"Lord Ismael, I am Nausicaa of Alexandria, daughter of Lysimachus, princess of the House of Ptolemy." She spoke the Lower Kingdom dialect effortlessly.

He looked at her. She was tall, with long, dark hair tied to the top of her head and falling down her back; fair but tanned skin and a slim figure. She was rather simply dressed for a princess, a straight ankle-length white tunic leaving naked arms and shoulders, but it was a suitable attire for the long trip by horse and camel she had just made. She wasn't wearing any apparent jewelry but a necklace, surely indicative of rank. He made one of his men offer her some water and then leave.

"It would take a brave man to introduce himself here like that, not to speak of a girl, princess or no princess, " he said, and signaled to her to stay at ease with a slight movement of the hand. She was a princess, not to be expected to fully bow or to remain so before a tribal chief, even a rebel one, like him. "Tell me why you have come. Speak the truth!"

"My Lord," she began after breathing deeply. "I have come with tidings for you and perhaps counsel. King Ptolemy Philopator has sent his best man, strategoi Aristomenes, in an expedition to catch your forces once and for all. He will be at the wadi El-Kat in two days' time, with three hundred men. As the King soon realized that the number would not be enough -man for man, your men are better than his- five more hundreds are being sent as reinforcement. They are six days' march from El-Kat. If you steal a march on them and fall on Aristomenes in, say, three days, you'll crush his forces and possibly capture or kill him."

Then the girl bowed gracefully and fell silent. Ismael pondered her words. It was true, the essence of guerrilla warfare in the desert was to strike an undefended post, never a strongly garrisoned one, and then vanish; that was what he had been done successfully up to now. But to overthrow the power of the Greek, even locally, more was needed. A crushing victory which makes the clans rally around him would help, precisely what the girl was offering.

"Why are you telling me this? Why are you interested in my success against your King?" The question was obvious, and the princess could not have missed it. She had a well prepared answer.

"My uncle, Demostenes, my mother’s brother, has been charged with treason and imprisoned. The King will most surely kill or blind him. In pay for the information I have just given, I hope Lord Ismael will remember him."

Neat answer, thought Ismael. The girl was tense, her eyes moving around in full alertness, even though she tried to conceal it; but in her situation, something different could hardly be expected. He still pondered the message, and took some fruit from the little table on his side, chewing at it thoughtfully.

Having delivered the message, Nausicaa relaxed a little bit. She examined the tent: it was upheld by several stout poles buried in the sand, held by tensors, cunningly hidden by tapestries and veils; it was richly furnished with carpets and furniture, but it was the tent of a chief, and some of the pieces had surely been taken during the previous raids. There were no weapons or other implements visible except Ismael's leather cuirass and bronze helmet hanging from a frame. A straight sword was visible hanging at the back of it.

"Come closer," he said, and she obliged. He took a better look at her. She had big, round, honey-colored eyes, a full mouth with white teeth, and was wearing no makeup except some black line on the eyelids. She had unmistakably Greek facial features, angular jaws and nose, but some mixed blood was in her. Her tunic was open at the front, covering small but firm breasts and showing shoulder and arms; it naturally fell on hips and legs.

"Can I trust in you, Nausicaa of Alexandria? It is heavy counsel that you bring."

"My Lord, I shall do whatever My Lord thinks necessary to prove I am worthy of trust."

What followed was obvious and the girl had surely anticipated it. Ismael was fully aware of that when he said, softly and with a small movement of the hand.

"Get naked."

II

The girl complied immediately, with affected hesitation. “So it comes to this”, she thought, “Be it. It doesn't look that tough”. After taking off her necklace and putting it carefully on the floor, she loosened the pins on her shoulders and let the tunic slip off to the ground, then she gracefully side-stepped out of it. What Ismael saw confirmed his first impressions about her. She was slim and fit; her unmarred skin was fair, but tanned with the air and sun of Alexandria. Her breasts were firm and medium sized, with well proportioned nipples, erect with tension; nudity made them justice. Her belly button was perfect and her belly and stomach flat and muscular.

