A righteous man did not kneel before Allah for alms, or worldly benefits. And the status of slaves made it inevitable that they would struggle for any small advantages. There was no way that a true Muslim would not grant greater privilege and leeway to another Believer than to a Christian, Jew, or infidel. These facts made any slave conversion . . . problematic. Yes. Yet he chose not to voice his doubts. For now, he would watch.
Was that watchfulness, that reticence to speak purely his desire to see a soul find its way to Allah untrammeled by suspicion? Or did the eighth of Turkish blood in his veins give him empathy inappropriate to one sworn to protect the house and honor of his host? These were questions that he would have to resolve.
Eventually. For today, he remained silent, and watched. And prayed.
According to little Tuti, who had quickly become Sophia's guide and companion, of all the rooms and features of Malik's castle, the spot Fatima had most loved was the greenhouse east of the main residence. There, flowers from around the world grew all year round, their gardeners maintaining perfect temperature and humidity through a series of steam-vents and baffles. Green glass walls filtered the sunlight.
Sophia sat with the babies, taking the sun, breathing the warm, moist air. She was gazing south toward the distant, invisible plantation of Wakil Abu Ali.
Tuti appeared in the doorway.
Sophia tensed inwardly, but did not let it show on the outside. "It is so calm here," she said. "I remember the sun, shining on the Mediterranean. My father built houses, there by the side of the sea."
"Sophia . . ."
"I don't clearly remember. Something about building materials. Wood. Plaster. A floor collapsed, and a magistrate's wife died. My family was ruined. I was sold."
"I've come for the children," Tuti said.
"I don't remember. But I remember the sun."
Tuti took the children, and left.
For a minute or two Sophia was alone in the hothouse. Then Malik appeared, dressed in dazzling, sterile white, the contrast with his skin almost startling. His fingers gripped at her like claws as he bore her to the ground. With his left hand, he pinioned both her wrists while he pushed her dress up, then pressed himself into her. She was dry,- the violation hurt abominably.
Refusing to flinch or make any display of pain or shame, face a mask of unnatural calm, she turned away.
She did not hear him as he grunted atop her. She did not see his straining face. She saw only the warm waters of the Mediterranean, shimmering blue. Her own reflection in the water. Had she ever been so young? She turned, and looked at the beautiful house, built by the gifted hands of her father. He stood on a scaffold, and waved to her, and she waved in return.
Life was good.
A quarter hour later Malik exited the greenhouse, adjusting his clothing as he did, walking away without a backward glance.
Sophia followed him out, still rumpled, breathing rapid, tears streaking her cheeks. As soon as he was gone she snatched a glass flowerpot from its rack and smashed it against a support beam. Trembling, she picked up a single jagged shard and pressed it against her flesh. A thin rivulet of blood welled up. Then she threw the glass to the side, collapsed against the wall of the sun house, and sobbed.
Between the golden rows of teff, half a dozen servants, Aidan included, knelt in prayer. The rugs beneath their knees were poor in comparison to those owned by the heads of the household, but were presents from the Wakil on occasion of their conversion.
Astride Djinna, on the dirt road separating the teff from the hemp field, Kai watched the ritual with mixed emotions. As some of the other slaves headed to their beloved prayer grove, Aidan was not among them.
"Allah rejoices when a new lamb enters the fold," Kai said.
"Yes," Babatunde agreed. "He does." His eyes were sharp. He seemed not so certain as Kai. Not at all.
Other eyes judged Aidan as well, eyes from the shadows. They were cold and blue, cynically interested, and utterly unconvinced.
Chapter Fifty-one
From the lonely shadows of her room, Sophia listened as the muezzin called the faithful to prayer for the third time that day. She knew that the five daily prayers were one of the five pillars of Islam, the most important remembrances of the sovereignty of God, and the core of Muslim life. The prescribed prayers were performed at the same time of the day throughout most of Bilalistan by all who could manage it without disrupting vital work or commerce. At those times masters and slaves knelt together, and in theory nothing separated them, not race, not station. In theory, in the eyes of God, no man stood above another.
