Part 25 (1/2)
Zaynab held up her hand. ”Do not tell me any more. I do not want to know, Oma. I have had no choice in the way I live my life. You know it. I have made peace with my fate. Do not tell me that which would make me unhappy and discontent, I beg you.”
She did not see him, although he watched her as she walked in his gardens in the company of either the Nasi or Oma. She was, Karim thought to himself, more beautiful than ever. He knew without a doubt that he had not stopped loving her, nor would he ever cease to love his Zaynab of the golden hair. Once he saw Hasdai ibn Shaprut stop and place a kiss upon her lips. Anger surged through him, but then she looked up, and he saw her face, smiling pleasantly at the Nasi but without any sign of pa.s.sion. The anger drained from him. Oma had not lied to spare his feelings. Zaynab did not love her master! But did she still love him?
Each day he grew better, and after a week he began to take part in the training the captain of the caliph's Saqalibah was giving to his own men. Another week pa.s.sed, and Karim realized that he was much stronger physically. He was gaining his weight back and sleeping soundly through the night. The men began riding outside of the city in a first show of strength. He was certain Ali Ha.s.san's spies would be watching. They now began to play a cat and mouse game with the vicious bandit.
Almost a month had pa.s.sed when Hasdai told Zaynab, ”We are going to camp out in the hills now to see if we can draw Ali Ha.s.san out of hiding. He is constantly on the move, and our spies cannot always find him. The prince thinks it is better if we make him come to us.”
”Is there any word of Iniga?” Zaynab asked him.
”I'm afraid not,” the Nasi said. ”She is probably dead by now, and it is better if she is, my dear.”
Zaynab clamped her jaws shut, silencing herself, but the retort had almost flown from her lips. Iniga could not be dead! When they found her, she would make everything all right. Karim might not have the rest of his family, but he would have his sister back. He would be glad of it no matter what they were all saying.
The men went off into the hills, leaving Zaynab and Oma to themselves in the palace. Every few days a messenger would come with a missive from Hasdai ibn Shaprut for Zaynab, informing her of their progress, which for now had come to naught There was absolutely no sign of Ali Ha.s.san, his encampment, or any of his men. Still, they meant to remain until the bandit came out of hiding, which they a.s.sumed he eventually would. When he did, they would be waiting for him.
One late summer's afternoon as the two young women walked at the far end of the gardens, half a dozen men rose up suddenly from the bushes to surprise them. Oma, with surprising foresight, pushed past them, running as fast as she could for the portico, screaming at the top of her lungs for Mustafa and the household guards. Zaynab, however, was not as quick. Surrounded, she was swiftly gagged and hustled through the little garden gate Karim had always used. One of her captors hauled her up onto a horse, and they galloped off down the street, escaping through the city gates before Oma's screams brought help.
Zaynab was no fool. She knew now, even if Karim and Hasdai did not, that their maneuvers in the hills had indeed attracted Ali Ha.s.san's attention. This was his response to them. She didn't bother to struggle against her captor. She was already very uncomfortable as it was. If she fell from this moving beast, she could cause herself a most serious injury. She looked up into the rider's face, but it was veiled. ”Who are you?” she asked him in Arabic, hoping that her words would not be swallowed up by the wind.
”Ali Ha.s.san,” he said shortly, but nothing more.
Zaynab almost had to admire the man's bravado. It had been a daring move to invade the Prince of Malina's garden and steal away the Love Slave of the caliph's representative. Now, however, she would learn if Iniga was alive. And the caliph's Saqalibah would certainly be able to find Ali Ha.s.san's encampment soon. She could see people in the fields along the very road they were traveling, gaping as they galloped by. Someone would report back to the authorities. She thought, perhaps, that she should be afraid, but she was not.
After several very discomforting hours during which Zaynab made certain to mark within her mind's eye the outstanding features of the changing landscape, they arrived at an encampment deep in the highest of the foothills of the mountains. The black tents were carefully set into the rocks, where they would be difficult to spot. Ali Ha.s.san drew his horse to a stop beneath the awning of the largest tent. He dumped his captive most unceremoniously from her precarious perch atop his stallion.
