“Ready!” Gaius wasted no time, squatting to stretch out on his belly, and Antonius went down beside him. The two slithered off into the darkness, silent as serpents.
After few minutes, they crested a low rise, and looked down into the kidnappers’ camp fifty or so feet below. The fire was banked low, intermittent tongues of fire licking around red logs, casting dancing shadows around the area. Six men lay around the fire, wrapped in blankets, a seventh sat off by himself, doing something with his face. There were no guards that they could see. A hundred feet to the right of the fire, they could see the two girls, apparently trying to sleep, separated by several feet. The girls’ hands were behind them, in what looked an uncomfortable position, probably bound. “They look all right,” whispered Antonius. “Guards?”
Gaius replied softly, close to Antonius’ ear. “I don’t think so. I counted horses over there to the left. Nine horses, seven men, two girls.”
“Makes it easy.” Antonius cupped his hands around his mouth. “Ooh-hoo! Ooh-hoo!” he hooted loudly. One of the men stirred at the noise, but rolled back over into his blanket. Antonius counted to one hundred to himself, then croaked out “Korax! Ek-ek-ek-ek-ek-ek-ek- Korax!” and repeated it. A frog’s croak, indicating seven men. He repeated it, then a final “Korax!” followed by nothing. No guards. Nobody below them stirred.
“Gaius, go back, and get ‘em. We’ll take the kidnappers to the left, have Boni secure the girls on the right.”
A few minutes later, Gaius scuttled back in beside Antonius, behind him the rest of their group. “All right, to your left,” hissed Antonius. “On three! Unus, duus, tres… Gladies stringete, oppugnate! Draw swords, charge!” Antonius bellowed at the top of his lungs, and all the rest yelled “Oppugnate!” as they burst out of hiding, charging down the hill trying very much to look like the Furies from Hades. The kidnappers, confused, struggled with their bed rolls, groping for their swords. Three of them, unlucky enough to actually get them to hand, died quickly in a shower of blood, one killed by Demosthenes, the other two by Aulus and Gaius. The rest had swords pointed firmly at the hollow of their throats, their eyes wide with fright. The one sitting off by himself had tried to scuttle away, but Antonius grabbed him from behind and hoisted him erect.
In the meanwhile Boni’s men and the king charged in, circling around the girls. The king and Boni freed Ranisa and helped her to her feet. She promptly hugged her father, then whirled around to hug Boni. Boni seemed taken aback, his arms outspread, his sword angled safely away from her, as she buried her head in her shoulder.
The king smiled in the firelight. “Boni, in the name of Ahura Mazda, would you please kiss Ranisa? It’s all right!” Boni did, and Ranisa returned it passionately.
The other soldiers had freed Marcia, helping her up. She rubbed her wrists to restore the circulation, and stepped carefully, her legs numb, limping up to Antonius. He was holding Anteater erect, his hand firmly around his throat.
“Well, Antonius! I see you met Anteater!” Anteater’s nose was hugely swollen and purple, streaming blood. Below that, he had a badly split lip and his two incisors were bent backwards, covered with blood. “Did I do all that to you?” she asked, mockingly sympathetic. He struggled against Antonius’ grip, making an ugly face as best he could, and she continued. “Anteater, please meet my husband, Antonius Aristides. And carus meus, this is Anteater. He is the man who tried to rape me!” Antonius tightened his grip on Anteater’s throat, looking as though he might rip the man’s head off. The man made a choking groan.
Marcia continued. “Anteater, you took my dagger from me yesterday, which was a special gift from a special person. Would you please tell me where it is?”
He snarled, and spat a bloody gobbet that splattered onto her shirt.
“Antonius, his teeth are hurt. Please hold his mouth open for me.” Antonius jammed the hilt of his dagger into the corner of Anteater’s mouth, forcing it open. Marcia reached into his mouth and grabbed one of the loose front teeth, twisting it, wiggling it, then removing it with a slow yank. Anteater squeezed his eyes shut and grunted with the pain. She repeated the process with the second tooth.
