The Sheik and the Slave

“Oh my God,” Katharine whispered. She touched her fingers to her lips, realizing Jean Baptiste had been hired by this crazed man before her.

“He was an inferior half-breed who fouled everything up. I killed him for the sake of killing him.”

Katharine felt sick.

“Why?” she whispered.

Abdullah admired the blade that would soon be stained with her blood.

“There was a beautiful girl in Arabia. She was dark and lovely, and I planned so perfectly for her to be Mohammed’s consort and bear his children.”

“No,” Katharine said.

“I bid her to come to the palace and she did. She was to seduce Mohammed with her body.”

Katharine bit her lip and felt her tears fall.

“But she too failed me. Instead, the sheik couldn’t complete the act before he passed out. Then I find out she was pregnant by her uncle. Disgusting woman!”

Katharine’s heart soared even as it flung back to earth.

“You made an enemy out of me from the moment I first saw you. When I first laid eyes on you, I knew you were evil. All that is unholy lies between your legs and in your body.”

“No. That’s not true,” she whispered. “I am a good woman.”

“You are the most vilest of creatures. You are an Infidel. A non-believer. A soulless being.”

She shook her head as he drew the blade along her collarbone and she shuddered.

He murmured quietly, “And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.”

He whispered the words in a fevered pitch.

“Once you are dead, we will take your son back to Arabia to be raised as a true Muslim. He will be raised in the true faith. I will tell him stories of his beautiful mother, and he and Mohammed will never know that your blood stained my hands,” Abdullah said. He smiled then, and Katharine knew all was lost.

Katharine tried to concentrate on Mohammed and her beloved son. She tried to focus on their faces and not the one before her.

“Make your peace, witch.”

Katharine shook her head and shivered in the cold.

“I love Mohammed and I love my son. More than that, I have nothing to say. Do what you will,” she said as she closed her eyes.

She waited to feel the pain, but only heard a slight thud and then flesh hitting flesh.

She opened her eyes and saw a man dressed in European clothes grappling with Abdullah. A fist collided with his head and then collided with his gut. He was getting a beating.

She moved quickly away from the two men and then gasped. It was Mohammed! Her heart soared.

Both men fought viciously and threw words and punches at each other.

The words were in Arabic and lightning-quick, some of which she didn’t understand, as the two men fought violently.

Mohammed slammed Abdullah’s back into the tree and the man collapsed into the grass. The sheik held the glittering knife in his hand, but had no intention of slaying his advisor.

“You have been a false friend! You who even served with my father!” Mohammed shouted.

Abdullah coughed.