by Lia Lee
The next day, the police interrogators came to see her. She sat in her chair as they shouted at her, pushed her, slammed their heavy fists down on the table in front of her. She emerged from the eight hours with them frightened and weeping, but still she had not broken. In her fevered dreams that night, she imagined never speaking again, like the princess in a fairy tale who had won her swan brothers free with seven years of silence. If she stayed strong, stayed silent, someday, she and Peter would walk out of this hand in hand, whole and strong.
The second day, the interrogators tried more of the same, and this time, when she went back to her cell in the evening, her wrists were bruised from their rough cuffs.
The third day was something different.
They took her to a different cell, and the first thing she noticed was that there was nothing in it but a pair of shackles hanging from the wall. She was alone for what felt like an eternity, and then a trim woman in a correctional facility uniform came in. In her hand was a long whip, and Irene started to shiver.
“The world is very different here than it is in America,” the woman began. “For example, I believe that in America, you have given up on the idea of corporal punishment for capital crimes. Miss Bellingham, what you have committed is a capital crime, and the repercussions can be severe. For example, a punishment that can be meted out for what you have done is one hundred strokes with a camel whip.”
Irene felt the bottom drop out of her stomach, and she stared at the whip in the woman’s hands. Surely she couldn’t be serious?
“This is an old tool of correction. The whip itself is used to sting and drive camels, to make them go where we wish. When used against a woman whose skin is far more fragile than camel’s hide, well, the results can be terrifying, don’t you think?”
Irene could feel tears start in her eyes as the reality of the situation sunk in for her. They could do anything they wanted to her. She couldn’t stop them.
“Being given one hundred strokes at a time would kill a strong man, and this is not intended to be an execution, Miss Bellingham. We have a doctor come in to confirm that you can handle the pain and the shock and the subsequent time to heal. Then ten strokes are given. Slowly.”
Irene flinched as if the woman had touched the braided handle of the whip against her shoulder. The woman nodded.
“After that, you are taken to your cell to rest and heal. When the wounds are healed over somewhat, you are brought out again, only this time, you know what kind of pain is waiting for you. Strong men who went to the whipping post silent break down when they are brought back out for their second set. Some still resist, but all start howling when they are brought back for their third set.”
She paused.
“Ten sets, Miss Bellingham. It will not kill you, but many who are given this punishment are never the same again. They are… broken, in mind, if not in body.”
The tears were running freely down Irene’s face. A black hopelessness had come up and overwhelmed her. She knew now what was going to happen to her, and she knew that there was nothing she could do about it.
“We are not permitted to give you strokes of the camel whip for your crime now. That is only ordered by the court of law.”
She waited until Irene relaxed slightly before continuing.
“However, we are allowed to correct prisoners who have been unruly and uncooperative in our care.”
Irene’s head shot up, and the woman smiled at her thinly.
“What do you think defying your guards with silence is?” she asked. “I cannot use the camel whip, but I can use the cane, and believe me very well when I say that one is hardly better than the other.”
The woman hung the camel whip carefully on the door, and then she produced a thick cane that looked more like a stick. When she swished the cane through the air, it made a ripping sound that made Irene flinch.
“Take off your clothes.”
Irene froze. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
The woman looked at her calmly.
“Take off your clothes, or I will call in two guards to take them off for you.”
Irene’s mind was reeling. She couldn’t imagine taking her clothes off, let alone the brutality that the woman was telling her would follow. The entire room felt far away. She felt as if she were moving through mud, but underneath that, there was a layer of molten panic that was searing through her body.
“Today!”
The woman suddenly lashed out with the cane, bringing it within a hairsbreadth of striking Irene’s arm. She could feel the way the cane tore through the air, making her gasp.
She hurriedly started taking off her clothes, but her fingers were clumsy, fumbling with her buttons as the guard waited impatiently. She kept her mind consciously blank, trying to avoid thinking about what was going to come next.
A cold feeling of hopelessness overcame her. She was utterly helpless. She couldn’t do anything. She hesitated when she got down to her underwear, but at an impatient look from the woman with the cane, she drew them off as well. Now she was naked inside a drafty cell, and she knew that whatever came next, she had to endure it. She couldn’t let herself be broken. She had to protect her brother. She had no other choice.
“Step to the wall.”
She stood shaking as the woman shackled her to the wall, pulling a switch that dragged her taut. The wall was ice cold against her breasts and belly. She tried to go somewhere else in her mind.
Behind her, the woman swished the cane through the air two or three times, making her flinch with each sound and movement.
“All right. Six to begin with, and then we will see how stubborn you are after that, eh?”
Irene had tears in her eyes. She shut her eyes tight and clenched her fists where they were lifted over her head.
Please, I cannot break…
The cane swished through the air, or at least it started to. Suddenly, there was a crash as the door rocked on its hinges, flying open. There was barely enough free chain for Irene to twist around, but when she did, she was startled to see a familiar man outlined in the doorway.
