Golden Lion by Wilbur Smith & Giles kristian

Author:Wilbur Smith & Giles kristian [kristian, Wilbur Smith and Giles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2015-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Judith was taken through the streets of Zanzibar in a carriage whose windows had been covered so that she had no idea where she was going. There came a point, however, when she heard orders being barked, a gate opened and then the echoing of hooves and wheels as the carriage passed beneath an arch, crossed some kind of open courtyard before passing through a second gate and only then coming to a halt.

The door of the carriage was opened and before her stood a portly, middle-aged man with a chin as perfectly hairless as his shaven scalp. In a high, effeminate voice he said, ‘Follow me. His Highness wishes to see you, but he will not wish to set eyes on you looking like that.’

He’s a eunuch, Judith thought and then, as she was led into a large, marble-floored room, strewn with soft rugs decorated with intricately woven patterns and heady with the scent of roses, amber and musk wafting from the candles that cast a golden glow over the half-naked women draped in poses of idleness and boredom on the cushions and divans with which it was furnished, she realized, I’ve been taken to a harem.

The man led her into a chamber in the middle of which was a pool filled with softly steaming water and strewn with rose petals. Two young women, servants or handmaidens of some kind, she supposed, were waiting for her. ‘See that she is prepared for His Highness,’ the eunuch commanded, sounding less like a man than a petulant child.

‘Your bath has been prepared, my lady,’ one of the servant girls said. ‘May I take your gown?’

Judith’s immediate instinct was to reply, ‘No, you may not!’ But there was no purpose in picking a fight with underlings who lacked the power to do anything that might help her. Her quarrel was with the man who ruled them and the only way she was going to see him was if she allowed herself to do what the eunuch deemed necessary. So Judith bathed and was then dried and scented oil was rubbed into her skin. One of the servants asked her to sit and then smoky black kohl was painted around her eyes, rouge was dabbed on her lips and her hair was pinned up and draped in strings of pearls like fabulously extravagant versions of the headdress she had worn to greet Hal at Mitsiwa, just a few weeks earlier. The girls placed ornately jewelled pendants in her ears and then asked her to stand so that they could dress her.

‘Oh, my lady, you are so beautiful,’ one of the servants said, as Judith stood naked before her. ‘The prince will be overwhelmed by desire.’

‘Aleena will be wild with jealousy!’ the other girl giggled. ‘You are bound to be his new favourite!’

They dressed her, if it could be said to be dressing, in a short-sleeved bodice that resembled the ones Judith had seen Indian women in streets of Zanzibar wearing beneath their saris.

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