The Fierce and Tender Sheikh

by Alexandra Sellers

  His door was open on the night. Inside he sat at a large black desk, bent over some papers. Shakira paused for a moment, a smile pulling at her lips as she watched him. He signed a paper and moved it to one side, read another. Then he frowned as he searched for something in a stack of documents.

  He was different now—his face was stern and distant in the lamplight—and Shakira shifted nervously. Perhaps she didn’t know him after all. Perhaps he would not be glad to see her, as she was to see him.

  Sharif tossed down his pen to reach for the gold cigar case lying in the lamp glow. It flicked open, and he drew out one of his small cigars and closed it again. The sound of the click was sharp on the night air.

  Suddenly, as if he had sensed her presence, one dark eyebrow went up and his head turned towards the dark balcony. For a moment he frowned into the darkness just beyond the circle of lamp glow, then, as if he had recognized her, his face relaxed. He dropped the thin cigar and the case and held out an imperious hand.

  “Come,” said Sharif.

  She slipped into the light as stealthily as any cat burglar, her eyes huge in the thin little face.

  “Can’t sleep, little one?”

  The tenderness in his voice made her heart leap, and the approval in his eyes was dangerous for the way it melted her defences. But she had been through too much today to be able to resist the melting. She could not be defended now—she could only smile nervously as she moved to his side.

  “My bed is too soft,” she confided, moving closer to stand against his arm.

  “It’s been a very exciting day.” His dark eyes seemed to see into her. How dangerous to be so known, some Hani part of her cried, but she could not turn away from that tenderly piercing gaze.

  “I wish you were my brother,” she said, because, for all her linguistic virtuosity with insult, she was awkward expressing any gentler emotion. “He was there, and then they took me away and I never saw him again.”

  She looked at him with aching yearning, as if he might suddenly discover a lost history of his own that would make this possible.

  “We will look for your brother one day soon,” he promised.

  She smiled against the tears that suddenly burnt her eyes. For so many years she hadn’t cried at all, and now, suddenly, when tears were no longer necessary, she couldn’t hold them back.

  “The only thing that’s the same is the moon!” she cried suddenly. “How can all this be real, when it’s so different—I used to dream it, you know. I dreamed of people calling me Princess, and loving me. I’m afraid…I’m afraid…”

  She could not go on, because of the sobs that came tumbling out of her throat. “I’m afraid,” she said again, who had learned never to admit to fear. It was her safety with him that made her weep.

  He pushed back his chair and stood. Then he wrapped his arm around her and led her through a doorway to his own bedroom. A thick mat lay on the floor, with cushions and pillows spread around. The sheet had been folded back ready for him, and he bent to lift it for her.

  “This is not a dream,” he said, with firm reassurance. “When you wake up you will still be here, in the palace, among your family.”

  Something tight inside her unwound suddenly, for he had understood something about her that she had not understood about herself. And being understood, the thing lost its power.

  Shakira yawned as fatigue hit her. Without a word she sank down onto the mat and slipped her feet under the sheet as he drew it up over her.

  “This is not so soft,” she said, smiling at him. “It is better, isn’t it?”

  He only smiled, and she yawned again.

  “Where will you sleep?” she asked drowsily, tucking her arms around the pillow and giving herself to its soft comfort. “I can sleep on the floor, you know.”

  “So can I, little one. Don’t worry.”

  “My room is very big,” Shakira said, by way of explanation. “I’ve never been alone in such a big room. This is better, with you here.”

  “I won’t leave you,” he promised.

  Her hand left the pillow and reached out to him, and he sank down and took it in his. Again he felt the assault of that painful thinness, and his heart clenched.

  “I’m sleepy now,” she said.

  He reached and put out the light, and in the same instant the little hand went trustingly slack in his, and the urchin slept.

  “It’s a shock, but it’s a pretty wonderful one when you get used to it,” Noor said, with a warm smile. “Isn’t it funny that you were in that camp in Oz all that time, and I was in Sydney, and we didn’t know anything about each other’s existence? And all the time we were cousins.”

