The Sheik and the Slave

by Italia, Nicola

  “What?” Edward asked. He jerked around to face Mohammed.

  “This entire letter is a fabrication,” Mohammed said. He sat down on the sofa. “The girl in question was invited to the palace. Not by me. I was very worried for Katharine and this girl was invited over with her family. There was food and dancing. I don’t remember much of the evening.”

  “Go on,” Edward encouraged him.

  Mohammed shook his head.

  “I didn’t feel well. I felt sick. But the girl, Safiya, danced for me.”

  He briefly recalled that night when the dark-haired beauty was dancing and suddenly her hair was blonde like the desert.

  “I remember seeing Katharine dancing before me and I ached to hold her,” he said.

  Mohammed closed his eyes and tried to recall that night.

  “I remember lying on top the girl and blacking out.”

  “Was the act consummated?” Edward questioned.

  “I honestly don’t know. I don’t think so. I couldn’t even stay awake, much less perform.”

  “So the child may not be yours?”

  “Possibly. Or it could be someone else’s, trying to make the child mine. The next sheik will be powerful and inherit much lands and wealth.”

  “That is reason enough for someone to try and pass the child off as yours.”

  “Yes. And I have recently discovered that she has disappeared from the palace. My advisor Daleel informed me.”

  “And the marriage?”

  “There was no marriage, Lord Edward. What kind of man do you think I am? I was grieving and searching for Katharine. All I wanted was Katharine. My marriage with Yasmeen was over. I had disbanded the harem. Katharine is the only woman I want.”

  The room was silent was several seconds.

  “Then whoever wrote this, wrote it with the intent of separating you and Katharine forever,” Edward spoke.

  “Yes.”

  Both men were deep in thought.

  “It would be someone close to you, Mohammed. Someone who knew everything and didn’t want you together.”

  Seconds ticked by in the quiet room. Mohammed and Edward stared at each other.

  “Someone who doesn’t like Katharine. Someone who despises Katharine,” Edward reasoned.

  Mohammed looked into the fire and then placed his head in his hands. He knew with a certainty who was behind it all.

  “Abdullah.”

  “Who is that?”

  “He is my chief advisor.”

  Suddenly, it all made sense. Abdullah had never liked Katharine. He had always wanted his wife to be of Arab descent. Unlike Daleel, who had modern ideas, Abdullah was conservative and fanatical in his Islamic beliefs.

  “He has done this,” Mohammed whispered. “He has written this letter of lies to separate me from Katharine.”

  Then he thought of Katharine. No wonder she wanted nothing to do with him. She thought that he had a wife and son and that she was nothing more to him than a warm body.

  He felt an ache in his heart. Katharine. She must have been so humiliated when this filthy letter had first been read. She would have been crushed to learn that she had been put aside for another woman and child while she was alone, waiting for him to return as he had promised. It was a mess. But it would be remedied. He must see her. Now.

  “Where is Katharine?”

  But Edward didn’t seem to hear him.

  “Oh my dear boy!”

  “What is it?”

  “Oh, no, no, no,” he murmured.

  “What is it?”

  Mohammed was suddenly concerned for Katharine’s safety, though Abdullah was so far away.

  “After you went to Arabia to find Katharine, the Bow Street Runners continued to search out clues on her whereabouts. They tracked the mercenary who had kidnapped her to an inn in Whitechapel where he had been staying.”

  “Yes?”

  “He was murdered.”

  “Yes I knew that.”

  “Yes but what that Bow Street Runners discovered was that he was murdered by a knife wound to the throat. Those working at the inn saw a man who had gone to see him right before he was killed. He was never found, but he was a large man dressed in Arab garb. He is believed to have been the murderer.”

  “Abdullah,” Mohammed said as he nodded.

  Though Edward had never met Abdullah, it made sense that he would be the one to have killed the mercenary if he was behind the plot to kidnap her. He was covering his tracks.

