Devil's Daughter (Devil 2)

He shrugged out of his clothes as he walked into his bedchamber and tossed them into the waiting hands of his personal slave, Ali. He was a slender, black-eyed boy of seventeen whose origins were Moorish. Kamal had seen him in the slave market some five months before, and knew that the boy would likely be castrated by his new owner. There was such hopeless terror on the boy’s face that Kamal could not help himself. Ali was fanatically loyal, and his whimsical personality usually brought a smile to Kamal’s face.

“It is warm,” Kamal said to Ali. “I hope the water is cool.” He walked naked from his bedchamber to his bath. Its walls and floors were set with hand-painted mosaic tiles, each tile depicting individual scenes, some of battles, some of splendid banquets, and a few of men with their female slaves. The bath was a sunken pool, some three feet deep and eight feet wide, set between marble tables covered with white linen cloths. Kamal stood quietly as Ali soaped his body and rinsed him with warm water from a painted urn. He slid into the cool pool and let the clear water close over his head, until he felt the tension in his body begin to ease. He thought lazily that the Europeans could benefit from this Muslim custom of the daily bath.

After a relaxing fifteen minutes, Kamal stepped out of the pool. He allowed Ali to shave his jaws smooth, then stretched on his stomach on one of the marble tables.

“When do you go out with the rais, master?” Ali asked him as he massaged warm, scented oil into his back.

“You think I grow too soft as Bey, Ali? You want me to brandish my scimitar and capture infidel ships?”

“No, highness, you are not soft,” Ali said honestly, glancing at his master’s lean, fine-honed body. “I only fear that you will grow bored, and relieve your boredom by beating me.”

“I will give you warning, Ali,” Kamal retorted.

As he massaged Kamal’s broad back, Ali kept up his usual stream of chatter. “There is a representative from the Sudan come to see you before your evening meal, highness. I hear that he brings a girl for you, a virgin of great beauty captured near Alexandria, a gift from his master. Perhaps you will find her more to your liking than Elena.”

There was a hint of contempt in Ali’s voice when he spoke Elena’s name, but Kamal chose to ignore it. He stretched and turned over on his back. “Just how do you know the girl is a virgin?” he asked.

Ali held up two fingers. “The Sudanese—I heard him talking to that old graybeard Hassan—he tested her.”

“Hassan or the other man?”

“Hassan, that licentious old goat.”

“Careful, Ali.”

Ali cast a furtive glance at his master, knowing he had said too much. Hassan and his master’s witch of a mother were two people no one could insult, even in jest. “Ah, master, will you have me bastinadoed?”

“Perhaps,” Kamal said easily. “Or perhaps I shall repeat to Hassan what you said, and let him decide your punishment.” His eyes remained grim until he saw fear in Ali’s eyes.

“Young fool,” he said, and rose from the marble table. He continued in disgust, “I feel as oily smooth as a girl.”

“Ah, master, but you do not smell so sweet.”

“You have a quick tongue, Ali,” Kamal said as his slave dressed him.

“It serves me well with the women, highness,” Ali said, grinning.

“So you would like to have tested the new slave yourself?”

“I would have done as well, highness.”

“I should have made you a eunuch,” Kamal remarked, but Ali merely smiled, secure in his master’s goodwill.

Kamal allowed Ali to finish dressing him, then sat on a bench to have him brush his thick hair. When Ali was done, Kamal rose, resplendent in a white wool tunic and

full-cut white wool trousers. A soft blue leather belt hugged his narrow waist, and from it hung a curved jewel-handled dagger. He wore light blue leather shoes with curved toes and a long golden chain about his neck.

“I am told that you greatly resemble your father,” Ali said with satisfaction.

“Yes, though I am even more fair than was he. There must have been a Norse princess in our lineage years ago.”

“I am also told that the famous Khar El-Din delighted in favoring more than one of his harem girls at the same time. It is said that their cries of pleasure could be heard all over the palace.” Ali shook his head, as if confused. “Odd, master. Could he have had more than one tongue?”

“Perhaps I shall have your tongue removed, Ali,” Kamal said, and buffeted the boy on his slender shoulder. Even his light blow sent Ali tumbling to the floor.

“Dammit, boy, when are you going to grow some muscle?” Kamal leaned down and dragged Ali to his feet.

He grinned down into Ali’s face. “A man has full measure of pleasure for a woman between his legs.”