"What in God's name is a Medjai?"
"Something you have no business buying...that is what a Medjai is."
The man in shackles stood defiantly before the woman, his robes in tatters, and his wounds only just now showing the first signs of healing. She circled him, eyeing his disheveled yet proud muscular body up and down. Every few inches, a tear in his dark robes hung open just enough to allow the woman a good view of the muscular flesh that lay beneath the assaulted fabric.
"You were for sale, so I bought you. I do not recall seeing you protest."
"I am...tired."
Injured was more like it. Exhausted, too. Ambushed, he and a small count of his men had been fired upon, lashed at, and ultimately imprisoned and neglected. He'd lost blood, a great deal. His strength and wit had told him that stillness served him best for the moment.
They'd finally released him from the cage in Morocco, pulling his shackles and fastening him to a support column in the plaza. In this smallest of time frames in Ardeth Bay's life, he'd allowed himself to show weakness...to show pain...to exhibit inferiority. Displaying his usual masculine esteem would've brought only the fiercest of bidders.
One by one, the prospective owners filed by, lifted his arms, and parted the tears in his clothing to inspect the damage to his body. As much as his training begged him to proudly fend off their explorations, Chieftain Bay let his limbs and skin be poked and prodded, inwardly thanking Allah each and every time a slave driver passed him by. And with each denial, the leader of the Medjai Warriors grew more confident that a way to escape and return to his people would present itself.
Then she came.
She was as dark as he was, but not of his kind. Regal, affluent...overly so in her stride and demeanor, floating amongst the hoard of captives chained around him, passing each by with a nixing of her finger and audible explanation for why each wasn't purchasable.
She was within a few feet of his damaged and shackled body. His training, his pride told him to continue the weakened and beaten performance, to avoid her eyes...to do all possible to insure he, too, was passed by. Instead, the murky brown of his irises raised to the amber hue of hers, and his head swung around in an effort to clear the obsidian strands of sleek hair from his eyes to both view the woman better...and to allow her a clearer view of him.
She'd never slowed a step as she'd passed each bound man, but when her eyes landed on his dusky countenance, her slippered foot halted the rest of her body the second it landed on the sandy plaza floor. Her eyes ran up and down his body, then rested upon his face, studying the tattoos, the trimmed beard...the defiant, soulful eyes.
"This one. Tell me about him."
"A stray, my Lady. Found unconscious and bleeding amongst his fallen men. Not befitting you, if I may be so bold. I expect he will find his end as food for the beasts, for his injuries require more than I will allow."
With each of the vendor's words, the woman inspected him more closely, her eyes meeting the Chieftain's more often, a silent conversation occurring between the two. And how much do you ask for him?"
The vendor could not hide his astonishment. "My Lady, he has not the strength to serve your household. He will require too much care. Shall we move on?"
The woman spun sharply, and impaled the vendor with the sting of her stare. "I wish to know how much you ask for this one. Answer me, or we are finished."
Hours later, he stood before a fire, lit in the chambers of an aristocratic woman.
"I know that you are tired. And so shall you rest now, Medjai."
"Not without telling me why I was your choice." Her eyes had already confessed to him under the tented plaza ceiling, yet his wounded body still needed to hear her answer.
"You..." She walked around him again, a key to his shackles dangling in her hands, "You...are unlike any other slave I've seen before."
The key-carrying hand began its journey to the junction of his shackles, penetrating the lock slowly, and agonizingly unclasping the chambers that held the iron wristbands together, releasing him. She showed no fear of retaliation; no hint of nervousness at what the newly freed dark stranger before her might do now. She took the heavy shackles in her hand and tossed them into the fire, watching them land on the glowing embers briefly before backing away a few steps.
"I was once a slave, like you, Medjai. I once was bound and shackled...taken from my family, from all I'd known and trusted in life, and carted against my will to a tent not unlike the one I found you in today," she said softly.
Ardeth Bay did not run...didn't seize this invaluable opportunity to complete his escape. He chose to stay and listen as she continued speaking, seemingly lost in the memories that still held a razor sharp potency.
"I was fortunate...my fate was unlike that of so many of the other women I came to know during my imprisonment. I was purchased by a man...a good man with a good heart. He married me, freed me, and gave me a home." Her attention shifted from the now glowing shackles and turned to stare at the Chieftain intently. "Here in this place."
Still, Ardeth did not take his leave.
"The plague robbed me of him, of his kindness...but not of his wealth. His death brought to me not only riches, but the power that so easily trails it, and his kindness echoes still in my heart. It tells me what he wishes I do with the money that his soul could not take to its next life."
She took a step towards him; her eyes locked on him with warmth that took ensnared any last vestiges of escape the Medjai in him held onto. Suddenly, her stare abandoned him, and searched instead her bed chambers.
"You see my large home is empty...yet you are not the first slave I have purchased." The straight line of her lips curved upward, adding more warmth to her face, and to Ardeth's soul. "Now go. Return to your people, lead them, for I could see in your guise that this is your destiny, Medjai."
The will once stifled by fascination in Ardeth resurfaced, and his backward steps began slowly, increasing in pace as his injured body neared her chamber door. She sat next to the fire, still smiling warmly at him, encouraging him not to stop but to continue his leave. This was no trick. Her eyes told him that he was free...free for a greater good.
With the strength her eyes gave him, Ardeth took the last retreating steps and disappeared into the night air.
~*~
Her dreams were filled with good will that night, and a faint smile played across her lips as she allowed the world only seen through closed eyes to wrap itself around her. In this night world, there were no slaves, no injustices, no enemies...her wealth needed no cause to expend itself on, and pain, though rare in this sleeping world, was nothing more than physical.
Still, the physical crept in somehow this night...in the form of a large tattooed hand stroking its regal fingers across her unbound hair.
Slowly, her eyes opened, took moments to focus, then stared in disbelief at the slave she'd freed only hours before, seated on the edge of her bed and caressing her gently.
"You are free..." She assured him as she sat up and faced him. "Did you not understand, Medjai? I require nothing of you, only that you return to your people."
The hand, once running the length of her hair now played across her cheek, a set of obsidian eyes joining its path now. "I am aware."
For the first time, she saw him smile. Only slightly, but powerfully.
Within a moment of flickering time, his answer continued. "I am free...true enough. But I cannot return to my people when there is one still in chains." The hand once stroking her cheek now cradled her face joined by the other hand now as his stare deepened its meaning. "Now, it is your turn to know freedom."
With each mile traversed across the harsh dunes towards her new home, the weight on her soul lightened the pressing on her heart lifted.
And when the stallion the Medjai Chief and his Savior sat upon rode into the village gates...
Her unburdened soul grew wings.
~*~
A/N: I'm doing something a little different here and am posting a snippet written by a friend named Claudia. I felt that it was powerful and potent enough to share with all of you and she has, bless her soul, given me permission to use it and expand on it for a future story. Feedback would be appreciated and of course, I hope you enjoy her style of writing.
As for my own languishing fanfic, RL has prevented me from writing as much as I would love to but I promise updates are coming soon. Please, my characters and I beg of you…don't forget us. LOL ;-)