Love Wild and Fair (61 page)

Bothwell was so weakened that he could barely mount his horse, and he cursed Conall roundly. Conall simply said, “I’ve found a tavern several streets over owned by an Englishman who knows how to cook beef decently,” and led the way to La Rosa Anglo. A table in a private room awaited them. The landlord, himself from the north of England, served them slices of hot half-raw roast beef dripping its bloody juices onto great slabs of Yorkshire pudding. The table held a pottery bowl of artichokes in oil and vinegar, a tub of sweet butter, and a hot round loaf of crusty bread. The flagons were filled to the brim with foaming brown ale, at the sight of which Bothwell’s eyebrows shot up.

The tavern keeper grinned toothily. “Aye, me lord! October ale it is! I makes it and casks it meself each year. ’Tis no easy task in this place!”

Bothwell sat down. He didn’t feel particularly hungry, but suddenly the scent of the beef began to work its magic on him and he reached for the salt. Half an hour later he pushed back his chair and said, “Thank you, Conall.”

The captain nodded. “I’ve taken the liberty,” he said, “of asking Master Kira to see you. He’ll be waiting for us now, my lord.”

“Can he help?”

“Possibly, my lord. The Kiras’ main banking branch and their family head are both located in Istanbul.”

Bothwell rose and paid the landlord. The man gaped at the generous coin in his hand. “Thank ye, sir,” he babbled. “Anytime we can serve the border lord, we’re proud to do so!”

But Bothwell had already mounted and was riding towards the Jewish section of the city, and Pietro Kira’s house. Conall smiled, pleased that he had roused the earl from self-pity. They reached the Kira dwelling and were quickly ushered into the best salon. Servants hurried in with wine and biscuits.

Then came Pietro Kira, elegant in a long, fur-trimmed black gown, a large gold chain and pendant hanging about his neck and shoulders. He grasped Lord Bothwell’s hand, saying, “I am so sorry to receive you under these circumstances, my lord. Let us sit down. You will tell me everything that you know.”

The earl repeated what he had learned from young May, and from Angela di LiCosa. “Yes,” nodded the banker, “we knew all of that, but it is good to have it confirmed. We have already sent a message to the head of the family in Istanbul. Do not be afraid for your wife, my lord. She has friends about her, and when the time is right we will contact her. She is a brave and resourceful lady.”

“I would go to Istanbul as soon as possible, Signor Kira.”

“Indeed you would, my lord, but you must not. At least not yet. Not until we have ascertained that the countess has arrived, is safe, and has been contacted by our people. For you to show up in the sultan’s capital demanding your wife’s return would be absolutely fatal to you and possibly also to your wife.

“Sultan Mohammed is a strange man given to alternating moods of great kindness and unbelievable cruelty. He is deeply fond of his vizier. If Cicalazade Pasha is taken with your beautiful wife and you arrive to demand her back, you could find yourself quickly dead, my lord. Let us move slowly and carefully. The countess is quite safe. It would not serve Cicalazade Pasha’s purpose to hurt her.”

“But how will I get her back, Pietro Kira? How?”

“When we know what we must regarding your wife’s position, then we can plan, my lord. It may be possible to ransom her. More likely, we will have to abduct her. In the meantime, please return to your home and wait to hear from me. And, my lord, I think you should know that your wife’s monies are at your complete disposal. Prior to her arrival here in Naples she arranged with the House of Kira that you and your children should inherit her wealth should anything befall her.”

Bothwell looked pained. “I cannot touch a penny-piece of her money,” he said.

Conall said quietly, “Ye’ll need gold for the running of the household, my lord. Why not simply have all the bills sent to Signor Kira? He will keep a strict accounting. I know ye would ne’er take her wealth for yourself. But lord, man, yer her husband, and she’d nae thank me if I let ye starve to death afore she comes home!”

Bothwell nodded sadly, absently. “Whatever ye think is right, Conall. I leave it to ye.”

Conall turned again to the banker. “Your messengers are swifter than ours, sir. Will you see that the young Earl of Glenkirk is informed that my lady’s children are to remain safely with him until further notice? She had sent a message asking that they be sent out to her, but now, of course, ‘tis impossible.”

“We will see to it, captain,” said Pietro Kira, already thinking about the message he would be sending to his uncle in the Ottoman capital.

