The Eagle and the Dove

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The Eagle and the Dove Page 13

by Jane Feather


  “It was foolish to imagine you could leave here without my permission,” Abul responded. “However, I wasn’t referring to that piece of idiocy.”

  “Now, you just listen to me, my lord caliph.” Her voice shook with anger. “I have been hauled around like a sack of flour by some savage. I very nearly had my throat cut. I have been starved and imprisoned in the dark for hours, and I have had as much as I can tolerate. I will not stand here listening to your pontificating on the subject of foolishness … or on any other subject, for that matter.” She spun on her heel, intending to go back up to the gallery, where she could regain her composure in solitude. But Abul moved swiftly away from the pillar, catching her arm.

  “No, you will listen to me, Sarita. For your own safety.”

  “No! Let go of me!” Her anger now burst its banks, and she twisted violently in his hold, beside herself with rage and a despairing frustration at her own powerlessness to alter anything, either the fact or the terms of her present situation. Abul hung on to her, and she whirled suddenly toward him, bringing her knee up in a vicious jab to his groin.

  Either he was expecting it, or his reflexes were remarkably swift, for he swung his body sideways, catching her knee in a jarring thud against his thigh.

  “Fiera!” There was anger now in his voice, and his black eyes flared. “Have you learned nothing this afternoon?”

  “Oh, yes, I’ve learned the true nature of this fairyland of yours.” She bent to rub her knee, bruised against the muscled hardness of his thigh. Tears filled her eyes, but she didn’t know whether they were of pain or rage. “It’s all beauty on the surface and sheer barbarism beneath. You can prate all you wish about the true harmony of the body and mind, and the importance of repose, and the superior values of your culture, but you’re all savages beneath … even if you are very clean,” she muttered sotto voce.

  Abul’s anger died as swiftly as it had arisen, to be replaced with a reluctant amusement. He rubbed his thigh ruefully, trying not to think how he’d be feeling if her knee had met its intended target with such force. “Are you telling me that you, a mere and rather small woman, could have attacked with impunity a man of your tribe the way you attacked my soldier this afternoon?”

  Sarita hesitated. Her rage seemed to have dissipated in the aftermath of that tussle. “Not with impunity,” she said finally. “No … but I wouldn’t have had my throat cut,” she added, glaring at him. “And I wouldn’t have been carted around like a dead deer, either.”

  “As far as the men here are concerned, Sarita, you are first a woman and second an unbeliever. Women do as they’re told and keep to their own place, and for a man who believes in the One God, the fact that you are also an unbeliever renders you basically worthless and certainly not warranting consideration, most particularly not when you attack a man and a believer. If you were a woman of our people, you would know how to behave and would not put yourself in danger of incurring a man’s wrath.”

  “I’m not to resent being carted around like a dead deer, then?” She began to pace the court, rubbing her crossed forearms as if she were cold.

  “No, first because you’re a woman, and second because you were defying my ruling,” he said, as if he were reiterating some axiom. “My rule is absolute in this kingdom, Sarita. All who travel through it or do business here do so under my writ. For your own safety, you must understand these things. I may not always be there to protect you.”

  “Oh, yes, and shutting me up in the dark with no food for hours is how you protect me? Forgive me for not expressing my gratitude for that protection earlier. I expect it was because I didn’t fully understand that I needed to be protected by my abductor from the consequences of his abduction.”

  “How eloquent you are,” Abul murmured. “Hunger must sharpen your wits as well as your tongue.”

  Sarita picked up a cushion and hurled it at him. He ducked, laughing, and she followed with a rain of cushions, grabbing them at random from the ottomans and divans scattered around the court. Abul dodged them, still laughing, until her hand fell upon something more serious. A small onyx box curved through the air, sailed past his ear, and crashed to the marble floor.

  Abul stood still, the laughter fading from his eyes. “This ceases to be amusing,” he said.

