For a big, powerful man...Tomas was capable of movement so subtle that in another life, he might have run the evil Cuk close as an assassin. But killing did not come as easily to the big Nubian as it had to the Viziers ex enforcer. True he had dispatched several men already, but another death would hang heavy on his conscience. But unpleasant as it might be, this murder would be necessary. Another five minutes subtly checking the stars and the ever brighter dots of yellow lamp lights on the distant land, told him that his initial feeling was correct. The squat barge was ever so gently angling towards a shoreline unfamiliar to Tomas. The maps in the great library he had studied had been extensive and incredibly detailed. Hours of poring over them had given him an almost photographic memory of their route. Even at sea, he was methodically cataloguing and checking off waypoints as they passed them.

This 'diversion' was definitely not on his itinerary...and shouldn't have been on the barge masters either. Tomas had been very careful not to reveal to much about his precious human cargo, but in truth, the princess and Gia were hard to disguise, even to a lowly river trader. Those noble blue eyes and the softness of their hands...Tomas had noted with a grimace of distaste the seaman's calculated gesture... touching each one of his charges on the palm as they boarded. The women may have passed it off as merely old fashioned good manners, but the Nubian always had an eye for anything odd.

So, as the barge subtly altered course yet again, obviously aiming for a thin promontory of land covered in olive trees a mile away, Tomas tensed for yet another unpleasant bit of savagery. But there was one other rather important problem associated with slitting the fat bargee's throat...who was to steer the vessel afterwards? Tomas had many skills and abilities, but sailing a heavy and cumbersome sailing barge to a distant port wasn't one of them. He briefly considered keeping the captain bound and alive...at least until they reached the sea of Marmaris, but at some point, they had to sleep. Even if they were lucky and the hue and cry back in the city was delayed by the rapid spread of infection at the palace, sooner or later someone would join up the dots and begin an organised hunt for them at sea. Asleep, Tomas would be vulnerable to attack himself and then what? The Sultana was resourceful and clever...but none of the women would be capable of overpowering the burly seaman alone. Fat he might be, but there was solid muscle under all that blubber. If Abdul had decided to double his income by accepting an offer to sell the women on to slavers or worse, he would have to be dealt with decisively this night.

Concentrating on the change of direction and the figure of the master crouched over in the wheelhouse, who was watching the horizon as keenly as him, Tomas started as Gia appeared out of the gloom and sat lightly beside him.

"We've altered course towards the shore Tomas" she said in a whisper, leaning closer to him "...why?"

The black man concealed his surprise at his Sultana's keen observation with a non committal shrug.

"Not sure mistress...but I've noticed our fat friend checking a chart in that filthy wheelhouse more than once. My best guess is he has plans to put us ashore early. Probably into the hands of some local cut throats or slavers?"

Gia showed no surprise at his blunt explanation, just nodded slowly.

"If you try to confront him tonight Tomas, he'll probably just deny it...but we all have to sleep at some point. You may find yourself with a gutting blade across your throat and then we'll all be in real trouble?"

This time Tomas nodded. His mistress seemed to have an instant grasp of the situation. Not for the first time he rejoiced at her quick thinking. This woman would have been a queen wherever she lived. The Sultan may have elevated her to royalty when she was a girl, but Gia had more than just a fancy title to recommend her. His already considerable admiration for her went up another notch.

"So what shall we do mistress?" he said quietly. "...I cannot just allow him to beach us on that wooded outcrop. He will have men there to intercept us. And then there is the question of the boat...I cannot sail it highness...I have no seamanship skills?"

"Hush Tomas" Gia said gently "...your other skills and loyalty have saved us once...and I have no doubt will do so again. Let me worry about the boat. You forget I was an island girl until those accursed slavers captured me. My father taught me as a child how to handle a sailing vessel...maybe a little smaller than this old bathtub...but..."

Tomas turned to regard her with astonishment. This woman, whom he loved as much as he had his mother, was endlessly full of surprises.

He tensed and made to get up to do what he had to. But Gia put her hand on his arm and stopped him.

