Warrior's Song (30 page)

    "You damned bitch," Eustace yelled, and took an angry step toward her.

CHAPTER 30

"Quiet, my friend," al-Afdal said softly. He rose gracefully to his feet, and Chandra was taken aback at his size. In her experience, Saracens were small men, wiry and slight of stature. He wasn't. "I believe I told you to come here, Chandra." She started at the still-gentle tone of his voice. He spoke her name as two distinct words.

    She shrugged and stepped forward, aware of a sigh of relief from Munza. "What is wrong with you? Are you so desperate that you must steal women? So ugly and ill formed that you cannot persuade women to come to you without force?"

    He moved so quickly and gracefully that Chandra scarce had time to draw back. He unfastened her mantle and dropped it onto the carpet at her feet.

    "I see that you did fight Sir Eustace," he said in that same soft voice. He turned his dark eyes to Munza. "Did the English knight rape her?'

    Munza shook his head quickly. "Nay, master, but he would have had I not stopped him."

    "She is no virgin," Eustace said. "What does it matter how many men take her?" Al-Afdal did not reply, and Eustace continued, emboldened. "I would prefer to have her once she is bathed. Then I will take my leave of you, with the gold you promised me."

    Al-Afdal nodded slowly. "As you wish, Sir Eustace." He raised his hand toward a group of women who had entered silently. One of them, a girl with skin and flowing hair as black as ebony, stepped forward, her eyes upon al-Afdal's pointed slippers. Even they, Chandra noticed, were braided with gold and studded with gems.

    "Calla," he said to the girl, "take Chandra to the baths, then call for me. I wish to be present when the physician examines her." He said to Chandra, "Do as you are bid, else I will have my men hold you down. I do not make idle threats, particularly to women. Do you understand?"

    Chandra nodded slowly.

    "Calla," he continued, "speaks your tongue. She will give your instructions to the other slaves."

    Again Chandra nodded. She knew that she must learn the extent of her confines before she could act. She quickly lowered her eyes, afraid that al-Afdal would guess her thoughts, so keenly was he looking at her.

    Al-Afdal watched her as she followed Calla from the chamber. She was proud, he thought, proud and untamed and exquisite, like a white-petaled rose. He remembered that his father had once purchased a young girl from Persia, a fiercely proud girl, and he had crushed her spirit, and the beauty of her pride. He turned back to the English knight, his dark eyes hooded. Perhaps he would not give the English girl to Eustace as he had planned. She wore her pride like a maidenhead, and he wanted that prize for himself when he took her, when he made her realize that her life was different now, that she had to please him to live.

    Chandra followed Calla into a smaller room at the far end of the tent, with several of al-Afdal's men close behind them. It was not unlike Ali ad-Din's bathing room, save there was no sunken pool and no mosaic tile covering the floor. A large brass tub, shaped like a hollowed-out lemon, was set in its center, and women were filling it with steaming, perfumed water. She did not know the scent, but it was heady.

    "Please to undress now," Calla said.

    Chandra looked quickly about her, but there were only women. As she shrugged out of her torn clothes, she gazed more carefully about the chamber. It was an inner room that did not touch the perimeter of the tent. The roof dipped down in scallops between slender wooden supports. She wondered what would happen if she managed to pull down one of the wooden poles. A bit of a commotion, perhaps, she thought, but that was all. She laid her clothing on a low, linen-covered table that she guessed was used to oil the bathers after their bath.

    "Calla," she said suddenly, turning to the girl. "I am here against my will. I do not belong here. Please, you must help me."

    Calla looked into the English girl's pale face. She said, "I know who you are. I have heard the men speak of you. There is naught I can do about it. My master seems to think you some kind of goddess."

    "Goddess? That is ridiculous. I am but a woman, like you, Calla, and I have a husband, an English noble, who will miss me."

    "You are prideful," Calla said as she slowly shook her head, "but you must take care. He believes he admires the pride in you, but he is wrong. He is like his father. No, al-Afdal is not a patient man. No one dares to gainsay his will, and especially not a slave or a woman."

    Chandra said nothing more, and stepped into the tub, unaware that Calla was studying her body, her eyes hooded.

    She allowed herself to be bathed by the silent women. Like Ali's slaves, some of the girls were scarce into womanhood. She lay back and closed her eyes, trying to think what she was to do.
I will not let him touch me, him or Eustace, no matter what happens.
There, she'd finally made her decision. She felt strangely calm now. Much to Calla's surprise, she fell asleep in the swirling hot water.

    Chandra started awake, feeling refreshed, and she smiled up into Calla's astonished face. At least her fatigue was gone from her. She felt strong and alert. Her ribs didn't hurt much anymore.

    Calla motioned her to lie on the linen-covered table. Chandra lay on her back, staring up at the tent top, and did not bother to look up at Calla until she heard her say in her soft voice, "Do not move. I do not wish to cut you."

    Chandra started up, balancing herself on her elbows. She saw that Calla held a thin razor in her hand.

    "What are you doing?" She was scooting back, as far away from that razor as she could.

    Calla's eyes traveled down Chandra's belly to the damp golden hair covering her woman's mound. "My master does not like woman's hair," she said.

    "He doesn't what? You can tell that miserable jackal to shave all that black hair from his chest then." Chandra swung her legs over the table and grabbed Calla's arm at the elbow. "Get that thing away from me."

    There was no fear in the girl's eyes. Calla shrugged, and Chandra released her. "You are not like the rest of us. Perhaps the master will not notice."

    Chandra watched her place the razor on a pile of linen towels and take some colorful gossamer cloth from the arms of another slave girl. "Let me dress you now. The master, as I said, is not a patient man."

