No matter how she protested, there was no debating the facts- that she had allowed Sammie and Elle to escape by
tying them insecurely. All the other girls in the harem hated Ariel and the way she abused her position as the
sultan's supposed favourite anyway, so none of them were going to say a word in her defence. Of course, the sultan
didn't give a damn how his slavegirls treated one another, but he took a very dim view of one slave's carelessness
let another two escape. He decreed her punishment: that she be tied to the cross in the harem garden and mercilessly
flogged from the nape of her neck down to her ankles, and left to bake in the sun for the rest of the day!
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