Dunes of Gor Chapter Thirty Seven

Chapter Thirty Seven: Treachery

Reyhan was alone now in the guest chamber, and already, after just a few ehn, she was deeply regretting her wild and reckless decision to come here. She wore pleasure silk, a collar and ankle bells. She knelt, chained to a slave ring by her collar with her wrists clasped in slave bracelets. Soon, in maybe half an ahn, the Kavar raider would return to his suite of rooms, drunk, and eager to enjoy his slave girl for the night. What had she been thinking? She couldn’t go through with this. The reality was so much more terrifying than the hypothetical concept an ahn and a half ago. Back then she had felt like a brave martyr for her family, a woman who might do whatever was required to seal this military alliance. But now she felt very differently. Now she wore pleasure silk, and a woman who wore pleasure silk was left in no doubt what it might do to her body.

Reyhan rose from the floor and pulled at the length of chain with the weight of her body. She pulled at it, as women foolishly do when they are chained. The shackle ring attached to her collar was sturdy, as was the shackle ring attached to the iron ring set into the floor tiles. All she managed to do was to choke herself.

I am securely chained, she thought to herself. Perhaps a strong man might in time break the chain free from the ring, but not I. I am just a woman. She moved about the room, testing the reach she had while chained. The chain brought her up short before she might reach the door through which Javad had brought her. Even turning and reaching out as best she could with her hands behind her back, she was nowhere near that door. She tried then to reach another door in the room, a door that connected to another part of the suite, but again the chain brought her up short. She could not even reach the couch. 

She tried to reach one of the narrow barred windows to look outside into the moonlit night, but again she could not reach any of them. The terrible reality of her situation now was taking hold of her senses and panic was beginning to set in. This was a mistake! Reyhan no longer felt she could do this. It was too much. She wore pleasure silk! She felt exposed between her legs, she felt the silk settling on her nipples as she moved. She gazed at herself in a wall mirror and cried, seeing how desirable she looked. Hassan would seize her as soon as he entered the room. He would throw her onto the couch and rape her. She cried piteously, no longer the strong woman she had seemed an ahn or two ago. Now she was a terrified female, dressed in pleasure silk and chained. Such things made a considerable difference.

There were no weapons to hand. Nothing she could use to defend herself, even if she dared to consider the possibility. It would be suicide if she did, of course. Believing her to be a kajira, Hassan would be well in his rights to kill her if she so much as raised a sharp knife at him in warning. And anyway, what sort of struggle could she put up with her hands clasped in bracelets behind her back?

“I didn’t know…” she sobbed as she dropped back to the floor tiles. She crouched, her head down, shaking that head in furious denial. She had to be strong now. She could not let panic consume her. Panic and fear was the mind killer.

I am a free woman. I am strong. I am resourceful. I will come through this. 

Reyhan suddenly screamed. She couldn’t help herself. She rose up again, pulling at the chain that was secured to the iron ring. Perhaps she knew deep down there was no point to this, but still she did what all women did when they felt themselves trapped and helpless; she struggled wildly and irrationally with all her strength, and then when the steel defeated her, she lay down again, exhausted, feeling nauseous. The chain resisted her as it resisted all women in her position. 

He will use me, she thought, and I fear what I might do in his arms. I do not trust my body. I do not trust my desires. She rose again and searched the room, looking everywhere for anything that might inspire an idea or a plan. She saw whips hanging from the far wall, and she knew they might be used on her if she was less than pleasing. She saw other shackles hanging freely from hooks. She saw gags, and leather bindings, all provided in the personal chambers of the Keep. She saw no tools that she might be able to use in half an ahn to try and saw through a single chain link. She saw nothing she might wear in place of the pleasure silk to dampen the feelings Hassan might have when he saw her like this. 

As each ehn ticked by, Reyhan grew more and more scared. The tension knotted inside her belly. Her body was trembling, and she couldn’t stop glancing at the door, knowing that very soon the handle would turn and Hassan would enter. She tried to control her breathing and clear her mind. She cried again and even pulled at the chain for a further futile attempt. She began to tell herself that none of this was real, that it was just a nightmare and she would wake up again in her bed. She felt the delicate silk against her skin and tried to blank out what it was doing to her. 

Women should not be made to wear pleasure silk! It is impossible for us to think clearly when we wear pleasure silk! She gripped the chain with her bound hands, and felt its strength and its resilience. She rose again and ran about the room. Surely she had missed something? Anything? The chain pulled her up short before she could reach any of the shelves or drawers. She fell to her knees, sobbing, at the extent the chain would permit. And then slowly, on her knees, she followed the length of chain back to the iron ring to which it was secured.

