom is an impossibility. I am a thick-headed Irishman, Hamal, but I now believe you all. If my life is to be here then I am better off cooperating, aren’t I? Besides Turkhan is an exquisite woman, and I am a healthy man. I could resist her no longer.”

“What of your wife?” Hamal demanded. “Do you no longer think of her, Ashur?”

He shrugged fatalistically. “Skye undoubtedly believes me dead, and has probably remarried. It has been almost two years now, and she would need a strong husband to protect Burke lands and my small son’s inheritance. My father is an old man, and could not aid her.” He lost heart once more, for his spoken thoughts could very well be the truth. She probably had remarried,
and he was never going to return to her or to Ireland. Yet deep in his heart he still believed that Skye belonged to him, and to him alone!

“You belong to me, and me alone,” Kedar murmured against her mouth as she lay half conscious beneath him. He thrust his enormous lance hard into her quivering sheath, and she shuddered with shamed pleasure.

Skye had hoped for a respite from Kedar’s lust once they had reached Fez, but his ardor had only seemed to increase. She was the object of much speculation within his harem. Many were jealous of her, and more were fearful of her influence over their master. Skye would have laughed if the situation were not so absurd, and she would have been terribly lonely had it not been for Talitha. The beautiful harem mistress sensed that Muna did not enjoy being the exclusive object of the master’s affection. Skye was also nervous because Hamal had yet to contact her, though surely he must know that she had arrived.

“Open your eyes, my jewel, and ravish me with a look,” Kedar commanded her, his passion spent.

Skye slid back into the here and now, looking at him with her cool gaze. “You are a magnificent lover, my lord,” she said honestly, and that was something else that was beginning to bother her. He was an incredible lover, and of late she had been genuinely responding to his lovemaking. She simply couldn’t help it. Skye had experienced enough at thirty to know the difference between love and lust, but still it distressed her to give this man anything of her real self. She was prostituting herself in order to help Niall, but to enjoy it seemed wrong. She sighed deeply, and he mistook her motives as he usually did.

“We will make love again this night, my fair Muna,” he said in an amused and indulgent tone. “It pleases me that you are losing some of your shyness, and are becoming as insatiable for me as I am for you.”

She laughed lightly. “It is impossible not to want you, my lord,” and she boldly caressed his cheek with a teasing hand.

He caught her hand and, turning it palm up, placed a moist and burning kiss upon it. “You delight me, my jewel, and I would reward your behavior. Tell me what you would like?”

Skye paused a moment as if in thought, and then said, “Would you allow Talitha and me to visit the bazaars in the old part of town, my lord? I have not spent my pin money since I arrived. The vendors who come to the harem do not bring with
them a great variety of goods, and there has been nothing that I desired.”

What a delight she was, Kedar thought tolerantly, once more amused by the simplicity of her request. He was also feeling somewhat pleased with himself for his firm handling of this beautiful slave of his. She was responding perfectly these days, and had been worth every moment he had spent on her. He chuckled aloud. How feminine she was, wanting to shop the bazaars, and how intelligent not to waste her precious dinars on the cheap baubles and bangles the vendors brought into the harem to sell. More and more he considered the possibility of making her his wife. If only she would conceive a child. He turned his hazel eyes upon her.

“So you would visit the bazaars, Muna? Very well, my jewel, but you and Talitha must be well veiled, and well guarded. I will have no one making free with either of you. You may go tomorrow.”

“Oh, thank you, my lord!” Skye wound herself around him, her beautiful arms entwining themselves about his neck, her breasts pressing suggestively against his smooth chest. Her pouting red lips invited his kiss, and while he tasted her mouth she reached down and fondled his manhood with clever hands until he was hard and eager again. Never interrupting their embrace, she moved herself over him, guiding his length into her warmth. Kedar pulled his mouth from hers and groaned with pleasure as she moved on him with a fierce rhythm. His big hands tangled themselves in her dark hair, and he muttered almost incoherently against her mouth. Skye slipped her arms about his middle, and lifted her legs to wrap them about him. Kedar gave a growl, shifted his weight, and pushed Skye back onto the pillows, taking control of their lovemaking once more as the pleasure began to build for them both.

