Voyage of the Istanbul Tigress Ch. 06

"Your woman is unharmed, she is," Mor Cuanaich said. "Does that surprise you Englishman? You think I am uncultured and without honor?"

"Give me Nasira," Hamilton said, after a pause.

"By all means, Englishman," he turned. "And you will give me the grand Lady Viscountess."

Nasira stepped across the gunwale at the same time the Viscountess was passed across.

Nasira fell into Hamilton's arms. Hamilton couldn't talk. He just held her. Mor Cuanaich was saying something, taunts and insults, but Edward Hamilton could not hear them.

"Back oars!" Zuberi yelled. The Tiggress' crew pushed their oars against the other boat and then began to row, with much more urgency, back to their brig.

Nasira pulled back slightly, her face was streamed with tears. "Oh, Edward, you idiot, what have you done?"

"I saved you." Hamilton looked at his Nasira. She looked tired. Her clothes, some of which he saw now were the remains of her Janissary uniform, were ripped in places. But he had been expecting worse.

"You are weak, Englishman!" Mor Cuanaich yelled from his boat. "That slave has taken your balls, she has!"

Hamilton held tightly to Nasira, "I missed you so very much."

"Edward, I know what they wanted. That stupid man never shuts you. You should not have done this! You should not have given him that woman, she is for the Sultan!"

"Nasira, please." He added quietly, "I haven't given him Lady Dunsbrooke. I gave him her servant, I had her hair cut short and that from a blonde slave wove into it."

"He'll know!"

"Soon, yes, but I have you."

"I have shown you as a weak fool, Englishman and now I will kill you!" Mor Cuanaich yelled. The boats were now a hundred yards apart and he voice echoed off the cliffs. He was standing in his boat with his saber in hand. He swung the sword down, and yelled, "Tirez!"

Nothing happened.

Mor Cuanaich yelled again, "Tirez! Tirez! Fire, you stupid crapauds!"

There was a sudden puff of black smoke from the cliff top, then another, with the sharp boom of a pair of twelve pounder cannon. Two splashes landed in the water, bracketing the galley.

"No!" the pirate yelled. "Them! Shoot them you bastards!"

The men were rowing hard in each boat. Two more shots landed, each splashing the galley's deck.

At last they came alongside the Tiggress. "Up, Nasira, quickly. Mr. Zuberi, take the kedge."

"Yes, Captain."

Hamilton climbed up after Nasira, while Zuberi and the other remained in the boat. They quickly rowed to the stern, where a port was already open. A sailor stuck his head out. He pulled back in and soon the small kedge anchor was being passed out to the boat.

"Mr. Ahmar! Cut the cable!"

"That has been done," Ahmar said.

"Very good," Hamilton stood on the quarter deck. The main anchor was gone, and in the weak breeze they would have to warp out by dropping the smaller kedge anchor and using the capstan to pull the cable tight and drag the Tiggress towards the open water.

"There are no slaves at the oars, Edward, only his soldiers. He will overwhelm you."

"Not if the men won't work row." Hamilton looked back. "Mr. Ahmar, fire when she bears."

Ahmar shouted a command and the larboard guns fired. The galley was too far to expect any of the shots to hit, but the loud report, magnified by the cliffs, the sight of the dark smoke, it all added to the chaos which was growing on Mor Cuanaich's vessel.

The two cannon on top of the cliffs fired again, there was one splash and a loud crack as the second ball plunged down through the deck and out the hull. That galley had its oars out, but they were not moving. A few pirates were jumping overboard, not that there was anywhere for them to go.

"The crusaders built a fortress on the cliff top," Hamilton said. "I had a feeling that Irishman might have put a gun or two up there to direct plunging fire down on us. I set the Russian ashore this morning with a handful of our best gunners and... there he is!"

Vasily Nikolayevich Rozhdestvensky was standing on one of the cannon barrels, a saber in one hand, and a French artillery officer's jacket in the other.

The men at the capstan were pulling hard, working the brig outwards. Zuberi's boat had already taken the second kedge. They dropped it a hundred yards further out. That might be enough.

The two cannon fired again and this time the both shots plunged through the galley's deck to smash down through the hull, far below the waterline.

"You're a clever man, Mr. Hamilton," Nasira said.

"Thank you, Miss Nasira." Hamilton smiled and said, quietly, to Ahmar, "My compliments to Mr. Zuberi, he may come back aboard. And, if you would be so kind as to set the courses and tops'ls, I think she'll take the breeze."

Ahmar nodded and gave the orders.

Nasira went below to his cabin, she was desperately thirsty. Hamilton leaned against the taffrail. The galley was listing. There was no chance of pursuit. Whatever allies Mor Cuanaich had left were not going to avenge him. The Tiggress' sails snapped as brig cleared the lee and met the wind. He was watching the sails, the rigging, he had ordered the t'gallants set as well and the wind was at the starboard quarter. He wondered if they could make ten knots.

