Nan Ryan (34 page)

The chief gatekeeper swung
open the heavy steel gates to admit the mounted men. The riders thundered up the palm-lined concourse to the domed-and-turreted pale yellow palace on the cliffs. A strong garrison of Mustafa’s soldiers waited inside the palace, and the sultan, seated on an imposing gold-and-crimson throne, was attended by several palace guards.

An hour earlier the advance rider had charged through the palace doors. Word had passed quickly through the cool corridors. The sultan had been enjoying a small repast to tide him over until dinnertime.

Gnawing gluttonously on a roasted leg of lamb, grease dripping down his double chins, he dipped his short fingers into a huge bowl of rice pilaf, carried it to his mouth, spilling several clumpy grains on the way.

Before him on dishes of solid gold was an assortment of his favorites delicacies. Goat cheese wrapped in grape leaves. Onions stuffed with minced lamb and hot peppers. Chunks of boiled lamb swimming in a sea of greasy gravy. Sugared carrots and black beans and roasted potatoes. Black olives and dates and figs and apricots and grapes.

And to top off the light midafternoon meal, the sweetmeat known throughout the world as Turkish Delight, a tasty treat consisting of the pulp of white grapes, semolina flour, honey, rosewater, and apricot kernels.

The famished sultan was biting into a stuffed onion when his personal servant, Alwan, rushed in, all excited. Chewing the big mouthful of onion and lamb, Mustafa glared at him as the servant approached.

Bowing and salaaming, Alwan said anxiously, “Forgive me, Excellency, for disturbing you, but I bring good tidings.”

Then, rushing his words, Alwan announced that Mustafa’s desert brigade was now, as he spoke, approaching the palace with Sheik Sharif Aziz Hamid’s beautiful American captive.

The sultan spit out a half-chewed onion, reached up and grabbed the front of Alwan’s robe, jerked his face down close, and said, “Why wasn’t I told?”

“Excellency, I am telling you now. The outrider has just arrived. The brigade will be bringing this woman through the palace gates within the hour.”

“Help me up,” said the sultan.

“Yes, master,” said Alwan, signaling a couple of guards forward.

While the muscular palace guards eased the rotund ruler up and out of his massive chair, Alwan took a damask napkin from the table and wiped grease and food particles from Mustafa’s fleshy cheeks and chins.

“Would His Excellency desire a bath before meeting the American?” Alwan asked as he scraped a glob of rice off the sultan’s badly stained peacock blue satin robe.

“Bath? I need no bath,” said Mustafa. “But fetch up one of my finest gold-trimmed robes.” He instructed his manservant to bring the fresh robe straightaway to the
hunkar
, adding, “I must look my best to meet this woman who is soon to become my most prized plaything.”

Dirty, exhausted, badly weakened, but still struggling, Temple was forced inside a huge, high-ceilinged chamber by a pair of palace guards. A long red carpet rolled out on the gleaming white marble floor led to the far wall of the royal reception room. There on a raised dais, seated on an enormous high-backed throne of gold and scarlet, waited Mustafa Ibn Agha Hussain, the Turkish sultan, trained from boyhood for despotism and self-indulgence.

Temple was half dragged, half pushed down that long red carpet until she stood directly below the sultan.

“Unhand her,” said Mustafa.

The palace guards released her and stepped back. Temple didn’t hesitate. She spun about and ran for the nearest exit. The guards were on her before she could reach the door, and the sound of the sultan’s evil laughter rang in her ears as she was hauled back before him.

His beady black eyes twinkling with joy, Mustafa ordered, “Bring her here to me.”

The guards swiftly obeyed. Temple, with her arms pinned behind her, was forced up the marble steps to the dais, then pushed down onto her knees directly before the throne and the obese man seated upon it. The smiling sultan reached out to touch her cheek. She jerked her head away. He chuckled merrily.

“Ah, the American has spirit,” he said. He captured her chin, roughly turned her face back to his. “I like a spirited woman.”

“You go to hell!” she spat, her eyes flashing with fury.

