Chapter Thirteen #3
“I’m not concerned about the risk,” Derek continued impatiently.
“I’m used to risking my life, and for less reason than this.
So don’t mention it again, Jamil, if you don’t want to see me lose my temper.
But you’re talking about weeks, months maybe, of my pretending to be you!
How the hell am I supposed to do that when I haven’t seen you for nineteen years? ”
Jamil’s teeth flashed white in a relieved grin. “But that is the easy part. We would take a week, maybe a little longer, for you to watch me, study my mannerisms, see how I deal with those around me. Omar would instruct you, and he will be on hand to see you make no mistakes.”
“And if he isn’t always there? If someone should ask me something I haven’t the faintest idea of how to answer, then what?”
“Come now, Kasim, you have not forgotten the prerogatives of the Dey. You can dismiss any and all persons from your presence at any time, and no one would dare ask you why. I have done so enough times in these past months that it would seem quite natural for you to order a room vacated of all except my mutes, and even they have suffered from my recent temper.”
Derek chuckled. “The confinement getting to you, is it?”
“About three months ago,” Jamil replied in disgust.
“All right, so that tells me how I could avoid any ticklish situations that arise, but what about the running of your little empire?”
“Omar is capable of making all decisions. It is his responsibility when I am unavailable.”
“Then you don’t intend to remain in the palace?”
“No. It is my intention to find Selim, and for this I would enlist the help of his namesake, Sultan Selim. Our half brother was last seen at the Sultan’s court.
But no one I now have searching for Selim has the rank to get in to see the Sultan, and he does not respond well to letters.
So I would go first to Istanbul, and hopefully, from there to wherever Selim is hiding.
If the Sultan doesn’t know where he has gone, he can find out.
My network of spies is nothing compared with his. ”
“I’m surprised you haven’t already done this.”
“I wanted to, but Omar wouldn’t hear of it, and my councillors all concurred with him.
Allah’s mercy, they are like a bunch of old women, afraid for me to even step into my outer court, much less outside the palace walls.
The trouble is, with more than a thousand slaves in the palace, it is too easy to bribe dozens of my own people to spy on me and report my every move.
I cannot leave the palace, even in disguise, without the assassins knowing about it, and that is all they are waiting for. ”
“Yes, the palace is too easy to watch from without with only one main gate.”
Jamil nodded. “Occasionally they grow impatient and send in one or two of their numbers to try and take me. Just last month one got as far as my bedchamber, killed the two guards at the door, and tried crawling across the floor to my bed. Fortunately, my personal guards are more alert than the others, and one spotted the dog before he reached me.”
“And all the other guards along the way?”
“Most were drugged somehow, and we have still not discovered how. A few were killed. As far as we could discover, they came over the walls of the third court after poisoning my lions, which are let loose there at night.”
Derek shook his head, sighing. “It’s a nasty business, Jamil, all of it. I might prefer a little more active part in putting an end to it, but if you think my taking your place for a while will be better, then I suppose I can give it a try.”
“You will actually do it?”
“Didn’t I just say so?”
“You’re sure, Kasim? I really have no right to ask—”
“Christ, don’t start that again,” Derek said quickly.
“And besides, I was asked by my government, unofficially, of course, to do whatever I can to eliminate the threat against you. With the risk of giving you the upper hand in your future dealings with England, I must admit they sort of prefer you to anyone else who might succeed you. And I suppose my taking your place, and thereby taking the threat away from you, will do pretty much what I was requested to do.”
“It is annoying that these foreign consuls know so much of what goes on inside these walls and report it to their respective governments.”
“They don’t know nearly as much as they’d like to, Jamil. But tell me, am I going to have to grow one of those, or are you going to shave yours?” Derek asked, reaching over to tug on Jamil’s luxuriant beard.
Jamil sighed. “I suppose it was too much to hope that you would have worn a beard yourself. There will not be time for you to grow one to my length. Allah help me, it is almost too much to sacrifice—”
Derek burst out laughing at Jamil’s expression. “Come now, you can see for yourself how you’ll look without it,” he said, rubbing his own clean-shaven chin. “I get no complaints from the ladies.”
“Yes, it does make you appear younger than I,” Jamil replied thoughtfully.
“And I almost have to fight the women off.”
“Braggart.” Jamil chuckled. “You cannot possibly have the same problems that I have with forty-seven concubines.”
“Is that all?” Derek prodded teasingly. “Mustafa must have had at least two hundred before he died.”
“Mustafa did not care how many languished in neglect.”
A dark brow shot up curiously. “You surprise me, Jamil. That possibly would be a concern of mine after nineteen years among the English—but you?”
“Perhaps we are not so different after all, even with such a long separation.”
“Perhaps,” Derek agreed, grinning. “Speaking of your women, what will they think when you don’t summon them for so long?”
Jamil lowered his eyes before answering, his tone subdued. “But they will be summoned—by you. You must do everything that I would ordinarily do for this to work.”
Derek was not so insensitive that he didn’t hear the pain in those words. “Don’t be absurd!”
Jamil’s eyes jerked up in surprise at the vehemence of that response.
He had not expected this to be an objection.
He objected. With every fiber of his being, he objected, for if he was anything, he was a possessive man.
He might bemoan the fact that he had more women than he could possibly need or want, but they were his women.
It was the hardest thing he would ever do, to open his harem to another man, with pride demanding that it be without exception.
Were it any other man, he couldn’t do it.
But this was Kasim, his other self. There was no one he felt closer to, even after nineteen years’ separation making them almost strangers to each other.
“It is the only way,” Jamil said now with enough force to conceal his own reluctance.
“Omar made me see this, and I agree. The eunuchs of the harem cannot be confined. They come and go at will, and you know as well as I that some of them gossip worse than women. And the fact is that I have never ignored my women for more than two or three days at a time. Even when I travel, I take my favorites with me. So if it becomes known that I am suddenly neglecting my harem, it will naturally be wondered why. Consequently, I would be watched more closely. The slightest error on my part, on your part, would take on new meaning. Someone might remember that I had a twin who died mysteriously, whose body was never seen by anyone. Do you see now why you must take on my habits as if they were your own, all of them? You must even assume my frustration, and frankly, I have been very difficult lately, which is why anger will be your easiest defense in any situation that arises, for my temper has become the expected, rather than the unusual.”
“I suppose I don’t have a choice,” Derek said, though he was frowning now, “if your freedom of movement is not to be jeopardized.”
“Exactly. Neither of us has a choice, if you still agree to do it.”
“Is that what you really want, Jamil?”
“I can see no other way.”
“I could go after Selim.”
“Yes, but you do not know him as I do, Kasim. It would take you twice as long to find him, and I could be dead by then. Besides,” Jamil added with a wry grin, “I will go mad if I cannot get away from here, now that your presence offers me the chance. I don’t think I can even bear the time it will take to familiarize you with my habits. ”
“You’ll have to try, brother mine,” Derek rejoined. “I’d rather not walk into this thing blind, if it’s all the same to you.”
Jamil chuckled at that very placid, dry English tone. He would indeed have to try.