Silver Angel (10 page)

“Ah, yes, you would be. Women might be ransomed, but rarely ones as lovely as you.”

“But if it’s a matter of price—”

“It’s not. You must realize that Sharif is in the business of selling slaves, not collecting ransoms. To him, you make a rare offering that can only enhance
his reputation, which is actually worth more to him than the money. Even if you had been captured by one of the Dey’s ships instead of a privately owned vessel, it is likely the
rais
would be smart enough to keep you under wraps until his lord could see you and decide if he wanted you for his own harem or to send as a gift to the Sultan.”

“What if I could manage to get word to the English consul?” Chantelle asked hopefully.

Jeanne shook her head regretfully. “Once you enter a harem, your chances of being ransomed are virtually gone, even if your consul should later learn of your presence. Your master need only deny that he has you, and as no man can enter another man’s harem, it would be impossible to prove otherwise. The sanctity of the harem is universal here. Not even the Dey would force his way into the harem of his lowest servant.”

Chantelle looked down at her lap. “Then I must be freed, or escape.”

“
Petite
, it would be better for you if you do not waste your time hoping for such a possibility. True, if a concubine goes to an important house and she has accumulated enough personal wealth, she might be able to purchase her freedom at her master’s death. But it is more likely a husband will be found for her, and her wealth used as a dowry, and that is only if she has not made enemies of her master’s wives, or his mother, who is the real power in the harem. It is just as likely she will be resold, because she is and will always remain a slave, even if her master takes her to wife should she bear him a son.”

“Did you bear your master a son, the one who married you?”

“My case was different. My first master was not an important man, just a rich one, and he already had six sons by his first wife, so he did not care whether I gave him a son or not. But you are likely to go to an important household, perhaps even the royal harem of Algiers or Tunis, and an important man rarely marries a slave unless she first gives him a son.” At Chantelle’s stricken look, Jeanne quickly added, “You never know,
petite
. The man who buys you may be looking for a wife. Many of the more pretty and intelligent women are actually sought after as wives by local men, either Christian or Muslim.” She did not add that that was only if they could afford them, and only a select few would be able to afford Chantelle, but she had mistaken Chantelle’s look.

“I don’t want a husband here, Jeanne. That would be too—too permanent. I don’t think I could bear it if I had to give up hope of ever returning to England.”

Those few words had brought tears to Chantelle’s eyes, making Jeanne uncomfortable enough to look away. “As I first said, you are more likely to go to an important household,”

“And escape? Is that possible?

Jeanne couldn’t bring herself to give Chantelle false hope. “Escape is least likely of all,
petite
. Many harems contain more eunuchs than they do women, and they are there solely to guard the women, to keep outsiders out and the women in.”

“Then what is there for me to hope for?”

“You can hope for a handsome master, one you will fall in love with and adore serving.”

“And sharing with dozens of other women?” Chantelle bit out caustically.

It was the first bit of spirit Jeanne had noticed in the young girl, and she was surprised enough to say, “But that is the way here. It is the one thing you will quickly get used to.”

C
hantelle couldn’t nap that afternoon with the rest of the women. Today marked the fourth auction she had witnessed since her arrival, and she couldn’t get it out of her mind.

She had tried to make friends when she had first been brought to this room. She had spoken with many of the women and found they all shared the same fears. It seemed easier for a while, knowing that she was not alone in what she was feeling. But then she had watched those same women she had spoken with be marched out to the yard and sold. She had stopped speaking to new arrivals after that.

The Frenchwoman was the first exception. And Chantelle wouldn’t have to watch her being sold. No, Chantelle would be the next to go, in only two more days.

She shuddered at the thought. So often she had tried to look on this as an adventure, but she could never quite manage it. The stumbling block was that she knew she was going to be deflowered by some stranger, and she couldn’t get past the horror of that.

At least Jeanne Mauriac had relieved her mind on one count. Ever since she had watched the first sale out in the courtyard, she had been so afraid that she would likewise be stripped down and forced to endure such total humiliation when it was her turn to be sold. One woman had even been drugged, which seemed an even worse crime, for she had lost her last defense in not knowing what was done to her.

As the time drew closer to her auction, her stomach became so tied up in knots with her thinking about it that she became sick whenever she tried to eat.

Jeanne had moved her pallet next to Chantelle’s and lay sleeping beside her, and Chantelle envied the woman her blithe acceptance of her fate. But even with one of her worries put to rest, Chantelle still could not relax enough to while away the time in sleep.

