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

through the cramped, busy streets, Zena’s appetite is so sharp and her sense of smell so elevated that the aroma drifting from the street stalls selling thick, sticky pastries hits her like an assault of honeyed sesame sweetness in the warming air while the nutty scent of coffee almost stops her dead in her tracks. She can think of nothing else. The truth is that right now she would thank someone more for a plate of food than for her freedom. The business of the marketplace is so frantic that she is diverted by the constant stream of images. Just breathe in, she thinks as the honeyed sweetness wafts towards her. Instinctively, she knows she must not think about what is happening or she will cry.
    Not far from the palace on the front, but away from the direction of the souk they step through a huge wooden gate studded with dark nails. Inside is a shady courtyard lined with blue and green tiles and dotted with huge bronze planters sprouting dark, glossy leaves interspersed by an occasional splash of garish brightness – an exotic flower or two. White archways lead away from the entrance over two storeys. Zena could swear she smells orange blossom and cinnamon and just a hint of a chicken boiling in the pot.
    The litter is set beneath a date palm and the gold muslin is drawn back as the man swings his plump legs to the ground. He walks past the three women, inspecting his purchases slowly from head to foot. The one to Zena’s left whimpers. She smells, Zena suddenly realises, as the other women do, of the oil used to burnish their skin – the odour is acrid, stale and unsavoury. A flicker of emotion crosses the man’s face though it is impossible to read. He waves his hand airily and the two other women are led off by a male slave. Zena watches them go. Then the man walks around her again, inspecting her even more slowly.
    ‘Bathe her,’ he orders at length.
    He speaks Arabic with an accent. Zena drops her head as a mark of respect. She will try to talk to him again. This time in his adopted tongue. She has to.
    ‘Sir,’ she says, ‘I am very hungry. Please may I eat?’
    It is an audacious request from one who has spent the past two weeks up to her ankles in excrement, sleeping only periodically, propped up against a black-tongued corpse. Worse, it is a request from one who is a mere chattel and who has already been berated for even talking. But she cannot stand it any longer.
    ‘You speak Arabic? Ha!’ the black man laughs, though what comes out of his mouth sounds more like a dry bark.
    He has no heart to laugh with, Zena thinks, but instead she tells him where she learnt the language they are speaking. ‘My grandmother taught me. In her house she had guests who were traders and I learnt to talk to them.’
    ‘That is good. Good,’ his brown eyes widen, pleased at his luck. ‘You speak the tongue – you are a bargain.’
    He smells of butter and honey and Zena is so hungry that she would willingly lick his skin.
    ‘Please, sir,’ she ventures, emboldened by the conversation, blurting out the question. ‘What are my duties here?’
    The man stares blankly. ‘I was once a stranger too. I came from the marketplace. You will work hard here. Your master is a great man – you will work to please him.’
    He does not tell her she can rise in the household as he has done. He is anticipating that he will win his freedom soon, as some slaves do, having proved their worth as family retainers. He will never leave the service of his master, but he will not be owned, or indentured, he will be a free man – a huss . He does not mention it. There is no point. After all, this slave is merely a woman and, apart from her beauty, and now the advantage she will have because she speaks Arabic, she has fewer uses than a skilled person like himself. His master has bought her only as a bauble and as she gets older her decorative effect will diminish and her value lessen.
    ‘What work will I do, sir?’
    Another dry bark.