Silk Merchant's Daughters: Bianca Part 17

"Then go and make a loud fuss above of how ugly I will look," Bianca teased.

"Nonno will be very angry when he discovers what we have done," Francesca said as she stepped out of the gown's skirts.

"Yes, he will," Bianca agreed, "but it will be too late then. Neither he nor the Ziani family will want to be more of a laughingstock than this trick will make them seem. They must laugh with the rest of Venice about it. And Nonno will have a difficult time of seeking another husband for me after this. But, Francesca, are you certain this is what you want to do? Just because I don't want to marry Enzo Ziani doesn't mean you have to take my place at the altar."

"No," Francesca replied. "Enzo is the man I want, and now I shall have him. But, Bianca . . . what if your prince doesn't come for you? What will you do then?"

"He will come," Bianca said. But where was he? she wondered. Surely by now he had reached Istanbul and was already preparing his return. He had to be. It was less than a month until the wedding. She wanted to be gone before that day. She didn't want to put Francesca into the position of becoming a bride at such a young age. Francesca didn't understand that while marriage was of course the fate of every respectable girl, she had time before she must settle. Time in which to be courted by several suitable men. Time that Bianca hadn't had. But if Amir didn't come soon, Francesca would marry Enzo Ziani, and their grandfather would probably send Bianca back to Florence for playing such an incorrigible jest on two families.

The doge himself was coming to the ceremony. He had invited the families to have the ceremony performed in one of the chapels at San Marco's. It was an honor that could not be refused. Alessandro Venier purchased a new gondola, and commissioned two artists to decorate the vessel that would carry the bride to the ceremony and bring the newlywed pair back to his palazzo for a magnificent wedding feast. The gondola, while black, had a cabin that was gilded in gold and had stained-gla.s.s windows. The inside of the cabin was upholstered in velvet and silk brocade. On the wedding day it would be filled with flowers, along with the bridal couple.

"You had nothing like this at your first wedding," their grandfather said to Bianca.

"No, Nonno, I did not," Bianca agreed. "Nor was my gown as fine as the one being finished for me. I thank you for it."

"You will not be unhappy with Enzo Ziani, Bianca," Alessandro Venier said, speaking to her for the first time in kindly tones. "He is the perfect husband for you. I have had luck when choosing husbands for my daughters and granddaughters," he told her proudly. "Your own mother, though reluctant, has been happy with your father."

"Oh, she is, Nonno," Bianca agreed. Of course she is, the young woman thought. He allows her to have her way in just about everything. But you will not get your way in this, Madre. I will have the man I love, even if you could not.

August ended and the September days seemed to fly by. Suddenly it was the day before her wedding, and Amir had not come for her, nor had she heard any news of him at all. Bianca was struggling with herself not to panic. Francesca was almost sick with excitement, especially as she dared not show it to anyone. Even her own maidservant, Grazia, had not been included in Bianca's plot, for Grazia was one of the Venier servants. She had not come from Florence with Francesca. Her first loyalty was to her master, so Grazia could not know what would happen tomorrow, for fear she would expose their carefully laid plans.

"Go home and visit your sister's new baby," Francesca told her servant. "And you might as well remain for a day or two. I shall want no company tomorrow when my sister marries the man I love. I shall probably lie abed the whole day."

Grazia was delighted to accept her young mistress's offer. Francesca had not been good company ever since Bianca's betrothal had been announced. Tomorrow she would probably be a horror, weeping and bemoaning an unkind fate. Grazia was grateful to escape the scenes that were sure to follow over the next few hours and days. She was unaware that the plotters needed her out of the house so they might dye Francesca's glorious red-gold hair dark so the ruse would not be so easily discovered. The younger girl did resemble her older sibling enough that with dark hair she could easily fool even her family for a short time.

Bianca had given strict orders that no one but Agata was to serve her on her wedding day. When her grandfather tried to interfere, she pretended to have a tantrum so he would let her have her own way. Then together she and Agata dressed Francesca in Bianca's wedding finery. The younger girl was faint with her excitement.

"Are you certain you want to do this?" Bianca asked Francesca once again. "I can always simply refuse to dress and get in the gondola."

"No! No!" Francesca replied. "I want to marry Enzo!"

"So be it," Bianca said, drawing down the heavy half-veil that would s.h.i.+eld her sister's features from early recognition.

