The Saracen: The Holy War, Robert Shea [best beach reads TXT] 📗

want to know.

"He put his arms around me and kissed me many times," she said.

David turned fully to look at her, saying nothing.

"Whenever he took me in his arms, I thought of you."

He closed his eyes.

When she was with David she never grieved over the turns her life had taken. She never felt sorry for herself, as she did with Simon, because she had not married and could not marry. Simon had actually said he wanted to marry her, and in the end she had believed him. That seemed like a dream now. A pleasant dream, but an impossible one.

For an instant she tried to picture herself, a woman of Constantinople wed to a Frankish lord and living in a castle in the north of France. If such a preposterous thing should come about, she would be enormously wealthy and powerful—though she had not really thought about that when she was with Simon. She was not herself when she was with Simon. And now, when she was herself and able to see things clearly, the wealth and power still did not matter, because they would give her no pleasure if she had to live among barbarians.

When she was with David she never worried or even thought about her future, what life would be like for her when she was older. With David she thought only of now.

He had opened his eyes and was staring at her. She looked at him, standing tall and fair.

I love you, David. I want you so.

Why had it not happened? Soon it would be a year since they had met at Lucera, and she had long known that she wanted him, and believed that he wanted her as well. But something had always held him back.

Her body grew warm inside her cold garments.

It is not because of me that we have waited this long.

There was a question in his eyes, and she felt something inside[46] her pulling her toward him. She took a faltering step across the tile floor. Then another, surer one.

He held out his arms, his harsh mouth softening as his lips parted slightly.

"Come to me," he said.

He watched her walking toward him one step at a time, and he thought she looked like a woman in a trance. Her head was lifted to receive his kiss.

"How like rose petals your lips are," he said in Greek. He had never spoken Greek to her before. She stopped her slow march toward him and gave a long, shuddering sigh.

Then she ran the last few steps and threw herself into his arms. Joy flooded his chest as he pulled her against him.

At last, at last, at last!

He had wanted to hold her like this for so long, and much of the time had not even been aware that he wanted it.

He had not wanted to be aware of it, he thought, knowing that he must use her against his enemy. And how he had hated Simon de Gobignon simply because Simon was to have Sophia.

I should have known then that my hatred for de Gobignon was a measure of my love for her.

But he had not wanted to know that either, because Blossoming Reed, the daughter of the sultan, awaited him in El Kahira, and he had sworn to be faithful to her all his life.

Take as many women as you like. But love always and only me.

He felt a chill, and realized that he was feeling cold not merely because of the memory of Blossoming Reed's warning, but because Sophia was rain-wet against him. She had ridden through the storm still thundering away outside, and he felt a cold dampness soaking through his gown.

"Your clothes are wet," he said, continuing to speak Greek.

She rubbed herself against him. "I am wet to the skin. I need to take these clothes off."

"Yes. Why not do that?"

Without hesitation she stepped out of the circle of his arms and undid the brooch that held her printed shawl around her shoulders. She would not be shy, he realized. There had not been time, in the life she had led, for hesitation with men. Only, he hoped that she would not, like some of the experienced women he had known, show little feeling herself while she let him use her in any way that pleased him.

She is not that sort. I know it.[47]

Foolish of him to even think it. But some part of him needed to doubt. This moment was too good to be true.

And too frightening. Because what they were about to do was not just satisfy their bodies' hungers; it would seal the bond of love between them. And then he would not be able to send Sophia like a falcon to strike at his enemies. He would not be the same man when he went back to Blossoming Reed. What they were about to do would change both their lives.

Standing in the crumpled heap of orange and green silk that was her shawl, she turned her back to him.

"Help me with the laces," she said. He saw that her gown laced down the back.

"One small moment," he said, running his hand caressingly over her back. He walked to the door. There was still pain in his right thigh when he moved quickly, but now it was overwhelmed by his body's yearning to have this woman. He felt the swelling and pressure of arousal in his loins.

He opened the door of his room partway and looked up and down the shadowy corridor. There was no one in sight. He closed the door firmly and slid home the heavy iron bolt that would guarantee their privacy.

She was standing where he had left her, watching him, her amber eyes warm. He went quickly to her and untied the knot in the laces at her back, marveling at the slenderness of her neck. She could have unlaced the dress herself, he saw, but she wanted him to.

She wore no belt, and the dress fell away. Under it was a white silk chemise without sleeves. Still standing behind her, he dropped his hands gently on her small, square shoulders and slid the chemise down. His eyes followed its fall, savoring her delicate shoulder blades, the shadowed hollow of her back. All that remained now were light green hose attached to a wisp of silk that girdled her hips.

Sophia shivered, and he knew it was not the cold, though the storm was blowing a strong, moist breeze through the partly opened window.

