“Please do it, Kett. But keep yourself safe. The danger must be mine alone.”
Elza entered the bathing chamber and they both grew quiet. “I take over from here now, Miss Ana,” she said.
“What’s next?” Ana asked too brightly, covering their sudden hush in conversation.
Elza looked at her, raising an eyebrow. “You seem very alert.”
“That’s not a bad thing, is it? I found the waters refreshing,” Ana replied, feeling the excitement and tension of her small escape plan shaping.
“No, but the waters are meant to relax, not make you too jumpy.”
“I’m not jumpy, Elza.”
“Well, don’t try to convince me you’re excited,” the slave said, a hint of sarcasm icing her words.
Elza knew her too well. Ana attempted a rueful smile. “I just want to get it all over and done with, to be honest.”
“That’s fair enough, too, Miss Ana. I understand.” Elza returned the smile before continuing briskly: “Next we have to remove your body hair.”
Ana had heard that highborn females and those who married above themselves strove to keep their bodies free of all hair save what flowed from their heads. Her stepmother had scoffed at the notion, claiming it was an idle pastime for idle women. No one Ana had ever met had the time or inclination to follow this practice.
“Now don’t look at me like that, Miss Ana. This is the way of the harem.”
“How is it done?”
“With paste,” the woman replied simply. “Come and lie here on these warmed towels.”
Ana did as she was told, watching, somewhat fascinated, as Elza lifted the lid on one of her many pots before beginning to smear the pungent paste onto Ana’s shins.
“Quicklime and orpiment—crystals of arsenic,” she explained as she worked deftly with her ivory spatula. As she finished attending to the second leg with the paste, she reached for a small gray implement.
“What’s that?” Ana said, sitting up.
“A mussel shell that’s been sharpened. Watch,” Elza replied as she used the fine edge of the shell like a razor to lift away the paste and with it the fine golden hair on Ana’s legs. She repeated the process on Ana’s arms, her underarms, and then removed the modesty sheet covering her middle. “Now for the important bit,” she said, grinning, “so our young stallion can see you in all your glory.” Lightly, she slapped Ana’s thigh.
Ana groaned. “I don’t—”
“Don’t start,” Elza warned. “I told you this is the important part. You’ll need to raise your legs, girl, and open those knees.”
Ana balled her fists with a mixture of anger and resentment as the slave woman forced her knees apart and she began to feel the acidic paste stinging between her legs. She refused to voice her rage by crying out, although the desire to do so was great.
“We cannot leave this on for too long or the arsenic will corrode your flesh,” Elza said, not unkindly but too matter-of-fact to sound mindful of the younger woman’s discomfort.
“It’s burning me now.”
“It will,” Elza said coolly, before warning, “I must use it on all your orifices, Miss Ana—nose, ears—”
“Say no more,” Ana warned, cutting off what Elza was going to list next and feeling sickened as the slave turned her over and pushed her legs apart once again.
“On your knees, girl, make it easier for me.”
Ana gave in to her rising tide of emotion, felt her eyes water with the humiliation of this activity, and Kett, standing nearby, hung his head hung with his own sense of shame on her behalf. She thought of her father and his simple life, simple needs. She thought of her brother and sisters and how she would give anything to be living with them again, and she thought of the statue of Lyana whom Pez believed Ana now represented. And then she considered this pampered prisoner life she was now being committed to and her mind snapped itself into a stony decision. Escape, be it out of Percheron or by death, was her only option. She would take her chance tonight, no matter what happened.
When Elza was satisfied, after an embarrassingly long and close scrutiny, that Ana was free of all superfluous hair, she pulled a small rough burlap bag on over each hand.
“Now what?” Ana asked testily.
“I must polish your body. Turn over and be quiet, child.”
Elza began to rub every inch of her charge with the rough bags whilst Kett scrubbed the soles of Ana’s feet with rasps. Ana no longer found any of it diverting. The humiliation she still felt fired her imagination further, and she reveled in the notion that she could cheat Salmeo and Herezah. She didn’t enjoy the idea of snubbing Boaz, who had in all truth been nothing but a friend to her, but even that relationship had this dark side to it, where she was expected to give her body for his use.
