The Ship of Love Read online

  "Let me go," she shrieked, but they ignored her and in a moment had stripped her completely.

  "Now you wear this," Anita said, lifting the costume.

  In despair, Rowena saw her dress taken away, leaving her no choice but to put on the alien garb. As she had feared it consisted of trousers. There was a small gold satin top which covered her bosom, but nothing in between.

  "It's not decent," she gasped, gazing at her bare midriff.

  A shrug was their only reply. They dressed her hair and fitted onto it a gold turban, across which hooked a veil, so that the lower part of her face was covered. Then they hung jewels about her neck and around her bare midriff.

  Now she looked just like a member of a harem, she thought with horror.

  She tried to resist when they took her arms to lead her out, but it was useless. Two more women entered the room and they easily forced her struggling figure to go with them.

  It seemed an endless journey, until at last she found herself on a balcony overlooking the courtyard.

  Looking down she saw a carriage arrive and a man descend from it.

  It was Mark.

  At once a hand came over her mouth, cutting off her cry of joy. It was the Sultan.

  "Yes, it is your friend," he said into her ear. "He has come here seeking news of you. Now we are going down to meet him, and you will hear what I say to him. And then you will watch him depart. You will not cry out, or say a word to let him know that you are here, because if you do, he will be killed in front of your eyes. Do you understand?"

  He loosened his hand and she managed to whisper, "Yes."

  "Good. Remember, what happens to him is up to you."

  He walked away and the two women seized her again, forcing her to follow him. She was taken into the throne room and gasped at the sight that met her eyes.

  At least a hundred other women were there, all dressed identically to herself, lined up in four rows, two each side of the room. They were all on their knees, their heads bowed so their foreheads were touching the floor.

  Her guards took her to a place near the throne, in the front row, and forced her to kneel with her head to the floor.

  Almost at once the doors at the end of the room were thrown open. She heard footsteps coming across the red tiled floor. She did not dare turn her head, but as the footsteps neared she saw enough to recognise Mark's shoes.

  He was there, within a few feet of her, and she dared not tell him. She felt as though her heart would break.

  There was a fanfare of trumpets, announcing the arrival of the Sultan.

  "My friend," came the Sultan's voice, "I have asked you to visit me here because a most tragic rumour has reached me. Is it true – I pray that it is not – that the gracious lady I had the pleasure of meeting yesterday has been lost overboard?"

  "The lady vanished in the night," replied Mark's voice. "Nobody knows what happened to her."

  Rowena trembled. He was so close to her, yet so far away. And he sounded so sad.

  "There are treacherous currents around these shores," said the Sultan. "I know that a woman has recently drowned, for my people found some of her clothes and brought them to me. Tell me, do you recognise this?"

  Rowena could just make out a wisp of lace that brushed across the floor, and knew this must be the robe she had been wearing when she was kidnapped last night. And Mark would recognise it as the one she'd worn in Lisbon, when she had knocked on his cabin door to tell him their relatives were missing.

  There was a total silence, as though Mark had taken it in his hands. Rowena could imagine his face, and what he would be feeling at this 'evidence' that she was dead.

  The Sultan's voice was sympathetic.

  "My friend, I grieve for your loss."

  Mark's voice was low. "Your kindness overwhelms me. But for this I might have clung to hope for a long time."

  "It is best to face a hard truth," the Sultan said. "You can begin to accept her death, and put it behind you."

  "That is true. Now I know the worst, it would be better if my ship left at first light tomorrow."

  "A wise decision, my friend."

  Rowena felt her heart engulfed by despair. It was all over. She had nothing left to hope for.

  She wanted to scream aloud to Mark that she was alive, that she loved him. She wanted to beg him to save her.

  But she must keep silence for fear of harming the man she loved. Tears stung her eyes and the effort of controlling her sobs made her throat ache.

  It was over. His footsteps were walking away.

  Now she allowed herself to turn her head for one last look at the man she loved. As she watched the doors opened, he walked through and they closed behind him.

  Stunned with grief, she let them march her back to her cell. There she fell on her bed in a passion of weeping.

  "Mark," she sobbed wildly, "Mark, Mark, I love you. Don't forget me – I beg you – keep some corner of your heart for me."

  But the only answer was the echo of her own sobs. Through the window she could see the darkening sky, and the cold stars overhead, massively indifferent to all human suffering.

  It was all over. She would never see him again.

  From now on, she would be like a dead woman.

  *

  Anita took her to meet the other wives of the Sultan.

  This was eerie, a ghostly parody of a social occasion. Many did not speak English, but some did. They greeted her politely as the newest member of a club, and seemed to feel that she should be pleased to be welcomed by them.

  They took her on a tour of the palace, which, they said, would be 'hers' as she would be the newest wife, and therefore the 'most favoured'. Clearly this was a great honour, but Rowena wanted only to die of grief.

  Room after room was shown to her, so that she could be proud of her home and the many things which had been collected in it over the centuries. Rowena looked, but the majority of what she saw made no impression on her. Later when she tried to remember what she had seen, the objects which had been pointed out to her had faded completely.

