“The captain has been given orders to set sail immediately,” the prince told his guest. “His destination is Istanbul. You will find a ship there to take you home.” He held out his hand to Marco. “I greeted you in peace, brother of my wife. I now bid you farewell. Go in peace and with my friendship.”
Marco took the prince’s hand and shook it. “Thank you, my lord,” he told him. “I can see that you have treated my sister well. I cannot deny her love for you. I offer you my friendship,signore.” Then he waded out to the small craft, and climbed into it. He turned with a smile and gave Amir a friendly wave. Then Marco Pietro d’Angelo faced the sea again.
The prince watched as the little boat was swiftly rowed out to the large ship. By the time the prince had climbed back up to the palace gardens his vessel was already under way, sailing from the small cove that served the Moonlight Serai and headed for the Bosphorus. He reentered his home and went directly to the harem. There he found Azura as he had expected he would, standing by a window watching too.
Hearing his entry, she turned, smiling. “He did not come for my family’s sake. He came for his own. I have relieved his poor burdened conscience,” and she went on to explain her conversation that afternoon with her brother.
“Are you saddened to see him go knowing you are unlikely to meet again?” he asked her.
“No. My life is here with you,” Azura told him, smiling to herself as she spoke. Men! Why was it that they always seemed to need reassurance from those they loved or cared for? she wondered. Then she looked into his deep blue eyes and said, “I want a child, Amir. A child of our love for each other. Maysun and Shahdi would like me to have a child too, for the harem is lonely without the laughter of children.”
“You know the dangers, beloved,” he reminded her. “My uncle could at any time turn on me because of my father. Remember that he has three living sons of his own. If our child were a male, it could present a danger to us all, but to you in particular. Besides, there has been no sign of a child in all the time we have been together.”
“Because Nadim mixes a potion each morning that Agata presents to me as a strengthening drink. I am not supposed to know it is to prevent conception. There is no harm in it, so I drink it down quite dutifully,” Azura told him with a small laugh.
“I should have them both beaten!” Amir exclaimed, feigning anger.
She laughed again. “They protect us by their actions,” she told him.
“A child,” he said slowly. “I had not thought to have a child, especially when you did not seem to prove fertile. A daughter who favored her mother would be a joy. Still, it is a serious chance that you contemplate, beloved.”
Amir knew his uncle well. Bayezit was a patient man, but he was also unafraid to act in his best interests, as his race to reach Istanbul when Sultan Mehmet died had proved. He had been at a farther distance than his brother, and yet he had gotten to the capital first, where he had promised the Janissaries what they wanted and paid the right bribes so that his brother had no chance at all of gaining the throne. Bayezit would not hesitate to have an infant slain if he felt the child was a future danger to his throne. And how would Azura feel having her newborn torn from her arms and smothered? Could he subject her to that?
Still, if they dared it, a child would bring their house such joy. And it could as easily be a daughter as a son. A daughter who one day could be used to the sultan’s best advantage in an important marriage alliance. An Ottoman princess would please his uncle. Of all Amir’s cousins, he suspected that the youngest of the sultan’s sons, Selim, would be the one to father a large family. Ahmed, despite Bayezit’s favor, preferred gambling, drinking forbidden wines, and pretty page boys. Korkut was a serious scholar interested only in his studies. But Selim was much like Bayezit himself. Selim would take the throne one day, outsmarting his brothers as his father had, and it would be Selim’s family that would prevail.
“I do not know if I can put us in such jeopardy, beloved,” Amir considered. “The sultan has been favorable towards me, but there are those who have his ear, who would just as soon see my father and me dead. My uncle’s threekadinsare ambitious women, especially Ahmed’s mother, Besma. It is rumored she managed the death of Bayezit’s eldest son, the offspring of anotherkadin, to further her own son’s chances at the succession. How would you feel if after you gave birth your son was taken immediately from you to be killed?”
Azura gasped, horrified. “They would not do that!”
He said nothing, and his silence gave confirmation to his words.
“Would they?” she whispered.
“I cannot bear to see you unhappy, beloved,” Amir told her. “If you want a child, I will give you one, but understand the risks involved if I do and you bear me a son.”
“If we had a son, why would the sultan have to know?” Azura asked. “We do not live in Istanbul. How would he even learn that we had a family?”
Amir laughed. “If I did not inform him of a child’s arrival, it would appear treasonous on my part. You are thinking like a Florentine.”
“I am a Florentine,” she said.
“No,” he told her. “You are my beloved, my wife, and everything that came before us is irrelevant. I will not share you with your history except where I am involved. I am a jealous man where my wife is concerned.”
She kissed his mouth sweetly. “You must learn to share me, for I want a child, Amir. I will take the chance that your uncle will be merciful to us if I have a son, but I will have a daughter so we need not fret about it.”
“You have shown no signs of a child yet,” he said. “How can you be certain that you will have one now that you have decided you want one?”
“I have told you that I only need to stop drinking the strengthening drink that Nadim mixes and Agata feeds me each morning. They think I do not know,” Azura explained to him. “My mother drank a similar liquid when she did not wish to have more babies. It is possible to control these things.”
She had mentioned this to him before, he now recalled, but he had been so concerned with other matters it had slipped entirely from his mind. Once again he didn’t know if he should be angry or not. He realized that his slaves were indeed attempting to safeguard him and his wives as well as their household. “Stop drinking the potion,” he said to her. “I will speak with Nadim and with Ali Farid. We will take our chances and have a child, beloved.” As he said it he wondered if he was being wise. Women were known to die in childbirth. He didn’t want to lose her, but he also wanted to make her happy. He caught her hand and kissed it before placing it over his heart for a moment. Then he released it with a smile.
“Now I will be content,” Azura promised him. “And Maysun and Shahdi will be as well, for this child will belong to all of us, my love.”
“Come to me tonight,” he said, and she smiled into his eyes.
“As my lord commands,” she purred, giving him a quick kiss.
He grinned mischievously at her and chuckled. “How amenable you are, beloved, when you gain your own way with me.”