Only two more days. God, she would rather stay here, even if this became a prison she could never escape. At least she had been well treated here, and she had come to know what to expect of each day. There had been her initial horror when she had been subjected to yet another personal examination upon her arrival. Hamid Sharif had had to make sure for himself that no one had altered her virginal state on the journey.

But since then, no one had touched her. The eunuchs who had the care of the women were not harsh as long as they were obeyed, and Chantelle didn’t have the nerve to argue with such big, frightening-looking men anyway. They even deigned to answer what questions she put to them. She was able to bathe each morning. The food was good, even if she had lost her appetite these past few days. Yes, she would definitely rather stay here.

She toyed with her dinner that evening while Jeanne kept up a cheerful chatter, exclaiming over the excellent meal. Huge platters were brought in and set on little stools, forming three low tables the women could gather around. The only exception was the black girl who had arrived yesterday and was kept chained to the wall. Not even for eating was she released, one of the eunuchs attempting to feed her by hand. Chan
telle had yet to see her eat anything. She either spat it out or refused to open her mouth.

“What’s her story?” Jeanne asked no one in particular at their table as she watched the African girl tempt the eunuch’s anger.

No one answered, whether the women understood Jeanne’s French or not. Chantelle wouldn’t have answered either, except Jeanne finally looked pointedly at her.

“She’s a princess from some tribe far south of here. She refuses to accept slavery, according to the guards I overheard talking about her.”

Jeanne snorted. “She will eventually. We all do.”

Chantelle had anticipated that attitude from Jeanne, which was why she hadn’t wanted to speak of the African girl. She knew exactly how the girl felt. She couldn’t accept slavery either. She was just too intimidated at present to say so. And that was Hakeem’s doing, by warning her to keep her anger and resentment under wraps. Of course he had been right. She didn’t care to be chained up as the black girl was, which would surely have happened if she had reacted as she had wanted to during that second intimate examination of her body.

She changed the subject and managed to get Jeanne to tell some amusing stories of her harem life while they finished eating. It still amazed her, this attitude of the Frenchwoman. She wasn’t that much older than Chantelle, perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six, and yet they had such opposite views. Had nine years of living among the Muslims done this to her, or did she truly see nothing wrong with this way of life?

It was only a short while after the remains of the dinner were removed that they had visitors.

“What’s this?” Jeanne asked, sitting up straighter as Hamid Sharif himself entered the room.

The slave merchant was followed by a tall, slim man with skin the color of rich coffee. He was as dark as the Sudanese eunuchs who guarded the women, though much older, yet Chantelle couldn’t imagine him being a eunuch, thereby a slave, not when he wore a magnificent fur-lined robe of blue silk that glittered with sapphires. Ropes of the same gems hung from his nearly two-foot-high turban.

She sighed, pulling the little gauze veil that was attached to her simple headdress up over the lower half of her face. “This has happened before,” Chantelle said. “Sharif brings in buyers who don’t wish to wait for the auction or have missed it. The last time, it was a man whose cook had just died and he was hoping to find an immediate replacement.”

She didn’t add that these buyers could touch and examine the women at their leisure, open their mouths to check their teeth, or open the little vests that all of them had been given to wear. That little vest was all Chantelle had to wear now, too. She had lost Hakeem’s concealing tunic the first time she was led to the baths and her clothes taken to wash. She was given a new set of clean clothes, nearly identical to the others, but Hakeem’s tunic was not returned to her then or later.

“But why do you veil yourself?”

“I was told to do so whenever they let buyers in here. Sharif doesn’t want anyone seeing me before my sale.”

Jeanne sniffed. “I should have been given a veil, too. I don’t think I care to have just anyone look me over.”

Chantelle almost grinned at such a haughty tone,
until she noticed Sharif’s client looking directly at her. And then the breath caught in her throat when they both walked toward her.

“Is she the one?” the stranger asked while his chocolate-colored eyes moved dispassionately over Chantelle.

Hamid Sharif, who was a short, squat man of middle years, seemed to shrink even more next to this impressive fellow. For a man who always seemed to be in complete control of himself—after all, he was master here—Sharif appeared at the height of anxiety tonight.

“But this is so irregular, my lord.” Sharif had not bothered to answer the question directly. “I have sent out word of her. I have buyers coming from Algiers and—”

An elegant hand was waved to cut off Hamid Sharif’s complaint. “How much?”

“But, Haji Agha, my lord, please, what will I tell the buyers?”