In her frustration she remembered hearing Lazar’s voice coming through Pez, and it made her feel hot where she shouldn’t and this angered her even more. How could they have lied to her, allowed her to grieve and feel guilty as she had done the past year?
She flicked her hair angrily. “Are we finished?”
Elza had finished, apparently, because she turned to Kett, ignoring Ana. “Bathe her again before she is oiled.”
Ana grimaced but said nothing, obeying the woman who was in charge of her preparation. After another dip in the heated waters, Kett smoothed warmed perfumed oil from her neck to the tips of her toes, rubbing it in gently. It was a marvelous sensation, and beneath the strong-fingered ministrations of Kett, Ana genuinely did feel every inch of herself relax, for perhaps the first time since entering the palace.
Warmed pouches of wheat were placed on her eyelids whilst Kett finished smoothing the oil into the front of her body and Ana felt herself drifting into a light doze.
“Almost ready?” a familiar voice lisped. Ana felt her momentarty sense of peacefulness evaporate as her stomach clenched.
“Just her hair to be dried, brushed, and dressed,” Elza said softly.
“Kett, you’ve done well,” said the voice. “She looks calm—just how we need her.”
Kett did not respond and Ana felt frozen to the marble-surfaced table on which she lay, naked and vulnerable.
“Ana,” Salmeo said firmly. “You are almost ready in your preparations.” He removed the wheat bags and she managed to muster a small amount of defiance to load into her stare. “Just hair and clothes to go,” he continued, hardly noticing her glower but looking up and down her body, making soft noises of appreciation.
“I don’t need your help to get dressed, Grand Master Salmeo,” she replied, aware that her words were impertinent but carefully tempering her voice.
He stroked her belly, and his gap-toothed smile was prompted by her flinch. “No, but I am required to perform one final act upon you before I hand you over to our Zar for his pleasure.”
She sat up, fearful, and Elza made a hushing sound. “Now, Miss Ana, this is the usual practice, the way of the harem.”
“Don’t touch me,” she warned Salmeo.
He sighed theatrically. “Pity. I thought we could make this easy on you, Ana.” He clapped and four grave-looking Elim entered. “Do I need to ask these men to assist?” He held his sharp-pointed fingernail in the air, freshly painted red for the occasion. “Make a decision, Ana. It can be a crowd or it can be intimate—just the two of us…again.”
She knew she had lost her small fight and nodded, fighting back the tears at her hopeless rebellion.
A signal from Salmeo dismissed the Elim. Ana stole a desperate glance at a frightened-looking Kett and nodded, begging him to understand the intent of her message. Slowly he nodded back.
“Go about your other business, Kett. I’ve left a list of errands—they require you to go to the bazaar.” Kett bowed and hurried away.
Ana could hardly dare to believe that he had been ordered to go precisely where she wanted him to visit. “Can Elza stay?” she begged Salmeo.
“Leave us, woman,” Salmeo said cruelly in an
swer. “She cannot save you this, Ana. Now, where is the emollient?” He directed his question at the male slave who dutifully held out a pot of the paste. Ana recognized him from her first night in the palace, the night she had taken her Test of Virtue. Elza, no longer permitted to stay, patted Ana on the leg and left her to Salmeo. The male slave followed.
Ana and Salmeo were alone. She closed her eyes to shut him out.
“As I told you once before, Ana, you can make this easy, or if you fight me, you can make it hurt.”
“Just do it!” she growled, tears flowing freely now, even through her tightly clenched eyelids.
She missed his lascivious smile as he first caressed her between the legs then plunged his fingers into her body once again, taking his time, massaging her so she would open more willingly. He moved his fingers into and out of her, lingering, knowing just where to touch to win an uncontrolled gasp from her.
“Feels nice, doesn’t it?” he said. “Don’t clench against my fingers, Ana. Relax yourself. It’s good practice for Zar Boaz.”
