Lost Love Found (23 page)

For all the rest of that night, Valentina sat in agony. Who am I, she wondered, if I am not who I think I am?

In the hour before dawn, old Mag opened her eyes, smiled sweetly at Valentina, and said, “I must go now, dearie. Cluny will not wait another minute.” Then the life fled from her eyes, and she was gone.

Bending, Val kissed Mag’s brow. “Farewell, my dear friend, and Godspeed. I wish, however, that you had not left before you explained yourself.” Walking to the window, Valentina pulled back the draperies and opened the casements wide. The sky beyond the hills was rich gold with the impending sunrise, and the air was crisp and fresh. How many autumn mornings had been exactly like this. It was as always, and yet everything had changed for her. She knew that her mother held the key to the mystery that the dying Mag had revealed, but Valentina also knew that until the old servant was buried, it would not be kind to burden her mother. She left the room to inform her parents of Mag’s death.

Margaret Feeney, known all her life as Mag, born in the village of Ballycoille in Ireland on the first of January in 1517, was laid to rest on the twenty-fifth of October, 1601. Mag was buried in the cemetery of Pearroc Royal’s church. She was buried next to Peter Cluny.

The following morning, Aidan and her eldest daughter entered Mag’s room to sort through the old woman’s things and give away what was useable to those who were in need.

“Oh, look!” Aidan cried softly. “ ’Tis a lock of your hair, and your very first cap! How tiny that little cap is. You were such a beautiful baby, my dear.”

“My hair was copper-colored like yours when I was born?”

“Aye, it was, but it fell out when you were about six months old. When it grew back, ’twas dark brown, but it still has copper lights.” She reached out and stroked her daughter’s head. “Such beautiful hair, my dear.”

Valentina could not bear it any longer. “Who is my father?” she demanded bluntly.

Aidan St. Michael paled and, staggering slightly, grasped a chair to keep her balance. “What on earth do you mean?” she managed to gasp.

“Mama,” Valentina said clearly, “I want to know who my father is.” Valentina could feel the iron entering her soul. She knew she would need it, for she saw her mother’s distress.

“You are my daughter, Valentina, and your father is Conn O’Malley St. Michael.”

“Who are the prince and the wicked king?”

“Who has mentioned the prince and the sultan to you? Who has told you these things, Valentina?” Aidan shrieked “Oh, God!
Why now?
”

“Mag spoke in her delirium, Mama. It appears that she listened outside a door once and learned that you were not certain of the paternity of your eldest child. There were three men involved. Papa, a prince, and a wicked king. That child was me, Mama! I want to know why you were not certain of your child’s lineage! How could you keep such a secret from me? It is my right to know!” Valentina raged at her mother, who began to weep.

Aidan fled from the room, but her daughter followed. Lady Bliss ran down the stairs to her husband’s library and flung herself into his arms, sobbing, “She knows! She knows!”

Conn’s arms closed about his distraught wife. Over her shoulder his eyes met the angry eyes of his eldest child. “What is this about, Valentina?”

“I wish to know who my father is, my lord,” was the cold reply.

“I am your father,” Conn said evenly, his expression giving away nothing.

“Then what of the prince and the sultan?” Valentina demanded fiercely.

He nodded understanding. How the hell had she found out? It didn’t matter. She knew, and she must be told the truth. His arms tightened about his wife as he said, “It is obvious, my darling, that Valentina must hear the tale of your adventures. We must clear this matter up.”

“I cannot!” Aidan wept. “Oh, Conn, do not make me live that time again. I have put it from my mind all these years. I cannot go back!”

Conn gently settled his wife in a comfortable chair and put a glass of wine in her hand. Then he turned to his daughter. “What brought this about, Valentina? What do you know, and who has told you?”

“I know little except there is doubt as to my paternity. That there is a prince and a wicked king involved. That there is a secret to do with me. Mag spoke quite clearly during her final night, when she was asleep.”

“How the hell did Mag know?” Conn wondered. “Only your aunt and uncle de Marisco and I knew of the difficulties. I have never accepted that there was a problem, Val. I am your father. You are my eldest daughter. Of that I am certain.”