Agata peeped out the window. "Your grandfather has just gotten into his gondola. He looks quite elegant today in his deep blue velvet robe. It is trimmed with gold and pearls like your gown. Ahh, here is the bridal gondola come up to the palazzo quay. 'Tis a good thing neither of you is sensitive to flowers, for I have never seen so many before."

Bianca hugged her sister gently. "Thank you for helping me," she said.

"Helping you?" Francesca laughed softly. "You are helping me, dear sister, and I shall be forever grateful."

"I will escort the bride downstairs," Agata said. "Stay hidden here, mistress, until I return, and the wedding party is gone." Then she opened the door to the apartment that the two sisters shared, and leading the bridal figure, she descended the stairs into the beautiful circular entrance hall. Agata was dabbing at her eyes with a sc.r.a.p of linen, and the other servants who gathered to see the bride nodded to one another, touched by her devotion to her mistress. Agata, they knew, would be going to Enzo Ziani's palazzo in another day to serve her mistress in her newly wedded state.

Once the bride and her servant were outside the palazzo and on the quay, gloved and liveried footmen helped the bride into her flower-bedecked transport, spreading the skirts of her gown so they would not wrinkle. The big gondola pulled away from the quay, and led by her grandfather's vessel, glided down the small ca.n.a.l and into the Grand Ca.n.a.l. Francesca looked out the gla.s.s windows, enchanted by the beautiful sunny September morning, made even more beautiful by the colored gla.s.s. The cityscape on either side of the water appeared magical. Since her arrival in Venice a year and a half ago, she had hardly been out of her grandfather's palazzo and garden except for a few important and formal events at which Prince Alessandro wished to display his soon-to-be-marriageable granddaughter.

Francesca's heart was beating with excitement. In less than an hour she would be married to the man of her dreams. If he was disappointed at first, her love for him would erase that disappointment quickly enough; she was absolutely certain of it. She would be Enzo's wife, and she would devote herself to making him happy, bearing his children, and raising them beautifully, as her own mother had done. Bianca was a fool to throw away such a wonderful future by waiting for a man who would probably never return for her. Her older sister would probably be sent back to Florence to mitigate the brief scandal that would arise from this day's events. Heaven only knew what their mother would do to her. Francesca giggled, quite pleased with herself.

Suddenly outside there was shouting, and her gondola was b.u.mped several times by another craft. Francesca peered through the windows to see what was happening. A number of large barges filled with cargo had cut off her vessel from her grandfather's gondola. And it seemed she was surrounded on all sides. How inconvenient, Francesca thought, irritated. She didn't want to be late for her wedding. And then the velvet curtain s.h.i.+elding the opening to the cabin was roughly pulled aside by a bald-headed, black-bearded man with one gold earring in his nose and another in his left ear. Reaching in, he caught her lace-gloved hand and yanked her forward.

Francesca screamed, pulling back. "What are you doing?" she demanded of him. "Let me go! Let me go!" She attempted to pull her hand from his, to no avail.

The villain ignored her demands and instead yanked harder, unseating Francesca, which caused her to lose her balance entirely. Pulling her from the cabin, her attacker tossed her over his broad shoulder as if she were a sack of meal. He leapt from the bridal gondola into a smaller gondola hidden between her vessel and the barges. To those watching, it was an amazing feat of balance. He could have just as easily fallen into the water with his burden, but the large man was light on his feet.

Roughly pus.h.i.+ng his captive down into the boat, he pulled a dark cloth over her head. Francesca was still screaming for help that didn't come. The truth was her voice wasn't even heard over the shouting of the bargemen, Alessandro Venier's servants, and her own gondoliers, now splas.h.i.+ng about in the waters of the ca.n.a.l where they had been tossed. What was happening to her? Who was this man dragging her from the wonderful life she had planned? Francesca began to cry. She was suddenly very frightened, finding it difficult to breathe, and her belly was roiling in her cramped, overheated position. Without warning, she fainted.

When she opened her eyes again she found herself suspended in the air between the little gondola below and a larger vessel above. Beneath her, she saw the oars of a galley. Francesca shrieked as her body, still sheathed in the wedding gown, swayed. She was being winched up, she realized, as a s.h.i.+p's rail appeared just beneath her. Several men ran to bring her on board, gently swinging her over the rail, lowering her to the deck, and unfastening her from the device that had held her. Freed, Francesca found her legs were somehow managing to keep her upright despite her terror.

