by Jane Feather
She left the salon with her women, returning to the reassuring serenity of her own chamber to plan the seduction of her husband.
Abul completed the rituals of return, still preoccupied, then went to the baths. The keepers of the baths could be relied upon not to disturb him with idle chatter, just as his courtiers knew instinctively not to accompany him on this occasion. This was not simply a bath for cleansing purposes. Abul needed the time and the conducive atmosphere for meditation.
He lay for a long time in the hot perfumed water in the hall of immersion. Once, a long time ago, he had become obsessed with a woman, one of his father’s young concubines. He had been little more than a boy himself, and when his father had discovered his secret, he had laughingly placed the girl at his son’s disposal. The obsession hadn’t lasted beyond the first three nights. Since then, Abul had rarely felt more than a fleeting attraction for a woman. It had been a little different with Aicha—she was his wife, she was beautiful, she was skilled at love. They had a partnership, and he had counted himself blessed that she pleased him in all the important ways … until he had discovered that one needed to be pleased by a woman in more than the flesh. Knowledge of her sordid intrigues now prevented him from desiring her as a woman.
He pulled himself out of the hot water and plunged into the marble tank of cold water beside it. The icy immersion took his breath away but cleared his head and made his skin tingle. Could he really have become obsessed after one brief roadside encounter when not a word had been spoken? It made no sense.
An attendant began to rub him down vigorously with thick Turkish toweling, abrading his skin. He stretched, still frowning as the rubbing continued. Maybe it made no sense, but it had happened nevertheless. He wanted her. And he would pay anything to have her.
He went into the steamy heat of the next room, stretching out on a marble slab as the attendant fed the brazier. The searing steam cut through his lungs, brought the sweat flowing on his skin. He closed his eyes, feeling the impurities in his body pour from him. Maybe she could not be bought. No, everyone had a price … not necessarily money, but there was always something. And if he couldn’t buy her, then … then there were other ways.
Abul moved lethargically to the hall of repose and handed his body over to the oiled hands of the attendant. The girl was presumably Spanish, although she had not answered him when he had asked her name in that language. But it hadn’t seemed to him that her failure to answer had been rooted in incomprehension. Then she had leaped away from him like some dainty forest animal. He closed his eyes.
“My lord … my lord Abul.”
The whispered summons brought him out of his voluptuous trance. The man he had left to trace the girl stood by the cushioned bed.
“What did you discover?” Abul was instantly awake and alert, both body and mind refreshed.
The man told him what he had seen and what he had inferred.
“One killed another over her?” Abul said slowly, struggling for comprehension. Why would a man kill another over a woman? But different peoples had different laws, different rites. It was not for him to question the customs of others. And perhaps a man could kill another over this woman. Suddenly it didn’t seem such an outlandish thought. But the man who had done the killing would not willingly yield his prize. So what now?
He swung off the bed. “We make a sortie, Yusuf. I would see this encampment and these people for myself. Just the two of us. There’s no need for a war party, and I would go in stealth.”
The attendant brought him a robe, and he went back to his own apartments, suddenly famished. But the baths did that to a man. Despite his eagerness to be off, he ate in a leisurely manner in the privacy of his own salon, refusing all entertainment but the gentle plucking of a harpist.
Those who served him could not guess by the caliph’s bearing that a fever of excitement ran through his blood. He felt as if he were about to go into battle, that strange comingling of fear and exultation, of certainty of success and sudden doubt. And he prepared himself as if for battle, concentrating on the body’s relaxation and satisfaction in order to clear and calm the mind.
Yusuf was waiting for him in the outer court, mounted on a fast Arabian stallion. A groom held the reins of the second horse, as fast and as sleek as Yusuf’s. Abul nodded his approval of this choice of mount. These were not war-horses; they were bred for speed and stamina, not for brute strength.
