Captured For The Sultan’s Pleasure

Roksolana woke up feeling disoriented. When she looked at the room where she was, she couldn’t remember where she was or how she had gotten to the place. She tried to look around some more to study her surroundings but her head felt like ten building blocks had been placed on it. When she tried to touch the place that hurt, she saw that she was tied to a chair and she winced. She whipped her head slightly to remember exactly how she had gotten into the predicament she was in but nothing appeared in her brain or even tried to appear. She was blank like she had suffered a memory loss.

She was still trying not to panic while trying to remember how she got to being tied to a chair in what seemed like a half-burnt room with all the blackness that even years of abandonment has not been able to erase away completely. One thing she knew was the fact that even though she couldn’t remember how she got to the place, she was in trouble for being at such a place, given the position she had woken up to and how badly her head hurt which means that someone had bashed her on the head before tying her like a Sallah goat to the chair.

She tugged at the rope holding her to see if the person who had tightened it was a bad rope tighter but she soon found that to be a wrong assumption when the rope would not give way no matter what she did. She was still thinking about solutions to how she would leave the place before whoever had captured her returned when a man walked in. As soon as her eyes fell on him, everything came back to her at once and Roksolana gasped at the awful memory that kept replaying in her head.

“You! You killed Lady Miriam!” she screamed at the intruder.

Sodeeq smiled evilly. Yes, he had killed the useless woman who had never been able to do anything right, so what? Who would arrest him or kill him over that little fact? Who would even be able to tag him with the death of the woman? No one, he thought. Since he was going to make sure that the only witness was no longer breathing before the day was over.

“She was your lover, you evil man. She even carried your baby and yet, you strangled her to death like she was nothing and no one to you,” Roksolana said, almost crying.

“Do not mention the arm of that stupid woman to me, woman!” Sodeeq said with a spat.

“You heartless monster!” Roksolana shouted, finally letting the tears flow. Even though she and Lady Miriam were not friends, Roksolana felt sorry for her for mingling with a heartless soul like the general.

Sodeeq laughed at the tears he saw falling from the eyes of Roksolana. He wondered why she was crying for the person who was already dead instead of pitying herself and pleading for mercy from him. He looked at her and smirked as he thought that he would enjoy killing her little by little before setting her on fire in the building and letting Jamal hear the news from his throne. The look on Jamal’s face would be worth all his years of waiting before he entered his revenge on him. Now that he even thought of it, it would be an act of perfect revenge for him. He turned to a tithe woman whose tears were beginning to irritate him and he shouted at her.

“Ya Allah. Will you shut up, woman? You are disturbing my peace!” he shouted at her.

“How could you kill someone and not feel remorseful over it?” Roksolana asked, sniffing to keep her tears at bay.

Sodeeq laughed at her words again. She was blaming him for what he had done to that woman? What if he told her about who had instigated the battle that had happened between her sultanate and Wadai’ sultanate? What would she term him as then? He decided to tell her anyway to see her reaction.

“Haven’t you ever wondered how Jamal found your small sultanate and why he was interested in your land, enough to attack you?” he asked her. He smiled at her when her eyes grew wilder in recognition of what he was implying. “That’s right. I told him about your land and also lied about the treasure that your sultanate does not have just to entice him and get him to go over.” He explained to her.

Roksolana was confused. As far as she knew, their sultanate had never done anything against the man she was looking at.

“Why?” She asked in a small voice.

“Because I happened to find out that the people of your sultanate were skillful warriors, so I set Jamal against you so that he would fight against you all and then you all can help me kill him. What I didn’t expect was the fact that you people would be fekbreating that day and would not be prepared. You bunch of fools let him prevail over you. Disappointed me a lot,” he explained to her.

Roksolana’s eyes grew fire. How dare the general use her sultanate and the people in it for his selfish reasons? How dare he destroy the only homeland she had grown up in just because of a fight that they knew nothing about? How dare he displaced the people of Dar Sila just because he wanted to kill a single man?

“I’m going to kill you!” she screamed at him.

“How? With the way you are tied to the chair?” He asked with a mischievous tone.

“You idiot. Why didn’t you just kill the Sultan on the ship when he was severely injured?” Roksolana asked, just out of curiosity.

“You think I wouldn’t if I was there and I saw that he was injured?” he answered with a question of his own. When he saw the conference expression on Roksolana’s face, he smiled maliciously. “I wasn’t on that stupid ship.” He told her.

Roksolana shook her head at the general in disgust but quickly stopped when the head hurt a lot. She was sure now that the man in front of her was out of her mind. How could he say that he was not on the ship when they had spent most of the sea voyage together. When Sodeeq laughed at her again, she scowled at him.

“But we were together most of the time, Sodeeq. I even gave you a black eye,” she reminded him.

The eyes of the man in front of her darkened and she cowered inwardly.

“Don’t ever address me with that coward’s name again,” he stressed to her.

“Isn’t that your name?” Roksolana asked, afraid of the answer she would get.

“No. The coward is my brother,” the man sneered.

“You’re Sodeeq’s brother?” she asked in amazement.

“Was. Since I would be killing him soon for supporting that wretched Sultan.” The man looked at her and said to her in disgust.

“You’ll kill your own brother? That’s the height of being wicked!” she screamed at him.

