A Cruel Passing of Innocence (4 page)

Nassara huddled in her blanket, her eyes seeking Belithza's, but she'd already fallen into an exhausted sleep beside her. Alone in the darkness, hearing only the restless breathing and occasional mutterings from her companions, Nassara closed her eyes at last, and drifted into a troubled sleep of unwanted dreams.

She awoke with a start, the sense of dread instantly upon her. Stiff and aching she sat up. From outside came the unwelcome sounds of activity. Men were shouting, and somewhere nearby Nassara could hear the muffled sound of clanking metal and chains. Bright rays of the early sun shone dustily through the open doorway. The other girls were stirring unwillingly from their sleep, groggy yawns turning quickly to awareness.

A whip-man appeared at the entrance, his implement held menacingly at the ready. He shouted and gesticulated for the girls to get up and go outside, his evil eyes darting around, enjoying the fearful looks that greeted him.

The girls stumbled out into the glare of the sun. Naked once more they formed up in a line, no longer heeding the now familiar lecherous stares of the men gathered there, nor their jeering remarks and obscene gestures.

Nassara looked discretely about, avoiding any eye contact with the men. Before them lay the sea, and even in her fearful dejection she marvelled at the glittering beauty and vastness. Nearby, alongside a jetty, was a large boat, its pointed bow rising high above the descending sweep of its decks. A furled sail fluttered from its tall, swaying mast, as the craft rocked lazily from side to side with every swell of a wave.

‘Where do they take us?' Belithza whispered urgently in Nassara's ear, and then, as if in answer, the girls' attention was drawn at once to movement in front of one of the other huts. Chained as before, the ragged young men were filing out into the sunlight, bleary-eyed, their raw, dusty skin showing all too clearly the cruel ravages of the lash and the relentless sun on their nakedness. The guard with the long black whip ushered them towards the boat, making them shuffle quickly to where a gangplank led up onto the deck. Noisily their bare feet rattled the crude planking as they stumbled aboard, chains jangling in unmelodic despondency.

More turbaned men stood waiting on deck for the prisoners, whips at the ready. Once aboard the young men were made to crouch down low and descend through a hatch to somewhere below deck, to the goading shouts of the guards.

‘I think we are to be taken on a journey on the sea,' Nassara murmured, and fear spread at once across Belithza's face.

‘Oh, take me from here, save me from the water,' she muttered, her eyes wide and apprehensive. ‘We shall be swallowed up.'

‘No, Belithza, fear not,' Nassara encouraged. ‘The boat looks strong. See how it sits neatly in the water.'

At that moment there was a renewed clanking sound of metal chains. The youths were bringing bunches of shackles, and the whip-men were shouting again at the girls, gesturing for them to kneel in the sand so the youths could lay out a long length of chain on the ground in front of them.

Nassara's same tormenting youth was standing at her side, leering again at her breasts. Trying to ignore him she kept her eyes fixed ahead and her body proudly rigid. Then she felt a collar being placed around her neck, an iron ring set in the leather, and several metal studs he secured with some kind of locking tool. He bent and pulled her roughly towards him, his breath against her ear as he cackled something wicked and tightened the studs. Wedging his fist between the collar and her throat, he took delight in tugging the seasoned leather brace, jerking it roughly so that Nassara had to struggle for breath and fight to keep her balance. Looking down at her breasts and watching them quiver with each deliberate jerk of his hand, he sniggered at each attempt she made to right herself.

The chain was run quickly through each of the collar rings, shackling the girls together in yet further degradation and misery, prisoners beyond hope, deprived of all dignity. Nassara fought the tears that threatened to well up in her eyes, but she remained kneeling gracefully upright in the sand, feeling the sun hot upon her shoulders, fighting the surge of anger that tempted her to hit out at the loathsome youth.

Fresh orders were barked and the whip-men snarled at the newly chained prisoners, shouting and gesticulating for them to get up and run to the boat. Unfamiliar with their new restraints, the girls trotted awkwardly towards the gangplank, stumbling and jerking against each other's collar and chains.