"Beloved!" A tall, handsome man hurried forward. He was dressed in full white pants sashed in dark green and a white s.h.i.+rt open at the neckline, which displayed in part a bronzed chest. His face was clean-shaven but for a well-barbered dark goatee, and his eyes were a gorgeous shade of dark blue. "Did I not say I would come for you, Bianca?" He lifted the veil covering her face, looked at her, and stepped back in surprise. "Who in Allah's name are you?" he demanded. He whirled about, roaring, "You have taken the wrong woman, you fools!"

Francesca began to laugh as her fears evaporated with the knowledge of who this man must be. "No, no, signore, do not berate them. My sister and I exchanged places this morning, for I love Enzo Ziani and she insisted her prince would come." Then without warning her belly rebelled and she vomited all over the toes of his dark boots.

"Who are you?" he asked her, signaling a seaman to clean the mess up with a bucket of seawater. "Let us walk the deck," he said to the bride, "and you will tell me."

"I am Francesca Pietro d'Angelo, signore, Bianca's younger sister. I have been living with my grandfather here in Venice since I turned twelve a year and a half ago. I was being prepared for a Venetian marriage. Then our parents sent Bianca here, and Nonno decided that Bianca was to wed my Enzo." Francesca went on to explain the whole plot to him.

Amir ibn Jem could not help but laugh when she had finished. His clever Bianca had been fortunate in having this younger sister who was willing, nay, eager to help her.

"Where is she now?" he asked Francesca.

"Hiding at Nonno's palazzo," the girl answered him. "If you wish to rescue her, you don't have a great deal of time, signore. And you must escape Venice as well, for they will know it is you who has taken her. She has insisted for months to any and all who would listen that you would not fail her. Where are we now?"

"Anch.o.r.ed in the middle of the lagoon between the island of San Giorgio Maggiore and the Lido," Amir replied. "How far is that from your grandfather's palazzo, Francesca?"

"The little ca.n.a.l to his palazzo is towards the end of the Grand Ca.n.a.l just past Santa Maria della Salute. I can show you, for you will have to get me back."

"I apologize for spoiling your wedding day," Amir said.

"It wasn't really mine," Francesca responded. "I will marry Enzo one day, but when I do he will know it is me, and that I love him. I was foolish to believe otherwise. I think everyone is correct. I am too young to marry right now. But had you not kidnapped me, signore, I should not have had the time to realize it. There is a great deal more to marriage than just a beautiful gown and a flower-bedecked gondola, I am told. But we must hurry now or you will lose the opportunity to regain your own love."

"I told my bargemen to keep everyone busy until my s.h.i.+p had a chance to make the open sea. They will do their best to delay the search for the stolen bride, but you are correct in that we must hurry," Amir told the young girl.

He gave orders in a language that Francesca didn't understand, and then she found herself being lowered once again into the small gondola. Amir swung himself down beside her, and then they were being poled away from the prince's s.h.i.+p. The gondolier rowed very quickly across the lagoon and into the Grand Ca.n.a.l. Francesca directed him to the little side ca.n.a.l where her grandfather's palazzo was located.

"The servants will all be busy preparing for the wedding feast, and drinking Nonno's wine while he is not there to catch them," the girl told the prince. "If we are careful and quick we can slip into the house easily."

And they did, hurrying up the wide marble staircase and going down the hall to the apartment that the two sisters shared. Agata jumped with surprise when Francesca came into the room, but then seeing the familiar figure of Prince Amir she gave a little cry, which caused Bianca to come forth from her bedchamber.

Seeing her sister, she gasped with surprise, but then she saw Amir. Her aquamarine eyes widened, and then filled with tears. "You came!" she said, and the tears spilled down her pale cheeks.

He stepped forward, enfolding Bianca into his arms. "I came," he agreed. "Did I not promise you that I would?"

"It seems as if it has been forever," Bianca told him.

"We have not much time in which to make our escape, beloved," he told her.

"Agata, come and help me get the dark color out of my hair," Francesca said.

"Do not be long," the prince warned the servingwoman. Then, taking Bianca aside, he explained to her the farce that had transpired as he kidnapped the bride and had her brought to his s.h.i.+p.

Bianca found the whole thing very funny, and laughed as she had not in many months. But then realizing that they were still in danger, she stood up. "What shall I take?" she asked him.

