The auctioneer smiled at her and answered her nod with one of his own. He'd seen it so many times before. And yet slaves must come from somewhere. They don't replace themselves, generally. This child, at least, has a chance of finding a reasonably happy position. How much worse for the ones who are older, the ones over nine?
"That's a good girl," he said. "I'll tell you what; let's make a deal. If you can stop crying I'll do my best to get you into a decent family that won't make you work too hard and won't beat you. And—" the auctioneer reached into a pocket of his robe and pulled out a bar of halawa, waving it slightly under Petra's nose—"if you'll show me how well you can smile, I'll give you this."
Petra hadn't been fed since being taken from her family. Though the slaves were watered, feeding slaves who weren't expected to be here in the stables long was something of a wasted and unnecessary expense. She licked her lips at the sight of the bar of honey-sweetened, crushed sesame.
"Can you smile for me?"
Slowly, and with difficulty, Petra forced her face into something that was approximately a smile.
"There's a good girl!" the auctioneer congratulated, patting her gently on the head. He took her little hand in his own larger one and placed the sweet in it. "Here, this may help you keep that pretty smile."
"What's the reserve on this one?"
The speaker was a Moslem, Abdul Mohsem, a man, a merchant, in his late thirties, with a substantial roll of prosperity-born fat about his middle. Stealing a glance upward from where she knelt on the straw of her cell, Petra thought he looked kindly, despite the rifle slung across his back.
Few of the Nazrani in the province even had the wherewithal to buy a slave. Fewer still were interested, though some were, notably the brothel keepers. These sometimes took a chance on a pretty girl, even if she was still far too young to put to service. Abdul Mohsem knew this, and hated the idea.
True to his word, the slave dealer had sought out a decent family for the girl. Indeed, he'd sought out the most decent patriarch he knew in the community.
"Ten gold dinar," the slaver answered, then, seeing that Adbul didn't blanch, added, "plus twenty silver dirhem."
Abdul Mohsem scowled, inducing the dealer to further amend, "But for you, just ten gold dinar."
"Ten gold dinar seems fair," Abdul said, "but I wasn't scowling over the price; I was scowling over the fact."
"The fact?"
"Facts, actually. One, that we sell young girls and, two, that if I don't buy this one she'll end up in a brothel."
"It is not for us to forbid what Allah permits," answered the dealer, who considered himself, not without reason, to be a pious man.
"Neither does Allah require of us everything that he permits," observed Abdul Mohsem, still scowling.
To that the dealer shrugged. It was not for him to question the words or the workings of the Almighty. "Do you want the girl or not?" he asked.
Without answering, Abdul Mohsem knelt down and pushed aside Petra's long blond hair. With his thumb he brushed off a smudge on the girl's cheek.
"Would you like to come home with me, and become a companion to my daughter, Besma?" he asked, smiling.
Shyly and fearfully, forcing a smile, Petra nodded.
"Be happier, girl," Abdul chided. "We'll not work you too hard, nor force you to give up your faith. And my Besma is sweet, if maybe a little too strong-willed. You'll like her. And it's better than the alternative."
Of that, Petra had little doubt, even if she was hazy on the details.
Leading Petra by the hand, Adbul Mohsem brought her through the Marktplatz, past a dozen or so tables where men chatted while sipping at thick Turkish coffee. Ultimately they arrived at a large house guarded by a doorkeeper in one of the town's better residential neighborhoods.
The doorkeeper nodded respectfully at Abdul Mohsem, smiled down at the girl, and then held the heavy oaken door open for them. Abdul Mohsem's was a happy household; smiles were not rare.
"Besma!" the patriarch called, "Besma, light of my life and pearl of my heart, come here."
Petra heard the pitter-patter of feet little or no larger than her own, coming down a hallway to the expansive foyer in which she stood with her new master. She soon caught sight of a girl, about her own size if a little older, very pretty with huge brown eyes and slightly olive skin. The girl's smile was brilliant, and why not? "Besma" meant "smile."
Besma took one look at Petra and began to dance around the foyer, shouting, "Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh, Father, a friend for me! Oh, she's beautiful; she's wonderful! And I've been so lonely. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"
Seeing Besma jumping and twisting in the air, her feet kicking lightly, set Petra to laughing, shyly at first but growing with each new step, leap, twist and kick. Finally, worried that she might offend, she covered her mouth and forced herself to seriousness, pushing her chin down to her chest.
Besma, however, was having none of that. She stopped her dancing, walked over to Petra and took her by the hand. "I only have one sister," the Moslem girl said, "Aisha. And she's a lot older than me, with her own family now. I miss having a sister at home. Will you be like my sister?"
Fort Benning, Georgia,
5 October, 2106
Cars were no longer a matter of right for an American. Between the strains of the war, the taxes, the limits on gaseous and liquid fuel and the priority the military had on it, not all Americans could afford an automobile. Of those who could, not all were permitted to own one. The country had changed in many ways over the last ninety years, and many of those changes were not for the better.
As a military officer, Hamilton was in the privileged class. He could have a car. He was allowed to have one, though, not for his own pleasure and convenience. Rather, he was allowed to have one to take care of military business at personal expense and to ensure he could make it in to his unit in the event of an alert.
The car drove itself, leaving Hamilton free to interlace the fingers of both hands between his head and the headrest, and simply to relax. After the last couple of months, relaxation was something he would never take for granted again.
The car—it was a two-seat, multifuel job made down in Guadalajara to a Japanese design—left the strong smell of overdone french fries behind it.
"Building Four coming up on the left," the vehicle announced.
Hamilton glanced leftward out the window and smirked at the bronze statue in front of the main academic building on the post. The building dated back to 1964 and had seen many renovations in its time. The last one had, with something less than full success, attempted to make the thing match the more tasteful architecture of the Infantry Center's early days, all stucco and red tile.
The statute, bronze and about as old as the building, was of a lieutenant in the act of leading his men forward. The lieutenant wore a helmet of a design obsolete more than a century past. One hand gripped an even older style rifle while the other gestured onward, poised forever at about neck level.
"I've had this shit up to here, too, buddy," Hamilton whispered.
He'd graduated from the Imperial Military Academy, though it had been touch and go the last month, with most of his free time spent walking off his myriad sins. He'd won the Martinez Award, too, as everyone had predicted. Then, to everyone's shock, Hamilton had finished Ranger School as the Distinguished Honor Graduate. This was no mean feat in a class that size or with competition that fierce. As such, under the regulations, he'd had his choice of branch and chosen Suited Heavy Infantry. He really didn't want to freeze his ass off hunting the northern rebels he still—punishment tours or not— thought of as Canadians.