Caliphate

Grolanhei, Province of Affrankon, 2 Shawwal,

1530 AH (1 October, 2106)

"Jizya!" demanded Rashid, the tax gatherer, his fist pounding the old oaken table in the Minden's kitchen. But for his beak of a nose, the gatherer did not look noticeably different from the Nazranis. Rashid's ancestors had converted early and then married into the dominant group.

"But, sir," Petra's father began to explain, "the harvest has been bad this year. The early frost . . . the rain . . . "

"Silence, pig of an infidel!" The jizya is a head tax. It is flat. It is fixed." Fixed by me. "It makes no account of the piddling troubles Allah sends you filth to encourage you to give up your decayed and false faith."

Seeing that Minden was still minded to dispute the collection, the tax gatherer's lip curled in a sneer. Cutting off further discussion, he said, "You realize, do you not, that the jizya is what permits you the status of dhimmis? That without it, without the pact, the dhimma, we are in a state of war, of holy war, of jihad with you and yours? That your lives are forfeit? Your property forfeit?"

"But . . . please, sir . . . "

Being inside the walls of her own home, Petra was uncovered. Neither she, nor her mother, had anticipated the arrival of the taxman today. Indeed, they'd all been so distraught and overworked with the gathering of the very skimpy harvest, they'd not thought of much of anything but how they were going to eke out an existence over the winter. They had to hope others had had better luck this year. If it was a question of letting the Nazrani farmers eat, or taking the food to feed their own, the masters had no compunction about letting filthy Nazrani starve.

Though only nine, and though she feared hunger as much as the next, Petra was ashamed to see her father beg. She was ashamed of his dhimmi status, now that she'd grown and learned enough to understand what that meant. She was ashamed of her people who submitted to this humiliation. And, when the tax gatherer looked over at her—more accurately, so she saw, looked her over—she was ashamed of herself. She remembered something Sister Margerete had told her class:

"Mohammad consummated his marriage with his favorite wife, Aisha, when she was nine years old."

Petra hadn't quite understood what "consummated" meant.

"Mark down the boy for gathering to the janissaries," Rashid told the chief of his four guards. "Take the girl now.

"And next year, you filthy swine, when I come for our taxes and demand silver, you had best give me gold or you'll see yourselves joining your daughter on the auction block."

One of Rashid's guards went to Petra. He took handcuffs and a chain from a pouch that hung at his side. The cuffs he ratcheted shut around her wrists, tightly enough to make her wince. The chain he attached to the cuffs.

Hans lunged. "Get your hands off my sister!"

The guard with Petra ignored the boy; that's what the other guard was for. That other guard caught Hans halfway through his lunge, wrapping one arm around the boy's waist. He then put Hans' feet back on the floor, stood and slapped him across the face several times, hard enough to stun and draw blood. The guard then knocked the boy down as his mother wailed and his stoop-shouldered father hung his head in helpless shame.

Petra, who had begun to cry when the cuffs were put on her, screamed when she saw her brother hurt. A slap from Rashid—hard enough to hurt without damaging the merchandise—quieted her.

She was sobbing as they led her away for her first ride in an automobile.

A crowd gathered outside the Minden's hovel, curious but too frightened to help. After all, what help could they give in a country no longer their own?