Again he chuckled. “I am sorry, my fair one, I do not understand your language.” His hand gripping her chin, a fat thumb seeking entrance into Temple’s tightly closed lips, he shouted to his minions, “Get my interpreter in here! And have Alwan bring a basin of rose water.”

Mustafa managed to get the tip of his thumb between her lips, and Temple, sickened, opened her teeth and bit him viciously. He yelped in surprise and pain, snatched his hand away, and sucked on his injured digit.

The door burst open and Alwan, carrying a gold basin filled with cool rose water, was followed by Jamal, the sultan’s interpreter. They marched hurriedly to the dais, where their master was already firing instructions at them.

“Jamal, you be still until I order you to speak! Alwan, wash her face so that I may see her beauty.”

Alwan knelt beside Temple and bathed her face in the cool rose water while Mustafa, leaning forward eagerly on the gold-and-scarlet throne, watched closely. When her face was free of the dirt and grime and perspiration, the sultan stared in openmouthed wonder, dazzled by her fair beauty.

“Ah, yes, yes,” he murmured in delight, “I will make you my
odalisque
, my love slave.”

Temple’s angry, defiant glare pleased him. Smiling, he said to Jamal, “My
odalisque
must wonder how I, Mustafa Ibn Agha Hussain, came to know of her. Tell her, Jamal! Tell her I know who she is. Show her the intercepted message that was sent by that Arab dog to her American family.”

While the smiling sultan sat there eagerly examining the golden prize that had fallen into his fleshy hands, Jamal withdrew from his robes the crumpled velum message taken—weeks ago—from Naguib, the Sheik’s messenger, while he was en route to Baghdad.

In accented English, Jamal read the message to her. Temple listened, eyes wide, lips parted, as she finally learned the reason for Sharif’s mysterious abduction.

“May I … see it, please?” she asked.

Jamal looked at the sultan and translated. Mustafa nodded. The guards released her arms, and Jamal handed her the Sheik’s ransom note. She stared at the crinkled velum paper, and her hands began to shake. She’d have known Sharif’s distinct handwriting anywhere. There was no doubt in her mind that he was the author of this intercepted message.

In it he proclaimed that he, Sheik Sharif Aziz Hamid, was holding her somewhere in the Arabian deserts. She would not be harmed. The press, the public, need not know. She would be released in Baghdad on the exact date she was originally scheduled to arrive—but
only if the flow of DuPlessis munitions
to the Sheik’s oppressive enemy, Mustafa Ibn Agha Hussain, and his murderous Turkish band was halted immediately.

Temple lowered the vellum communiqué.

Jamal took it from her and, following Mustafa’s orders, translated, “The DuPlessis family never received this cable. They are still unaware you were abducted.” He looked her straight in the eye and said, “And now, emphasizing the sultan’s words, no one will ever know what has become of you.”

Temple realized he was right. Her heart sank.

She tried to get up but was forced to remain on her knees before Mustafa. Her flesh crawled as the obese, magnificently robed sultan examined her leisurely with his beady black eyes. He grinned lasciviously and licked his loose, fleshy lips. He conversed excitedly with his servants, and although she understood not a word of Turkish, there was no misunderstanding the fat Turk’s plans for her.

“You are a fortunate young woman,” he told her, looking straight into her angry eyes and reaching out to pluck at a strand of long, dirty blond hair. “If, once you are bathed and readied for me, your body is half as beautiful as your face, you will spend this night and many more in my bed.” His tongue darted out and licked at his loose bottom lip in a decidedly lewd gesture. Then he said, “You and I will engage in carnal acts that the backward Arab has never even thought of!”

“I have no idea what you’re saying, you disgusting pig,” Temple replied brazenly. “I can only hope you understand that I am sickened by the sight of you!” Emerald eyes blazing, she turned to the interpreter and ordered, “Tell him, Jamal!”

Jamal didn’t dare repeat what she had said. To Mustafa he said, “She said she is quite weary and would like to rest now.”

“Yes, yes,” said the sultan. “Let her rest for a while, then prepare her for the visit to my bedchamber.”

