The Love Slave

by Bertrice Small

  Finally, Zaynab’s grief subsided a bit, and she said to the Nasi, “I tried to save her, Hasdai. There was no need for her to die, but she kept saying because she had been raped, she was defiled and no longer felt fit for decent society. Why should that be so, my lord? She was not at fault. It was the men who brutalized her who were at fault! I know several of them by sight. They are among your prisoners, and I want to see them die!” Her voice was shaking now. “I must!”

  “Lady, Alaeddin said to me their deaths will be horrible,” Oma whispered. “The prince burned for revenge before he heard your tale. Now he will be merciless. ’Tis too harsh a sight for our eyes.”

  The Nasi, however, disagreed. “If you wish to see these particular men tortured and executed, my dear, then you shall; but Oma is right. It will be a cruel and terrible sight.”

  “I would see it,” she said fiercely, then turning to Oma, told her, “You need not accompany me.”

  “So be it,” the Nasi told her.

  Zaynab went with him and Karim to point out the two men she had seen using Iniga that day, and the man Iniga had pointed out as the one who liked to beat her before using her. The three of them were separated from the others, and brought to the main square of the city for public torture and execution. Each man was whipped hard, but not enough to either kill him or render him unconscious. It was a fine art that the whippers practiced. They made their victims suffer exquisite pain, and then they rubbed salt into the bloody wounds to intensify that pain. Each man was then stretched upon a rack. His fingernails and toenails were removed while he howled with agony. The air was heavy with the scent of blood, urine, vomit, and feces when finally all three prisoners were ready for the next stage of the torture.

  Zaynab sat immobile upon the dais placed in the square for Hasdai, Karim, and herself. She was pale, but her eyes were hard and lacking pity. No one looking at those eyes would have known that beneath her veil she bit her lip to keep from crying out loud. She stared as a surgeon carefully removed the testes from each man’s scrotum, numbing the area first, for the pain would have rendered him unconscious. The three would see themselves unmanned. The mental agony that caused was far, far greater than any physical pain. A collective shriek arose from the three as their manhoods were sliced off in unison by three executioners, to then be fed to a pack of snarling, hungry dogs that had been rounded up for the occasion. The terrible wounds were stanched with hot pitch, causing further cries of pain. Zaynab swallowed back the urge to vomit.

  The prince arose. “Come,” he said to the Nasi and Zaynab.

  They followed him up a flight of stairs to the top of the walls of Alcazaba Malina, which were some thirty feet in height. Ten feet down on the smooth white walls, great, curving black hooks were set to prevent any attacker from scaling the high barricades. The three half-dead men were carried up the stairs behind the prince and his party. At Karim’s signal, each was carefully tossed from the wall, their descent stopped by the sharp hooks upon which they fell. Their screams were horrendous as their naked bodies were pierced through. They wriggled upon the hooks, crying out to Allah for a quick death, desperate to escape the all-enveloping pain.

  “Depending upon their individual strengths,” Karim said quietly, “they may live several hours to several days. The last to die will watch as the carrion birds pluck the sightless eyes from his companions.”

  “I hope it is the fat one,” Zaynab said. “The one who beat Iniga. He is the worst of them all. I pray he suffers the most!”

  Watching the three dying men somehow seemed to ease the pain in her heart. Zaynab knew she would always remember, but at least she felt justice had been done. Iniga had been revenged. Her honor would be cleansed by the death throes of the men who had maltreated her so terribly.

  For the next few weeks Hasdai ibn Shaprut worked with Karim to set the government and its administration, unsettled by the death of Habib ibn Malik, back on an even keel. Zaynab spent her time regaining her strength and preparing for Oma’s wedding to the vizier, Alaeddin ben Omar. In the days of Zaynab’s captivity, Karim’s former first mate had pressed his case with Oma. When Zaynab returned, Alaeddin came to her, pleading.

  “You must convince her to wed with me,” he said. “I love her dearly. I have taken no other wife, in the hopes that she would change her mind and return to me, my lady Zaynab; but I am no longer a young man. I am past thirty. If I am to have sons, I must marry soon.”

