My face started to hurt, and I realized my brow had been furrowed for long enough to make my forehead muscles sore. I rubbed my head.
The tent flap parted, and Khepri emerged. She whispered to one of the maids standing guard, and the girl rushed off in the direction of the sheikh’s tent.
Khepri dried her damp hands and sat with us, grabbing a piece of flat bread, smearing some date jam on it and wolfing it down.
We waited.
Finally, “Well, it’s not good.” Khepri took a deep, shuddering breath and looked up at us. “I did all I could. Now all there is to do is wait.”
“What is Amondine ill with, Khepri?” Christianne asked in a high voice.
“I cannot say for sure,” Khepri leaned toward the girl and patted her arm with a worried look, “but it looks like she might have been poisoned.”
Chapter Eighteen
Six Ghosts
“Poisoned??!” I exclaimed, shocked.
Khepri shushed me, and we huddled closer.
“Let’s go over here,” Khepri urged in a quiet voice. She led us away along the chattering mass of the main tent, and around to the sleeping tent. We’d all gathered our bedrolls in a corner and stacked our belongings together to form a small enclosed space where we often gathered at the end of the day. Khepri had tied a light, gauzy cloth across from edge to edge, forming a triangle at the corner of the larger sleeping tent, and it made the small space our spot.
We all ducked under the gauze and sat huddled together talking. Although we gathered like this often, today felt different. We were like soldiers conferring about a new threat.
“Khepri, tell us everything,” I whispered.
She nodded once grimly, a worried look on her face. “This is bad. Really bad.”
“Oh, gods,” moaned Christianne.
“What is going on?” Kym asked in a hushed tone.
“Shhh! Let her speak,” Caroline said in a low voice.
“Amondine was definitely poisoned,” Khepri explained in a low voice. “Deliberately.”
I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.
“But why?” asked Kym. I glanced over at her. She looked so small, her eyes wide and innocent. Just a six-year-old little girl, knowing basically nothing of human intrigue. And deadly in her true form.
“Miss,” Caroline whispered in my ear. “We must keep you safe if there are such things happening.” Intrigue and poisonings were matters that happened infrequently at our court in Swerighe, but they did happen. I looked back at Caroline knowingly.
Khepri spoke in a low tone. “We are all in danger. We must be extremely careful.” She looked around at the tent walls, they flapped slightly with the breeze and movement of passersby outside.
There were halls inside the tents in the Sheikh’s compound, but the harem tent was mostly one big central room, with a few smaller adjacent rooms. The “walls,” such as they were, were constructed from heavy woven canvas that could be penetrated with a sharp knife. They stood firm against most of the wind and sand but were not designed to protect against determined human intruders.
“We have become complacent under the matron’s protection and absorbed in our artistic activities. We should remember what the original purpose of the harem was,” said Khepri looking at each of us in turn. “Debauchery. Without Amondine, we are all vulnerable to any royal whim.”
“But Khepri,” Christianne said, “I thought the sheikh was growing older and was infrequently overcome with lust.”
“Infrequent does not mean never,” Khepri whispered. “And do not forget the others in the royal household.” She looked at us knowingly.
A cold shiver crawled up my spine.
Malík.
The next morning Amondine was dead.
We had all gathered late into the night, all of us in the harem. We exchanged warnings and whispered cautions to the younger ones on what to do if things got really bad.
Normally the sheikh went to the matron or one of the first wives for his needs, but there hadn’t been any visits for nearly a year.
“With Malík and his men back, anything could happen,” Khepri said.
“Amondine must get better!” said a girl of just fifteen summers.
“Will the guards protect us?” asked a raven beauty of twenty, shivering.
I looked at her more closely: She was coal black, and she looked very shocked and afraid. I hadn’t remembered her here before. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“Tupu,” she answered, looking down. “I just arrived with the raiding party.”
What?
I hadn’t seen any females returning with Malík and his men.
Khepri spoke up. “They hid the girls they brought back, put them in sacks so they could smuggle them past the sheikh.”