It was Raheem, the handsome stranger from the airport who had turned out to be none other than the sheikh of Khanour. Now he was dressed in the traditional robes of his people, the dark folds of fabric making him look even more imposing. It was as if he sucked all of the air from the room; every eye was on him, from her and the guard to the men behind him.
For a moment, he glared around him, taking in the scene. His gaze flickered as it roved down her bare form, and then he was all business again.
“Cut her down,” he said, his voice deep and imposing.
The guard hurried to do as the sheikh said, and when she had done so, she stepped back. She looked, Irene thought, grateful to be out of the way of the grim-faced sheikh. For Irene’s own part, all she could do was hide her nudity as best she could with her hands, shaking as he advanced upon her.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked, his eyes dark and his face stern.
Irene had no idea what was happening now, but she knew that she couldn’t defy this man.
She nodded jerkily, as if her head was a ball on a string. He reached out, jerking her head up with his hand at her chin. When she looked up at him, he was even more terrifying. This was a man who held the power of life and death over his people. She had been caught stealing from him.
“Say my name.” His voice was pure command, something that she could not defy.
“Raheem,” she whispered. “Raheem ben Ali, sheikh of Khanour.”
To her surprise, he broke into a smile that was bright and cruel.
“It has been heard, and it has been witnessed,” he said, his voice pitched to carry to the people at the door. Irene looked up in surprise.
“She has recognized me for who I am, and thus in the old way, I declare this woman my wife.”
The people behind him broke into an excited murmur, and the guard watched them with stunned eyes, but Irene felt as if
she had been hit with the cane after all. The world was swimming, and things were happening much too fast for her to figure out what was going on.
The guard spoke up.
“Your Highness… what does this mean?”
“It means, warden, that this prisoner is no longer your responsibility. I am choosing to marry her in the old way, and thus her crimes are mine to punish and my responsibility to bring to rights. Her crime was against the country of Khanour, and as I am Khanour, I will take over her custody.”
With a careless hand, he tossed Irene a cloth bag.
“Cover yourself up,” he said, his voice brisk. “We are leaving as soon as you do.”
For a moment, Irene wondered if she wasn’t leaping straight from the frying pan into the fire. In prison, she knew exactly what to expect, but with Raheem… who knew what kind of tortures he had planned. And married? It shouldn’t be legal, but from her studies, she knew that it was. The marriage he had declared was one from Khanour’s ancient history, a law that was in place only for the sheikh, who might take a woman as wife for just a week. Under that law, she was his property, and he could do with her what he liked.
When he made an impatient sound, she hastened to open the bag. Inside, she found a loose robe and skirtlike trousers that buttoned at her waist. The clothes were similar to what the more traditional women wore in the Khanour countryside. The other items were more puzzling.
There was a pair of delicate gold bangles studded with tiny red gems that she suspected were rubies and a pair of intricately worked knotted gold earrings, but the prize was obviously the necklace. No, not the necklace; it was more of a collar. It was a piece that recalled some ancient distant past, a heavy piece of metal that fitted closely around her neck with a gleaming moonstone at the center.
Raheem looked her over with a critical eye before nodding briskly.
“Good,” he said, his voice crisp and commanding. “Now you will follow me. You will not attempt to escape, or I will show you that I can be just as savage as any prison. Nod if you understand.”
She nodded, feeling as shaky as if she stood in an earthquake. Things were happening so fast that she had no idea what was going to come or what she could do about it. Instead, she followed the sheikh in a daze. He walked her out of the building, past the guards and the gates and the bars, and then she was handed into one of the dark cars that were waiting outside.
I don’t have my passport, she thought suddenly. There was no procedure to show that I had left the prison, nothing that will tell people that I was here at all…
She realized, sitting alone in the car where she was separated from the driver by a pane of safety glass, that she was truly on her own. No one knew where she was or where she was going. Instead, her life was utterly in the hands of a man who had no cause to love her, who saw her as a traitor to his people and as a filthy thief.
As the car drove through the dimming afternoon, Irene wondered what was going to happen to her.
CHAPTER THREE
The trip was conducted in silence. The driver never turned to speak to her, and if he had the radio turned on, it was so soft that she couldn’t hear through the glass. She sat in the plush backseat, and even as she wondered what in the world was going to become of her, she noted how luxurious it was. She had spent weeks in the prison of metal and cement. She might as well have been in another world.
Somehow, Irene fell asleep. In her dreams, she was back in her cell. All around her were the noises of the prison, but over all of them, she could hear a swift, sure step. She knew that it was Raheem before he appeared at her cell door, and when he opened it, she could see that he had a cane in his hand.
“What are you going to do to me?” she asked in her dream, her voice tinny and far away.
He laughed, a singularly cruel thing.
“I’m going to give you what you deserve,” he said.