From Wakil Abu Ali and his sons to the lovely Lamiya and young Elenya, at those hours when the call was given, all else came to a halt.
But once here on Malik's estate she had discovered the sword master prayed only in the morning, that from noon until night his mind burned with a restless fever even as his servants and slaves knelt in obeisance. That his mind danced from death's abyss to his ownership of her body, and back again.
From her window she watched, her face a mask, her heart lost in some deep place inside her where Malik's hands and manhood could not reach. She could only pray that she could find a place deep enough to keep her soul safe. It felt to her as if Malik would not be long satisfied with just her flesh. The unquenchable flame in his eyes said that he wanted her spirit as well. He wanted her response, her passion.
She was no longer that girl, that egotistical child who had been so proud of her erotic talents. All of that seemed so terribly far away, those memories a stranger's.
For now, for this time, there was only one way she knew to keep her essence safe. Sophia closed her window and removed her most precious possession from her chest of drawers.
Her silver cross, the one worn during her wedding to Aidan. A small thing, one of the last reminders of the life she once had known, the girl she once had been. She attached the cross to the wall, and knelt in prayer.
I feel you, Sophia, Aidan whispered to himself.
He knelt beside his old friend Kai. The two performed their ablutions together, but as he bowed, Aidan secretly fingered the crucifix hidden beneath his shirt, and thought of the woman he loved, and prayed that she was well.
We've both lost so much, he thought. Please, God, don't let us lose each other. Just a little longer now.
Lord, help us both endure.
Mounted on Djinna and Qaldanna, Kai and Ali watched as the slaves returned singing to their shantytown. Some of their songs were from the old country, others composed since landing in Djibouti harbor. Some crooned Muslim prayers.
Several were accompanied by their children, who seemed to have journeyed with them to the day's labors. Their father did not generally force servant children to work before the age of eight, but they often accompanied their parents into the fields, helping with the gathering or weeding. Judging by the smiling faces, this was what had happened. Five or six of the youngsters toddled along at their parents' sides, holding wicker baskets filled with wildflowers. Such flowers would probably decorate their homes, bringing a little cheer into their drab lives.
The children waved at Kai, and he waved back.
When they rode on their way, Kai thought no more of it. And when they passed a meadow and saw four children picking mushrooms under the supervision of a young red-haired woman, he thought less still.
Until Kai and Ali rode out of sight, the children plucked rather aimlessly, playing at their appointed tasks. But as soon as the brothers vanished, they returned to serious work. Crooning a bit of doggerel taught them by Moira, they picked mushrooms under the direction of the Rune Woman's apprentice, Kelly.
Quite innocently, one of the youngest started to put a blue-tipped mushroom in her mouth, and Kelly slapped it out, shook him until he cried, and forced him to spit several times. Only after he had drunk from her water skin, washed his mouth and spit again, did she relax, or did any of them continue with their task.
Most of the tuath was aslee
p when Brian entered Moira's hut. She and two other women were rolling mushrooms and dried herbs into powder, and Moira chanted softly as she worked:
"Sleep of the Earth from the land of Faerie
Deep is the lore of C'noc na Sidhe
Hail be to they of the Forest Gentry
Pale dark spirits, help us free.
White is the dust of the state of dreaming
Light is the mixture to make one still
Dark is the powder of death's redeeming
Mark but that one pinch can kill—"
She stopped her singing and cast a look at the two women helping her in her efforts. "Careful, careful. Grey with white. White with black. Roll, roll, yes."
"When will they be ready?" Brian asked. He had known Moira his entire life, and she had always looked old to him. Now he both loved and feared her. Being in her presence while she worked her weirdling ways made his skin creep.
"Want them all dead?" she cackled. "It is ready tonight. Wish for some to sleep, some to wake? Ye must wait. Wait."
