Enchantress Mine (18 page)

Mairin swallowed back the urge to laugh. Sex was not a taboo event among the Anglo-Saxons who harking back to a more primitive time entered into it with joyous abandon. Eada and Aldwine’s marital happiness was no secret. Brand and Mairin had on several occasions unwittingly caught their parents in a lusty embrace. They had always been free to ask their parents about matters pertaining to the flesh and Eada answered with honesty and with love, confiding to her daughter that though such delights might first prove awkward, they were nonetheless pleasurable.

The empress’s words were therefore astounding. Still Mairin knew that she must be polite to the anxious empress whose motives sprang from genuine caring. She instinctively knew Basil was a man of deep passion. He had even admitted to finding her innocent enthusiasm for his kisses preferable to women who bore their lords’ embraces in silent submission. She could not imagine why the empress had taken it upon herself to address her in such a solemn fashion.

“I thank your gracious majesty for even taking the time to come and see me let alone offering me your sage advice,” she said politely. “I will remember your words.”

Eada beamed with pride. She had taught her child well, for Mairin’s manners were flawless, and her tact commendable. Honored that the empress Irene Marie had taken the time to personally welcome Mairin into the Ducas family, Eada could not, however, imagine why the older woman thought it necessary to impart such gloom to Mairin. The thought of concentrating upon one’s beads during supreme passion was too amusing for words.

Led by the empress other members of the Ducas family now came to pay their respects, and each brought a gift for Mairin. Not all of them were wealthy, nor of the noble branch of the family. They took great pride, however, in being related to the emperor, and being again in the spotlight by virtue of Basil’s marriage to the beautiful foreigner. The prince’s father was dead, but his mother came immediately after the empress.

Ileana Ducas was a tiny, elegant woman with a somewhat forbidding mien. She had her son’s coloring, but where his hair was wavy, hers was straight. It was severely fashioned into a knot at the base of her neck. Basil’s turquoise eyes were warm, but his mother’s were flat and expressionless, lighting up only when she spoke of her only child. She was magnificently attired in bright scarlet silk heavily encrusted with gold embroidery. Even the empress had not been as grand.

She brought Mairin jewelry, a marvelous necklace of gold filigreed squares encrusted with amethysts. “To match your eyes,” she said dourly. “My son said your eyes were the color of amethysts, but they look more violet to me. You are very young, but I suppose I should thank you for taking my son away from the hedonistic life he has persisted in living these past years. I do not approve of his companions. I trust you will be a good wife to him, not some silly little fool who worships the ground he walks upon, and permits him to continue his licentious behavior. Give me grandsons as quickly as possible! It was my misfortune that among all my babies only Basil lived. Children settle a man even more than a wife.” She peered at Mairin. “You are old enough to have children, aren’t you?”

“Not quite,” said Eada protectively.

“Then why does he marry her if not to get himself sons?” demanded Ileana Ducas irritably. “My son should be having children, not consorting with them.”

“We love each other,” Mairin exclaimed innocently, “and I will shortly be old enough to consummate our marriage.”

“Love?”
The older woman laughed harshly, but then she sighed. “Love, my dear, is pure illusion though you will not believe me now. In time you will learn that the only reality in this world is that which you can hold within your two hands. I know my son. He loves you for your perfect beauty, and your innocence. The latter you will lose quickly enough living in Constantinople. Guard the former as carefully as old Empress Zoe did, else you’ll lose Basil entirely one day.”

At the distressed look that passed over Mairin’s face Ileana’s own features softened sympathetically. “There, child, I have grown bitter with age, but I am not as unkind as I seem. I only seek to prevent you the pain that I have suffered.” She smiled a wintry smile. “I shall endeavor to be a good mother-in-law, and not interfere, Mairin. If you should ever need my help, or my counsel, however, do not be afraid to come to me. I have only Basil’s best interests at heart, and since I know you do too, we shall be friends and allies. There is no need for history to repeat itself,” she finished.