She wiped her bloody hands on her shirt. “Now, about that dagger, Anteater.” Her expression was that of barely-contained fury. “You have a lot more body parts to remove, and the king is not going to care what sort of shape you are in when he executes you.”
Antonius loosened his grip to allow the man to speak, and Anteater lisped. “There, my bedroll,” nodding in the direction of the fire.
Demosthenes had come up to join them, wiping his bloody sword on his clothes. “I’ll get it, Marcia.” He went back, rummaged through the bedroll and returned with her dagger.
Marcia accepted it and slid it into her scabbard. “I’m done with this maggot, Antonius. Do whatever you want with him.” She turned around to join Ranisa with her father and Boni.
Ranisa greeted her with a hug. “Father,” she said, uncharacteristically formal, “She kept me alive. When I heard what they were going to do with us, I thought I would have to find a way to kill myself, and looked over at her. She gave me a big wink, and shook her head ‘No.’ Marcia, I love you! Are you all right, though? Anteater took you off and… I am sorry.”
Marcia rubbed the little cut on her forehead where Anteater’s incisors had gouged a cut, reddish and growing purple around the edges. “This was as far as he got!” Taking Ranisa’s hand and turning to the king, she said, “Your daughter was incredibly brave.” Marcia noticed that Boni was holding her other hand. “Your Excellency, that tall thin man that Gaius is tying up is the leader, the one they called the Boss. You have some questions for him?”
The king certainly did.
CHAPTER 77: THE OTHER GIRLS
The Boss, whose real name was Burz-Ormuzd, was not hesitant in answering Boni’s questions. Since he was very aware now that Ranisa really was the king’s daughter, it was a question of whether he would face a swift death, or a painfully slow one.
Burz-Ormuzd was from a noble family in Bagram. Never married, he had a life-long addiction to prostitutes, and had long wondered why so many were ugly, deformed or slow-witted. In discussions with the owners of various brothels, he found that attractive slaves were extremely high-priced, and quickly bought up by rich bidders for their private stables. Brothels depended for the most part on daughters sold by their own families because they were unmarriageable, along with the occasional good-looking girl who had managed to lose her virginity at an inopportune and public moment, or had become pregnant out of wedlock.
Burz-Ormuzd had arranged a deal with several brothel owners for a regular string of good-looking girls at a cheap price, which he procured using a band of thugs to kidnap them from around Bagram. A fraction of the price of a pretty slave to the brothel owner, but still a handsome price to him. And, being literate and a meticulous keeper of records, he had a list of names, the brothels who had purchased them, and their prices, going back several years… over twenty girls, waylaid as Marcia and Ranisa had been, but not so fortunate as to be rescued.
He did not get the swift death for which he had hoped in making his confession, but the list he provided would help recover his victims.
The next day, the king had an earnest discussion with Gaius, Antonius and Aulus, first to offer thanks for their assistance in rescuing his daughter, and then to the very personal question of her marriage options. “She is dead-set against any marriage other than to Boni, but Boni is commoner, and that would cause an imperial scandal. I don’t see a way around that.”
Aulus offered a suggestion. “Your Excellency, in Rome we have a tradition of adoption that easily breaks class barriers, and even provides for imperial succession sometimes. Do you such a law or tradition here.”
“We do, but it is so infrequently used I am unfamiliar with how it works. I will have Rustam look into it.”
It turned out that Bactrian law was not significantly different from Roman law: adoption made t
he adoptee a member of the adopting person’s class. Accordingly, a few days after his daughter’s kidnapping and recovery, he summoned Boni to his family quarters. He met with him and Ranisa on the patio, with Cassandra by his side.
“Boni, you and Berzad have earned a great reward for rescuing my daughter, but I have something more than just money to offer you. Nobility is more than a social position. Many of the nobility are anything but noble, and yet many commoners, such as yourself, are very noble. Therefore, I would like to adopt you as my nephew. This would make you a noble prince of my family line, though with no right to succession. How do you feel about that?”
Boni paused to take a long breath. “That would be most generous, but… but what responsibilities come with that position?”
