Sea Fire (31 page)

Cathy blanched beneath the suffocating gag as she began to perceive what Sarita
had done. Somehow she had arranged to give her to the Sheikh!

“That Kemal man promised me a whole chest of jewels when I told him that I could deliver you! Seems that the Sheikh is fascinated by the notion of bedding a woman with hair the color of yours—not that I think it’s anything special! But that’s sure the only reason he’d want you. There’s nothing else about you to make a man hot with desire. You’re fat as a pig!”

Cathy would have been furious at these taunting words if she had not been so frightened. Once locked away in the Sheikh’s harem, there would be no escape, she knew. His women were kept out of sight of the world, and well guarded. Even if Jon should somehow discover what had happened, and want to free her, she did not see how he could. Once she had become the Sheikh’s property, she would be as good as dead as far as Jon was concerned. He would never even be allowed to see her. . . .

“All clear.” Grogan came back from where he had been peering down the hall. Looming over her where she lay on the bed, he reached for her and scooped her up in his arms. His movements were rough, as though he would enjoy hurting her. Certainly he seemed to spare no thoughts for the delicacy of her condition. Cathy felt the large mound of her stomach being crushed against Grogan’s ape-like chest, and moaned with fear and pain. Much of this, and she might lose the child!

She squirmed and kicked as well as she could as they bore her out of the house, but she knew as she was doing it that it was useless. The most she could hope for was to attract the attention of the servants, who might summon help. Or they might not. They were, after all, the Sheikh’s minions above all else, and to them, Cathy was sure that she was just a woman whom the Sheikh desired. Even if they heard her muffled cries they would likely turn deaf ears. In Rabat, the Sheikh was all-powerful, and to offend him would be to bring down on the hapless one’s head the literal wrath of a god.

The house was one
of many in the complex surrounding the Sheikh’s enormous palace. There wasn’t far to go. With Grogan’s huge strides eating up the distance, it seemed just minutes before they had reached a side door cut into the palace wall, a door that opened as they approached it. On the other side three men waited: Cathy recognized Mustafa Kemal, and shuddered. He was flanked by two huge, hairless eunuchs.

“We got her,” Sarita announced unnecessarily as they entered and the door shut behind them. Cathy saw that they were in a narrow stone passage lit by flaming torches set into the wall.

“You have done well,” Kemal said gravely, his hand coming out to finger Cathy’s trailing hair before being quickly withdrawn. “There was no trouble with Captain Hale?”

“None,” Grogan answered briefly. Sarita, tossing her head, added: “I told you there wouldn’t be. He has already grown tired of her. Now that she is gone, he will be thankful.”

“I hope you are right. I do not desire any trouble,” Kemal said, and motioned to the eunuch standing at his shoulder. “You may give her to Muhammed. She is no longer your concern.”

Cathy was transferred like an unwanted parcel from Grogan’s huge arms to the eunuch’s just as massive hold.

“But what about our reward? You promised. . . .” Sarita whined.

“I have not forgotten,” said Kemal with just a touch of scorn. Over his shoulder to the eunuch, he ordered: “Take her to the Women’s Quarters. Salina-Begum awaits her.”

As Cathy was borne off, writhing uselessly in the huge eunuch’s arms, she heard Sarita’s ecstatic exclamations as she was handed the promised casket of jewels.

The palace seemed to Cathy’s fright-dazed eyes to be a veritable rabbit warren of rooms and passages, all filled with brilliantly colored oriental carpets, dusty tapestries, and hand-beaten, bejeweled gold and silver ornaments.
A treasure in furnishings alone must lie between these walls, she thought abstractedly as she concentrated on trying to memorize the way they had come just in case she should somehow manage to break away. It was a forlorn hope, she knew. The man carrying her would overtake her effortlessly, and even if she should be able to elude him, stiff and silent servants lined every wall. There would be no escape.

The eunuch paused outside an ornately carved wooden door set beneath an arch. Guarding it on either side were two more of the huge, hairless men.