To the relief of her dignity, she managed to land on her feet, although the jolt that slammed up her stiff legs almost buckled her knees. Zaynab forced herself to stand straight. Calmly, she smoothed down her windblown hair and shook the dust from the skirts of her lilac-colored caftan.
”Get into the tent!” he snarled, and leaping down from the horse, half dragged her inside.
She shook him off. ”You are bruising me, Ali Ha.s.san,” she snapped back at him. ”If you are to obtain a goodly ransom for me, I should not be mishandled. It will displease the Nasi greatly.”
”Ransom you?” He roared with laughter as he removed the veil that had obscured his features. His black eyes mocked her. ”I have no need of a ransom. You are Zaynab, the Love Slave, are you not?”
She nodded slowly. ”I am.” Her eyes went to the scar that ran from the corner of his right eye, across the right side of his mouth and down his chin. It was an old wound, but an ugly one. Despite it and a thin cruel mouth, however, he was an attractive man with strong features.
He saw her interest, and smiled. ”Your beauty is renowned, lady. It pleases me to know that the talented sheath you possess, a sheath that has entertained the c.o.c.k of the Prince of Malina, Hasdai ibn Shaprut, and the Caliph of al-Andalus himself, will soon welcome my lance into its sweet precincts.”
An icy chill of fear bubbled up in her, but Zaynab knew that to show any kind of fear before this man would only court disaster. ”You may force me, of course,” she told him calmly, ”but you will know nothing of my talents if you do, Ali Ha.s.san. I am not some common concubine to be terrorized into yielding to a man. Do you think that at your mere command I will spread myself for you?” She laughed at him, to his great surprise, then continued. ”You have stolen me from the second most powerful man in all of al-Andalus. Do you not think he will hunt you down and destroy you? I was a gift to the Nasi from the caliph, whose child I bore.”
”They did not come after the girl, Iniga,” Ali Ha.s.san replied.
Zaynab looked scornfully at him. He was not particularly intelligent, she decided. ”When you kidnapped Iniga, you defiled her by that act itself. It would not have mattered if you raped her or not, although I suspect you did. She was the daughter of a prince; a wife, a mother. You took her virtue from her when you stole her away. I am a Love Slave, Ali Ha.s.san. You cannot compromise my virtue in the same manner as you did Iniga's. By the way, is she still alive, or have your gentle attentions killed her?”
”She lives,” he said shortly, nonplused by her lack of fear. He had never known a woman who didn't fear him, except perhaps Hatiba. She had loved him, so he had thought.
”I would see her before we discuss the terms by which you will return us to Alcazaba Malina,” Zaynab said boldly. ”I will even give you a single night of pleasure, such as you have never known, in exchange for your cooperation, Ali Ha.s.san.”
Ali Ha.s.san laughed heartily, deciding now that she amused him. ”By Allah, woman,” he said to her, ”you are as brave as a lion! If you truly please me, I will make you my wife. What sons I could get on a firebrand like you!”
”Do you honestly think I mean to end my days in a tent in the mountains?” she fenced with him. ”I possess my own palace in Cordoba.”
”Do not worry, my beauty,” he told her. ”I mean to eventually take Alcazaba Malina itself when I have destroyed Karim ibn Habib. He once took what was mine. Now I have destroyed or captured almost everything that was once his. And you will not have to live in that tiny dwelling they call a palace. I will build you a real palace of fine white marble with soaring towers, and hanging gardens to rival those of Madinat al-Zahra.”
”How easily you brag,” she said sarcastically, ”but remember that I have both seen and lived in Madinat al-Zahra, Ali Ha.s.san. They have been building it for years, and it is not yet finished. Do you perhaps possess a genie in a bottle who will help you build this palace of yours?”
”If you give me the pleasure they say a Love Slave can give a man, Zaynab, I shall give you anything you desire. I swear it by the beard of the prophet himself!” Ali Ha.s.san declared vehemently.
”Take me to Iniga,” she responded dryly.
”Very well,” he said with an unpleasant little chuckle. He led her across the encampment to another, smaller tent.