“Mag, it seems, listened at a door once,” said Valentina. “It weighed on her conscience when she was dying, for she kept saying, ‘God forgive me.’ ” Valentina hesitated, then said, “Please, sir, tell me the truth, I beg you.”

“Do not call me ‘sir,’ ” he said.

“Please, my lord.”

“Nor ‘my lord’ either,” he said harshly.

“Then what?” she cried.

“Papa.”

“But until I know the truth, I cannot be certain you
are
my father,” Valentina said, her voice trembling.

“I
am
your father, my dear. Believe me.” Lord Bliss turned to his wife. “Tell her all of it, Aidan. Never in all the years we have been wed have I commanded you to do anything that displeased you, but now I must.
Tell her!
Sit opposite your mother, Valentina, so that she may see you as she speaks.”

Aidan St. Michael, a tall and big-boned woman, had never in her entire life looked more fragile. Her copper-colored hair was threaded with strands of silver gilt, for she was forty-seven, and her eyes were anguished as she began to speak.

“How do I begin?” she wondered aloud. She looked so helpless that Valentina nearly stopped her.

“Begin at the beginning, Mama,” she said kindly.

Conn stood behind his wife, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder, a comfort and an encouragement.

“I had a cousin, Cavan FitzGerald, born a bastard. The Spanish king wished to discredit the O’Malleys of Innisfana and your Aunt Skye in the eyes of the queen and her government. Your uncles were then raiding and pillaging, under England’s protection, along the Spanish Main. They were successful enough so that King Philip’s income was greatly reduced through the O’Malleys. In the East Indies, your aunt’s ships were beginning to make a tiny dent in the riches offered there, and the Portuguese, who were controlled by the Spanish, resented it.

“My grandfather and my cousin were recruited by the Spanish. They were to make it appear as if your father were involved in a plot against the queen’s life. He would be executed, your aunt’s trading company would be confiscated and discredited, and the O’Malleys—their fine Irish tempers ablaze—would turn on England. I, and the wealth my father left me, were to be their reward. Cavan was to marry me. My grandfather believed my riches would be turned over to him for his futile war against England. Cavan, however, planned on gaining respectability through our marriage, and intended keeping my wealth for himself.

“The plot went awry. How? It does not matter now, but old Lord Burghley needed one final piece of evidence against my cousin and his Spanish accomplice, who did not realize they were close to arrest. I was to go to Cavan at his London inn and tell him that my wealth had been confiscated. I was so convincing that my cousin’s confederate decided that they must escape from London that very night. The ship they were to sail on belonged to a renegade Spaniard who sailed for the Dey of Algiers as a merchant. His secret cargo was always fair young women. The Spaniard suggested that Cavan bring me along. He said I would fetch a high price in the slave markets of Algiers. That way, my cousin would make a profit from me.”

“That is loathsome!” Valentina was deeply shocked.

“That, my child, is the way of the East. A woman’s worth is judged by the number of horses or camels or sheep or goats she will fetch. Human life is cheap, a woman’s life particularly so. So I was rendered unconscious and taken aboard this vessel, where, in the course of the voyage to Algiers, I lost the child I was expecting.” A tear rolled down Aidan’s soft cheek, and Valentina reached out to squeeze her mother’s hand.

“In Algiers, I was stripped naked to be examined by the purchasers. The Dey of Algiers himself decided to purchase me as a gift for the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Murad. I was shipped to Istanbul. On the very day of my arrival there, I was presented as a gift to the new ambassador from the khanate of the Crimea, Prince Javid Khan. I was no longer Aidan St. Michael, Valentina. I was renamed Marjallah, I was told over and over that I must forget Aidan St. Michael.

“The prince and I were happy together. He had come to Istanbul to forget a terrible tragedy. His twin brother, Temur Khan, as different from him as night is from day, had murdered Javid Khan’s entire family. It was believed that Temur Khan was mad from birth, for he had always had an unreasonable jealousy of his brother. The Great Khan, their father, sent Javid away to ease his pain. I, too, was in great pain. I had lost my child, lost my whole identity. I had been torn from the husband I loved. I had learned enough Turkish to communicate, but this was not my real life. Yet I was told there was no hope of my ever returning to England.

