Chapter 20: Options

It was three days later that another message was passed to the Emir that the Princess Zubeydeh craved an audience.

'If the Princess knows that quickly, it means Fatima's having her period and therefore not pregnant. Good!' he thought, and sent no reply. Because she was not carrying his child the whole matter was unimportant; the American could live or die as she chose.

It was almost teatime when the Emir wandered into the harem and went into the Head Wife's suite where he found Princess Zubeydeh sitting in a summer frock eating a peach. Suddenly the thought occurred to him that the harem dress was very revealing, and he wondered how they coped with menstruation. The external pads advertised on TV in the West would look awful with those trousers; he giggled at the thought of a room full of women wearing nappies under the split trousers.

"Yes?" he asked, "You wanted to see me?"

"David," his mother started, but remembering his earlier admonition she corrected herself quickly, "Master, Laura ... I mean Fatima is not carrying a child."

"Go and fetch her here to tell me herself," he said.

"But she is..." his mother started to protest.

"Princess Zubeydeh, you personally will fetch her here," there was menace in his voice, "If she needs covering put her in an abaya."

While his mother was off fetching Laura he checked with the Chief Eunuch and was told that the women did use large sanitary towels and simply hid themselves away from everyone during menstruation. Fatima came into the room, or at least he assumed it was her under the abaya, and prostrated herself before him.

"The Chief Eunuch wants to strangle me, I just know he does," she sobbed, "Oh, please, please Master, anything if you just let me live. You can do absolutely anything to me, have me, have my arse, come in my mouth, beat me every day, anything at all. Just let me live. If you really want to be rid of me then sell me again, even that's better than..."

Her voice tailed off into uncontrollable sobbing and the Emir felt disgusted that anyone could sink so low and be so desperate. Then he had an idea.

"There are one or two jobs you could do for me. Next week you can help with my jus primæ noctis session, and perhaps later you could help with the hunting," he offered.

"What is jus primæ noctis?" the girl asked, fearful that this was a trap to degrade her further.

The Emir didn't want to enlighten her just yet so he merely said, "I'll explain later as we go along."