“Just to continue to act nobly in all things, as you have always done. Do you accept.?”
“I… yes, I accept.”
Cassandra smiled. She knew where this was going as she and King Vima had worked this out in the finest detail.
“One of the best demonstrations of your nobility has been your conduct with my daughter. Although she has set you above all men since she became a woman, you have never abused my trust in your conduct with her, for the simple reason that she could not wed you because you were a commoner. I know you explained this to her repeatedly, to her great frustration. But now there seems to be no impediment to a marriage between you two, except your own wishes. As I have been an abject failure in arranging my daughter’s marriage to date, I will step out with Cassandra while you two discuss the matter. When we return, you can tell us your decision. And, Boni, whatever you decide, you are still a prince of the realm.”
The king stood up to go, along with Cassandra, but Ranisa beckoned him to stay seated. “Dad… Most Excellent Father,” she said, correcting herself to address him formally. “Please stay while we discuss this. Boni, there is no man I have ever wanted but you. If you would have me, I am yours.”
“And I am yours. I guess that settles it after all these years?”
In response, she seized him in an embrace and kissed him, while her father and Cassandra looked on smiling. When they finally released each other, King Vima said, “Of course, one of the nuisances of a royal wedding is that you have little choice of the format or the guest list. We will have to have the kings of Samarkhand, Bukhara, and Khojand of Sogdiana, Purushapura, everyone who can make it, ambassadors from the Han, Persia, India… of course, Senator Aulus can stand in for Rome.”
“Knowing in advance what your decisions would be, I took the liberty of advising Rustam about this, and he believes the wedding can take place within sixty days. Senator Aulus and his people have generously agreed to remain to represent my colleague Trajan at this most auspicious gathering. Mind you, we will all come to hate Rustam in the next few weeks, as he will dictate every detail of your wedding and allow neither Cassandra and I, nor you two, any say in how it is to be done. He is a stickler for detail, hence his position as my chief of protocol. Anyway, welcome to my family, my nephew and future son-in-law. You have waited a long time for this!”
In the next few days, using the kidnapper’s list, Boni’s people were able to locate several of the girls abducted from Bagram in Baghlang. Boni organized the expedition to free those girls and bring them home. Ranisa and Marcia insisted on going along to help the girls. The expedition brought along a large covered cart to carry them in comfort over the Salang Pass to home. The brothels were to be closed and the owners turned over to the local authorities to be punished for illegal enslavement, the nearest statute that seemed to apply, as free women had been sold into involuntary servitude.
The Palace of Aphrodite did not live up to expectation. The brothel consisted of a first floor bar and waiting area, where customers could wait their turn or brag of their prowess afterwards. It reeked of beer, bad wine, vomit and urine. The furniture was rickety, the room dimly lit. What once had been some sort of tapestry dangled in tatters from the ceiling, blown about by stray puffs of air from the open door. The appearance of Boni, in his white uniform, flanked by Ranisa and Marcia, at the entrance did not evoke a respectful response from the fat man behind the bar, making a pretence of wiping it down with a filthy rag. “What der yer want? We paid our bribes. You need some more money now?”
Boni quietly walked up to the proprietor, grabbed him with both hands by the shirt collar, and wheeled him out from behind the bar. He put his face close to the man and hissed. “Gamanig is your name?”
“Yes!”
“Does the name Burz-Ormuzd mean anything to you, Gamanig?”
“Yes… yes, he comes here… sometimes. What has he done? I can help!” he stammered, sensing this was more than the usual shakedown by the authorities.
“I believe you can. I have a list of girls he sold you, illegally, into servitude. He has been executed, but you can help me find them.” He put the list in Gamanig’s trembling hands.
“Armaghan, Delaram, Firoza…” Gamanig read all the names on the list. “Yes, they’re all here. Except for Gulnar… she -uh- died a few months ago.”
“How?” asked Boni, his steady eyes boring into Gamanig’s shifty ones.
Gamanig had a long ropy mustache that twitched as he talked. “Accident. With a customer.”
“He beat her to death?”
