Shiri by D.S. Page A

You want sleep me, I no want sleep you, you same as others ... you same but bigger ugly, hah!”
    “No I don’t want to sleep with you,” he raised his voice. “You can sleep on the mattress.” He pointed to it. “I’ll sleep on the floor. Then in the morning when the army has pulled out you can go home and forget all this.”
    “Stupid Gypto I already tell, no home no family you kill. I clever you stupid hah! I know your words you not know mine!” She tapped the side of her head with her knuckles and m ade a mocking open-mouthed face. “Stupid fat Gypto. You dumb like donkey.” She produced a noise that he assumed was supposed to sound like said creature. “Donkey! Donkey! Stupid fat donkey! Hah!”
    “Sweet Ba’al almighty!” he raised his arms, half laughing as he turned away from her.
    He heard her voice again, “What you say?” Her voice was different this time, softer, quieter.
    He glanced over his shoulder, weary from all this. He rubbed his head. The wound in his scalp was throbbing.
    “What you say?” She said again, staring at him intently.
    Now it was his turn to be confused. “What?”
    “What you say? What you say! Say again!” She rose to her feet and stepped closer.
    He shook his head. “Um ... you can go home and forget all this.”
    “No! No!” she stamped her foot in frustration. “The bull! Ba’al the bull!” She struggled to find the words, “The ... the Storm Lord! Ba’al !” Two more steps brought her face only inches from his. She seemed almost to be studying him, his features, his nose, his mouth, his cheeks, still red and bleeding where she had scratched him. He was paler than the other Gypto’s. Her gaze rested on his eyes – so blue, none of the others had blue eyes. She remembered something, something from a past that seemed almost a dream. Soldiers ... soldiers in Yaham. He looked away. He had never before failed to meet someone’s gaze, not even his father’s, but he failed now.
    She spoke again, more softly than he had heard her speak before, “ Ba’al god of Shepherd not Egypt.”

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Part II
    Master and Slave

I
    She stood there, hands on hips, legs sligh tly apart, daring him to answer. “Who are you?” She said again, and this time in her own tongue, “You’re no Gypto.”
    “B e silent.” He balled his hand into a fist and attempted an aggressive gesture. “Be silent or it will be the worse for you.”
    “Be silent,” it was a nasal mockery of his own voice. She took a step closer, staring up at him almost aggressively and then all at once she shoved him. “Who are you?” He was forced to take a step back, his mouth felt dry. “You ask many questions,” he said slowly.
    “ You answer few.”
    “It’ s no concern of yours who I am,” he said at length. “I bought you and now I’m freeing you. What does the rest of it matter? Once we’re away from the camp we’ll go our separate ways. So let that be the end of it.” He turned from her as if there was no more to be said.
    The girl was clearly of a different opinion. “You’ll tell me or ... or I’ll scream ... I’ll scream loud enough to rouse the whole camp and you can explain yourself to Pharaoh.”
    He turned and for the first time answ ered the girl in her own tongue. “Scream all you want, nobody will come.”
    She scrunched her lips as if tasting something bitter. “You weren’t lying when you said you would release me were you?”
    “ Like I said, you can sleep in the tent here tonight, and tomorrow too if need be, and once the army has left you can go.”
    “Just tell me who you are.”
    She was, he concluded, decidedly ungrateful. “If I tell you, you’ll have a power over me. You may try to blackmail me.”
    She huffed in frustration. “Oh why would I do that?”
    “They are many reasons why someone would betray me.”
    “I won’t betray the man who saved me.”
    He deemed it was the closest thing to a ‘thank you’ he was