The wooden deck was already very warm from the bleaching sun. The smirking men onboard stood back to allow the girls to pass along the side of the vessel, watching with lustful eyes as their new cargo was herded towards the hatchway. Nassara's tormentor led the way, beckoning the girls impatiently and exchanging ribald comments with the men. With a curt wave of a hand he signalled the lead girl to follow him below, disappearing down into darkness.

When it was Nassara's turn to descend the rough wooden steps she felt the chain between her and Belithza, who was just ahead, jerk tight against her collar, nearly unbalancing her. As she clambered down into the gloomy interior, her feet gingerly feeling for the wet floor below, it seemed as if she were entering hell itself. Once below the captives were led, scurrying almost blindly into the darkness, following the youth deeper into the hold.

A rancid, pungent odour of damp, rotting waste and human sweat hung like an oppressive cloak of evil. Thin rays of sunlight scarcely penetrated the hatch, barely enough for the girls to see the claustrophobic confines of the hold that was their new prison. They were in the bowel of the boat's hull, the skeleton of its frame tapering forward into a central valley of timber beams. The deck-head was so low there was no room to stand upright so she had to crouch and put her hand out on the damp bulkhead to steady herself, her feet picking their way over the raised timbers.

Up ahead the youth had reached the place where the girls were to be tethered. The desperate clanking of chains was loud in the confined space, as the girls jostled in ungainly confusion for a sitting position against one side of the boat.

Along the sloping bulkhead of the opposite side Nassara was surprised to see the sombre shapes of the young men. They were half-lying, half-crouching, their backs to the vertical timber struts, their feet resting in the dank gully that ran along the centre.

The youth made the leading girl in the line go right to the forward end, where the vessel narrowed. Then scuttling like an evil little scorpion, he made his way back towards the light from the open hatch and disappeared up the steps, and moments later the hatch was closed and bolted. Now it was almost completely dark, except for chinks of light that penetrated occasionally through cracks in the planking above. The immediate silence in the hold was heavy with despair, and somewhere in the gloom came the faint sound of a stifled sob.

Shortly after there was commotion on deck and the boat started to creak and move a little more noticeably. Some of the girls began to weep, fearful at such unaccustomed motion. As the boat began to pitch and roll one girl started to wail pitifully, and some of the living cargo cried out in momentary panic as there was a loud scraping noise along the hull, which echoed horribly in the confines of the hold.

At least there were no cruel whip-men here, Nassara thought, reaching out for Belithza's hand, feeling the tremor in the girl's body. She talked soothingly to her, but Belithza was lost in her misery, mumbling to herself.

‘This devil's wooden urn takes us on the sea,' she murmured. ‘Soon it will sink and the water will drown us like rats.'

‘Shhh, Belithza, have courage,' Nassara comforted. ‘It will not sink. Feel how it rides on the water. Do you not hear the whispers of the sea against its sides? Listen how the water passes underneath, not coming in. We shall not drown.'

The boat was soon far out to sea. It began to heave and fall through the water, the timber beams groaning with every pitch and yaw. At first the foetid, airless atmosphere inside the hold was unbearable. Its human cargo sweated and panted in misery and unseeing terror. But gradually the rushing water beneath the hull cooled the interior and the air became less oppressive. Soon the prisoners began to calm themselves, adjusting to the motion, and the anxious wails gradually subsided. Belithza closed her eyes, but her hand still gripped Nassara's.

Trying to lie as comfortably as she could against the hull, Nassara stretched her feet out in front of her, feeling an eddy of tepid water slopping around her toes. Moving her foot to one side it made contact suddenly and unexpectedly with the leg of one of the young men opposite her, and she could see from the stark whiteness of his eyes that he was looking back at her. Although scarcely able to make out his features in the gloom, she could see he had a handsome, angular face. Like most of the young men he was slim and lean, and although he bore a muscled frame, it was rangy and slightly wasted from hardship and lack of nourishment.

‘My name is Zheeno,' he said in a soft yet strong voice, and despite the strangeness of his accent she was pleasantly surprised to hear him speak in her language. ‘What is yours?'

