Sultana's Legacy (26 page)
Fatima squeezed his fingers. “You shall inherit a great estate and a rich province. You serve my brother. The offers shall always come from those who believe it is advantageous to ally with us through marriage.”
Her voice rasped from disuse. Ismail poured a cup of water from a beaker. She swallowed the fluid greedily and cleared her throat.
“For many, you are the means to an end, my son. Such is the danger of being an heir of Malaka’s governor and the first grandson of a Sultan.”
She framed Ismail’s angular face between her hands. The coarse hairs on his face scratched her palms. “I pray you do not marry too soon. I am not ready to lose your love to another woman. Is that selfish of me?”
Ismail shook his head. “My heart seeks something more than a wife.”
Before she might question him about his desire, he said, “Father received a letter from Leila at al-Jazirah al-Khadra. She heard the news about Grandfather.”
Fatima sighed. Ismail pressed his forehead to hers. “I miss him, too.”
“I miss them all, my father, your uncle Faraj and Nur. They would not want to see me in this way, would they?”
“No, they would not.”
He kissed her brow and left the room.
Haniya appeared with a basin of water. She bowed low and greeted Fatima, who shook her head.
“Please, attend me in the
hammam
, Haniya.”
Her maidservant smiled. “As you wish.”
Haniya gathered the bathing implements. Fatima followed her from the second floor, down a long corridor that led to the upper floor of the bathhouse. As they strolled beneath a carved stone archway, a soft sob echoed to the rafters. The echo rang from the chamber below, where most visitors undressed.
Fatima grabbed Haniya’s shoulder, tugged her backward and placed a hand over her servant’s mouth in a bid for silence. A latticed railway ringed the gallery on the second floor. Fatima peered over the railing and into the room below.
Columns ringed the space, with antechambers angling off the square-shaped central area. Sunlight filtered through carved apertures in the ceiling, the silhouettes of stars. A cascade of radiance reflected off a large, brass lamp suspended from an iron chain at the apex of the roof.
Muhammad’s bodyguards stood beside each column, while he reclined on his stomach. Bared, he sighed and pressed against the heated, marble slab covered with a long thick cushion. A
hakkak
leaned forward and massaged his muscled back with trembling fingers. His hands trailed up her wiry calves.
The girl shuddered and tears trickled down her pale, olive-brown cheeks. She stood naked beside him, dark waves of curled hair falling to her waist. Ribs poked beneath the lean flesh. Palpable fear revealed itself in her shaking shoulders and the quaking knees that knocked against the stonework.
When she finished her ministrations, Muhammad grasped her hand and brought it to his cheek.
She pleaded, “Please, my Sultan, do not.”
Dread soured the woman’s plaintive voice. Fatima recoiled and withdrew into the shadows. Muhammad had slave girls whose sole duty was to give him pleasure. Yet, he forced himself on someone.
He sat up and dragged the slave against him. She cried out in a childish whimper.
“Be silent,” he ordered.
He buried his face in her neck. The
hakkak
’s tiny hands pushed at his shoulders.
“Master, please do not do this! Not again.”
“I said be quiet!”
He stood. His fingers grasped her waist. His other hand lifted her legs so that they encircled his hip. He pushed her up against the wall beside him.
Haniya whimpered behind Fatima’s fingers. She glared at her maidservant until Haniya quieted. Muhammad’s back was to Fatima, but now, she could see the slave’s face more clearly. Fatima stifled her own gasp at the woman’s familiar features.
Muhammad’s hand traveled up to her throat, while the other toyed with a nipple. His cruel touch choked back the plea behind the weeping girl’s lips.
He said, “But this is what you truly want.”
The girl sobbed, as he pressed his mouth against the apex of her throat and shoulder. Then she screamed. When he raised his head, reddened teeth marks marred her pale olive skin.
“Tell me this is what you want. Admit it and I shall give you pleasure.”
“No! I don’t want this.”
She writhed against him, her fists beating his back. He gripped her with one hand on her neck and the other on her hip. Then he pushed her on to the cushion atop the stone slab. His weight dwarfed her smaller frame. She slapped him and snarled something incoherent, twisting in his grasp. He laughed and pinned her wrists together with one hand. The girl screamed as he drove into her with a vicious thrust.
