He drank the coffee. So nobody before had ever defeated a djinn in single combat? In that case, maybe some sort of celebration was in order. But he gloomily wished he knew how he’d done it. He scowled.
“You seem sad, lord,” said the one called Esir, anxiously. “Esim has made a song of your victory. Would you wish that she sing to cheer you?”
Tony grunted. His conscience observed warningly that he did not know anything about the local domestic habits. Perhaps, despite the veils and swathing robes women wore in the streets, it was an old Arabic custom to provide strictly musical entertainment with breakfast in a guest’s bedroom.
“You two are slaves?” he asked, as one of them anticipated his reach for an orange and swiftly halved it for him and handed it to him with a tiny golden spoon for him to eat it with.
“Aye, lord. Your slaves,” said the two in unison, beaming.
Tony strangled on his first spoonful of orange pulp. They pounded his back anxiously. He coughed and blinked at them.
“You mean—”
“You came to Barkut without attendant, lord,” said Esir, happily, “and it was not fitting. So the Council gave us to you, with horses and other slaves, that you might be suitably served. And all of us, your slaves, wished to kneel to you immediately, but Ghail the slave girl said that you had told her you did not wish to be disturbed last night, and therefore we only waited your summons—which did not come.”
Tony absorbed the statement. It required considerable absorbing. He opened his mouth, and they hung upon his impending words, and he closed it without saying anything. So, Ghail had kept him from having these two girls to dance and sing for him last night, eh? His conscience said something half-hearted about Ghail doubtless having his best interests at heart, but it had said too much in the past about her nonchalantly displayed bare legs. He did not heed it.
“Tonight,” said Tony with decision, “things will be different.”