THE PRINCESS & THE SLAVE: Part Four

Princess Saffie woke up unpleasantly to harsh words and a forceful prodding in his shoulder. He couldn’t believe the effrontery of a servant to do that to him.

However when he opened his eyes he remembered what he looked like now and saw that the slave master, Asim, was standing over where he lay.

“Get up Raul,” snapped Asim. “How dare you fall asleep in her highness’s presence!”

Both Saffie and the real Raul, who looked on from near the railing, became frozen in surprise at this turn of events. Princess Saffie was angry that this man had ignored his orders to stay away and decided to teach him a lesson, but before he could reach for the hawk, Asim upended the cushions, tipping him away from it onto the floor.

“Get up you dog!” he cried. “I won’t have you disrespecting the princess!” He stepped between Saffie and the hawk. “Get down below with the other slaves. I will deal with you later.”

“I will do no such thing,” declared Saffie. “Now hand me that hawk and be off with you.”

Asim batted away Saffie’s hand and unravelled the whip from his belt. “With your permission you highness,” he said, “I will teach this slave a lesson for his impertinence.”

Saffie looked with alarm at Raul, still wearing her own beautiful face and his blood ran cold in his veins when the apparent princess said, “Yes. Punish him severely then put him with the rest of the slaves.”

Saffie gaped in horror at these words but before he could say anything else, the slave master cracked his whip, driving him onto the main part of the deck and toward the hold.

“Hyah!” he cried, “Hyah!” just as if he were driving an animal. Still a feint-hearted girl inside and unused to such treatment, Saffie was terrified and went where he was driven, wincing at the lick of the whip against his bare skin. This was horrible. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He was meant to be the one in control!

But he wasn’t in control now. He was forced into the hold and there his hands were tied to a roof beam and he was flogged. Again and again the whip bit into his back and he cried out in horror and pain.

Finally, when he thought he could take no more pain, the former princess was cut down from the rope and driven into a great caged holding pen for the slaves.

There were dozens of slaves in there kept only for her former enjoyment but the conditions were awful. They only had that single space for living, eating, sleeping and defecating. The stench was unbearable and the closeness to others was something he couldn’t bear.

The worst thing of all was the anonymity. Locked away in here, no one would have been able to tell him apart from the others. He was just one of fifty slaves, as ordinary as the rest of them.

And the others were mean to him. Because Raul was favoured by “the princess,” the other slaves resented him. They whispered nasty things and jabbed him with sharp objects.

The former princess put his bald head in his big rough hands and wept... until he was bullied and scorned because of it. Then he just sat, staring into the darkness, furious over what had happened and vowing to take a terrible revenge when he got his hands on the hawk again.

The irony that he was no longer seasick in the least was not lost on him.