A Love for All Time (57 page)

“Nay, wench, not there,” he protested. “I could hurt her.”

Both women laughed, and then the one in possession of his cock said, “No, you won’t, my lord. This is the way of the men of our tribe in the desert. We are used to it, and we like it. I think you will, too, if you will but try.”

“Please, my lord,” begged the kneeling girl. “I need you to fill me full! Please!”

He was still drunk enough from the water pipe that they were able to persuade him, and so grasping the girl’s hips in his hands Conn plunged forward. His first thrust met with resistance, but he persisted, and finally was able to lodge himself within the tightest passage that had ever enclasped his throbbing manhood. Slowly he began to pump her as if he were in the proper place, and she moaned with unfeigned pleasure, and came to a quick climax. He was stunned.

“Now, me!” the other girl begged him, and she then presented his stillhard and unrelieved shaft with her plumper bottom. Why didn’t he refuse them? he wondered, but he didn’t, but with each stroke he gave the girl he thought of his beloved Aidan. Aidan who might be forced to give herself to the sultan even as these two girls so willingly gave themselves to him.
Aidan! Aidan!
And with a groan his passion burst, and Conn fell into a stupor from which he did not awake until past noon the next day.

When he did awake, however, it with the full knowledge of what had passed between himself, and the two girls the night before. He was filled with a loathing for himself, but Osman seeing his distress, and realizing its cause took him aside to speak to him.

“It is not the nature of a man to remain long celibate, my friend,” he said. “You have been without a woman for many weeks now, Conn. What passed between you and my slavegirls was healthy for you and quite natural.”

“But I love my wife!” Conn protested.

“What has loving your wife got to do with the needs of your body? Your wife is not here to satisfy those needs, and they must be satisfied else you build up a store of bad humors within your body which could poison you. It is neither safe nor moral for a man to deny himself the comfort of a woman’s body.”

“But in my world,” said Conn, “a man cleaves only to his wife.”

“In your world,” said Osman, “a man marries one woman, and plays with many others in secret. Here in Islam we make no secret about that which is normal.”

“Yet you keep only to your wife, Osman.”

The astrologer smiled. “My desire for women is not particularly great despite the large family I have fathered. The children were to keep Alima happy and busy so that she would not feel neglected because I spend most of my time at my work. Had I taken other wives or even concubines, I should not have had that luxury for they would have all been at me; but even I, my friend, have occasionally dipped my gourd in other wells when desire overtook me.” He looked seriously at Conn. “Your wife will have known another man by the time you reach her. Will you condemn her for her conduct because you believe she should cleave only to you?”

Suddenly Conn realized that it was Osman who had seen to it that he had gotten drunk on the water pipe the previous evening. He had done it to make a point with Conn, and that point was that a body had needs that perhaps could not be overcome by the mind. As he had lain virtually helpless being seduced by the two Berber girls, so would Aidan be as sweetly seduced despite her love for him. In their own world Conn knew that his wife would have always been faithful to him just as he would have been faithful to her; but they were not in their own world now. This world was one in which a woman’s value was judged by how many goats, or horses, or camels could be gotten for her, and it was, Conn suddenly realized, the same the world over. A woman was considered chattel by most men although he did not feel that way about Aidan. Still females were judged by what they brought men in the way of valuables. He looked directly at Osman, and was bathed by the golden light that came from the astrologer’s warm gaze.

“I love my wife,” he said quietly, “but I understand what it is you are trying to teach me, Osman, and I thank you.”

“But have you learned my lesson, Conn?”

“My heart comprehends what it is that you say to me, Osman, but it is so difficult for my mind to accept it. The thought of my wife in the possession of another man is maddening. It somehow does not seem as bad for a man to take another woman as it is for a woman to accept another man.” He sighed deeply. “Yet I want her back.”

“Be absolutely certain, brother of my beloved friend. Your wife has suffered greatly in the matter, far more than you ever possibly could. I had not told you, I did not want to tell you until you were perhaps a little more settled in your own mind about this matter, but your wife lost the child even before she reached Algiers.”

“Then there is nothing to bind us together but our love,” Conn said softly, and then he thought of how once he had so bravely proclaimed theirs a love for all time. Was that love strong enough to withstand the loss of their baby, and the knowledge that she had known other men? Yes! Yes, it was! Whatever their difficulties they were stronger together than they were apart. If he had to come to terms with what had happened then so did Aidan, too, and hers would be the harder battle. She needed him, and he needed her. He needed her now more than he had ever needed her for she was the only woman who could make him happy, had ever made him happy. He wanted her back!

Osman smiled at him, and Conn knew that he had understood what was going through his mind. “It will become easier, Conn, I promise you that each day it will become easier,” the astrologer said.

“My sister Skye says that you see things that other people do not, Osman,” Conn began. “Will I really be able to rescue my wife, and will we be happy again?”

“Each person’s fate depends in great part upon they themselves,” began Osman. “We are always offered several paths to follow, and how we go is our choice. Those things we have control of, Conn. Our fate, we call it
kismet,
controls other things. Illness, the loss of a child, the chance for wealth. Those things we have no control over. Because there are others involved of whom I know little I can tell you nothing beyond the fact that you will see Aidan again. That much is in both your stars, and I will not lie to you about anything else for I have not built my reputation upon hocus-pocus as some have. Your sister has, I know, told you that I am an honest man above all.”

