The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series (41 page)

Putting a bold face on things, Achmed led his party through the city to the tall buildings at its height. Along the way, various members of the crew of the
Red Witch
fell back to seek their own homes or to drink with cronies. A very loose discipline was maintained here in the pirate city, for little more was needed, actually, as El-Cazar had its own defenses (those erected by nature) and no real enemies.

In fact, the island fortress had never been invaded in living memory, and was deemed impregnable by its ruffianly inhabitants.

As wiser men have commented before me, pride goeth before a fall.…

* * * *

The massive portals of the princely residence opened before their approach, since servants had long been apprised of their arrival. They entered through cool, shadowy corridors into a center courtyard which was like a garden. Walled about in a rectangle by open balconies was this garden, and therein fountains splashed and small artificial streams meandered between banks of green turf and flowering bushes. Herein grew plants otherwise unknown to the biosphere of Zanthodon: flowering, dark-leaved, glossy magnolia, flaming hibiscus, tall feathery palms, fragrant lilies.

Whether these plants had been brought into Zanthodon as seedlings was unknown. Even the Barbary Pirates had forgotten their provenance, but as their ancestors had fled hither with all haste, running before the merciless advance of disciplined European troops, it is to be questioned whether they had bothered to bring aught more than seeds with them, and that in itself was probably accidental.

Kâiradine Redbeard on his litter was carried into his own apartments, there to be tended by his women and his mutes. The two prisoners were immured in another part of the huge buildings, secured under lock and key but no longer bound. Achmed was delighted and relieved to be free of his two charges, but in particular of Darya, for the golden beauty of the adolescent Cro-Magnon girl had tempted him severely, although he had rigidly abstained from touching her and had, in fact, ignored her presence in his cabin in so far as was humanly possible.

Whether it was from simple loyalty to his chief, or from equally simple fear of that chief’s raging fury, even Achmed could not say. At any rate, Darya had shared the cramped quarters with him without molestation or the slightest affront to her own dignity. But Achmed was male and human, and had felt her nearness keenly. He was delighted to turn her over to Kâiradine’s servants, who would be responsible for her from that point on. As for Fumio, he cared little.

The Arab women fluttered about Darya, cooing and giggling and chattering their comments to each other in their own tongue, which the blonde cavegirl did not understand, perhaps luckily. Then they stripped her of her garments and bathed her in a huge tub of beaten brass. Never before had the Cro-Magnon maiden experienced the bliss of steaming hot water, foamy soap, and lavish perfumes. She may, I believe, be forgiven if she wallowed and luxuriated under the novelty of the experience.

Then they dressed her hair, clothed her in gauzy Oriental raiment, and left her to her own devices.

The cavegirl stared around her at the sumptuous apartment in which she was penned. Low, carven tabourets bore copper or silver bowls of ripe fruit and candied comfits. Beakers of wine, or honeyed fruit juices stood about in carafes of cut crystal. Hangings of woven cloth adorned the walls in the Oriental manner. There was no other furniture worth speaking of, but then Darya of Thandar was unaccustomed to furniture of any kind and did not really miss it. The silken carpets underfoot fascinated her, as did the nest of soft and richly colored cushions, upon which she reclined blissfully.

Perfumed smoke seeped from hanging pierced lamps. Arched doorways, veiled in floating draperies, led to other, more intimate, chambers. Low tables were littered with jars and pots and phials of perfume, kohl, unguents, and other cosmetics, but in the employment of these she was of course completely ignorant. She sniffed and sampled and tasted, but did no more.

* * * *

Suddenly was Darya roused from the doze into which she had fallen in a nest of soft, plump cushions. There was a murmur of excited voices from the corridors beyond her luxurious cell, and squeaks of alarm. She rose lithely to her feet, ready for almost anything.

What appeared in the doorway, however, was something she could not have expected.

It was a woman every bit as beautiful as herself, and in a furious rage.

This, she reasoned, could only be the dancing-girl, Zoraida, who until her arrival upon the scene had been the favorite concubine of Kâiradine Redbeard.

CHAPTER 8

FLAME OF ARABY

Zoraida of El-Cazar was a few inches taller than Darya of Thandar, and a few years older, perhaps. Instead of the glowing tan of the golden-haired cavegirl, the dancer’s sleek body was the rich hue of milk chocolate, denoting her descent from a mixed but mostly Moorish parentage—for she and Achmed were of the same ancestry. It was soft and redolent of rare oils and perfumed unguents, that body, and her long hair was blue-black in the lamplight and her eyes were like glimmering black opals, filled with swirling witch-fires.