"Nothing but Agata, if she would come," he said. "I have the proper garments for you both upon my s.h.i.+p, beloved. Your Venetian finery would not be at all suitable for the life you are to lead. Are you still certain you would come with me, Bianca?"

"Yes! And yes a thousand times, Amir ibn Jem, heart of my heart," she told him.

"Agata, come! We have to go now or we risk being caught."

Francesca's hair was now free of the dark dye, but wet. She ran to Bianca and hugged her hard. "Be happy, dearest sister!" Then she whispered, "He is quite outrageously handsome, Bianca. I don't blame you."

"I'm so sorry your wedding to Enzo was spoiled," Bianca told her younger sibling. "If you truly love him, Francesca, do not settle for another."

"I won't," Francesca replied. "But first I will make him jealous. Now go quickly before you get caught, and your prince imprisoned. The doge would love such a captive."

The two women and the prince left the apartment and hurried downstairs to flee the palazzo. Francesca had been correct. The servants had been so busy drinking their master's wine, and preparing for the wedding feast expected to commence shortly, that the fugitives had managed to come and depart without ever being seen. They entered the waiting gondola. Within a short time, they were rowed out of the Grand Ca.n.a.l and across the lagoon and hoisted up onto the deck of the galley. The gondolier, to their surprise, came too, for he was actually one of the prince's men. The little vessel floated off.

Bianca and Agata were escorted to a large cabin, where Amir left them to change into their Turkish garments while he gave orders for the s.h.i.+p to escape Venetian waters before the precious cargo it carried was discovered. The clothing, while totally different from what they had worn all their lives, was beautifully made. They each pulled on pantaloons, which they sashed at the waist, a modest long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt, a sleeveless vest, and comfortable slippers. There was a single sheer silk veil for head and face that they quickly realized was for the younger woman. The clothing was exquisitely made, of the finest materials. One set was the shade of a ripe melon, and Agata had immediately realized it was for her mistress, as it was decorated with small jewels and gold fringe. The other, which she now wore, was plain but actually a very pretty sea blue in color.

When the two women ventured back onto the main deck, suitably clothed in their new garb, it was to see the s.h.i.+ning towers and domes of Venice fading into the distance, and the open sea stretching ahead of them. A new life awaited them, and Bianca looked happier and more at ease than her servingwoman thought she had in months. Agata did not know what awaited them beyond the sea ahead, but Bianca's joy was too potent to ignore. Whatever they faced, it would be good, the servingwoman decided.

Chapter 13.

By midafternoon, all of Venice had heard the tale of how the Venier bride had been kidnapped on her wedding day and spirited away. It was suspected that she had been taken by some lawless Turk-a prince, it was said. Alessandro Venier's servants were quick to gossip, and they said the girl had been saying for months that her prince would come for her. And she had made no secret of not wanting to wed the charming Enzo Ziani, while her younger sister continued to proclaim her love for the man.

How delicious, the gossips in the Piazzetta and Piazza San Marco decreed as they strolled up and down in the presence of the city's best courtesans. The Ziani family was insulted by the bride's kidnapping, but they could hardly blame the old prince for what happened. Still, they wanted someone to blame. Instead of building such an extravagant gondola in which to transport the bride, could not Alessandro Venier have made better security arrangements for his granddaughter? Yet they had taken Bianca's words about her prince no more seriously than had her own family.

Alessandro Venier was himself shocked by what had happened. He decided to blame Francesca for the debacle. "You wished bad fortune upon your sister," he accused her, "and this is the result of your wickedness!"

"I did not want her to wed my Enzo, it is true," Francesca said, "but I would never wish bad fortune upon anyone, Nonno. This is your fault for insisting that Bianca wed a man she did not wish to marry. But you can redeem the Venier name by offering them me. I will be fourteen in less than seven months, and you said I should wed at fourteen."

Alessandro Venier looked sharply at his granddaughter. "What do you know of what happened, Francesca? How did this infidel manage to get word to Bianca? And where is her servingwoman? I would speak with her."

"I imagine Agata is with Bianca," Francesca said sweetly. "She is very devoted to my sister, Nonno."

"This kidnapping did not happen by chance! If the servant is with the mistress, then someone else in this house knew what was to transpire, and aided them," Alessandro Venier said furiously. "Was it you, Francesca?"

"Nonno! How could I have possibly contacted some infidel I have never laid eyes upon and concocted such an event as transpired today? I had nothing to do with it!"

