Persia4
"How does your leg feel?" the Sultana asked as I involuntarily followed her toward the long, empty hall. For a woman a full head shorter than myself and considerably smaller than her twin guards, she kept an impressive, urgent pace.
"It feels like I was stabbed," I answered.
Kamil dug his fingers into my arm, and from the edge of my vision I saw him shake his head.
The Sultana continued the same rapid pace down the long corridor and I watched her closely, knowing at any moment she could turn her swiftness into anger. She glided like an apparition, her movements deceptively fluid. Other than the hush of fabric, she made no sound.
"In your former states of ownership, how were you punished?"
Her question irritated me. "Until Ganush, I was never offered for sale."
"Your parents did not sell you to the gypsies?"
"They did not."
She mulled over my response for several paces. "How did you come into their hands, then, if not sold?"
Her sudden, unbidden interest in my life silenced me from any remark, and as suspected she paused. The twins came to a sudden halt and I dug my heels into the floor, my leather sandals screeching against polished marble.
"I will not ask the same question twice."
She placed her right hand on the hilt of her obscured sword, though I glanced at her threat with minimal interest.
"I left," I replied.
"Cast out?"
"No."
Her gloved fingers tapped her weapon. "What did it feel like to have your life exchanged for riches?"
I offered a humorless laugh. "Like a sincere form of flattery."
Her rigid posture told me she had no patience for my words. "You did not cry out when I stabbed you," she said. It was a statement spoken with absolute certainty. The rules of the game were becoming clear to me; she wished to see me flinch, either by mental or physical pain. If I had learned nothing in life, it was to endure both.
I stared at her veiled head and shrugged. "I do not believe I did."
"Your tolerance is different than most." She turned her head to the side and I knew she studied the exposed right side of my face. Without the mask, I knew she held the upper hand. "You do not feel pain as a normal man would feel."
"The Devil feels nothing," I said under my breath, my gaze hardened. I would be damned if she bested me.
My answer apparently pleased her and she turned away, motioning for the twins to follow her. I held my breath as we lurched forward and wanted to shout that I was not immune to suffering, that marked at birth had not released me from pain. If anything, it had heightened my misery, always drawing me back into its cold vice and reducing me to an insignificant beast.
I heard every whisper from mother to child, each gasp of horror and shriek. For hours after I was removed from them display, their words still writhed within me.
What in the hell was that thing?
He cannot be real, yet he moved! It truly is a living corpse.
There was no tolerance on my part, merely bitterness. The shame I felt turned to numbness, though it was always inside me. Dormant, yet still alive. Hidden, yet growing into a storm. I hated them for their ignorant comments—and I hated myself for allowing it.
Lost in my own thoughts, I didn't immediately notice we had not traveled to the empty hall but toward double doors leading to the palace exit. I glanced at Kamil, who met my eye with an expression I thought bordered on pity. He looked away immediately and squinted as he and his brother escorted me from the shadows of a courtyard overhang into the blinding afternoon sun.
There was little of interest to see as far as I could tell. There were two stone planters with young palms set up against the exterior of the building. Smaller planters and shallow bowls held dry dirt or the dried, fragile remains of flowers. Smooth marble gave way to stone slabs leading toward a high wooden fence. What lay beyond I couldn't tell, but the air had a peculiar scent, like burning hair though I saw no signs of smoke.
"It is expensive and foolish to feed and house the condemned," the Sultan's daughter said as she turned toward me and once again gripped the hilt of her sword.
Perspiration beaded my forehead, the air thick and dry around us, not at all comfortable or even tolerable like European summers. I was not accustomed to such suffocating heat and I squinted, my eyes watering from the blinding sunlight beating directly onto my face. Dressed in black and covered completely, I wondered how the Sultana kept from fainting.
"How would you execute murderers?" she asked, her tone deceptively casual.
"Put them in the heat," I said under my breath.
She lifted her chin. "Agonizing, yes, but it holds little interest to me."
I looked away from her and studied the fence, wondering what hell existed beyond the gate. It was fashioned for strength instead of beauty, meant to hold something in—or perhaps keep something out.
"Tell me, my toy, how would you terminate such violent, unnecessary lives?"
"That would depend on the manner of their crime."
"Killers, murders," she said as though this offered clarification. "The filth of society, the scraps barely fit for civilization."
I suspected she spoke of me strangling the gypsy who had beaten me in front of a crowd countless times. Though I wasn't sure how she knew of the incident, I fully admitted I killed him, but I didn't consider it murder. He had beaten me to the edge of consciousness and then, when I was rendered incapable of fighting back, he allowed other children my age and younger to kick me and spit on my face until whatever mechanism normally shut down my thoughts suddenly raged to life.