Where Darya was slim and vibrant, Zoraida was voluptuous and full-bodied, with magnificent deep breasts and rounded thighs and haunches. But a dancer’s silken and tireless strength was apparent in every sinew, and she moved as gracefully as a tigress.

Her enormous and slightly tilted eyes were fringed with kohl, which also darkened her long lashes. Her full-lipped mouth, in whose ripe curves slept passion and pride, willfulness and jealousy, was as scarlet as a wound. Her long, thick silken mane was held out of her eyes by a triple row of beads; emeralds, polished but uncut, flashed in gold settings from the lobes of her ears; gauds and beads and bangles clashed about her throat and spilled in glittering webs across her heaving breasts, which were naked beneath an open vest of yellow felt sewn with glinting sequins.

A wide sash of colored silks cinched in her narrow waist; transparent pantaloons of smoky gauze clad her lithe and lissom legs; gold and silver bracelets clinked upon her wrists. And in her round navel there twinkled a star-sapphire as big as a man’s eye.

Such was Zoraida of El-Cazar.…

* * * *

The woman was in a tigerish fury; word had sped to her, it would seem obvious, that during his long voyage “south” Kâiradine Redbeard had become infatuated with a savage girl of the tribes, and had fetched her back to the island fortress as his prize. Nor could the spiteful curiosity of the jealous dancer forbear to look upon her rival for the affections of the corsair monarch. Now her flashing eyes widened in mock astonishment.

“By the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan!” she swore in a deep, husky voice whose timbre did interesting things to a man’s mind, “from the gossip of the seamen, I had thought to find an exquisite houri from Paradise encamped in the bed of Redbeard—which once was all of the kingdom Zoraida held, or aspired to!—but, now instead, I see a skinny girl-child with paps scarce bigger than a boy’s…a freckled hoyden who stinks of seawater and rancid sweat…a gawky savage, more accustomed to squatting in a filthy cave and gnawing on week-old bones, than to the palaces of princes and the luxuries of El-Cazar! I wonder me if mayhap Redbeard has taken leave of his wits, to become besotted with a trembling infant such as you, as ignorant of the arts of pleasing a man in bed as she is ignorant of paint, powder and perfume!”

With these words, the dancing-girl threw back her head and voiced a burst of mocking laughter. Darya of Thandar could not understand the words, but the sarcasm and the mockery in them and the laughter which followed were unmistakable. The cavegirl crimsoned—hating herself for it—and bit her lip to stem the flood of bitter words which sprang to her lips.

Zoraida eyed her up and down, maliciously, knowing full well how to tease and insult another woman with a glance. Especially a woman who is not looking her best—and Darya had gone through weeks of captivity, jungle treks, and a long voyage. Despite the attempts of the slave girls to tame her salt-stiff, unruly mane of golden hair, it fell in knotty tangles, its gleam dulled by the salt-spray. Weals and scratches but half-healed scored her bare arms and thighs. Also, she had lost weight during the voyage, as the rancid food and meat and overripe fruit and sour biscuits which served the seamen as provender were as distasteful to her as they were unfamiliar.

The girl flushed and eyed Zoraida mutinously, a dangerous glint in her blue eyes. Zoraida sensed something in that glowering, level stare and in the lift of the small, stubborn chin, and laughed again…but fell back a step and let the henna-colored fingers of her right hand toy meaningfully with the hilt of the small gemmed dagger she wore at one lush hip.

“By the Blood of Ali, but the wench is half-wildcat!” she exclaimed in mock surprise. “Redbeard, that lustful rogue, must in sooth have left his wits behind when he fell for the unripe charms of this skinny savage—she’ll claw his hide to ribbons when he mounts her, and cut out his eyes with one slash!”

Then—with startling suddenness—the raillery died in Zoraida’s manner, and was replaced by cold venom. Thrusting her face forward like a serpent about to strike, she spat vicious words whose meaning her victim could sense intuitively, but not comprehend.

“Think you to replace Zoraida in Redbeard’s bed, you scrawny slut? I’ll see you bedded down with Shaitan in the red-hot pits of Hell before that happens—”

And she spat full in Darya’s face!

Astounded, the cavegirl wiped the spittle away—then launched herself at the dancer’s throat. She leaped like a panther, taking the other woman by surprise, bearing her backwards onto the floor and kneeling upon her chest while locking small, capable hands about her throat, throttling.

Zoraida goggled up at her adversary, eyes wide with amazement. Then those eyes filled with splendid fury and with a convulsive heave of her trained body she threw the cavegirl from her, sprang to her feet; ripped her bright blade from its scabbard with a wicked rasp and brandished the naked steel beneath Darya’s nose.

“I have no claws like you, jungle wildcat, but
this
is Zoraida’s fang—and it shall mark that pretty face in such a way that never will Redbeard or any other man look upon you without flinching away…”

The glittering blade hovered near.