Istanbul was the home of the Kira family. Once a small merchant family of Jews, they had, thanks to their matriarch Esther Kira, risen to become one of the most powerful banking houses in all of Europe and Asia.

Esther Kira had been born in 1490. At six, she and her small brother, Joseph, were orphaned and taken into the house of their father’s oldest brother. At twelve, Esther was peddling hard-to-obtain merchandise to the harem ladies of the rich. At sixteen, she was allowed entry to the imperial harem, and at twenty, her family’s fortune was made when she met Cyra Hafise, mother of Suleiman the Magnificent. When Sultan Suleiman ascended the throne in 1520, Esther Kira and her family were forever exempted from the paying of taxes for services rendered the crown. No one, including Esther’s family, ever knew what those services were, but it would have been unthinkable to question the imperial word.

Considered of value now by her uncle, Esther was married off to his younger son. When her only brother-in-law died childless, it was Esther’s sons who inherited the now-great banking house. That was only just, since it was Esther’s efforts that had brought the Kiras their stunning success.

Just as Esther had been a favorite of Suleiman’s mother, she became the favorite of Suleiman’s favorite wife, Khurrem Kadin, and of Selim II’s favorite, Nur-U-Banu, and of Murad III’s favorite, Safiye. Safiye was the mother of the present sultan. Esther Kira was now in her hundred and eighth year, showed no signs of slowing down, and enjoyed nothing more than a good intrigue. The times, she often complained, were not nearly as exciting as they had once been.

The current head of the House of Kira was Esther’s fifty-three-year-old grandson, Eli, eldest son of her eldest son, Solomon, who had recently died in his mid-eighties. Eli Kira was confused as to what Cousin Pietro expected of him. He had, after all, never even slightly circumvented the law, let alone contemplated breaking it entirely by stealing a woman from someone else’s harem. Obedient, however, to the lesson drummed into him since childhood, he immediately consulted with his grandmother.

The once lustrous dark hair was now snow-white, but the currant-black eyes had lost none of their sparkle. Had Cat’s great-grandmother Cyra Hafise still been alive, she would easily have recognized her old friend. “I will,” she told her worried grandson, “pay a call upon Lateefa Sultan. If this woman is indeed in the harem of Cicalazade Pasha, the princess will know.” She chuckled richly. “And if this woman is anything like my lady Cyra …” She stopped, and the chuckle became a cackle of laughter. “Aiiiiii! May Yahweh have mercy on the poor vizier!” This information did nothing to reassure Eli Kira of the wisdom of his course, but he was a man of scrupulous honor, and his family’s success was due to this woman’s family. Therefore he owed her, and he would pay the debt Lateefa Sultan was delighted to see Esther Kira. “It has been much too long,” she said, settling the old woman comfortably, and directing the slavewomen to bring sweet sherbets and the sticky paste candy that she remembered Esther loved.

“I am old beyond time, my child,” said Esther Kira, “and it is not often I go to see friends. My strength is not as it once was.”

Lateefa Sultan cocked her head to one side. “You know that I am delighted you are here,” she said, “yet I do not fool myself that you have expended your precious strength on a mere social call.”

The old woman nodded. “A new woman has recently been introduced into your husband’s harem.”

“There are many new women, Esther. They come weekly.”

“Do not play word games with me, my child. I was old before you were born. You know the one of whom I speak.”

“Incili,” said Lateefa quietly. “I am quite sure you mean Incili.”

“What do you know of this woman, my princess?”

“Very little, Esther. She was sent to my lord by his sister. He is besotted with her.” Here Lateefa paused a moment. “It is not common knowledge yet, Esther, but Cicalazade Pasha has—with my permission, of course—taken Incili as his second wife.”

Esther Kira sucked in her breath sharply. “Then it must be she whom I seek. Will you introduce me to her, Lateefa Sultan?”

“Who is she, Esther? How do you know of her?”

As they were alone, Esther decided to take the princess into her confidence. She would need her aid. “She was born a noblewoman in her own land,” said the old lady. “Her first husband was a great lord of their country, her second a greater lord. She is beloved by her own king, who wanted her for his mistress. She is admired by the French king, who would have been delighted had she remained at his court. And more, Lateefa Sultan. What I would tell you now must remain a secret even from the Lord Cicalazade. Do you agree to it?” The princess nodded. “Your husband’s second wife is a great-granddaughter of Cyra Hafise herself. Eighty years ago I smuggled the youngest of Cyra Hafise’s and Selim I’s sons, Prince Karim, out of the Eski Serai. I put him aboard a ship bound for Scotland. He was accompanied by my brother, Joseph.