She refused to say anything, hating herself for responding physically. Although his touch made bile rise to her throat, it seemed the effect it had on her traitorous body was the opposite. She fought her instinct to move with the soft throb his pudgy fingers had won from her.
“Now, Ana,” he said, his voice thick with his own lust, “I can see you’ll be very responsive to our Zar. Right here,” he said, teasing and rubbing harder, “is where he needs to touch you to make you slippery and ready for him. If he doesn’t do it, do it to yourself, girl, or what he does do will hurt you badly. He will have little idea of this, I’m guessing; he’ll be all clumsy thrusts and eagerness, I’m sure, not precise and soft…and knowledgeable like Salmeo,” he lisped in a lover’s voice. He tantalizied her further with his oiled fingers until she groaned, confused by her conflicting emotions. She tried to push his hand away but he slapped her hard.
“Don’t, Ana. This is my time with you and I’m giving you a very good lesson. Without my advice it will go badly for you tonight. Remember what I’ve said, what I’ve shown you today.” Ana felt her whole body trembling, privately begging him to finish what he’d begun, but still she resisted the call of his insistent fingers.
Suddenly he stopped and she all but shrieked, not sure whether it was from disappointment or relief.
“No finishing for you, Ana. We want you swollen and eager like this. You must remember this feeling. This is the point you must reach tonight before he enters you and then you will be ready and you will satisfy him because your own urges will be in concert with his. Oh, and do not try to take your own pleasures either, my girl.” He ignored her soft panting. “The Valide will give you strict counsel before you are led into the Zar’s chambers but heed my own warning: You are there purely to satisfy Zar Boaz, not the other way around. You will do everything he requests, perform any act he requires. Do you understand?”
She nodded bleakly, hating the unsated feeling that her body was experiencing as it slid from the delicate ecstasy the eunuch had so cunningly achieved. Salmeo’s little finger slipped back into her and she gasped again.
“Relax, Ana,” he said, and she saw his smile this time as his tongue flicked out to moisten his lips. “Now to the true purpose of my visit.”
And Salmeo put his stained red nail to its ugly purpose as Ana arched her back and cried out her pain and her resentment.
She bled, proving once again that Lazar had delivered the perfect prize to the harem.
12
Pez’s plans to see Zafira had unraveled. He had not been able to find her in the morning as he’d intended and now it was getting late in the day after his run-in with Lazar. He had tried to find Ana but had learned through one of the Elim that she was being prepared for the Zar. He made use of the quiet to wield the Lore to help mend the crack that Lazar’s fist had inflicted on his jaw, but it didn’t do much to lessen the pain. That would be with him until it fully healed.
He decided that flying to the temple was just too risky—he had been flying too much lately, and a snowy-white owl, if spotted, would be considered a prize acquisition for a wily hunter. Instead he slipped away from the palace in the late afternoon and took a stroll down to the temple. As always when passing through the grand bazaar, Pez got lost in his own thoughts. He loved this bustling, thriving city within the city, but because there were so many people around him, and Pez had allowed his concentration to lapse, he did not notice the figure that followed him down the hill from the palace, blending into the moving mass of humanity.
Pez was instantly recognizable to most in the bazaar, but unless he was actually performing for them, they tended to leave him to himself. Frankly, many were scared of the contrary dwarf. Pez did nothing to alleviate this vague sense of disquiet in passersby, keeping up a mindless stream of gibberish interspersed with humming. It took little effort on his part and allowed him to drift in his thoughts until he arrived at the temple, where he did find Zafira, laying out some sea daisies before the statue of Lyana.
He cartwheeled around the temple, inwardly begging the Goddess to forgive him his silly antics in her place of quiet worship, knowing in his heart she would likely find it amusing.
“Ah, Pez, I wondered when I’d see you.”
“I want some fruit,” he called aggressively, rubbing his jaw gingerly from the pain of talking. He grabbed her arm, listing all the names of the fruits he loved, and dragged her into the far corner, checking surreptitiously that there were no other people in the temple.
“I came earlier,” he whispered.
