The Princess of Fire

In the back of my mind I carried a concern that this idyllic existence would end, and on the eighth morning after her capture a rider entered my camp with news from the coast. It seemed that more soldiers from her country had arrived, with orders to find her and broker her return, regardless of how much blood was shed during the process. As the leader of my people, I knew it was unfair to have them die so that I might continue to enjoy the pleasure that the Princess of Fire brought to me.

I sent a servant to bring her to me from thehareem, and I arranged for a contingent of my guards to take her, and the soldiers we had captured, back to the coast before any blood had been spilt.

The servant returned with her, and she knelt after entering my tent, her head bent low. She had seen the troubled expression on my face, and I think she suspected that the news I was about to deliver would not be good. I explained to her that her countrymen were seeking her, and that it was my decision to return her to them. She looked up at me and I could see tears filling her eyes.

"Does my lord not wish to keep me as his concubine, to serve him in thehareem?"

"What I wish, and what I may have are, sadly, two very different things. While I might wish you to remain here with me, it is best that you be returned to your people, along with the soldiers that were captured with you. Know that losing you this way saddens me greatly. I have enjoyed our conversations, as I have enjoyed your body. You are a very beautiful woman, and I fear you shall be wasted with a Western husband who will not appreciate you."

"Somehow, I do not think that I will ever take a husband, unless he happens to be the last of the Barbary pirates." She smiled shyly at me, then it seemed that a question occurred to her. "Before I go, there seems to be a name that everyone calls me, but I don't know what it means. And no one would tell me when I asked."

I chuckled, then spoke the name in my own tongue, repeating it so that she could mimic the sound. "It means 'Princess of Fire.' It was given you by one of my guards when you were first brought to me, and I thought it fitting. At first it was meant because of the colour of the hair on your head. When others saw that it applied to your other hair, then it became the accepted means of referring to you. As you might guess, there are no women of your colour in our culture." She had blushed when I made mention of the hair on her loins, but did not try to cover her face. It became one more example of how well her name applied to her.

As she rose, I held up a finger and she paused with a question on her face. "After you leave this place and return to your people, you may find that you are with child...my child." Her hand moved suddenly to her belly, since she had not considered such a thing. "If this happens, then teach him the ways of your people and your world, but also teach him of mine, so that he might understand both. Find someone to teach him my tongue even as he learns yours. As he learns the ways of men, teach him also of the ways of women. Teach him respect for women, and teach him how to pleasure a woman. Your world is changing, my Princess, and soon women will play a much bigger part in it. Unfortunately, that will not be the way for the women of my world for a very long time."

I could see tears on her face in the dim light of my tent. "Can you not come with me, to teach him yourself?"

"Sadly, my Princess, I must leave this place very soon, before the new army from your country takes it upon itself to hunt down my men and me for daring to have kidnapped you and your soldiers. You and I will probably never see each other again. Remember me, but do not throw your life away in search of me, for I am like the sands of the desert and will always be moving with the wind." I nodded to the guards, and they gently led her away.

We broke camp the next day, as soon as I had received word that she had been safely given over to her people. We traveled for many days to avoid the soldiers, and I found myself missing her company at night. The other slave girls tried to give me comfort, and provide for the needs of my body, but I found myself comparing them to her, and not in a kindly way.

As the years went by, I thought often of the Princess of Fire. She had been in my life for only a few days, but she carried my heart with her, and I, hers.

— The End —