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He leaned to Haroun on his left and murmured a word in his ear, and when the singer-storyteller settled himself to sing the song of the great king who fell in love with a bewitching foreigner, the Companion got up and stood beside him. Between the plaintive lines, Motreb paused, playing his instrument, while Haroun translated the story of King Daud.
“‘And will you take no wife but me? You cannot swear to this, quoth she.’”
Zara, who had never heard the story, was entranced, both by the tale itself and by the haunting ululating melody of the singer’s voice.
“‘I will. I swear. No wife but thee . . .’”
Then she heard the story of how King Daud had married the stranger and to the great joy of his people, had made her his queen. And how thirty years of happy marriage and two sons followed, giving no warning before disaster struck in the shape of a fatal air crash. The king and queen mourned long.
“‘We have lost our beloved sons, my husband. And though with all my heart I would give you more, I am old . . . your promise, too, made in the sweet blossom of youth, is old. I say it is no more. It has died with our sons. Take therefore, my husband, three young wives, and get a son for your kingdom, that this land may remain what men call Blessed.’”
Zara’s eyes burned as the tragic voice sobbed out the story. Somewhere on her right she heard a sniff, Lena probably, which made her own control slip. She dropped her head, surreptitiously pulling a tissue out of her bag with one hand, and dabbed her eyes.
Her free hand was taken in a firm but gentle hold, and her eyes flew to Prince Rafi. He drew her hand up, gave her a long, slow, dark and sexy look, and kissed her knuckles once, twice. Not a simple pressure of the mouth, either, but a dragging pressure from parted lips, his eyes half closed, as if he wanted to eat her. Her body seemed to melt in spite of all her determination to be unaffected. Her heart had been knocked from its moorings and lay kicking helplessly in her breast.
After that, she had trouble swallowing. Never had she experienced so public or so determined a seduction. When the song was over, Prince Rafi himself poured wine into a silver goblet for the singer, who drained it to find a large pearl at the bottom as his reward. He bowed and retired, and there was a pause in the entertainments and the buzz of conversation arose.
The song was followed by stories from one or two Companions, then by gymnastic young performers, then by a very artful belly dancer in the most bewitching costume Zara had ever seen, then by another song. All the artists seemed to be paid with jewels or gold, in scenes straight from the Arabian Nights.
Meanwhile, the food came in a never-ending supply. And so did the approving looks from Prince Rafi’s dark eyes. Zara’s heart seemed to kick into a new, higher, faster rhythm with each look.
He was staggeringly charismatic—handsome, virile, with a smile women probably jumped off cliffs for. But he was also a desert chieftain, however rich, and her own inner response to his admiration frightened her. A girl should have some resistance if she was going to be propositioned, and Zara felt she had no more resistance than a kitten.
When the last empty tray had been carried away, small silver salvers laden with soft Turkish delight in powdered sugar began to make the rounds, and there seemed to be general movement among the guests, led by the Companions. But when Zara tried to get up, Prince Rafi’s firm hand was on her arm. And she was too much of a coward to resist the implied command.
After a few moments, Prince Rafi made a signal to the Companion named Ayman, who had changed his seat and was now lounging on the cushions beside Lena, to the obvious displeasure of Arif. With a nod to his prince and then to Lena, the Companion got to his feet and left the room.
“It was a tradition among my forebears to give robes of honour to those who had performed some signal service,” Prince Rafi began. “Since each of you contributes to the overall achievement of proving not only that the great Iskandar, whom you call Alexander, visited this land, but also uncovering the city that he himself founded, it is my pleasure to reward each of you with the traditional robe of honour. Even so would Alexander have been presented with a robe by my own predecessor.”
At that moment, Ayman returned, leading a train of the boys and girls who had been the water bearers at the start of the evening. Each youth was the bearer this time of a neat cube of folded cloth, all of different colours, in stripes or swirls or solids, glittering with gold and silver threads. Each knelt at the side of one member of the team and offered the robe.
There were loud squeals of surprised and appreciative delight from all the women, but the men, too, were clearly very pleased. People began jumping to their feet to unfold the robes and try them on.
A pretty girl, gazing in deep admiration at Zara, knelt beside her, her arms full of glittering cloth. Zara thanked her. The child flicked a glance at Prince Rafi, who nodded approvingly. To Zara’s surprise, the girl smiled affectionately at the prince, who winked at her, before bowing and departing.
“Who are these servant children?” Zara asked.
Prince Rafi laughed. “They are not servants! They are young courtiers. They are the younger sisters and brothers of my Companions, or my own cousins... all are educated at the palace. As well as academic subjects and languages, they learn the rules of hospitality.”