Haniya’s silent tears trickled over Fatima’s hand. Muhammad’s cruel laughter echoed in the tiled chamber. His violent battering matched the rhythm of the girl’s blows. He arched his neck, blue veins livid under his flesh as he keened his brutal pleasure.
***
Fatima sat on a low stool at a window overlooking the harem courtyard. A breeze rustled myrtles and rosemary bushes. She stared without truly seeing them.
A wave of terror brimmed inside her belly. The horrific memory of her brother, whose twisted mind took pleasure in rape, still assailed her. Etched into her mind now, she knew she would never forget the sight.
The girl’s pleas of despair, her naked fear were not what had frightened Fatima. Rather, the similarities in the slave’s coloring, her build and even her wavy dark hair – all reminiscent of Fatima’s features. The thought of any resemblance between the slave and herself made Fatima bridle again. She swallowed the bile that almost choked her.
Until now, she had never suspected her brother harbored such unnatural desires for her. Yet, when she had stood there in the shadows of the
hammam
, a long forgotten memory sparked to life. After their mother’s murder years ago, she and Muhammad argued in a cruel exchange. On the day they had reconciled, he arrived at her chamber just after she finished her ablutions and almost saw her naked through the thin folds of her robe. He had lingered in the doorway and later, sealed their renewed friendship with a kiss. Something about that kiss had disturbed her then, though she did not understand it at the time.
After living with her husband, she gained the full understanding of Muhammad’s actions. He had kissed her full on the mouth, as a man would have embraced a beloved woman he wanted in his bed. That was almost thirty years ago. Had he desired her, even then?
A light touch on her shoulder drove a sharp spike of fear through her chest. She gasped and drew back from Haniya, who stared at her with wide, wet eyes.
“Do not! I pray, Haniya, do not touch me just yet. I cannot bear it.”
The maidservant nodded and averted her gaze. “Forgive me. Niranjan has come. He has asked to speak with you.”
Fatima shuddered and forced back a sob. She joined Niranjan. He stood in the center of the antechamber, ringed with red and gold striped cushions. Fatima shook her head. How could such delicate beauty exist in this place of horrors?
As he sank into a deep bow, she whispered. “None of that, my old friend.”
He smiled, but it required some visible effort and in the end, the gesture lacked any genuine spark of emotion. His leathery-brown countenance never altered.
She asked, “You have completed the task?”
He nodded. “The hashish seller is dead. Musa ibn Qaysi cannot harm anyone. I doubt the Sultan shall be concerned by his disappearance.”
“No. The man gave him what he wanted. What of his family, his children?”
“I have taken care of them as well.” When he paused, she raised an eyebrow. He elaborated. “The caravan left for Runda just after dawn. I warned the boy and his sisters that they must never return to Gharnatah. They understand the limits of your mercy.”
“Good. Thank you.”
“The Sultana Shams ed-Duna is also leaving at midday.”
“I know. I shall go to her soon. Niranjan, with all that has passed, I have not had the chance to thank you for your aid to my father in these last years. He maintained the façade of strength for his people and his advisors, with your help.”
“I did it for you. Always, only for you.”
The tension coursing through her body eased at his pronouncement. “Without you and Faisal, the court would have known all my father’s secrets, too. I must thank the chief eunuch before he goes with Shams and his sisters to Al-Jaza’ir.”
The eunuch sagged, despair etched on his face. “He is no longer in Gharnatah.”
She frowned. “Faisal has left in advance of Shams ed-Duna? She did not tell me he would when we dined last night.”
“Faisal is dead. Stabbed through the heart.”
Niranjan bowed his head. Great, gulping sobs shook him to the core. Bewildered, she hugged him. He pulled from her embrace. His face twisted in agony, a dark mask of grief.
“He betrayed us all. Faisal was never the loyal servant of your father. He helped your brother Muhammad to destroy the Sultan. All those years, he lied to us, to me.”
The breath caught in her throat before she could speak again.