“These Greek girls, they starve; What do they want? Looking like boys?” thought Ismael, as he walked slowly around her and admired her firm buttocks and shapely legs. He very softly touched her chin and let his finger run down her neck and shoulder, then he took her hand and led her to the sleeping matt which lied in the centre of the tent. It was not really a bed, but a collection of big cushions and carpets and animal skins, covered with veils; it felt comfortable and surprisingly soft to Nausicaa. Ismael was not a tall man, barely half of a head over her (“These desert people are all rather short”, she thought); his body was muscular but far from the worked out bodies of the Greek youth.

He was not hungry for sex, something which did not surprise Nausicaa, who knew that these desert people went to war with their entire households; a chieftain like Ismael had probably three or four wives and the same number of concubines with him at that very moment. He made sex to her with some sophistication, reacting correctly to every one of her prompts and enticements, and touching and caressing her skillfully and almost tenderly: this was no savage, she thought with surprise, and wondered if there was something she had not been told about him. He was not a young man either, being almost forty; and, though he controlled and delayed his cumming with some skill, he only did it once, twice if given some allowance. Then, he lied on his back recovering his breath, while she caressed his breast and shoulder. Then he got up and had some drink; she also got up, cleaned herself; then went back to the cushions, turned over her side and pretended to fall asleep.

III

She tried hard to remain alert without falling asleep even after the exhausting journey and the events at the tent. Ismael was outside, talking to several men; she overheard the voices, but they were talking in some Semitic language she couldn't understand. Then she also heard some people coming in and out and walking around inside the tent, but she couldn't see them unless she moved.

Suddenly, she heard fast steps approaching to her; she reacted instinctively trying to get up, but two men took her from the wrists and pulled her upright. One held her forearm against her back and carried her over to a corner of the tent. There she was forced to kneel and leather straps were secured to her wrists and then to two of the tent's posts; taut enough for not being able to move, but not to cause any painful stretching. Two more straps secured her ankles to her thighs, preventing her from standing up and effectively forcing her to sit on her heels. She took some time to control her breath, looking around desperately. Things had looked as if developing so smoothly until then, she thought. But that was little comfort.

IV

Ismael came back and took his stool placing it in front of her, at some ten feet of distance. He looked at her thoughtfully, and, to her credit, she returned the look. Questions seemed out of place, so she waited until he spoke.

"You see, princess, it is hard counsel what you brought. I shall not explain to you the meaning of it and the consequences of taking the action it implies; you must know it in full." He took a breath, as if looking for words.

"You see, if I take that course of action, and your words are true, I shall obtain a victory that will cement my position and will convince many clans to rally to my cause. If your words happen not to be so, I shall be killed and my men and household massacred. It is a high stake you are counseling to take."

She tried to protest.

"But My Lord, why would I lie? I have explained to you the reasons I have to come to you with such tidings, even against my people, as you have rightly questioned me." She started to sweat both from the uncomfortable position she was as well as from nerves.

"True, princess. But your own words turn against you. You may have well bargained with Ptolemy's officials to take these risks for the freedom of your uncle." He made a pause.

"Therefore, princess, are your words true? Will Aristomenes be at El-Kat with a small party, waiting for reinforcements, and thus in a vulnerable position to take, or will he be with his full forces in ambush waiting for us to strike? Is it a golden opportunity or a trap?"

Nausicaa swallowed. Yes, this was no foolish savage from the deep desert.

"My words are true. It is a golden opportunity. Will you not dare take it?"

She hoped to sting him by using the word “dare”, the accusation of cowardice was more than any desert chieftain could bear. He closed his fists but relaxed them quickly.

"It is not a matter of daring, princess. I am responsible for my men and household. So I shall ask again. Are your words true?"

"They are, My Lord. Haven't I proved that to you? Haven't I given up my body to you as a token of trust? Your fluids were all over me a while ago!"

Ismael looked briefly to the side as in regret.

"Princess Nausicaa of Alexandria, you are a lesser princess of the House of Ptolemy, and as such, a priestess of Dionysus, whose cult is characterized by orgiastic rites in the Temple at Alexandria. Therefore, you are pretty well used to pleasing men without caring who they are; and the priests are neither young nor tender, I understand. I must add you do it quite well, for a Greek girl."

The girl remained silent, so he continued, speaking slowly in a correct if a bit childish Greek.