She awoke with a jerk, startled to feel tears on her face. For moment, she had no idea where she was. She was convinced that she was still in the cell in Khanour. Instead, the car was coming to a stop, and the driver came around to open the door for her.
“Are you all right, miss?” he asked solicitously, and there was a brief moment before she realized she was the one he was speaking to so kindly.
“I am,” she said, her voice little more than a rusty croak. It felt like the first time in years since she had been able to speak so clearly.
Irene looked around in confusion.
They had taken her to an airfield in the middle of the desert. The sun was beginning to set, dyeing the sky a vivid orange. The only plane on the runway was a small thing, looking like a toy against the enormous sky. There was something very private about the airfield. It was obviously a space that belonged to one man, not to the world.
At that moment another car arrived, and Raheem himself appeared. He continued to give instructions to the woman in a crisp business suit who walked by his side, and then he when he approached Irene, he shook his head.
“It’s not enough, but it will do for now,” he said finally. “If you need anything, you can give me a call, but I would frankly rather you avoid calling me.”
The woman nodded, glancing curiously at Irene before continuing.
“No, I think it will be fine,” she said. “You’ve given me a lot to work with, and after that, I can guess. Will you need anything yourself?”
Raheem shook his head.
“No. But if I think of anything, I will be in touch.”
“As you say, Your Highness.”
When she got back into the car to leave, Raheem turned to Irene. Without thinking, she took a step back. There was something tempestuous in his expression, but something terrifyingly possessive as well. He looked like a man who had won a prize, or one that was ready to claim one. Instead, he only nodded toward the plane.
“That is where we are going,” he said. “Come on.”
He guided her up the gangplank and into the plane. For a moment, Irene’s frightened brain conjured up plane rides that ended with a frightened person being pushed out the door. As she entered the small but luxuriously appointed cabin, however, she realized that most executions likely did not use such glamorous planes.
Everything felt too vivid and too strange. She didn’t know where to go or what to do. Raheem, who had taken his place at one of the seats around the small table, glanced at her.
“Don’t just stand there,” he said, his voice gentler than it had been before. “Come sit down.”
Obediently, she came to sit at the table, facing him. She was startled when a lovely young flight attendant came out with warm towels for them to wash their hands. For some reason, that small courtesy, offered without hesitation or coercion, told Irene more than anything else had that she was not in prison anymore, at least for the moment. She blinked back tears, hoping that Raheem couldn’t see.
She held her breath as the plane climbed into the air. The flight attendant had retreated back to her own compartment, and she was alone with Raheem. Outside, the setting sun gave the clouds an orange glow. She was almost tempted to sleep again, but she couldn’t relax. Finally, she turned to Raheem, who was idly scanning something on his tablet.
“What have you done?” she asked, her voice gravelly. They were more words than she had spoken in sequence for a very long time. They were almost painful, and she wondered if he would mock her for them.
Instead, he gazed at her with a calmness that soothed her. No matter what, this man was one who knew his place in the world.
“So you can speak after all,” he said casually. It was as if he took plane rides with women accused of felonies every day.
“You should know,” Irene found herself saying. “We talked before…”
Her voice trailed off, and when she looked up, she found him watching her with that intent predatory ferocity.
“Before I realized that you were a thief,” he said, and she flinched. Irene started to speak, to deny it, but at the last
moment, she caught herself. She was horrified by how quickly she had allowed herself to be lulled by a sudden shift in scenery. Things had been moving so fast for her that she had somehow forgotten that it was Peter’s life on the line. If she slipped up, there was every chance he would meet his end. She couldn’t allow that to happen.
While she was internally reprimanding herself, Raheem watched her with a curious gaze.
“You were about to say something just then,” he said softly. “Don’t bother denying it, I can sense it quite well…”
She smiled a little ruefully.
“I suppose I was.” Irene knew that the smart thing would have been to retreat back into silence. There was nothing that he could do with her if she refused to speak. There was nothing that she could give him if she didn’t say a word. However, she had been silent for so long that it felt as if a cork had been popped, then lost. She wanted to talk with someone; she craved the human contact that she had been denied for the past few days.
He shrugged, a slightly cruel smile on his face.
“No matter, you will,” he said. “I mean to get to the bottom of this, Irene Bellingham, and sooner or later, you will find out that I always get what I want.”
“And what do you want right now?” she asked, aware that her voice was faintly challenging. It was a poor idea to challenge her captor, but a part of her couldn’t stop herself.
“I want to know who you were smuggling that statue for,” he said. “I could simply order you to prison for the next twenty years and think nothing of it, but the truth of the matter is that if I do that, sooner or later, there will simply be another pretty girl who will lose her head and attempt something so foolish. No, I want to know who sent you, and then I want to crush them. I will make sure that they are never able to harm my country and its history again.”
There was something so serious about Raheem’s statement that Irene found herself stunned. This was a man who believed in what he was saying with every bit of his being.
“I’m sorry,” she found herself saying with a soft regret in her voice. “I cannot help you.”