Chapter Twenty-one
“I don’t believe it!” Rahine exploded.
She shot to her feet and began pacing about the Chief Black Eunuch’s coffee room, one of numerous rooms in his suite, located near the harem gate.
But it was a small room, not really designed for agitated pacing.
The marble floor was polished and slippery.
And the low divan and round table took up much of the space.
She gave up when her shin bumped the low table and spilled coffee onto the tray of uneaten baklava pastries next to Haji Agha’s water pipe. He made no comment when she rejoined him on the divan, even though this display of emotion was quite unlike her.
“Well?” she demanded. “Tell me I misunderstood you!”
Haji smiled. This was the fire of the young Rahine whom he had befriended more than thirty years ago, not the calm, unruffled control of the most powerful woman in Barikah.
“I doubt you misunderstood at all, Rahine. Jamil wants her training time cut in half. He wants her ready for him as soon as possible.”
“I still don’t believe it,” she replied, but with less conviction.
“Did you think she wasn’t for him?”
Rahine grimaced. “That was exactly what I thought after seeing her for myself. Didn’t you at first?”
Haji shrugged and reached for the long stem of his hookah. “Perhaps,” he allowed. “But he summoned me early this morning. He did not even trust the order to a messenger.”
Rahine leaned back against the silver tasseled cushions. “I don’t understand it, Haji. Was I blinded by that bright hair into missing something in the girl?”
“She’s undernourished, is all. Plenty of bread soaked in syrup will remedy that quickly enough.”
“I did like her,” Rahine said reflectively. “She has the sardonic wit of the English aristocracy that brought back so many memories…but you know what I meant.” She turned her emerald gaze on him. “She’s blond, she’s skinny—”
“And she doesn’t like him.”
“What?”
“It’s true.” Haji chuckled. “She might have found him pleasing to the eye at first, but that was before one of the other two girls was unwise enough to spit on him. After witnessing the whipping that followed, Shahar was genuinely revolted by Jamil. She told him to his face that she didn’t want to be owned by him.
She asked him to send her back to the slave merchant. ”
“And what was his reaction to that?”
“He was intrigued, I think.”
“Then that’s it! He’s never before met a woman who wasn’t instantly enamored of him. She is no more than a challenge.”
“I don’t know,” Haji said thoughtfully. “For some reason he was extremely patient with her. He allowed her to argue with him. He spoke with her at length. He even granted her two requests that she asked of him. But there was nothing in his eyes when he looked at her, not even a little spark of warmth. It was obvious he found the third girl more desirable, yet he picked this blond one instead.”
“And now he’s impatient to have her?”
“Not so much impatient, Rahine. I didn’t sense that. I even had to remind him that he had sent for me. He couldn’t recall why for a moment. And when he did, he simply gave the order, as he would any other, then went on to finish the discussion he was having with Omar.”
“Very well.” Rahine sighed, giving up. “So we are not to know why he wants her or what he sees in her. She will amuse him for a night or two and that will be that.”
“She is different from the others,” Haji warned.
“I know.”
“She is going to prove difficult.”
“I know that, too!” she snapped. “Why do you think this has upset me? All the trouble that is going to be caused, and just for a passing fancy.”
“Maybe he has finally decided it is ridiculous to put a limit on the number of women he owns,” Haji suggested.
“Do you think so?” Rahine asked hopefully, but in the next instant threw up her hands. “Ah, Haji, what is the difference? Our duty is to his pleasure. Whatever he wants, whatever the reason, he shall have it.”
Even while Rahine bemoaned it, trouble had already begun, for Safiye was feeling magnanimous after the generous gift Chantelle had bestowed on her and decided to take the new slave to the baths that morning, before they became crowded.
She thought Chantelle would appreciate the privacy while she became accustomed to the ritual of the baths, rather than having to endure dozens of curious eyes watching her every move.
And Chantelle was grateful when told that today was an exception, that tomorrow and thereafter she would have to go to the baths in the afternoon with the other women.
