Aidan confronted the new champion, and when he charged, found that he had more time than anticipated, as if reality were slowing down a bit. As a result, he scored early with an elbow to the head, angled off to throw a knee that just missed the face and glanced off a massive shoulder. Aidan was fast … fast enough that his own eyes could barely track the motion. His blows were far more accurate than the German’s had been. He slid sideways as he threw, planting weight only at the moment of impact.
When the Turk charged in, Aidan scrambled out of the way, amazed to watch his arms and legs flying out, seemingly of their own accord, smashing into the Turk’s head and neck with shocking force. Oddly, it seemed the techniques were created not by his mind, but by the mere position of his body.
Indeed, one pivot with a knee strike set the Turk back on his heels with blood streaming from an already-broken nose. Aidan went after him in an instant, punching and elbowing, kicking to the supporting leg, and then sweeping that leg so that the Turk crashed to the ground. The crowd roared. For the first time, Aidan thought: I can do this!
Unfortunately, it was the last time, as well.
The Turk never tried to get up. Instead he rolled, grabbed Aidan’s foot, and curled his body in some odd way to get a heel into the Irishman’s guts, using leverage that Aidan couldn’t even understand to uproot him and slam him to the ground. In an instant, pain and confusion drove all thought of technique from his mind. Unlike the German, Aidan actually managed to scramble away from the grasping arms, leaving blood and skin on the sand.
He stood in time to be charged by the Turk once again, who smashed him into the ground so hard that he couldn’t breathe.
The crowd’s initial pleasure dissolved into jeers and catcalls.
Despite his courage, and all of his training, Aidan’s face was ground into the sand. He tasted grit, and felt the Turk twist his arm up behind him. He refused to scream, knew that in another instant he would hear his own bones break, and prepared himself for that.
Then, instead, he felt an arm slip around his neck, and felt the choking pressure.
Light faded. This is death, he thought. Good. I’ve failed you all. Nessa, I’m so …
“You actually fought well,” said Dosa, casting a sympathetic gaze down on Aidan. The Irishman had managed to leave the arena under his own power, making it as far as a holding cell before collapsing onto his straw mat. “And the crowd liked the fact that you stood and bowed to the Turk after you awakened. A nice touch. You’ll be a favorite, Aidan. It is possible that you might have beaten the German. It is possible. But this Turk …” He shrugged. “Well, I’m not blaming you. Heal, Aidan. And then we’ll see.”
He left Aidan in the darkness. At first Aidan managed to control his emotions, then he began to sob. Deep, wracking sobs that threatened to tear him apart.
He did not know how long he remained in that state, but emerged from it at once when the door creaked, and then opened. Aidan turned around. A tall, slender, cloaked figure stood in the doorway.
“She does not like the winners,” an elegant voice murmured. “Her husband likes the winners. My lady likes the ones with bruises, without the light of victory in their eyes.”
“What?” Aidan said, confused.
The figure came closer. “She likes the ones who can lose without breaking. Are you such a man?”
“What … do you want?” Aidan groaned. His pounding head needed no riddles.
She came to him, and placed her hand beneath his jaw.
“Luckily, she is not interested in your mind. Wash and prepare yourself. Nefriti will send for you.”
The woman turned and left. Aidan sat in the darkness, his former despair converting to something else.
Could this possibly mean what he thought? He remembered Rhino’s words: she has her own reasons to love the fights….
There remained the chance, just the chance, that not all was lost after all.
In spite of his aches and bruises, he managed a gruff laugh. “Well, boyo,” he said, crannog cadences sneaking back into his speech. “Looks like yer net ain’t as empty as ye thought.…”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
By the time the guards came for him, Aidan had washed and cleansed himself as best he could. Locked into their cells, the other fighters jeered as he strode past.
“Ah, Aden!” one cried. “Ye’ll have wrestling aplenty tonight!”
“Hope ye didn’t leave all yer fight on the sand—save some for the sheets!” yelled another, with more than a trace of envy in his voice.
He nodded to them, but Aidan felt somewhat disconnected, floating. He lacked the grounding that had comforted him for the last weeks. In an odd sense, he seemed not even to be living these moments. He felt that he was watching a play, or reading a triptych, a sense that he was floating above himself, behind himself. This entire situation couldn’t be real … could it?
Another few steps and he passed the cells where the massage girls were quartered. He paused when his eyes met Vida’s. She seemed deeply saddened, older than the masseuse who had ministered to him mere weeks before, whose offer of comfort he had regretfully declined. Was she jealous? Did she understand that he could not reject the Caliph’s wife without the direst of consequences? Or did she perhaps think he preferred black skin?
All of that together, and maybe more, mingled in her face, transforming it into a mask of pure pain and hopelessness. Poor girl. Her hero had fallen. He wished that there was something, anything, that he could say to comfort her.
But nothing came to mind, and finally she turned away, and curled on her side against her straw mattress.
A carriage took Aidan through a series of guarded checkpoints to the back gate of the Caliph’s estate. He watched the carriage’s every twist and turn, absorbed as many of the sights and sounds as possible, seeking to engrave landmarks upon his memory.