When Eada and Mairin were once more alone Mairin exclaimed, “What a strange woman Basil’s mother is! At first she frightened me but as she spoke I realized that I felt sorry for her, yet I do not know why.”

Eada shook her head. “Perhaps her husband was not as kind to her as Basil is to you. A woman’s whole world is her man and her family. To be treated unkindly by the man you love is a great sadness, but to bear babies that die is the deepest pain of all. May you never know such sadness, Mairin.”

Mairin took her mother’s hand and in a gesture of affection pressed it to her heart. Since Aldwine and his wife had taken her for their daughter, Eada had lost two babies. One had been a little boy who lived but a day. The other was a child so new in the womb that it had been impossible to tell whether it was a boy or a girl. The loss was doubly hard as it had been many years since Eada had last conceived a child. They had accepted the fact of her barrenness once. That she suddenly conceived again had been considered a small miracle rendered worthless with the unexpected loss of both infants. After that there had been no more children. Mairin knew how Eada had grieved for those lost babies, and perfectly understood her adoptive mother’s words.

“I will try to be friends with the lady Ileana, mother.”

“Yes, that would be best, Mairin. When your father and I have returned to England Basil’s family will be all the family you have. It is important to your future happiness that you find friends among members of the Ducas clan.”

Mairin’s wedding drew nearer. The imperial seamstresses worked frantically upon the wedding gown. The high-necked underdress with its long tight sleeves was made of cloth of gold, and molded to her figure. Over it she would wear a tunic dress of gold silk that was sewn all over with amethysts, diamonds, and pearls. Mairin’s hair would be unbound to indicate her virginity, but atop her head would be a crown of delicate gold filigree, diamonds, and freshwater pearls. The seamstresses sewing the gown were very excited and on the day of Mairin’s final fitting they stared open-mouthed at the future princess dressed in their creation.

Eada sighed. “I have never seen anything so beautiful,” she said to her daughter.

Mairin said nothing. She stared dreamy-eyed at her glittering reflection, and dreamed of the day when she would belong to Basil. Across the Bosporus building had begun upon the palace that was to be their home. Set into a green hillside the domed and columned building was of cream-colored marble. Marble steps flowed down the terraced hillsides to a small sheltered harbor with its marble quay. Each level of terrace was planted; an orchard of flowering peach, apple, and almond trees on one level, roses on another, sweet herbs on another, colorful garden flowers and spicy herbs upon another.

In the weeks before her wedding Mairin watched the construction from afar peering through a spyglass that the prince had brought her. The palace and its grounds would not be ready for months after the wedding, but the day before the marriage was to be celebrated Mairin could no longer bear only tantalizing glimpses of her future home.

“I must go across the water and see it!” she exclaimed to the prince who had come to pay his usual morning visit. “Oh, Basil, you must let me go!” With innocent artfulness she flung herself into his arms, and looked winningly up at him.
“Please!”

He let his hands smooth down her young body. He noted the childish thickness was suddenly gone. Her waist was quite defined. He rested his fingertips at the base of that supple waist, and pulled her closer to him, feeling as he did a new fullness in her breasts. She had not a grown woman’s shape yet, but her youthful body was beginning to change quite rapidly. His lips teased at hers, and she boldly kissed him a quick kiss.

Basil laughed. “So, my beauty, you would see the fine setting I am creating for you.”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” she insisted. Her sparkling eyes were the color of amethysts now. They were always lighter, he observed, when she was happy. If he could only always keep her as happy as she was this very minute.

“Then, my perfect princess, we shall go across the water this very morning. I will show you the palace that is being built for you. A testament of my love for you, Mairin. I adore you, my beauty! There has never before been anyone like you in my life, and there never will be. You are unique, and you are mine alone!”

He looked down into her eyes, and Mairin once again felt herself filled with tumultuous mixed emotions. Did all brides feel as she felt? Surely not for there was no man in the world quite like Basil. In that moment she felt that she must surely love him, for what else were all these emotions that rolled within her? Shyly she touched his face with its soft curly fringe of dark beard. “I love you, my lord,” she whispered, “and you have made me so very happy.”