He put his hands on her shoulders, firmly now, and turned her around. She threw back her head and laughed as he stared at her breasts and bit his lower lip.

What Daoud carried under his black gown felt as big and heavy as a mace.

He dropped to one knee before her. He reached around to her buttocks, his palms tingling at their cool firmness, and he slid down the last of her garments. She stood, all exposed, before him.[48]

"Will I not see you naked?" she said with a throaty chuckle. "Is that the Turkish way, for the man to remain clothed?"

"You will soon learn what the Turkish way is, my lady." He leaned forward, still genuflecting, and dropped a dozen light kisses on her belly and thighs, and then buried his face in the rich triangle of hair between her legs and kissed her deeply.

She cried out in surprise and pleasure.

Suddenly he stood up and swung her up in his arms like a Bedouin chieftain carrying his bride to his tent. She laughed delightedly. She felt as light as a child. He strode across the room to the bed and laid her down.

He wrestled his black silk gown over his head and threw it off. Quickly he pulled off the locket Blossoming Reed had given him and dropped it on the gown. He stood over her, looking down at her, and letting her look her fill at him.

"The blond Turk," she said in Greek with a small smile, and moved her hips from side to side.

Slowly she reached up to her head and pulled free the net of pearls woven into her hair. Long locks, black as raven's wings, spread out around her head on the pillow.

"I must look like Medusa," she said.

"Who?"

"A woman with snakes for hair. Men who saw her were turned to stone."

He remembered now: In a bazaar at El Kahira he had listened to the story of the she-monster.

"The sight of you would bring a stone to life," he said.

"Ah, but part of you is already hard as stone. How long are you going to stand there? I want you." The yearning in her voice made something vibrate inside him, as if she had plucked a taut string in his very soul. He was seized by a violent urge to throw himself upon her and take her at once. And she would welcome it, too, he knew.

But this moment was too precious to be allowed to pass so quickly.

He sank to his knees and reached out to pull her hips to the edge of the bed. She squirmed across the bed to help him.

Just after he grew out of boyhood, when he was very wild and afraid of nothing, Ayesha, the youngest wife of Emir Faruk abu Husain, discovered that he existed, and showed him a way to come to her in abu Husain's harem. He knew he would die writhing on a[49] spike if the emir's slaves caught him, but he was also quite certain that such a thing could never really happen to him.

With a boy's eagerness and excitability, he had spent himself an instant after he joined Ayesha in the darkness on her couch.

"The emir is very old and has many wives," she purred. "Rarely can we slip a beautiful young man like you past the harem guards. So we must learn how to pleasure each other. There are many things that will delight a woman's body besides a man's rumh. Shall I show you?"

He was curious, and at his whispered agreement she pushed his head down between her legs and told him what to do.

"And put your fingers here at the same time. Ah, that feels very good."

He looked at Sophia lying open before him and said again, "How like a flower." He saw dew on this flower, and he bent to taste.

He did to her the things he had learned from Ayesha and later on from other harem women.

As he worked upon Sophia the magic of the harem, he listened to her breathing as it grew faster and faster. He watched her breasts rise and fall, her chestnut-color nipples standing up.

She groaned and tossed her head from side to side, the groans turning to screams as she reached a pinnacle. He brought her to another, and another.

Panting, almost crying, she put her hand on his head. "No more. This way of the Turks is wonderful, but I want you inside me now."

He stretched himself full length beside her, put his face, wet with her own sweet liquor, against hers and kissed her with lips and tongue. She seized his shoulders, her nails digging into his muscles, and pulled him over on top of her.

The way was so well prepared that he was within her in an instant. He knew that he could not hold himself back very long, and he gave himself up to the floodtide of pleasure. He raised his head a little so that he could look down into her wide amber eyes, and so that she could see into his soul at the moment when he gave all his force to her.

Almost at the same moment the muscles in her face tensed and her neck corded. Through clenched teeth she cried out again and again and again.

Their bodies relaxed together. Daoud felt that now, in the aftermath of frenzy, their flesh was melting and flowing together and becoming one.

They lay in silence, and a distant growl of thunder told him that[50] the storm outside had passed. He had not noticed its dying away. He felt a cool breeze blowing through the windows.

It seemed as if hours passed while they lay there in silence, arms around each other, legs entwined, and he listened to her breathing slowly grow calmer.

She stroked his cheek and played with the blond hairs on his chest. "Is anything changed now?"

"For us, I think, much is changed."

She kissed him lightly on the cheek. "I love you. Does love mean anything to you Muslims?"

He laughed softly. "Of course it does. In this world, women and perfume are dearest to me. So spoke our Prophet, may God commend and salute him."

She shook her head and ran her finger down his forehead and nose. "I am glad I am as