  Shakira could only smile at this glowing creature who called her cousin. On her other side, Princess Jalia gently took her hand. “It’s very satisfying to find another cousin, when that monster was trying to kill us all,” she murmured.

  Shakira sighed as tendrils of happiness branched in her. The three princess cousins were sitting together by the fountain in the courtyard, in the shade of a large tree, relaxing after Shakira’s first Friday evening dinner with all her family.

  “You have to be a bridesmaid at our wedding, Shakira! Isn’t it lucky—I would have been married already, but it was cancelled at the last minute! You’ll be hearing all about that, but not now.” Noor laughed and flicked a roguish glance at Jalia, who only shook her head. “Jalia and I are planning a double wedding, and now I think it was fate, because now you can be one of our bridesmaids! We’re going to have a wonderful time getting you kitted out for it, aren’t we, Jay?”

  Shakira’s panic must have shown in her eyes.

  “Don’t worry, we’ve got months!” Jalia hastily reassured her. “Noor and Bari’s wedding had to be postponed when Bari’s grandfather died suddenly, and we decided to do it together.”

  “So—first things first! What you need right now is some serious pampering,” Noor declared. “Haircut, massage, manicure—you name it, I’ve got the perfect person to do it.”

  Shakira was feeling overwhelmed. She licked her lips. “I’ve never had anything like that,” she said nervously.

  Noor’s smile was warm in her eyes. “That’s no problem,” she said gently. “There’s a first time for everything.”

  “You’ll soon find out that Noor’s used to the pampered life,” Jalia said. “She slipped into the princess thing like a made-to-measure glove. For you and me, it’s more of a shock.”

  “When I was a…young, my—my stepmother always cut my hair. Then it was the camp barber, or I did it myself. And…I don’t know what those other things are,” Shakira told them. She glanced uncertainly from Noor to Jalia. She was so much more used to being with men than women. Women were somehow like her memory of her mother—warm, soft, sweet-smelling and a little mysterious. It was hard to believe she could ever be like that.

  “I don’t really know anything about being a girl,” she confessed.

  Noor smiled and nodded as if that were a problem you ran into every day. “No worries. We’ll teach you.”

  There was so much to learn, so much she had missed. When they took her through the palace, telling her about the portraits, the beautiful miniatures, the great bronze trays that formed part of the artistic treasure of the nation and the family she was part of, she was equal parts enthralled by the stories and dismayed that she knew so little of her history.

  “This is your ancestor Akram,” Sharif said one day, stopping in front of a haunting portrait of a man wearing an intricately sculpted crown. “He fought a war with the great World Burner, Ahmad Shah, and the Emperor was so impressed with his bravery and strategy that, although the empire’s superior numbers meant Akram would inevitably be crushed, he offered Akram a truce. As long as Ahmad Shah lived, they were allies, and that is why Bagestan was never conquered by the Moghuls. It must have been his blood in your veins, Princess, that made you so dauntless in adversity.”

  Shakira gazed at the stern, noble face. “
He is like you,” she said softly, for what she saw was not eyes and mouth, but the heroic humanity of the portrait.

  She was enchanted by Sharif’s stories, thrilled by them. Although many in her family took part in this area of her education, the stories he chose to tell her somehow seemed to connect to her own experience. Sharif’s retelling of history made her feel proud not merely of her brave ancestors, but of herself. As if, in surviving the life she had, Shakira had been following in their footsteps. He made her feel that she had always been a princess.

  “This is the great Suhayr, your ancestress, who ruled Bagestan after her husband died, while her son was too young to rule. When she was threatened by a great army, she sent a message to the King. ‘Why do you invade my country, at such cost to your reputation? For if you defeat me, they will say only that you have defeated a woman. But if Allah should grant me the victory, they will say that you have been defeated by a woman.’ And he was struck by the truth of her argument, and withdrew his army.”