"No Tomas...Abdul will be wary of you approaching him in the dark if he is trying to betray us. We cannot risk him using that filleting knife on you before you can strike. You are too precious to us all...to me especially. It is time I did something practical anyway?"

Tomas opened his mouth to protest, but it was already too late. Gia was slipping silently along the side of the barge, her feet making no sound as she lightly made her way to the rickety wheelhouse. Everything inside screamed at him to follow her. But she was right...at the first sign of him approaching, the fat bargee would be on high alert.

Gia reached the wheelhouse with a broad smile fixed on her face. From under her cloak, she produced a small flask with a flourish...something she knew would greatly please the barge master. There was very little alcohol in the palace...the Muslims forbade it for followers of the Prophet, peace be upon him, but a clever woman could sometimes flatter a small flask from one of the many traders who constantly arrived and left Constantinople, hopeful of a royal warrant for their goods. The spirit she carried in the flask was from Crete...an intense brew of fermented grapes they called 'raki'. Its potency was legendary and she had originally intended to keep it in case of medical emergency. But it seemed tonight it was better sacrificed in the cause of disabling the bargee. Not as a soporific, but to reduce his alertness...just long enough…

Tomas waited with held breath as Gia disappeared under the canvas awning over the wheel.

XXX

Back at the palace, the disturbed ant nest analogy was starting to change into something more organised. The Vizier was now quite dead...his corpulent body inert and as yet untouched on the floor of his office. The unfortunate physician and his unwilling assistant were very ill by now too. Both gasping for air and covered in the sort of lurid lesions that had killed the minister. The captain of the guard had placed a double watch on the doors and windows. No one was to enter or leave the apartments until the inevitable happened and the two men expired. None of his elite guard was anxious anyway to see first hand what had befallen their countrymen. Plague was still the most popular rumour, but gradually information and other opinions were coming from the other surgeons in the palace. Plague was a catch all description anyway...lots of lethal diseases were lumped together under that title...but the wiser and less excitable of them discounted the dreaded black death as the cause of the Viziers downfall. Poison too was being pushed to the back of their minds. No...this looked and sounded like an unknown disease that the Prime Minster had contracted from infected food.

The food tasters were roughly interrogated, then executed summarily anyway. Their job was to give their lives for their master and at that they had failed. No matter it wasn't their fault. The scimitar listens to no excuses.

And then there was the matter of the Sultan himself. He had shared some of the Viziers breakfast and was now isolated in his chambers, attended only by a perspiring and terrified servant. The court head physician had attended him at first, but seeing the terrible symptoms develop so rapidly, knew straight away that it was certain death to be too close to the Sultan Pasha at this awful time. Nothing could be done for him anyway. He prescribed strong spirits to ease the pain, laced with Laudanam...a natural anaesthetic. Soon the Sultan was in a rambling, confused stupor. His eventual death would be relatively pain free but just as certain.

Which left his eldest son Murad in control of the palace. He immediately summoned his five younger brothers to the royal apartments and placed guards on the room they were confined to. They milled around in an agony of apprehension, white faced and fearful. The fate of younger sons on the succession of a new Sultan was often a lethal one. The wives and daughters of Selim along with Murad's own family, was housed in yet another guarded room. There was some consternation amongst the courtiers when the 6th wife and her daughter were not to be found, but in the confusion no one troubled themselves too much at the beginning. One senior court official opined that the Sultana's eunuch had probably secreted his mistress and her princess in a little used part of the palace until the source of the infection was found. One less problem to worry about for the royal prince….or Sultan to be.

Selim II died slowly...watched from the distant doorway by his dutiful eldest son. Once the unlucky servant attending him had confirmed that life was indeed extinct, a brief and perfunctory ceremony was held in the antechamber next door. With no Grand Vizier to preside, it was left to one of the more junior ministers to do it. In short order, Murad III was proclaimed the new Sultan of the sprawling Ottoman Empire. Within minutes of this, his younger brothers were taken one by one to a courtyard out of sight and sound of their mothers and strangled. The five corpses being burned in a pile shortly afterwards. They had been right to be apprehensive. Murad was not about to risk usurpers to his throne. Tradition demanded his brothers pay the price of his unplanned succession and they duly did so.