    Chandra did not resist. She had no intention of being naked in front of any of these heathen. The veils that covered her breasts were a pale lavender, as soft as a moth's wings. Calla fastened the material together beneath her breasts with a golden clip. She stepped into a floor-length skirt much like the one Calla wore, and let Calla tighten it in folds at her waist with a leather belt. She noticed that Calla was barefoot. She sat docilely while several slave girls, under Calla's direction, combed out her wet hair.

    "What is this? Don't you want to shave my head?"

    "You show no fear. I do not know what the master will think."

    "Perhaps he will be intelligent enough to release me." She heard Calla sigh softly.

    They fastened her damp hair back from her forehead with a gem-covered strip of stiff golden cloth.

    "You are very beautiful," Calla said finally. "I will fetch the physician and my master now."

    "Why a physician? I am not ill. My ribs aren't broken. I have no need of a physician."

    Calla did not reply, and Chandra was left to stand among the whispering girls. She walked about the small enclosure, as if with great indifference. The girls watched her for a while, then resumed their duties. She stood next to the pile of linen towels, inching her hand toward the razor. Her fingers were hovering above the ivory handle when the veiled curtains parted suddenly and al-Afdal entered. She whipped her hand away and turned to face him.

    She felt his eyes upon her, studying her, she thought, as if she were a prized bit of horseflesh. He lowered his head a moment and listened to Calla's softly spoken words, words that Chandra could not hear.

    She saw his dark eyes flash and one of his hands clench into a fist, the huge ruby ring he wore on his middle finger gleaming in the soft light. She noticed a man standing behind him, tall and painfully thin, dressed in a white turban and a full white robe that covered him from his throat to his toes. His eyes were small, black and never calm. Like his master, he wore a full beard that was trimmed to a sharp point at his chin.

    Al-Afdal's anger grew as he watched Chandra. Even from where he stood, he could see purple bruises on the English girl's bare ribs. A man did not need to harm a soft-fleshed woman, unless he wanted to, of course. And Calla had said that there were other bruises on her body, and cuts on her arms and legs. He began to doubt Munza's assurances that he had saved the girl from being raped by the English knight.

    He strode over to where she stood, staring at him, her head thrown back, her eyes hard. He couldn't look away from her eyes for a very long time. He'd heard about blue eyes, but he'd never seen them before. And her hair, like the fine gold thread on his slippers.

    He waved his hand back toward the physician. "You will remove your clothes, Chandra. I wish my physician to examine you."

    He could practically see the words of refusal forming in her mind. He continued patiently. "If you do not, I will have the clothes ripped from your body, and there will be no more for you. A woman without clothes is a more malleable creature. My men would appreciate it, I know."

    "If you meant me to be naked, then why did you give me clothes in the first place? If you would call these ridiculous veils clothes."

    A smile twisted his mouth. "My little Calla dressed you because I did not tell her not to. She tells me that you refused to have your woman's mound shaved."

    Oh, God, it was nearly too much. She took a step back and saw him smile. No, she had to hold steady. She couldn't let him see that she was so afraid, she was ready to die from it.

    "It matters not. I will decide if I wish you shaved after I have seen you."

    "No, you will not. It is your hair that is disgusting— why do you not shave that black hair off your chest? You have the look of a matted animal."

    She heard Calla gasp and saw the slave girl recoil, as if from a blow, but al-Afdal did not move. She saw his black eyes narrow in rage, and she readied herself. If she was to die, she could not die cowering like a slave.

    "Help her do my bidding," he said finally to the slave girls, his voice as cold as the air of the desert night. In an instant they had surrounded her, and were unclasping the fasteners and unwinding the soft material that covered her. Chandra tried to keep the killing fear from showing in her eyes when she at last stood naked before al-Afdal.

    "Lie down," he said, his eyes on her face.

    She did, holding herself stiff. She tried to cover herself with her hands, and turned her head away, her eyes closed.

    She jumped when she felt fingers, light and probing against her bruised ribs. She turned her face and stared up at the physician's impassive countenance. He was speaking quietly to al-Afdal as his fingers roved over her. Her arm was raised and examined, then lowered back to her side. They spoke quietly again, words she didn't understand.

    The physician left her side, and al-Afdal strode forward to stand beside her. "The physician finds you fit, Chandra." His eyes roved down her body, and he gave a crack of laughter. "I will not demand that you be shaved— indeed, the golden hair against the white flesh is pleasing." She jerked away at the touch of his hand.

    "Fear me, Chandra— that is a good thing, but know that you have but to please me and your life will be contented."

    "No," she said, "I will not fear you. You are nothing to me."

    "I cannot allow you to continue insulting me. You will keep your mouth shut, else I will have your tongue removed."

    "Then my eyes will tell you what you are to me. What will you do then— blind me?"

    His jaw worked, and she held herself steady, in control now, forgetting for the moment that she was naked, and waited for him to strike her.

    Al-Afdal turned away from her a moment and said abruptly to the physician, "You will examine her belly, to see if there is a man's seed within her."

    Chandra grabbed at the embroidered linen cloth that covered the table and pulled it around her. "No more," she said, "no more. I am not a slave, nor am I your possession. I will not allow this."

    Before al-Afdal could raise his arm to strike her, his patience at an end, Chandra lunged toward the pile of towels and grabbed the ivory-handled razor. "Now let us see what a brave man you are, al-Afdal."

    Al-Afdal took a step toward her, for a moment so angered that he forgot the reports of the Saracen soldiers that the English girl was a fighter, swift and deadly. He was drawn up suddenly by an unearthly shriek of pain from outside the chamber. He whirled about, his dagger unsheathed, to see a huge English knight lunge into the chamber, his sword flailing over his head, three of al-Afdal's men swarming behind him.