Cybele's Secret by Juliet Marillier Read Free Book Online

over my brow and spilling onto my shoulders. I pulled my veil back up and retreated swiftly into our apartment. What was Duarte da Costa Aguiar doing in the Genoese trading center? Not looking for me, that much was certain. His eyes had passed over me as if I were of no more interest than the brickwork of the han walls. I would go down there on the pretext of returning the tea jug to the vendor, and I would ask the pirate to give back my scarf. But not looking like this.
    Some time later, I emerged from our apartment wearing a clean gown, with my hair brushed and pinned up high. The woman in the gold-decorated veil was down in the courtyard chatting to Maria beneath a bay tree. Her attendant stood behind. Three or four Genoese merchants were gathered close, like a swarm of bees around an exotic bloom. That was unsurprising, for the woman was lovely. Her face was a perfect oval, her skin smooth olive, her features flawless.
    Someone stepped out from the shadows a little way along the gallery, making me jump.
    “That looks nice,” said the pirate in accented Greek, his eyes running over my neatly ordered curls and fresh gown. “Blue suits you. But I think I prefer your hair down.”
    As I tried to find words, Duarte Aguiar hitched himself up to sit on the gallery railing, from which elevated and precarious position he would be fully visible to anyone in the courtyard. He was breaking so many rules of acceptable behavior I could not think what to say to him. Foremost in my mind was the thought that he had been waiting for me out here while I changed my clothes with not much more than a curtain between us. I tried to look past him for the han guard, but the Portuguese was effectively blocking my view. I was not quite prepared to run away; that would suggest an inability to cope with the situation.
    “I don’t believe I know you,” I said in my frostiest tone.
    The pirate smiled. He was a startlingly attractive man, lean and tall, his dark hair caught back with a ribbon, his eyes sparkling with mischief in a face like that of a fine Greek statue, only with considerably more character. His close proximity troubled me for reasons that were not all to do with the impropriety of the situation. “You’re blushing,” he said. “Most fetching. I think I have the advantage over you. Paula of Braov, isn’t it? I am Duarte da Costa Aguiar, master of the
Esperança,
out of Lisbon. There, now we are introduced, and it is perfectly proper for you to talk to me. How are you enjoying Istanbul? Has your father taken you to see Aya Sofia yet? Or to the covered markets? You’d like the booksellers, I’m sure.”
    It sounded as if he’d been gathering information about me, for what purpose I could not imagine. Anxiety was making my palms clammy. Eyes would be on us from all over the han. I did not want Father to return to the news that his daughter had been entertaining male visitors alone. Alonso di Parma’s visit had been a scheduled trading meeting, during which the han guard had kept me in sight continuously as instructed by Stoyan. Once Alonso had departed, the guard had gone back to his normal duties. I needed to extricate myself swiftly and, if possible, politely.
    “Why would you assume that?” I inquired as Duarte folded his arms, apparently settling in for a lengthy chat.
    “Gossip travels fast in the Galata quarter,” the Portuguese said lightly. “You must know how people talk in the hamam. All that steam loosens their tongues.” When I did not reply, he narrowed his snapping dark eyes and gave me a droll look of scrutiny. “Don’t tell me your father hasn’t let you visit a bathhouse,” he said. “It’s an essential part of being in Istanbul to submit to the steaming and scrubbing and pummeling. You won’t know yourself, Mistress Paula. It would give me immense pleasure to introduce you to the delights of the hamam personally, but unfortunately I am too much of a man for that.”
    I felt my blush flame still