The two men carried knives, but no other weapons. Their destination lay not far from the palace and the city of Granada, and the caliph’s garrison regularly swept the roads clean of brigands. It was also a clear, moon-washed night, and as they rode through the wide horseshoe arches of the Gate of Justice, the dirt track glimmered whitely ahead, snaking down the hill.
In her own apartments Aicha prepared herself to go to her husband’s bed.
“You are certain, Nafissa, that the caliph has sent for no one tonight?” She let her head fall beneath the rhythmic brush strokes of her handmaid.
“Quite certain, my lady.” Nafissa began to thread fragrant mimosa through her mistress’s hair, the delicate pale yellow of the blossoms standing out against the blue-black tresses.
Aicha’s hand drifted over the jeweled jars of perfumes on the table before her, trying to decide which would most suit her mood and purpose. Musk or gardenia was too heavy. If Abul himself were eager, then such scents would match his ready passion, but if she must seduce and arouse, then something more delicate, less obvious, was required. Something to complement the mimosa, she decided, selecting one of the jars and lifting the lid. The delicate, flowery scent of lilies of the valley filled the air as she smoothed the fragrant oil onto her temples, behind her ears, at the pulse points of throat and wrists. She slipped the robe off her shoulders and anointed her breasts before carefully darkening her nipples with rouge.
Nafissa brought her the night-robe of white gauze and the heavy brocade robe to cover her on her journey to the caliph’s apartments.
“Go and discover if my lord has gone to his chamber, Nafissa. He might still be dining with his companions.”
Alone, Aicha lay back on the ottoman beneath the windows as she had done that afternoon. The night breeze wafted the scents from the garden below, mingling with those of her body and flower-strewn hair. She turned her head to look through the low window at the dark huddle of the mountains, their peaks glinting white under the moon glow. It was a night for love. A night for turning love to one’s own advantage.
Nafissa returned within a few minutes, and Aicha knew from her face that something was wrong.
“The caliph, my lady, has gone from the palace,” the handmaid said, standing nervously by the doorway. She knew from experience how the bringer of bad tidings could suffer at the hands of the sultana.
“Gone?” Aicha rose, graceful yet impatient. “What do you mean gone? Gone where?”
“I know not, my lady.” Nafissa wrung her hands. “He and Yusuf, my lady, took horse and left some ten minutes ago, after the caliph had finished eating.
“Just the two of them?” Aicha began to pace the chamber, her pleasure in the beauty of the night destroyed. Abul had only just returned from a long and arduous journey. What would take him out again so soon, at night and with only one companion?
“I believe so, my lady.”
“Then he will return soon.” Still frowning, Aicha continued to pace. She could go to his apartments and wait for him. But Abul was jealous of his privacy. He could well be displeased at her presence in his absence. No, she would simply wait until his return.
“Leave me.” She waved Nafissa from the room and then resumed her position on the couch by the window. Her hands drifted slowly, sensuously, over her body as she allowed the magic of the night to embrace her, her imagination to follow the paths of arousal.
“You know that you must go to Tariq.” Lucia knelt beside the pallet where Sarita lay unmoving, as she had done throughout the hours since Sandro’s death. The girl gave
no sign of having heard her mother. “If you do not go, the other men will come and fetch you,” Lucia said, tentatively touching her daughter’s shoulder. This motionless silence alarmed Lucia more than anything else could have done. It was so unlike Sarita. She had expected anger, tears, grief, but she hadn’t realized how far matters had gone between Sarita and Sandro, and for that she was to blame. Tariq would hold her responsible. Had he suspected it, he would have stopped it long before so much damage could have been done. But it was up to Lucia to know how matters stood with her daughter and to report such as was necessary to Tariq. Now she was afraid for herself, and she knew that if she didn’t ensure that her daughter obeyed the leader tonight, she would stand doubly accused. She also knew that it would go hard with Sarita if she didn’t comply willingly. Tariq would not easily endure another humiliation.
