INTRODUCTION

 

In the latter years of the nineteenth century few could imagine the scale of events that were soon to overtake the warring powers of Tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Even as they fought each other to a standstill in a series of inconclusive clashes, each was tottering towards an abyss of cataclysmic change.

The Ottoman Empire gave the world one of its greatest civilisations. A single family ruled the Empire in an unbroken line from the 13th century to the 20th century. They reigned over a great flowering of human genius and creativity. However, in the latter half of the nineteenth century the decaying Ottoman Empire was dragged into almost perpetual conflicts with European states.

The Russians, in particular, continued to aggressively expand their state. Tsarist Russia was the most significant European power in the twilight of Ottoman history.

Imperial Russia was itself en route to disaster. It had only recently emerged from a long history as a feudal nation. A flux of change had resulted in the official emancipation of serfs in 1861 but it did little to give real freedom. Brutality continued towards the serfs for years to come. A privileged elite was determined to resist the tide of change and they sought to prolong the life of a corrupt society caught in decadent, terminal decline. Not all of the aristocrats were able to survive and many fallen, ruined nobles suddenly had to struggle to scratch an existence. Many of the nobles who remained became ever more brutal to serfs and common folk in their bid to retain status and power. Alongside this, industrialisation began to take hold, particularly in Moscow. Men of new money arose and they often sought to enjoy the same standing, and the same exotic pleasures, as the aristocrats.

Many of this mixed elite pursued a rakish lifestyle, taking full advantage of the virtually unrestrained opportunities afforded by privilege and wealth.

Despite the wars between them, libertines of both the Ottoman Empire and Russia regularly visited with impunity the fleshpots of Moscow and Istanbul. They were attracted by the rare combination of sophisticated hedonism and corrupt social systems that permitted outrageous excess without fear of retribution.

In Russia, The Temple was but one of several exclusive and secret societies within a shadowy underworld network that flourished by providing unrestrained sensuous pleasure to its patrons at home and abroad. They enjoyed a particularly profitable relationship with shadowy contacts in the Ottoman Empire, where there was an insatiable demand for pale skinned slaves.

CHAPTER ONE

 

1869, The Muromtzevo Mansion, situated between Murom and Vladimir on the outskirts of Moscow.

 

The nude young woman turned in fitful sleep. Her plump right breast tumbled slowly to the side, its honey-coloured nipple pert and erect. She slept restlessly atop the quilt on the four-poster bed, having disdained the cover of even a cotton sheet. Long golden hair, framing her pale face on the pillow, was rather lighter in shade than the thatch at her groin revealed by the careless spread of her legs in the abandon of sleep.

"What's her name?" said the Grand Master, gazing through the two-way mirror.

"Lady Natasha Petrova, sir. We already have her younger sister, Olga, and her cousin, Anna."

"Indeed? And does Lady Natasha know of the wantonness of her close relatives?"

"We are told not, sir."

"Acquire her!"

"It will take time."

"Do it!" the Grand Master said.

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

1870, Istanbul.

 

It was called the Equine Pavilion but, in reality, it was a large group of buildings on the banks of the Bospherous. In all her time there, Therese Lascelles had not previously seen the huge, functional courtyard and stables behind the main Pavilion buildings. She dared to peer around me and slackened her pace as she crawled in the dust.

"You must hurry," Jiffa hissed as he lengthened his stride, causing the silk of his baggy white pantaloons to billow against Therese's shoulders in the hot breeze. Jiffa was a black eunuch and her steward at that time. Although kindly, he would accept nothing less than absolute obedience.

Head low to the dust, she crawled forward, her teeth clenching the thong of Jiffa's right boot. She was naked but for here master's collar. How proud she had become of that collar, as if it was her very own possession rather than a shameful mark of enslavement. It was locked about her throat and she could not remove it. But the collar was beautiful, an exquisite item of jewellery in fact, more lovely than the finest necklace that she had ever worn in my days as a free and wealthy woman of French noble blood. Its curved bar, no more than the diameter of her little finger and fashioned of a hard mysterious metal, was studded with diamonds and sapphires. Some slaves wore simple collars of silver, while others had plain steel or, even, black iron locked about their necks. Therese's collar was the personal mark of her master, as much as the brand on her right hip, and it signified her as a very special slave.