Of course she hadn't, her grandfather thought. He was grasping at straws in an effort to salvage a bad situation. The truth was that even if they managed to regain custody of Bianca, the Ziani family would not have her now. By running off with her infidel, she had embarra.s.sed them publicly. Even if Enzo Ziani were madly in love with her, he could not accept her back. Francesca interrupted his troubled thoughts with an even more troubling question.

"What will you tell my parents of this day?" she asked her grandfather.

"Go to your room," he said. What was he going to tell his daughter? That she had raised an impossible and disobedient child? The truth was that Bianca's first marriage was at the root of all this trouble today. If Orianna and her husband had not allowed themselves to be frightened by Sebastiano Rovere, G.o.d curse his soul, Bianca would have made a happy Venetian marriage and there would have been the end to it.

But they had practically forced the girl into the arms of that decadent monster, and now a second marriage had caused the foolish girl to rebel. This situation was not his fault, Alessandro Venier decided. It was the fault of Bianca's parents, and he intended to lay it at their door.

He would, of course, have to mend fences with the Zianis. Bianca's dowry was of necessity forfeited to them as a penalty. Then he dangled Francesca's larger dowry before them. He had added to his favorite granddaughter's dower portion himself. The family demurred. He pressed the issue. Enzo Ziani was publicly mourning his loss before all of Venice, drinking and whoring every night until he was the talk of the city.

"He is not of a mind now to wed again," the Ziani patriarch, Piero Ziani, told his old friend, Alessandro Venier. "The family wishes to allow him to indulge his grief and his embarra.s.sment, but he must wed again soon. We need an heir. I will be frank with you, Alessandro. Francesca is beautiful and accomplished. But she is too young for my grandson, Enzo. Carolina was fourteen when she married him, and see how that turned out. No, we must seek an older woman, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, who will have a better chance of bearing a live child for us. Bianca was perfect. I regret what happened on what was to have been their wedding day."

"No more than I do, Piero," his companion said.

"Do you know for certain who took her?"

"It would appear that her kidnapper was Amir ibn Jem, the grandson of Sultan Mehmet. She knew him slightly, for he was her neighbor when she stayed at the Pietro d'Angelos' villa," Alessandro Venier said, telling but a half-truth.

"Enzo told me that he said he would come for her," Piero Ziani murmured.

"The words of a romantic fool. Who could believe such words but a romantic and even more foolish girl? And who would have thought he would actually come?"

Piero Ziani nodded in agreement. "Certainly he was just more than a neighbor to love her so," he said. "If it were not my family who has been embarra.s.sed, or my grandson whose heart has been broken, I should be admiring of such a feat of daring. Enzo asked the doge to complain to the sultan and demand the girl back, but of course the doge said no. The scandal will die, and we cannot endanger our relations with someone as powerful as Sultan Mehmet over a stolen bride. Besides, no vows were spoken."

Alessandro Venier nodded in agreement, but in truth he was infuriated by the Ziani family's att.i.tude. Then he realized that his friend was correct. In the grand scheme of things, Bianca was an unimportant girl. Venice was not going to war with a powerful trading partner over her. What was done was done. "If Enzo is not in any hurry to reconsider my granddaughter Francesca," he said to Piero Ziani, "remember that her mother birthed a healthy son nine months after her marriage. Marco is almost twenty now, Piero. Orianna wasn't much older than her daughter, Francesca. All my daughter's children have survived infancy and early childhood. Seven children. All healthy. All living."

"Let us see what happens in a month or two," Piero Ziani said.

Alessandro Venier had to be satisfied with that. He wrote to his daughter, Orianna, telling her everything that had transpired, cleverly s.h.i.+fting any blame for Bianca's escape onto Orianna's and Giovanni Pietro d'Angelo's shoulders. The Venier family had been made the laughingstock of Venice, and it was their fault. They should have kept Bianca in Florence until she had rid herself of her obsession for her infidel. And if she hadn't done so, then she should have been incarcerated in a cloistered convent where she would not bring shame upon their two families, as she had by running away. They must now consider her dead to them. Her name must never be spoken within the family ever again.

As for Francesca, he would do the best he could for her.

Reading her father's letter, Orianna was both furious and heartbroken by turns. To have been so defied by her own child angered her. To lose her eldest daughter brought her to tears. Still, her father was correct. Bianca's name must be forbidden to them. Her memory expunged. By choosing her infidel prince she had put herself beyond the pale of polite and respected society. Bianca was now dead to them all.