The man looked at her like she was mad. Anger blazed from his eyes to her and she couldn’t help but dread if she wouldn’t end up losing her life faster because she was pestering him.

“You think I’m wicked? Wait until I tell you what that stupid man that called himself the Sultan of Wadai’ did to me and you tell me who is crueler!” he screamed back at her and she closed her eyes.

***

Jamal sighed as he and his soldiers stood in front of the old building which had been abandoned ever since the unfortunate incident that has claimed the three people he loved the most from him. True, the fire hadn’t killed his father but the death of the woman he loved had killed him later.

“Sultan?”

One of the men with him called and Jamal sighed again. He had no choice other than to get in there; that is if he wanted together the chance to save Roksolana. For all they even know, someone else might have kidnapped her and tried to make it seem like it was the general that had done it.

“Well…”

Jamal had been about to give instructions to his men when a new thought came into his mind. What if it wasn’t Sodeeq who was the enemy he should be chasing right now? What if it was Asleem? The other man had confessed that he instigated Roksolana against him to kill him. He had confessed to seeing an assassin trying to kill him minutes later and then, he had confessed to shooting an arrow at Roksolana. Jamal’s face fell as he thought that Asleem could have purposely left him on a wide goose chase.

Hadn’t the man told him that he was in love with Roksolana? Jamal was sure that such a man would do anything in his power to have the woman he wanted. Jamal would have tried to win her over by all means too if she had chosen Asleem rather than him. Besides, with the number of men Jamal had seen earlier, he couldn’t be sure that Asleem wasn’t planning a revolt. He turned back immediately to rush over to Lady Miriam’s house but one of his armies asked him where he was off to.

“I need to go and check on the other location,” he told his men.

“But, isn’t Asleem over there already?” one of the men asked.

“He is, but I still feel like going over myself,” the Sultan told them.

“But, we are here already, Sultan. It would be a waste to just leave without even checking,” another of his men voiced his opinion.

Jamal had to agree with his man. If he rushed over to Lady Miriam’s house and he found out that his fear had been over nothing, and the building was where his woman was all the while, he would never be able to forgive himself if anything happened to her. He would never be able to live on knowing that he was only mere seconds away from having her but he had let his opinion about another person obstruct that. They had to get inside and search. There wasn’t much to the building in any case, so it would be easier to search for two people. If they got nothing, they would move out immediately.

“Let’s get in the building then,” Jamal gave in. His men showed their surprise to see him agreeing to their plan. He admitted silently within himself that Roksolana coming into his life had changed him in more ways than he could ever comprehend. All the more reason why he shouldn’t lose even a single hair on her body. He assigned his men to secure the perimeter, leaving only three people to search the building with him. If there was even a chance they were here, he wasn’t about to lose them.

The men all moved into their different positions and Jamal waited until they were all settled all around the building. When they were in place, the Sultan signaled for the three men left with him to follow him in and they moved stealthily into it. As he walked, Jamal requested the urge to look around the place as he fought the horrible memory he had of the place. When one of his men peeped onto the first room, he gave Jamal the all-clear signal and they all walked in.

Their search went on until there were only two rooms left. Jamal knew about it because he remembered the building structure vividly. He, his brother, Sodeeq, and Sodeeq’s brother had always played there as children until the unfortunate incident happened. He was about to speak up when his man stopped and lifted his hand in the air to signal that everyone should be silent. Jamal looked at the man with a query look and the man pointed to his ear to tell Jamal to listen.

Jamal etched his ears and listened carefully. It wasn’t until long before he picked up some voices coming from the next room and he shivered in fear when he heard Roksolana’s voice asking if her captor would murder his brother. The Suites became confused because he was sure that the abductor would not be Sodeeq then since the man didn’t have any brother. When the man told Roksolana that Jamal had done something wrong to him, the Sultan knew that he was the target and not Roksolana. Without pausing for a breath, he busted into the room to reveal himself. When he saw that the man before him was still Sodeeq, he became confused even more but he schooled his features not to reveal his shock.Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.

“Sodeeq!” Jamal screamed his name.

The man had been in the middle of telling the woman he had captured about his true identity when the man he hated the most in his entire life called his name. He straightened up well and bestowed the Sultan with a wicked smile.

“Glad to see you here, Sultan Jamal. The party was just getting started,” he said with a sneer.

The moment Roksolana heard the voice that spoke, her joy knew no bounds. If Jamal was here, he was going to save her, she thought with a happy smile. She hadn’t realized how much she had been relying on him to know that she was missing and him trying to look for means to save her until she had his voice.

“Sodeeq, how dare you do this to Lady Roksolana?” Jamal asked, looking at Roksolana. He moved toward her to free her but Sodeeq stopped him mid-way.

“Don’t you think that you and I have a score to settle, Jamal?” the man asked him.

“What are you talking about? Why are you acting like this too? Why is my best friend hurting my woman?” Jamal asked.

“I don’t think he’s Sodeeq, Jamal. Be careful,” Roksolana whispered.

Jamal looked at the general and shook his head. It was impossible for him not to be Sodeeq. How can two people look so much alike? If he was not Sodeeq, then who was the man?”

“Wondering who I am, Jamal?” the man said.

“Who are you?” the Sultan asked.

“Don’t you remember this room? Don’t you remember, Jammy?” the man asked instead of replying.