  All she could think of was Mark, holding her garment, and believing her dead. And her heart broke, not for her own tragedy, but for his. He would go away and live out his life without her, never knowing that she had truly loved him.

  He would not know that she had spoken his name on her pillow, through her tears, and that perhaps she had died with his name on her lips.

  Wherever she looked in this terrible place she saw the man she adored. While all the time she knew she would never see him again.

  At last she was allowed to return to her room. They brought her some fruit and she ate it without knowing what she ate.

  Then at last she was left alone, to sob herself to sleep.

  *

  The next day was even worse than the first one. They brought her a selection of clothes and made her try them on one after the other. At any other time the satin and chiffon would have delighted her, but now she could only think that it was taking her further from Mark.

  Where was he? Far away on the sea?

  The woman who was dressing her wept as she worked. Anita told her that she was a previous wife, broken hearted that the Sultan no longer cared for her. To Rowena it was incredible that anyone could love the nasty little man.

  'I suppose the poor woman loves him in her own way,' she thought to herself. 'How can he be so cruel as to make her serve me? He must be a monster. I will die before I will marry him, or any man but Mark.'

  But how? She thought of all the weapons she had seen on the walls, and wondered if any of the guns were loaded. And suppose she failed to die.

  She thought of the way the Sultan had cracked the whip at her, and knew that would be his response to any woman who insulted him by preferring death.

  At last the daylight began to fade. The other women retired, bowing low to her because she was now the favoured one, although all of them knew that the favoured one soon became no more than a servant.
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  Finally she was alone. She stood looking through her window as evening turned to night, thinking of Mark.

  "Where are you?" she whispered. "Have you sailed and left me here? Oh Mark, Mark!"

  CHAPTER TEN

  They came for her at midnight. The door of her cell crashed open and Anita came in with two of the other wives.

  "The Sultan is wakeful," Anita said. "He will have you now."

  The other women took hold of Rowena and began to forcibly dress her in a magnificent wedding costume. Then they arranged her hair in an elaborate style. She sat there listlessly, unable to fight them. What did anything matter now?

  She was marched through more corridors that grew increasingly luxurious, so she guessed they were getting closer to the Sultan's apartments. Then she was thrust into a room hung with drapes of crimson satin.

  Tiger skins lay on the floor. On the walls were swords which bore dark stains, perhaps the dried blood of enemies. The atmosphere was one of magnificent savagery.

  In the centre was a massive bed, covered with heavy crimson embroidered satin. On it was lying the Sultan, fully attired in his glittering robes and huge, bejewelled turban.

  As Rowena came to stand in the middle of the floor, he turned his head to regard her lazily.

  Then he rose from the bed and began to walk around her. He went round again and again while Rowena stood there, listless, broken-hearted.

  "Tomorrow – we marry," he said, "if you please me tonight. If not – I give you to my guards."

  Rowena set her chin, refusing to be intimidated by these words, although they sent a chill of terror through her. The Sultan was still walking around her.

  "You're too thin," he said at last.

  "Then why did you bother with me?" she asked tiredly.

  He thrust his face into hers, and now she could tell that his breath was as foetid as she had known in would be.

  "Because you defied me," he said viciously. "When you came to see me with the English Duke, and I had to give you a chair because you refused to be subservient, as a woman should."

  "That?" Briefly astonishment forced her out of her listlessness. "But it was such a tiny incident – "

  "I was forced to yield. I was forced to yield. That was the moment I decided to have you. From now on you will obey me. You will ask my permission to breathe. Whatever you want, you will come before me and beg for it, and if it is my pleasure I will grant it. You will rue the day you shamed me before my people."

  After the brief moment of life, she had sunk back into grief.

  Oh Mark, Mark!

  "Did you hear me?" he hissed.

  She turned dead eyes on him.

  "Did you hear me?" he shrieked.

  Then she spoke.

  "You're a fool," she said.

  "What?"

  "You're a fool, a silly little man without dignity. The worst you can do to me has already been done, and I don't fear you. But you should be afraid, because if you touch me, I will kill you."

  "You?" he scoffed. "And how will you do that?"

  "I will curse you. I will lay a spell on you that no man has ever recovered from. Every breath you take will be cursed."

  She didn't know where the words came from. It was as though they poured out of her without her volition. She no longer seemed to be herself, but some other creature, who had suffered so much that she was now beyond suffering.

  "If you touch me," she said, "you will be dead within a month, and nobody will know how you died."

  He tried to laugh, but the sound stuck in his throat.

  "Do you think I am afraid of you?" he quavered.

  "Yes, you are afraid of me. And you are right to be afraid."

  He tried to pull himself together. "I will have you arrested – "

  "No," said a quiet voice behind him. "You won't."

  Mark stood there, hatred and vengeance in his eyes.

  A cry of love and joy broke from Rowena. It was impossible, and yet it had happened.

  He had come for her.

  The Sultan looked from one to the other, and a deep terror seemed to come over him. The words died in his mouth and he couldn't move. It was as though he really believed Rowena was a witch who had conjured up her rescuer by a dark spell.

  Quick as a flash Mark yanked down one of the drapes and tore it into strips. Then he pulled off the Sultan's magnificent robe, bound him hand and foot, and threw him onto the bed.

