The Silver Sparrow

Lamb to the Slaughter

The girl screamed like a lamb in a slaughterhouse as his father fucked her, only lambs tended to stop screaming much sooner. The merchant's daughter couldn't have been much more than sixteen, obviously hadn't been touched by a man and therefore hadn't lived long enough to understand that the point of rape was really because men loved to hear them scream.

Which was why the screaming didn't die down after a few minutes (and would likely to be repeated later tonight). It went on and on, one shriek after another, loud enough for anyone within fifty paces to hear. Passers-by kept their mouths shut, of course. It might have been strictly against the law to assault a Shakshi woman, but the emphasis was on Shakshi, not woman, and this one was from Harathi.

One of the many privileges of being kha'a was the ability to choose the amount and nature of tax to be paid by caravans anyway he liked. Every khagan knew the size of profits merchants made from trading with Makena—the richest, last free nation outside of the White Desert yet to be claimed by the Salasar where the finest silk and gemstones came from. And since the only way by land to get to Makena was through the White Desert, the khagans taxed whoever passed through their territories at whatever price they saw fit for the protection of the caravan and the use of their oasis. It skyrocketed the price as well as profit of all goods from Makena, and when that happened, enough merchants could be expected to jump through hoops of fire to acquire these goods.

So when the kha'a said the tax was to be paid by your wife or daughter in exchange for the entire caravan to make it out of the desert, the payment would be quickly delivered to his tent, screaming or not. These merchants always came prepared to lose something other than coins in any case. Most fathers understood the price to be paid for such high profits. The understanding, however, did not always extend to daughters, or wives.

Baaku imagined the practice might not have been received well at first by their women, but who was going to object a kha'a when it wasn't one of their own? You turned a blind eye to these things, and if you did that often enough, you adapted to it, learned to live with it, and eventually—and conveniently—managed to forget it was wrong in the first place. The same way Baaku had learned to live with his father's fist every time the old man was in need of something to beat up since he was six.

The same way his mother had learned to sit so still and unaffected listening to her husband rape a girl as young as their daughter.

His two sisters, Akila (about to turn seventeen) and Naani (twelve), so far hadn't learned to live with it. The longer the girl screamed (which sounded like every fucking time his father slammed into her), they looked closer and closer to either vomiting or weeping, or both.

They couldn't do that, of course, not with the entire council in the tent and in the presence of a visitor.

Sitting opposite to Baaku, Zardi izr Aziz, Khumar of Khalji, had been assessing both of his sisters since he'd arrived, seemingly oblivious to the screaming that had been going on for the entire duration of his presence in the tent. He was there to discuss his marriage with Akila, or Naani should the first were to be given to another. He was being made to wait, as per tradition, being both only a khumar and from a lesser khagan. Things like that mattered when it came to negotiations.

Both of Baaku's sisters and his mother were also there as per tradition. The law required everyone's consent when it came to marriage, including the girl being asked to marry. Such privilege was something Shakshi women had enjoyed for centuries, but if you were born daughter to the kha'a or khumar, you were raised to show nothing but consent in marrying any man your father chose for the good of the khagan. It meant more food, more water, an ally and therefore more protection during raids and internal conflicts. They didn't like it, of course, but such responsibility came with privilege, and only barbarians threw tantrums over responsibilities they were born with. Denying or running away from a marriage was unheard of for daughters of kha'as and khumars. You could shame both your father and the man you were supposed to marry, then spend the rest of your life cleaning the blood of thousands from your hands after the war you initiated. It simply didn't happen in the White Desert. Their women were never raised that naive, spoiled, or self-centered.