Rahab Bk. 06 Ch. 03: Temptation

The wedding marked a high point in our felicity.

The new Sultan, Ahmed, occupied as he was with wars to the West, was content to leave me where I was. The local Amirs had nothing to gain from my departure, so for now, I was safe. In the north, what they called 'the time of troubles' was beginning. The designated heir, Feodor, vanished from view, with rumours that he was dead being common. Through Ana's network I knew that he was still alive, but having been imprisoned in a monastery by Godunov before he died, rumour was easier to come by than hard facts. But my instinct told me his time would come.

Our felicity was marred by only one thing; my health.

The fainting fits became more frequent. My menses, always irregular, now varied between being painfully heavy and infrequent. There were days when not even my indomitable will could raise me from my couch. My back was sore, and there were times the pain seemed more than I could bear. Mel and Ana covered for me, but I was worried. Of course, I was concerned to know what was wrong with me, but even more, I was concerned that if the Amirs knew, they would begin to plot.

There were good moments, but they were becoming less frequent, and the impact on my love life with Ana and Mel was marked. I was so glad they had each other, as increasingly I felt unable to do what they and I needed. Ana suggested that it might help if I were to imitate my predecessors, who had spent part of the summer in the mountains to the east where the air was fresher and the cooler climate would be less oppressive. I had always hesitated to leave the Grand Serail, but the state of the empire meant that there would be no danger in being absent; and if it relieved the pressure on me, all the better.

Ana and Mel came to my bed-chamber. I could see from the concern in their eyes that they were worried.

We discussed our options; none seemed attractive. I could go to the mountains where I could rest, but the journey might exhaust me. I could stay where I was and suffer. Either way, I was getting increasingly feeble. That night I told Ana that I feared that I was dying. She hugged me. I woke before the dawn's early light.

I wandered over to the roof terrace, slowly, and with pain. The sunrise had become precious; how many more of them would I see?

As the sun's rays pierced the clouds, I turned back to our couch - there was someone in the room! I almost welcomed the prospect of an assassin, but as the figure drew closer it beckoned me out onto the terrace; I complied.

In the dawning radiance, I could see it was a woman. Throwing back her hood, her dark eyes pierced me; her hair was jet-black, the same colour as her skin; her lips were full, and even the shapeless garment she wore could not conceal her contours. She spoke softly and with an accent I did not recognise:

"Rahab, you have a choice. Will you hear me out?"

Her voice was like the wind in the bulrushes, breathless and husky.

"Before you are two ways. The one will give you instant healing, long life and power; the other will guarantee none of those things. Which will you take?"

It seemed simple. That very fact made me wary.

"There is, no doubt, a price to be paid for the first choice?"

She smiled enigmatically:

"Of course, but think of the rewards."

I looked at her, holding her gaze.

"I think of the price. Let me ask two questions."

Still smiling, she indicated I should put my questions to her.

"If I take the first choice, what happens to Ana? My second question is like to it. What is the ultimate price?"

"Naught is free Rahab. Ana will die saving you and become a heroine. On the second, my Master will require you soul."

I held her gaze until she looked away.

"I take choice number two," I said firmly.

"But you do not even know who my Master is?"

"I can guess," I replied, "and life without my Ana is not worth living."

"You will not be healed unless you do this, Rahab!"

"In which case, I shall die," I responded.

There was a look of fury in her eyes.

"So be it!"

And as the sun dispelled the clouds, the apparition vanished.

Then came a voice I had heard before.

"Well done thou good and faithful handmaiden. A temporary healing will come, but for more, my daughter, you will need to go the Monastery of St Catherine."

I wanted to ask the Blessed Virgin why I could not receive full healing then and there, but knew better than to question the will of God. I should, in due course, find the reason; mine was to accept the word.

Weary, I went back to my couch and snugged up to Ana's warm body.

She pushed back against me, and turned over to face me. I looked up. Her blue eyes were glazed with sleep, her smile a mirror of the morning sun which was in her face. My lips found their way to her soft nipple. I sucked. I felt it grow hard. I sucked and sucked, impelled by a primal instinct. Her hands stroked my hair. She felt warm and welcoming. Then, to my surprise I found myself sucking milk. It tasted sweet. As I sucked more came.

Suckling, I felt a warmth spread through me. The internal ache in my womb was replaced by a more familiar ache lower down. For the first time since my illness struck, I felt the old familiar tingle in my cunt lips and my clit. I ached for her. Her milk seemed to banish my pains. The more I suckled, the better I felt, and a life returned to me I felt the need for Ana.

"Little one, what is this?" Her smile was sweetness and light, and I wanted to make her happy.

"You and Mel have been so good, and I will tell you more later, but for now, well, I want you."

With that, I caressed her taut tummy with my fingers, luxuriating in the feel of her; so alive, so vital - and miraculously, mine.