Inside she saw that the shelter was divided by means of a dingy transparent curtain. As her eyes became accustomed to the murky gloom of the tent, she saw a figure on the other side of the hanging. It was a woman, and she was naked.
Ali Ha.s.san put a restraining arm about Zaynab's waist and clapped his hand lightly over her mouth. ”Be silent,” he said low, ”and watch,” and he drew her back into the shadows where they might see but not be seen.
A man came into the tent, going through to where the woman stood waiting. Instantly she came alive, pouring water into a basin, drawing the man's male organ from his trousers, was.h.i.+ng it thoroughly, then kneeling before him, taking it into her mouth to arouse him. When the man's member had burgeoned to its full size, the woman said in a piping singsong voice, ”How will you have me, lord?”
”On your back, wench,” the man growled, falling between the woman's outstretched legs even as she complied.
Zaynab drew a sharp breath. She barely recognized her friend, but the voice, for all its odd pitch, was Iniga's. Ali Ha.s.san's hand removed itself from her mouth and fastened about one of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
”She has become a very amenable wh.o.r.e for the camp,” he said.
The man finished his business and stood up, pus.h.i.+ng his now flaccid manhood back into his trousers. Dropping a coin in a dish on the table with the basin, he exited the tent As he did, a second man pushed by him and went through to where Iniga was was.h.i.+ng herself off. Zaynab watched with a mixture of horror and pity as Iniga disposed of the dirty water and, refilling the basin with fresh water, began her ritual again. When she had bathed the new man's member and kindled it to a stand, she again asked, ”How will you have me, sir?”
”I hear,” the man said crudely, ”that you have a fine a.s.s.”
Instantly Iniga was on her hands and knees. The man came quickly behind her, pulling apart the woman's bottom and pus.h.i.+ng into her. She whimpered, but he paid little heed to any pain she might be experiencing, using her roughly until he was fully satisfied.
Zaynab wanted to weep for her friend, but once more she refrained from any show of emotion. She had to be strong if she was to save Iniga from this appalling life of cruel degradation to which Ali Ha.s.san was subjecting her.
”I have seen enough, you pig,” she murmured softly to her captor. ”And if you do not cease squeezing my breast, I shall be bruised for a month. My skin is very fair, and I mark easily.” She pulled away from him and walked from the tent, across the compound and back to the large tent that was obviously his.
He followed after her, his black eyes almost burning through her garment. Beneath his robes his own manhood was as hard as an iron rod, and he wanted very much to have this woman. He would turn her icy disdain into screams of pleasure before the night was half gone.
”Take off your caftan,” he ordered her. ”It is time you learned what a real man is like, my beauty.”
Zaynab drew herself up to her full height and glared at Ali Ha.s.san with utter disdain. ”I am a Love Slave, you dog,” she said coldly. ”If all you wish to do is couple with me like some street prost.i.tute, then do it, but you will learn nothing of the utter bliss I have been trained to give a man.”
He was astounded by her words. Her lack of fear was beginning to unnerve him. To be faced with such a female of strong character was startling. ”You are mine now,” he bl.u.s.tered.
”So you have said, Ali Ha.s.san,” Zaynab replied, sounding very bored. ”I am trying to instruct you in the proper possession of a Love Slave. Do you or do you not wish to be the envy of both your friends and your enemies? Do you or do you not desire to know paradise in my arms? Unless you do exactly as I tell you, none of these things will come to pa.s.s.”
”What must I do?” he asked her curiously.
”First,” she said, knowing now she had intrigued him, ”you may not have possession of my full body for three days,” and seeing the protest rising to his lips, she quickly continued, ”because I must prepare myself properly for a new master. It is my custom to bathe twice daily.”
”There is a stream nearby,” he told her.
Zaynab laughed. ”A stream? The water will be cold, Ali Ha.s.san. No! No! No! No! Cold water roughens the skin. The water I bathe in must be warmed to just the proper temperature, and it must be scented delicately.” Reaching out, she took his hand and brought it to her cheek. ”Feel it,” she invited him. ”Is it not as soft as the finest silk? And the rest of my body, those parts not touched by the winds, are even softer.” She smiled seductively at him, showing small white teeth.