Her heart thumped wildly as she stole forbidden glances through the swaying curtain of my blonde tresses. A whipping saddle had been set up in the courtyard and the unexpected sight of the hugely grotesque Kislar Aghasi, mighty Chief Black Eunuch, filled her with dread. He waited with a group of women, each of whom was clad in a black bourkha. Then she saw the striking figure of a tall, elegant woman, unveiled, wearing a long shimmering gown of midnight blue, and beside her a smaller, plainer woman, clad in a green shawl and robe. Therese knew the first woman to be Gulcemal Kadın Efendi, foremost of the four kadins, the Sultan's honoured imperial concubines. The other, she supposed, was Pristu Kadin Efendi, known to be generally a private, quiet person and rarely seen in the harem outside her own chambers.

Gulcemal was widely considered to be the hidden force behind the Sultanate. Sultan Abdulaziz, 32nd Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, was an extravagant individual of great physical strength but he was of weak and simple character. Gulcemal, once an uncommonly beautiful Caucasian slave girl, first enchanted and then ruled the Sultan from the royal bed. It was rumoured that it was Gulcemal who had first worn the slender collar studded with diamonds and sapphires. She was the blessed mother of Mehmed, a royal prince and my master. Wily, ruthless, shrewd and skilled in court politics, Gulcemal was a considerable woman.

Pristu Kadin was childless, but she derived her position and power from a special relationship with Abdul, the Crown Prince. Abdul's own mother had died when he was an infant, and Pristu had reared the child as her own, impressing studious, serious traits on the boy. Abdul was considered a tense and nervous individual, and he did not meet easily with people. The Crown Prince had grown to become a sensitive and artistic man, a musician with virtuoso talent on the piano.

Prince Mehmed, however, was frivolous and inclined to play. Gulcemal disapproved of her son's wayward streak and, if she could do little to rein him in, she was unusually hard on the lowly women who were the objects of his lust. Therese feared she was about to become the unfortunate target of the Kadin's displeasure with her son. Therese was abruptly brought to a halt, her forehead almost touching one of the Kislar Aghasi's buff-coloured, calf-skin boots.

"Kneel up. Widen your knees, raise your chin and straighten your back," Jiffa ordered, and Therese felt his hand upon my shoulders, posing her, carefully arranging her long blond hair.

Therese knelt, trembling, before the Chief Black Eunuch. He was resplendent in his long, wide-sleeved robe of crimson brocade. She could not quite remember how it felt to be clothed. To be naked in the presence of clothed superiors seemed so natural to her. Even the mound of her sex was smooth and shaven, revealing the slit there. Her hair hung forward over her shoulder, virtually covering her right breast but allowing its long pink nipple to peak through. Modesty was not permitted her. She glanced up fearfully at the black-clothed figures surrounding me, seeing the implacable eyes that peered from the narrow slits of their bourkahs. She looked imploring at Pristu Kadin and yet her eyes, brown and limpid, showed neither pity nor mercy.

Beyond the stables, Therese saw a large treadmill that was turned laboriously by three black-skinned men, chained by the neck and naked except for ragged loin cloths. Barely a foot away from her right knee was a wide circular pit, sunken in the courtyard, some eight or nine feet deep and, perhaps, forty feet across, its sides of smooth stone. Long wooden shafts radiated from a geared hub at the centre of the pit, and a single donkey, chained to one of these shafts, strained to turn the wheel. A man cruelly lashed its back with a long broad-bladed whip and the animal snorted in pain and strained forward.

"She has no knowledge?" she heard Kadin Pristu ask.

"No, my lady," Jiffa said. "She has always served in a blindfold."

Therese was amazed that a kadin should even deign to openly address this lowly eunuch on such a subject. Jiffa could only have been referring to Therese's intimate service in the royal bedchamber. When so instructed, she rose to her feet. Taking care to move elegantly she stood to attention before the polished whipping stool, head held high, staring straight ahead. Therese had no conception of her offence but she was no stranger to this terrible contraption and well-schooled in the ritual.

"Forward."

