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“You ought to know better.” His voice had softened. “But I don’t want you to. I won’t let you.”
“Everyone wants you,” she told his coat sadly. “You cannot help it. When Ali sees you, he will weep, and half his courtiers will weep with him, and all the women. I shall be sick.”
He laughed, then tipped her head back to gaze intently into her eyes. She wanted to look away but couldn’t, and felt a blush steal up her cheeks.
“I think you’re trying to turn me up sweet,” he said. “You do it surprisingly well for such an obstinate little wildcat. In other circumstances, I suspect you might do whatever you like with me. But not this time, Esme. If you want to give yourself to me tonight, I won’t say no. I’m cad enough to take whatever you give. But it will change nothing. Tomorrow we can go south, or we can go west. Either way, though, we go together.”
Esme jerked away. “Y’Allah, but you are impossible. Do you think I am trying to bribe you with my body?”
“I think you’d do anything to bend me to your will.”
“I? It is you who fight unfairly. When you cannot argue sensibly, you must try to subdue me with embraces.” She eyed him up and down, resentfully. “You know you can make me witless.”
He smiled. “Then at least we struggle on equal terms. You reduce me to a babbling idiot. Am I not entitled to do the same to you? You’re the one who fights unfairly. You want to go to Tepelena, desperately, to unite with your golden prince. Yet you don’t want me and Percival there to witness your joy. What is it you’re hiding from us, Esme? What is it you don’t want us to see?”
She caught her breath. She knew he wasn’t altogether brainless. She’d never dreamed, however, his wits could be so quick. Or had Percival told him that pack of nonsense about a conspiracy?
But Percival couldn’t have. Varian would never have consented to go to Tepelena with a child who babbled of revolutionary plots. Perhaps Esme should tell him herself...but then he’d not let her go, either.
She was trapped. “I’ve nothing to hide,” she answered tightly. “It was my cousin I feared for. But you are right. He’s not a babe. He will not die of shock to see a den of iniquity. More likely, he will take notes, and when you return him to his kin, they will blame you for corrupting him. But what do you care? I tell you of the court’s depravity, and it only whets your appetite, I suppose. Your mind is filled with the harem, and you know Ali will give you women. I should have realized. You’ve been too long without a whore. Well, it is nothing to me. I shall find my own pleasure there as well—with my golden prince.”
She turned and stalked out.
Chapter Fourteen
Though the punishing rain continued, the entourage reached Tepelena in four days. They might have reached it even sooner, but Fejzi insisted on easy stages. Each day they halted well before sundown, to be quartered with the wealthiest citizens of the area. No more camping out in the muck. No more shaving with icy water. No more stale bread.
Each night they feasted and afterward slept on thick bedding in warm chambers. When Varian woke in the morning, he’d find his linen freshly laundered, his coat and trousers well brushed, his muddy, stained boots polished, and fresh towels and hot water awaiting his morning ablutions.
His slightest whim was fulfilled in an instant. He was treated with unremitting deference. Petro, who was certain they accompanied Esme to their doom, subsided into gloomy but generally silent servility.
Even Percival behaved himself. He did not fall off his horse, or into a river, or out of a window. He was a paragon of docility, showing no interest in anything or anybody but his cousin, whom he stuck to like a leech. And she was so quiet and obedient it made Varian’s flesh creep.
By day Esme rode with Percival, closely guarded by soldiers. At night she was shut away with the Moslem women. Being a mere boy, and an apparently undernourished one at that, Percival was allowed to be shut up with them, so they might dote upon him and stuff him with sweetmeats.
Lord Edenmont, meanwhile, had to sit for hours and burn his gullet with raki and smoke rich tobacco until his head swam. Ali’s representatives treated him like visiting royalty, and he soon found royalty a wearisome business.
He could not sleep properly and blamed it on the rich food, drink, and tobacco. Because he slept badly, he woke in a foul temper. By the time they reached Tepelena, he wanted to kill somebody—anybody—and preferably with his bare hands. He viewed the small, unprepossessing town with disfavor and Ali’s recently rebuilt palace with loathing.
