Page 40 of Silver Angel

“I doubt you misunderstood at all, Rahine. Jamil wants her training time cut in half. He wants her ready for him as soon as possible.”

“I still don’t believe it,” she replied, but with less conviction.

“Did you think she wasn’t for him?”

Rahine grimaced. “That was exactly what I thought after seeing her for myself. Didn’t you at first?”

Haji shrugged and reached for the long stem of his hookah. “Perhaps,” he allowed. “But he summoned me early this morning. He did not even trust the order to a messenger.”

Rahine leaned back against the silver tasseled cushions. “I don’t understand it, Haji. Was I blinded by that bright hair into missing something in the girl?”

“She’s undernourished, is all. Plenty of bread soaked in syrup will remedy that quickly enough.”

“I did like her,” Rahine said reflectively. “She has the sardonic wit of the English aristocracy that brought back so many memories…but you know what I meant.” She turned her emerald gaze on him. “She’s blond, she’s skinny—”

“And she doesn’t like him.”

“What?”

“It’s true.” Haji chuckled. “She might have found him pleasing to the eye at first, but that was before one of the other two girls was unwise enough to spit on him. After witnessing the whipping that followed, Shahar was genuinely revolted by Jamil. She told him to his face that she didn’t want to be owned by him. She asked him to send her back to the slave merchant.”

“And what was his reaction to that?”

“He was intrigued, I think.”

“Then that’s it! He’s never before met a woman who wasn’t instantly enamored of him. She is no more than a challenge.”

“I don’t know,” Haji said thoughtfully. “For some reason he was extremely patient with her. He allowed her to argue with him. He spoke with her at length. He even granted her two requests that she asked of him. But there was nothing in his eyes when he looked at her, not even a little spark of warmth. It was obvious he found the third girl more desirable, yet he picked this blond one instead.”

“And now he’s impatient to have her?”

“Not so much impatient, Rahine. I didn’t sense that. I even had to remind him that he had sent for me. He couldn’t recall why for a moment. And when he did, he simply gave the order, as he would any other, then went on to finish the discussion he was having with Omar.”

“Very well.” Rahine sighed, giving up. “So we are not to know why he wants her or what he sees in her. She will amuse him for a night or two and that will be that.”

“She is different from the others,” Haji warned.

“I know.”

“She is going to prove difficult.”

“I know that, too!” she snapped. “Why do you think this has upset me? All the trouble that is going to be caused, and just for a passing fancy.”

“Maybe he has finally decided it is ridiculous to put a limit on the number of women he owns,” Haji suggested.

“Do you think so?” Rahine asked hopefully, but in the next instant threw up her hands. “Ah, Haji, what is the difference? Our duty is to his pleasure. Whatever he wants, whatever the reason, he shall have it.”

Even while Rahine bemoaned it, trouble had already begun, for Safiye was feeling magnanimous after the generous gift Chantelle had bestowed on her and decided to take the new slave to the baths that morning, before they became crowded. She thought Chantelle would appreciate the privacy while she became accustomed to the ritual of the baths, rather than having to endure dozens of curious eyes watching her every move.

And Chantelle was grateful when told that today was an exception, that tomorrow and thereafter she would have to go to the baths in the afternoon with the other women. “But you will come to enjoy it once you lose your modesty. Many of the women spend the entire afternoon in the baths, even eating their dinner there.”

Chantelle could understand why one might not want to leave. Thehammamof the harem was nothing like the single large room used for bathing at the bagnio. It was peaceful here, and immense, with countless chambers, one leading into the next. There were steam rooms, and rooms with hot and cold showers, rooms with sunken pools of cool water, and massage rooms.

The first chamber after the vestibule, where she had to leave her clothes, was the largest room. Its surprising beauty almost made her forget her nudity. It was octagonal, with a high vaulted cupola from which hundreds of tiny openings let in long bars of steamy sunlight, shooting in every direction, illuminating the green tiled walls with an illusion of being underwater. Here the concubines would gather to gossip while their slaves labored to beautify them, sitting on Turkish rugs they had carried with them or on cool marble benches, or lying on the large round slab of marble in the center of the room that was heated from below.

She was not to stay in this room, however. The four bath attendants whom Safiye had handed her over to led her into one of the smaller rooms, where she was washed thoroughly this first time with an abrasive soap until her skin felt raw all over. She stood there and let them, mostly because she was mortified when they insisted thattheydo the washing. She didn’t even object too strenuously when the down was removed from her body with a depilatory substance. Every woman here went through the same procedure, they told her. Did she expect to be any different?

No, of course not. She wanted to be the same, to blend in, to be unnoticeable and so forgotten. And if they had stopped there everything would have gone all right, and she would have finished the purification process. But they didn’t stop with just the pale blond down covering her body, and Chantelle raised holy hell when they went after her pubic hair, intending to pluck out every curly strand.