“N-no, just hit her harder than he should have. He didn’t mean to.”
“Did you report the death?”
“No. She was just a whore. It happens.”
“It shouldn’t just happen. Besides illegal slavery, we will add murder to the list. Get the girls.” Boni signaled his aide by the door, who brought in the other guards. “Take these men to where the girls are. And kick your ‘customers’ out. This shithole is closed, now!” One of guards took him by the scruff of his neck and led them upstairs.
Marcia and Ranisa were appalled at the conditions. Twenty tiny rooms, no larger than closets, held tiny beds where the girls both slept and serviced their clients. A pool of urine from an overturned chamberpot spread over the floor of one cubicle. A few clients were being hustled out… and the girls! Filthy clothes, scrawny, under-nourished. Dark eyes that had seen too much sadness and had no hope of seeing happiness ever again. How could a man pay to use one of these poor girls? Ranisa took the list and called out the names. “Armaghan, Delaram, Firoza, Mahdokht, Parween… we’ve come to take you home to Bagram. The rest of you will go to your homes elsewhere, the local authorities will take you there. My name is Princess Ranisa, and this is my friend, Marcia Lucia. If there is anything here you wish to take, bring it, but we will feed you and give you fresh clothes. This life is over for you.”
She was surprised at the reaction. “Oh, please, no! Let us stay. We’re safe here! Our families… we have no families anymore,” wailed Parween. The other girls joined in, a chorus of tearful pleading.
Boni whispered in her ear. “They are afraid their families will throw them out on the streets, or sell them into another brothel. Or maybe stone them, or flog them to death before their neighbors. And they are right, they have shamed their families.”
“They have done nothing of the sort! Their families most certainly will not do any of those things!” Ranisa set her jaw firmly, her eyes bright with determination.
“And Delaram’s husband. She is -was- married.”
“She still is, Boni.” Turning to the girls, in her most maternal manner, she gathered them together. “Enough foolishness, girls. You have done nothing wrong, and nobody is going to hurt you again. My father King Vima says so.” He hadn’t yet, but he would, somehow.
Across the street was a little inn with a bath. Marcia went off to the market to buy some clothes for them, while Ranisa commandeered the bath, kicking the men out for an hour while the girls got a chance for a much needed scrubbing. Marcia showed up as they finished with the clothes, hairbrushes and some snacks. Cleaned and dressed, the girls looked much better than they did earlier. They then took the girls to a little eat
ery, where they wolfed down food hungrily. Ranisa wondered how long since they had had a good meal.
They billeted the girls in the inn, three to a room because of the number, and Ranisa and Marcia also shared a room. Boni and the men stayed at facilities run by the local authorities.
The next day, they loaded the five Bagram girls up in the cart for the trip home, the girls still unconvinced there would be any welcome for them. Boni, Marcia and Ranisa rode, contemplating how best to handle the reconciliation.
“My father will manage this reconciliation,” said Ranisa.
“How?” asked Boni.
“I don’t know yet. But he has to do it.”
A few days later, when Bagram came into sight, Ranisa announced she would head on alone to make the necessary arrangements, that they should meet her at the palace stables on their arrival. She left at a brisk pace.
Ranisa’s plan had come into her head on the way in, at least the broad outlines. At the stables, she put her horse in the hands of the stable grooms and rushed upstairs to locate Rustam. “We have some unexpected guests of honor, Rustam. The girls we rescued must be put up immediately in the distinguished visitors’ quarters. Bathed, fine clothes, you know what to do.’
“Wait a minute, Your Ladyship! Only your father can authorize these rooms and he hasn’t…”
“He will. I’m going upstairs now to make arrangements. There are five girls and their families, five rooms.” She gave him her most winning smile. “Thank you, I knew you could handle such a high priority thing on such short notice, you are wonderful at that, Rustam.”
“But…”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes with more instructions from my father.”
Rustam attempted to make another protest, but she was already on her way into the living quarters, where she cornered her father on the patio.
The Eagle and the Dragon, a Novel of Rome and China Page 65
