Read Online Secret of the Sands by Sara Sheridan - Free Book Online Page A

the public house to the pulpit and back again. His obituary is read aloud at a hundred thousand breakfast tables. In Wilberforce’s home town of Hull private subscriptions flood in to erect a monument one hundred feet high to his memory. Ladies across the country pray for the great man’s eternal soul, dab handkerchiefs to fresh tears and furiously cross-stitch samplers of the better-known liberal maxims concerning slavery including the famous Am I Not A Man And Your Brother? Immediately there is earnest talk of Wilberforce’s beatification, despite his personal commitment to the cause of Evangelical Anglicanism and lifelong antagonism to the Papacy. Mild-mannered, staunchly Protestant ladies in the Home Counties are heard to say, ‘Still, dear Mr Wilberforce was a saint. He was, wasn’t he?’
    All this, however, affects business at the slave market in Muscat not one jot.
    Zena is pushed into the clear space in front of the auc tioneer and he calls for offers. ‘Twenty,’ he starts. ‘Anyone at twenty?’
    At first there are several low bids, two from the man who treated her harshly in the slave pen. Zena feels her chest tighten. The bidding, however, is spirited and the offers come fast. When the man drops out at fifty, she allows herself a sliver of a smile. The price continues to rise ten silver dollars at a time. Zena can hardly believe this is really happening. That she will be owned and that she is powerless to stop it. Sadness swills around her empty stomach and the world stands still. It is a curious sensation.
    As the price rises above a hundred and fifty, it is between two parties. One is an Abyssinian, like herself. The man sits, still-eyed, in a litter at the side of the bazaar, only raising his black finger slightly to register his interest as the price spirals on. Her stomach surges with some kind of hope. At least he looks familiar.
    Yes. Him. Someone from home, she thinks silently as she stands stock-still in the sun.
    The auctioneer skilfully bats the opportunity back to the other man still in the game – a blue-robed Arab pulling on a hookah pipe beneath an intricately fringed, white parasol.
    ‘Two hundred dollars,’ the auctioneer shouts triumphantly. ‘Do I have more?’
    Zena has to admit, this is a handsome price for an Abyssinian 17-year-old, who may or may not be a virgin. It is certainly more than any of the others have made.
    ‘Have I any advance?’
    There is silence. The bidding is still with the Abyssinian, who nonchalantly refuses to look at his opponent. All other eyes turn to the Arab, who considers a moment, tosses his head and refuses to go any higher.
    He has got me! she thinks. One of my own. She wants to tell him, in her own language, where she comes from and what brought her here. Surely he has bought her because they are from a common background. Surely his house will be the same as her grandmother’s, for how else would a wealthy Abyssinian run their home?
    Eagerly, she lets them lead her from the podium and tether her to a post beside the clerk. There she overhears the arrangements being made for her payment and realises this man has not bought her for himself. He is a slave, only doing his master’s bidding. He counts out his master’s dollars.
    ‘My name is Zena,’ she says, with a rush of enthusiasm. ‘I come from the hills. Near Bussaba.’
    The man hisses at her like a spitting snake, affronted by her impertinence. One of his attendants roughly ushers her away. She glances back at the man in slight confusion. He is still counting out her price and making his salaams to the auctioneer. She wonders if he was sold here himself. She wonders if he can remember what it felt like. There will be no fellow feeling, she realises sadly as she is tethered again. When the business is concluded, she follows the litter, docile and under guard with two other women, sidis. They come from another shipment, seemingly purchased earlier at a far lesser price. As they progress