As usual, Zafira seemed to take his erratic behavior—even when they were alone—in her stride. “I had things to do.”
“Well, I have more important things for you to do. I told you, I need some fruit!” Pez couldn’t hide his worry from her.
“Oh?”
“Take me to your kitchen, flitchen, gitchen, ditchen.”
Zafira beckoned. “Come, Pez, I have some fruit upstairs,” she said, openly playing along. Then whispered: “Let us take a final cup of quishtar together.”
“My face hurts,” he mumbled.
But she had turned away. He followed her now in silence, dragging his knuckles on the ground as he had seen the monkeys in the zoo move, slowly ascending the stairs.
Once upstairs, he moved to the window, staring out wistfully.
“We are alone,” she confirmed. Pez knew she sensed his anxiety, was trying to assure him that he could drop his act.
He didn’t turn from the window but spoke softly. “You must leave Percheron today…now.”
She smiled gently. “Leave?”
“It’s time,” he said, more kindly. He glanced around, ensuring that no one else could possibly eavesdrop, and as an extra measure reached out with the Lore. He felt nothing. “I know who Maliz is.”
Zafira took her time answering. Fear was etched clearly on her face. “Already?”
He nodded, shouted out the names of more fruit in a demanding voice this time before dropping almost to a whisper again. “It can be no one else. He sensed my presence at the palace and knows Lyana will be close, but then you already know who she is.” He didn’t mean for it to sound quite like the accusation it did. “I want pomegranates!” he yelled, and then fell quiet, staring out from her window at Beloch as Zafira maintained her own dread silence whilst she brewed quishtar.
He tested his surroundings once again with the Lore and finally permitted himself to feel safe. “Is it my imagination or does Beloch have cracks in his stone that were not there before?”
Zafira joined him at the small window, handing him a steaming bowl of quishtar. “I’ve never seen that before and I look at Beloch every day. How odd.”
“His brother’s too far away for me to note if he’s cracking, too,” Pez said, wincing as he took a sip of the hot liquid that sent a fresh scream of pain through his jaw.
“They are crumbling like us,” she said sadly.
> “We’ve never been stronger, Zafira. We have to believe that.”
“Who is it?” she asked, an edge in her voice.
“Can you not guess?” Pez didn’t mean to be mischievous. He wanted to see if the clues had been strong enough for Zafira to work out.
She frowned and sipped her brew. “I obviously know him for you to suggest I guess.”
He nodded gravely and she held his stare.
She puzzled at it for a few moments before saying: “The Vizier?”
Pez closed his eyes momentarily in silent despair. Maliz had been under their noses for perhaps a year and they hadn’t noticed. Yet the clues had been there—Zafira’s guess confirmed it.
“Am I right?” She sounded incredulous.
He nodded somberly. “I believe Maliz has taken over Tariq, yes.”
She turned away from the window, distracted but not disbelieving him. “How can it be? How did we miss it?” she hissed.
Pez had had longer to get used to the notion, longer to temper his frustration. He needed to reassure her. “It is the way he works, Zafira. We are not meant to know. That’s his disguise, but it works in our favor, too. He doesn’t know who we are either.”
“But the changes—they’re so obvious,” she countered, angry as she put her bowl down. “We should have been more focused. We should have been looking for him.”
“And we would not have arrived at this conclusion any earlier, I’m sure of it.”
“What makes you sure of his identity?”
“Something Lazar said triggered the thought and then it was so obvious I’ve hated myself since,” he said, touching his jaw.
“Ana!” Zafia exclaimed, clutching a hand to her chest. Just as suddenly, she glanced at Pez, awareness of what she’d accidentally let slip in her eyes.
Pez nodded. “You could have told me what you suspected and not left me to work it out for myself,” he admonished softly.
“Ellyana insisted we say nothing to anyone about Ana.”
Pez frowned. So Ellyana had deliberately kept them in the dark, blundering around, not trusting anyone but themselves. He forced himself to move on. “Well, Lazar and I agree that Ana is safer at the palace than anywhere else. She has certain protections that the harem gives her. Maliz has little access to her physically.”
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