CALIPHATE(43)

"At least you'll be away from al Khalifa," he offered.

"That's something, I suppose. I'll try to remember that when they turn me over to a gang of men." The girl shuddered at the memory.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Ishmael said. He drew out his purse and counted out from it all the money he'd been given by Besma. To this he added ten gold dinar of his own. These he pressed into Petra's small hands.

"Besma wants you to have the money you both earned," he said.

"It's too much."

"A little, maybe. Call it a gift from me. An apology for all men, everywhere."

She nodded, thankfully.

"And one other thing." From underneath his robe Ishmael drew out the heavy journal of Petra's great-grandmother. "Besma said this belongs to you. If I failed to win the auction, I was to give it to you."

Petra clasped the journal to her small breasts. To her, its value wasn't so much in the words her great-grandmother had written, but in the fact that it had been the primary text used by Besma to teach her to read.

Tears formed. "I will miss my Besma so," the slave girl wailed.

"Don't be so hard on your father, Besma," Ishmael had said. "He really tried. The man bidding on Petra wanted her so badly I don't think any amount of money the entire family could raise would have been enough."

"Sure," she said, doubtfully, then cried out "What's going to happen to my Petra? What will they do to her?"

"Nothing worse than what's already been done to her, I imagine," Ishmael answered, shaking his head sadly. "Just . . . more of it." A lot more of it.

"I'll get her back someday," Besma said. "I don't know how yet but this atrocity will not stand."

They took Petra away early the next day, even before the sun rose. She'd expected a horse-drawn wagon, at best. In fact, the factor had come for her in a genuine automobile. She'd only ever ridden in one once before and was, despite herself, excited at the prospect.

"I paid far too much for you, little Nazrani, to risk you catching a cold or, worse still, pneumonia," the fat factor had explained.

She'd more than half expected him to use her on the way and was surprised when he didn't. In years to come she would understand why he'd not forced her to do anything; the factor far preferred fat little boys and prepubescent girls.

The car stank far worse than any shit wagon Petra had ever smelled fertilizing the fields around Grolanhei. She wrinkled her nose at the stench, something that caused the fat factor to laugh.

"It runs off oil made from coal, little Nazrani. Naturally, it stinks. I, by the way, am Latif. You may call me, 'master.'"

Latif tapped the lowered window between himself and his indentured driver. "Bring us to the castle," he ordered.

While most new production automobiles in the Empire, Australia, and Japan had robotic auxiliary drivers, slaves were cheaper in the two Caliphates and could polish the exterior to boot. Besides, the roads were simply not up to robotic drivers.

The driver obediently started the car and began heading northwest to pick up the A7 south.

"Wait!" Petra shouted then said, more quietly, "I'll never see my home, Grolanhei, again. Would it be possible to drive through it? Once? Please?"

"I know where it is, sir," the driver said. "Opposite direction, not far, maybe six kilometers. I can keep going, pick up the A3, then come west to the A7." The driver shrugged. "Fifteen minutes out of our way, no more, sir."

Robotic drivers rarely showed such judgment.

Latif considered. "Allah smiles upon those who are kind even to slaves. Very well, little one, we'll show you your town one last time." His face turned stern. "But I'll expect even more dedication to your lessons once we reach the castle. I paid a great deal for you and I expect a good return."

By the time they'd passed through Grolanhei, Petra wished they had not. Where it had been a bright and happy memory, in her mind, after several years in the larger, busier, and above all cleaner Kitznen, the town seemed to her very small and dirty, the people very downtrodden and unhappy.

Briefly she considered asking for the boon of seeing her family. That thought lasted until she realized her mother and father would have questions, questions about her current status. She didn't want to blight their lives any further by having to say, They've sold me to be a whore. Nor did she want to bring any shame to her brother Hans. What the other janissaries would say to him, how they would torment him with the shame of having a whore for a sister, she didn't even want to think about.

She was just as happy when the car passed through the town, passed through its neighbor, Kleilanhei, and moved onto the highway to the north.