“He served your brother. He confessed it all to me last night. I went to him, as is my custom. I begged him to allow me to buy his freedom. He said he would not remain one moment longer in this accursed land. He asked me to come with him, but I refused. He said I loved you more than I loved him. He cursed you, said you were just as deceitful as your brother the Sultan.”
Her hands fell listless at her hips. A tremor rippled through her heart.
“Faisal told me he had helped your brother poison your father’s mind, to bring down your family. He had found the hashish seller Musa ibn Qaysi and aided your father’s belief that the
habba souda
would help him, when instead it and the hashish drove him mad. Surely, the Sultana Shams ed-Duna’s heart would break if she knew her chief eunuch had a hand in the betrayal of her husband. Faisal used my knowledge to work his treachery. He wrote to me, you see, to understand the power of plants and poisons. I thought he admired and loved me. I am to blame for what happened, all of it. Without my understanding, he would never have succeeded.”
When Niranjan said no more, Fatima placed a tentative, gentle touch on his shoulder. He shrank away. She pushed aside her own reticence and reached for him again. He was her Niranjan. He was a man. Still, he would never hurt her. She grasped his face in her hands and wiped at his wet cheeks with her thumbs.
“No, you are not to blame for anything. Muhammad planned too well to do away with Father. We can make it right again.”
“Would that I could see your treacherous brother dead along with Faisal,” Niranjan muttered. “After Faisal told me the truth, I beat him about the head, I railed at him. He begged my forgiveness, but I cursed him.”
She forced his chin up. “Did you kill him also?”
“Never! When I left him last night, he was alive.”
“Is there anyone who can verify that you were with him?”
“No. We have always been discreet.”
She laid her forehead against Niranjan’s own, bathed in perspiration. “Faisal cannot wound you or my father again.”
“He did it to hurt you, because he knew the truth.”
She sat back on her heels. “About his mother Ulayyah?”
As Niranjan nodded, Fatima’s heart ached. Ulayyah’s death haunted her. She lived daily with the fear that if her remaining daughters, including her servants Basma and Haniya knew of her role in Ulayyah’s death, she could not hold their loyalty.
She asked, “Who else would have had motive to kill Faisal?”
Niranjan answered. “Only your brother. Faisal knew all of his secrets. Now he is gone and your brother believes his plots can never be discovered.”
“Except by me. Are you certain Muhammad did not discern the full nature of your relations with Faisal? Could my brother use such knowledge to come after you?”
“
Al-Qur’an
forbids the love Faisal and I shared. He would not have informed your brother or anyone. It saddens me that I must tell Basma and Haniya of their brother’s death. They should not learn of it from anyone else.”
She shook her head and sighed. “Do not tell them yet. I do not know that my Haniya can bear much more today.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are grieving for Faisal, even in your anger with him, but I must ask you to put such emotions aside. I need your help.”
“As ever, I am yours to command.”
She caressed his bronzed cheek. “My loyal one. You have always been at my side.”
He cupped her hand against his skin. “I shall be with you until death.”
“Then aid me now. There is a
hakkak
in the baths of
al-Qal’at al-Hamra
. I want her found and taken from Gharnatah today, in secret.”
“How shall I know the woman?”
“Her resemblance to me shall lead you to her. I do not know her name, but perhaps it is Fatima also. Muhammad raped her in the
hammam
today. I do not believe it was the first time. Haniya was with me. We witnessed him forcing the
hakkak
.”
Niranjan stared at her in silence, before he said, “You cannot protect every slave girl from him. You have heard he cut off his own jailor’s head. He is cruel and clever.”
She returned his rapt gaze. “Then, I must be as he is. My father, my brother and Nur al-Sabah, all dead at his hand or because of him. Their spirits cry out for justice. Even poor Faisal.”
“Your father, your brother and the
kadin
are at rest in Paradise, my Sultana. If you thwart Muhammad’s ambition, it shall only end in sorrow.”
“He shall be the one to know sorrow. He shall suffer for all he has done. I swear it upon the lives he has stolen and destroyed.”
Debts
Princess Fatima
Gharnatah, Al-Andalus: Ramadan 701 AH (Granada, Andalusia: May AD 1302)