The gate opened and then closed behind him. The carriage clattered down a cobblestone drive through a maze of shadowed hedges, the way lined with fruit trees and cultivated gardens. The main house was two-storied, of pale brick, with a less ornate and more stolid design than wealthy southern homes. Surprisingly, the Caliph’s residence was somewhat smaller than Dar Kush, but he realized that that was almost inevitable: the Caliph lived in the middle of a city. A house the size of Kai’s might have dominated the entire nightscape.
The carriage finally came to a halt before a little cabana behind the main residence.
He stepped down gingerly, not entirely certain how best to behave, or what to do. What, he thought, would be most appropriate and effective, least suspicious? Head down and humble? Shoulders back and proud? Sharing a lecherous leer with the guards? The wrong response might be lethal.
Ultimately, he chose a middle ground: posture both alert and proud, but of neutral facial expression.
He was swiftly greeted by three guards wearing tunics, knee-length kilts, and tightly braided hair. They carried short swords or rifles, and chuckled among themselves, making little effort to disguise their insinuating grins. He was shoved through the cabana’s door, which was then shut tightly behind him.
“Do I wait?” he called through the wooden panels.
“Not long,” said a voice behind him.
He turned with a start, and saw that a woman was waiting in the deeply shadowed bed. “I’m sorry,” he managed to blurt out. “I didn’t see you.”
“Well,” Nefriti said lazily. “You see me now.”
He shifted positions. The only light was moonlight, flowing through a small louver over the door. That luminescence fell across the bulk of the bed, obscuring her face, but highlighting the sinuous shape beneath the single cotton sheet. “What am I supposed to do?” The air seemed to have thickened, his strength fled. More strongly than at any moment since his abortive duel with Malik, he knew himself to be in grave danger.
Breathe.
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Nefriti asked, a
mocking tone behind the single syllable.
Why indeed? There was little to fear, save, death, torture, castration, and dismemberment. Especially castration. And another thing, something that he was only now beginning to admit to himself: the fear that his body might not respond. Never before had such a thought crossed his young mind, but once implanted, it seemed impossible to erase.
“I’ve never been with a black woman before.”
Nefriti smiled. Luckily, she enjoyed his discomfort. “And have you ever seen one … like this?”
In the candlelight, she peeled back an edge of the sheet, exposing one perfect breast.
Aidan gasped. “No.” He was rapidly losing his composure. He felt lightheaded, but an accompanying heaviness in another physical realm resolved any lingering doubts about his ability to perform. The only question now was whether the cartridge might explode before entering the breech.
So to speak.
“You seemed so courageous in the arena,” said the Calipha. “Even in defeat. Do not tell me that your courage fails now, when I need it most.”
“No, I …”
He swallowed hard, but was regaining composure. The Calipha opened the sheet the rest of the way. She was extraordinary, and utterly alien to him. She was taller, leaner than Sophia, but her breasts were full and heavy, the nipples a deep and luscious cocoa. He couldn’t take his eyes from them: never had he seen their like. Sophia’s had been the darkest he had ever seen, but these …
Fear dissolving before the tide of lust, Aidan whispered a silent plea that Sophia would forgive him for this transgression. After all, she had bade him to do whatever it took to bring Nessa home, and if anyone would have understood the implications of “anything,” it was his good lady wife.
Still, he, and this moment, felt incredibly awkward.
If he was honest with himself, Aidan had to admit that he had always fantasized about bedding a black woman—so pristine, so utterly unattainable, so lofty and exotic. He could count the number of times he had touched one on his fingers.
He sat on the bed and then lay beside Nefriti, and all concerns of ineptitude vanished as she took control of the encounter, telling him what she wanted, and when, and how. By some measures the Calipha was past a woman’s prime years, but she was still as flexible and lithe as a cat. Her entire body seemed to have been trained and nurtured solely for sexual congress, so that every muscular twitch, every deepening scent or wave of heat communicated to something deep and primal within him, so that it became difficult to think, or indeed to remember that there was a world beyond the walls of this room.
The clasp of her sex was like a milking hand. When explosion threatened she sensed it, and reached around with fingers and thumb to squeeze points surrounding his sack that turned the urging flames into embers, then began the steady hip-rocking caress anew.
She toyed with him for the better part of an hour. At times her eyes rolled back into her head as she capered in a secret sensual world. Occasionally they locked upon his, as if seeking to communicate without words or actions.
“You are rough,” she said when their initial bout was complete, and he had rolled over onto his back, chest heaving. “But ingratiating, in your way.” He was pleased to note that it had taken several minutes for the Calipha to collect herself sufficiently to manage speech. Still, what a woman!
Aidan struggled to normalize his breathing, that he might reply to her without gasping for air.
“So,” she said, finger drawing a lazy circle on his chest. “What shall we try next?” she asked.
“What is it about slaves that you find so powerful, that a woman with all the world in her hands would want a man like me?”
Her brown eyes opened in surprise, as if taken aback that he would even ask such a question, as if no other man had ever done aught but rejoice in his good fortune. Then she tilted her head a bit sideways, pondering. “A man like you could lose, and still stand proud,” she said finally. “You were a bested lion, but a lion still.”