She laid herself upon the whipping saddle, feeling the leather, warmed by the sun, smooth against her belly. The muscles in her back tightened. "Relax, girl," Jiffa murmured. She consciously eased the tension in her buttocks. Satisfied, the steward, using a small wheel to the side, cranked the saddle, raising her bottom until the tips of her toes barely touched the ground. Jiffa gathered her long hair in his hand and swept the hank forward over her head. Therese's blonde tresses hung down almost to the ground, like a silken veil before her eyes. A hand touched her taut buttocks, surprising me, and she gave a small yelp and jerked in involuntary spasm. The watching women murmured among themselves. "Relax," Jiffa commanded again and she felt his cool familiar fingers stroking her flesh. Strangely, despite the circumstances, she found herself reflecting that Jiffa's hands were always cool. She concentrated her mind and again sought to relax her muscles. She tried to ease her tight bottom, willing the flesh to soften beneath his fingers as she wriggled slightly upon the saddle. Then the stroking hand was gone and she awaited the punishment, anticipation coursing through her like a slow flame.

Yet when the first blow came it caused her to gasp in utter surprise, expelling all air from her body. An indescribable pain seared through her. The rattan cane! She had not expected that. Her legs turned to water and she began to protest but when the second cut was laid swiftly upon the first her pleas turned into a loud wail. Her fingers clenched the bars of the stool. The third stroke brought another shrill screech as fire spread from her tortured bottom to utterly envelop her. The fourth, an upward stroke, seemed to precisely trace the line across her upper thighs beneath the swell of her buttocks, where the flesh is particularly tender. Her scream echoed around the yard. Two more vicious strokes completed the chastisement and her body lay supine upon the whipping stool, utterly spent, hanging like a rag doll.

Therese Lascelles did not know why they had beaten her. They did not require a reason, of course. Slaves are not always beaten for their instruction or punishment: often, they are beaten just because it pleases Master and Mistresses.

"Remove her collar," Pristu said.

The Chief Eunuch's fat hand immediately gagged Therese's lips before she could scream. Within seconds her beautiful collar was unlocked and taken from her throat.

"Shave her head!" Gulcemal said, handing a small key to the Kislar Aghasi.

Therese grunted her protests and struggled to rise but it was no use. The steward held her shoulders immobile in a vice-like grip and the cane again seared across her thighs. She was quiet and still then. Resistance was futile and she could only sob pitifully as the steward grasped her long hair and expertly wielded a pair of steel shears across her scalp, removing the long, lovely flaxen tresses to the very roots. He handed the shorn hair to the Kislar Aghasi who passed them to Kadin Gulcemal, who in turn passed them to Kadin Pristu. Pristu wrapped the long hank of my hair around the collar and hugged it to her homely bosom.

Nude, newly-shorn, Therese wept as Jiffa began to lather my head.

"A white skinned, blonde haired and blue-eyed schemer," Gulcemal said as Jiffa drew a razor over my pate. "Our sons are easy prey for such sluts." So that was it! The Kadin was jealous, knowing only too well the power that resides between a woman's legs. The imperious Gulcemal had, after all, used her own sexual wiles to bewitch a sultan. She went on: "Think yourself fortunate that you are not to be drowned in a sack."

Therese wept quietly as Jiffa finished his task. Presently, she was completely devoid of hair, quaking, feeling less than human before the women's cruel gaze. Jiffa hauled her to her feet. His eyes briefly met Therese's and she thought she saw compassion there. Perhaps the giant steward had no wish to do this thing. In any event, he unceremoniously lowered her by the arms into the deep pit where the donkey toiled, allowing her to drop the three feet to the sand. She sprawled in the dust but the overseer immediately scurried over and grasped her arm. The odious little man hauled Therese across the floor of the pit and thrust her against one of the horizontal shafts.

"Grasp the wood," the overseer ordered with a smile that displayed broken, jagged teeth.

Numbly, she obeyed. The man smelled like a donkey himself. He fitted rough leather cuffs about her wrists and within seconds she was strapped to the shaft. A whip cracked. She heard the donkey squeal. The wheel began to turn and Therese found herself dragged forward. There was another snap of the whip and the lash bit into her calves. She stumbled forward. There was to be no mercy: Therese Lascelles, once a proud French noble woman, then a pampered concubine, and now merely a debased work slave, she must toil with the donkey, her shoulder hard to the shaft. The whip bit against her already-tortured buttocks and she strained forward against the shaft. Its weight and resistance surprised her. Her feet scrambled in the dust as, back arched and calves tensed, she struggled with all her strength to push the shaft with the donkey, tears of shame and humiliation stinging her eyes. The women of the Royal Harem looked down and laughed as she wept.

"Keep a shaft free," said Gulcemal Kadin Efendi. "I have no doubt that the Prince, my errant son, is busily trying to recruit yet another blonde haired, blue eyed slut for the collar at this very moment."