Page 12 of Do Not Awaken Love (The Moroccan Empire #3)

But the older woman has grown tired of my antics.

From her pocket she holds up leather thongs.

Her words are a stream of gibberish, but her face makes it clear that she is threatening me with being imprisoned again in the tiny room downstairs, with my hands being bound.

I stop trying to remove the paint and allow the dwarf to repair whatever damage I have done to their handiwork.

The older woman nods when it is done and then the two of them simply walk out of the door, leaving me alone.

I think for a moment that I could run out of the door, but I can hear a heavy lock turning and know that I am still a prisoner, however I am dressed.

I make my way to the large window and look down, onto a narrow street below.

I take a sheet from the bed and think to tie it, to let myself down, but then I see a guard standing below the window and know that if I do so I will swiftly find myself caught and brought back to the tiny room downstairs.

I kneel and pray. I cannot formulate any kind of meaningful thoughts and so instead I only repeat the Hail Mary over and over again, the prayer I learnt when I was only a child, from my mother.

In the midst of this I open my eyes and see the bed.

A dread cold comes over me, an understanding of what lies ahead.

I have been bought as a slave and now, in a rich man’s house, have been dressed in silks and jewels, have been washed and perfumed and painted…

only a fool would not understand what is to become of me.

I think of the narrow street below and wonder, if I leapt, whether I would break my neck and so join Maria in her mortal sin, or whether I would only be crippled.

Behind me, the door opens, and at last I see my master.

I was right. It is the man from the slave market, the fat man who turned me around and touched my head, who laughed as he spoke with the trader of slaves.

He is almost as round as he is tall; indeed, he stands shorter than I, and has to look up to me, which he does not seem to care about.

He lets out a laugh when he sees me, as though I am of amusement to him.

He walks around me and then says something which I do not understand.

I do not speak. I simply stand still and wait.

He pulls at my head wrap, so that it falls to the ground and once again my scalp is exposed.

He rubs his hand over the skin, grinning broadly, saying something like “Kamra”, which I do not understand.

Even his touch on my skin is a violation, I shudder against it.

My heart is beating so hard I think I may die; I think that perhaps its speed will cause me great pain in my chest and that I will fall to the floor and die.

But this does not happen. What does happen is that the merchant places one fat hand, thick with golden rings, over my breast and squeezes it hard.

I step backwards, unable to help myself.

He slaps me round the head, and places his hand on my other breast, while a second reaches round to fondle my buttocks.

The silk I am wearing does nothing to protect me, it is too fine, too delicate.

I shake my head and step backwards again and again, quickly find myself pressed up against a wall, at which he laughs, and slips his hand between my legs.

I turn my head and bite the arm closest to me, the one whose hand is currently touching my neck.

He yelps and I take advantage of his surprise to climb across the bed away from him, but he grabs my ankle and with surprising strength pulls me towards him, belly down.

He kneels on one of my legs, so that I cannot move, his great weight bearing down on me so that I think my leg bone may snap.

I cannot move, can only struggle, face down, as he places one hand over the silken trousers I am wearing and rips them downwards, a tearing sound exposing my buttocks.

I scream, but he only laughs and slaps me across the buttocks, as though I were a wicked child.

He is speaking throughout, but none of the words mean anything to me, only that he sounds happy enough, even as he attempts to defile me.

And for one moment, one tiny moment, he releases my leg and I am across the bed and crumpled to the floor, jumping up again and clutching at the drapes around the window shutters, which have been closed, the light streaming through them, tinting the room yellow-red.

He shouts behind me, but I have already made up my mind without even thinking about it, even as I fumble with the drapes and pull open the shutters.

I do not climb, I simply lean forwards, tipping the whole of my bodyweight towards the street below, hoping for a quick death.

It is an unholy death of course, but it is better than what is to come if I stay in this room.

There is one fleeting moment when I am free, when only the air can touch me.

Then there is a thud that reverberates through me and the crack sound as my thigh bone snaps as I hit the hard-cobbled street below.

Then pain, only pain, such pain. I scream because I cannot do anything else, because the pain bursts out of my mouth.

Above me I hear shouting, look up to see the merchant’s angry red face, before darkness descends over me.

When I open my eyes, I am in a darkened room, and too hot.

It takes a moment before I realise I am in the kitchen of the house, that over me are standing the dwarf and the older woman, a moment before the pain comes back in such terrible waves that I cry out again and again, putting my hand over my own mouth to stop my cries and failing.

The dwarf is weeping, holding my other hand and tentatively dabbing at my face with something cold.

It hurts every time she touches me, which I do not understand, as nothing has happened to my face.

I am close to the open cooking fire, it is this that is making me too hot, I am sure of it.

I look down at my thigh, I can see the unnatural crookedness of it, the flesh failing to hide the fault within.

I look around me, hoping that a physician has been sent for, although inside I know full well that this is not the case.

I have defied my master, I have not subjected myself to his evil desires, I leapt into the air rather than be touched by him, I have broken his property.

I try to push the dwarf away, but as soon as she stops dabbing the cold cloth onto my face heat rages through it.

I try to touch my face, to touch the heat and the resulting pain is so bad that I whimper.

Something has been done to my face. I look at the dwarf, gesture to my face, my eyes asking the question I have no words for.

She shakes her head, looking at me with fear, but the older woman, standing behind her, has understood me and knows that I will find out, sooner or later.

She walks away and returns shortly holding up a little mirror.

It is very small, and the image is blurred, but one look in it reflects back to me what has happened.

I have been branded, burned, over and over again across my face, welts of red raised flesh, blisters already forming. I know that no remedy I may use, no unguent, will ever entirely remove such scars. My leg is broken; my face is forever scarred.

An irate shout comes from the courtyard.

I cower, recognising my master’s voice. But the older woman shakes her head quickly.

He is not calling for me, he is calling for someone else, he is done with me.

This scarring, this raging heat in my face, is his punishment, inflicted whilst I was in the darkness of pain, unaware of what was happening.

So be it. I will be scarred; there is nothing I can do.

But my leg… my leg fills me with fear. It must be set.

I know how to do it, but once bound I must stay still for many, many days, months even.

I do not know if I will be allowed this, and even if I am, whether it will heal straight or crooked.

I look up at the older woman and then down at my leg, gesture to it as tears flow down my cheeks.

She nods, a serious nod, filled with understanding of the gravity of my injury.

She grimaces at the danger of it, the likelihood that it will not heal well.

But then she points to a corner of the kitchen, she indicates sitting there, points to vegetables and a knife.

She is suggesting that I may stay here, in her kitchen, for I believe her to be the cook here.

She is suggesting I could be given little tasks to do, in the hopes that staying still will aid my recovery.

I bow my head to her, still weeping, and reach for her hands.

I kiss each of them, giving thanks to God out loud that there is someone here who will protect me as much as her position in this household allows.

She can tell, perhaps, from my weeping and the seriousness of my tone, that I am blessing her, and she nods, places one of her hands over her heart in return.

The dwarf points to herself and says “Aisha,” then points to the older woman.

“Maadah,” she says and the cook nods, then points at me in turn. She does not wait for me to say my own name, instead she says “Kamra”.