saw that he was staring at the scrollwork, and leaned forward. “Its name is written there forever, infidel. Dushman kush! The slayer of his enemies. Have you any enemies, Stefan?”
Fletcher brought his gaze up sharply, aware that there was mockery in the voice of the bald Turk. From Sinan, his eyes went to Yussuf Caramanli, who sat forward on his throne cushions, eying him with amusement.
“He does not know Mustafa reis, Sinan,” chided the pasha with a smile.
“I know him,” Fletcher growled. “He sold me to Ali ben Sidi.”
The pasha laughed. “Ah, yes. You were one of the Americanos that went to my best sea captain as his share of the loot. Most of my other captains were glad to waive their rights for gold. Not Mustafa reis. He hates you Americans with a fine hate. Tell Stefan why, some time, Sinan.”
Yussuf Caramanli stared thoughtfully at Stephen. “I did not know this afternoon that you were one of the men chosen by Mustafa reis. Otherwise I would have bastinadoed you and brought you back to the stone quarries for Ali ben Sidi to kill in any manner he desired, to teach his slaves the consequences of killing a royal guard. However, Allah saw fit to make me act without such knowledge. Now, of course, I am committed. It would never do to give you back, once I bought you. It would be a sign of weakness, and a pasha must never be weak. So you will take your post in the harem, to guard Marlani Chamiprak.”
Losing interest, the pasha leaned forward to a silver platter filled with purple grapes. Idly, he drew a bunch into his hand and sat there cross-legged, nibbling at them, as Sinan took Fletcher down the length of the audience room.
As the big bronze doors clanged shut behind them, Sinan sighed and shook his head. “A lucky star watches over you, nasrany. Mustafa reis will not like what Yusuf has done. He will give anything to put you back in chains, or torture you to death in a public square. But Yussuf will not let him do that; it has become a matter of pride to him. But walk as if you walked on eggshells! One false slip, and even the pasha of Tripoli will not be able to protect you from him.”
“I’ll be careful,” Fletcher promised, but Sinan only eyed him curiously and grunted.
“You aren’t the careful kind!” the bald Turk growled, and clapped his heavy, meaty hands.
In the distance the patter of bare feet sounded along the tiled floors of the palace hall.
Sinan sighed, “I won’t see much of you, once you go behind the seraglio doors. You’ll live in a different world from me. There will be jealous women, and lusting women, and scheming women. Only a eunuch is able to live there without trouble settling around his ears. Make believe you are a eunuch, American!”
A slim Taureg girl, with hair like blackened copper hanging to her brown shoulders, came walking toward them. Silver hoops swung from her tiny ears. Her glowing eyes, their lids darkened with kohl, studied his big bulk. Beneath the thin khalak, that was a sheer mist of green silk, her body was naked. Her full breasts moved faintly to her breathing. Her legs were slim and brown, long and shapely, under the floating silk.
Sinan said, “Her name’s Shellah. A Taureg girl, a slave. She sometimes acts as guide or messenger in the palace. She’ll take you to the harem quarters.”
The girl was smiling boldly, letting her dark eyes drift over Fletcher with calculating slyness. There was impudence in her smile and in her lazy stance. When Sinan shouted at her in Turki, she shouted back at him, baring tiny white teeth.
“Desert harlot!” grumbled Sinan. “Remember what I told you, Stefan. Don’t let these little kalfas get their claws into you, or you’ll wind up blind in chains, hung upside down over a rat pit! Remember! Now, go with Shellah.”
It was not a difficult command to obey. The Taureg girl carried something of the wildness of the desert in the spicy smell of her thick hair and in the warm glow of the eyes. She glanced slyly at this big, yellow-haired man as she padded beside him, and she let the misty kalak slide a little, baring her supple brown back.
Her giggle came into the silence between them as they mounted the wide stairway to the harem rooms. Now the Taureg girl grew coquettish. Her arm brushed against him as they walked.
Once she said something in the Bedouin tongue that Fletcher did not understand. When she realized that he could not comprehend her desert jargon, she laughed softly. She spoke again, and though the words were strange, something in their inflection made Fletcher flush.
His hands closed on her wrist and he brought her to a halt, swinging her in against him. With one hand he caught the thick black hair, twisting his fingers in it, and held her face motionless.
“I don’t know your game, little one,” he told her, staring down into the bold eyes that never flickered, though his grip on her hair stung her scalp. “Maybe Sinan told you to act up, to test me. Or maybe it was the pasha, or even that favorite wife of his. I’ve been a slave a long time. Too long. I’ve almost forgotten that I’m a man, too.”
He paused and grinned down at her soft red mouth. The palace was silent all about them. From where they stood, at the top of the tiled stair, Fletcher could see the length of the empty corridor before him. His pulse was beating faster now that her soft hips and legs were wedged so closely against him. Suddenly rebellion leaped in him—revolt against the subservience he must observe, against the irony of his position. Here he was, a strong man with a noble weapon at his side; but instead of fighting lustily for his country, he must waste his manhood protecting a group of pampered harem women.
“If you want to run to Sinan or the pasha or his wife,” he went on conversationally, “and tell them what I’m going to do to you, go ahead. I have a sword at my hip again. This time they won’t take me alive, to hang over any rat pit.”
He kissed her roughly, hungrily, holding her head hard between hands, while his savagely seeking lips bruised her mouth. The Taureg girl took his kisses in a soft, sweet surrender. She melted against him with a supple twist of her slender body that told Fletcher she was enjoying this moment, whether or not she betrayed him later.
As he let her go, Shellah whispered something in her Taureg dialect, her eyes hot on his face. With fingertips tinted a bright red by henna paste, she drew her thin, revealing shawl about her body, and moved on. Her bosom was leaping with her hurried breathing, but the only sound was the musical tinkle of the silver chains about her slim ankles.
When they came to a door inscribed with geometric inlays and set with two-round gold hoops for handles, Shellah put her fingers on one of the grips and lifted her dark eyes. “Enter, Stefan. And do not worry, Shellah is no mewling spy, to go running when a man kisses her.”
She saw his amazement at her knowledge of the English language, and paused, still holding the doorpull. “I was captured when I was very young, at the oasis of Kufra. They found me intelligent, and taught me many things. Your language was one of the things I learned. Now go in, and say no more of what happened between us.”
The Taureg girl tugged and the door swung outward.
Fletcher stepped into a domed room, its walls ornate with delicate plaster friezes in bold reds and blues and golds. Tall archways led back into gloomy recesses, and the last red rays of the dying sun came thrusting through the iron fretwork of the windows. He saw low sofas, heaped heavily with pillows and silk cushions, an occasional table and coffer of inlaid teakwood, a few upholstered benches and ottomans.
Lying at full length on one of the low sofas,
