by Jane Feather
“By all means,” he said affably, placing a hand on the curve of her hip. “Do you find the hose comfortable?”
Sarita stepped away from his hand. “Practical, my lor—practical, Abul. I must thank you for your foresight.”
“Not at all,” he returned politely, letting his hand rest again on her hip. “Do they fit well?” His palm moved over her shape beneath the orange dress. “Not too tight, I trust. Or too loose … You are very small.”
“They are a perfect fit. I thank you.” Sarita jumped forward. His hand seemed to be burning her flesh, reminding her of the clear delineation of her body under the leather. She almost ran for the garden, and Abul, satisfied that he had moved ahead in the game, followed.
They walked in silence to the court of the alcazaba, Sarita racking her brains to come up with a topic that would give her the ascendancy again, Abul content to rest on his laurels.
The court of the alcazaba was a very different place this morning from yesterday when she had been so rudely stopped in her tracks. In the caliph’s company, she received no sidelong glances, disgusted or lusting, no sense that she was in some way wantonly inviting such attentions. A small party of men, armed with scimitars, sat their horses by the Gate of Justice. Two laden mules, in the charge of a robed and turbaned driver mounted on a sturdy pony, waited just beyond the gate. But Sarita’s attention was immediately drawn to two riderless horses held by a groom. One of them was a great black animal with powerful sloping shoulders and flaring nostrils, the other a dainty, high-stepping, dappled gray palfrey. Both were richly caparisoned with embroidered saddlecloths and silver harnesses.
“Are they for us, Abul?” All note of confrontation was gone from her voice, and her eyes raised to his face sparkled with excited anticipation.
He nodded. “Which one do you prefer?”
That made her laugh. “Your legs would scrape the ground if you rode the palfrey.”
“And you would be no more visible than a pimple atop Sohrab,” he responded.
“Oh, what an unpleasant comparison,” Sarita protested. “I am not in the least like a pimple.”
“Well, you do have a tendency to become red and irritating, with a certain capacity for breaking forth,” he observed, chuckling. “But …” he added, forestalling the swift tirade forming on her tongue by placing his finger lightly on her mouth. “I withdraw the image. If I put you atop Sohrab, you would be no more visible than a rosebud in such a place.”
“Shameless cozener.” She gasped, pushing his hand from her mouth. “I will not be so beguiled, my lord caliph.”
“Your what?” he demanded in severe tones, although his eyes danced.
“My nothing,” she said. “A slip of the tongue, Abul.”
“Try not to make it again,” he requested pleasantly, moving toward the horses. “I trust the palfrey is good-tempered.” He addressed the groom as he ran his hand over the horse’s neck.
Sarita listened to the groom’s fervent assurances as she made her own study of the horse. She’d been scrambling onto the backs of mules and ponies since she could walk, driving them as they pulled wagons or hauled loads. She rode them if there was a spare mount when the tribe was on the move, but never had she ridden such a magnificent specimen, or indeed ridden simply for pleasure.
“I am accustomed to riding bareback,” she said rather doubtfully, examining the embossed leather saddle, the carved silver stirrups.
“Mules or ponies, maybe,” Abul responded. “This animal needs saddle and stirrups if you’re to control him. Are you ready to go up?”
Sarita nodded, took the reins in one hand, and lifted her foot to the stirrup.
Abul brushed aside the groom as the man moved to assist her and instead himself took the leg she bent in preparation and tossed her upward. “Ali will adjust the stirrups for you.”
He swung effortlessly onto Sohrab and sat waiting while the groom compensated for Sarita’s diminutive length. She settled into the saddle with a sigh of contentment, feeling suddenly empowered by the animal’s strength beneath her, by the height from which she now looked down upon the strange world that had contained her for a lifetime, it sometimes seemed … and for a split second, it seemed at other times.
Abul moved his horse toward the gate, and she followed, conscious again of the power of her mount. He moved with a fluidity that hinted at reined speed and made all the other animals she had ridden seem as if they belonged to a different species.
