LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

      Kingdom of Bharym, Arabia—June 1815

      Dawn was gently breaking as Rafiq al-Antarah, Prince of Bharym, trudged wearily out of his stables after another tense all-night vigil. The outcome had been tragically predictable: the loss of another of his prized Arabian thoroughbreds to this mysterious new sickness. Inas, on this occasion, a beautiful chestnut mare, her suffering brought mercifully to an end when it had become obvious that there could only be one outcome. Eight of his priceless breeding stock lost in just six months, and the only mare to have contracted and survived the seemingly random infection left utterly debilitated. Would there be no end to this torment?

      Leaning against the wooden picket fence which bordered the empty paddock, Rafiq surrendered momentarily to the fomenting mixture of grief, rage and frustration which consumed him. It was enough to bring the strongest of men to their knees, enough to make even the most stoic weep. But a prince could not countenance displaying human weakness. Instead, he clenched his fists, threw back his head and roared impotently at the fading stars. His beautiful animals were innocent victims, punished for his crime. He was certain of it. In this darkest hour which was neither night nor morning, when he felt himself the only man alive in this vast desert region, he had no doubt at all. The fates had visited this plague upon him in retribution, making a mockery of the public pledge he had made to his people, the private vow he had made to himself. Reparation, in the form of restored national pride and a salved personal conscience, were both in danger of slipping from his grasp.

      He had to find a cure. If nature continued to wreak her havoc unrestrained, it would destroy everything he had worked so tirelessly to achieve. He and Jasim had come to recognise the tell-tale symptoms, but even his illustrious Master of the Horse, whose claim to be the foremost trainer of Arabians in all of the East was undisputed, even he had been powerless.

      Turning his back on the paddock, Rafiq rubbed his eyes, which were gritty with exhaustion. When he had inherited the kingdom from his father, the stable complex had been quite derelict, Bharym’s legendary Arabian horses, whose blood lines could be traced back through ancient scrolls and word of mouth to the purest of antecedents, long gone, lost in the course of one fateful day. A day that destroyed his father personally and sullied the honour of the entire al-Antarah royal family. A day that his people believed to be the blackest in their kingdom’s long and proud history. A day of humiliation that dealt a fatal blow to their sense of national pride, and his own. The day that the Sabr was lost.

      Rafiq had been sixteen, on the cusp of manhood, as he stood amidst the smoking wooden embers that were all that remained of Bharym’s stud farm. He had sworn then that when he eventually came to power, he would make good the loss. For six more years, he had been forced to witness his father’s slow but terminal decline, and the resultant decline of his kingdom’s fortunes.

      Eight years ago, just days after his twenty-second birthday, he had inherited the throne and a kingdom that seemed to have lost its way and its sense of identity. He had promised then to make Bharym a better place, a richer place, a kingdom fit for the new century, but his changes, improvements, renovations, were met with apathy. Nothing mattered save the restoration of the Sabr, the tangible symbol of Bharym’s pride and honour. Until the Sabr was won, his people would not fully embrace the bright future he wished for them. Until the Sabr was won, it seemed that Bharym had no future worthy of mention.

      And so, five years ago, he made a solemn vow to deliver the one thing his people longed for above all else. He had been certain that his honourable intentions more than compensated for the cold bargain he had struck in order to deliver on that promise. Only later, when the true, tragic price had become clear had Rafiq’s resolve faltered. To continue on a path that had extracted such a terrible cost went against every tortured instinct in his being. But as darkness segued into a grey, gloomy morning on that tragic day, he knew he had no choice but to carry on. The return of the Sabr was not irrelevant in the face of such loss, it was doubly important. To give up would make the tragedy utterly futile.

      A soft whinny carried on the breeze through an open window. Above him, the sky was turning from grey to the milky-white shade which heralded sunrise and a new day. Rafiq drew himself upright. He would not concede defeat now, or ever. He was Prince of Bharym, ruler of all he surveyed, one of the most powerful men in Arabia, and not yet entirely helpless. There was still

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