Bedazzled

India jumped down from the window seat, and stamped her foot. 'My family will pay you a fabulous ransom for my safe return. I could pay you the ransom myself. Don't you understand, Arug Agha? I am rich! Why, I own two trading ships: the Star of India, and the Prince of Kashmir. They are on the East Indies run, bringing spices, silks, and jewels to England each year. All that in addition to a great inheritance left me.'

'I have listened to you carefully, my beauty, now you must listen to me. I do not have the right to make any decision regarding your fate. You, this ship, and everything on it, men and cargo alike, now belong to the dey of El Sinut, who rules in the sultan's name here. It is he who will make the decision concerning your fate. It is my job to bring you all safely into the harbor of El Sinut, and with Allah's help, guidance, and blessing, I will.' He arose. 'Now, I will bid you good night. You need have no fears, my beauty. You are quite safe.'

'My cousin?' she asked.

'I will allow him to come and see you in the morning,' the agha told her. Then, with a bow, he departed the cabin, locking it behind him.

India paced the room. This was impossible. And none of it would have happened if you had heeded your parents, a little voice in her head said. 'God's nightshirt!' she swore, but the little voice was right, and she knew it. If she had listened to her family instead of allowing her foolish heart to rule her, she would be safe at home in Scotland, and not the captive of Barbary pirates. Her family wouldn't force her to marry someone she didn't really love. They could try, but in the end she would have gotten her way if she had just been a bit more patient, India decided. And as much as she loved Adrian, he had been wrong to cajole her into the elopement. Just look what had happened to them!

And he would more than likely be ransomed, but everyone seemed to be very sure that she wouldn't be. There was a stigma attached to a girl finding herself in this position. Still, her great-grandmother, and her grandmother, as well as her aunt Valentina, had found themselves in similar situations and come home to lead respectable lives. But that had been years ago. Times were different then, and people certainly more reasonable and open-minded. Now, if it were known that Lady India Lindley had been captured by Barbary pirates, it would cause a scandal of great proportions, and no decent man would offer for her. And if Adrian was sent home ahead of her, and she later returned, why even he wouldn't wed her! 'God's boots!' India muttered. What a headstrong damned little fool she had been!

What in the name of heaven was she going to do? How could she save herself? Could she convince this dey to ransom her along with Adrian? It seemed her only option. The only other course open to her was to kill herself, and India knew she didn't have the courage to do that. Besides, if the truth were known, she didn't want to die anyway. But what if this dey fellow decided to keep her? India smiled grimly. She would be the most difficult, the most impossible, the most awful creature he had ever known; and he would certainly send her home, having concluded that a ransom was a better bargain than an uncooperative and raging girl. She was not about to be any man's slave! It was a totally unacceptable concept. She would not tolerate it!

She curled back into the window seat. The sky was dark now, and there was a thin new crescent of a moon reflecting itself delicately into the black sea. Around it, the stars were bright. Was her sister looking at that same moon? Fortune, who was so accepting of their parents' decision to find her a husband in Ireland, so content to settle herself at MacGuire's Ford, and be mistress of her own lands. How much easier it would have been for all of us, India thought, if I had been more like Fortune. Yet her sister could certainly not be called docile. Fortune was anything but meek and mild; but she was of a far more practical bent of mind than her elder sibling.

How long will it be before I see my sister and brothers again; and our parents too, India wondered. 'Damn it, I miss them!' she half whispered to the empty cabin. 'I have been so foolish. I will certainly never be this foolish again.' She sighed, and continued looking out upon the sea, watching the wake of their vessel, just faintly silvered, as the Royal Charles sailed inexorably on toward El Sinut.

PART II

EL SINUT 1626-1628

Chapter 6

“Would you like to come on deck as we enter the harbor?' Aruj Agha asked India on the morning they arrived in El Sinut. 'Do you have a long, enveloping cape, my beauty?'

'I have two. The black wool with the fur lining I wore aboard in England, and a turquoise blue silk with a cream brocade lining,' India told him. 'That one has a hood.'

'And is more suitable to our climate,' Aruj Agha said. 'But I will need something to veil your features from public view as well.'

India rifled through her trunks, finally pulling forth a large, lace-edged handkerchief which she held up. 'Will this do? And why does my face have to be hidden? Are you afraid someone will recognize me, and you will be forced to let me go?'

'No,' he said with a smile. She was a persistent wench, he thought. 'In our society respectable women cover both their hair and their faces from public scrutiny. Such delicate discretion allows a woman a greater measure of freedom without being accosted by bold men in the streets. Women who allow themselves to be seen are obviously women of low repute attempting to sell their favors.' He helped her on with her long cape. 'If you wish to appear in public in El Sinut, or anywhere else in the sultan's domain, you must be cloaked and veiled.' He drew her hood up over her head. 'We must affix the veil. Do you have any small pins?'

'In my jewel case,' India said. 'Will my jewelry be taken from me, Aruj Agha? It was all given to me by members of my family.'

'I will intercede with the dey for you,' he said, 'but it is his decision, my beauty. You must understand that.' He carefully pinned the white cloth across India's beautiful face, concealing everything but her golden eyes and dark brows. Standing back, he appeared satisfied. 'Now we are ready,' he told her with a broad smile. 'I do believe that I could have a career as a lady's tiring woman, my beauty.'

India giggled in spite of herself, and allowed him to lead her out onto the deck. The air was hot and dry. Ahead of them the great galley, its striped sails blowing gently in the slight breeze, rowed into an enclosed harbor, drawing its prey behind it. The harbor entrance was flanked by two square-towered lighthouses.

'They mark the ingress,' Aruj Agha told her, 'and are also responsible for the great chain that for now rests beneath the surface of the waters, but in emergencies can be raised to block entry to the port.'

'They have a similar device across the Golden Horn in Istanbul,' Tom Southwood remarked, looking about the anchorage carefully. There were at least three more big galleys, as well as galleots, brigantines, frigates, and small fellucas which could accommodate only three to five benches with one oarsman each, as opposed to the galley that had taken them in tow, and had twenty-eight benches with two oars for each bench, and four to five men on each oar. This was a busy and formidable anchorage. It would not, he now realized, be as simple as he had thought to take back the Royal Charles