  “I never believed it was,” she said coldly, although a little flutter of apprehension made its appearance in the pit of her stomach. “The humor was all on your side. Just as the offenses are all on your side.”

  He shook his head. “No. You chose to remain here rather than return to your people. You are not held against your will. And it is most definitely discourteous for a guest to throw dangerous objects at her host.” He began to walk toward her.

  Sarita began to walk backward. “That is a spurious argument, and you know it. I don’t wish for either of those alternatives. I will go back into Castile. At least there I’ll be treated like a Christian woman and not … not …”

  “Like a dead deer,” he supplied, coming closer. “Believe it or not, hija mía, but your safety and well-being have become amazingly important to me in the last day. I am not letting you loose, not just for myself, although I won’t deny that’s a major imperative, but for your own safety.”

  “I will take responsibility for my safety,” she cried, backing away, not sure that she liked the look in his eye, for all that he sounded quite patient and equable.

  “Not under my writ,” he said. “Are we going to continue this curious mode of progression indefinitely? Or are you going to stand still?”

  “Stand still for what?” She had reached the staircase.

  “For whatever penalty the caliph rules as appropriate for throwing dangerous objects at him. We’ll forget that earlier attempt to cause me considerable impairment. I’ll excuse that and the cushions on the grounds of aggravation, but not the box.”

  Sarita turned and fled up the stairs. Abul followed her without increasing his speed, yet he seemed to arrive in the gallery with dismaying rapidity. She danced backward, leaping over an ottoman, relaxing as she realized that her escape route was always clear in this circular space. Abul kept coming. And again he was moving fast, although he didn’t seem to be. It occurred to Sarita that it was probably because his legs were so long and he could cover a considerable distance in a few strides, whereas she had to keep running to maintain the same pace. A silken rug slipped beneath her feet and she tripped, grabbing wildly at the balcony rail. Imperceptibly, Abul slowed, giving her time to right herself, and she realized that it was all a game. Or at least she thought it was. Her pursuer still looked convincingly stern. She scampered around the far corner of the gallery, aware that her breath was coming fast, although she was not out of breath from running. She stood still, watching him, her eyes shining.

  Abul made a sudden lunge for her and she shrieked, hurling herself around the other side of the gallery toward the stairs. What happened next occurred so fast she couldn’t at first believe it. Abul reversed himself in midair, it appeared, and arrived facing her at the staircase as she reached it.

  She made to retreat, but he tapped her shoulder lightly. “Caught you,” he said.

  She shrugged, nibbled her bottom lip, and smiled a little nervously. “So it would seem.”

  He stood looking down at her for what felt like an eternity. But Sarita couldn’t see what he could see: her hair tossed around her face, her cheeks slightly flushed, her eyes a-sparkle, her lips parted. Abul was lost anew. Ever since he had first seen her, he had felt this insuperable tug, as if she were some lodestone for all the energies, the urges, the love he had within him that had not yet found an object. She didn’t feel that for him, he knew. But he also had the absolute conviction, the trust, that what he felt for her would by definition have to be returned eventually. It was too powerful an emotion, too sharing an emotion, to fail to be reciprocated.

  And he knew she was stirred by him. She was stirred now; he could feel the excitement radiating from her skin almost, c
ould see the deep currents of arousal in the great green pools of her eyes. He had only two strings to his bow: the knowledge that he could create that unbidden arousal, and the power to keep her with him until she yielded to the yearning of her body. He believed she would not do that until mind and body were in accord, when her heart had healed, when she accepted how she felt and the rightness of it. Until then, he could only continue his gentle persuasion.

  “I was right,” he said. “You do find a tussle adds sauce to the loving.”

  Sarita felt the blush warming her cheeks as his words struck an undeniable chord, but she came back strongly. “I don’t know where you see the loving. I’m aware of nothing but coercion, anger, and hunger!”

  “Oh, yes, anger,” he said thoughtfully. “I was forgetting what brought us to this pretty pass. You look so desirable I forgot about the box for the moment.”