Katherine slapped him. "You fucking bastard!" she shouted. "My Rachel, she was worth nothing to you! Nothing! May the devil take you! May you rot in hell you soulless bastard. She was nineteen! Nineteen and you killed her!"

Ahmar rushed over and pulled her back.

"You cannot do that!" Ahmar said as he held her. "You cannot hit the Captain!"

"How can you live with yourself you fucking bastard?" Katherine spit at Hamilton, then she turned and rushed below decks.

"I will punish her." Ahmar said, angrily. "A foolish woman."

"No. Leave her be."

##

August 1799, Istanbul

Hamilton rolled out of the bed and went to the window. Minarets loomed over the trees, and a few courtiers were walking across a path in the garden, each dressed in more elaborate robes than the last. The apartment given to Hamilton was small, but they were, after all, right outside Topaki Palace. The palace of the Sultan. Still, Hamilton wished the window looked down at the ships at anchor in the Golden Horn.

Nasira sat up in bed. The sheet had fallen down revealing her breasts. She frowned, slightly.

"You have to stop thinking about it, Edward."

He didn't answer. She slipped out of bed and padded over to him. She put her arm around his waist and kissed his shoulder.

"Trying to tell me what to do now, slave?" he said with a forced smile.

"You are a soldier," Nasira whispered to him. "Killing that pirate would have been worth my death or your death. It would have be worth the death of half your crew if you had fought him at sea. It was worth the loss of that servant."

"I didn't go into that bay to destroy Mor Cuanaich. I went into there to save you."

"I know. I owe you my life, Edward."

Hamilton smiled as he watched a pair of birds, so colorful, twist over and down behind the Palace walls. "So we're even."

She shook her head. "No. Never."

Hamilton turned around. He kissed her.

And there was a burst of singing, in Russian, he realized. Just outside the window Vasily Nikolayevich Rozhdestvensky was walking, or at least trying to, with a bottle in one hand and a leash in the other. He had taken to wearing the French artillery jacket he had pulled from one of the pirates, even though it was too small. Vasya turned back and yanked on the leash, the slave behind him, who was carrying a potted tulip, hurried to catch up. Vasya looked up and saw Hamilton and Nasira. He shouted something to them neither could understand. Nasira waved back.

"He looks happy, master. I wish you were."

"I am happy, Nasira. Oh, I can't tell you how happy I am."

She looked coy and backed up towards the bed. Her body was lean, with long legs and a curve along her hips and ass that was as close to perfection as anything he had ever seen. She had large breasts, and he enjoyed playing with them, one at a time, with both hands. Her dark hair was tinged with red. Since they had reached Istanbul she had trimmed her pussy, leaving only a small patch of hair between her legs.

He pushed her down, pinning her to the bed, his legs straddling her and his cock pressing up against her slit.

"In Tunis you were a slave," he said playfully.

"Yes, master. One of the soldiers of the Sultan. I was owned by him."

"And there were so many rules."

"Oh yes," she pressed her head up and kissed him quickly. "I was not allowed to have a cock inside my body." She laughed. "I could touch and kiss but not suck."

"I did notice that." He kissed her neck, feeling her breasts against his chest. "I notice you are not a soldier of the Sultan anymore."

"No, master, I am not," she moaned softly. "They have dismissed my corps."

"You are mine. My slave. You are a prize of war."

"Yes, master." She pressed her hips up against him. Her arms were tight around his neck as he kissed her.

"I don't think I'll have that rule," he whispered. His cock slid back and forth slightly along her slit, not yet, dipping inside. "Put my cock inside you, slave."

"Yes, master." Nasira reached down, she felt his cock and maneuvered him as she shifted her hips, until the tip of his cock was between her wet folds. Then she pulled her hands up and put them above her head.

"You are my slave, my love, you are my everything." He watched her face as he pressed his cock into her.

"Oh, yes, master... oh yes, I want you."

Hamilton felt the world seem to drift away as he slowly began to fuck her, feeling nothing other than his cock inside her very wet and very tight cunt. Nasira was what he wanted. In all the world he would give anything and do anything to have her. And now, at last, he did. He owned her. A companion, a friend, a lover. Nasira was all that. He was fucking her harder now, he could feel it, the physical pleasure so strong, but nothing compared with the pure ecstasy of owning this woman.

Dimly he heard her moaning as he began to fuck her faster and as he came inside her.

A few minutes later, Hamilton, said to her, "do you remember, slave, when I stood next to you on the walls of Massih Bey's fortress and asked you to come back to England?"

"Yes, master, I do. And I remember saying that you could come to Istanbul."

"I remember. Well, now that I'm here, I think I'll stay for awhile."