As I sucked and my fingers roamed southwards, Ana began to make those wonderful little mewling sounds she made when she was aroused. My fingers investigated her hair, parting it to allow access to her wetness. I pushed her swollen lips together; the wetness meant they squelched. As they caught her clit, she moaned more loudly. I pressed harder, my teeth squeezing her full nipple. The milk was like nectar. But much as I wanted it, there was something I needed more.

I licked downwards, sliding my milky tongue across her skin until, opening her with my fingers, I pushed my face into her aromatic, sticky sex. For a moment, I just luxuriated in the scent and the sensation, rubbing my face up and down the wetness until fastening the tip of my tongue on her unhooded pearl. I massaged it, flicking her sensuously from side to side, sliding my crossed fingers between her open inner lips until they found, and plundered, her entrance. She moaned my name.

It had been too long. But now life was returning, with it came the urge to be one with her in a physical as well as a spiritual way. I ached for her. Though it had not been as long for her, as she had Mel and Helena, what we had was what no one else could give her. She received it with her usual full-blooded approach to sex. She thrust herself onto my questing fingers, pushing her sex into my eager face. I bit her pearl. It was sufficient. As her juices squirted into my face, I knew I had brought her to our special place.

I licked her clean, but it was the licking, and not the cleaning on which I was concentrating as I knew how she would react. As she shivered with the aftershocks, I put my leg between her powerful thighs, pressing upwards until her wetness and mine were one. The shocks shot though my body, my cunt lips, my clit, even my nipples ached. The wetness created perfect conditions for friction, and I was glad of her hair, which added something to the process as we rubbed together.

"I love you Ana," I sighed.

"I love you Rahab," she sighted back, her arousal clear.

We moved together as one, letting the sensations fill us, joined, our juices mingling. As we moved in time I felt it building, in her as well as me. Pressing together we came. The world exploded as the sensations blasted me to an orgasmic peak never before reached. It was only when she held me and asked if I was feeling good that the power of speech returned.

"Could you not tell my darling?"

She laughed.

"I could, but you seemed to be silent for the longest time - not like you!'

We both giggled.

And so it was that we reconnected and I came back from the brink; for then.

I told her what had happened. Ana shared my view that it was Satan tempting me. She was interested in the idea of the Monastery. When I asked why, she told me that she had been putting off telling me that she had received a message from the Abbot asking her to come with a small group of the Bodyguard to help in a mission.

Ana explained that as the last public bastion of the old Eastern Empire, St Catherine's kept in touch with the Bodyguard and provided the monks who prayed ceaselessly at the shrine of the Marble King. She had held off from telling me because she could not bear to leave me, but now, mirabilé dictù, I could go with her.

Later, over a leisurely breakfast, Ana and I discussed the situation with Mel. Mel took the temptation in her stride as she did most things, what interested her was my healing. I told her that all I knew what that I would only find the healing I needed by taking the pilgrimage. Intriguingly, when Mel tried to suckle Ana, there was no milk. It was as though what had happened had been to provide me with a healing. The message was clear.

We agreed that Mel and Commander Kunt would remain and govern, giving the word that I had received a vision and needed to travel to the southernmost reaches of my Viceroyalty. Officially, St Catherine's was, like Alexandria, part of my domains, but in practice both regions enjoyed a large amount of self-government. The old Mamelukes, whom the Sultan had defeated, ruled at my command, but if I had attempted to put any pressure on them, I suspected that the results would not have been good. The Monastery, at the southernmost tip of the Sinai Peninsula, survived by coexisting with the Ottoman Empire, and so it would be fitting for me to pay an official visit. I dispatched a messenger, who took with him a letter from Ana too.

So, the die was cast.

We agreed that Abdul, who had performed such wonders at the siege of Yeghergis, would head our expedition, and that a small detachment of the Amazons would go with us. Ana did not know what the Abbot wanted them for, but in her world it was enough to know there was a need. We would sail to Alexandria and then, traversing the narrow route south to Aqaba, where another vessel would pick us up for the final leg of the journey to the Monastery. Much as I hated sea travel, it was the only real alternative. Travel south would mean encountering the Rub' al Khali - the 'empty quarter' - the great desert through which no man had passed alive.

It was a wrench to leave Mel, though I was confident that she and the Commander would, with help of Princess Damila, keep good order.

Calm seas were a bonus for me, but even with that blessing, I felt ill most of the way to Alexandria. There I was greeted with the fanfare and ceremony that befitted my position. The Mameluke Amir, Hassan, could not have been more hospitable - once he was assured that I really was travelling south. He hardly took his eyes off Ana, to her amusement. She played up to him at the State banquet, teasing me as she loved to. But it no longer worked as it once had. I knew whom she loved. We all enjoyed the delightful female dancers who used their sensuous curves and veils to celebrate the glories of the female form; men and Sapphists could agree this was a form of art for us both.