I had not murdered him, I had reached the end of my tolerance after ten months of the same torment night after night.
"What was the circumstance leading to death?" I asked, fully expecting to defend myself.
"A man entered a home in the dead of night and killed the head of the house, then raped and killed the women and daughters, beheaded all of them, and staked their heads in the street."
Her words were spoken without a hint of horror or remorse. I could almost picture her smile as she detailed the story.
"He should pay in the same manner," I answered.
The Sultana clasped her gloved hands. "What retribution did you pay for your wrongdoings?"
"I took payments in advance," I replied. "My wrongdoings were rarely explained to me."
The twins stepped back and she circled me, her hidden gaze fixed upon my still form. As my eyes grew accustomed to the light, I swore I could make out her underlying features, the curve of her nose and her lips curled up in a cruel smile. Whether it was an illusion of my mind or truth I didn't know, but I doubted very much she could offer a sincere smile.
I doubted I could do the same.
"And what were your crimes?"
She paused behind me, just out of my vision. The only indication of how close she stood was the sound of her clothing rustled by the breeze and her harsh breaths. I couldn't tell if she had exerted herself or if she breathed in anger.
"Disobedience, speaking out of turn, illusions—"
"Illusions," she echoed, apparently without concern for my other wrongdoings. She stayed behind me and I swallowed, not wondering if she would stab me again, but the precise moment of when. If I had not cried out the first time, I expected she would continue her games until satisfied with the ending. "What type of illusions?"
"Appearing human."
"You are a most hideous creation," she agreed. "I imagine only the blind would be able to look upon your face with their sightless eyes and not feel complete repulsion. The marks upon your face are truly the work of some sinister being."
She spoke delicately, which felt like a flint against my always smoldering anger. I had so often heard people mutter under their breath and curse me, but none as far as I could remember stood before me and detailed their horror with such poise—at least not for a long time. To them I was an object, void of emotion. They spoke of me as they would a horse offered for purchase.
"If you saw such a creature as yourself pass on the street, what would you do?" she questioned.
My gaze faltered and she stepped closer. It didn't matter if her face was hidden; in the recesses of my mind I could see the expressions of those who had paid to view me in the fairs. I could almost hear the gasp of a woman who refused to look away, see the way another went pale and had to be helped away. The laughter and shrieks of children barely older than myself seemed to travel on the desert wind.
"I would look away," I answered at last, though I wasn't sure of whom I spoke; the one being watched or the watcher.
My voice had all but disappeared and I suppressed a shudder. Given the option to separate the man within and the monster on the outside, I would have hurried away and never once looked back. I would have gladly parted with such wickedness. I had dreamed of being a different person, even if only for a day.
"But he would still be there," she replied.
"Indeed."
She strolled around me and walked toward the far end of the open courtyard where the fence loomed in the distance. The path led toward a slender wooden door in the middle. I looked to the twins and Arden nodded, signaling I should follow. His shadow played alongside mine, but he didn't bother tugging me forward.
The Sultana paused at the door and waited for me.
"The killer," she said.
"I beg your pardon?"
She unlatched the door and pulled it open, and I stood, my hand shielding my eyes as I peered over her and into the empty prison yard.
A man stood chained in the middle of the otherwise empty prison yard, the iron cells apparently cleared of their temporary inhabitants. He wrenched his body back and forth so violently I thought he was in the midst of a fit.
"The man I spoke of," she said, her tone hinting at fondness. "The beheadings."
I dared to look at him, this thrashing beast attempting to free himself. Despite the dirt and sweat caked on his face, I studied him and considered the Sultana's words. If I had seen him on the street, I would not have turned away, yet he was a cruel and wicked monster. It made me hate him, this man I didn't know, for his appearance more than his actions.
"What would you have done to him?" she asked.
"That is not my choice," I answered.
"No, but it is my question."
When I looked over her shoulder I could still see the man struggling. He foamed at the mouth, his long, tangled hair partially obscuring his wide-eyed, twisted expression. I felt ashamed to stare at him, as though it reduced me to the onlookers handing their coins to a filthy gypsy that would allow them to gape at the refuse and oddities of the world.
At last I forced my eyes away, but his screaming still unnerved me. I had encountered a woman prone to fits of unrest. She was kept shacked at all times for fear of what she would do to others as well as herself. His violent outburst reminded me of her unsettling actions. The woman I had seen eventually killed herself with her own chains.
"My toy," the Sultana said sternly.
"I would see to it he never hurt another woman or child."
