She whirled about. "Francisco, caro! So there is a God." But the welcome in her eyes died in Bothwell's icy gaze.

"I have come," said the earl coldly, "because I hope that even you will want to clear your conscience before you die. Regarding the matter of my wife, what exactly did you arrange?"

Her black eyes widened, and she burst into hysterical laughter. Outside the closed door the guard shuddered at the sound. Angela wiped the damp from her eyes with a ragged sleeve. "Really, Francisco! You are simply incredible! Yes, I arranged for your wife's disposal, but she must truly have God on her side, for that idiot servant of mine was caught. So… tomorrow I die. Alas, if I cannot have you then neither can she." She laughed again, a bit ruefully this time. "You will have neither of us, Francisco, and that isn't at all what I had planned!"

"Once more, Angela. What exactly did you do with her?"

The woman regarded him with some amusement and shook her head. Francis reached out and, wrapping the soft blue-black hair around his hand, cruelly yanked her to him. "I have no time to waste, Angela. Where is she?"

The black eyes glittered viciously, but she said nothing. Using his other hand, Bothwell ripped the prison smock from the woman's body and brutally shoved her onto the straw mattress of the cell cot. Before she realized what had happened, her arms and legs were bound to the cot posts in a spread-eagled position.

"What are you doing?" she shrieked. "I will call the guard!"

"He will not answer, Angela. I have the prison governor's permission to obtain my information in any way necessary. Now, what instructions did you give your Turkish friends regarding my wife?"

She regarded him coldly for a second and then, raising her head, spat full in his face. Bothwell nodded to his captain. Conall opened the woven basket. Looking into it thoughtfully, he chose a short, plump green snake. He handed it to Bothwell, who wrapped the reptile about his hand and caressed the weaving, darting head. Sliding it off his hand, he placed it on the straw mattress between Angela's open legs.

The Contessa di LiCosa shrieked wildly. "Francisco! For the love of God! Take it away! Take it away!"

"What exactly did you do with my wife?"

She strained against her bonds, her black eyes dark mirrors of terror, but still she would not answer him. He could see the pounding of her heart in her chest. The snake uncurled itself and began to move slowly towards her. She screamed again, a long wailing moan of animal fear.

"It goes for the warmth and moistness of you, Angela. Soon it will seek the darkness of your womb, where so many have been before it. And when it is safely up inside you wriggling around, I shall take another from the basket, and another, and another… until your belly is a nest of snakes. Can you feel them inside you already, Angela? Does it feel good, my dear?" The cruel eyes bore pitilessly down at her. For the briefest moment, amazement at his cruelty overcame her fear. But then the fear returned tenfold, slamming into her so fiercely that for a moment she couldn't draw a breath.

Finally she was able to gasp, "I sent her to my brother! Take that reptile away! I will tell you all! Only take it away!"


Casually Bothwell lifted the snake from the mattress and dropped it back into its container. "Talk then, you bitch, or I'll shove the entire basket up you!"

"I sent your precious bride to my brother, Cicalazade Pasha, the sultan's grand vizier. He is quite a connoisseur of beautiful women, and his prowess is legendary. She is not there yet, Francisco, but she will be soon. Then Cica's head eunuch will have her bathed and perfumed, and he will lead her to my brother, where she will be stripped naked for his inspection. When he has seen her-for I admit that she is beautiful-he will pleasure himself on her body."

"You bitch." snarled Bothwell.

Angela di LiCosa laughed. "You will never see her again! She is lost to you! Soon she will lie beneath my brother, moaning her desire." She lowered her voice to an intimate level. "They say he is a bull, and he will teach her to please him. You will have nothing but a memory, and the knowledge that another man is fucking her!" Angela's voice now became silky soft, and caressing. "Think of it, Francisco. Her tawny hair spread upon the pillows, her firm white legs eagerly open to receive her master's swollen manhood. She will beg for his favors! Living in a harem of a hundred other beauties, she will compete for his attentions as eagerly as any of them!"

The savagery of her words ripped into him, and Both-well rose from the edge of the cot, his face a mask of pain and anguish. Crossing the cell, he pulled the door open and exited. Slowly Conall moved to stand beside the condemned woman. For a moment he stood staring silently down at her. Angela was frightened, for this man did not regard her nakedness with desire. This one showed no emotion whatsoever. "You are a wicked woman," he said quietly, "but do not think that you have won. We will bring her safely back to us. I have not watched over her since she was a child to see her end this way."

Bending, he took his knife and cut through the con-tessa's bonds. And before she realized what he was doing, he lifted the basket of green snakes and dumped them in her lap.

As he left the cell he smiled wolfishly, hearing the shrieks behind. "Lock it up again," he commanded the guard. "It's not to be opened again until morning."

Conall More-Leslie was not surprised,, the following day, to hear that the Devil had come for the soul of Angela di LiCosa during the night, leaving her body and half a dozen green garden snakes as a memento of his visit. The crowd gathered to see a live Angela executed was disappointed. The body was tied to the waiting stake and burned to ashes, giving the cheering crowd a small satisfaction.

Chapter 53

CONALL More-Leslie allowed the Earl of Bothwell exactly twenty-four hours to wallow in his grief. Then he dragged Francis to a bathhouse in the Turkish quarter of Naples, where two burly bath attendants scrubbed the drunken man down. Next he was put into a hot steam room until every pore was open and running freely. Then he was sloshed with scented tepid water and allowed to sleep on a marble bath bench in a slightly less volcanic steamroom. Awakened after an hour with a cup of boiling Turkish coffee, he vomited up most of the wine he had imbibed and was then taken into another tepidarium to be shaved and bathed again. Lastly he was dressed in his own fresh, clean clothes, which Conall had brought with them. His old clothes were burned. Finally he was bowed back out into the street, where his captain waited.