  Mohammed closed his eyes and saw everything fall into place. Abdullah, his most trusted advisor and friend, had done everything. He had the mercenary kidnap Katharine, he had sent the letter, and he had Safiya seduce him to impregnate herself with a son. It was all Abdullah, like a serpent in the nest. And then he had killed Jean Baptiste to cover his tracks. He was behind everything.

  “He is behind everything, Lord Edward. He has done all of this. My most trusted advisor,” Mohammed said incredulously. It was not to be believed.

  He must find Katharine. She must know the truth. She must be told everything and then all would be made right.

  “Where is Katharine?” He felt his heart race. He had to see her.

  “She is having tea with Lady Dunvale. Why?”

  “I have to explain everything to her. She must know everything that has happened. I can’t allow one more day to go by without her knowing the truth.”

  “My dear boy,” Edward said as he clasped Mohammed about the shoulders. “The wrongs will be righted. Take faith in the fact that she loves you.”

  Mohammed smiled.

  “Thank you, Lord Edward.”

  Chapter 28

  He took the steps two at a time to make his way from the townhouse to a hired hackney cab.

  He would be there shortly, for Lady Dunvale’s townhouse was nearby. He gave the cab driver directions and his mind raced. What would he say to her? It would come to him. All that mattered was the truth.

  He pulled up near the corner and was about to get out when something caught his eye. A coach was waiting near Lady Dunvale’s townhouse and the driver sat hunch backed in a large frock coat, tight and ill fitting. He was eyeing Lady Dunvale’s townhouse with urgency. His back was to Mohammed, so Mohammed could not see the man’s face.

  Mohammed watched the coach and gave his driver instructions to wait.

  Katharine emerged a short time later from the house, stepping lightly into the coach where the driver had been waiting for her. As the coach turned the corner, he noticed a small alleyway next to Lady Dunvale’s townhouse and saw a man lying half-naked, stripped of his frock coat. That was the true driver! Allah help him, he thought as terror seized him.

  Abdullah was here!

  “Follow that coach,” he shouted to the driver.

  Mohammed knew with certainty that Abdullah was finally taking matters into his own hands. With Katharine inside and the coach at his control, he would take her someone secluded to finish what had been started long ago.

  ***

  She had a lovely time with Lady Dunvale. They had gossiped about the card party and she learned that she had been on the gossipmonger’s tongues when it was known that she had kissed the delectable foreigner.

  Katharine sighed. If they only knew, she thought.

  Katharine felt the coach sway and knew that something was wrong. There had been a coach outside, and the driver assured her that he would take her to her destination in Mayfair. But as they kept driving, she knew she was not heading toward her home and that something was wrong. She shouted and pounded on the roof, but there was no answer.

  Was she being kidnapped again? Her heart leaped into her throat. No!

  They entered the beautiful Greenwich Park, and Katharine was thoroughly confused. Why were they here?

  ***

  Mohammed instructed the hackney cab to stay near enough to keep track of the coach, but far enough away to not raise Abdullah’s suspicion.

  When the coach slowed, he knew
he must act wisely. But whatever happened next, he would ensure that Abdullah’s reign of terror was at an end.

  ***

  The coach slowed and stopped along the green lawns of Greenwich Park. She heard the driver jump down and wretch the door open.

  “Sir,” was all she was able to say before she was physically hauled out into the bright light and green of the park. A light sprinkle of rain was falling.

  “Don’t speak,” Abdullah said, as he threw off the foreign frock coat. His Arab dress frightened Katharine.

  He pulled her behind a large chestnut tree and forced her onto her knees.

  “Kill those who join other gods with God wherever you shall find them; and seize them, besiege them, and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush,” Abdullah murmured to himself, quoting the holy book. His fingers bit into her hair as he kept her on her knees.

  “Please, what have I done?” Katharine cried.

  Abdullah murmured words in Arabic and was in a trance. She was so frightened and the light rain chilled her. Was he a madman? What was going on here? She trembled.