  “I have told her I would free her, and I have advised her to marry you, my lord,” Zaynab told him. “Last time, I know, she remained with me because I was going into a strange new world. Now, however, I have the Nasi, and I have the caliph’s daughter. I should not want her to deny herself the happiness she could have as your wife. I will speak with her, but I can promise you nothing, my lord. Oma is every bit as independent in her thinking as I am. Are you certain you want such a wife? She will not change.” Zaynab’s eyes twinkled.

  “I want only her!” he vowed earnestly.

  “Do you love him?” Zaynab demanded of Oma later that day.

  “Yes,” Oma said, “but I love you too, lady.”

  “If you love him,” Zaynab replied, “then you must marry him.” She caught her friend’s hands in hers. “Ohhh, Oma, do not be a little fool! I love you too. You are the best friend I ever had, but what you will have with Alaeddin ben Omar will be even better. You will have your freedom, and status as the wife of the vizier. You will have children of your own, and I know you want that. Best of all, you will have the love of a good man. Do not throw that away just to remain with me, Oma.” Zaynab’s eyes filled with tears. “Dearest Oma, if I could have what you have, I would be the happiest woman in the world!”

  “You have the Nasi, and Moraima,” Oma said slowly.

  “The Nasi and I are friends, and of course I am grateful for that. I must live this life that fate has chosen for me, but you do not have to live it with me, my good Oma.

  “I want you to live your own life as Alaeddin ben Omar’s wife and the mother of his children. I would sell my soul for what is being offered to you, but I shall never know love again. The only man I have ever loved cannot love me. Fate has presented you with a golden opportunity, Oma. If you reject it this time, you will regret it all of your days, and I will think you the biggest fool ever born.”

  Oma burst into tears. “Ohh, lady, I am so torn! I want to be that black-bearded ruffian’s wife, but I cannot bear the thought of leaving you all alone! You have no one but me to look after you.”

  “I shall have the Nasi give orders to comb the slave markets of al-Andalus for a girl from Alba,” Zaynab said. “She will not be my dear Oma, but she will make her own place in my life. Marry the vizier, Oma. After all, you are not getting any younger either. You are sixteen, and I already had had Moraima when I was your age,” Zaynab teased her friend. “If you wait much longer, the vizier will be forced to find a younger wife to wed.”

  “As if anyone would have him, the black-bearded villain,” Oma said, and then she smiled tremulously. “Is it really all right? You will not mind if I marry him, and desert you?”

  Zayab hugged her. “You are not deserting me, Oma,” she reassured the girl. “Now, run along, and tell him of your decision. You will make him the happiest of men. I will dower you generously, and the Nasi will see to it that your bride price is also large.”

  “You are certain you are content to let Oma go?” Hasdai ibn Shaprut asked Zaynab that night as they lay abed.

  “She loves him,” came the quiet reply. “No one should throw away love, my lord, though there are those who would think me foolish for such sentiments. Will you negotiate her bride price for her? I should consider it a great favor, and I will need an imam to attend to the legalities of her freedom and the marriage contract.”

  “I will ask the prince to speak to the imam, and I will negotiate her bride price.” He took a lock of Zaynab’s golden hair between his fingers. “Tell me what you did to Ali Hassan. What pleasur
e was so lethal that it killed him?”

  “Ali Hassan killed himself,” Zaynab said impassively. “He boiled his heart in his own lust, my lord. I managed to keep him at bay until the night you found us. Finally I took him to the bed and made him lie upon it. I bound his arms and legs with silken cords. Then I began a sweet torture that between lovers is a delight, but for Ali Hassan was a death sentence, although I knew it not.”

  He reached up, and pulling her head down to his kissed her, and whispered against her lips, “Do to me what you did to Ali Hassan, my adorable little assassin.”

  “Are you not afraid of meeting the same end, my lord?” she teased him, but she was a little shocked by his request.

  His brown eyes looked directly at her. “I am not afraid,” he said softly.