“But you will come to enjoy it once you lose your modesty. Many of the women spend the entire afternoon in the baths, even eating their dinner there.”
Chantelle could understand why one might not want to leave.
The hammam of the harem was nothing like the single large room used for bathing at the bagnio.
It was peaceful here, and immense, with countless chambers, one leading into the next.
There were steam rooms, and rooms with hot and cold showers, rooms with sunken pools of cool water, and massage rooms.
The first chamber after the vestibule, where she had to leave her clothes, was the largest room.
Its surprising beauty almost made her forget her nudity.
It was octagonal, with a high vaulted cupola from which hundreds of tiny openings let in long bars of steamy sunlight, shooting in every direction, illuminating the green tiled walls with an illusion of being underwater.
Here the concubines would gather to gossip while their slaves labored to beautify them, sitting on Turkish rugs they had carried with them or on cool marble benches, or lying on the large round slab of marble in the center of the room that was heated from below.
She was not to stay in this room, however.
The four bath attendants whom Safiye had handed her over to led her into one of the smaller rooms, where she was washed thoroughly this first time with an abrasive soap until her skin felt raw all over.
She stood there and let them, mostly because she was mortified when they insisted that they do the washing.
She didn’t even object too strenuously when the down was removed from her body with a depilatory substance.
Every woman here went through the same procedure, they told her. Did she expect to be any different?
No, of course not. She wanted to be the same, to blend in, to be unnoticeable and so forgotten.
And if they had stopped there everything would have gone all right, and she would have finished the purification process.
But they didn’t stop with just the pale blond down covering her body, and Chantelle raised holy hell when they went after her pubic hair, intending to pluck out every curly strand.
When Safiye arrived after being hastily summoned, it was to find Chantelle backed into a corner with a pot of hot melted wax in one hand and the brazier of coals that had heated it in the other.
“And just what do you think this will accomplish?” Safiye demanded. “I have only to summon a eunuch or two, and you will be subdued.”
“They wouldn’t leave me alone,” Chantelle replied angrily, glaring at the now nervous slaves who had refused to listen to her objections.
“So you intend to burn them?”
“Whatever it takes, madame.”
Safiye sputtered furiously at this calm retort. “You’re mad! Mad! What do you think you protect, you stupid girl? Your hair is to be removed, not your hymen!”
Chantelle blushed but did not back down. “I let them remove enough of my hair already. No more.”
“It is not up to you. Your body is no longer your own, and pubic hair is sinful! It must—”
“Who says so?” Chantelle demanded. “My body is as God meant it to be, so how can anything that grows on it be sinful?”
“A very good point,” Lalla Rahine said quietly from the doorway, having come in unnoticed.
“And when you learn our ways, Shahar, you may see our point, too. But for now, all this fuss is unnecessary.” Then she frowned, adding reproachfully, “You have burned your hands, haven’t you?
” She snapped her fingers, and a slave immediately ran for salve.
“Come, Shahar, put those down and let us attend your burns before they blister.”
Chantelle had barely felt the stinging on her fingers. “They’re not plucking any more of my hair,” she insisted stubbornly.
“No, they will not. You will finish your bath and return to your room, where your training will begin.”
“But—” Safiye began, to be silenced by a sharp glance of those emerald eyes.
Only now that the controversy was over did Chantelle realize she had been standing there stark naked with her two meager weapons. “Could I have a robe or something—”
“Of course, my dear.” Rahine flicked a wrist and another slave ran off.
“But you really must work toward abandoning this modesty of yours, especially here in the hammam, where many of the odalisques lie about unclothed for the better part of each day. Go now with the attendants and let them finish their duties.”
As soon as Chantelle was led off to the next room, Rahine’s tone changed to frigid displeasure as it lashed into Safiye.
“You fool! There is ample time to take care of such things before she is summoned by my son, and ample time for her to adjust to the changes expected of her. There was no point in letting her become so upset that she feels she must fight us. In future if she balks over something, bring the matter to me.” And she swept out of the room without allowing Safiye any defense at all.