She told, turning to introduce Belithza, but the girl's eyes were closed, her head turned away in her lonely grief.

‘Where are we being taken?' Nassara asked. ‘Do you know this, Zheeno?'

‘I know only that we are going as slaves to a place of great riches,' he told her. ‘There is a king named sultan, and we are slaves of his pleasure. I know this only from what I can understand from our captors, so I cannot be sure what I tell you is true.'

It seemed many hours that the boat swept onward in its monotonous rhythm of creaking timbers, occasionally lurching up as the bows ploughed into some larger swell of water, before falling again to wallow briefly in the valley of its wake. Nassara and Zheeno talked together for hours, until they knew much of each other's past lives, and by what cruel means they had been delivered into captivity.

Zheeno had been travelling alone to his father's farm one evening when a gang of men surrounded and overpowered him. Taken to a camp he was chained to other young men before embarking on a long, terrible journey, forced to walk great distances each day in the heat, with very little water or food. Two of his companions died along the way. He did not know how he survived, having been near to collapse during that last leg of the journey. Suffering torment of thirst and ceaseless beatings, they were marched at a merciless pace by their ruthless captors, herded until they dropped with fatigue and dehydration. At least now, even if it were only a brief respite, he was out of the heat and able to rest.

It was late in the day and the hold of the boat had become cold, and the rhythm of the vessel's motion seemed to change, the roll and pitch becoming more severe than before. The plaintive moaning from some of the girls resumed again, some retching or vomiting into the narrow gully, unable to take the increased movement of the boat.

Night fell, and Nassara felt Zheeno inching forward, to be nearer to her, and harbouring an unfamiliar need to be close to him, she edged nearer too, as far as the chains would allow until it was taught against her collar. Sitting on her haunches she was able to put her arms over his bent knees, as if to seek some comfort from the proximity of his body, no longer feeling the shame of her shy innocence. In this dreadful place, surely such conventions of decency could be ignored; now her soul had more pressing needs.

The light covering of hair on his skin felt good as she caressed it absently, her arms hugging the muscles of his thighs. She revelled in the residual warmth that radiated from his body, her nose savoured the stale-sweet smell of his perspiration, and her eyes marvelled at the sculpted detail of his masculine shape. As she ran her fingertips gently over his thighs, and the smoothness of his stomach, she thought suddenly of her brothers. They seemed from her past life, so far behind, not here to protect her, not now, not ever, the hurt of betrayal cutting deep. Here, with her loneliness, she felt a strange need for this young man. He was not her brother by any tie of blood, but a brother by shared adversity. She craved to have his comforting strength, wanting to hold him, yearning to sob against his chest and for him to clasp her in his strong young arms.

‘Poor girl, so far from home,' he muttered. ‘How I would like to be your brother, to protect you from evil, but I cannot.' It was as if he had read her thoughts, and she smiled through her tears, in the darkness, seeing the tenderness and sparkle of life in his eyes.

He reached out and gently, hesitantly, touched her breast, allowing his fingers to glide sensually over its firm peak, moving up to linger and tenderly caress the raised welt that ran across the upper curves. Then, very softly, making her skin tingle with delight, his hand moved down again to cup and cover the hardened nipple, then gently kneaded the delicate knurl of ripened flesh between finger and thumb. His loins stirred and her arms tightened around him. A surge of affection and lust swept through her, despite the mutuality of their wretchedness. What cruel fate it was that had brought such beauty and delight to her emotions, in so dark a pit as this. Could not kindly fate have come to them before?

‘How cold is your poor flesh, so evilly lashed by those devils,' he comforted. ‘Yet how lovely you are. Such men can never spoil your beauty. Remember this, and let your spirit not be crushed by their wickedness.'

Smiling sadly at him again, she moved her hand to rest upon his lean chest, caressing it, before allowing her fingertips to lightly brush across his ribs, and then over the muscled rise of his pectorals. Marvelling at the firmness she wanted to feel more, her emotions rising to heights she had never known before.