He smiled tenderly down at her. “Ah, my perfect little beauty! In your girlish innocence you have no idea how very happy I can really make you. In time I will show you. For now I am content that your love for me has begun to grow. I am content that after today you will belong to me forever.”

The prince sent his servants for a barge after politely requesting Eada’s permission to take Mairin across the water. He led his bride-to-be from the Garden Palace down to the Boucoleon Harbor where only imperial vessels were allowed to dock. Smiling, Eada watched them go. Basil had invited her to accompany them, but she believed Mairin needed this time alone with the man she would marry tomorrow.

Eada liked Basil. He seemed a good man. He was ever gentle and considerate with Mairin. Had he been pretending, Eada knew she would have sensed it. He had gone out of his way to reassure Eada that he would not consummate his marriage to her daughter until Mairin had begun her monthly flow, and was fully a woman. Eada believed he would keep his promise though she concluded her daughter’s flowering was an event not far off. Recently Mairin’s body had begun to rapidly develop. Her waist was quite defined, her hips rounding, the buds of her breasts swelling, a soft down of peach-colored fuzz beginning to sprout along her arms, legs and private parts. Mairin would soon be a woman grown.

And yet there was something undefinable about Basil Ducas that disturbed Eada although she could not quite put her finger upon it. She had tried speaking to Aldwine about it, but her husband had always had a blind spot where Mairin was concerned. From the moment he had brought her home from London he had said no mere Saxon would do as a husband for Mairin. Now he had done even better than some minor Norman lordling. He had found a prince of Byzantium for his precious daughter and he would hear no word of dissent where Basil was concerned. Eada could only hope that her female intuition was being oversolicitous in this particular situation. She loved Mairin every bit as much as her husband did, perhaps even more.

The barge carrying Mairin and Basil swiftly crossed the water. The prince was enchanted by his betrothed’s excitement over the new palace and its gardens. Color stained her fair skin as the barge touched the marble quay. It was immediately made fast by a slave who leapt from the vessel to tie it to one of the marble columns sunk into the sea next to the quay. The slave then offered a hand to Mairin who eagerly jumped from the boat. Coming behind her Basil led her up the terraced hillside to the main building.

“The rooms are just now being laid out,” he told her. “There is no decoration upon the walls yet. We will have beautiful public rooms for entertaining and dining. Our own private apartments with their baths, and room in a separate wing for our many children. Do you know,” he said, taking her into his arms, “how very much I desire you, my perfect one?”

“I think, my lord, that I must desire you also. I ache and long for things I do not even yet know or understand,” she answered.

“Soon,” he murmured against her soft hair, “soon you will be a woman, Mairin. Tomorrow night I will take you to my bed, and I will begin to prepare you for that time. In doing so, I will give you pleasure.”

“Will that give you pleasure also, my lord?”

“I will teach you to give me pleasure, my perfect beauty,” he assured her nuzzling his lips against her ear while shivers of hunger sped down her spine.

Her fragrance was haunting, he thought, as he held her, her red-gold head against his shoulder. The warm lilac essence wafted about her, and aroused his senses. Bellisarius was a charming lover, but this beautiful young girl aroused him more than any lover he had ever had. That he could not possess her fully only made the situation of their impending nuptials more piquant. The self-control he would evince until the time Mairin became a woman would in the end only make that first possession more pleasurable. He actually looked forward to his self-denial.

Mairin snuggled against him feeling safe and loved. It amazed her that this handsome and sophisticated man should have chosen her as his wife. Constantinople was a city of beautiful women, and yet he had picked her. Mairin was no fool. She understood how great her beauty was, yet she knew she lacked all the other traits she so admired in the women of Constantinople, traits she had assumed he would want in a wife. She wanted to make him happy, but she was not certain how to go about it. She knew that as long as Eada remained in Constantinople she would help her to solve these mysteries.

His hand smoothed down her head. “What are you thinking of, Mairin? You are so still and silent against me.”