As they rode out of the Alhambra and onto the track leading down to the olive grove and the city, the mounted soldiers fell in behind them, the mule driver and his charges keeping the rear.
“Why the escort?” Sarita inquired.
“The roads are dangerous,” Abul replied. “I have told you that many times.”
She nodded. “So they’re not here to prevent my putting spur to this speedy animal and taking flight?” Her tone was dulcet as she gave him a sideways glance.
“Not at all,” Abul returned airily. “I need no help to prevent such a thing. Sohrab is three times as fast as your mount.”
She appeared to have lost that round, but then the day was so beautiful, the horizon limitless, the great brass ball of the sun a blinding glare in the vast blue cavern of the sky, that she lost all interest in thinking up further provocation.
Abul turned his mount upward into the mountains, to Sarita’s relief. The olive grove next to her tribe’s camp was too close to the track for comfort if they were to ride past it. But they went upward, escort and mules following, to where the eagles soared and the breeze was cool and the subtle scent of wild herbs crushed beneath the horses’ hooves filled Sarita with a bone-deep joy. It made the heavy fragrances of the Alhambra, the roses and oleanders, myrtle and hibiscus, seem overstated, overluxuriant in their cultivated profusion.
Abul did not disturb her happy reverie. He sensed the pleasure radiating from her and for the first time felt a certain unease about the plan he was following with such single-minded determination. Perhaps such a creature of the groves and mountain pastures, one who had known no life but that of the open road, could not be shaped to the mold of the Alhambra.
No, he did not believe that. Anyone could be shaped to the mold. The question really was whether she could be happily shaped.
“How far do we go?”
She interrupted his musing, and he shook the unusual doubts from his mind. He looked up at the sun, judging that they had been riding for about an hour. “How far do you wish to go?”
“Oh, forever, as far as possible, up where the golden eagles nest,” she said almost dreamily.
“Are you not hungry?” he asked, smiling.
Sarita frowned as the inconvenient practicality made its presence felt. She was, as it happened, very hungry. “Yes. It must be near the dinner hour, but I do not wish to go back yet. Are you very hungry?” She almost pleaded for a negative reply.
“Famished,” Abul said cheerfully. He turned to look back at the escorting soldiers and called something in Arabic, receiving an instant and voluble response. “Let us try over there,” he said, pointing toward an outcrop of rock off the narrow snaking path. “There maybe some shade, and I believe I hear water.”
Sarita listened with educated ears. There was indeed the gentle rushing sound of a mountain stream. “We cannot eat water,” she objected, following him as he walked his horse carefully across the rock-strewn scrub.
“The horses will be thirsty, though.”
She thought she heard a laugh in his voice, which seemed strange, since his observation had been something in the nature of a reproof for her thoughtlessness.
The stream ran behind the rocky outcrop, a silver trickle over flat stones, opening to a deep, naturally dammed pool, then spilling onward down the mountain in a rushing flow. A clump of scrawny olive trees threw thin shadows. More shade was created by the taller, misshapen pile of rocks.
“This should do nicely,” Abul said, dismounting. One of the escort came f
orward to take the reins of his horse. “Down you get.” He reached up and lifted Sarita off her palfrey. His hands were warm around her waist, and she felt his breath on her cheek as he held her longer than necessary before setting her on her feet. The soldier took her horse and led the two to the pool for water.
Sarita sat down on a flat rock and watched in wide-eyed astonishment as the mule driver began to unload his beasts. Some of the escort went to help, and an extraordinary assortment of objects materialized on the ground. There were big cushions, a silk carpet, a canopy supported on poles that they drove into the ground. Suddenly, a small pavilion had been created beside the stream, and Abul drew her up from her rock and led her over to the shady, cushioned, carpeted space.
“How clever!” Sarita exclaimed, sinking onto a cushion. “Are we to have dinner outside?”
“I thought you might like to do something familiar,” he said, seating himself beside her.
Sarita laughed. “The people of my tribe do not eat beneath canopies on silken cushions when they dine. We sit on the ground around the fire.”