  Abdullah’s fingers tightened into her hair and she cried out, “Please!”

  “Infidel, Infidel, kafir,” he recited over and over again as she felt the tears fall.

  “Please don’t. My son needs me,” she whispered quietly.

  Abdullah suddenly released her and stopped chanting.

  “Your son will have Allah,” he told her.

  Katharine saw the man clearly and cringed. She knew him! He had worked in the palace. He had been an advisor to Mohammed. She felt a glimmer of hope. What did he want? What was going on?

  “Who are you? I know you.”

  “Yes, woman. And I know you.”

  “What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?” she asked as she shuddered.

  “I have watched and waited and remained inactive for far too long. I will do what should have been done long ago,” he said. His voice was cold in the green park.

  She felt the cold rain and the grass under her knees.

  “I have done nothing to you,” she cried.

  “No! You have done nothing but bewitched our lord and master, a fine leader among men. And you will destroy him.”

  “No, I love him. I carried his son. Our son. Please.”

  “Be quiet, witch! You have bewitched him and stolen his soul through your wicked ways.”

  He slapped her across the face and drew out his silver blade from beneath his robes.

  “I should have done this at the palace when you were first brought there. I could have saved myself so much time and pain, rather than relying on that stupid half-breed to kidnap you.”

  “Oh my God,” Katharine whispered. She touched her fingers to her lips, realizing Jean Baptiste had been hired by this crazed man before her.

  “He was an inferior half-breed who fouled everything up. I killed him for the sake of killing him.”

  Katharine felt sick.

  “Why?” she whispered.

  Abdullah admired the blade that would soon be stained with her blood.

  “There was a beautiful girl in Arabia. She was dark and lovely, and I planned so perfectly for her to be Mohammed’s consort and bear his children.”

  “No,” Katharine said.

  “I bid her to come to the palace and she did. She was to seduce Mohammed with her body.”

  Katharine bit her lip and felt her tears fall.

  “But she too failed me. Instead, the sheik couldn’t complete the act before he passed out. Then I find out she was pregnant by her uncle. Disgusting woman!”

  Katharine’s heart soared even as it flung back to earth.

  “You made an enemy out of me from the moment I first saw you. When I first laid eyes on you, I knew you were evil. All that is unholy lies between your legs and in your body.”

  “No. That’s not true,” she whispered. “I am a good woman.”

  “You are the most vilest of creatures. You are an Infidel. A non-believer. A soulless being.”

  She shook her head as he drew the blade along her collarbone and she shuddered.

  He murmured quietly, “And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.”

  He whispered the words in a fevered pitch.

  “Once you are dead, we will take your son back to Arabia to be raised as a true Muslim. He will be raised in the true faith. I will tell him stories of his beautiful mother, and he and Mohammed will never know that your blood stained my hands,” Abdullah said. He smiled then, and Katharine knew all was lost.

  Katharine tried to concentrate on Mohammed and her beloved son. She tried to focus on their faces and not the one before her.

  “Make your peace, witch.”

  Katharine shook her head and shivered in the cold.

  “I love Mohammed and I love my son. More than that, I have nothing to say. Do what you will,” she said as she closed her eyes.

  She waited to feel the pain, but only heard a slight thud and then flesh hitting flesh.

  She opened her eyes and saw a man dressed in European clothes grappling with Abdullah. A fist collided with his head and then collided with his gut. He was getting a beating.

  She moved quickly away from the two men and then gasped. It was Mohammed! Her heart soared.

  Both men fought viciously and threw words and punches at each other.

  The words were in Arabic and lightning-quick, some of which she didn’t understand, as the two men fought violently.

  Mohammed slammed Abdullah’s back into the tree and the man collapsed into the grass. The sheik held the glittering knife in his hand, but had no intention of slaying his advisor.

  “You have been a false friend! You who even served with my father!” Mohammed shouted.

  Abdullah coughed.