"When I was a child, I was a... guest... at Alexandria; a... '“token of trust', as you have just said, left by my parents as a hostage for their allegiance to the Ptolemys. There I have learned... a couple of things, so to speak."

Nausicaa looked at him with sadness in her eyes. That was the very thing she hadn't been told at Alexandria, before embarking in her errand. Would that have changed her approach? Useless wondering it now, she was at the mercy of the chieftain. It was also useless to ask what he intended to do with her; the only relevant thing was how far he was willing to go. And, of course, how willing was she.

As if mirroring her look, he looked at her with heavy eyes.

"Therefore," he said, back in the Lower Kingdom tongue, "though I have given to you some pleasure tonight, I shall give you tenfold in pain, until you change your words, or else I am convinced for once and all that they are true."

"They are true. They won't change, even if you torture me to death," she said slowly.

"Then be it," he quickly retorted.

V

At a signal of his hand, one of his men deployed a leather lash and moved to her back. He delicately moved her hair to her breast, and took distance. She kept expecting for the strikes against her bare back looking straight to Ismael's face. How long she would be able to keep a defiant stance, she didn't know, but she knew that, if she broke, he would take her words as leading him to a trap, so her errand would have failed. She would then probably be painfully executed as an enemy agent. Therefore, she had no option but to stand firm, whatever it took.

Ismael remained seated chewing some fruit when the strokes fell against her back, looking at her face. The pain was like a fire but not overwhelming, instead, it built up as the successive strokes fell on the already sensitized skin. She started contorting involuntarily to the small extent her bonds allowed, but her eyes remained fixed on Ismael. She had been caned more than once during her apprenticeship at the Temple, and she could tell the kind of strokes she was receiving. They were relatively light, not designed to tear through her skin and cause any deep wound; that could mean that the chieftain intended to extend the torture for as long as possible.

She didn't count the strokes, but her back must have been entirely reddened when the beating stopped, as well as some stray strokes had been laid against her upper buttocks, hips and thighs, and some even into her breasts and belly. Even so, she realized that not a drop of her blood had been spilled. Yet. Her body was covered in sweat, but her breath was still reasonably under control.

Ismael went up to her, crouched and lifted her face delicately with his fingers, and offered her some water. She drank it, though she soon regretted it.

"Is this enough, Nausicaa? Would you change your words? Or should we continue with this?"

She was still able to talk with only a little effort.

"My Lord, my words are true. How could they be changed into lies? Do whatever you like to me, they will remain so."

"Your words are brave indeed, princess. As you wish," and he sent her horsetail hair back over her shoulder.

He moved the stool and placed it directly in front of her, within easy reach, sat down and unfolded a leather bag. The bag was deployed on the ground and several tools were laid on it. Nausicaa looked to them, then to Ismael, then to the tools, and so on. He took some pincers with a flat tip and started caressing up and down her belly and breasts.

"Your word hold, princess?" he asked.

"Yes it does," she quickly retorted, though she knew what was coming.

He started working with the pincers, grabbing, pulling and squeezing her skin around her bellybutton. It was painful, but Nausicaa realized he was restraining himself. She deliberately contorted and groaned and moaned, exaggerating the pain she was receiving. But this either did not fool Ismael, or he had already made up his mind, for he went on to work on her right breast and nipple, doing the same movement, grabbing, tightening, squeezing.

This time the pain was acute, there was no need to pretend. Nausicaa gnawed her teeth no to scream, and tears started flowing from her eyes. Ismael stopped to give her some rest; she took a look to her tortured breast, and was amazed no cut had been made and blood had been spilled; at most, a heavy bruise would form. He started to caress her left breast, and she looked at it, then at his face, then repressed a “No, please...”, but the look in her eyes was expressive enough.

The pincers bit into her left breast as they had done into her right one. Her nipple received more attention; Ismael first caressed it with his fingers until it was well erect and sensitive, then resorted to the pincers. This time she almost screamed, but looked to the ceiling with firmly clenched teeth and managed to control herself. Her breath was heavy when he stopped, and her chin fell to her breast. Sweat and tears dripped from her nose and chin.

"Are your words true, princess?" insisted Ismael.

She managed to put her face up and look at him straight in the face.

"Yes they are... stop this, My Lord."

