This is the story of Sara, a Dutch woman, who is captured by the Barbary pirates on her way to the Dutch East Indies. She is given as a present to the Bey, the ruler of Tunis. His first wife appoints Sara as the nanny of the royal children as the eunuchs deem her too old to be send to their master's bed.
However when they Bey discovers her in his palace garden singing with his children he starts to listen to her stories of the history of her homeland. He realises that her decision to teach his kids foreign languages will help them gain more power. He orders Sara to be brought to his bed as his new concubine.
When he notices the next morning how she reacts to his cat and remembers that that same loving smile was directed to his children he longs to have her smile like that to him as well. He decides to woe her by ordering her to come and wash him in his bath every morning while teaching him all her knowledge. Combining like this ways to learn about new strategies and ways to get her defences down.
First we have to do a bit of correcting: During the Turkish period of Tunesia the governor the Turkish pasha had a dey who was the highest general and a bey who was the highest civil authority. But the beys developed into a more or less royal house with the Turkish sultan as the feudal lord. Ali was the high general but succeeded his father-in-law so his title would have been Bey, Ali Bey.
Normally this story is in the "romance" section as it is about the loves of two couples but this chapter has so much violence in it I could put it in the non-consent one. But as it is more than just coupling I guess it still suits better in romance. Please feel free to leave comments.
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"I do not understand why women shave off all their bodyhair in this part of the world," thought Sara, looking down at her bare pubic area while she was sitting in the large bath in the private rooms of her lord and master. "To me I look like a chicken ready to be turned into chicken soup."
The contrast with the Bey's tanned hand that rested on her thigh made her even more look like a plucked chicken.
"Sarah Annechien Douglas," she thought, "What would your father have thought when he would have seen you here, sitting naked on the lap of the Turkish ruler of Tunis?"
The other thumb of the man was slowly circling her nipple, cupping her breast. Her flesh white against his bronzed hand.
"Saartje, Saartje, he would say. How did my daughter end up there?"
"Yes," the woman they had renamed from her Scottish Sarah or Dutch Saartje, the nationality of her parents, to Muslim Sara thought, "my father fought as a mercenary in a war that had the battlecry 'rather Turkish then Papist' but I do not think he meant this.
It was obvious her lord and master was deep in thought. On days like that he seemed to feel the need just to hold his slave and slowly caress her or wash her hair sitting in the warm bathwater.
It was now two months after the day he had made her his concubine. But after the night her virginal blood had spotted his bed he had never bedded her again. His favourite, a Dutch slave called Leila, was sometimes mocking Sara with that. Leila, gorgeous airheaded Leila who had seen herself elevated to a world of luxury from her drab past as maid only because she could bounce so skilfully on their lord's rod.
Sara knew girls like Leila, but the wives as well, wondered what the Bey was doing with her. Why he had insisted she would bring him his morning meal and wash him in his bath while teaching him the foreign words and telling him European history. The Bey had said he wanted to absorb her knowledge. All she was teaching his children.
So for many weeks now Sara would carry the three-layered serving platter with teapot and teacups, yoghurt, dates, bread, cheese and cherry jam to his room. If she found him and the lady of the night still asleep, she would send the woman away and wake their lord. But sometimes she just waited until the pair was ready with their morning tryst. The air heavy with the scent of sex.
At first she had been scared and very shy. But after a few mornings washing the sleepy man, it had started to feel normal to move her hands all over him. To stand there naked soaping him. Stealthily she had begun to explore the planes of his body. He was not a very tall man like her Dutch natives, but his shoulders were square and strong, his arms and legs muscled like ropes under his skin. She liked to wash his hair. The long black curls to weave her hands through, her fingers massaging his scalp. She though he had beautiful eyes.
After a couple of days he had told her that grasping new concepts and learning foreign words needed him more awake, so that from that moment he would have breakfast first, before having her bathing him. After patiently waiting on him one day, the next morning he had directed her to the bed to sit next to him. It had felt strange to sit in a space warmed by his body. He had handed her his teacup when she poured him a second helping, nodding to her to drink it before excepting a new one.
After a few days like that she had brought two teacups. His eyes had twinkled. "Well my lord I thought with two cups you do not have to wait that long for your tea to get cold."
He had nodded and when she poured two cups for him handed one back to her. "You finish that one Sweet."
She had spent so many mornings sharing his breakfast now. He was absorbing her knowledge but she realised he was teaching her as well. Her Arab and Turkish was improving a great deal. She had the feeling it amused him to talk to a woman who could not only read and write but in several languages as well.
She found out he was as interested in history as she was. He would lean on his bed and ask her about the European wars, the royal houses, the weaponry while enjoying his meal. Occasionally stuffing her mouth with a date or another good morsel.
She had told him about her father, the Scottish third son of a nobleman, who had crossed the sea to fight in the Spanish-Dutch war to gain his own fortune. When the peace of Westfalen ended all the big European wars all at once her father had picked up teaching history at the university of the small city south of Amsterdam. Moving into a nice house on the border of a canal and marrying a blossoming Dutch maiden.
The Bey had listened to Sara's stories. About her long dead Dutch mother. About her sister Maartje who was four years older and who had married a merchant in Amsterdam. She had learned his parents were long dead and he had no siblings. Apart from the children she was teaching he had three already married daughters with his first wife.
Most of the time he was quiet apart from when he had to repeat the foreign words she was teaching him or the odd question he would fire at her. She realised that when he wanted her quiet he would just prepare her some food and offer it to her lips.
After his meal and lesson he would walk her to his bath and she would wash and dress him like a good slave. But some mornings he was like he was today. He would just sit her on his lap and wash her instead. She loved his strong hands in her hair. His hands lathering all her curves still had her blushing.
All those things her husband had never done.
One day she had mentioned her husband. Ali had looked up from his dates surprised. "Did you just say your husband was a doctor and said that.... What husband? You were a virgin in my bed!"
She had told him about the doctor, chirurgein Robert Arendszoon de Vries, the young doctor who had visited her ailing old father more and more often in his last years. The quiet tall man who had nursed him and spend many hours sitting with Saartje. When after months her father had gone to join his wife who had died young in a carriage accident the doctor had talked with Sara about marriage.