  She loved listening to him, and in giving her her lost past, he also gave her her lost self—as an artist restores a work of art, painstakingly filling in the blank areas of the pattern.

  The way he had given her her name.

  At night, still, when she couldn’t sleep, she often crept across to his room, clambering up the balcony to appear at his window with dark questing eyes, never quite sure of her welcome.

  Sometimes, if he were still at his desk, she would sit and watch as he worked, drinking tea and munching the burnt sugar medallions that a servant had left warming for him. If it was late, he would put her straight to bed, and sit beside her as she fell asleep.

  The times she liked best were the nights when he tossed down his pen and they spread cushions on the balcony and he sat with her there, watching moonlight turn the garden into a place even more magical than it was by day. He told her stories from fairy tale and from history, and she told him stories of her past. England, and the camps, and the hazy, happy time before, with her family.

  She told him most often of her brother, dreaming that Mazin was still alive, and how it would be when they met again at last.

  There was one story she never told him. It came to her tongue many times, but Shakira bit it back. It was a horror story, from the camps, but however many stirring adventures Sharif described to her from her family’s past, this was a part of her that could never be told.

  Seven

  Allahu akbaar…. Allahu akbaar….

  Shakira awoke in the first grey of dawn, to the sound of the muezzin.

  God is great.

  She sat up with a start, gazing around in the gloom. Where was she? Why was she alone in such a big tent? And why was the tent so clean? Its sides fell in gauzy white folds all around the space where she lay. That, too, was covered in clean, white cloths. Behind her were fluffy cushions and pillows, and room enough for a dozen others to sleep. But where were they?

  Come to prayer.

  It was a sound from her childhood, but unfamiliar now. Had she died? Was this heaven?

  It must be. Everything so clean and white, and with so much space all to herself—she was in heaven. How strange that she didn’t remember her death!

  Slowly memory began to return—first, that she no longer slept under a tent, but in a small, hot room in Burry Hill Detention Centre. Then she had a vision of Sharif Azad al Dauleh, and then, in a sudden rush, she remembered everything.

  The palace. She was in her room—her rooms, for the apartment she had been given was large. She had been home, with her true family, for nearly three weeks.

  Come to prayer. In the camps there had been no muezzin, and whether she slept like the dead, as she had last night, or tossed for hours wondering at the silence and the luxury that surrounded her, or, most happily, fell asleep on the cushions on Sharif’s balcony, the call awakened her in the morning.

  The voice reminded her of a time long past, when, at the door of her father’s study, she would see him at prayer, and know that all was right with her world because her father talked to God. She could almost hear the low murmur of his voice now.

  Bismillah arrahman arraheem….

  Shakira slipped to the edge of the bed, whose firm softness she was at last getting used to, and reached her feet down to the still astonishing silkiness of the beautiful white carpet. In the gloom the pattern of delicate arabesques and guls in a palette of greens seemed like mystical symbols rising from a white sea.

  The sky outside was slowly paling to reveal the room. The Sultana had somehow understood, and the newfound princess had been given a bedroom decorated in pure white. To be so clean! It was like a dream. No wonder she had imagined she was waking in heaven.

  In the bathroom she brushed her teeth, then ritually washed her face and hands and feet, still sparing with the water, and remembering her first, luxurious bath in this room. In the bedroom again she stepped over to the prayer rug lying in one corner and, with gratitude deep in her heart, softly began the recital of the dawn prayer, as she had heard her father do so long ago.

  In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful…

  Afterwards, she stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the courtyard and the reflecting pool. As always, her heart lifted at the harmony of so much natural and man-made beauty. The fountains were silent at this hour, the water flat and smooth, with the early light glinting from the still surface. The magnificent domed balcony where generations of monarchs had taken their leisure was perfectly repeated in the mirror of the water.