“What? Why?” I asked.
“The sheikh controls the compound and the harem,” she explained. “Any females caught on raids are his property, by right. They wanted to keep them for themselves.”
“The sheikh discovered the men had hid me,” Tupu said, looking up. I saw she has piercing purple eyes. “There were three of us, all cousins. I was brought here, I don’t know what happened to Tikiko and Pala.” She looked down again.
“Did Malík’s men raid your compound?” Khepri asked.
“No, they were at the Tambibo coastal market, near Moonlit Bay, and plucked us from our village next door. We were just walking to market with the dates we’d grown, and they galloped up in a cloud of dust, laughing. My two brothers fought valiantly but were left in the street, dead. We girls tried to run, but …” She looked sad. “We were caught. They spent the night raping us.” Tupu had tears in her eyes at the memory.
“My cousins,” she whispered. “I haven’t seen them since we returned. I am scared to death.” She lowered her head again.
“Tupu, I think they are probably still hidden somewhere, in Malík’s men’s tents or nearby,” Khepri said. “I will keep an eye out for them,” she turned back to us, “but we here in this tent are in the most immediate danger.”
“We must lay low and sound the alarm should anyone be attacked,” I said firmly.
“And just how can we fight against an attack?” Caroline exclaimed, her voice raised in fear. “We have no one to petition. A sheikh keeps a harem for one main purpose!” She began to cry quietly.
I put my arm around her, attempting to comfort her and disguise my own sense of dread.
We had all soon fallen asleep, worried about Amondine but terrified at what might befall us should Amondine be unable to protect us any longer.
And while we’d slept, she had died.
The next morning found Khepri gone again, but she soon returned, her face crestfallen, her eyes filled with tears.
We ate a somber breakfast, my stomach was so knotted with fear I found it hard to eat anything, and the other girls appeared much the same.
The dates, figs, olives, flatbread and goat cheese sat mostly untouched, and the small bit I forced myself to swallow sat in a cold ball in my stomach for hours.
That afternoon, I decided to visit Shêtân again, and I brought Caroline and Christianne with me, while Kym stayed with Khepri. The little girl who was a chimera in disguise had taken to human form naturally and had been staying close to Khepri ever since Amondine’s death. She’d grabbed onto Khepri’s hand during the short funeral the harem had held for the matron and hadn’t let go.
As Caroline, Christianne and I approached the stables, we heard a whinny; Shêtân had seen me. He stood at the corner of his outer yard, pressed against the wood railing, ears up, looking straight at me.
I rushed forward, and my hand went immediately to his muzzle; I rubbed the fuzzy skin fondly. Christianne fed the stallion an apple she’d brought, and Shêtân crunched it enthusiastically as we retrieved brushes and began to groom him. I worked away while thoughts went around and around in my head, my mind trying to find a way out of our predicament. Hmmm, I thought, as I brushed Shêtân’s co
at to a gleaming shine.
After a while, I set the soft bristled brush down, grabbed a comb, and began to work on Shêtân’s tail. The black lengths fell nearly to the ground, stopping just inches short. As I worked, I inhaled the earthy smell of the stable, and closed my eyes, trying to settle my thoughts.
My fingers made their way as if of their own accord up to his mane, and my mind wandered in a daydream as I plaited the thick, long hair. I reminisced about my childhood and remembered my nanny weaving my own hair into a long braid that had begun at my forehead and run lengthwise along the side of my head and fastened at the nape of my neck to the twin braid running similarly down the other side. At the end of the memory, my mind returned to the present and I saw that I had braided something similar down the length of Shêtân’s neck. It looked tidy and neat.
“That looks great, Miss,” I heard Caroline say next to me. I turned to her with a smile.
She smiled back and said, “Just like the braids you wore when you were a little lass.”
This horse is my spirit animal, I thought, resting my cheek against Shêtân’s head as he leaned into me with equine affection. I patted his neck as we finished up, and I imagined I felt genuinely better for participating in the down-to-earth task and communing with Shêtân. I hoped the fleeting feeling would last.