  If he had been another man, Zaynab would have found a way to avoid what he was proposing, but Hasdai was genuinely curious. She arose from the bed, and fetching her little golden basket, brought it back to the bedside. Reaching in, she drew forth two silken cords and bound him. She began by resting lightly upon his thighs and fondling her own breasts. He watched, fascinated, as she put a finger in her mouth, sucked upon it, and then withdrawing it, encircled her nipples.

  Then she began his torture, and when he was well roused, and straining against his bonds, Zaynab sat back where he could see her, and teased at her little jewel until she was gasping and weak with pleasure. He struggled against the silken cords, wild with his desire to possess her, and at that point Zaynab lowered herself over his raging member, taking him into her body to slowly pleasure him. When the edge was off his hunger, she released him from his bonds, and rolling her over, he pistoned her again and again until they both found paradise.

  Afterward he held her in his arms, saying, “What other little games have you kept from me, my dear? Next time I want to bind you and be the torturer. Would you object?”

  “My lord, it is my duty to give you pleasure,” she answered.

  “Then so be it,” he said, and promptly fell asleep, perfectly sated with the passion they had shared.

  Zaynab lay awake for some time, and finally arose, pulling on a simple white silk caftan. Slipping through the diaphanous curtains, she walked out into the garden. The moon was full tonight, and it silvered the landscape below. She paced slowly, inhaling the fragrance of roses, nicotiana, and her own favorite, gardenias. The air was warm and the light breeze ruffled her long hair.

  She needed to compose herself. Prepare herself for the voyage to al-Andalus; for the long years ahead of her that would be filled with passion while devoid of love. I don’t want to be a Love Slave any longer, she thought silently, daring to let the words she could not voice blossom in her mind. I want to be Karim’s wife, the mother of his children. I would give up everything I possess for that paradise! I would live in a black goat’s-hair tent and eat from a wooden bowl the rest of my life if Allah would but grant me my desire. I hate the life I must live! She paced nervously through the garden.

  I must control these mutinous thoughts, Zaynab thought, reminding herself that soon she would see her darling little daughter. Moraima was her life now. She would never again return here, nor see him again. It had been horrendous being so close to Karim, neither of them acknowledging the other except in the most formal of terms. It was worse being in the Nasi’s arms, knowing Karim was in the same house. Why had she ever come back to Alcazaba Malina? Oma. She had come for Oma. Or had she? Suddenly she stopped, stiffening, sensing his presence before he even spoke her name.

  “Zaynab!” He stood, silhouetted in the moonlight, wearing a caftan as white as hers, his hair pulled back so that she could clearly see his handsome face.

  “Forgive me, my lord, I have intruded,” she quickly said, and turned about to go. His hand fell lightly upon her shoulder.

  “Do not leave,” he said quietly. “We have had no real chance to speak together, you and I. Are you happy?”

  She did not turn about, saying instead, “I am a wealthy woman, albeit a slave. I have a good master in the Nasi, a powerful friend in the caliph, and a child I love, my lord.”

  “But are you happy?” he asked her again.

  She spun about, saying angrily, “No! I am not happy, Karim al Malina. I will never be really happy away from you! There! I have said it aloud to you. Do my words make you happy?”

  “I have not been happy since the moment I left you,” he replied.

  “Oh, my lord,” she cried furiously, “what good does this do either of us? I cannot have you, nor you me. Find another wife, and sire children upon her for the good of Malina, as your father would have wanted you to do. I will shortly return with my master to al-Andalus. I shall make certain that we never see each other again!”

  “Your master,” he said sneeringly. “You make him very happy, Zaynab. His cries of pleasure could be heard throughout my garden this night. It pleases me that I trained you so well.”

  Her little hand flashed out, making hard contact with his smooth cheek. With equal speed he yanked her into his arms, his mouth descending to cover hers in a deep, burning kiss. His heart leapt at the familiar feeling of her body against his, at her lips softening against his lips in passionate response, but then she drew her head away from his. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and her eyes were like sea-washed jewels as she looked at him, anguished.

  “Zaynab,” he whispered, his own heartache evident.