He peered into her bowl, which contained pellets, some dark-colored, some light. He shuddered. Everything was in its place. For years, since his own dread night in the swamps, he had planned his revenge.
With Dar Kush in his hands, Ghost Town would join him. The neighboring slaves would rise up as well, he was certain.
He would have freedom at any cost, even death. But Brian wanted to live. The Danakil and their thoth hunters had to die. And the overseers and guards. But the Wakil and his children should live, both as hostages and because if he murdered them there would be no place on earth his people would ever be able to hide from Bilalian vengeance.
There was just one exception to that. Malik. Malik had to die. He was simply too dangerous to live. Brian had not been able to recruit any of Malik's kitchen staff, which ruled out poison for the sword master and his men. But other arrangements could and had been made. With Malik dead, the rest of the plan just might work.
Molly was third in a line of four slaves charged with carrying firewood and baskets of clean clothes to Dar Kush's occupied bedrooms. As they passed a hall off the kitchen she split off from the others and sneaked down a corridor to a heavy iron-bound door. Since the nightmare in the swamps Molly had feigned acceptance of Muhammad as her Prophet, praying faithfully five times a day. Despite the Wakil's orders, it was inevitable that Muslims were given freer reign, observed less closely, enjoyed more privilege.
She had several keys upon a brass ring and tried one after the other, but none opened the door. Molly stamped her foot in frustration, spitting a string of expletives most unbecoming a Muslim lady.
She left the corridor and searched the fields until she found Aidan, then whispered to him urgently.
Sophia sat in Fatima's hothouse, caring for Mahon and Azinza as the third call to prayer sounded through Malik's estate. The scent of Abyssinian orchids transported her back to her father's house. Its memory seemed her only refuge.
Her solitude was interrupted as Tuti entered the hothouse. She came to stand beside Sophia, whispering in her ear. "We need the key," Tuti said. "And only you can get it."
Sophia knotted her hands into fists, eyes widening in fright. Then she forced herself to relax, and nodded. "Yes," she said. "I understand."
After Tuti left, Sophia stood, looking down at the children in their baskets. Carefully, almost as if sleepwalking, she picked them up and carried them back into the house, eyes open but her mind a thousand miles away.
She passed several of the other slaves, but said nothing to any of them, said nothing until she had sealed herself in her room and placed Mahon and Azinza in their cribs.
Then she put the flat of her palms against her eyes. "Aidan," she whispered.
Malik had provided her with a mirror, that she might properly adorn herself for his use. If he had thought that she would be for him what she had been for Kai, he had been disappointed. Her body he owned. Her artistry was her own, and the girl who had learned all of the ways of paint and carriage, of muscle tension and musical phrasing, had gone forever.
Or was she? Sophia studied her reflection. She saw a pale woman with dark hair and a sad, care-lined face. She smiled, lifted her posture, threw her hair back over her shoulder.
Yes. There was the little slut. Pretty little thing, who had been used by men on three continents. On one of them she had nurtured a dream of romance, that she might win a boy's heart and thereby her freedom. Pretty, silly little whore.
But there was something about that girl that Sophia admired. That girl had not broken. That girl had found a way to protect her heart, even when there had been no hope at all. That girl, not the woman Aidan had married, could do what was now required.
Malik must think he had won completely, that his little slave's heart had been won by the power and majesty that was New Djibouti's greatest warrior. He was invulnerable to men, but she had seen something in him since his wife's death. A crack in his emotional armor, perhaps. To her woman's instinct, his air of strength and assurance seemed slightly labored, not entirely convincing to her.
What was it her teachers in Alexandria had said? You will belong to a strong man, but do not fear. The stronger the man, the more he has pushed away all that is soft within him. Men are not all muscle and bone. They are heart as well. And men who cannot touch their own hearts are vulnerable to women who can.