I am a free woman! This can’t be happening to me! she cried. The door stood there, promising that very soon it would open. 

“I don’t want this…” cried Reyhan. “Please, I have changed my mind! I don’t want this!” She could still scream of course. But to what end? No one would investigate the screams of a slave girl, and she could not identify herself to anyone. Another tide of rising panic threatened to bring on a fresh wave of nausea. She pulled at the slave bracelets that held her wrists together. The keys were thrown casually onto the couch, too far out of her reach. She could see them, teasing her, but she couldn’t reach them. She tried to, for the fifth time, pulling on the neck chain as if in doing so she would somehow find an extra three feet of reach. She collapsed far from the couch, the keys still mocking her with their closeness. 

And then she heard it. A creak of timber, a scraping sound of a latch turning, and the sound of hinges moving. 

The door was opening!

Reyhan foolishly ran as far back as the chain would allow. It was tight, stretched taut between the iron ring and the extent she could run to. She felt the back of the collar against her neck as she tried to put as much distance between herself and the door as she could. And then Javad Mohsen stood in the doorway, glaring at her.

“What…” she gasped, having expected Hassan.

For a moment she thought the man had succumbed to his desires. He could take it no more. He would seize her and put her to use, even though Hassan might return at any moment. But then Reyhan saw the torn clothes, the cut across his chest, and the sweat on his face. She saw a bloodied scimitar in his right hand, and the lack of a head scarf, lost in some tussle. 

“What…”

“You treacherous bitch!” cried Javad as he entered the chamber, slamming the door shut behind him, and sliding in the bolts. “Your House will pay for this treachery!” He crossed the floor in a matter of a few ihn, seizing Reyhan by her hair and twisting her head up so that he could look her in the face. He held her head with his left hand, while he raised the scimitar in his right.

“I should kill you!” he screamed. Reyhan screamed too, unable to defend herself. Her hands were braceleted behind her body and all it would take would be a single slash with the razor sharp edge of the scimitar to end her life. But Javad hesitated. Looking deep into her eyes, Javad hesitated. “I should kill you!”

Reyhan could guess what had happened. Her man had spoken nothing of this to her, but he had obviously struck at the Sardaukar tonight. Daan would kill them before they could turn on him. He had no doubt given them wine and food and then set on them without warning. Javad had possibly escaped the ambush itself because, unknown to Daan, he had escorted Reyhan to the guest chambers. Otherwise Javad might be dead now. But the injuries on his body suggested he had tried to help his men when he had heard the screams and the fighting. 

“Did you know? Did you know?!” he yelled.

Reyhan closed her eyes and shook her head. “No. I wasn’t told.” It was true. Daan had said nothing to her of this pre-emptive strike. She was very much afraid. Why had he done this without speaking to her first? It was declaring war on the Sardaukar! Her voice was quivering with fear. She was close to death now. One quick cut was all it would take. “But I knew of your planned treachery,” she said at last.

“What?” Javad tugged at her hair. “What do you mean? What treachery?”

“Your secret orders from the Emir!” cried Reyhan. “We knew you had been ordered to turn on us. We knew!”

“What? What are you talking about?!” Javad seemed genuinely confused. “I have no secret orders to turn on you. Not from the Emir, not from anyone. What is this?”

“You spoke of it, and your slave girl, Tupa heard the words. We have her. She told us everything! She heard you speak of attacking us when we were settled in to Al-Quada-a-Dhum! So don’t plead your innocence with me! You brought this on yourself!”

Javad released her hair and stumbled back, his eyes raging as he looked at her. And then he threw back his head, and despite his tears for his men, he laughed a mocking laugh. “Oh, but the Gods laugh at, and torment us, this day! I don’t know what that slave overheard, but I know it wasn’t me discussing treachery against House Shahzad. I do have orders from the Emir, but they are to strike at the Aretai once my primary objective of settling you into Al-Quada-a-Dhum was done. I have been arranging things with the Kavars, when opportunity presented itself. My orders are to strike at the Aretai! I have no orders to strike at you!” 

For once in her life, Reyhan no longer knew what to say. She opened her mouth and then closed it again. She could see that Javad wasn’t lying. 

“No…” she whispered.

“Your man has attacked the Emir’s Sardaukar for no reason! He has lost everything now! No one strikes at us with impunity!” He walked to the couch and took up the keys that he had thrown there. With a click he unlocked the chain from Reyhan’s collar.

“What are you doing?” cried Reyhan. “Please, let me fix things…” she pleaded.