The road south the Aqaba was smooth and easy, and at the port our ship awaited. Admiral Abdul pulled me aside as our belongings were loaded.

"My lady, I have a concern I need to discuss with you."

He explained that the ship was not the one he had requested, it was slower than the dhows which plied the Red Sea, and he was worried because he had heard rumours that pirates were operating in the lower reaches of the sea.

"This tub would not outrun anything, my lady."

We took counsel with Ana.

We decided on a plan of action to be followed it the worst happened.

The first day's travel was idyllic. I finally found a sea which really was calm, and we made steady progress. I came to appreciate how sea travel could be a joy. The wind in my hair, the sea air, the beauty of the water with the sun shimmering on it.

It was only at dawn the following morning that danger came to us.

Abdul kept a good look-out, and he spotted the dhow when it was far off. He had been right, there was no way our ship could outrun the sleek and elegant thoroughbred of the seas. We put our plan into operation.

As the dhow closed in, we could hear a voice hailing us.

"You cannot run, let us come aboard, we will spare your lives if you do not resist, Resistance will mean death."

We could see there was a cannon on deck pointing at us.

Abdul responded:

"This is an Ottoman vessel, any interference will result in serious consequences. But I will not put lives at risk."

"Good man," the voice replied.

The dhow hove to, grappling irons fastened us to it.

"They are pirates from the Barbary Coast," Abdul told me as a group of armed men boarded us. Their captain, a swarthy man with tattoos smiled.

"Sensible fellow. There's no need for me or my men to bother you, it is your female passengers and goods which interest us."

He clapped eyes on me.

"Assuming, that it you have adult women, children do not interest us."

Abdul seemed to hesitate.

"She is the daughter of an Ottoman Lord, he will pay you well for her safe return. I can carry a message for you - in return for a commission."

The pirate smiled, knowing, as he thought, the sort of man with whom he was dealing.

"Of course, your services will be rewarded. Now, are there adult females?"

"Here!" Ana declared, drawing her bow and firing.

At that moment, an arrow hit him in the throat, with a hail of them hitting the group of armed men. At the same instant five Amazons sprang on board the dhow, seizing control of the cannon before turning it on the crew.

Surprised at the turn of events, demoralised by the death of their leader, the pirates put their weapons down.

"That, Abdul, was masterly," I smiled.

"I suspected they would be over-confident, my lady."

Ana led her women and some of the sailors onto the dhow. Gripping the throat of the man who seemed to be second-in-command, she asked what else they had been up to. He confessed that they had been on their way back to base after a successful few days, but having been told that an Ottoman ship with a valuable cargo was travelling south, they had delayed in the hope of catching us.

"And how," I asked, "did that work out? Show me what else you captured."

With Ana's hand on his neck, he was in no position to argue.

He took us to the hold.

Lighting a candle, I saw, manacled to a post, the most beautiful black woman - stark naked. She spat at the pirate.

"You can try again, the result will be the same!"

Abdul reassured her that she was now free.

Ana, admiring her, unshackled her. The woman embraced her liberator.

"Thank you, whoever you are my Mistress' father will reward you well."

"And where," I asked, is your Mistress?"

Looking with some surprise at me, but seeing the others deferring to me. she replied.

"The Princess Miriam is locked through here, thank God they have not tried to rape her yet!"

We got the pirate to unlock the door.

There, in the corner, sat a figure shrouded in darkness. Ana lit the lamp.

She was beautiful. Tall, slim, her skin the colour of light coffee, she looked at us with interest.

"I am Rahab," I said, "the Viceroy of Syria, and this is Ana, my wife."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Thank you, Rahab, and Ana. I am the daughter of the Emperor of Ethiopia, the Princess Miriam."

"I am glad to come to your aid. Where were you bound?"

"We were on our way home following a pilgrimage to the great Monastery at St Catherine's where we had presented the Abbot with a great and holy gift, the hand of St Mark."

Ana and I crossed ourselves. She noticed.

"So, you are Christians too?"

"I am Ana, head of the Bodyguard."

The Princess bowed low:

"Who has not heard of your work. We had asked the Abbot to contact you, so this is Providential."

"More of this when we can, but for now," I said, "we must get you on board our ship."

Abdul's men transferred her goods to our ship.

Once all was done, he cut the grappling lines and as we cast off, informed the crew of the dhow that he had holed their vessel. He told them they might just reach the coast if they hurried. It was the last we saw of them.

The question now was where we went? We wanted St Catherine's, but if the Princess had done her business there, then Massawa, the old Ottoman port on the coast, should be our target.

As we spoke with the Princess, it became clear that this should, indeed, be out destination. The story she unfolded was one to fire our imaginations.