Once, she had been afraid of Malik, had thought Kai would be the easier conquest. That was almost certainly true, but there was one other factor in play: Kai was young. Youth had flexibility. Kai's heart could be broken a hundred times, and he would heal. But what of Malik, who was stronger . . . but older, more brittle? Whose first wife had died young, and whose second had died in childbirth.
Beneath his armor, his lethal skills and muscle, he would have to be terrified of ever caring again. He had wanted her, desired her enough to wager his most valuable horse to gain her. She saw how he looked at her, felt how he touched her. She might not be able to make Malik love her, but she could make him feel, and once he did that, his guard would drop.
Sophia had hardly realized it, but her hands had begun to move, to organize Malik's paints and ointments into a palette. The face is a canvas, the body, clay. She had been trained to be a master artisan, fit for a Wakil's son. She looked at herself in the mirror. Already, the married woman Sophia had disappeared behind rouge and lip-paint. What remained was the girl from Alexandria, a woman now, all her illusions behind her.
Hello again, for the last time.
Sophia smiled, and was chilled by the sight of it.
Dar Kush's slaves had their own mosque, a converted shed that they had been allowed to clean and decorate as a place of spirit. A statue of Bilal himself graced the exterior, smiling down on his children who passed beneath him, his dark hands outstretched.
Within, they prostrated themselves in prayer. Devotions concluded, Brian shook hands with Molly, who opened her hands afterward to find four pellets wrapped in paper.
Chapter Fifty-two
Night's starlit mantle had engulfed Malik's estate. Tonight, things had been different. Tonight, there had been no rape.
Tonight, Sophia had come to the master of the house with a rose between her teeth, every hair in perfect place, clothed in a cascade of veils. Tonight, she had begged him to forgive her former coldness, and to believe that she had been taught to be a companion worthy of a Caliph. That if he gave her a chance, she would show him a different woman.
Tonight, the other servants had been dismissed, although they had heard music and laughter from the dining room, and later from the master bedroom itself.
Tonight, Sophia had shone brighter than the stars, had deliberately nurtured the suspicion that she was plying Malik for favors: for perfumes, for silks, perhaps for her child's future freedom. He was the master, she the slave, and she strove with every word, motion, and touch to convince him that she was, indeed, the treasure he had sought.
And no
w, long sweet hours later, the swordsman lay asleep, stretched on his stomach beneath damp linen sheets.
Sophia opened her eyes, slowed her breathing, sucked it down into her belly to loosen the hard, sour ball of fear that pressed against her heart. Cautious as a cat in a roomful of sleeping wolves, she listened to Malik's breathing, struggling to be certain that he was deeply asleep.
His soft snores finally reassured her, and she rolled out of bed, wrapping herself in a robe. Searching silently, she found a key in his bed stand, and slipped out of the room with it. She handed it to Tuti, outside the door, then turned and watched Malik, who still snored heavily.
He stirred groggily, pulling himself out of dream, and opened sleep-gummed eyes to see her standing there. With a lazy smile he beckoned to her.
"Come here, girl," he said. "I had a dream. I expect you to exceed it." Watching his shoulders to time his breathing and then swaying to the rhythms of inhalations and exhalations, Sophia returned to the bed and slipped between the covers.
"Whatever you command," she said. “Tell me what you wish."
Malik rolled atop her.
Her chin rested on his shoulder, and he could not see her.face. If he had, he would have seen that it was dead, save for the fires smoldering deep within her eyes.
Tuti carried the key swiftly to the servants' quarters, where an ancient Frank named Musawwir awaited her. Every step now was a betrayal. If she was caught by Malik's guards, and they grasped her intentions, crucifixion was almost inevitable.
Musawwir was a tall, thin man. Despite his evident strength and health he was balding, with thatches of white hair framing his pink brow. He had long, agile fingers and a slightly hunched back. He was also Malik's armorer, and the estate's general fix-it man. He opened the door for Tuti at her first tentative knock, and took the key. He held it up to the light, and turned it in his hand.
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