The harem was calm and quiet upon our return, the whole compound seemed to be holding its breath. I was told the sheikh was saddened by Amondine’s passing but had not believed his son’s men could be responsible for her death. Still, he had ordered his top advisor to launch a cursory investigation while he took a long nap for the rest of the day.
In the harem tent, a few of the women made halfhearted attempts to busy themselves with their artwork, a few even taking up paintbrushes and trying to mimic Amondine’s paintings, but for the most part, we were in shock.
Dinner was barely touched by any of us. I nibbled on a date halfheartedly, sitting next to Kym while she drew circles in the dusty floor.
The evening passed slowly, the air felt heavy, and sadness lay over the large community of women like a foggy shroud. Khepri stayed with us, sharing our sorrow.
We held our breath, not knowing what would come.
Night fell and as we lay in our bedrolls, none of us talked. Everything that had to be said had been said, and we all lay still, worried, waiting for sleep to overtake us.
Eventually, I dropped off, the last to fall asleep.
I was awakened by a scared, frantic voice.
“No, no, please! I don’t want to!”
That sounds like the Kym, I thought sleepily, eyes still closed.
Wait, what?
My eyes popped open and I looked around. It was dark and silent. Could I have dreamt the voice? I wondered. No, I thought. It had been real. It had woken me up. I decided to investigate.
“Wake up, Carrie! Christianne!” I whispered, my hand jiggling them awake in haste as I grabbed a blanket and threw it around my shoulders. Khepri nearby raised her head, blinking sleepily.
I was up and halfway to the inner tent opening when I heard Kym again.
“Please, no!” Kym wailed. This was followed by a loud slap and a growl, then a whimper.
I rushed around the corner and hurried down the side of the tent wall, blinking the sleep from my eyes. Caroline and Christianne were on their feet in an instant, and Khepri not far behind. The sounds had come from the kitchen tent, and we all rushed through the tent flap leading into the room.
My eyes widened in shock.
Kym was on her back on the ground, a dark hooded form on top of her.
“GET OFF HER!!!” I screamed, springing forward. I tried to grab the man’s cloak and pull him off, but he growled savagely and pushed me back, and I fell to the ground.
Kym’s shift was ripped down the front, exposing her shoulder and arm. Her face was filled with anguish, and something else. Something … uh oh…
With a loud cry that morphed into an animal roar, Kym’s small form shimmered there on the ground under her assailant, and suddenly the little girl was gone, replaced by the massive lion’s head-topped form of the chimera. The snake on the back end of the creature hissed angrily.
The chimera whipped around, knocking the long dinner table over, and sprang at the cloaked man, roaring as her huge lion’s paw swung forward and…
I winced.
His head was off in a second, rolling on the ground. The headless corpse fell backward and lay there, twitching, blood spurting from the stump where the man’s head used to be. The cloak had been ripped with the blow, the hood snatched off with the head, and everything was quickly soaked in blood.
The massive chimera stood in the middle of the room, crowding the bags of supplies and cooking pots, looking deeply ruffled. It put one great front paw onto the corpse, then another.
The assailant’s body was now surrounded in a pool of spreading blood, and the head, still half covered in its black hood, was four feet away against the tent wall, a look of surprise on its very dead face.
It was Malík.
Oh, dear god …
I stared at the chimera for a long minute, realizing what had to be done.
If the guards found that we’d killed Malík, they would slaughter every last one of us. We had to get away, and fast. It was still dark, and the compound slumbered.
I’d been thinking of escape for a long time now, formulating plans in my head and discarding them one by one. Kym had forced my hand. I actually felt relieved inside. I’d been waiting for the perfect time, and fate had presented it to me. Now, things were finally going to happen.
“Hurry! Change back, CHANGE BACK!!!” I cried at the chimera. She looked at me regally, her chin lifting into the air. “We don’t have time for this, Kym! We’ve got to get out of here!” I grabbed a large sack and scooped up Malík’s head, grimacing, and stuffed it in.