But sailing down the Adriatic coast, Bianca could think only of how happy she was once again. There being no real privacy upon the s.h.i.+p meant that any intimacies between her and Amir would have to be postponed for the interim, but she didn't care. They were together once again. A pavilion had been set up for the two women at the farthest end of the s.h.i.+p's stern. There were a silk couch and several leather and wooden chairs upon which to sit, and two small tables inlaid with tile. They spent most days here beneath a blue-and-gold-striped awning, which protected them from the direct rays of the sun. The s.h.i.+p's crew was not allowed near. Only Amir could join them.

The voyage they would make would give them time to grow used to several changes in their lives. Their clothing was but the start. Bianca would no longer wear the beautiful gowns she had grown up knowing, nor Agata her practical skirts. Turkish garb was, to their surprise, very modest. They wore pantaloons with a blouse and over it an embroidered sleeveless vest. A sash at the waist secured their garments. They were covered from neck to ankles. When they went up on the deck, each woman wore a pelisse with a hood that could be drawn up, and Bianca's face was veiled. But the biggest change of all was that Bianca would now be known by a different name.

"Bianca," Amir said, "means 'white' and is indicative of your old life in Florence and Venice. From this day forth, you will be known as Azura, for your beautiful eyes of aquamarine." Amir took her two hands in his and kissed them. "My beautiful Lady Azura," he murmured to her.

I am Azura now, she thought happily. A new name. A new life. It was good. To her surprise, she found it easy to slough off her old ident.i.ty of Bianca. With it, she left behind all the darkness and misery of the past. But she did feel a certain sadness in leaving her family. Still, had they not as easily discarded her to Sebastiano Rovere in order to save her brother, Marco? Her only value to them had been how they might use her to help the family. Her happiness had meant little to them, but she had done the unthinkable. She had taken her own life in her two hands and made her own choice as to how she would live it. Gazing at Amir, she knew she had made the right decision.

Taking advantage of the autumn winds, their vessel raced down the Adriatic Sea towards the Mediterranean. They pa.s.sed the islands of Corfu, Paxos, Cephalonia, and Zakynthos. Although his vessel was well armed, Amir found he was relieved to escape any attack by the very fierce local coastal pirates. An a.s.sault on his s.h.i.+p would have been beaten back, but he didn't want the two women aboard to suffer such a frightening event.

As they rounded the Peloponnese, he pointed out the island of Kythira, birthplace of Venus and ancestral home of the Venier family. The days were warm, although now and again they faced a rainy day. But then they were in the Aegean Sea, pa.s.sing between Lemnos and Lesbos, cruising into the straits of the Dardanelles and finally the Sea of Marmara early on a misty morning. Slowly, as they reached the fabled city of Istanbul, the fog was burned away by a bright sun.

Azura had stood watching the city take shape before her. It was, she thought, even more beautiful than Venice. The city was constructed on seven hills upon a high, narrow spit of land between the Marmara and a bay known as the Golden Horn. As their s.h.i.+p grew closer, Azura could see the streets and buildings tumbling in disorderly fas.h.i.+on down the hills to the sea. They pa.s.sed palaces and gardens built along the edge of the water.

"The Russians call this city Tsarigrad, which means 'Caesar's City,'" Amir told her. "The Northmen who come call it Mickle Garth, which means 'Mighty Town.'"

"It's amazing to behold, my lord," she told him. "Will we live here?"

"No. I will want my grandfather to know we have returned safely, but then we must make a three-day trip to my home. As I have told you, it is on the Black Sea. We will continue on this vessel, and while we are here you will remain aboard. It is unlikely the sultan will want to see you, beloved. If asked, he must appear ignorant of your and my actions. Venice is an important trading partner for us."

"Men!" Agata snorted when he had gone. "I will wager the doge sent no one after you, mistress. Christian and infidel will cry religion when it suits them to do so, but neither will permit any interference between them with regards to their trade."

Azura laughed. "You are correct," she agreed, but as she spoke she was watching Amir as he left the s.h.i.+p and mounted a great white stallion that had been brought for him to ride from the docks to his grandfather's palace. A coal black man, bare-chested and garbed in cloth-of-gold pantaloons, held the beast, which was beautifully caparisoned in a fine red leather saddle and a bridle of silver. There were six Janissaries who surrounded her prince as soon as he was mounted, and they rode off.