“The truth, or supply them with someone else. Her.”

Haji Agha had indicated Jeanne Mauriac, and Sharif’s expression relaxed somewhat. The Frenchwoman
was
pretty. He had already been thinking of adding her as a bonus at the private auction, to assuage the bidders who lost out on the Englishwoman. She was older and not a virgin, but at least she was also a blonde.

“How much?” Haji Agha repeated.

“I was anticipating at the very least five thousand piasters.”

The black man did not bat an eye. “I will give you three.”

“Impossible! I cannot accept less than four thousand five hundred.”

“Three thousand five hundred, and my lord’s gratitude.”

“If you put it that way, of course I cannot refuse,” Hamid Sharif said with a bow, and when he raised his head, he was smiling.

“Well! That certainly didn’t take long,” Jeanne commented as the two men walked across the room to stand over the chained princess.

Chantelle didn’t answer immediately. She was slightly in shock. She had just been bought by a man old enough to be her grandfather, by a man with black skin of the like she had never seen until she arrived on the Barbary Coast.

“I—I couldn’t understand every word,” she said, turning wide violet eyes to Jeanne. “Did that man really just buy me?”

“Yes,” Jeanne replied, unable to contain her delight. “And I believe I get to take your place at the auction. Oh, this is much better than I could have expected! And you,
petite
, need no longer worry about the indignities of the sale. It is over. You have a lord and master now.”

Over? Yes, there was that. She didn’t have to fear being stripped bare before the eyes of a dozen or more men, no matter what Jeanne said to the contrary. Over. Sold. And to an old man. Sold. But he was old. Perhaps he just wanted the privilege of being the one to own her. Would a man that old still call his women to his bed?

“I wonder who he is that Hamid Sharif is willing to risk the wrath of his clients,” Jeanne speculated. “He must be very important.”

Chantelle was still watching the men, who ap
peared to have concluded another sale, this time for the African girl. “What does it matter?”

The few Turks and Arabs she had seen since her arrival were swarthy, dark-eyed men, either short and wiry or short and fat, with sharp, aquiline features. There had been only one exception, the Turk looking for a new cook. The friendlier of the two guards who sat outside their door had tried to explain it to her when she had remarked on his very light-colored skin.

The Turks had once been a mixture of strictly Eastern blood—Tatar, Mongol, Circassian, Georgian, Persian, Arabian, and Turkish. But after 1350, when they began stretching their borders into western Europe, the blood of the Greeks, Serbs, and Bulgarians was added, for a civilization as cosmopolitan as those of the Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines. Hakeem had mentioned something about this as well, since it was the same here on the Barbary Coast. In the past centuries, more and more new blood was added, from as far away as England, the Netherlands, and, more recently, even far-off America. But all of it came from the female slaves who ended up in harems and bore their master’s children.

Now the more wealthy men, the more important ones, those whose fathers and fathers before them had possessed harems full of fair-skinned concubines, had little Eastern blood left in their veins. It was nothing for the Sultan himself to have red hair or blue eyes. It was nothing for a devout Muslim to pass for a Christian without his turban on. But you were less likely to see this in the teeming streets of the cities in the Barbary States, with the new influx of Arabs and Berbers fresh from the desert, some as dark-skinned as a Nubian eunuch.

Chantelle certainly hadn’t seen it in the crowds that
filled the courtyard to buy slaves. But she was glad the man who had bought her seemed foreign to her. She would have hated being owned by someone who was so European-looking that she could have passed him on an English road and not remarked on it. She didn’t want to relate to this owner of hers in any way.

Jeanne was too interested in the goings-on to have heard Chantelle’s question. It was just as well. She didn’t want an answer, to be told why it should matter to her when it didn’t and wouldn’t. Whether she was bought by a sheepherder or the Sultan himself, she was still bought, owned, a slave. No one had asked her if she accepted this role. What she felt about it was not important.

“Ah, you’d better get up,
petite
. I think that’s for you.”

One of the guards was coming forward with a robe and a yashmak for her to don. She did so docilely. She would save her fight for the important issues, such as if and when they tried to force her into that old man’s bed.

Jeanne stood up to embrace her in farewell, even though they had known each other only a few hours. “Good luck, my friend.”

“If you wish me luck, Jeanne, then pray I escape.”

“Ah,
petite
, you must give up such thoughts.”

Chantelle turned away. “When I’m dead and buried,” she mumbled to herself as she followed the guard out of the bagnio.