Khepri and Caroline understood instantly, grabbing the corpse’s legs and pulling them over as the chimera stepped off it onto the ground.
“Hurry …” I grabbed a larger sack and bent to grab Malík’s corpse.
“Bend the legs so it’ll fit,” mumbled Caroline, shoving at the body’s shoulders.
“Ugggh,” Christianne murmured, turning her face away as she helped lift the headless corpse into the sack.
“Now move those bags and put it under the table. Hurry!” I grabbed a large bag of dates, dropping it again. It was heavier than I’d realized.
“Come on.” Caroline grabbed the bag with me, and together we piled the large bags on top of the corpse.
By the time we were done, Malík’s body was effectively hidden from view. The blood was everywhere, though. I hurriedly scooped up sand from the edge of the tent flap and threw it onto the bright stain.
“Here, let me help,” a voice said as more sand was scooped and thrown onto the blood. I looked up. It was Tupu. Wide-eyed, I stared at her. When had she come into the kitchen tent?
“Kym,” hissed Khepri, “change back. Change back.”
The chimera was still looking at us haughtily from the corner of the tent.
“HURRY!” I whispered. “The guards could come in any minute. Heck, the other women could come in any second.” I glanced nervously at Tupu.
She gave me a smile and put her head close to mine. “I know who you are,” she whispered. “Please let me come with you, I can help.”
I blinked. Who’d squealed? I thought. Probably Khepri. I looked Tupu up and down. She was tall and lanky, and her arms had form and muscle. She could be an asset. I mentally shrugged. “All right,” I winked. “But you may regret it.”
“Better than staying here.” She smiled.
The chimera looked angry. I walked up and grabbed her massive lion’s mane, putting my face close to hers. Whispering fiercely, I said, “Kym, I know this man attacked you and tried to rape you. Honey, it’s okay and right that you defended yourself.”
Her huge lion eyes filled with tears. I continued,
“but right now, right this very minute, it’s extremely important that we grab our stuff and make a break for it.” I glanced around. “It’ll be dawn soon. We need to be away from this place before that. It would be extremely dangerous if word got out who you really are.”
The chimera looked angry.
“I know you could battle very well as a chimera, but I really think it’d be better if you changed into your human form, and we slipped out as quietly and swiftly as possible.” I looked at her sternly. “Fewer people will die that way.”
The massive lion’s head nodded, and she began to morph. The air shimmered around her form, and suddenly the great beast was gone, and Kym was there, her edges still shimmering. As she solidified, she gave a great sob and grabbed me in a bear hug. I wrapped my arms around this little thin six-year-old slip of a girl, and tears came to my eyes as I thought of what Malík must have done for her to transform back into the chimera.
I looked down. Her blue dress was back. She’d been wearing a brown sleeping thawb when she’d went to bed. I looked around and saw it on the floor, ripped in two. That bastard. I felt really glad he was in two pieces in sacks under bags of dates. He deserves to be in a manure pile.
We raced out of the kitchen tent and down to the bedding area. In a minute, we’d stuffed what few belongings we had in sacks and were creeping along the inner harem tent, trying to be subtle.
A few of the women were already awake and watching us quietly. All the noise and commotion must’ve woken them, but they were on our side. Khepri held her finger to her lips as we hurried past. I was sure they could tell we were trying to escape, and some of them looked wistfully at us as we left. If I can, I will come back and liberate the whole harem, I thought. I was filled with a feeling of fury. We were leaving them in a very dangerous state. At least Malík is dead. He was the worst. Probably. Likely. Maybe.
Oh, who am I kidding? The whole compound and this stupid old sheikh were more dangerous than a hundred manticores.
As I slipped out of the tent, holding Kym’s hand, I did not look back, but I felt I was leaving part of my heart with those women. I will be back. I swore softly under my breath as we crept from shadow to shadow, making our way to the stables.
The Pirates of Moonlit Bay Page 12