  The time for running was clearly over, so she stood her ground, meeting his eye with her usual unspoken challenge.

  Abul caught her face between his hands, letting his fingers run through the cloud of curls springing off her forehead. A slightly quizzical smile quirked his lips, and she knew what he was going to do, just as she knew she wanted him to do it.

  He had the most beautiful mouth, she thought the instant before he covered her mouth with his and coherent thought ceased to be possible.

  It was a hard, assertive kiss, far from the gentle assaults she had come to expect, and it set up a deep, responsive throb in her belly. Hungrily, she opened her lips for his probing tongue. He raided her mouth, plundered, held her breathlessly in thrall to the invasion, then withdrew, looking down at her, his hands still gripping her face, a warm, firm clasp that began to feel as if it were an extension of her skin.

  “Sufficient punishment?” he asked softly, running a thumb over her kiss-reddened, parted lips. Her skin was flushed, her eyes unfocused. “Perhaps not,” he said when she made no response to his teasing question. “After all, it was only your poor aim that saved me from a fractured skull.” He brought his mouth to hers again.

  Sarita felt like a boat slipping its anchor. She seemed to be losing touch with the solid world, where she knew who and what she was and what she wanted and the values and beliefs that lay behind those wants; now she was cast adrift on a chaotic sea of feelings in which her mind and spirit were as much involved as her body. She didn’t want this, yet she did. She didn’t believe it was right, yet she couldn’t believe something this powerful was wrong.

  His touch moved from her face to her breast, and she moaned softly against his mouth, her lower body shifting closer to him of its own volition, so that she could feel the heat of him through the thin orange dress, could feel the hardness as his body rose in its own wanting. His hand moved to caress the slight swell of her hip, to smooth over her bottom, pressing her closer to him, and the last anchor rope snapped.

  Abul reveled in the feel of her, the smallness, the fragility that was belied by the strength of her mounting arousal, the rapid swell of a passion to match his own. It would be easy now, with no break in the spiraling need, to move with her to the divan. She would come to him, be with him, because she was as much at the mercy of her body’s passion as he was.

  And then he knew that he could not. That it wouldn’t work. Oh, the moment would work; it couldn’t fail to do so. But she wasn’t yet truly willing, not in her self. And if he took advantage of her now, it would rebound. She would be angry, with him and with herself, because she still had so much unreconciled emotion within her, and they would be left with the sour aftertaste of guilt and regret.

  He put his hands at her waist as he raised his head, and gently lifted her away from him. Shock sparked in the seaweed depths of her eyes at this abrupt cessation, and a quiver of loss shook her frame to match the wrenching ache in his own body at such a harsh interruption of stimulus.

  Sarita placed her fingers on her swollen lips; her eyes were still focused on the world she had been inhabiting. Why had he stopped? He must have known she had no defenses against him anymore. She stared at him, uncomprehending. His face had an unusual pallor beneath the golden tinge, his mouth was drawn tight, and a muscle twitched in his cheek. Abul had not found that self-abnegation easy.

  He drew in a deep breath, steadying himself before he spoke. “That’s not the way it should be. I don’t want you taken by surprise.”

  Sarita took her own deep breath. “Why not? You keep me prisoner for one reason, as I understand it. Why hold back when you were so close to achieving your object?”

  Abul shook his head. “You understand perfectly well, so don’t play any more games. I’ve had enough for one evening.”

  “You’ve had enough?” Anger flared again, a welcome diversion even if it was only the other side of passion’s coin. “How do you think I feel?”

  “Hungry … or so you’ve been telling me,” he said dryly. “Kadiga and Zulema will attend you while you change out of those clothes, and then we will sup together.”

  “These are my clothes,” Sarita said. “I see no reason to wear the robes of the harem.”

  Abul looked at her, a thoughtful glimmer in his eye. “But you do want your supper?”

  “What has that to do with it?” Her eyes told him that she too had had enough of games.