Conn nodded disappointed. Like a child he had wanted to be reassured that everything would work out perfectly. He had wanted to believe that he was fated for success, that nothing could go wrong, that he and Aidan would have a happily-ever-after as did the hero and the heroine in the children’s tales that his mother had told his brothers and himself when they were little boys. “So,” he said with as much good nature as he could muster, “you are telling me that I must sit patiently for the next few weeks until the dey, in his wisdom, has agreed to release my ships; and then I must sail on to Istanbul with only the slim belief that I will succeed. I must step into the unknown, Osman, and take my chances.”

“Like any other mortal man, brother of my friend Skye,” chuckled Osman. “Just like any other mortal.”

“Then I shall do it, but for God’s sake, Osman, speak to your friend the dey. If my brothers spend too many more nights being as debauched as I suspect they were last night, they shall be no good to me at all.”

Osman chuckled again. “Fear not, Conn. I have some excellent restoratives that I shall share with them. They will, I promise you, when you sail from the city, be as new men.”

“If your women don’t kill them with kindness first,” laughed Conn.

“They are young yet, Conn.”

“They may not be when we leave Algiers, Osman!”

This time Osman laughed. “Trust me,” he said. “I have taken care of Robbie all these years, and he is yet vigorous, is he not?”

“I haven’t seen him yet this morning,” Conn noted.

“You will not see him for several days,” said Osman. “Our little friend has a great capacity for loving, and it will take the twins I had for him at least that long to slake his fires.”

“God’s nightshirt! This life is absolutely not for me any longer, Osman, although there was a time before I married my Aidan that I would have kept up with the best of them, but no longer. I want to go home to
Pearroc Royal
with Aidan, and lead the quiet life. I am not the adventurer that I once thought I was.”

“Few are despite what they may think.” Osman smiled. “You have simply learned earlier than most what you want. That is a blessing, Conn, my friend. A very rare blessing from Allah. Be grateful for it. You are fortunate enough to see your pathway. Many do not.”

“The memory of what Aidan and I have shared shines in my heart like a bright beacon, Osman. It is that which lights my way, and makes it possible for me to see where my ultimate goal leads. The twists and turns of the path, however, cannot be seen, can they?”

“Nay, they cannot,” came his answer, “but you will surmount them my friend. You will surmount them.”

B
oth the sultan valideh, Nur-U-Banu, and the bas kadin, Safiye, as well as Murad, the sultan himself, were taking credit for the sudden marriage of the ambassador from the Khanate of the Crimea, Prince Javid Khan. The prince had married the beautiful slavewoman that the sultan had presented him with just three weeks prior. He had also, it was rumored, legally freed the woman from the bonds of her slavery. It was a love story worthy of the famed tales of Scheherazade, and the gossips of Istanbul made the most of it crediting the woman with such rare and unique beauty that she had bewitched her husband. It was even suggested that she might be a peri or possibly a witch.

It had been a simple ceremony at the local country mosque, attended by the bridegroom, a few of his fellow ambassadors including William Harborne, the unofficial English ambassador whose formal appointment would soon be confirmed, and Sultan Murad. Afterward the gentlemen of the wedding party had made their way back to the prince’s palace to partake of a celebration feast. At no time did they even glimpse the bride who remained within the women’s quarters overseeing her own small celebration with the sultan’s mother, Safiye, and her three women servants.

“You are very fortunate, young woman,” said Nur-U-Banu, “to have been made the prince’s wife. He must love you very much. I knew that there was something special about you when I first saw you, and decided that you should be my son’s gift to Javid Khan.”

“Is it true he has freed you legally?” asked Safiye.

Aidan nodded. “He went before a man he called the kadi, and I have the papers safely in that carved sandalwood box you so admired in my bedchamber. I really have much to thank you both for, my friends. My lord Javid is a good man.”

“But you do not love him, do you?” said Nur-U-Banu.

“No. I will never love anyone but my beloved Conn,” replied Aidan. “I am, I suppose, a one-man woman, but that does not mean I shall not give all my attention and my caring, and my loyalty to my lord Javid, for I will.”

Nur-U-Banu nodded. “You are very wise, my child, and who knows that in time you may learn to love the prince, especially if you should be fortunate enough to bear him children. That often changes a woman’s heart. You did not, after all, bear your first husband any children.”

“Did you love my lord Murad’s father?” asked Safiye wickedly, for Sultan Selim II had been a notorious drunk, and weak ruler.

“Not at first,” said the sultan valideh looking piercingly at Safiye. “We are not all so lucky as you were, my dear. My Selim was not a lovable man upon first acquaintance. It was only when I took the time to know him that I saw why he was as he was, and so I made the effort to care for him which in return brought me his love. It is harder to work at love, Safiye, but perhaps in the end it is more rewarding.”

“Tell me of Sultan Selim,” said Aidan, for she was curious about the man about whom Nur-U-Banu spoke with such tender affection.

“He was the son of the great sultan, Suleiman, whom we called the
lawgiver,
although in the West he was called the
magnificent.
His grandfather was Selim I, a brilliant general; his great-great-grandsire was Mohammed, the conqueror of Constantinople, now called Istanbul. As you can see, my Selim came from an illustrious line. Alas, however, his mother, Khurrem Kadin, was a wicked, wicked woman. He was her first child although she bore Sultan Suleiman two other sons, and a daughter. Sultan Suleiman had another son though by his bas kadin, Gulbehar, and it was this boy, Prince Mustafa, who was his heir. He was in his middle twenties when Khurrem turned his father against him, and had him murdered. His harem and his children were eliminated also. Khurrem then caused the death of her second son, Prince Bajazet, another able young man. Her third son was a cripple, and could not by law inherit due to his deformity. He died, some said, of a broken heart, for he had adored his half-brother, Prince Mustafa, who was always so kind to him, and his brother Bajazet.