Page 55 of Silver Angel

“Don’t be ridiculous, child, You know very well that you have—”

“No choice?” Chantelle spat out. “Hah! You’ll have to carry me there this time, and I swear I’ll blacken Jamil’s eye, too, if he lays one hand on me!”

“Too?” Rahine said in bemusement, glancing up at the eunuch, who met her look with a grimace. “Why, Kadar, is that actually swelling around your eye?”

He stoically refused to answer, but there was indeed a slight puffiness, though with his dark skin, no bruise was visible yet. Rahine shook her head in amazement.

“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, Shahar? But this really can’t continue, you know.”

“No, indeed,” Haji said from behind her, having heard enough to realize that Rahine was wise in deciding to drug the girl. Rahine had never approved of resorting to drugs, not that it had ever been necessary since Jamil had come to power. But for her sake, he tried one other tack first, hoping to terrify the girl into compliance. “As long as we must carry her to Jamil, it won’t matter too much if she has a taste of the bastinado first.”

It didn’t work, for Chantelle turned her lethal stare on him, screaming, “Go ahead! I don’t give a bloody damn anymore what you do to me! It can’t be any worse than submitting to that monster you all worship, that two-faced whoremaster, that bloody tyr—”

The word was choked off as Haji took advantage of her open mouth to shove a vial halfway down her throat. Fortunately, it wasn’t made of glass, for Chantelle bit down so hard in reaction, she would have broken it with her teeth, cutting her mouth horribly. But Haji was the one to get hurt as she bucked and strained violently to shake the thing from her mouth. One foot caught him brutally on the shin, making him leap back. Chantelle immediately spat out the vial.

“You bas—tard.” Her eyes closed slowly, then popped back open. “Damn you—” The eyes closed again.

Rahine gripped Haji’s arm in alarm, watching Chantelle fight to keep her eyes open. “By the Prophet’s beard, how much did you give her? It has never taken effect this quickly!”

Haji was himself alarmed. “No more than necessary.”

“Did you take into account her frailty?”

“Frailty?” he snorted, rubbing his shin before he frowned. “No, actually, I was in too much of a hurry to recall her skinniness in comparison—”

“Forgive me for interrupting, master,” Kadar cut in as Chantelle sagged in his arms, “but I was told by one of the kitchen women that the girl was worked from dawn until dusk preparing the Dey’s feast. She was sleeping in a corner when I arrived to fetch her, so exhausted that the noise of two dozen chattering women could not keep her awake.”

“By Allah, and still she fought like a demon,” Haji said with a degree of admiration. “How does she do it?”

“She’s English, Haji,” Rahine said in answer, as if that were answer in itself.

Haji gave a snort of disgust for the pride he detected in Rahine’s tone. “English or not, she can’t be trusted to remain unconscious for long, no matter how tired she is. The girl’s will is much too strong to succumb to mere exhaustion, even with the help of the relaxant I gave her. We had better take advantage of her incapacity and get her bathed and ready while we can.” He nodded for Kadar to carry Shahar into the nearest bathing cubicle, motioning the cowering attendants as well as the terrified Adamma, who had arrived behind him with her cosmetic tray, to follow.

“We might have an easy time preparing her now,” Rahine said, “but you realize Jamil is going to be furious if she arrives in this condition.”

“We will have to get some coffee into her to counteract the drug,” was all Haji could suggest.

“Will that work?”

“It should,” he replied, hoping against hope that it actually would.

His assurance relieved Rahine, enough to send her thoughts onto a different path. “At least I can take this opportunity to get rid of the rest of her body hair. Thank Allah, Jamil didn’t proceed far enough last time to discover her sinful state—”

“Rahine,” Haji interrupted, “he did proceed that far. He even mentioned it to me, wanting to know how it was possible that she retained the curls between her legs.”

“Did you tell him?”

He nodded, though his expression now held a touch of bemusement. “He actually laughed.”

Rahine’s brows shot up. “Laughed, as in amusement?”

He frowned at her own levity. “Yes, as in amusement,” he retorted. “And he specifically ordered me to see to it that those silver curls are left alone.”

Rahine found no humor in that. “But it’s forbidden.”

“Nothing is forbidden the Dey,” he reminded her unnecessarily.

“The other women will see it when they bathe with her.”