Chapter 20: London Town

On the flight to London the Emir was idly reading a book he had chanced across in his late uncle, the Crown Prince Gamel's collection of erotica. It was a fictional account of part of the life of an Irishman who had worked as the head of the Janissaries for an absolute ruler such as himself in the time of the Napoleonic wars. Little had changed apparently, in the training, selling and treatment of slaves since then.

There were three interesting ideas in the book which were new to him. The first was the deliberate breeding of white female slaves with African males to produce strong workers for the fields, which was unnecessary nowadays; because of the use of machinery, agriculture was no longer labour intensive. The second was the use of female white slaves as draft animals to pull pony traps; again he felt the invention of the Rolls-Royce made this unnecessary, and the thrill of using the women was more than satisfied by the hunting he loved, using wolfhounds to track down a specially trained slave. The third, however, was more intriguing; he thought he too might try the pleasures of ensnaring a mother and daughter pair. Perhaps a kidnapping, or perhaps, even more exciting, the seduction of both while keeping it secret from the other.