All around, people were on their feet, trying on and admiring their robes. “Oh, my!” Zara exclaimed breathlessly, as she began to examine her own gift. It seemed to be made of spun gold, and embroidered with fabulous designs in red and green. She had never seen anything so rich and lustrous outside of a medieval painting. “But it’s beautiful!” she whispered helplessly. “I can’t possibly...”
Not far away, Gordon was standing up to model his own very rich robe. Hearing her cry, he glanced down and gave her an admonitory look, which she interpreted as meaning that it would be a grave insult to refuse a robe of honour. If she insulted the prince, the dig might be history. She knew they were hoping to convince the prince to contribute the funding they would need to keep it going beyond this season.
“It’s very beautiful,” she murmured, drawing her feet under her haunches and struggling to stand gracefully amid the cushions. But her foot was on the hem of her dress and before she knew what was happening she had fallen straight onto Prince Rafi.
His arms quickly caught her, and his eyes closed as her long black hair spilled over him. The robe of honour tumbled from Zara’s hands and was splayed out around them, glittering in the lamp flame like something magical, a thing of inestimable value.
Prince Rafi inhaled, his eyes closing, and murmured in her ear, “The perfume of your hair would drive a man mad. I have dreamed of you, waking and sleeping.”
As a tableau it ranked with the most beautiful miniature paintings in the prince’s own extensive collection. Even the Companions were not proof against it. Everyone in the room was frozen in some posture, half with their arms in their robes. All eyes were on them. If she were not so covered with embarrassment, she could have laughed at the picture of so many startled, curious, gawking faces.
But it was her own reaction that was the danger. Zara felt molten, like the golden robe, electrified by the man’s touch, his whispered words.
“I—I’m so sorry,” she stammered, struggling from his grasp to her feet. “I don’t know what made me so clumsy.”
“Do you not?” he smiled. He solicitously helped her to gain her feet.
“Ah... well...” She hardly knew what she was saying. Trying for calm, for the ordinary—so far as anything in this remarkable evening could be called ordinary—Zara lifted the robe and put it on.
It was breathtakingly beautiful, utterly rich and luxurious. It fanned out at the back in a broad curving sweep to the floor, while in front it was cut shorter, the hem just skimming her toes. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Trying to give her breathing room, Gordon sat down and said to Prince Rafi, “I think I should tell you that one of our team saw a group of mounted bandits the other morning. There seemed to be quite a number of them, and I’m afraid our security may not be sufficient.”
Prince Rafi’s head straightened with surprise. “Bandits!” he exclaimed. “So near! We do not often see Jalal on our side of the river. His headquarters is in my brother’s land. Where, exactly, were they seen?”
“At the wadi. Members of the team go there to relax away from the heat whenever they get a chance. Everyone has been warned not to go off the site alone, but I’m afraid the waterfall there is very tempting.”
“At the waterfall?” Rafi repeated, in a different voice. He turned his head towards Zara, who had sat down to listen. “When, and how many?”
Zara smiled. “It was three days ago. I didn’t stop to count their numbers. I just took one look and ran! But I think there were ten or twelve, anyway. All on the most magnificent horses.”
He was watching her intently. “Were you frightened?”
“Terrified,” she agreed without emphasis.
“Their captain—did you see him?”
“I think so,” Zara told him, repressing a shiver at the memory of the bandit chief’s gaze and her own reaction to it. Not much different from the response Prince Rafi raised in her. Maybe she had a weakness. “There certainly was one man with an air of command.”
“And he—did he see you?”
That passionate black gaze rose up in her mind’s eye, and, pressing her lips together, Zara only nodded.
“But you were not taken? Twelve men and you escaped?”
“I don’t think he—they tried. I am sure if they had ridden out of the enclosure and around—well, on horseback they could have caught up with me before I got back to the tents.” Her mouth was dry, she didn’t know why. Something she had noticed but which hadn’t filtered through to her conscious mind was making her uneasy.
“Then he is a fool,” said Prince Rafi. “When a man sees what he wants, should he not take pains to achieve it instantly?”
Zara smiled. “Maybe he didn’t see what he wanted,” she said, and shivered, knowing it was a lie. The bandit chief had wanted her. There must be something about her that appealed to the Arab temperament, too.
A marriage made in heaven, then, she told herself dryly.
“What man would not have wanted you, so beautiful under the fall of water, your limbs bare and your skin so silken? He must have been jealous even of the eyes of his companions for the fact that they also saw the vision. If he did not pursue you across the sand and catch you up on his horse then, it can only be because he had other plans to obtain you. Did not King Khosrow fall madly in love with Shirin when he caught sight of her bathing? And he stopped at nothing to gain her.”