“The little prince was six years old, and the last of Selim’s sons other than his full older brother, Suleiman. Cyra Hafise was afraid that the child would be a rallying point for malcontents when her husband died and Suleiman ascended the throne. She did not want him killed. Though Suleiman loved his little brother, he would eventually have had to dispose of the boy if his own reign was to stay trouble-free.

“An epidemic of plague struck the city that summer, and Cyra Hafise and I arranged that it appear the little prince had the disease. She took him into isolation. After several days I smuggled the dead body of a child the same size as Prince Karim to her, and I took the living child out the same way. The long-decayed bones resting in the grave of Prince Karim are those of a poor, nameless boy.

“And that, my child, is why the Kiras were exempted from paying taxes when Sultan Suleiman became our ruler. Neither he, nor his father, nor anyone else in this land knew that Prince Karim lived. And in Cyra Hafise’s homeland of Scotland, only my brother, Joseph, a priest, and Cyra Hafise’s brother and father knew the child’s true parentage.”

Lateefa’s eyes were wide in amazement, and old Esther Kira laughed. “There is more, my child! That was Just the beginning of the intrigue. If you were to open the coffin of the great Cyra Hafise herself, you would find naught but stones! Twice Suleiman’s favorite wife, Khurrem—may Allah curse her memory—tried to poison my dear lady. My lady Cyra knew but two ways to stop her. Either she had to go, or Khurrem had to go. Cyra Hafise’s one weakness was that she loved her son too well. She feigned her own death, and returned to her homeland. Before she did so, however, she told Sultan Suleiman that he must be on his guard against Khurrem in the future. He wept and made a great protest at her secret going, but he heeded her not. Khurrem was later responsible for the deaths of Suleiman’s two best sons—Prince Mustafa and Prince Bajazet. This left the misfit Selim II to inherit the Ottoman Empire.

“Do you know the day when Cyra Hafise actually died? On the very same day that Sultan Suleiman did! And Incili is a great-granddaughter of Cyra Hafise and Sultan Selim, and a granddaughter of Prince Karim, as you are a great-granddaughter of Firousi Kadin and Sultan Selim, and a granddaughter of Guzel Sultan.” The old woman cackled and nodded her head. “Lateefa Sultan and Incili share more than a husband!”

“Does she know of her imperial ancestry, Esther?”

“I do not know that, my princess, but I would imagine she knows at least some of it.”

“Then why has she not spoken?”

“Possibly because she was not sure how to use the information. She has probably not yet decided how to escape from here.”

“Escape? Good heavens, Esther! Why would she want to escape from here? My lord is madly in love with her, and she has every luxury money can buy.”

“She does not have her freedom, my child. In her land women are free to roam as they please. As for luxury, she is a fabulously wealthy woman in her own right. But most important of all … when she was stolen away she was a bride of two months, wed to a man she has loved deeply for many years. He reciprocates her feelings, and it has been all my nephew in Naples can do to keep him from coming with a rescue force to retrieve her. You must help me to aid her in escaping, Lateefa Sultan.”

“I would never deliberately do anything to harm my lord Cica. He loves Incili as he has never loved anyone—even me. I do not want him hurt.”

“Listen to me, my child. If Incili is one-tenth the woman her great-grandmother was, she will try to escape. She will die trying rather than be separated forever from her true husband. Will that not hurt your lord Cica more? He is a proud man, and if he is openly scorned by this woman, it will hurt him more. Until now you have held the place of honor in your husband’s heart and household. But if Incili remains, he will soon put her above you. Your royal family will be publicly shamed, which means the sultan will become involved. Who knows what he will do?”

Lateefa Sultan looked wretchedly uncomfortable for a moment. Then she clapped her hands and a slave entered. “Go to the lady Incili, and tell her that Lateefa Sultan has an old friend visiting whom she would like to present to her.”

When the slave had left the room, Lateefa turned to Esther Kira. “I have met her only once, but she is charming. I know that Cica will not accept a ransom for her. I have never seen him this way about any woman. He bitterly resents any time spent away from her.”