He said something in Arabic to them, and they stood obediently aside. Then he carried her in and across the dimly lit room to lay her gently on a cushioned divan. With a small bow to someone beyond Cathy’s line of vision, he turned on his heel and melted silently away.

“Ahh, they have been rough with you,” an old woman crooned in rusty-sounding English. Cathy, gazing up at her fearfully, saw that she was clad in a
bourka
, as she had learned was required of the Sheikh’s female servants when they were in a position to be viewed by men. Did eunuchs count as men? Cathy wondered absurdly. Then surprise drove every other thought from her mind. Because, as the woman began to gently loosen her bonds, she saw that the eyes just visible through the thick veil were faded blue.

“Who are you?” Cathy gasped, as the woman removed her gag.

“I am Salina,” the woman answered simply, freeing Cathy’s hands and moving down to untie the rope that bound her legs.

“You—you’re English!” Cathy exclaimed, still not believing what her eyes and ears told her was true.

“Once, long ago, I was English,” Salina said sadly. “Now I am Berber. As you will be.”

“No!” Cathy protested instinctively, shuddering at
the thought. Salina smiled.

“That was my reaction, too, but as you see it did me no good,” she said, rubbing Cathy’s ankles where the rope had cut into them. Cathy pushed herself into a sitting position, curiosity banishing even fear from her mind.

“How did you come to be here?” Cathy asked.

“Like you, I was purchased by the Sheikh. But my life has been very different than yours will be. Even as a girl I was very plain, you see, and he did not desire me for his concubine. So I became the
dai
—midwife—to the women. Which is why they have sent me to care for you. You will not be permitted to join the others until after the babe is born, nor will the Sheikh honor you with his presence until then. But I will care for you, and things will be very well. You will see. You need have no fear.”

“Please—you must help me! I don’t want to be the Sheikh’s concubine!” Cathy said desperately, thinking that as her countrywoman Salina just might take pity on her. “I have another child, a little boy who waits for me in England. And there is a man. . . .”

“The American captain, is it not?” Salina asked knowledgeably, surprising Cathy. Seeing Cathy’s astonishment that she should have even heard of Jon in the seclusion in which all the palace women were kept, she smiled again. “Oh, we hear much, even in
purdah.
And it is said that the American
captain—a most handsome, manly man—has for his woman one with hair the color of purest gold, whom the Sheikh greatly desires. We have expected your coming for some time, little one.”

“My name is Cathy,” Cathy said automatically, her mind on Salina’s revelations.

“And mine was once Sarah,” the old woman told her. “But since I came to live in the Sheikh’s palace, I have been known as Salina at his
pleasure. I am sure he will find a new name for you, too—something soft and beautiful, as you are.”

“I must get away!” Cathy moaned, horror reclaiming her as she pictured being forever imprisoned in the Sheikh’s harem, living only to serve his pleasure, even renamed at his whim.

“You will never get away.” Salina was patient but inexorable, as if she was pointing out an incontrovertible but slightly unpalatable fact to a child. “No one does—or even wants to, after a while. You will be well treated, and much honored among the women. No doubt your beauty will win the Sheikh’s favor, and he will summon you often to his bed.”

“Oh, dear God!” Cathy felt ill as she considered this. “Please—please let me go! I beg of you! I could slip away. . . .”

“I am sorry, little one, but if you should disappear I would be severely punished—probably blinded. I cannot risk it. And your life will not be bad with us. Trust me.” Salina, seeing Cathy’s agitation, patted her arm soothingly. Cathy pushed her hand away.

“I won’t stay here!” she half sobbed. As Salina leaned consolingly over her, Cathy saw her opportunity. With one hard shove, she sent the old woman reeling across the small room. In an instant Cathy was on her feet, dashing for the door. Desperately she pulled at it, and felt it open under her hands. She jerked it wide—and froze. The two enormous eunuchs were blocking the door, staring down at her evilly.

