Beloved Sheikh - ALEXANDRA SELLERS

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on his other side, and next to the Companion was Gordon. All around, the others were finding their places, and in a moment it became clear that every second or third place was taken by one of the Cup Companions.

      Prince Rafi raised his arms and gestured them to sit. Zara settled herself among the most comfortable cushions she had ever sat on in her life, and tucked her feet neatly beside her. She turned to find that Arif ur-Rashid was on her other side.

      Music started playing. Several musicians with stringed and other instruments—some of which she had never seen before—had come in and settled in a corner and were playing a soft accompaniment to the coming meal.

      Arif clapped his hands, and a small army of white-clad boys and girls appeared, each boy carrying a pitcher, each girl a basin, all in silver chased with gold. They approached the table and knelt by the diners. One girl knelt between Prince Rafi and Zara, and, balancing the basin on her knee, offered the prince a bar of soap. He spoke a few gentle words, and she blushed and turned to Zara, offering her the bar. Grateful that Gordon had warned them of the ritual, she took the offered bar and washed her hands lightly under the flow of water that the boy produced from the pitcher.

      When Zara had finished, the girl reached to take the soap from her, but her hand fell back as Prince Rafi’s own hand stretched across the basin. Her heart beating hard with unaccustomed confusion, Zara slipped the perfumed soap into his hand. His dark hand closed firmly on the slender white bar, and Zara’s mouth opened, gasping for more oxygen than seemed to be available. She watched transfixed as he stroked the bar of soap into a lather between his hands, then, as if without volition, felt her gaze drawn upwards to his face.

      He was watching her, a half smile in his dark eyes. Slowly, lazily, he set the soap in the basin and held his hands under the stream the boy carefully poured. The scent of rosewater mingled with the other subtle scents assailing her nostrils.

      “The towel is offered you, Miss Blake,” said the prince, and she blinked and smiled at the worried girl who was holding the soft oblong of fabric up for her.

      “Thank you,” she said. She dried her hands and watched as the prince did the same. Then the boy and girl moved away to join the phalanx of water bearers, who all bowed and then filed neatly out of the room.

      Almost immediately another group of servants filed in, bringing with them this time the welcome, delicious odour of food. Within the next few minutes a feast appeared. Some dishes were placed on the table, some were carried around and offered to the guests. The beautiful silver and gold goblets were filled with water and wine and exotic juices.

      After the bustle had died down, Prince Rafi lifted his gold cup. “I extend to all members of the archaeological team my congratulations on the important historical site which you have discovered and will no doubt in the years to come excavate, to enrich the knowledge of my country’s and the world’s ancient history. In particular, I commend Mr. Gordon Rhett, whom I know well from those occasions when he visited and wrote to me in his enthusiasm for this project.”

      He turned and saluted Gordon with his glass, and everybody drank.

      “But now is not the time for speeches. The pleasures of the mind are offered when the pleasures of the flesh have been satisfied.” He invited them all to eat and drink, but Zara could hardly take in the words. When he said those words, “the pleasures of the flesh,” it was as if his body sparked with electricity so strong she received a shock from it. She was covered in gooseflesh.

      She thought, I’m helpless already. If he really does want me, I won’t be able to refuse.

      Three

      It became clearer and clearer as the evening wore on that Prince Rafi had eyes only for Zara. Whether he was speaking to the whole room, or to an individual, or listening or silent, there was a kind of glow around the two, apparent to almost everyone in the room. Several times, as if hardly realizing it, the prince would break off what he was saying to lean over and encourage Zara to try the most delicious tidbit on the platter that was being offered, or to signal the cupbearers to refill her glass, or to ask her with an intimate smile whether she liked some flavour.

      When the whole roast sheep came in, he regaled them all with the story of the time his father had, according to custom, made the grand gesture of giving one of the sheep’s eyes to his most honoured guest—the British Ambassador. He mimicked the British Ambassador’s false expressions of gratitude.

      He was a magical storyteller, with the knack of making people laugh. “Did he have to eat it in front of everyone?” Zara asked.

      Prince Rafi turned lazily approving eyes upon her, which shocked her system as if with an unexpected touch. “My stepmother, my father’s first and most beloved wife, was then a new bride. She was sitting on the other side of the Ambassador. Just after the sheep’s eye was served to him, my stepmother had the misfortune to knock over her water glass. The ambassador certainly put something into his mouth and ate it with great enjoyment. But it was rumoured that my stepmother afterwards berated my father and made him swear never again to offer sheep’s eyes to a foreign guest.”

      They were all laughing. Rafi watched in admiration how Zara’s neck arched, her eyes brimming over with mischief and merriment, her black lustrous curls falling just so with the tilt of her elegant head.

      “My stepmother was a foreigner herself,” he said then. “She understood the ways of foreigners, and she gave my father much good advice. She was of great assistance to him in his rule. He always said so.” He paused. “They were much in love, all their lives.”

      He said this gazing right at Zara. The laughter died in her, and heat crept visibly up her cheeks. She was beginning to be a little angry now. Making eyes at her was one thing. This was getting ridiculous. She was starting to feel like an idiot.

      She returned his look coolly. “It didn’t stop him taking other wives, though, did it? She was not, after all, your own mother.”

      Instead of chilling him, this comment had the effect of making his eyes spark with interest, as if she had betrayed jealousy and he counted that a point in his favour. “Ah, you do not know my father’s tragic story!” Rafi exclaimed, He looked around at the musicians. “Where is Motreb? Ask him to come forth.”

      A man in curious dress entered carrying yet another unfamiliar stringed instrument not unlike a banjo. “Motreb, I ask you to sing for my friends the song of my father’s love,” cried Prince Rafi.

      He leaned to Haroun on his left and murmured a word in his ear, and when the singer-storyteller settled himself to sing the song of the great king who fell in love with a bewitching foreigner, the Companion got up and stood beside him. Between the plaintive lines, Motreb paused, playing his instrument, while Haroun translated the story of King Daud.

      “‘And will you take no wife but me? You cannot swear to this, quoth she.’”

      Zara, who had never heard the story, was entranced, both by the tale itself and by the haunting ululating melody of the singer’s voice.

      “‘I will. I swear. No wife but thee . . .’”

      Then she heard the story of how King Daud had married the stranger and to the great joy of his people, had made her his queen. And how thirty years of happy marriage and two sons followed, giving no warning before disaster struck in the shape of a fatal air crash. The king and queen mourned long.

      “‘We have lost our beloved sons, my husband. And though with all my heart I would give you more, I am old . . . your promise, too, made in the sweet blossom of youth, is old. I say it is no more. It has died with our sons. Take therefore, my husband, three young wives, and get a son for your kingdom, that this land may remain what men call Blessed.’”

      Zara’s eyes burned as the tragic voice sobbed out the story. Somewhere on her right she heard a sniff, Lena probably, which made her own control slip. She dropped her head, surreptitiously pulling a tissue out of her bag with one hand, and dabbed her eyes.

      Her free hand was taken in a firm but gentle hold, and her eyes

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