  She pulled completely from his embrace. “You are far crueler to me than Ali Hassan was,” she said low. “How could you, Karim? How could you break my heart again like this? I will never forgive you!” Then she ran from him, across the garden, through the diaphanous curtains, back to the chamber she shared with Hasdai ibn Shaprut. Trembling, she pulled her garment off and slipped into the bed again. The man beside her lay quietly, pretending that he yet slept, but he had seen the tableau in the garden and was troubled by it. Now the Love Slave lay by him, struggling to control her sobs. He had to know the truth, but he would not ask her until they were back in al-Andalus.

  Oma’s wedding to Alaeddin ben Omar was a quiet one. The vizier had no family but an ancient father. The bridal bath the day before was just between the two friends. Oma did not sit on a golden throne amid a wealth of gifts as Iniga once had, and perhaps it was better they were not reminded of that day. The vizier, his father, Karim, and the Nasi went to the mosque, where the imam, having been informed by the qadi that the marriage contracts were in order and agreed to by both parties, pronounced that they were man and wife. The four men returned to the palace. After a small traditional repast, Alaeddin ben Omar took his bride home to the fine new house that the prince had given them. His elderly father, Omar ben Tariq, would live with them, that he might enjoy his grandchildren in his remaining years. He had taken immediately to Oma.

  “She is pretty enough, and has a sweet nature,” he told his son, “and she is broad in the hips. She’ll be a good breeder!”

  “When do we return to Cordoba?” Zaynab asked Hasdai that same evening, after the bridal party had gone.

  “Are you that anxious to leave?” he asked her thoughtfully.

  “We have been gone over four months, my lord. The prince is restored to good health, and is fully capable of administering the government here for the caliph, or so you have said. Oma is settled. I miss my daughter. The Gulf of Cadiz is not an easy sea in autumn,” she concluded.

  “So the prince has told me,” he said to her. “We are going to travel overland to Tanja, and sail the short distance across to Jabal-Taraq. We shall then travel to Cadiz, and meet our vessel at the mouth of the Guadalquivir. If you like, we will stop in Seville and see the city, my dear. I promised that to you on our voyage to Malina.”

  “I just want to go home,” Zaynab said quietly.

  “You cannot travel without a servant,” he said to her.

  “I want a slave girl from my own land, Hasdai. We will not find one here in Alcazaba Malina. Besides, I am perfectly capable of taking car
e of myself, even after my years in al-Andalus. I need no one to ride in the litter with me. I will be brought my meals, and when I can bathe, I am capable of doing it by myself if I must.”

  “Then we can leave tomorrow,” he said. “The Saqalibah can be ready at a moment’s notice, and so can I.”

  “I, however, cannot,” she informed him. “My possessions must be packed I will send to Oma tomorrow to come and help me. We can leave the day after, my lord.”

  “Give the bride a few days’ respite, my dear,” Hasdai said with a smile. “Although I know Oma will come to your call, remember she is no longer your servant. Why do we not plan our departure for a week from today. In the meantime I will want our host to ride about Malina with me to reassure his people that everything is all right now. Do you mind being alone? We will leave in the morning and be gone for several days.”

  “I am content with my own company,” Zaynab said. “I shall visit the silver market and find something special for Moraima.”

  When Oma came to help her a few days later, however, Zaynab was delighted for her company. Together the two women packed the Love Slave’s belongings for her return to al-Andalus. Oma was full of news.

  “I have two sweet little serving girls in the harem,” she told Zaynab. “One is from a place called Crete, and the other is a Rumi. They were a gift from my father-in-law. He is such a dear old man, Zaynab. When Alaeddin and I told him about the baby, he was simply delighted. Ohh, it is so wonderful to have a family of my own!”

  “Baby?” Zaynab laughed. “You did not tell me about a baby.”

  Oma chuckled. “Well, you know that once we saw each other, Alaeddin and I couldn’t keep our hands, and our other parts, quiet I knew before you were kidnapped, lady.”

  “Yet you would have returned with me to Cordoba,” Zaynab said softly. “Ohh, Oma! No woman ever had a better friend than I have had in you. I will miss you, but I will be content knowing you are so happy.” Then seeing Oma’s tears, she brushed them away, saying, “Tell me about your new home, and how many other servants do you have? Remember to be strict but fair with them. Is the house very big?”