Suddenly he had a plan in mind: a delicious, evil plan. Horace rubbed his hands together. Who knew that such a dastardly people existed in the world? He learned of men or, more to the point, Arab pirates, who made a living buying and selling flesh. It wasn’t just any flesh. Their main objective was to abduct white women, who would then be sold in the Arab world to rich men. Horace chuckled. Soon enough, the little haughty bitch would be spreading her legs for some old, stinking Arab.
***
Sarah and Katharine each carried a small bag, while their maid, Lucy, had a large basket hooked around one meaty arm. Together, they made their way to Petticoat Lane Market. Though Sarah usually never went to market and thought it servant’s work, she was anxious to show Katharine the bustling city.
Katharine was overwhelmed at the throngs of people that seemed to move in and about the market, and she saw the bric-a-brac was enough to satisfy any shopper. She was separated from Sarah a few times, but usually managed to find her quickly. Lucy moved expertly through the crowd, and her sharp accent could be distinctly heard.
Katharine smiled at herself as she looked at the goods. Did she truly need anything? No, she figured, but she wanted to buy something to remember the trip.
Uthal and Sufyan watched the woman with interest. They had kept a watchful eye on the townhouse. When she had emerged today and traveled to the market, they knew their moment had come. The baron had paid them handsomely to take the woman, and Uthal knew of a sheik in Arabia who would want this one. He was renowned for his harem and would certainly want to add this beauty to it. Uthal was already counting the money in his hands.
The lady had become separated from her small group several times and Uthal knew all too well that she could be captured easily. It would be easy to slip in beside her as she walked. He had tried to dress and look more like an Englishman, though he was darker in skin. He would wait until her companions had left her again and he would pull her into the back of a stall, where one watching might think they were lovers in a small tryst. Once there, he would quickly bind her hands behind her back and take her to the awaiting coach.
He would tell her in a deadly voice, thick with heavy accent, that her life would depend upon her silence and that she should not make a scene. She would be too taken aback and frightened to do anything. By the time she recovered her wits, they would be inside the coach with the men on either side of her.
She might try to escape, in which case he would have to smack her sharply to show the seriousness of her situation. He would arrange passage aboard a ship and they would leave immediately.
Indeed, everything went exactly as Uthal had planned, and Katharine was soon aboard a ship, bound to a land she had never seen, as a slave.
Chapter 1
Sheik Mohammed Aksam Al Sabid was the eldest son of the old great sheik Mohammed Akmon, who had the soul of a good believer, and this had pleased Allah.
Mohammed Aksam was the eldest son at 35 years of age and already a commanding presence. At six feet, two inches tall, he had a golden bronzed body and brown eyes, which was common in Saudi Arabia. He always wore a gold earring in his ear, as he had crossed the equator, and he was proud of his seafaring abilities. His brown hair flowed just below his shoulders, and he had a small trimmed goatee.
As the eldest son of the great sheik, he had inherited much. He inherited vast wealth from his specially-bred Arabian horses and lands which cultivated coffee. He also inherited the role of judge and mediator in relation to the problems of his people, as his father was before him. He watched over his large family, which included his aging mother, numerous brothers, and many insignificant sisters.
He had married young at 18 and his bride had been only 14 years old, which was permitted under Islam. Yasmeen was a sultry Arabian beauty with dark eyes, long black hair, and a lithe body. She was the color of honey and oozed sexuality. She was the sheik’s toy and at his very beck and call. She was eager in bed, both to please him and to keep him. Although he slept with her often, Yasmeen had only borne him two children, but they were worthless daughters at that.
Mohammed was a great sheik. He was revered and respected for his wisdom and his wise counsel. But nothing impressed the Arabian men more than the sheik’s harem. Filled with exotic women from his part of the world, there were close to 27 women. He had numerous slim women from Arabia as well as dark, exotic Ethiopian women with large nipples and hairy snatches. Persian, Iraqi, Egyptian, Afghan, and a West African woman filled his harem.
Yasmeen was a jealous cat, but she knew he never slept with his whores more than once a night and he took extensive precautions to make certain his seed never impregnated his harem women. Yasmeen alone was the only woman who had the pleasure of growing large with his seed. The harem was a respected and well-known institution serving her husband, but Yasmeen treated the women as common whores and hated them all. She knew there were several favorites, and she went out of her
way to torment them. She was also secretly very frightened, as she had only given birth to two girls; she worried that the time would come when her husband would take a second wife because he wanted sons.
Islam allowed the taking of a second wife if the man was able to physically and financially take care of both wives and wanted them both.
Yasmeen lived with that fear every day. She prayed to Allah each time she lay with her husband that his seed would sprout into a boy child so that Mohammed would have no need to look elsewhere. She would often lie in bed for hours after their union had been completed, rubbing a sticky oil between her legs. The oil had been prepared by the local midwife and was said to have great powers. She thought only of Mohammed, creating a son, and having a child to parade over the whores in the harem.
***
Mohammed had long heard of the fair women who graced the lands of Saxony and Brittany. He heard tales of their sun-kissed hair, ocean blue eyes, and skin as cool and colored like marble. He became obsessed and had already commissioned his mercenaries in the Arabian Sea to bring him a woman of such surpassing beauty. There were many Arab pirates who patrolled and trolled the waters, and he knew word would eventually come of one such woman. He would gladly pay a king’s ransom for her.
***
Lady Katharine Fairfax’s ordeal had begun in London when Uthal and Sufyan had kidnapped her at the Petticoat Lane Market. She had remembered admiring a lovely beaded bag when suddenly she had been grabbed by the arm and pushed into the back of the stall. A dark, swarthy man stood before her, dressed in peasant clothes but looking out of place. His face was hard and dangerous.
He spun her around and bound her hands behind her back with a rope. She remembered being thrust into a dark coach and, fearing rape or death, she fought back. He slapped her and told her not to make a scene, that her life depended upon it.
She woke up later to the gentle swaying of the waves upon a ship. The room was dark and she was alone. She had not been molested and her hands had been unbound. She tried the door to the room but it was locked. She knocked loudly several times.
A voice with a strange foreign accent answered her plea.
“Lady, you are in for a long journey. No one can hear you now. No one can save you.”
Katharine sank onto the hard wooden floor. Dear God! Where was she going? What would happen to her? She placed a hand over her mouth to stifle the sob.
***