She lifted her hand and motioned as though calling a servant. For a long moment she waited, and the man bound in chains began screaming her title. His voice was hoarse, his words slurred and incomprehensible.
"Sultana!" he screamed. "Look at me!"
She ignored his cries, though I could not force my attention from his desperate pleas. I thought back to my days with the gypsies and how I had always remained quiet and slipped from my cage on display to my cage in the back. I wanted nothing more than to disappear. This man, however, wanted an audience.
"You have pleased me with your decision," she said to me as she closed the door and pressed herself to it, her hands splayed against the wood planks. Before she had locked the door, the man cried out; a gurgling, deathly plea or final protest that sliced through the silence. Chains rattled before the sound abruptly ended with a gunshot that made me jump.
The Sultana gave a blissful sigh, then rested her hand on her sword and turned to face me. She stood very still, her breaths unexpectedly ragged. She seemed almost at peace, as though tension had given way to release in some perverse fashion. After several seconds, she opened the door a mere crack and peered inside.
"Your first execution," she said as she closed the door and sauntered past me. "One of many, I hope."
She didn't request that I follow her and I had no intention of moving. As I stood with sweat dripping into my eyes, I had yet to comprehend what had happened.
I stared at the closed door and debated on whether I should feel remorse or relief. A murderer had been put to a swift death. He was of no concern to me, a nameless entity with no identification save his crime.
I shuddered, afraid of how similar we truly were.
"My toy," the Sultana said casually. She paused twenty paces from me and joined Kamil, who had turned away, his hands clasped behind his back. "Your face, it is different to me now."
With my eyes cast down, I waited for her to leave and for Arden to escort me back to my lovely, ornate cage. I tired of her interest in me, of the way she hid her face and exposed mine. I tired of her games and her carefully executed words.
"You are not broken," she said.
I shot her a look but didn't ask what she meant. Perhaps in her eyes I was whole, a man gruesome both on the inside and out. Perhaps she considered me still wild, a feral beast in need of a heavy hand to break my spirit.
"We will have a fine time, my precious toy, a fine time," she promised before she strolled away and disappeared into the palace.
The man's screams still echoed through my thoughts and I didn't move from where I stood. My leg ached, my face and neck burning beneath the scorching midday sun.
Arden reached for my arm, but I shrugged him away. "I know the way," I said under my breath, yet I had no idea where I would go. I was certain the smell that filled my nostrils was burning flesh and hair.
"Arden!" a man shouted as he burst from the palace and dashed toward us. He was tall and lanky, matching the twins in height but thin, almost stretched. He slowed once he had a look at me—a good look at me—and I turned, placing my hand over the right side of my face.
"What did I hear?" the man asked frantically. "What was that shouting?"
"It is done," Arden replied.
The man's face darkened, but he nodded and glanced at me briefly, his pale green eyes fixed on the back of my hand.
"Good day," he said with unexpected grace. He nodded and offered a slight yet uncomfortable smile instead of a handshake, which I was incapable of offering. "What do you call yourself?"
No one had offered me such a polite introduction, and I eyed him with suspicion and waited for him to add insult to his words. I studied him a moment, this tall and well-dressed stranger who had come barreling toward us. It surprised me that he bothered to address a purchased man—no less one as marked as me.
"The devil's son," Arden said with a nod toward me and a hint of humor in his words.
"Erik," I corrected, irritated by his sardonic tone.
The man looked me over before his gaze settled on my hand once more. "Nadir Khan," he said, offering a tight smile. "Though they call me the Daroga as well."
Before I could ask, Arden grunted. "The devil's child meets the Sultan's head of police. Some would say it is like reuniting brothers."
He didn't look old enough to hold such authority, though I suppose he probably thought I didn't look old enough to claim the title of devil's son, either. I excused his curiosity as nothing more than duty.
"Your accent, it is French, isn't it?" he questioned.
I nodded, not realizing how many years I had spent in and around Paris.
"But you are Scandinavian, yes?"
"At first."
He chuckled at my answer, though he seemed genuinely humored and not mocking. "You have traveled much."
"Not always on my own terms," I said.
To that he nodded and frowned. "You are the new one, then?" Nadir questioned.
Arden took me roughly by the arm and pulled me away before I could reply. "That has yet to be seen, Daroga."
I glanced back at Nadir Khan and thought I saw him shake his head in dismay.
"What did he mean?" I asked as he shoved me through the doorway.
Arden glared at me. "He meant nothing," he said through his teeth.
"What am I?" I asked. "The new what?"
His dark eyes stared straight ahead, his hand like a vice around my arm. "Walk," he ordered.