  “Don’t you see? Are you so in lust with the witch that you don’t see her? She is unholy.”

  “She is a woman. A beautiful, intelligent woman who loves me. She is the mother of my son!”

  “An Infidel! She’s an Infidel!” Abdullah said the word with malice.

  Mohammed shook his head, pitying the man.

  "Accursed wherever they are found, being seized and massacred completely," Abdullah quoted the Qur’an to Mohammed.

  “Kafir!” He called her.

  “No,” Mohammed returned back. “So if they do not withdraw from you or offer you peace or restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you overtake them. Or offer you peace, Abdullah! She has never made war with you. She never sought our demise. In fact, her only failing was to fall in love.”

  Abdullah snorted.

  “Love? Any harem girl can spread her legs.”

  “Enough. This is futile. I will take you to London to stand for the crimes you have committed. I will have justice.”

  Abdullah shook his head.

  “Justice? In the land of the Infidels, where their stench is everywhere.”

  Mohammed had enough.

  “All of this, everything you have done. You have betrayed me. You hired Jean Baptiste to kidnap her. You helped search for him, all the while knowing that you had orchestrated it. You wrote that letter of lies to tear us apart. You hide the fact that Safiya isn’t pregnant with my child but her uncle’s! We were never married. All of this for nothing! You are a traitor,” Mohammed said. He then spit on the ground in front of his chief advisor. His face showed that he felt pain and rage toward Abdullah.

  Abdullah looked at his friend. He denied nothing. But in his heart he knew he was saving Mohammed from himself.

  “If she will have me, I will marry her as soon as possible,” he told Abdullah. “I love her. Don’t you understand that? I love her.”

  Katharine appeared from her safe place on the other side
of the chestnut tree and smiled lovingly at him.

  “I will marry you, Mohammed. Whatever time and place you choose. I love you so much.”

  Mohammed smiled as he felt his heart expand. He released his grip on the knife. It would be all right. She would be his wife. She would be his. As he moved toward Katharine, he didn’t realize that Abdullah’s fanaticism was still there, savagely beating and eating away in his heart.

  Abdullah took that moment to lunge at his sheik, to wretch the knife from him, but Mohammed was swift. They struggled in the grass, both men strong and angry, while Katharine ducked away. Mohammed went to defend himself and the knife pressed deep into Abdullah’s chest.

  Katharine turned away in distress as Abdullah sank onto the grass, with his hands grasping at his chest. The blood seeped out, staining the green grass red. He closed his eyes in pain and then opened them halfway to glare at the woman he hated beyond reason.

  Katharine shook her head. She had never wanted this. This was a kind of sickness, a madness inside Abdullah.

  Abdullah’s face sneered with hate as he hissed at her.

  “Kafir,” he said to Katharine. Then, he was gone.

  Mohammed caught her in his arms and kissed her temple as they moved away from the violent scene.

  “Katharine. Come away. Don’t look,” he said to her.

  He moved her to Abdullah’s stolen coach and placed her inside, taking up the reins. The coach moved swiftly to No. 4 Bow Street to relay the death of the man and his crimes.

  After he dispatched the Bow Street Runners, he caught Katharine up in his arms. His large hands touched the sides of her face as he looked into her eyes.

  The tears fell on her cheeks as she closed her eyes.

  “Everything has been such a nightmare,” she said. “I thought you had another child and were married. That’s why I couldn’t bear to see you. I thought you wanted me as a second wife. I was so deeply unhappy when I received that letter. It was a horror. And then you were here, kissing me, and I didn’t understand why. I wanted nothing to do with you.”

  “I know,” he said. He kissed her mouth and his arms held her tightly. “I didn’t understand anything until today, when I was speaking with your father. Then everything fell into place. Abdullah has been behind everything. But nothing matters now. You are in my arms as you should be. I don’t intend to let you go. Ever.” The last word he said was spoken against her ear and she smiled. She was safe at last.