Her Arabian Knight

Herte had looked amazed and choked on his wine.  Coughing he rasped, "You!  I don''t believe it.  You are too strong willed for that.  Or hardened.  Who is she?  Do I know her?  Wait!  You said that if ever you were fool enough to love a woman you would marry her.  Does this mean I am soon to be invited to your wedding?"  he looked quite pleased.

 "Yes I am to be married."

"Her name man!  Her name!"

Sheipek seemed to hesitate.  "It is a surprise.  No one will know till her veil is lifted.  But you almost certainly will be there.  I can not forget a cousin who has always been around to play our foolish game of, “who can possess what the other does not“. "

Herte laughed.  "You always enjoyed it so why speak of it as foolish now.  Have I insulted you so dreadfully in offering you a woman?  But she is such a beautiful one, no?"

            "I do admit she is lovely but that amounts to nothing.  She is only superficially so.  Underneath she lacks intelligence and character."  all this while he did not dare look at her.  "Besides she snorts like a pig when she laughs!”

In utter rage Troyia lunged at him and dashed the wine she had been pouring for him in his face.  He did not gasp or say a word.  It was almost as if he knew he deserved it.  He just looked at her and began to wipe it off. 

Herte was furious and yelled her name.  Then he plunged across to where he kept a rack of whips.  He flung one out and went to her in absolute white anger.  His voice was quiet in his outrage.  "No slave under my roof will treat my friends that way no matter the provocation.  I am going to beat you to the edge of your spoiled life.  When I am finished with you, you will have forgotten you were ever once a Queen of a nation."

He grabbed her and flung her across the floor, not noticing his cousin''s white ashen face.  Towering over her he raised the whip high and just as he was bringing it down onto her sprawled helpless form on the floor,  Sheipek sprang into action.  With a strangled sound in his throat he flung himself on her, covering her small body with his.  Troyia felt the whip come down on his back twice before Herte had realized what Sheipek had done.  The whiplashes had been harsh and brutal, racking his body as well as hers.  She didn''t even feel the pain of the whip’s tip strike her wrist.  She was so shocked at Sheipek''s intervention.  He did not flinch at the blows, just covered her head with his hands after pushing her arms to her sides and her legs under his. 

Herte flung the whip aside.