His fat fingers still gripping a lock of Temple’s tangled hair, he puckered his lips and leaned forward to kiss her. Her hand as swift as a striking serpent, she struck him fully in the face, landing a loud blow that echoed throughout the royal reception room.

Guards and servants alike winced in shock and apprehension. All tensed, expecting their ruthless despot to retaliate swiftly, cruelly. No one present would have been surprised if Mustafa had choked her to death there where she knelt.

His black eyes wide with astonishment, his bejeweled hand rubbing his stinging jaw, Mustafa Ibn Agha Hussain frowned angrily.

But only for a second.

Then he began to smile. His fleshy lips turned up in a smile of supreme pleasure. Soon he began to laugh. His jowls jiggling, his domed belly shaking and rippling beneath the crimson robe, the jolly sultan laughed merrily, uproariously.

When he’d calmed a bit he looked at Temple in frank admiration and told her, “Ah, my fragrant flower, my American spitfire, what happiness lies ahead for us! I have long dreamed of finding a woman with spirit and passion to match her great beauty. And here you are.” His small pig eyes gleaming with desire, he predicted, “Do not worry, my impetuous jewel. Once you’ve lain with me, you will quickly forget that arrogant Arab swine, Sharif Aziz Hamid.”

At the mention of Sharif’s name, Temple bluffed boldly, “I will summon the Sheik here and he will kill you, you bloated barbaric beast!”

Temple was taken away
.

The sprawling seaside kingdom was a baffling conglomeration of buildings of all shapes and sizes and on multiple levels. Temple tried, as she was led through a maze of shadowy hallways and sunny courtyards, to pay close attention in case she later got an opportunity to escape. But the sultan’s pale yellow palace and the surrounding grounds were huge, a confusing labyrinth of shady arches and narrow passages and sparkling fountains and flower-filled courtyards and shadowy corridors and high fretted windows and domed tiled ceilings.

By the time she was ushered into a spacious, sun-splashed chamber filled with laughing, chattering women, Temple couldn’t have retraced her steps if her life depended on it.

The guards who escorted her to the women’s quarters left her there without a word and retreated immediately, closing and bolting the door behind them. Temple stood uncertainly on the marble threshold, her curious gaze sliding around the room while the women, falling silent, stared openly at her.

The chamber was spacious, airy, the sun coming in through barred and latticed windows, the lower sills of which were higher than the head of the tallest of men. At the room’s center was a fountain fashioned entirely of fine crystal, clear water misting and splashing from it into a circular crystal pool at its base. The crystal fountain, caught in the rays of the sun spilling through the high latticed windows, glittered like millions of fine diamonds.

Carpets of gold silk covered the floor, and on the walls were elaborate hangings. Overhead the high, domed ceiling of bright blue was dotted with gleaming gold stars. Silk-covered sofas and hassocks and cushions scattered about were the resting places of dozens of young, beautiful women. Women who were clad in nothing but gauzy harem pants and gem-encrusted bolero vests.

Temple spotted an empty pink-and-gold divan at the far side of the room. She immediately started toward it, so tired she could hardly put one foot before the other. The silence passed. The harem women pointed and chattered and frowned. She was, Temple realized, an oddity here among these dark-haired, olive-skinned women. She read in their dark flashing eyes the surprise, the curiosity, the jealousy.

Ignoring them, she headed directly toward the pink-and-gold sofa, her only wish at the moment to lie down. To rest. She couldn’t think clearly in this state of sheer exhaustion. She had to sleep, if only for a little while.

Temple sighed when finally she reached the divan. She sat down and was leaning forward to take off her hot, dusty riding boots when the sound of weeping caused her to slowly turn her head.

Not thirty feet away a woman sat on the gold silk carpet beside a big square ottoman. Her bare arms were folded atop the ottoman’s soft cushion, and her face was buried as she wept.

Wearily Temple sat up and stared. Then she looked around. No one else gave notice to the unhappy young woman. None of the harem women came forward to comfort her or even to ask why she was weeping. Seized with a surge of compassion, Temple went over, sank to her knees beside the sobbing woman, and laid a gentle hand atop her dark hair.