Joan Wolf Read Free Page B

image that she was vaguely surprised not to find him there when she opened her eyes.
    She poked the fire, sat back in her chair, and for the first time since they had parted she allowed herself to think of the things that had happened to her in Africa after the death of her father. She had not told her grandmother the true story, and she had determined that she would forget it herself. But though she had tried, Julianne had not forgotten. She sat now before her comfortable fire and let herself remember the strange and extraordinary circumstances that so many months ago had thrown her into the path of John Champernoun.
     

Chapter Three
     
    …captive into Africa.
    —Christopher Marlowe
     
    Lord Richard Wells was killed by a lion in Abyssinia. He and his daughter Julianne had been staying with a local king, who upon further acquaintance had proved to be a full-fledged tyrant. Lord Richard had refused to grovel before him as commanded, and Mutesa had consequently refused to provide guides and porters so the Wells party could continue on its way. They were forced to remain with Mutesa for five months, and one evening Lord Richard wandered out of camp, his Bible his only companion. When she realized he was gone, Julianne had taken a gun and followed. She heard her father cry out and ran as fast as she could toward the sound. She shot the lion as it was savaging her father’s body, but she was too late. Lord Richard’s neck was broken.
    After his death, Mutesa sold Julianne to the next Arab slave traders to pass through his territory.
    The slavers took her to Harar, a Moslem holy city and center of the slave trade in Abyssinia. Here she was sold again to other traders who were taking slaves to Cairo. Julianne was a fair-skinned blonde and the Mamelukes of Egypt were always looking for fair women to add to their harems. She would command a very high price in Egypt.
    Because she was valuable goods, she was treated well and the trip from Harar to Cairo was not as hellish for her as it was for the unfortunate black slaves who traveled with them. In all her time with the slavers no man attempted to assault her. Virgins commanded more money.
    For Julianne the entire experience was a nightmare from which she continually prayed she would awaken. Like her father she had condemned the slave trade, and the traffic in human beings so prevalent in Africa had horrified her. But never had she dreamed that she would be one of the poor unfortunates she had so pitied! It was not possible that she, Julianne Wells, could be sold into some man’s harem as if she were chattel. When she got to Cairo she would escape, she told herself, trying to keep her courage up. She would escape and seek sanctuary from one of the Christians who still lived in the city. She thought of the Cairo slave market, of the women she had seen, standing almost naked side by side in pens waiting to be sold, and she shuddered.
    She was not sent to the slave market. She was brought to a big house near the Cairo citadel and turned over to a black eunuch. He took her to a very large room filled with other young women, all of whom turned to look at her curiously as she entered. Julianne for her part surveyed them with wonder. There were a number of Circassians as blond as she and several stunning black girls whom she recognized as Ethiopians. The girls had two things in common. They were all dressed in almost transparent shirts and ankle-length Turkish trousers and they were all beautiful.
    Julianne was at the house near the citadel for almost a week. During that time she was relentlessly bathed and groomed and painted with cosmetics. She was not going to be sent to the slave market, the other girls told her. She would be offered at a private sale held for the benefit of the powerful Mamelukes, who for centuries had been the real rulers of Egypt.
    Julianne knew about the Mamelukes. They were the descendants of Christian slaves who had been brought to Egypt to staff the armies