Chapter 36: Marked
Marked, a insidious euphemism for branding.
MARKED
A goldsmith came to the palace yesterday, setting up his workbench outside the courtyard. We were unable to see him, of course, but we could hear him hammering and tapping away at the metal. Mustafa collected our broken jewelry for repair. I gave him the breast bridle I broke on the night of my first calling—given the chance, I would wear it again. He took measure around my bosom and around my upper arm with a piece of knotted string and disappeared through the archway, jewelry and the small silver tipped branding iron from the erga in hand. Returning later, he handed me the repaired jewelry and an insidious grin when I glanced down and noticed that his other hand held not one, but two branding irons, the second one a newly made copy of the first.
Later that day, Topaz and I were in the bedchamber after our calling, quietly enjoying the hookah. He had taken us both in quick succession, while we knelt on the carpet. An impressive show of virility and one I facetiously ascribed to the irresistible allure of his new women. I digress, however, from a more serious subject. Ali casually mentioned that the following evening we would attend a small ceremony, a family tradition of sorts, to celebrate our induction into his harem. At sundown tomorrow, we had to go to the eunuchs’ quarters where Yasmeen and Mustafa would make us ready. Later that night we would be marked as his slaves.
“Why are we to be branded?” asked Topaz. “I have been a good girl since coming here. I have made no mischief and always do as he tells me. I have no thoughts in my head about running away.”
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Turkish Men Branding Jewish Slave Girls |
“It is not that, Topaz. Slaves, both good and bad, are always marked; it has been that way for thousands of years. It is done to remind you of who you belong to, your position in the household, and should thieves steal you or should you escape, and are found, you can be returned to your rightful owner and dealt with.”
“Perhaps he will put his mark on my ankle. I have seen slave marks there,” she said, sounding optimistic.
We reported to Mustafa and Yasmeen at the prescribed hour. Yasmeen told me that she had earlier planned to discuss with Ali where to mark us—breasts, buttocks, and thighs were all places where I had seen girls carry their mark—and convince him to use the place that hurt the least—wherever that may be—but Ali was abrupt and not inclined to discuss anything. “I have decided; Sapphira is to be marked on her pubis and Topaz on her buttock.”
Why this was to be we did not know, for Ali’s mark resided on the inner thigh of those girls who came into his possession unmarked, girls he himself had branded—Paeonia, Nadya, Briar Rose, and Black Pearl. All others had arrived already marked as slaves in places chosen by their previous master or slaver.
“Ali has granted you two measures of an elixir, an oriental concoction of opium, honey and kava that he brought back from Al-Ta’if especially for you,” Yasmeen said. “How fortunate you are; when the Grand Vizier branded me he gave me nothing to dull my pain.”
After we swallowed our first measure of elixir, we went to the toilets to empty our bladders and bowels, “so that you will not soil yourselves, as often happens at the first touch of hot metal.”
I felt dizzy from the effect of the elixir and lay down on my back, watching black dots swim before my eyes, which now and again joined into a wall of darkness. I became lackadaisical and self-assured, and not afraid. After all, my weakened mind reasoned, the other girls had been marked and they made no faltering mention of it, and mine was to be in a special place, one I absurdly fantasized in my hazy mind that Ali had been saving for a girl special to him.
Mustafa loomed towards me, a branding iron in hand. For a brief moment, I thought he intended to brand me there and then, but I realized that the iron was cold; there was no fire.
“The mark will be uneven and unclear if I do not make the iron conform to the curve of your mons,” he explained, pulling my skirt up about my waist. He coated the iron with burnt umber, the same umber that Ali had bought from Ahmad in Al-Ta’if—he had planned for this!—and Mustafa lightly touched the cold metal to my pubis. I instinctively pulled away, nonetheless, it still left a dark umber print revealing where it had and had not touched. With finger and thumb, he bent the fine silver wire until, on the third print, the umber left a uniform mark. A drop of palm oil on a finger smeared the umber print into a dark brown spot to show clearly the place where the iron fitted. A short strip of cloth tied around the wooden handle claimed the iron as mine.
Mustafa turned to do the same for Topaz with the second iron, with her lying facedown, while Yasmeen explained.
“The burnt umber will be taken into your skin by the branding iron and it will emphasize and darken the mark—make it prettier. You will be tightly bound during marking, not because of any protest you may show, but because movement will spoil the mark. There is only one chance for a clear imprint.” Perhaps as further consolation Yasmeen told us, “The silver tip will not be heated to bright red, as when branding for punishment, but sufficient just to mark.”
“A small comfort,” I thought, nevertheless, I welcomed and appreciated it at that time.
Loose cotton gowns draped over our shoulders kept the chill away as we were led, like lambs, past a silent huddle of the other girls who had been summoned to witness the ceremony. We both needed help and support to walk the short distance to the erga—we were weak at the knees from the numbing effect of the elixir and from fear that had managed to break through the dreamlike shield raised by the kava.
