by Jane Feather
“My mother’s estates, by the sea. Orange and olive groves; pine woods; a house of white marble with terraces overlooking the sea; gardens of hibiscus and oleander.”
“It is yours?”
“Por cierto,” he said, smiling. “My mother died ten years ago, and I have visited it regularly. But I have never lived there, although I spent time there as a boy.”
“You have never lived there?” She asked the question slowly. It seemed a most important question: a place of their own with no ghosts and no unshared memories.
Abul shook his head. “Never.”
“But there is a seraglio?”
“A seraglio, hija mía, is formed by the women who live within it.”
“But it is the place where women are kept apart.”
He shook his head. “Not necessarily. It cannot exist without women.”
“But you will have wives in this house in Barbary.”
“One wife … or will you permit me others?” He was laughing openly at her, and she joined him with a joyous chuckle.
“No, querido. No other women. You will cleave only to me.”
Although she was laughing, neither of them was in any doubt as to the seriousness of the statement.
“We will live in my land by the mores of yours,” Abul asserted. “And we will have children who will understand the rules of both.” He caught her chin again. “You will bear my children, Sarita?”
She clasped his wrists strongly. “I will bear your children.”
Abul leaned back against his rock. “In that case, it seems to me I have but one problem.”
“And that is?” She regarded him warily, sensing the readiness for mischief in his body.
“Why, simply that I must do something to eradicate this tendency you have for indulging in dangerously imaginative exploits, hija mía.”
She inched backward, moving onto her heels in preparation for a spring to her feet. “You might regret the effort. Just such a dangerously imaginative exploit occurs to me now. Would you wish it quenched, my lord Abul?” She slid her hand between his legs, teasing with a knowing glint in her eye and wicked fingers. Then, just as he began to relax into the caress, she sprang up and danced away from him, pelting him with the wildflowers she had been busily collecting in her skirt.
Abul leaped into motion and she was off, scrambling up the hill, her hair flying, her bare feet finding easy purchase, her swift hands raining grass and flowers down upon him as he came up after her. He caught her ankle, hauling her down, and she came in a slip-sliding of loose earth, laughing.
“You really do find that provocation adds spice,” Abul declared with a murmur of satisfaction as his mouth closed over hers, readily opened to receive the invasion. His hand pushed her skirt up even as her knee moved to press against him with eager accuracy.
“I love you,” she whispered, suddenly malleable, all playful resistance vanished as the hard earth beneath her and the bright enameled sky above her enclosed her. His body was hard in its demand, and there was no imperative on earth but the imperatives of love. He poured his own love into her, and she soared with him through the glory of a future that they would make for themselves, together.
Afterword
In January 1492 the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella marched into Granada. Boabdil, known as El Rey Chico, the Boy King, had been unable to control the internal feuding within his kingdom or to withstand the external pressure from Spain. It is said he handed over the keys of the city to the Spaniards, who entered bloodlessly, thus bringing to an end 781 years of Moorish presence in Spain.
On his way into exile, legend has it that Boabdil stopped on the Motril road for one last look at the rose-red ramparts of the Alhambra, prompting his tenderhearted mother to round on him: “You weep like a woman for what you could not hold as a man.”
The spot on the road is still known as the Moor’s Sigh—Suspiro del Moro.
The Eagle and the Dove
© 1991 Jane Feather
ISBN: 0380761688
AVON
Ed♥n