“Ahmad, Radi, the little one is foolishly upset. You will bring her back to me, and I will give her a little drink to make her feel better. Tomorrow she will be more sensible, we will hope.”

Ahmad and Radi each grasped one of Cathy’s arms, and bore her back into the room. Cathy didn’t waste her strength trying to resist. It would be useless, as she saw all too clearly. Even if she got beyond the room, she would not get more than a few steps down the passageway before dozens of the Sheikh’s servants were upon her.

As the eunuchs pushed
her down onto the soft divan, Cathy turned desperate eyes on Salina.

“Please. . . .”

Salina clucked pityingly.

“Poor little one, you must not upset yourself so. Consider the child. Everything will be all right, you will see. Now, you must drink this. . . .”

She held what looked to be a solid gold goblet to Cathy’s lips. Cathy, held on either side by the eunuchs, had no choice. As she swallowed, she thought that the liquid tasted slightly bitter, like bad wine. Then the room began to spin around in sickening swirls. With a chill of horror chasing down her spine, Cathy realized that she had been drugged.

T
he next twenty-four hours were forever blurred in Cathy’s memory. Salina re-administered the drug, which she assured Cathy was only a harmless potion designed to keep her from doing herself or her child an injury, at regular intervals. Cathy slept most of the time, rousing only to eat. Salina apparently was constantly in attendance on her, bathing her and brushing her hair even as she slept. Cathy, troubled by nightmares of black dungeons and sinister men in long white robes, felt tears trickling down her cheeks.

It was during one of her brief periods of semi-wakefulness that Cathy heard a commotion in the passageway. Dulled by the drug, she didn’t even trouble to wonder at it, just noticing without concern that Salina had left her side and was listening, with her ear pressed to the door.

Cathy’s eyes were closing again as she heard as if through a thick fog the sound of the door being opened, and then Salina screaming. The shriek was abruptly cut short. Cathy, feeling vaguely alarmed, forced her heavy eyelids to open. She thought the dark face bending over her was merely a figment of her dreams, but she smiled drowsily at it anyway.

“Cathy, wake up!
” a voice commanded harshly, and a hurting hand grasped her arm and shook it. Cathy blinked as her head lolled limply back and forth. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that this too-rough vision really was Jon. . . .

“Jon . . . ?” she murmured testingly, and squinted as his face came into focus.

“Good God, they’ve drugged her,” she heard him mutter furiously, and then he was bending over her. She felt his hard arms slide around her and lift her carefully. Then it seemed as if he was carrying her away, down through the labyrinthine rooms and passages of the palace. As if in a dream Cathy saw the prone figure of Salina lying just inside the door of the room where she had been imprisoned, and, a little further down the hall, the sprawled and bloodied bodies of the eunuchs Ahmad and Radi. But her head was too fuzzy to give these visions any credence. It was not until the bitterly cold night air hit her face that Cathy began to realize that Jon had, miraculously, found and freed her.

“How—how . . . ?” she stuttered, as he lifted her up onto a horse and then mounted swiftly behind her.

“So you’re waking up, are you, Sleeping Beauty?” he sounded grimly amused. “God, you’ve given me the worst twenty-four hours of my life! But we don’t have time to talk now. I’ll tell you all about it when we’re safely away.”

He spurred the horse to a gallop as he spoke, one hand on the reins and the other holding Cathy firmly before him. She rested tiredly back against the iron wall of his chest, still too much under the influence of the drug to do more than feel vaguely thankful for her deliverance. As they clattered down onto the dock, and Jon leapt from the saddle and then reached up to swing her once again into his arms, Cathy saw to her puzzlement that the sky above the northern side of the Sheikh’s palace seemed curiously alight.

“Look. . . .” she told Jon bemusedly, lifting her arm and pointing at the strange orangey glow. Jon laughed harshly.

“I fear the
Sheikh’s palace is burning, my love, and if we don’t get the hell out of here we may soon burn with it,” he told her, striding along the dock to where a small boat waited. O’Reilly was in the boat, and Jon handed Cathy to him before jumping in himself.