“Javid Khan fell in love with me, and after a time, I loved him. He freed me from slavery and married me in the faith of Islam. We began to build a life together in our little palace on the Bosporus. Because the prince was so pleased with me, his happiness reflected well on the sultan. The sultan’s mother and his wife, usually at odds with one another, were pleased with me as well and offered me their friendship. They were the two most powerful women in that land, Valentina, allowed privileges other women never even dreamed of.

“There was another woman who offered me friendship, and in the end she helped save my life. Her name is Esther Kira. She is the matriarch—the founder, in fact—of the great banking house of Kira. The Kiras are Jews. Esther is well over one hundred now, yet she lives on still directing her family and ruling over them all. I know this because your aunt’s trading company does business with the Kiras.” Aidan smiled a little at the memory of Esther Kira. “I can still see her sitting opposite me in my caïque as we were rowed on the water.

“On that terrible morning, I arose early and went to the city to fetch Esther. I wanted to show her the perfection of our tulip gardens. While I was away, Temur Khan attacked our home. His Tatars killed everyone they could find. They carried off my serving woman, Marta. Esther and I returned while the fighting was still going on. My caïque fled back to the city so that we might seek help from the sultan.” After a silence, she said softly, “Javid Khan was killed. Marta saw his body by the stables as the Tatars carried her off.

“The sultan’s mother and his favorite wife were so kind to me. They understood the horrors I had lived through. But at that time, despite what everyone had said to me about not being able to return home, I was determined to do exactly that. My beloved prince was dead, and surely no one else would treat me so well. Also, I was a free woman, no longer a slave. Eventually there was bound to be an O’Malley-Small trading vessel in the harbor.

“What I did not know was that the sultan lusted after me. Having seen me with Javid Khan, he had regretted his generous gift. He did not intend to part with me again. So he claimed that I was not free. As the prince was dead, his possessions reverted to the sultan, and I was one of those possessions. I was forced into carnal bondage by Sultan Murad and made to do such things for his pleasure that you, my sweet daughter, cannot even begin to imagine. Finally, I could bear no more. I attempted to kill him. Alas, I failed. I was sentenced to death. I was to be sewn into a weighted lavender silk sack and taken to a place off an island in the Marmara, where I would be drowned.

“By that time, your father had traced me to Istanbul, thank God. Or, I should say, thanks to Esther Kira, who was an intimate of the royal ladies.

“I was drugged and sewn into my sack with Tulip.”

“Tulip?” exclaimed Valentina. “Our old cat?” Her mother nodded. “But Tulip died only three years ago,” said Valentina. “The same Tulip, who fathered at least ten generations of cats on this estate?”

“The very same,” replied Aidan. “Tulip was born in the sultan’s palace in Istanbul. Tulip was the only living creature, human or animal, to survive the slaughter of the prince’s palace. He escaped because the Tartars were there early that morning, and Tulip had not yet returned from his nightly roamings.”

“But how did you escape drowning, Mama?” Valentina was nearly overwhelmed by then.

“One family had, for three generations, been in charge of rowing the death boat of the Ottoman sultans. They were Jews. No Moslem would take the task, believing it was bad luck. This family was in debt to the Kiras. Esther offered them money to save me from drowning.

“The boatman rowed out to the island as if doing his duty. But a large ship sailed by him, which blocked him from view of the shore. Your father was aboard that ship, and it was he and his friends who, with the Kiras’ help, arranged my rescue. As the great ship and the little death boat passed each other, a boy in a bosun’s chair was lowered from the deck to lift my sack and hoist me safely aboard the ship. Another sack filled with ballast was substituted for mine. None of this could be seen from the city. I, of course, was unconscious, and knew none of this until afterward, for which I thank God!”

Aidan became silent for a minute, and then resumed her story. “Later, when we had reached land, I discovered that I was with child. I was terrified. For a few weeks, I kept the knowledge to myself.” Here she blushed a deep red. “In a short period of time, I had been with three men. Javid Khan, the sultan, and my dear Conn—the day of my rescue. Which man was the father of my child? How could I know? Fear overcame me, and I locked myself in our bedchamber, refusing to speak to anyone but your aunt Skye. Learning of my doubts, she soothed me, and she made me see that the father of my child was undoubtedly her brother, my husband. Then I told your father of my fears, and he, too, accepted paternity.”