Then Zoraida screeched, for the firm white sharp and even teeth of Darya of Thandar had sunk into the wrist of that hand like the fangs of a striking adder.

Over and over the two women rolled upon the floor, cursing, panting, biting, clawing, kicking. Darya seized a handful of the necklaces that hung about the dancer’s throat and ripped them away, beads scattering, pearls rolling into the far corners of the room. Zoraida gasped with outrage, and reached for Darya’s blond mane with one hand while with the other she strove to sink her dagger in the cavegirl’s slim throat—

“Hold, woman!”

That resounding voice froze Zoraida in mid-motion.

In the next instant the long blade of a curved sword flashed between the two girls; both young women looked up to see none other than Kâiradine Redbeard in the doorway, supported by the strong black arms of Achmed. His face was pale as death but his eyes were as dangerous as the gaze of a deadly serpent.

“Beloved…you are wounded! They did not tell me.” moaned Zoraida, scrambling from Darya to fall upon her knees before her lord. She sought to cover his slippered feet with kisses, but he reared back and kicked her full in the mouth, rocking her back upon her heels. Blood dribbled from a cut on her lip.

“B-But—” gasped the dancer.

“The jungle wench is under my protection, woman—touch her again at your peril,” snarled Kâiradine.

“What is a skinny savage child to you, beloved, who have reached the heights of ecstasy in the arms of your own Zoraida?” whimpered the dancer, wiping the blood from her lips and smearing her cosmetics as she did so.

Redbeard sneered, looking her over—the disarranged hair, torn garments, scratched breasts. Blood and lip-rouge made a crimson mask on her lower face, and tears had made her kohl run in black trickles down her cheek.

“She looks less like a madwoman or a clown than does Zoraida,” laughed Redbeard. “Need I repeat it once again? By the Black Stone of Kaaba, the woman is mine!”

“You call me clown and madwoman,” wept Zoraida, bursting into passionate tears, “whom once you hailed as Flame of Araby and Moon of Delight, when that Zoraida danced the dance of the scarlet veils…”

“Those days are past,” growled Redbeard. Suddenly, vigor drained from him and he sagged in the strong arms of Achmed, eyes going dull and curved scimitar dropping from listless fingers to ring like a stricken bell upon the stone flags.

“Leave us now, O Zoraida, for our master is very weak and wearies swiftly!” rumbled Achmed, bearing the Barbary Prince to his bed.

The dancer staggered to her feet, eyed Achmed resentfully, not failing to notice the flicker of gloating amusement in the eyes of the Moor as he watched the discomfiture of his only rival for the comradeship of Kâiradine. She tugged uselessly at her torn raiment, tried to arrange her hair; then her back stiffened with furious pride, and she went from the room with gliding steps.

She paused once in the portal to cast a look back at where Darya crouched by the table.

And if looks could kill, the malignancy in the eyes of Zoraida the Flame of Araby would have struck Darya dead on the spot.

* * * *

Later, having repaired the damages to her appearance with cosmetics and a change of raiment, Zoraida slunk from her apartments in the palace of Kâiradine Redbeard. Veiled in dark robes, her gorgeous face concealed behind the
yashmak
, the veil which the women of Islam wear upon their faces, she descended into the streets of El-Cazar and sought out a tall house of whitewashed stone which stood beside a cobbled square.

Gliding into the shadow of an arched doorway, she fumbled with a cord. A bell tinkled somewhere within the imposing structure. Moments later, a figure appeared, peering through the eye-slit in the door; whispered words were exchanged, and the door opened a crack to permit the dancer to enter.

And from the shadows of a portico across the square, Achmed the Moor, who had followed Zoraida hither, tugged thoughtfully at the golden hoops which glittered in his lobes.

“Now, what would Zoraida be doing in the house of Yussuf ben Ali at this hour?” mused Achmed to himself. “What business can the favorite of Kâiradine Redbeard have to transact with the chiefest rival to his throne?”

To that question no answer was possible, as yet.…

CHAPTER 9

FUMIO IS PURCHASED

When Kâiradine Redbeard had recovered sufficiently from the terrible wound inflicted upon him by the monstrous yith, and realized that his first mate had captured the wrong man along with Darya—not Jorn, but another—he was quick to burst into rage and even quicker to forgive.

After all, Achmed the Moor had only seen Jorn the Hunter once, and then fleetingly and from a distance. It was not his fault that he had mistaken the renegade Fumio for Darya’s young protector. One Cro-Magnon savage, let it be admitted, looked very much like any other Cro-Magnon savage, at least to the Barbary Pirates.