The Kadin by Bertrice Small Read Free Book Online Page A

Among them was a ship from San Lorenzo—from Rudi.
    “Go ahead,” said Firousi, reading her thoughts. Try it”
    Janet stepped over the threshold into the garden. Two turbaned black slaves, each holding a curved scimitar, stepped to her side. Quickly she stepped back.
    “There is no escape, Cyra,” said the blond girl. The sooner you accept that fact the happier you will be.”
    Janet began to sob.
    “Why do you cry?” asked Firousi.
    “In that harbor lies a ship which waits to carry me back to my father, my little brother, and my betrothed—if I could but reach it.”
    “Well, you can’t” said Firousi bluntly. “You’re lucky. At least you have a family living. My entire family, including my husband, are all dead, killed by Tartar slaves.”
    “You were married?”
    Firousi nodded and, clapping her hands, summoned a slave to bring food, for she sensed Janet might now be hungry.
    “I will tell you my story, Cyra.” Her lovely eyes grew misty in remembrance as she began her tale.
    On her wedding day, she had awakened just before dawn and slipped quietly out of bed. Pushing back the wooden shutters of the window, she saw the cobwebby mists rising above the newly green meadows. Her wedding day would be fair and warm.
    My wedding day, she thought My wedding day! It has all come about because my brother saved the life of our enemy’s youngest child. Now I will marry his oldest son, and our villages will live in peace forever. I don’t even know what this Pyotr looks like or if he is a kind man, and when I ask papa, he just chuckles.
    She turned as the curtain that separated her tiny bedchamber from the main room of the house was pulled back, and her family, laughing and singing, spilled inside. Her great bearlike father, her small, plump mother, her sisters—Katya, the eldest, with her husband, and Tanya, the youngest Here were her brothers Paul, Gregor, Boris, and Ivan, all her aunts, uncles, and cousins with their arms full of spring flowers.
    “So,” boomed her father, “the bride cannot sleep.”
    “And she’ll get no sleep tonight” laughed Gregor.
    ‘You,” said his mother sternly, but her eyes were laughing, “put down your flowers, and then out! All of you! Katya and Tanya, remain.”
    They left her with her cheeks wet with their kisses and her arms full of flowers.
    “Now, Marya,” said Sonya Rostov, “first you must eat” She placed the plate and cup she was carrying on a small table. “Poppy rolls, jam, and tea with sugar.”
    Katya raised an eyebrow. Her wedding breakfast had been brown bread, honey, and goat’s milk. Mama would deny, of course, any favoritism toward her daughters, but Marya had always been her pet. Look at the wedding gown, for instance. When the old peddler had visited them last winter, he had had a length of creamy white silk in his pack, and nothing would do but that mama have that silk for Marya’s gown. And gold thread for the embroidery, and little white Turkish slippers embroidered with gold thread and little seed pearls. Papa had growled that he wasn’t the Grand Turk marrying off his daughter, just a simple Caucasian mountain farmer; but when the peddler had left, Mama had had the silk, the gold thread, and the slippers—at the cost of two fine goats.
    Katya smiled wryly as she watched her sister eat the soft white rolls. My wedding gown was wool, and hers is silk. But silk becomes Marya, with her fair, creamy skin, her silvery-blond hair, and her turquoise eyes. A smack from her mother brought Katya back to the present
    “Get the water heating over the fire for Marya’s bath, daydreamer. Tanya, take your sister’s dishes and wash them”
    The morning flew by, and the noon hour approached. The entire village was decked in festive finery for the wedding of its headman’s daughter. Tables had been set up in a field by the church for the feasting. Suddenly a boy posted at the edge of the village cried out “They come!”
    Marya flew to the window and