We have been silent for five minutes.
I am not sure what to say.
The music still echoes in my ears. It’s a low, muted pitch, like the beating of a heart.
This is a fascinating place.
The Sultan’s palace is full of strange and beautiful things that I have never seen in my small village. Beyond the music room, there is a room with a crystal bottle at the top of a hallway, where a jet of water can be turned on and made to flow down the hallway, like an enormous silver snake.
There are separate rooms for men and women.
I am beginning to think I don’t dress for the occasion.
The girls that are his top concubines are all dressed in silk, but the Sultan has his favorites and they dance in fine embroidery, each made from a different cloth, or maybe even from precious stones.
The favorite mistress had a necklace of amber, dangling from her neck… or at least she did before I ripped it off.
I think it would have worked better on her.
It looked nice on me.
The Sultan’s favorite mistress is his favorite concubine, but she is not my favorite. She looks like me, with the same hair and eyes, but she is taller and her skin is dark. She would have made a better victim.
She steps forward and lifts the knife.
I wish she had kept the amber necklace.
She looks at the blade. I can feel her eyes on my skin.
“What will you do?”
I can hear her pressing down the blade. I can feel myself shrinking away from the point of it.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Her hand clenches around the hilt of the knife.
I imagine it pressed up against my throat.
I wonder how she would think of that?
Probably calling for help.
I wish she had kept the necklace.
Then I wonder how she would feel about spilling my blood.
Over me, or in me?
Probably not very happy about it.
She would have hated that.
I like to put things in other people.
She would not have liked that.
If the knife had been silver, I think she would have slit my throat.
It would have looked a lot nicer.
Except she would have had to leave the amber necklace.
I wonder what she would have felt about that.
Probably not impressed.
I stretch out my arms, to the sky, and imagine rubbing my face in the soft, curling petals of the flower the Sultan presented us with.
The flowers are bright yellow, and they smell good, but I prefer to imagine the tiny black buds of the rose.
The rose is also yellow, but I think it would look a lot better when woven into a sheath.
I wonder what it would look like if it were covered in my blood.
Probably much like the amber necklace.
I wish she had kept the amber necklace.