  "How on earth did you get in here?" Rowena asked breathlessly.

  "I had some help." Mark indicated a man, also dressed as a palace servant who had entered behind him. "The Sultan murdered his family and this is his revenge."

  "But you promised to take me with you," the man said urgently.

  "And I'll keep my word."

  Now Rowena noticed that Mark was dressed in servant's clothes, and looked very like the other man. He held up the Sultan's robe. "Put it on," he told Rowena. "Hurry."

  "But nobody will think that I – "

  "They will if you cover your face with this piece of black silk that he wears over his face when he goes out."

  "Sometimes also he wears it indoors," said the servant, "because he does not like people to see his despicable face."

  Swiftly Rowena donned the Sultan's robe, and his great turban. With the black silk in place she might have passed for the Sultan from a distance.

  "It's lucky he's such a tiny little fellow," Mark observed. "Now let's get out of here fast," he said.

  Rowena strode ahead. In front of her walked one servant, shouting the orders that made everyone fall to the ground and hide their faces. Behind him walked another servant, Mark, head down and silent.

  Doors opened ahead of them, letting them through, but Rowena knew that this meant nothing unless they could get through the last door of all.

  Finally they were at the great gates, and there, waiting, was a palanquin, the conveyance in which the Sultan was always carried among his people. It was like a box with open sides, on which hung silk curtains.

  The gates were pulled open. The 'Sultan' climbed into the palanquin, pulled the curtains tightly around so that 'he' was concealed. The two servants positioned themselves one in front of the palanquin, one behind. They bent and lifted it.

  Then they marched out of the palace and were swallowed up in the darkness.

  From this incident was born a legend. The next morning a pathetic, shrivelled creature was found in the Sultan's bedroom in a catatonic state. He could neither speak nor move, and without his fine robes nobody knew who he was.

  Some people claimed that he was the Sultan, and that the strange woman had been a witch who had stolen his soul, and then vanished into thin air, leaving her bridal garments in a heap on the floor.

  But this nonsense was dismissed as superstition. The man was obviously an impostor, and as such he was thrown into a dungeon and left there.

  The real truth, as everyone knew, was that the Sultan had mysteriously left his palace in a closed palanquin, accompanied only by two servants.

  And none of them was ever seen again.

  *

  "You saved me, you saved me," Rowena said over and over again.

  Her heart was so full of joy and relief that almost no words would come.

  They had stayed with the palanquin for a few hundred yards, then stopped by the sea wall, where a horse-drawn carriage was waiting. Rowena stepped out as the men tossed the palanquin over the wall into the water.

  "Ready to go?" asked the coachman.

  "Grandpapa!" she exclaimed in disbelieving delight.

  The servant who had helped them jumped up beside him, while Mark got into the coach with Rowena, and immediately took her into his arms. They clung together, hearts full of joy.

  "You saved me," she repeated.

  "Yes, I saved you," he said exultantly, "and now you belong to me."

  "I thought I would never see you again," she whispered. "I thought you'd given me up for dead."

  "I
never believed that," he said passionately. "If you were dead I would have known, for part of my heart would have died with you. I love you so."

  Then his lips were on hers in the kiss she had secretly longed for since they'd first known each other. Only now did she understand how much she had longed for it.

  As the Duke kissed her and went on kissing her, she felt as if she was giving him her heart and soul. For a moment they were not two people but one.

  "I have never been through such agony as when I first thought you had been drowned," he said, "and then knew instead you had been taken prisoner."

  "How did you know?"

  "The Sultan gave himself away by sending for me and pretending to great sympathy. Such 'kindness' from him wasn't believable. All he wanted to do, of course, was show me your robe in order to convince me you were dead. I was sure the story was false, even before I recognised you."

  "You recognised me?"

  "I caught a glimpse of your hair, and I knew that shining gold could only be you."

  "They said they'd kill you if I made a sound."

  "I guessed as much. But I knew it was you, and I swore I wouldn't let him get away with it, although I couldn't think how to rescue you. But I was given the answer when this man came after me. He promised his help if I would get him away from here. Your grandfather insisted on coming too. He said it was his job to rescue you more than mine. I said it was my job. We had quite an argument about it.

  "And then, when I managed to get into the Sultan's room, I found you were managing to overcome him by your strength of will. However did you think of saying all that?"

  "I don't know where it came from. It was as though suddenly I knew the one thing that could frighten him, but I don't know how I knew it. I'd prayed so hard to God to help me, perhaps that was the answer to my prayers."

  They were reaching the harbour. Men ran out from the boat to help them. In moments they had all hurried aboard, the gangplank was pulled up, and The Adventurercast off.

  Rowena hugged her grandfather eagerly, and thanked him, but all the time she was longing to be alone with Mark. She had so much to say to him, and she was eager to hear what he would say to her.

  But she knew they must wait. Everyone crowded round them, demanding to know what had happened. Rowena had to tell her story again and again, while Mark spent time on the bridge with the captain, ensuring that they made all speed out into the ocean. It was a while before they could be quite certain that they were not being pursued.