It was the naked passion in his eyes, more than anything else, that told her the truth. He had been veiling it from her all evening, letting her see only a portion of what was there. But now she saw again the black flame of complete and determined need burn up behind his gaze.
Her hand snapping to her open mouth, Zara gasped, an electric sound that caused conversation everywhere to stop. Her hand slowly lowered, while her eyes gazed helplessly into his. Take away the white keffiyeh that had enwrapped the bandit’s head and chin...
“A man would do all in his power,” Prince Rafi promised her softly.
“It was you!” she whispered.
His black eyes fixed hers, letting her read the truth. That was the reason, then, for the prince’s sudden interest in the team, for this dinner . . . she saw it all..That was why he had singled her out.
His Serene Highness Sayed Hajji Rafi Jehangir ibn Daud ibn Hassan al Quraishi was the man at the wadi she had thought the bandit chief.
Four
Zara succeeded in tearing her eyes away from the prince’s at last, and glanced up to see that the gaze of every member of the archaeological team was rivetted on her. The Companions, more socially skilled, pretended not to notice, and were making light conversation to their inattentive neighbours.
She really couldn’t think. She needed air, and solitude.
“Excuse me,” she said. Struggling to her feet again, the coat billowing and glowing behind her, Zara walked down the length of the room, past little clusters of people who tried to cover their fascination with chatter but could not help following her with their eyes.
Outside, the full moon glowed on the broad desert, its sweeping dunes, the tents of the archaeological team in the distance, and closer, the outcrop where the tall palms that surrounded the pool and waterfall were just visible above the rocks.
Pressing her hands to her hot cheeks, the robe billowing behind her, Zara moved towards it. There was a narrow defile in the rocks from this direction, dark now with moonshadow, but she knew her way through. Soon she was inside, listening to the rushing sound of the falling water.
It was Gordon’s theory that this was the original course of the river, before Queen Halimah, in one of her public projects, had diverted it, and that an underground stream remained as testimony, forced to the surface here by some geological fault, to form the delicious waterfall and its pools before disappearing underground again.
She was walking where Alexander the Great had probably once walked. Zara sank down on the rocks by the pool and dipped one hand in, leaning over to press the cool water to her cheeks.
The moon was strong, casting black shadows under the walls of rock, but she sat in full moonlight, and it glistened on the water, on her hair, and on her golden robe.
It was two thousand, three hundred and thirty years since Alexander had come here with his armies, but humankind had not changed very much. Men were still consumed by jealousies and passions . . . and sex was still like this river...try to divert it, and its power went underground, to force its way up at any weak spot...
She did not know what to do about Prince Rafi. That there was a powerful attraction between them she couldn’t, wouldn’t try to deny. She had felt it for him when she thought him a bandit, and finding him a king had certainly not lessened its force.
But she was a stranger in a strange land, a woman desired by a king. She had no idea what dangers awaited her if she gave in to what she felt, what he wanted. She spoke only a little of the language, knew not nearly enough about the country and its culture. Her knowledge of the area was all of the distant past, and she wasn’t sure that the autocratic powers and ways of the ancient kings whose names she knew had altogether passed into history.
Suppose she gave in to him, for one night, or one week, or . . . what would it mean, in the end? Did kings let women go after they had loved them, or did they guard them jealously in their harems, not wanting them, but not willing that any other man should ever have the power of being compared with the king as a lover?
Ridiculous. She was sure that was ridiculous. But what was not ridiculous was the fear she felt. The thought of letting him make love to her frightened her. No man had ever made her so nervous.
She heard a clinking sound, and something that sounded like a horse blowing. In sudden alarm, Zara lifted her head.
She was beautiful, a white dress and a flowing golden robe, and her black curling hair another robe over her shoulders and back, like the descriptions by the poets. Her face a painting, the eyebrows darkly curving, the mouth a perfect bow. The mountain tribes had their tales of the Peri, the race of Other, whose tiny beautiful women enticed men and disappeared, but this was the desert. Behind her the moon shimmered on the rustling water.
This was the one. There could not be another.
“Who’s there?” Zara called, trying to keep any sign of nerves from her voice, realizing she had been a fool to come wandering out here on her own. “Who is it?”
Suddenly the place seemed eerie, full of danger. Zara shivered and got to her feet. What a fool she was! What if Prince Rafi followed her out here? What if he had construed her movements as an invitation?
She heard a footfall. The waterfall disguised everything, but she thought it came from the passage. It was Prince Rafi. She knew it, and panic filled her blood with the urgent command to flee. She ran light as wind towards the sheltering rocks. Damn the moonlight! It caught in the glittering robe and would betray her whereabouts even in the darkest shadows.