The investigation into the outbreak of deadly infection began immediately. The remaining breakfast food and drink was tested on kitchen slaves, which proved nothing. With the plates and cutlery already washed in near boiling water, the real source of the calamity remained hidden for the time being. Several hours passed, during which some other servants started to show symptoms. Resolution for this problem was swift. No lingering death for these unfortunates. At the first sign of a lesion or coughing, they were taken by guards with vinegar soaked face masks to the same courtyard the unlucky royal sons had perished in hours before and dispatched with a single scimitar blow to the back of the neck. Seventeen men, girls and boys left this world in that manner before the authorities deemed the outbreak was contained. Unfortunately for the slave boy stealing scraps from the Viziers table, he was one of the first to be executed. Coughing like a person surrounded by smoke and writhing in pain, he almost felt like thanking the masked executioner for the mercy of the heavy blade as it neatly severed his small head. All the corpses were burned on the same spot.

It was well after nightfall when, after a thorough search of the entire palace, the absence of Gia, Naomi and the twins together with Tomas the eunuch was confirmed. The guards made another desultory sweep of the grounds before midnight, but it was decided then to wait till daybreak to resume the search proper. Given that Murad was now Sultan...Gia and Naomi were to be very minor royalty from now on. Not important enough for the alarm to be raised in Constantinople itself. Their luck stretched for another eight hours…

Down in the city, the neighbours of the twins parents, Nergis and Ramazan wondered idly why their house lights stayed off all evening, but the gossip about the deadly infection up in the Topkapi Palace was a far more compelling subject.

Soon, the city and palace slept….uneasily maybe, but slept.

XXX

"Naomi….no...someone might hear us?" Emi said in a low whisper. They were huddled together below deck against the front bulkhead as the creaky boat swished its way through the dark waters around them. Kati was already fast asleep, curled up on a bed of planks covered in thick cotton bales ten feet away. Gia and Tomas were still on deck...presumably keeping watch against any pursuers, but the two girls were more concerned with getting some privacy, even in this stinking tub...to kiss and hold each other.

But Naomi was getting a little carried away. Gone was her recent reticence and coolness. Now that the Vizier was incapacitated, freedom from the prospect of marriage to him seemed to have boosted her libido considerably.

Emi reluctantly pushed Naomi's wandering hand out from under her cloak. Those clever fingers were creeping steadily up her thigh and in another inch or two….

Naomi pouted as her hand was pushed back onto her own leg.

"I thought you loved me" she complained theatrically, fluttering her long lashes for effect.

Emily sighed.

"You know I love you more than life itself my sweet….but Kati could wake up...my mama or Tomas could find us here…?"

Naomi pouted a little over dramatically again.

"But Emi...angel...I want you...its been days since we could relax and enjoy each other properly. Now that that fat pig is dead, I feel free for the first time in many moons...come on...just touch me a little…here?"

She took Emi's hand and again pushed it up between her legs. The smaller girt hissed in surprise at the heat coming from her lovers centre. They had left the palace in just gossamer thin day clothing...the heat of a Constantinople noon precluding anything heavier. Only the thick cloak now covered their near nakedness. As Naomi cupped Emi's hand and pressed it firmly against her warmth, both girls groaned.

"Naomi...please?" Emi whispered, not entirely convincingly. Now she was gripping the object of her desire, all the twins good intentions seemed to fade into the background. Naomi ground herself greedily against Emi's palm.

"Please Emi…?" the princess wheedled, using her own hand to push Emi's middle finger harder against her.

