She was seated in an elbow chair with, across her knees, a canvas of petit-point, on which she had been working. Beside her, on a low stool sat a younger, dark-haired woman, more heavily veiled but, judging from her fine eyes and flawless skin, also beautiful.
Bowing low with every step, Roger advanced towards the First Lady of the Turkish world, then laid the casket at her feet and remained kneeling there. To his surprise and sudden perturbation, she spoke to him in Greek.
Not understanding Greek, he was temporarily dumbfounded. But, swiftly recovering himself, he came to his feet, forced a smile and said in French:
'Your Imperial Majesty has forced me to a confession that I was about to make. I am no Greek merchant who agreed to deliver this present to you on behalf of a French officer who died in Venice. I am that officer Colonel le Chevalier de Breuc.'
With a sudden frown, her eyes holding his, she asked, 'Why this fiction, Monsieur, and why are you in Eastern dress?'
'May it please Your Majesty, I have accompanied the mission headed by General Gardane, sent by the Emperor Napoleon to His Imperial Majesty the Sultan. But I am only attached to it. I come to you as the personal representative of your illustrious cousin, the Empress Josephine. My colleagues are unaware of that and, had I come to the Seraglio in uniform, it is certain they would have learned of it. That would have been difficult to explain. Hence the disguise.'
Still unsmiling, she replied, 'You are then, Monsieur le Chevalier, as I had been led to suppose, a man of resource.'
Roger's heart missed a beat. Again he forced a smile and said, 'As a member of the Emperor's personal staff, I have had the good fortune to achieve some notoriety in the Grande Armee, and it seems that Your Majesty has heard talk of that.'
Instead of replying, she turned to the girl beside her and said, 'Fatima, I wish to speak to this gentleman alone.'
Putting aside her work, the girl made a low obeisance and slipped out through a door at the side of the room.
Turning back to Roger, the golden-haired Venus said in a level voice, 'Yes, Monsieur de Breuc, I have certainly heard of you. Moreover, those blue eyes and long lashes of yours tell me what I have long suspected. No Greek banker could have given them to his child. You are the father of my grandson. Can you deny it?'
The second she mentioned his blue eyes, Roger's swift brain had leaped to it that the cat was out of the bag. Obviously Zanthe had informed her mother of how a French officer had carried her off in Cairo, and had named him as her seducer. By coming to the Seraglio, he had voluntarily and idiotically put his head into a hornet's nest. Within a few minutes now he might be handed over to the eunuchs to be strangled with a bow-string.
Knowing himself cornered and escape impossible, he took a wild gamble. It could come off only if Naksh—the Beautiful One—reacted as a woman. If she maintained the aloofness proper to her station as the First Lady of a mighty Empire, he would be utterly lost. Drawing himself up to his full height, he said, 'Sublimity, my life is in your hands. For the joy the Princess Zanthe gave me I will go to my death willingly. I have only one regret. That it was her and not you that I had in my bed both in Cairo and in Acre. For you are even more beautiful than your daughter.'
He saw her cheeks flush beneath the diaphanous veil. Her big eyes narrowed and she snapped, 'Monsieur! To think of me in such a situation is sacrilege. For what you have just said, a fitting punishment is that I should have your flesh torn from your body, piece by piece, with red-hot pincers.'
Inwardly Roger quailed. Yet, with the courage of desperation, he managed to sneer, 'A decision one might expect from a blood-lusting Turk, but not from a French lady of aristocratic birth.'
She gave a slight shrug and replied, 'It is true that the Turks are a cruel and bloodthirsty people. But there is a saying, "When in Rome . . ." You will know the rest. You are now in Constantinople. By Turkish standards, you have addressed me as though I were a woman in a brothel. It so happens that I am not only an Empress, but for over twenty years I have been a Turk.'
Standing up, she put out a hand, grasped a silken rope ending in a large tassel, and gave it a swift jerk. A bell clanged hollowly somewhere in the distance.
Situated as he was, in the depths of this vast palace, with its hundreds of rooms, mazes of corridors and thousands of guards, Roger knew that there was not the faintest possibility of fighting his way out. He had not even a sword with which to kill a few eunuchs before they killed him, as no visitor was allowed to enter the Palace armed. By seizing the back of the nearest chair, he could use its legs to fend off an attack; but for no more than a few moments, as the legs were thin and would snap off at the first heavy impact.
Yet, if he were doomed to die, there was one thing he could do which might bring him a quick death and escape from torture. Taking one step forward, he seized the Sultan Valide in his arms.
It was possible that the eunuchs might succeed in dragging him, while still alive, away from her; but he was very strong and meant to cling to her as a drowning man would to a floating spar. All the odds were, he thought, that, horrified at the sight of such sacrilege, they would lose their heads, think only of freeing their mistress and frantically stab him in the back.
As he clasped Aimee to him, she gave a gasp of amazement, then cried, 'Are you mad ? Let me go!'
Death might be round the corner, but he was enjoying himself now. Smiling down into her lovely face, he said, 'No, Naksh. Holding you in my arms while I die will give me a foretaste of heaven. And, when your eunuchs stab at me, I mean to swing round; so we may even die together.'
At that moment they both caught the sound of the outer door being closed, then footsteps crossing the small hall. Aimee had been striving to free herself. Suddenly her struggles ceased. She went quite rigid and, in a voice that was perfectly controlled, but sharp and commanding, she cried loudly:
'Yussif! Bring champagne. At once! Immediately!'
The footfalls halted and receded. Aimee gave a great sigh and, for a moment, let her head fall forward to rest on Roger's shoulder. Then, looking up at him, she breathed, 'What an escape! Had Yussif glimpsed you embracing me, even I, with all my power, could not have saved your life. To start with, they would have put a cord round your testicles and hung you by it from a beam; then bastinadoed you daily until your wretched body gave up the ghost.'
'But...' stammered Roger, 'but you were going to have me killed in any case.'
'You imbecile!' she retorted. ‘Is it likely that I, a Frenchwoman, would have a French officer sent to me by my cousin Josephine harmed? But life is dull here, and it was an opportunity for a little amusement. When I pulled that bell-rope it was to order champagne. Then, when it arrived, we would have laughed together.'
Roger made a wry grimace. 'A dangerous form of amusement, Madame. It might have resulted in the death of both of us.'
She nodded. 'I realise that now. I should have before. Zanthe told me that you were the very devil of a man. And, indeed you are! But for God's sake, let me go now. If Yussif finds us like this when he brings the wine, all I could wish you would be a speedy death.'
As Roger released her and again assumed a most respectful attitude, he said, ‘I appreciate that while you would have received the Empress Josephine's envoy most kindly, you can hardly be surprised that when it became apparent to me that you realised I was the man who had dragged Zanthe into my bed in Cairo, I had good cause to fear that you meant to exact vengeance on me.'