  Abul laughed and retreated. “Nothing at all. But you cannot wish to wear the same clothes you have worn all day. They are working clothes. Why are you reluctant now to put on something suitable only for lying around and eating apricots? We will sup and listen to music. You have no need of working clothes.” He didn’t wait for a capitulation, but left her immediately, knowing that she would be better left alone, to make her own decision, to see the sense of his statement, and to deal in her own way with the dislocation of the past minutes.

  The door of the tower clicked shut, and Sarita listened for the turning of the key. She didn’t hear it. She ran down the stairs and tried the door. It opened at a touch. So he was that sure of the impossibility of escape! Frowning, she closed the door again and went to sit on an ottoman beside the soothing murmurs of the fountain. She’d been locked in all afternoon simply for punitive reasons, then. Abul was not afraid she would succeed in leaving the Alhambra without his permission.

  With this knowledge came the absolute determination to prove him wrong. She had ceased to care about where she would go or what she would do, or even whether she really wished to leave anymore. She was conscious only of the need to make her own statement, of the need to prove that she could not be held by a spurious, imposed contract. It now had nothing to do with whether she would choose to stay if the choice was truly given to her. The choice had not been given, and without that choice, there was no possibility of a furtherance of this strange relationship. She must and would deny the magnetism of the man, the fact that he drew her as the moon draws the tide. She must and would deny the fact that she liked him, trusted him, was amused by him, was warmed by him …

  She must and would deny all these things because the caliph was making no attempt to understand her point of view. He was blithely imposing the norms and rites of his own people upon her, and he must understand that she would not accept that. She neither could nor would sink into the sedentary, seductive ways of the Alhambra’s seraglio, dependent upon the favor of the caliph, with no function but to please him. She came from an active people, accustomed to shaping their world, to working hard and playing as hard. Women had a place and a status of their own, based on their functions within the network, and those functions were vital. Oh, it was certainly true that men were the powerful ones, but they yielded to women in the areas where women’s skills and wisdom were acknowledged superior. Here, it seemed to Sarita, women existed only within the shadow of men, and if they attempted to step outside that shadow, a man was entitled to take what corrective measures he pleased. Muley Abul Hassan believed that; it was in his blood, bred in his bone, and not all the gentleness, humor, warmth, and trustworthiness in his character coul
d erase the consequences of that fundamental belief.

  So she was going to leave this place. And her next attempt would succeed.

  Kadiga and Zulema came in just as she had reached this firm, yet uneasily melancholy, resolution.

  “I think you must be moon-touched, Sarita,” Kadiga declared without preamble, hurrying across to her. “Everyone is talking of how you disrupted the caliph and his cadi in the Mexuar during the hours of justice.”

  “I do not know how you could dare to do such a thing,” Zulema said, shaking her head, tutting gently.

  “I think you have the story a little confused,” Sarita said. “I did not disturb the caliph through any decision of my own. I was dumped in front of him by some … some species of wild boar in the guise of a man.”

  “But of course the men would take you to the caliph if you were doing something you shouldn’t,” Zulema said in her sweetly reasonable voice.

  “I was not doing something I shouldn’t.” Sarita wondered if it was worth trying to explain. It would require a massive program of reeducation.

  “But you must have been.” Kadiga was picking up scattered cushions. “However did these come to be on the floor?”

  “Because I threw them,” Sarita said, getting up from the ottoman. “At your caliph, if you must know.”

  There was a moment’s stunned silence, then Kadiga gave a little choking sound, suspiciously like a giggle. “You did not, Sarita. You could not.”

  “I could and I did.” She went to the staircase. “And if someone doesn’t bring me some food very soon, I am really going to lose my temper.”

  There was a brittle edge to her voice that brought both of her attendants to her side. “Supper will come shortly,” Zulema soothed. “Let us go up to the gallery and change your robe.”

  “I can eat perfectly well in this.” But she said it purely as a form protest, having reached the stage where she would nave eaten naked if that was the only way she was going to sit before a plate of food.

 

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