"I cannot do that, Nausicaa, not yet. Do not think this overly pleases me." And her eyes filled up with tears. He took two pincers, which didn't close completely but left like a ring at the tip. He grabbed one breast with each one, more or less at the middle, and started squeezing and pulling them from side to side violently at the same time. The pain and the violence of the movement made Nausicaa contort even more violently than her bonds would allow, and her wrists and shoulders resented from her spasmodic movements. Now, her head was thrusted back, her eyes fixed on the ceiling and her mouth wide open, letting go a kind of low guttural groan all the time. When Ismael stopped, her head fell forward, sobbing continuously.

VI

He put his hand on her forehead and moved her head up, so he could look at her face. She was still sobbing apparently uncontrollably. That was too much for him; he put aside his instruments, got up, did a short stroll around his stool, and started loosening his belt. He put his cock into her mouth after effortlessly opening it with two fingers. She was too weak to resist; even so, she managed to understand that being raped would be a reasonable price for a short break in the torture.

She still had enough presence of mind to cover herself in the torture and be completely passive, to extend the time before Ismael would come, and thus, the spell ended and the torture resumed. Ismael was hard, but he was not young and after the exerts of the early night it took him some time to come, even ramming in and out his cock in her mouth. When at last he came, he had the deference to spill his fluid into a neckerchief instead of inside her; he even cleaned her mouth and gave her some water, which she couldn't refuse. After that, he put his belt on again and disappeared to her back into the depths of the tent.

She had managed to recover her breath a great deal when he returned, carrying a hot brazier from whose edge the handles of several tools could be seen. Nausicaa knew this was the ultimate torture; after the hot irons, only skinning or mutilation could follow, then a blissful death, and her mission would have been accomplished, albeit at a price. So she smiled grimly, a gesture which could hardly have gone unnoticed to Ismael, who was following every single one of her reactions with professional attention.

"Yes, Nausicaa, I know what you are thinking of. The end cannot be too far away. But think it over. Up to now, though a lot of pain has been inflicted to you, no big harm has been caused to your body. Your back will heal, your breasts and nipples will almost regain their firmness, your joints have been little harmed if at all. But this is different. These irons will burn your beautiful skin; the burns can heal, but the scars will be permanent; not an appropriate sight for a princess, less for a priestess of Dionysus."

She managed to retort, speaking low and slowly, among sighs.

"Then believe in the truth of my words, My Lord, and spare me the last part of this ordeal."

Ismael was surprised at the girl's courage.

"That I cannot do, Nausicaa. Even if I were completely convinced of your words, I have to show my people that I have made every attempt to uncover their falsehood, without pity or mercy, for them to follow me into probable death."

"Then I can only wish for death. Revenge me and remember your promise," she said, and looked to the floor.

Taking an iron about the diameter of a little finger with a small round ending, red hot, he walked to her back. He put her horsetail hair again to the front of her body, and then started poking her already bruised and reddened skin. Nausicaa had been branded once, in the upper buttock, with the anagram of the Temple; that had been intensely painful but short. Now, against her sensitized skin, every burn, however intentiously small, was hellish. She screamed and contorted as if trying to escape forward within her bonds at each poke. Ismael took care to allow her two or three breathes in between each poke, so that she could minimally recover and each touch of the heat iron had a different entity. He diverted some pokes to the soles of her feet, to her buttocks and to her hips and upper thighs, as were accessible from his position behind her.

He then moved to her front. She was sobbing and moaning, shivering seemingly uncontrollably, moving sideways and up and down to the limits of her restrain. He put up her head and asked her again to retract from her words, to no avail. He then took a similar iron and started poking her belly around her bellybutton, then going up over her ribcage and her axiles, again moving slowly with plenty of time between poke and poke. She contorted and moved her body back, as if trying to put distance between her tortured skin and the irons, screaming at each touch. The vaporised sweat and the burned skin steamed faintly.

He took another pause, asked again, holding her face, but the girl just looked at him, breathing heavily. He moved to the base of her swollen breasts, to the body of each one, holding them with one hand to be more precise in the touch, and finally to the aureole of the nipples. At that stage, she was contorting and yelling wildly, and she mercifully fainted, her head falling violently on her chest. He grabbed her head and put her face up. She had not passed away completely, her eyes half opened and her mouth letting go a little foam and a low guttural noise. Ismael let it fall again, dropped the iron and sat back on his stool, an unsatisfied look on his face.