“Well, you may look at the fire,” he said, gesturing to where two men were building a fire in a circle of flat stones. “A cup of Jerez?”
Sarita took the jeweled goblet proffered by the mule driver. “No wonder you have an armed escort,” she said, turning the chalice in her hands. “To roam the mountainside with such possessions can only invite robbery.”
Abul simply smiled and lay back on his cushion, watching her through half-closed eyes. She was sitting upright, fascinated by the scene.
“What are they going to cook? I’m quite skilled at tickling trout. Shall I see if I can catch one in the pool?” She half rose from her cushion, but he caught the hem of her dress and pulled her back.
“They have food aplenty. Be restful now and lie back. One should eat in a mood of—”
“Repose and harmony,” she interrupted swiftly. “I know. Just as one should do everything else.”
“Not necessarily everything else,” he mused. “The pursuit of love is best undertaken in a spirit of adventure, and lovemaking itself is frequently at its best when unreposeful, although harmony at the close is necessary for true pleasure.”
Sarita told herself she was choosing not to respond. The fact that she couldn’t think of a reply was immaterial. Even if she had been able to, she would still have chosen silence. Or so she told herself.
She lay back on her cushion, burying her face in her goblet, hoping to hide the flush on her cheekbones, the sudden languor she knew could be seen in her eyes: speaking evidence of the heated flush of her body, the arousal creeping through her loins … the inevitable chain reaction set in motion when this man brought up this subject. She couldn’t afford to acknowledge her treacherous body to herself, let alone to Muley Abul Hassan.
Fortunately, Abul seemed content to let the subject drop, but his apparently reposeful frame radiated amusement. Sarita reached sideways and picked a sprig of wild thyme, rolling it between finger and thumb to release the pungent fragrance. “I wonder if they know how to use the mountain herbs in their cooking,” she said, trying to find a neutral topic. “Perhaps I’ll go and show them.” Again she made to rise, and again Abul pulled her back.
“They won’t appreciate being given instructions by you,” he said.
“Because I’m a woman or because I’m an unbeliever?” This was a safer topic, one with a measure of potential asperity to keep dangerous topics at bay.
“Both, as I’ve told you before.”
“But they won’t harm me when you’re here.”
“Not if I don’t look the other way,” he agreed, still sounding amused.
“But you wouldn’t!” She sat up indignantly.
“Maybe I’d think that, since you hadn’t taken any notice of my warnings, perhaps you should discover the truth empirically,” he said. “Lessons learned through experience invariably strike home.”
It was an observation Sarita was to remember bitterly.
“My lord Abul.” The mule driver was bowing before them, offering a bowl of cold, clear water from the stream. Abul dipped his hands in the bowl and dried them on a linen towel handed by the driver, who then held the bowl for Sarita. Thankful for the diversion, she washed her hands with splashing enthusiasm, hungrily reflecting that in this society hand washing always preceded the arrival of food. The air was filled with the aroma of roasting meat, setting the saliva running in her mouth, and when a basket of bread and olives appeared, she took a handful of olives, only realizing belatedly that Abul was eating them singly from the basket that had been placed between them.
Self-consciously, she let the handful drop back into the basket and broke a piece of bread. It had been rubbed with garlic and olive oil and whetted her already rampant appetite powerfully.
The bread and olives were followed by wooden skewers of roasted lamb chunks alternating with onions and flat mushrooms. Surreptitiously, she watched to see how Abul managed his skewer. Would he suck the pieces off one by one, as she was inclined to do? Instead, he deftly removed each piece with his fingers and popped it into his mouth, chewing and swallowing before going on to the next item.
Sarita followed suit, and found that this slow savoring greatly enhanced her pleasure in the meal. She sipped her Jerez, rolling it around her tongue, and began to feel well pleased with the world. Vine leaves stuffed with rice followed the meat, and when a basket of figs, grapes, and honeyed cakes was placed on the silken carpet, she shook her head ruefully.
“I wish I could, but I have not the smallest space inside me.”
