Dancing with Kings

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Dancing with Kings
Eva Stachniak

An alluring, exotic novel set in the late eighteenth century, based on the life of the famous and much-painted courtesan, La Belle Phanariote.Young, beautiful, fallen, Sophie Glavani has brought shame on her family. She realises that she must now learn the art of seduction in order to survive in turbulent times.Her beauty and charm are so great that the world is entranced. Men are driven to madness, women moved to jealousy. She leads the King of Poland in the Polonaise.Now, dying and surrounded by her family, Sophie relives her life's dance for the final time. Her journey from fallen woman to Countess, the men she has captivated, the hearts she has broken. Eva Stachniak creates a brilliant eighteenth-century world and weaves a compelling tale of a courtesan's love, her life and her death.Brilliantly written, cleverly constructed with a strong cast of characters, both real and fictional, and vivid scenes, Dancing with Kings is an alluring, sensuous and exotic saga.

Dancing with Kings

Eva Stachniak

For Zbyszek

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u4a8cbf64-663c-59c3-b191-9791f7b483f8)

Title Page (#u68d85b58-0e00-5a94-ac23-ca6f2b91895f)

Dedication (#u82ab40e1-df9e-5fea-88a8-cf1a42b0aa65)

PART ONE (#uaea50d23-9306-5248-b846-b3dcec3fe179)

BERLIN, 1822: Water (#ucd6126cd-8934-5bfa-b465-149c73d5a7bd)

PART TWO (#u60f84daf-7159-52aa-a9db-f47909747f41)

BERLIN, 1822: Laudanum (#ua394e7e6-4c32-5549-8c00-603f176c510a)

PART THREE (#u4e8b6c29-705e-5742-ba82-7f3b5d4f082b)

BERLIN 1822: Opium (#u452985cc-caa5-559c-911d-d568d6bdfe74)

PART FOUR (#u5c4375e8-f5b8-58bf-805e-18406319e8d4)

BERLIN, 1822: Morphine (#u5d4bde7b-3eff-515d-97bf-d2d4ee3bbe5b)

Historical Note (#u296ccfb4-1655-5e65-a817-ddae76de3178)

Acknowledgements (#uefd0ae13-b201-5c44-a4fa-0e1f9f535c15)

DANCING WITH KINGS (#u34de7a5a-a096-5083-b4d6-9ba70704e896)

By the same author (#u69be74b2-e7d0-5cf4-bb0e-66bd264bad34)

Copyright (#u7f99518b-685c-5f6c-9aa8-77d83f4aa1a6)

About the Publisher (#ud7f35d01-537b-5cb3-b3c4-0f932380dfb8)

PART ONE (#ulink_e5184f23-d04a-5bcf-a350-a0d8548f96a0)

From Mes amours intimes avec la belle Phanariote

Bursa – where our story so humbly begins – a town spreading at the feet of Moundagnà or Mount Olympus is but a day’s journey from Istanbul. Mars, Neptune, and Venus had once been worshipped there, and they could still lay their claims to this land on account of the valiant warriors hailing from the Greek Empire and Byzantium, on account of sailors recruited here, and on account of modern Lais and Phrynes whose presence adorns the cafes and bawdyhouses of Istanbul. The worshippers of the Love goddess, I hasten to add, are of both sexes, for the boys ministering to the desires of the Byzantines are as beautiful here as the girls.

Beholding the multitude of beautiful faces in this mountainous and healthy region, one is tempted to say that, for such delightful fruit to be so plentiful, Aphrodite, sailing in her conch from Cytera to Paphos, must have unloaded in this land some of her precious cargo, her aphros, that essence of pleasure and beauty, the source of our very existence. For this region has always supplied the world with superior talents from the realm of Venus, natural talents capable, with little effort, of conquering the hearts of courtiers and kings. Is this a wonder that, in Istanbul, the terms ‘a girl from Moundagnà’ and ‘a prosperous girl providing fanciful pleasure’ have become synonymous?

In this town of Bursa, la belle Phanariote was born in the year of 1760, and very ordinary blood flows in her veins for she is the daughter of a cattle trader and among her relatives are many a ferryman, craftsman, and a shopkeeper.* Her childhood was spent in the fields and meadows surrounding her native town where she led that free and naïve existence so much praised by some philosophers of yesterday.