  On the other side of the court lay Sharif’s apartment, and as always at this hour, his light was already on: the Cup Companions of the Sultan worked hard and long in the great task of helping him rebuild the country.

  Shakira smiled and leaned on the balustrade, waiting for him to appear, as he did every morning, to greet her.

  A gardener with a rake walked by below, yawning. Lights were coming from a few ground-floor windows, for many of the palace staff were already settling to their work, starting early while it was still cool, in order to rest in the heat of the day.

  What a difference from life in Burry Hill, where no one had anything productive to do! There had been no sense of purpose in the camps, no buzz of useful activity as she sensed here, not only in the palace, but everywhere in the country.

  Shakira had eagerly asked the Sultana what work she would be assigned to, but Dana said only, “For now, you have plenty to do just recovering, and getting used to things, and getting to know your family.”

  And in truth, that was enough. As well as learning to find her way about the palace and getting to know the various members of her family, past and present, she had been caught up in a whirlwind of pampering, discovery and laughter as the three cousins undertook what Noor had dubbed The Princess Makeover Project.

  When she passed a mirror now Shakira only blinked at herself. Her hair was only a half inch of curl, wrapped around her skull like a cap. Even to make her a boy they had never cut her hair so short.

  “The hair’s too damaged to recover. Best to take it all off,” Noor’s hairdresser had insisted. At first Shakira had looked even more starved, though everyone pretended she didn’t. But now they didn’t have to pretend so hard—Shakira was already putting flesh between skin and bone.

  Her skin glowed with sweet-smelling creams and oils, too. Shakira lifted her arm and sniffed the still faintly lingering scent. How strange to have a perfumed cream! They had asked her which cream she wanted, and she had chosen the pink one that smelled of roses, and thought how strange it was that she should smell like the memory of her mother.

  She wore clean clothes every day. That seemed a miracle, too—the closets and cupboards so full of clean new clothes, the maid holding things up for her to say what she wanted. She wore white most of the time because she couldn’t get over the magic of whiteness. Her sandals were white, too, the softest leather she had ever touched. Even the pyjamas she wore now in the fresh morning air, watching
as the palace awoke, waiting for Sharif to appear, were white.

  Sharif hadn’t flinched when he saw her almost-bald head. His face had been the same as always. As if…she searched for it…as if he had always seen what was inside anyway, and the outside didn’t matter.

  She wiggled her almost-healed ankle, and was reminded of that first meeting, on the road. That first sight of him, so tall and noble, defending her from the trucker…she had felt hungry for something she couldn’t name. The right to trust someone, perhaps. The longing had made her feel weak, and that was dangerous.

  But in the end she had trusted him. And her life had…

  “Princess!”

  She wouldn’t have heard the whisper if she hadn’t had every sense alert. Shakira leaned over and peered into the gloom of his balcony.

  “Look down!”

  A shadowed figure was standing below in the courtyard, but even without the voice she would have known who it was.

  “Sharif!”

  “Good morning,” he called softly. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Yes. The muezzin woke me. What are you doing down there? Wait!”

  She leapt up onto the balcony wall and, clinging to the arabesques sculpted into the stone face, went over and down with the fearless aplomb of a monkey.

  “Dammit, Princess!” Sharif complained, watching helplessly as she clambered down to the balcony below, then over that and down again, her legs kicking the air for a moment until they found the tiled pillar. She clung to that with practised ease and slid down till she was standing beside him, barefoot and rumpled.

  “Good morning, Hani,” he remarked dryly, and she tilted her head back and laughed her gamin laugh at his apt use of the name. Sharif always knew.

  “This is nice, to walk in the garden before it is light,” she said, as they turned and followed in the wake of the sleepy gardener. A leaf fell on the pool, sending ripples through the perfectly reflected image of the columns and dome of the talar. The tiles were cool underfoot, but the breeze carried the scent of the day’s heat to come. Shakira bent and picked up a fallen blossom that was still fresh, and touched its tender leaves with wondering hands.