"Of course My Queen," said Lara escorting Ibarra and Lilja out of the room and closing the door.Helena touched my veil and said, "Such a strange tradi...ion to cover your face as if they are trying to hide you." Kind of is," I said. "Part of it has to do with forcing the man to commit to his bride in the case of an arranged marriage, and part was because when a man wanted a bride, he'd kidnap her from a neighboring tribe and cover her head with a blanket so she couldn't see where she was being. I heard you mention 'wives' in the plural earlier; have you taken all of your fellow Muslims as wives, or have you found another solution?"Ahmed grinned, and said, "I see you are not completely ignorant. I have confined myself to taking three wives, each with a pair of concubines to 'assist' her. The room monitor rebuilt our quarters in a way that conforms to law and custom, and each wife and her assistants have a private home of their own."Those homes have bedrooms, and a dining and a living. No one knew what they had just said, but it was all true.Then they looked at Bill and said, "And you, Bill: Chained to a wall for fourteen years. Tortured daily. Red-hot pincers frying your testicles. Constant whippings. For what? First, to find out where your Laotian friends were. That was good for thirty days or so. Then it was to confess that America was using germ warfare and waging genocide. Everyone signed that garbage, but you would not. Then it was just to defeat the American. They. She followed it up with an even more stinging strike to other hand. Then flowed forward with a third strike. Jake quickly stepped back. His hands came up to defend against her attack. She smiled and came at him even harder than before. This wasn’t a punch. It was a lightning fast gab. Which was followed up by a second and third. Jake dodged and deflected her attacks giving ground and turning in a small circle. she took a step back after over a minute of the two sparring. It wasn’t truly.