A tiny thread of an idea began to wind its way into Aidan’s mind. “And this is unusual?”
“My”—she laughed—“you are naive. Most men can handle one or the other. Victory or defeat. Few can manage both.” She smiled. “My husband is gracious in victory, but defeat…?”
Nefriti laughed harshly, then her expression became contemplative and private. Then she turned her attention to Aidan again. “A woman loves to find something wild, uncontrollable, and make it desire her.”
Yes, Aidan thought. And you are older than you look. It has been long since men looked at you with simple lust and adoration, wishing to possess you for the sake of your beauty, and not your power. Even your own husband has doubtless turned to younger women who can still blossom with child.
As a slave, I am safe. You can control me. I’m strong enough to make my admiration of you a thing worth having. Strong enough for you to enjoy the conquest.
When he came back to himself, she was watching him carefully. “You are a strange one,” she said. “I have had many men, and always they are either frightened of me, or think that this might mean something it does not.”
“I was frightened of you,” Aidan said, rolling over onto his back. Careful, now. He had successfully flattened his voice, but now he had to find that empty place within himself, that place that Babatunde had taught him to reach. Who could have suspected that that ability would be tested in such a manner?
“For a few moments, perhaps. And then not. No matter what I did.” She stroked his face with one dark, elegant finger. “You please me, slave. Perhaps I will call for you again.”
“If you wish,” he said, careful to keep his voice and face neutral.
Nefriti barked delighted laughter. “See! There it is again. You know that I could free you with a word … or have you killed in the same way.”
“True.”
“And yet you do not plead, or beg, or promise, or cajole. You remain yourself, even under stress. No white I have seen, and few Africans, could carry themselves so well.” She peered more closely at his chest. “I see your scars. I know your life has not been easy. How then can this be?”
“What?”
“How can you have such hetep?”
“What is this?” He controlled each breath with extreme care, tensing his anus and abdominal muscles on each exhalation, as if trying to expel smoke from his belly.
“Peace of spirit. A calm place within you, despite the cares of the world.”
“Have you ever been with an Irishman?” he asked, gambling.
“No,” she admitted. “Northmen, Germans, Greeks—but no Irish.”
“And there you have it. This is a thing of my people.” Very carefully, he insinuated a bit of Kai’s speech cadence into his own words. Highborn speech would make him seem strange, exotic, perhaps more stimulating and unique.
“Truly?”
“Not all,” he said. “It was a thing I was taught. Leaders among my people were given such instruction.” Careful. Mix lies and truth.
She was fascinated. “Leaders?”
“My father was a king,” Aidan said. “And I would have followed him.” Her smile widened. Yes, you vain, pampered bitch. You have royalty in your bed, under your thumb. You like that, don’t you?
“But how did that prepare you to be a slave?”
“A good leader is the slave of his people, as they are his. He leads them in war without concern for his own life. And in times of peace he must rise above politics and petty concerns to find justice.”
It was a genuinely hazardous course he now traversed. Never would he have spoken so eloquently to a black not of Dar Kush. But Nefriti was fully engaged now—the hook had been set, and he prayed the line was durable enough to land her.
“It requires strength,” he said. “Strength to submit without breaking.”
“How does it feel?” she whispered urgently.
“What is your own experience?” he said, again taking an enormou
s risk. He had no idea what her experience might be. But he knew one thing: she was sexually aroused by him, and arousal tended to make logic more … flexible. This pampered house-pet craved excitement, and suspected that he might provide her with a series of memorable evenings, after which of course he would be discarded. If she was like other men and women he had known …
“Power and pleasure go hand in hand,” she said. “Which is why all men seek power.”
“True power is not in the external world,” Aidan said. “It is within. My people say that the deeper the spirit, the more the body is an instrument of the soul. It cannot control the true spirit, but everything experienced by the body is a vehicle to growth.”
She stared as if she had never seen a creature quite like him before.
And in truth, perhaps she hadn’t.
“From whence comes true power?” he asked.
“Isis,” she whispered.
So much for monotheism, Aidan chuckled to himself, cautious not to let his amusement reach his lips. Kai was right: scratch an Alexandrian, and just below the Muslim surface you were likely to find a pagan. “And to allow the goddess to work through you, what must you do?”
“Surrender myself.”
“How can you do this if you are afraid? Only the strong can surrender.”
Nefriti pondered for several minutes, her fingers crawling about in Aidan’s lap. Then she spoke: “In the beginning, Neter created Nut, the sky, and Geb, the earth. Female and male. Our obelisks represent connection between the two.”
You mean those pillars are just big penises? Aidan chuckled internally, but again kept his amusement to himself.
“In sacred sexuality, men and women take up the roles of Geb and Nut. By surrendering to each other, they surrender to the gods, and through doing so, to that Greater God that created everything.” She gazed into his eyes. “They say that you whites are closer to nature, closer to the beast. That you are privy to secrets that civilized man forgot when he began to build cities. What say you to this?”
“I say that there are no words to explain what I see and feel. I am sorry. There is only experience.”
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