Caliphate

Kitznen, Province of Affrankon, 13 Rajab, 1531 AH

(4 July, 2107)

There was little in the way of fun and games anymore, not with Besma living in terror of the beatings al Khalifa would administer to Petra for the slightest failings of either of them. It was all Besma could do to keep her promise to Hans to teach Petra to read. And she couldn't let her stepmother see that, either, lest she decide that was a sufficient excuse to beat Petra again.

There was something deeply sick, Besma thought, about the look on al Khalifa's face when she took her whip or a switch or a belt to Petra's back and rear. She was enjoying it, yes, that much was clear. But there was something more, too, something Besma didn't understand and perhaps didn't want to. She found the slack lips, the glassy eyes, and the heavy breathing sufficiently frightening in themselves without delving into whatever thoughts and feelings lay behind those external symptoms.

"School will start for me soon," Besma announced, as she and Petra practiced Petra's reading by a flashlight hidden under the covers of Besma's bed. "I'll be gone most of every day. I'm frightened of leaving you alone with al Khalifa."

Petra didn't say anything but began to chew her lip nervously. "Please don't," she begged. "I'll do anything . . . carry your books for you . . . anything. But that woman will hurt me every day; I know she will."

"I know. I'm terrified of it, too. But I don't know what to do about it."

Petra began to rock and softly to cry. "I'm just a poor slave girl," she whimpered. "Why does she hate me?"

Besma shook her head. "I don't even think you exist for her," she said. "It's me the bitch hates. She'd much rather have me stretched over the table with my skirt up, but she doesn't dare."

"Your father's a good man," Petra said, still crying. "Can't he help? He helped me before."

"My father is a good man," Besma agreed, putting one arm around Petra and using the hand on the other to gather the slave girl's head into her shoulder. She rested her own cheek on the top of Petra's head. "But he is also a pious one and the law gives the management of the household to the woman. He would never interfere. Oh, he might beat al Khalifa himself if she ever gave him cause, but she never does. If he calls for her she will come even if she's in the kitchen making bread. And she lets him plow her as he will; I've heard them."

"Plow her?"

"I'll explain when you're older. Now stop crying and get back to your reading."