VII

Someone went in and put a hand on Ismael shoulder. He took it without looking over his shoulder.

"What do you think, Zuleika?"

The woman was beautiful, but a bit past her prime, being probably around her thirties, richly dressed and decorated with jewelry. She had olive skin, round dark eyes, as was her long hair, and a voluptuous figure.

She said, "Do you ask me if it is a trap, if we are to be killed by the Greeks?" A silence followed. "I do not know, my lord, but I do know that you will not learn it from this girl, even if you cut her fingers, feet, hands and limbs one by one and burn them before her eyes."

"So what is your counsel, dear Zuleika?"

"Since I heard what this girl said, I have been doing more useful things than playing with a new pet, my lord."

Ismael was piqued, and retorted quickly.

"It is true that one doesn't have the chance to know and then torture a Greek princess every day. What have you been doing, if I may ask?"

"I've been consulting the terafim," she said, and stopped, a chastising smile on her face, like one showed a child who has done mischief previous to tell him what he should have done. These were the oracular human heads kept in vinegar and oil that were property of the family or clan.

"I am keen of knowing which counsel they gave you." Ismael was no superstitious man, perhaps as a consequence of his childhood as a hostage in Alexandria.

"Well, they do not answer directly, you know. But they provided sound counsel," she said. He didn't answer, but waited.

"It doesn't matter if the message is true or if it hides a trap. It is certain that by our strategy we are achieving nothing, and that our days before the clans leave us are counted – that was true enough, terafim or no terafim."

"So?" he said. She was aware of the slight irony in his words.

"So we have a Greek force, led by the best and perhaps only good Greek general, pinned down at El-Kat. Its size can be anywhere between three and perhaps six hundred men. The Greeks have never fielded a bigger force into the desert. We have four hundred warriors."

He listened with interest.

"Let's attack them, in two days time, just like this poor girl said. Let's either crush them or put up as good a fight as to make them retreat. Maybe we'll lose more men than we can afford. But many more will be with us once the clans rally to our cause."

Ismael looked at her grievously.

"I hope you understand the stakes involved. If that plan misfires, if the Greeks have indeed brought more men than anytime before, we shall be lost, and everything we have fought for with us."

"Yes," she said calmly.

He took a deep breath. His scouts had been chased away from the El-Kat area, a sure indication the Greeks were up to something big there, leaving him with no direct information whatsoever.

"Alright. Be it, it is decided. But if we succeed I swear on the Old Gods that I shall compensate this poor girl with wealth unimagined, for I don't think we shall be able to save her uncle."

Zuleika agreed in silence.

Ismael looked at her for a moment, and said,"I would have expected you to say something like “But if we fail, I shall take care of her and see that what she has suffered already be dwarfed by the agony I shall inflict to her.” Zuleika smiled.

"We shall not fail," she said, but what she was really thinking was “If we fail, I shall die beside you, what do I care about this girl?”

VIII

Therefore, the rebels moved swiftly, as only a desert people's host can do, and fell upon the Greeks encamped at El-Kat. Ismael was a sound tactician, and added the sophistication of a night approaching march and an attack at dawn. Of course, it was a trap. Aristomenes was far from being a Greek hero of old, but he was a competent commander: he had managed to secure his communication lines allowing him to feed in the deep desert a force twice as large as anything the Greeks had fielded yet, and shrewdly he had added the cavalry of some desert clans who would rather prefer the nominal suzerainty of a king in distant Alexandria to the rule of an all-too-present chieftain like Ismael; altogether, he had more than two thousand men at his disposal. The tribesmen fought like lions, but, in what looked like the re-enactment of an Alexandrian battle, they were hammered between the Greek infantry and the Allied cavalry. Few escaped. Ismael did not, dying sword in hand, and Zuleika could fulfil her secret promise of dying with him, if not exactly at his side.

Aristomenes' troopers found the former rebel camp deserted. In their haste for advancing, they had not even struck off camp. Nausicaa was still there, cared for by her single servant, flying with fever, but still well alive. Aristomenes said, “Truly I say that to this girl we owe this victory”, and put at her feet the sword that had been wielded by Ismael.