Their mouths met in a heated kiss, moaning into one another. Emi felt Naomi tug the thin material away from her body, then force the younger girl's hand back against her bare skin. She groaned deep in her throat as slick moisture joined the heat. Her finger began to dance over Naomi's slippery folds. Now the blondes hand left hers, confident that Emilia couldn't resist any more, slipping under the other girls woollen cloak, pulling thin material aside and using her newly educated fingers to tease and penetrate. Kati was fast asleep, exhausted by the dramas of the day, but it was impossible to believe they could stop now anyway. Soon they were lying on the rough deck, hands busy between the others legs and mouths sighing breathlessly as they drove each other towards a shattering climax. Naomi came with Emi's straight fingers buried inside her...deep inside her. In a more controlled moment, she might have paused at the tiny sharp pain which briefly interrupted her extreme pleasure, but a princesses precious virginity was not a matter she was concerned about at that moment.

Emi orgasmed just as hard with Naomi's fingertip lightly flicking the bud of her clitoris rapidly, the smaller girl clutching at her with a free hand and gasping out her delight.

Sated, they awkwardly clambered back to their feet, grinning bashfully at the others dishevelled appearance. Wrapping themselves inside the grimy cloaks again, neither girl took notice of a heavy splash beside the boat. Warm and sleepy now, they made their way to the wide bench of cotton bales Kati was lying on and found themselves a space. Within moments, holding each other tightly...they slept too.

XXX

Tomas waited with mounting anxiety as his mistress continued to talk in low tones to the barge master. He could hear no words, but by the deep rumbles of amusement coming from the darkened wheelhouse, he had no doubt she was using a mixture of flattery and flirtation to give the man a false sense of security. He had no doubt Gia was skilled at this game. After all, she'd been schooled in the subtle arts in the Sultan's own harem. The fact that she had not only survived, but prospered so well was testament to her ability to disarm, to cajole.

Then there was a silence that lasted several seconds and then a surprised grunt and the sound of struggle. Tomas tensed and stood up, ready assist with his honed blade if necessary, but after another moment, the figure of Gia emerged from the gloom. She walked towards him with a grim expression on her face. Then he noticed her sleeve was covered in blood from wrist to shoulder. He ran to her across the flat boards, stopping just in front of her. Her face was set in a pale frown.

"Are you hurt, my lady?" he whispered urgently. Gia shook her head.

"No...but the master is dead Tomas...I gutted him with his own knife. Better we push him overboard before one of the girls comes up to see what the noise was about?"

Tomas didn't answer. His only concern was for his mistresses safety. Swiftly, he passed her and entered the wheelhouse. The fat bargee was slumped over the bulkhead, blood pooling around him. It looked like he had attempted to hold in his own intestines after Gia had slit his stomach wide. He had a surprised look on his face, and Tomas noted with disgust that his filthy pantaloons were pulled down to his knees. He did not need an explanation to understand what his Sultana had used as bait.

Straining to hold the bulky man upright, hands slippery with blood, Tomas carried the corpse to the side and heaved it overboard. There was a heavy splash as the man hit the surface of the water, but in the moonlight, he could see that the body had not yet sunk as the boat carried on ahead. There was another sound of splashing as they left the seaman to his last rest. Three triangular fins were already circling the bloody corpse by the time the gentle swell hid the sight.

Gia was sitting by the bow as Tomas finished using seawater to mop blood from the deck and toss overboard the rags he had used to clean the bulkhead and wheel. She looked up as he came along the side.

"It is a terrible thing Tomas...to kill a man. But he would have seen us sold into slavery...or worse. I had no choice?"

Tomas sat beside the Sultana, keeping his voice low. He knew all too well how the shock of ending a life affects people.

"Mistress...we have all had to do things we will dream of in the future...but hope is alive still.. we must keep the barge on course for the port. Are you able to go back to the wheelhouse yet?...I fear we have drifted a little closer to the shore...better that the welcoming committee Abdul had planned for our landfall do not see us?"

She nodded and without answering him, got up and stiffly walked to the boats stern. The charts were still on the table by the large wheel and someone had to pilot this stinking tub to their destination…

The three girls slept on...unaware of the drama that had played out above their heads. By the time dawn threw fingers of pale light over the horizon, the barge was at the mouth of the Marmaris sea. Ahead lay either freedom or death...but whatever it was...it was closer.

XXX