“Fix things? How?! My men are dead or dying!” He pulled Reyhan to her feet. “Daan Shahzad has taken my men and so tonight I will take his woman. You will be my slave in the desert after all. I no longer have an oath to protect you.”

“No, please, no!” screamed Reyhan. She struggled with the steel bracelets as Javad simply turned her towards the far door.

“The stairwell outside will lead to the rooftop,” he said. “And from the rooftop, to the walls and then into the outer town.” He picked up a gag from a wall hook. 

“Please! No!”

“And then a simple matter to steal a kaiila. By dawn we will be many pasangs away, you and I. And you will be ready to start your new life, lost where no one will ever find you, deep in the desert. But first, where is Tupa? Where is my slave girl? You said you took her?”

“Where you’ll never find her! Oh!” Reyhan felt the edge of the scimitar at her throat. “Kill me if you want, but I will not tell you.” Reyhan knew she would rather die than surrender her daughters.

“Why? Why would you be prepared to die rather than give up a kettle slave?” Javad paused, seeing the genuine determination in her eyes. “She is nothing to you, surely?”

“She is nothing to me,” said Reyhan, quickly. She held her breath, realising she had just given something away. And then Javad laughed. He now remembered those words the girl had spoken to him as he had taken her to the metal worker, all those months ago. How she had pleaded for him to take her to Jaleesa Shahzad instead. She promised Javad that the Shahzads would pay a lot of money for her. “By the Gods, Tupa is your missing Serafina, isn’t she?” The look he saw in Reyhan’s eyes confirmed the fact. “All this time I have had the Shahzad daughter in my collar? How long have you known?”

“Does it matter? I am not giving her up. So now you know your threats are a waste of time.”

“Then hear me now, Reyhan. Tell me where she is and she will live. And so will Jaleesa. You know your house is doomed now. You have turned the Emir against you. The Sardaukar will march on Al-Quada-a-Dhum. They have to. Even the Emir will not be able to stop them. Your walls and your allies will not stand against the Sardaukar legions. Not against all of them. Daan will die. It is too late for him, but your daughters… you can still save them. They will be slaves, but better that than dead. Take me to Tupa and she will live and I swear by my honour that I will use my authority to spare Jaleesa’s life, too. Well?”

“My babies…” cried Reyhan.

“A kef and a collar for Jaleesa, or implement on the high walls?” He withdrew his sword from her throat, knowing it wasn’t needed now. “Which will it be?”

Reyhan stumbled barefoot from the rooms and into the corridor. A leash had been fastened to her collar. Tears coursed down her cheeks as she led Javad towards the small bolted door leading to the simple chamber in which Tupa had been stabled for the last seven days. Javad moved quickly, keeping a watchful eye for any of Daan’s warriors that might be prowling the Keep in search of stray Sardaukar, but luckily for the captain, their progress was not impeded by any such encounter. 

Tupa looked up in fear as her chamber door opened and she saw Javad with a pleasure slave crouched with her head at his hip. Her eyes were focussed only on Javad. Quickly she dropped to her knees in obeisance, begging mercy, but Javad had no time to listen to her. First, he locked a fresh collar around her neck as the girl knelt before him. He then rolled her onto her stomach, bound her wrists tightly, and fastened a second leash to her collar ring.

“You disobeyed me, kajira. You will be well punished for that. But later.”

Then, pulling the girl to her feet, he ordered both his captives to march quickly. While fighting still raged elsewhere in the Keep, Javad propelled the two women up a flight of stairs and onto a bare roof. Beneath them lay the Keep and the outer walls and beyond those, the sprawling town in which most of the citizens lived. Javad had a coil of heavy rope with him. He gathered up Tupa and Reyhan and lowered them both down on the end of the rope to the battlements. Then, climbing down after them, he went on to lower them by rope to the town’s streets below. Once they lay together in the dust, he climbed down himself. By now both girls were gagged and mumbling through those gags. Javad smiled as he saw the growing sense of horror in Reyhan’s eyes. She was being taken further and further away from the safety and security of her home. A couple of kaiila were found in a nearby stable, and Javad bound first Tupa and then Reyhan over the saddle rings. He climbed up onto the kaiila saddle on which Reyhan lay on her belly, securely bound. He stroked her plump bottom and lifted the wisp of pleasure silk that lay over it. The woman was begging piteously through the gag, but Javad paid her no attention as he rode his kaiila and trailed the other kaiila in its wake. 

Within ten ehn they were riding hard through the flat loose stones of the Hamada desert to safety.