“You belong to me,” he said huskily, “now and always.”
She knew that she was lost, whatever happened. She loved him. “Yes,” she whispered, amazed at her own words. “Yes! I do belong to you, Murad!”
And as his mouth savagely moved against hers, she felt a wild joy flood her. She was no longer afraid. Hands passionately caressed her, and her young body rose eagerly to meet his touch. Only once did she cry out-when his fingers found their way to the sweet core of her. But he stilled her protests with his mouth. He felt her wildly beating pulse beneath his lips. “No, dove,” he murmured hungrily, “let my fingers have their way. It will be sweetness, my love, only sweetness, I promise you.”
And he could feel her slowly relaxing in his arms. Smiling he teased the sensitive flesh while the girl beneath him moaned softly, her lashes dark smudges against her white skin, her slim hips writhing. At last, satisfied that she was ready, he gently thrust a finger into her.
Adora gasped, but before she could protest she was lost to the sweet wave of delight that possessed her completely. She arched to meet his hand, floating weightless until the tightness building within her shattered like a mirror into a rainbow of flashing lights.
Her amethyst eyes finally opened, and she asked, her voice soft with the wonder of it, “How can such sweetness be, my lord?”
He smiled down at her. “It is but a taste of delight, my dove. Just a taste of things to come.”
Chapter Three
In Constantinople, the night was as dark as Emperor John Cantacuzene’s mood. His beloved wife, Zoe, was dead in a last futile attempt to give him another son. The awful irony was that she had given her last bit of strength to push twin sons from her exhausted and weakened body. Misshapen scraps of deformed humanity, they were joined at the chest and shared, so the physician claimed, a single heart. These monstrosities had been, praise God, born dead. Their mother, curse God, had followed them.
If this tragedy were not terrible enough, his daughter, Helena, wife to the co-emperor John Paleaologi, was plotting with her husband to overthrow him, to take complete control of the empire. While her mother had lived Helena had been recognized only as wife to the young Paleaologi. Her mother had been recognized as the empress. Now Helena wished to be recognized as empress.
“And if I remarry?” asked her father.
“Why on earth would you remarry?” demanded his daughter.
“To give the empire more sons.”
“My son, Andronicus, is the heir. Next comes the child I now carry.”
“There is no decree to that effect, my daughter.”
“Really Father!”
Every day Helena sounded more and more like her mother-in-law, the wretched Anna of Savoy.
“My husband,” continued Helena, “is the rightful emperor of Byzantium, and therefore our son is the true heir. Surely you must realize that by now. God has spoken quite plainly. Your eldest son is dead, and my brother, Matthew, has chosen to follow the monastic life. In the last six years Mother miscarried five times of six sons. Now God has taken her from you-in obvious disapproval. What more do you want? Must the words of God’s will be engraved in clouds of fire over the city for you to accept it?”
“The seer, Belasarius, has predicted that from my loins and my seed would spring a new empire out of Constantinople. How can this be if I do not have sons to carry on my line?”
“Perhaps through me, Father,” said Helena smugly.
“Or your sister, Theadora,” he snapped back.
Helena glared and, without another word, left the room. John Cantacuzene paced restlessly. He would have more sons, but before he could take another noble wife he must make his position more secure. John Paleaologi must be disposed of, along with his snot-nosed offspring. Remarried elsewhere, Helena would forget. Perhaps he would offer her blonde beauty to Sultan Orkhan’s heir, Prince Suleiman.
This thought reminded him of his youngest daughter, Thea. How old was she now? Thirteen? He thought so. Certainly old enough to be bedded, and to bear a child. He was going to need fresh military aid from the sultan-aid that was more likely to be given if Orkhan were enamored of his young wife. Especially a young wife who proclaimed her elderly husband’s virility with a belly full of new life.
The girl was still within her convent, and the latest miniature he had of her showed a young creature beautiful enough to rouse a stone statue. Her only failing was that she had a mind. Mother Marie Josepha was forever writing him of the girl’s intellectual accomplishments. A pity she had not been a son. Well, he would write and instruct her to behave meekly, modestly, and quietly with her husband.
He would also write to Orkhan tonight, reminding him that the marriage contract called for the consummation of the union when the girl was mature. She certainly was mature now. It meant, of course, that he would have to come up with the final third of Theadora’s dowry, and relinquish the fortress of Tzympe-but no matter. Opening the door to his private suite he summoned the monk who was his secretary.
Several weeks later, in Bursa, Sultan Orkhan chuckled over the recently received correspondence from his fellow ruler and father-in-law. He was well aware of the reason behind the Byzantine’s sudden desire for his marriage to Theadora Cantacuzene to be consummated. John Cantacuzene was expecting another fight for his shaky throne and needed the Ottoman’s support. He offered his daughter’s virginity plus the rest of the gold from her dowry. Most important, he would finally turn over Tyzmpe to the Turks.
Orkhan the Ottoman had grown sexually insatiable in his old age. Each night he was presented with a new and well-trained virgin. His appetite varied and it was rumored that he even occasionally amused himself with young boys. His young wife, Theadora, was a totally innocent girl. It would take months to train her so that she would be able to please her lord.
But there was no time. Her father wanted her with child as proof of the consummation, and Orkhan wanted Tyzmpe and the remainder of her dowry gold. When great rulers plan together, matters can be arranged.
The maiden’s moon cycle would be determined, and he would mate with her during her most fertile four days. He hoped her link with the moon would then be broken. If not, the process would be repeated again, and again-until the girl proved fruitful.
He was not the least interested in Theadora. A political pawn, she had been forgotten and was now annoyingly thrust forward.
He had experienced the emotion called love in his youth, with Nilufer, his second wife and the mother of his two favorite sons. Now that was all behind him. All that was left was the physical pleasures given him by the skilled, young slave girls and boys of his harem.
He resented having to breed the maiden as a bull breeds a cow, and this resentment would probably communicate itself to Theadora. Perhaps the girl herself had encouraged her father to suggest this, in an effort to better her position. Well, he would see that she was treated with the respect due her rank. He would impregnate her as quickly as possible, and then he would have nothing further to do with her.
And at the very moment Theadora Cantacuzene lay within the strong arms of Prince Murad. Their eyes adored one another. “I love you!” she said in a tremulous voice. “I love you!”
“And I love you, my dove! Allah! How I love you!”
“How long, my lord? How long must we wait before we dare to be wed when he is gone? I want to walk in the sunlight beneath the olive trees with you. I want the world to know that I am yours!”
“I love my father,” he said slowly. “I would wish him no less a portion than is his. In his old age he is content and seeks only more gold and the sensual pleasures offered him. He will no longer lead our armies.”