She tried to fight it back, but her body would not obey, and instead she soared upward. The feeling built and built until Skye believed she was going to burst with the burning bliss that raced through her veins. He was commanding her to tell him how much she wanted their passion, and terrified that he might stop, she said the words that she knew he wanted to hear, then felt more shamed than ever. Like boiling wine, the perfection poured over her, and somewhere in the timelessness she could hear his howl of victory. Her last thought then was that she must find Niall before it was too late; she must escape from this terrible man before he destroyed her completely.

Afterward, as they lay together in the quiet, he said, “Never has any woman given of herself as you give to me, my jewel, and yet I cannot have enough of you. You are as much an aphrodisiac to me as the hashish and the opiates. I have never felt for another woman that which I feel for you.”

“You honor me, my lord,” Skye replied softly, but her mind was wild with panic at the thought that he was falling in love with her, that he might attempt to make her his wife. He could do it even without her consent, for in Islam a wedding was held with just the consent of the bride’s father or guardian. In the case of a slave, a master need only arrange it with the local iman. She tried to calm herself with the thought that Osman would have foreseen such a thing, and not put her in such a position. What a disaster it would be if Kedar married her, especially with her husband still living! No, Osman would have foreseen it, Skye reassured herself as Kedar pulled her into his arms and fell asleep.

When she awoke the following morning she was alone, the imprint of his head on the pillow the only evidence that he had been there at all. She was no longer required to sleep on a cushion below him, and that, Talitha had told her, was quite an honor. No other woman in the harem save Muna and Talitha was accorded that honor. Skye stretched lazily, but her mind was already active with a hundred different thoughts. Today they would visit the old town with its bazaars, and hopefully she would have an opportunity to find out where the residence of Princess Turkhan was located.

The door to her room swung open. “So,” Talitha said with a merry chuckle, “you have wheedled a trip to the bazaars for us, my clever Muna. You must have indeed pleased Kedar last night. He came early to my chamber, smiling and purring like a well-fed panther, to tell me that I would accompany you. Tell me, Muna, what is your secret with him? In all the years I have known Kedar he has never been so expansive and so generous.” She hefted a well-filled purse in her palm. “Gold dinars, Muna! A purse full of gold dinars from our lord and master to be used by us for our heart’s delight.
What do you do to him?”

Skye sat up, her cheeks pink with her blushes as Talitha’s frank gaze took in her nude beauty. Reaching for a cobweb-thin pink wool shawl, Skye said, “I am only his obedient slave, Talitha.”

Talitha’s mouth quirked with amusement as Skye modestly pulled the shawl about her. “You are a strange one, Muna.
There is an air of mystery about you. Perhaps it is that which fascinates Kedar so very much. At any rate, thank you for including me in your little adventure. We shall be the envy of the entire harem. Hurry and dress! I don’t want to waste a minute of this day. It has been a long time since I last left this house, and I am eager to go.”

As Talitha hurried out, Zada came hurrying in with a tray of food. “Allah only knows when you’ll eat again,” she fussed at her mistress.

“I am ravenous,” Skye admitted.

“I am not surprised,” was the reply. “The women of the harem say that the lord Kedar never stops his lovemaking during the entire night. I wonder that you can lift your head from the pillow this morning. Ohh, they are all so jealous of you, my lady Muna! He is going to make you his wife. They all say it is so. I knew that you would be successful with him!” She placed the tray upon the little table by the couch.

Skye didn’t bother to answer Zada, for she knew that anything she said would be repeated and embellished upon until her words were totally unrecognizable. Instead, she concentrated upon the meal that her slave woman had brought her. There was a lovely polychrome ceramic Fezware bowl in white, blue, and orange that was filled with peeled green figs. A matching plate held flat bread, hot and fresh from the oven, and there was a second bowl with a honeycomb in it. A silver goblet studded with lapis was filled with limewater. Skye ate hungrily, and when she had finished she rose, allowing Zada to wrap her in a gauze robe so she might walk to the baths. The slave woman followed carrying her mistress’s special soaps and scents.