Zara turned her head this way and that, peering through the gloom, trying to remember the layout of the place. There was a niche somewhere, a place to hide, but the shadows were very black. There was no time to think. She flung herself into the unknown.
Then she shrieked as the black horse reared up in front of her. Out of the shadows a body bent down and dark hands reached for her. The prince! My God, is he mad? she thought, in the moment before the strong hands grasped her, the powerful arms lifted her, and she felt the horse beneath her thighs and her face was smothered against his chest.
She clung to him for safety, there was nothing else to do. He had already spurred the horse to a wild gallop, and to fall now might kill her. Her heart pounded deafeningly in her ears. In the tiny part of her mind that remained cool, she had time to think, I didn’t scream. I suppose that counts as an invitation in this part of the world.
She couldn’t scream now—she was pressed into his chest, almost smothered. She smelled the odour of male sweat and desert and horse in the all-encompassing burnous he was wearing over his clothes, and the hairs lifted primitively on the back of her neck.
The smell was not right. He had been sandalwood and myrrh, and another scent, all his own, that was missing now.
In the same moment she heard a curse resonate in the chest under her cheek, and the horse veered wildly and half reared, throwing her harder against him. For a moment, one arm loosed her and he wrestled with the reins, and Zara lifted her head and saw a man flung to the ground by the horse’s powerful forequarters as they rode past.
In the moonlight the colour of his coat seemed purple, but he was impossible to mistake. Prince Rafi leapt to his feet and gave chase as she watched, but the horseman had goaded his horse into a violent gallop and in seconds he was left far behind.
She screamed then, loud and long, but it was too late. All around her stretched the glow of moonlight on the wide, bleak, empty desert. Fear was nearly overwhelming. She gasped and choked, but before she could scream again the strong hand came up and pressed her face into the stifling folds of the burnous.
She was afraid of falling off the horse as it made its headlong plunge down a cliff of sand, but the suffocating hold was too firm. The sickness of terror was in her throat and she wondered which would be worse—what the bandit had in mind for her, or being crippled or killed under the sharp hooves.
She must get calm. She gained nothing by thinking of what lay ahead. She had to plan. She had already missed a crucial opportunity. If she had not believed it was Prince Rafi on the horse, she might have . . . but it was no use thinking of that, either. She should think of escape now.
“If you struggle I will tie you over the saddle,” the man grunted as she stirred. “If you scream I will knock you on the head.” Shivers of terror chased up and down her spine at the threat in his voice. He sounded like a man who said what he meant, who would stop at nothing.
“I can’t breathe!” she cried, and he must have some humanity, she thought, because he let her turn her face into the air.
He kept one hand over her mouth, her head pressed back against him. Zara impatiently forced her stupid mind to think. There must be something she could do! They would follow her. Prince Rafi, Gordon—they were sure to chase the bandit. They might already be in the helicopter. And there were the Land Rovers, too.
He had thought of the same thing, she realized, for after a time she could not measure they left the sand and entered an area of stony ground they had been galloping at an angle to for some time, and here he turned the horse so sharply that it was almost facing back on its own path. He had ridden away from the camp towards the east, but now she thought they were headed west north west. How long would it take the searchers to give up on the easterly direction and search other possibilities?
Far to the left now on the clear desert air they heard the sound of the helicopter beating the air. Her head was pressed firmly back against the bandit’s chest, but she could just see the light in the distance that told her the helicopter had a searchlight. If only she could leave some sign, some signal of the way they had gone! Something that would shine in the searchlight . . . her sandals were gold.
She still had both her sandals on. It seemed impossible, after all that had happened. There was a little strap between each toe, fanning out to a lacy pattern over her instep. She had never realized before how firmly they held.
Slowly, trying not to think of what she was doing lest the bandit pick up the thought, Zara worked one sandal off her foot and kicked it free. She didn’t look back, didn’t try to see how it had fallen. It might be days before it was found, if ever. A few miles later she let the second sandal drop.
The helicopter was going the wrong way, carefully following the horse’s first easterly direction. The sound grew faint. Her captor’s firm hold on her slackened. “They will not hear you now, if you scream,” he told her. But the horse’s pace continued.
Her hip felt bruised and she shifted to a more comfortable position. The golden robe was billowing in the wind. She pulled at it, amazed to find that she was still wearing that, too. “Where are you taking me?” she asked. Her throat was hoarse.
“To my camp.”
“Isn’t your camp on the other side of the river?”
He glanced down at her, the moonlight full on his face, and did not answer. She caught her breath on a gasp.
“You look like Prince Rafi!” she whispered.
The man laughed, flinging his head back. “Do I so?”
Fear chased up and down her spine. “Who are you?”
“Have not you been told tales of me? I am Jalal the Bandit, grandson of the great Selim.”