“Drink a little of this.” She held a cup of wine toward Sarita. “It will calm you, give you strength.”
With sudden violence, Sarita swept the cup to the floor. Red wine splattered, and the tin cup clattered and bounced.
Lucia lost her temper. “I wash my hands of you! You’re an ungrateful, deceitful little fool! You have no choice but to go to Tariq tonight. If you choose to suffer unnecessarily, then that is for you to decide. I shall tell him you are unwilling and I can do nothing with you.”
Sarita sat up on her pallet. She was very pale, but life had returned to her eyes. “I have no choice if I remain with the tribe,” she said clearly. “Help me to leave here, Mother.”
Lucia stared at her, uncomprehending. There was no possibility of her daughter’s existing outside the kinship network of the clan. “That’s madness, Sarita. Where would you go? How would you live?”
“I’ll take my chances,” Sarita replied with the stubbornness her mother recognized. “Anything will be better than Tariq.”
“One man is surely better than hundreds,” her mother said bitterly. “You know that is the only life available to you.”
“I would rather have hundreds than the one who has Sandro’s blood on his hands,” Sarita said with her mother’s bitterness. “Help me.”
“You will recover from Sandro,” Lucia said uncertainly. “A first love, child. We all recover from first love.”
Sarita shook her head. “Even if that were true, it is hardly the point. You expect me to be bedded with the man who murdered the man I loved. I will kill myself first.”
Despairingly, Lucia heard the conviction and the determination in her daughter’s voice. “But you must have known how it would be,” she said. “You knew what would happen when you and Sandro defied Tariq. Even if Tariq had not spoken for you himself, once he had discovered the truth, he would have taken Sandro’s defiance as a challenge for leadership.”
Sarita nodded. “Yes, I know.” How could one explain the blind, driving power of a love that counted such risks as naught? How to explain that they had lived only for each stolen moment, each breathless second of shared passion?
“Help me to leave here,” she repeated, kneeling on her pallet, her sea-green eyes filled with urgent appeal. “Go to him and say that I will come, but not until the fires have been covered. Tell him that I am distressed, that I cannot bear to show my face when the camp is still awake.”
“And when he discovers that I have deceived him …” Lucia let the sentence hang.
“You must tell him that I have asked to be alone—that I asked you to come and prepare me in two hours’ time. Stay outside with the other women. Let it seem that you are angry with me, but that you have no doubts as to my compliance. Indeed, how should you? When you come to the wagon in two hours, then you will find me gone. They will believe that you knew nothing.” Despite this plan, Sarita knew she was asking her mother to take a considerable risk. She knew as well as Lucia that Tariq would hold Lucia accountable for the debacle with Sandro. Sarita’s disappearance from her mother’s care would be even harder to explain.
Lucia was bewildered. The rites and laws of tribal life were bred so deep in her she couldn’t begin to understand how her daughter would prefer to face what could only be a short and savage future rather than accept her destiny within the clan. But there had always been something out of the ordinary about Sarita, some sense that she held herself a little apart. And she was a grown woman now. Lucia had the unshakable conviction that if she refused to help her daughter, Sarita would still try to leave the camp before Tariq sent for her. But without her mother’s help, she could not gain sufficient time to be clear away before the hunt began. If Lucia did not help her now, then she would by default have betrayed her.
“I will help you,” she said finally. “I will help you because I would not expose you to the consequences of failure, not because I believe you are right to do this.”
Sarita stood up and embraced her mother. She still had shed no tears for Sandro, but she wept now for her mother. “I have loved you,” she said.
Lucia smiled and stroked her shoulder. “Yes, I know. As I have loved you. You will leave me now with neither husband nor child. I shall not know my grandchildren. I don’t understand why you cannot stay, but I know that you cannot. Therefore, go with my blessing. Take what coin we have.” Then she put her daughter from her and left the wagon.