Zada’s black eyes darted back and forth as they moved through the harem. Fully aware of the envious gazes thrown at Skye, she puffed out her chest with pride as they moved quickly along, feeling enormously pleased with herself for having such an important and beautiful mistress. Already the servants of the other favored ones were beginning to come to her with little gifts and gossip. When the lady Muna became the lord Kedar’s wife,
his only wife
, Zada would be the most influential serving woman in Kedar’s harem. She smiled smugly to herself as they entered the bath, considering how fortunate she was.

The baths were empty this early in the morning except for the bath attendants, who had been alerted that the lady Muna would be bathing and tumbled over themselves in their efforts to serve her lest the master’s favorite be displeased. Skye silently allowed
them to do their job, and when they had finished with her she thanked them each with a smile, then returned to her quarters with Zada to dress.

“Do not deck me out like an idol,” she snapped at Zada, who wanted to run bracelets up and down her arms, bering each of her slender fingers, and place a fillet dripping with small jewels on her head and forehead.

“You are the chosen of the lord Kedar,” Zada protested.

“I am only my lord Kedar’s humble slave,” Skye insisted. “If you deck me out in every jewel he has given me you will draw attention to me, which would displease my master. A show of wealth will also encourage the merchants to charge me double, Zada. I would look like all the faceless women in a plain black yashmak.”

Zada sighed disappointedly, but allowed that the lady Muna was probably right, and dressed her as she desired. When she had finished Skye was as anonymous as every other black-garbed figure in the streets of Fez would be. The top of the yashmak fell just below her eyebrows, and her outdoor veil was securely pinned to it. Only the barest slit for her eyes was allowed. She could have been twenty, or eighty; the fairest woman alive, or the ugliest; but no one in the streets of the city would know it.

“Are you ready, Muna?” Talitha’s voice emerged from an equally well-swathed figure.

Kedar had arranged for them to travel in a curtained litter, for it was unthinkable that his women walk to the bazaars. Skye couldn’t resist peeping at the city from behind a corner of the curtains as they moved from Kedar’s house at the top of the ravine, down the twisting, winding streets to the bottom where the markets of old Fez were located. She was enchanted by the one-arched bridges that spanned the river, a contribution of the Moors who had settled in Fez when driven from Spain. Skye noticed how crowded together the houses were as they descended lower and lower into the most ancient part of the city. It was also darker here, for it seemed almost impossible for the sun to find a place to slip between so it might shine. Finally Skye let the curtains fall back into place, and following Talitha’s lead loosened her face veil.

“What made you want to visit the bazaars?” Talitha asked.

“I don’t like being penned up,” Skye said. “In my land women move about freely. I even ride horses. I cannot stay in that house all the time else I go mad. When our lord Kedar asked
me last night what he might gift me with I begged him for a day at the bazaars. It means more to me than jewels could.”

“No wonder you fascinate him, Muna. You are so unusual for a woman.”

“There are other European women in our lord’s harem,” Skye said.

“Yes,” Talitha admitted. “We have girls from Provence, the Languedoc, Castile, Naples, and Genoa, but not one of them was from a noble family as you are. Two are merchant’s daughters, but the rest are peasants, and all are used to obedience to higher authority, as are the women of the East. You, however, belonged to the higher authority, Muna.”

“I answered to my Queen,” Skye said.

“Not your king?”

“England has no king. Our Queen is a virgin without spouse who rules in her own right.”

“Incredible!” Talitha exclaimed. “Such a thing would never be allowed here. A woman needs a man to answer to else she be unnatural.”

Skye almost laughed at Talitha’s outrage. There were many who thought Elizabeth Tudor odd and unnatural. Before she might comment though, the litter was set down with a tiny bump and the curtains drawn aside. Quickly they refastened their veils as Min’da carefully helped them out. “I will escort you, and the litter will follow us,” he said.