Abul plucked a grape from the bunch and leaned sideways. “This you can make room for.” He laid the glossy black roundness against her lips. Water clung to the lustrous skin, cooling her lips, and she could smell the fresh-picked ripeness beneath her nose. Her tongue peeked out to touch the fruit, tasting its cold, wet shininess.
Abul smiled, took back the grape, and delicately peeled it with his sharp white teeth. She watched, caught by his movements, by the smile on his mouth, the smoking embers in his eyes, locked in some intense circle of entrancement, warmed and wonderfully replete under the benediction of the food and wine and the sultry afternoon warmth. He placed the peeled grape against her lips again, still saying nothing, still smiling, and this time she opened her mouth for it. She held the fecund roundness on her tongue, delaying the moment when she would bite through its now skinless firmness, teasing herself with imagining the spurt of juice that would burst forth when she bit into it.
Abul was watching her expression, his eyes now dark pools of intensity, desire lurking in their depths, that same deeply sensual smile still curving his mouth. As she slowly bit into the fruit, her eyes closing involuntarily, he took another grape, peeled it in the same way, and fed it to her.
“No more,” she heard herself whisper from the depths of some viscous well of arousal. She was drowning in the promise embodied in this slow, luscious peeling and feeding, and made a frantic effort to swim to shore before the wave closed over her. Why did he do this to her? How was it possible? What was it between them that made it happen? She could not yield in this formless, mindless way to a man who held her captive, who could not understand, on the most superficial level, the absolute imperative of freedom: the freedom to make one’s own choices, to order as far as possible one’s own life.
Abul looked into those eyes like drowned seaweed, their desperate appeal now overlaying the desire that a minute earlier had reached to meet his own. Ignoring the appeal, he placed his mouth on hers, his tongue on hers, tasting the grape sweetness of her juices as his hand pushed upward beneath the orange dress, running over the leather-encased firmness of her thighs. But very deliberately he avoided holding her, using his body in any way to create a pressure that could be interpreted as forceful. He held his breath, praying that she would remain still, would allow this leisurely exploration.
For a minute, it seemed she would. He could feel the stirri
ng of her skin, the slow stretch beneath his stroking hand. And then she wrenched her head sideways, turning her body away from him with a gulping sob, pulling her knees up into a fetal curl as if she would shut out from her self both him and the world of sensation he created: a world she could not help but enter.
Abul sighed and lay down on his back, letting his hand rest lightly on her turned hip. “All over, querida,” he said. “It’s time to keep siesta.”
Slowly, Sarita uncurled herself. There was an immense quiet, and when she hitched herself up on an elbow, she saw that they were quite alone, except for the horses, tethered to stakes in the shade of rocks and olive trees. The cooking fire had been put out, listless puffs of gray smoke lifting in the still air from the circle of stones.
“Where are they all?” After the desperate intensity of the past moments, the question sounded absurd in its ordinariness.
“Keeping siesta,” Abul said lazily. “It’s a private time. They have found their own places.”
Sarita lay down again, this time on her back, knowing that there was nothing to fear: there would be no more gently persuasive assaults on her fragile strength … at least not for the moment. Once again, the knowledge of his self-restraint soothed and reassured her, even as she felt deep within the aching void that should have been filled. She knew Abul must be feeling the same. A prickle of remorse mingled with what she recognized as her own sense of an unnatural deprivation.
When she awoke, she was alone under the canopy, and the sun was low. She struggled up and realized that the expedition was almost packed and ready to depart. There was no sign of Abul. Rising, she went to the pool and knelt to splash her face, freshen her mouth, then disappeared behind the rocks in search of necessary privacy. When she emerged, she saw Abul sitting on a rock a few yards away. He was staring into the middle distance, every inch of him absorbed in his meditation. She watched him in silence for several minutes, wondering what he was thinking, trying to sense whether he was unhappy or at peace. But she could feel nothing. It was as if he had taken himself out of this place and away from these people. It chilled her, even as she was learning to envy the ability. But it also reminded her that before they returned to the Alhambra, she had to alienate him so thoroughly that he would leave her in anger to spend the hours of the night alone.