Bothwell was so weakened that he could barely mount his horse, and he cursed Conall roundly. Conall simply said, "I've found a tavern several streets over owned by an Englishman who knows how to cook beef decently," and led the way to La Rosa Anglo. A table in a private room awaited them. The landlord, himself from the north of England, served them slices of hot half-raw roast beef dripping its bloody juices onto great slabs of Yorkshire pudding. The table held a pottery bowl of artichokes in oil and vinegar, a tub of sweet butter, and a hot round loaf of crusty bread. The flagons were filled to the brim with foaming brown ale, at the sight of which Bothwell's eyebrows shot up.

The tavern keeper grinned toothily. "Aye, me lord! October ale it is! I makes it and casks it meself each year. 'Tis no easy task in this place!"

Bothwell sat down. He didn't feel particularly hungry, but suddenly the scent of the beef began to work its magic on him and he reached for the salt. Half an hour later he pushed back his chair and said, "Thank you, Conall."

The captain nodded. "I've taken the liberty," he said, "of asking Master Kira to see you. He'll be waiting for us now, my lord."

"Can he help?"

"Possibly, my lord. The Kiras' main banking branch and their family head are both located in Istanbul."

Bothwell rose and paid the landlord. The man gaped at the generous coin in his hand. "Thank ye, sir," he babbled. "Anytime we can serve the border lord, we're proud to do so!"

But Bothwell had already mounted and was riding towards the Jewish section of the city, and Pietro Kira's house. Conall smiled, pleased that he had roused the earl from self-pity. They reached the Kira dwelling and were quickly ushered into the best salon. Servants hurried in with wine and biscuits.

Then came Pietro Kira, elegant in a long, fur-trimmed black gown, a large gold chain and pendant hanging about his neck and shoulders. He grasped Lord Bothwell's hand, saying, "I am so sorry to receive you under these circumstances, my lord. Let us sit down. You will tell me everything that you know."

The earl repeated what he had learned from young May, and from Angela di LiCosa. "Yes," nodded the banker, "we knew all of that, but it is good to have it confirmed. We have already sent a message to the head of the family in Istanbul. Do not be afraid for your wife, my lord. She has friends about her, and when the time is right we will contact her. She is a brave and resourceful lady."

"I would go to Istanbul as soon as possible, Signor Kira."

"Indeed you would, my lord, but you must not. At least not yet. Not until we have ascertained that the countess has arrived, is safe, and has been contacted by our people. For you to show up in the sultan's capital demanding your wife's return would be absolutely fatal to you and possibly also to your wife.

"Sultan Mohammed is a strange man given to alternating moods of great kindness and unbelievable cruelty. He is deeply fond of his vizier. If Cicalazade Pasha is taken with your beautiful wife and you arrive to demand her back, you could find yourself quickly dead, my lord. Let us move slowly and carefully. The countess is quite safe. It would not serve Cicalazade Pasha's purpose to hurt her."

"But how will I get her back, Pietro Kira? How?"

"When we know what we must regarding your wife's position, then we can plan, my lord. It may be possible to ransom her. More likely, we will have to abduct her. In the meantime, please return to your home and wait to hear from me. And, my lord, I think you should know that your wife's monies are at your complete disposal. Prior to her arrival here in Naples she arranged with the House of Kira that you and your children should inherit her wealth should anything befall her."

Bothwell looked pained. "I cannot touch a penny-piece of her money," he said.

Conall said quietly, "Ye'll need gold for the running of the household, my lord. Why not simply have all the bills sent to Signor Kira? He will keep a strict accounting. I know ye would ne'er take her wealth for yourself. But lord, man, yer her husband, and she'd nae thank me if I let ye starve to death afore she comes home!"

Bothwell nodded sadly, absently. "Whatever ye think is right, Conall. I leave it to ye."

Conall turned again to the banker. "Your messengers are swifter than ours, sir. Will you see that the young Earl of Glenkirk is informed that my lady's children are to remain safely with him until further notice? She had sent a message asking that they be sent out to her, but now, of course, 'tis impossible."

"We will see to it, captain," said Pietro Kira, already thinking about the message he would be sending to his uncle in the Ottoman capital.

Istanbul was the home of the Kira family. Once a small merchant family of Jews, they had, thanks to their matriarch Esther Kira, risen to become one of the most powerful banking houses in all of Europe and Asia.

Esther Kira had been born in 1490. At six, she and her small brother, Joseph, were orphaned and taken into the house of their father's oldest brother. At twelve, Esther was peddling hard-to-obtain merchandise to the harem ladies of the rich. At sixteen, she was allowed entry to the imperial harem, and at twenty, her family's fortune was made when she met Cyra Hafise, mother of Suleiman the Magnificent. When Sultan Suleiman ascended the throne in 1520, Esther Kira and her family were forever exempted from the paying of taxes for services rendered the crown. No one, including Esther's family, ever knew what those services were, but it would have been unthinkable to question the imperial word.

Considered of value now by her uncle, Esther was married off to his younger son. When her only brother-in-law died childless, it was Esther's sons who inherited the now-great banking house. That was only just, since it was Esther's efforts that had brought the Kiras their stunning success.