Sarita stood there for a minute, recognizing the full extent of her mother’s renunciation. In a tribal community, she would grow old with none of her own immediate kin to support and comfort her. She would be cared for, but she would have no useful place, no clear identifying function. A woman without family. And if Tariq chose to make life unpleasant for her, then he could do so.
And if Tariq chose to come after the runaway, then she would find it hard to hide from him. The thought galvanized her. The sooner she was away, the longer start she would have. She would make her way to Granada. The city was big enough to swallow one woman until the hunt had died down.
With feverish haste, she wrapped what few useful possessions she had in a kerchief. Their small currency store was kept in a leather pouch beneath the pallet. Theft was unheard of within the tribe, but one still took precautions against strangers. Sarita tipped out the contents. There were two ecus d’or. Those she wouldn’t take. They represented what little wealth her mother had received from Estaban. But there were twelve silver pennies, a Venetian ducat, and two florins. She took only the pennies, having the feeling that too much coin could be worse than too little. It could invite robbery and worse. Her best chance for safety was to mingle inconspicuously in the poorer streets of the town and look as if she belonged. Drawing attention to herself in this kingdom would be the first step to the slave market.
She couldn’t risk leaving the wagon from the front; there were people everywhere. The afternoon’s drama and the knowledge of its continuance tonight had created an atmosphere of surreptitious excitement. Everyone was restless, the usual tranquil order of the evening disturbed. So she crept to the rear and gently unloosened one of the backboards. Once, as a child, she had escaped surveillance this way when she’d wanted to go dawn hunting with the boys. She’d been even smaller then and she’d not tried it since, the consequences not encouraging a repetition.
The board came loose easily enough, however, giving a space she reckoned would be wide enough for her to slide through sideways. She tossed her bundle to the ground. It fell with a soft thud. She stopped and listened. The sounds of camp life continued behind her, and she couldn’t hear or sense another presence close by. There was a short, open space between the back of the wagon and the first line of olive trees. The moon was too bright.
Sucking in her stomach, Sarita edged sideways into the gap. It could be done. She stretched her left leg straight out and slid the rest of herself after it. Her dress tore on a splinter, rough wood scraped the back of her thigh, pressed against her breasts, but she was through, crouching on the ground, hugging what little shadow was thrown by the wagon.
Hardly breathing, she listened again. The sounds from the camp continued without pa
use. The brightness of the moon worked in her favor as well as against her. She could at least see that the coast was clear. Gathering up her bundle, she took a deep, steadying breath, then plunged, crouching low, across what seemed like an interminable acreage of brilliantly illuminated space. And then she was in the grove. Panting, breathless, she leaned against an olive tree, hardly daring to believe there were no alerting shouts behind her. But there was nothing; only the incessant scraping of cicadas, and somewhere, a blackbird pretending it was a nightingale.
Once her heart had slowed, she began to make her way through the grove, circling the encampment. There was music, someone strumming a guitar, laughter, the smells of cooking. All that was familiar she was leaving behind. She felt an instant of panic. Then for the first time since it had happened, she allowed herself to see Sandro, as he had been that afternoon behind the rocks, and as he had been later on, so still in death.
She broke through the trees and onto the road. The city lay downhill, and she turned toward it, wanting to run but knowing that she was not yet pursued and there was no need to waste her strength.
Muley Abul Hassan could not at first credit such coincidence. He and Yusuf were still some few hundred yards from the entrance to the olive grove when the slight figure in its unmistakable bright orange dress slipped onto the track into the moonlight.
Yusuf pointed silently and Abul nodded. Then he put his horse to the gallop, simply following the spur of impulse.
Sarita heard the pounding of hooves behind her. Her first thought was that it was Tariq. Somehow, he had discovered her gone … hadn’t believed her mother … hadn’t been prepared to wait for the two hours. She began to run. She ran without looking behind her. Then in sudden, fatalistic despair, she stopped. She could not outrun him. She turned, as motionless as the rabbit petrified by the fox.
