Caliphate

Kitznen, Province of Affrankon, 4 Shawwal,

1530 AH (3 October, 2106)

"Nobody's going to bid on a crying girl," the auctioneer-cum-slave dealer said to Petra, lifting her chin with the quirt he'd carried for so long he was hardly aware of it as anything but an extension of his right hand. "Or, at least, nobody you would want to bid on you. Do you understand me, girl?"

Lips crinkling and quivering with deepest sorrow, Petra sniffed and rubbed at her face, trying to push back the tears. She nodded her head three or four times, briskly, and answered, "I'll . . . try. But I miss my famileee." The last word ended in a wail that Petra, herself, cut off abruptly. "I'll try," she said.

The auctioneer smiled at her and answered her nod with one of his own. He'd seen it so many times before. And yet slaves must come from somewhere. They don't replace themselves, generally. This child, at least, has a chance of finding a reasonably happy position. How much worse for the ones who are older, the ones over nine?

"That's a good girl," he said. "I'll tell you what; let's make a deal. If you can stop crying I'll do my best to get you into a decent family that won't make you work too hard and won't beat you. And—" the auctioneer reached into a pocket of his robe and pulled out a bar of halawa, waving it slightly under Petra's nose—"if you'll show me how well you can smile, I'll give you this."

Petra hadn't been fed since being taken from her family. Though the slaves were watered, feeding slaves who weren't expected to be here in the stables long was something of a wasted and unnecessary expense. She licked her lips at the sight of the bar of honey-sweetened, crushed sesame.

"Can you smile for me?"

Slowly, and with difficulty, Petra forced her face into something that was approximately a smile.

"There's a good girl!" the auctioneer congratulated, patting her gently on the head. He took her little hand in his own larger one and placed the sweet in it. "Here, this may help you keep that pretty smile."

"What's the reserve on this one?"

The speaker was a Moslem, Abdul Mohsem, a man, a merchant, in his late thirties, with a substantial roll of prosperity-born fat about his middle. Stealing a glance upward from where she knelt on the straw of her cell, Petra thought he looked kindly, despite the rifle slung across his back.

Few of the Nazrani in the province even had the wherewithal to buy a slave. Fewer still were interested, though some were, notably the brothel keepers. These sometimes took a chance on a pretty girl, even if she was still far too young to put to service. Abdul Mohsem knew this, and hated the idea.

True to his word, the slave dealer had sought out a decent family for the girl. Indeed, he'd sought out the most decent patriarch he knew in the community.

"Ten gold dinar," the slaver answered, then, seeing that Adbul didn't blanch, added, "plus twenty silver dirhem."

Abdul Mohsem scowled, inducing the dealer to further amend, "But for you, just ten gold dinar."

"Ten gold dinar seems fair," Abdul said, "but I wasn't scowling over the price; I was scowling over the fact."

"The fact?"

"Facts, actually. One, that we sell young girls and, two, that if I don't buy this one she'll end up in a brothel."

"It is not for us to forbid what Allah permits," answered the dealer, who considered himself, not without reason, to be a pious man.

"Neither does Allah require of us everything that he permits," observed Abdul Mohsem, still scowling.

To that the dealer shrugged. It was not for him to question the words or the workings of the Almighty. "Do you want the girl or not?" he asked.

Without answering, Abdul Mohsem knelt down and pushed aside Petra's long blond hair. With his thumb he brushed off a smudge on the girl's cheek.

"Would you like to come home with me, and become a companion to my daughter, Besma?" he asked, smiling.

Shyly and fearfully, forcing a smile, Petra nodded.

"Be happier, girl," Abdul chided. "We'll not work you too hard, nor force you to give up your faith. And my Besma is sweet, if maybe a little too strong-willed. You'll like her. And it's better than the alternative."

Of that, Petra had little doubt, even if she was hazy on the details.

Leading Petra by the hand, Adbul Mohsem brought her through the Marktplatz, past a dozen or so tables where men chatted while sipping at thick Turkish coffee. Ultimately they arrived at a large house guarded by a doorkeeper in one of the town's better residential neighborhoods.

The doorkeeper nodded respectfully at Abdul Mohsem, smiled down at the girl, and then held the heavy oaken door open for them. Abdul Mohsem's was a happy household; smiles were not rare.

"Besma!" the patriarch called, "Besma, light of my life and pearl of my heart, come here."

Petra heard the pitter-patter of feet little or no larger than her own, coming down a hallway to the expansive foyer in which she stood with her new master. She soon caught sight of a girl, about her own size if a little older, very pretty with huge brown eyes and slightly olive skin. The girl's smile was brilliant, and why not? "Besma" meant "smile."

Besma took one look at Petra and began to dance around the foyer, shouting, "Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh, Father, a friend for me! Oh, she's beautiful; she's wonderful! And I've been so lonely. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

Seeing Besma jumping and twisting in the air, her feet kicking lightly, set Petra to laughing, shyly at first but growing with each new step, leap, twist and kick. Finally, worried that she might offend, she covered her mouth and forced herself to seriousness, pushing her chin down to her chest.

Besma, however, was having none of that. She stopped her dancing, walked over to Petra and took her by the hand. "I only have one sister," the Moslem girl said, "Aisha. And she's a lot older than me, with her own family now. I miss having a sister at home. Will you be like my sister?"