He hadn’t read Hobhouse’s account of his travels with Byron in Albania, though it had been published well over a year ago. Varian had, however, heard Byron’s own account. The view he now beheld accorded in most particulars.
The palace enclosed two sides, and a tall wall encompassed the other two of the court they had just entered. It was filled with heavily armed soldiers and richly accoutred horses. At the corner furthest from the palace, animals were being slaughtered and dressed—yet another indigestible feast in the making.
The rest of the group would lodge elsewhere, while Varian, Percival, Esme, and Petro were to be quartered in the palace itself. They followed Fejzi up a flight of wooden steps and down a long gallery, thence into one of its two wings, which housed several apartments.
The chamber Varian entered was a shock, given the general run of Albanian habitations. It was a large room, lined with the usual perimeter of sofas, but these were covered with silk. The floors were thickly strewn with rich carpets and the walls hung with lavishly printed fabric.
“Your sleeping quarters are above, my lord,” Fejzi explained. He indicated a low entryway that led to a set of narrow wooden stairs. “Please make yourself comfortable. Refreshment will be here momentarily.
Meanwhile, I must take the girl to the harem. It is not seemly—”
“Miss Brentmor does not go to the harem,” Varian said frigidly.
“Certainly not,” Percival piped up. He took Esme’s hand.
She didn’t shake him off, as Varian expected, only stood quietly, her face expressionless.
Fejzi’s posture stiffened. “Your indulgence, my lord, but it is the rule. We do not permit the females to wander shamelessly about, as the infidels—” He paused, then went on contritely, “I beg your forgiveness, oh great one, but all must bow to the law.”
“A woman submits to the law of her male kin. He’s standing next to her, and he says she’s to remain. Do you mean to insult Master Brentmor the instant he reaches the palace to which Ali has invited him?” A full five inches taller than the chubby secretary, Varian gazed coldly down his nose at Fejzi as though the height were as many miles.
Fejzi hesitated, plainly torn. He appeared, in fact, scared to death, but whether of Varian or of Ali’s wrath one could not tell. Finally, he bowed his head. “As
you wish,” he said. He salaamed himself out of the apartment.
When the secretary’s hurried footsteps had faded away, Varian looked at Esme, who had still not uttered a sound. “Nothing to say? Aren’t you going to berate us for insulting your countryman and affronting Moslem dignity?”
She shrugged. “It makes no matter. I shall enter the harem soon enough. Better as the bride of a prince than an orphaned nobody.”
“You’re welcome,” Varian said icily.
Green fire flashed back at him. “I beg your pardon, oh great light of the heavens. A thousand, thousand thanks for preserving me from the unspeakable perils of the harem: three hundred bored women and their deadly eunuch companions.”
“Three hundred?” Percival echoed. “Good heavens!” He looked at Varian. “What is a eunuch?”
“Lord Edenmont’s destiny,” Esme snapped, “if he chooses to make a habit of flouting Ali’s commands.”
“Yes, but what is—”
“A man,” she said, “who has—”
“Petro!” Varian shouted, though the dragoman stood no farther than the door.
“Aye, master?”
“Take Percival upstairs and see that he gets a proper wash and changes his clothes. He’s crawling with fleas.”
Before Petro could move, Esme grabbed Percival’s shoulder. “A man, but not a man, because—” In a flash Varian clapped his hand over her mouth and pulled her away.
“Take the boy upstairs!” he bellowed.
Percival didn’t wait to be taken. He shot Varian one panicked look and dashed to the entryway and on up the stairs. Petro hastily waddled after him.
When they had disappeared, Varian took his hand away, marveling that she hadn’t bitten him.
“I’ll thank you to refrain from enlightening the boy regarding the filthy practices of this misbegotten country,” he said.
“It is Mohammedan practice, and there is no reason my cousin should not know. You chose to bring him here. Did you think you could keep him deaf, dumb, and blind to what is about him? Now look what you’ve done. You howl like a monster and frighten the child out of his wits. And to what purpose? Petro even now satisfies his curiosity, in ghoulish detail, I expect. Better I had explained.”