Ali was standing calmly between two narrow wooden tables, their ends pushed closely against the cold stone wall. Gentle light from two oil lamps placed nearby cast a warm glow about the place and illuminated the bas-relief figures on the walls and the carved list of harem rules. Burning charcoal ominously sparked and glowed red in a small wrought iron brazier set to one side.
Our witnesses filed in and formed a line, backs to the wall, while Yasmeen folded heavy kilim rugs into thick pads and laid them over the hard tabletops. We lay down on them with our heads towards the wall. A pillow placed under my head provided some comfort and enabled me to see my outstretched body and the black iron ring mounted in the wall directly above my head. Yasmeen raised my head and gave me a second dose of elixir, much larger than the first one, and then secured my wrists to the ring above my head and parted my gown to my waist. Two leather girth straps buckled tightly around me, one across my hips and the other across my thighs, immobilized and flattened me against the kilim, forcing my pubis upwards into exposed prominence. A cord tied loosely around my ankles completed my restraint.
I watched, entranced, as the magnified ghost-like shadows of Ali, Mustafa, and Yasmeen floated silently over the walls and ceiling as they went about preparing for this barbaric medieval ordeal.
They made Topaz ready in the same way except that she lay facedown on her stomach, her outstretched arms tied tautly to a ring set low in the wall and her gown gathered up about her waist. Highlighted by the soft light that spilled from the lamps, her firm buttocks, unmercifully constrained and bulging from the tight leather saddle straps, gave grim meaning to the phrase “presenting the peach”.
Mustafa handed my iron to Ali. I expected him to immerse it and stir it about in the red-hot coals. Instead, he held it just above the glowing bed of charcoal, carefully twirling it for several long minutes. Occasionally he tested its heat on a green palm leaf, closely examining the proof mark it left scorched into the leaf. When satisfied that he had good measure of its heat, he nodded, and Talil, standing somewhere in the shadows, recited the first five rules of the harem. Ali turned to me, hesitated slightly, and then pressed the hot silver to the darkened spot on my raised pubis.
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Slave Brand |
A gush of hissing smoke burst forth as my moist skin quenched the heat from the silver, and my scream of agony from the bite of the hot metal shattered the quiet intensity of the moment. A puff of white smoke drifted slowly upwards towards the rafters. Mustafa oozed satisfaction.
As quickly as it came the pain retreated, although Ali still held the iron to me to set the mark. Satisfied, he pulled it away and Yasmeen quickly dripped oil over the brand to smother the sting.
The rising puff of smoke hit the rafters, burst apart, and slowly spilled out to the walls as silence reclaimed the room, a silence interrupted only by the frightened sobbing of Topaz. Yasmeen leaned over her to comfort her, as Ali twirled and heated her iron over the glowing embers. Talil again recited the five rules.
I cannot clearly recall Topaz’s branding. I saw her muscles tense as her tightly restrained body jerked against her bindings in answer to the touch of the iron. I heard her cry out in the far reaches of my mind, but the elixir was working, it had dulled my senses; I floated in the air and in and out of consciousness, and for the moment that was all I could remember.
Mustafa untied the cords from our wrists and ankles and loosened the leather straps. My hazy mind snapped to attention when he placed a porcelain dish upside down over my brand, its coldness contrasting sharply with the extreme heat felt earlier. It was placed there to prevent chaffing from the blanket that Yasmeen tucked down over me, for I was shivering with cold, although the erga was warm. Talil dropped a piece of frankincense onto the dying charcoal embers and a wisp of perfumed smoke lazily twisted and swirled about clearing away the smell of burned flesh. Everyone left the erga. In the new silence, I reached out and slipped my hand into Topaz’s hand and gently held and squeezed it to comfort her and reassure both of us as our minds faded into deep intoxicated sleep.
At dawn, we awoke to find shiny gold slave bangles tightly clasped around our upper arms—put there when, and by whom, I did not know.
Shortly thereafter Ali came to see us. He casually lifted the porcelain dishes to inspect his handiwork, expressed approval, and ordered the leather straps removed, and for us to be taken to my room. “They should be together while they heal,” he directed.
Ali had hurt me, some might even say tortured me, with the hot iron, but I felt no ill will towards him, only a greater sense of belonging. My emotions surprised and overwhelmed my angry sense of being wronged. Tears welled and flowed.
“Don’t cry, Sapphira, it is all over now,” said Topaz.
For me it was not over, it was not an ending, it was a beginning. A bond had been confirmed that could never be erased, a covenant sealed. I was his, and I wanted it to be that way. I felt assured and settled, neither hating nor loving him more. In truth, I didn’t want to give deep thought to what he had done to me, afraid of what I may find. Instead, in moments of shallow thinking, I found excuses, claiming that it was not his fault, that he was bound to follow family tradition no matter how much he loved me and didn’t want to hurt me.
I looked closely at my brand. The shallow grooves where the silver had burned and sunk its way into my skin were brown and shiny and the surrounding area red and blistered. An ugly wicked sight, painfully delicate to the touch. After a few days, however, the abused surroundings dried and flaked off, leaving a clear dark imprint, and thankfully the tenderness receded. It took two weeks for the skin to heal and several more for the redness and ugliness to fade away.