When I awoke, I had fourteen charms braided into my hair. Their origins are easy enough to guess but I have no recollection of their significance or how I came to possess them. There is only one charm that is not a mystery to me — the Egyptian eye bead. I have relived the horrors of that day far too many times in my own mind to want to do it again for you now. But perhaps if you know even some of the tyranny I have endured, you will understand why nothing you say or do will keep me from fighting for every moment of whatever remains of my life.
Even in battle, the captain kept me locked in his cabin. If the ship were to go down, I would go with it. In the constant darkness of that room I had to rely on my other senses to understand where the ship was. I learned to distinguish when she was at sea or when she was along a river by the pitch of the waves and the roll of her gait. I could tell from the sounds of men moving on the deck above what time of day or night it was.
From the way the ship moved, I knew we had been travelling along a river for some days before we happened upon a settlement. The clamour of action on the main deck told me that a battle was nigh. Weapons were being readied, feet were pacing anxiously in the calm before the storm. The ship landed with a shudder and a roar. The men descended on the town like a thousand demons and I soon heard the screams of men and women alike. The sounds of death eventually settled into an ominous silence. Feet walked the decks again, less than before but still in strong numbers. He had not lost many men in this fight. More feet followed, they shuffled and wailed. He had taken on prisoners.
He did not linger over his conquests. Cargo and captives were hauled aboard quickly, whatever was left of the town or vessel set alight, and our ship would be off and away. Only when he had found a safe mooring would he allow his crew to bask in their spoils.
It did not take him long to find a secure harbour that day. I waited for him to return, knowing full well that he would not be alone. It was part of his ritual to take a prisoner for himself. He would have her in front of me and then kill her. I knew it was only a matter of time before he stumbled through the door, a girl swung over his shoulder or dragging behind him, but I could never seem to prepare my heart enough to steel it. I thought that, maybe if he saw that their deaths no longer affected me, he would stop. That day I was determined — no matter what he did — I would not react. I would not scream silent curses at him. I would not cry.
When the door of his cabin opened and a girl fell inside, I hardened my heart and set my jaw.
Her eyes lit on me and she leapt to her feet, falling backwards into his waiting arms. He laughed into her neck and looked at me, his eyes gleaming with anticipation of the evil he was about to commit.
"If you do not do exactly as I say, you'll end up like this one."
The girl sobbed but she nodded her understanding. I am not certain what I looked like at that point, but I suspect I was something monstrous to behold. The abuse he wrought on me must have been plainly visible to her and it must have been terrifying.
I concentrated on staring directly ahead, unseeing and unfeeling.
I looked but I did not see as he stripped her. I could feel his eyes on me each time he glanced my way, waiting for me to react. He played with her like he was a child trying to get his mother's attention by behaving badly. He made her scream and cry, beating her and fucking her mercilessly in equal turns. It was everything I could do to ignore her cries — each shrill scream was a knife to my heart.
Finally he grew tired of baiting me and receiving no reaction. He was angry. He dragged her off the bed and held her before me, his hands dangerously tight around her neck.
"Arrain txiki," he growled, "do you want her to die?"
I did not move.
The girl's eyes were frantic as his grip tightened. Her fingers clawed at his, desperate to break their hold.
"Will you not fight for this one's life like you did the others'?"
He squeezed harder when I did not acknowledge him. The girl reached out towards me, grasping at me. She wore a bracelet with blue eyes and they all stared at me.
Sweat beaded on his brow as he wrung the life from her neck. The sounds she made were deafening but still I could not waver. She would die, but she would be the last.
He dropped her lifeless body to the ground and stood over me, panting at the effort it had taken to strangle her.
I glanced up at him and the look in his eyes was one of such hatred it should have stopped by breath. But I was angrier than he was.
I could not hear anything other than my own heart. It thundered louder than the threats he was roaring down at me. I think I may have smiled at the realisation and that simple act sent him into a fury unlike any other I had ever experienced. He hauled me and the dead girl out of the cabin as if her lifeless body and my iron shackles weighed nothing.
He ordered the crew to tie a rope around my waist and had them pitch us both overboard. My chains dragged me down faster than the girl but I reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her towards me. I hugged her close, praying a thousand apologies into her hair. I thought I would drown as we sank into the darkness and I was prepared to die in the deep if it meant his last memory of me would be one of defiance. But, suddenly, the rope around my waist went taught. I gasped as they began to haul me back to the surface, clutching at the girl. I cannot say why I tried to pull her up with me but the water had her and I could not fight its grip. As the currents wrenched her away from me, the bracelet she was wearing came apart in my hand. Faster and faster I shot to the surface, the world exploding in air and light as they dragged me from the depths.
He let me sink three times more, each time long enough that I could drown if I wanted to. It was a test — one he would repeat many times in the future. He wanted to know if I had given up fighting, if he had finally taken the will to live from me.
I will not lie and tell you that I did not consider it. There were times that death sang sweetly to me, begged me to open my mouth and drink the water in. But I never did.
I value the bead you took from me, Shariyar, but do not make the mistake of thinking that if you break it, you will break me.
The page felt heavy in Shariyar's hand and the bead tucked in his pocket felt even heavier. He turned the page over, simultaneously hoping and dreading that he would find more written overleaf. Indeed, she had written a few, short sentences more:
The reason I do not say the captain's name aloud is because I never have. At first, it was because I could not speak at all. But even since my voice was returned to me I have refused to say it. I hear his name in my mind in the voices of a hundred other women, but never in my own.
I will write his name for you now but you will never hear me speak it...
Zigor
Shariyar ran his fingers over the pirate's name. The girl had all but stabbed the page.
He let the parchment fall slowly onto the desk and hung his head in his hands.
It cannot be true.
He thought.
This is a fantasy. She has concocted this story from thin air the way she did the story of Qadir.
Shariyar stood up and took the bead from his pocket, cupping it in his palm. The eye glared up at him, its unwavering gaze accusatory as ever. He returned the bead to his pocket quickly and began to pace the room, a thousand thoughts crowding his mind at once.
Above all, he concentrated on one:
The girl is a storyteller. This is naught but another fiction.
+++++++++
The girl sat listlessly by the fountain as dusk darkened the sky and the stars began to find their places. She ran her fingers through the water, watching the ripples expand and fade.
She was tired, not of body but of heart and mind. She had told a hundred stories, but her own was the hardest to express. Each word was an old wound reopened, an old tear shed anew. Scheherazade let her shoulders slump and concentrated on holding back her emotions, steeling them now just as she had so many times in the past.
From a distance she heard the door to the chamber opening. Shariyar had returned for the day. She sat up straighter, moving her wrist in lazy circles as if she had not a care in the world.
He paused for a moment in the doorway, staring out at her with his arms crossed. The girl certainly did not look as if her confession had weighed on her soul at all.
Shariyar walked into the courtyard and sat beside her at the fountain. Wordlessly, he pulled the bead from his pocket and held it out to her. The girl glanced at him briefly before taking the charm, her fingers barely grazing his. She glanced into his eyes for only a moment, but her gaze spoke volumes.
"Thank you," she whispered, holding the bead tightly in her fist.
