Laura Kinsale (13 page)

“Then why didn’t you go?” he asked, in a voice so soft that she trembled.

“How could I?” she asked on a sob. “I could not tell the consul; I had no money; I was alone!”

“Couldn’t tell the consul?” He was shouting again. “Why the devil not? It’s his bloody
job
to take care of you!”

“My mother’s debts!” she cried. “They would have sold me to pay the debts!”

He stared at her. “Fool!” he whispered. “You ignorant little fool! What do you think we are, barbarians? You had only to say it. Only once to say, ‘I’m a woman, I’m English, I need help,’ and we would have moved heaven and earth to get you out of there!”

“Oh
yes!”
she said with a sudden aching bitterness. “My mother needed help, and they took away her income, and left to her starve to death alone.”

“Your mother,” he snapped, “should have been shot!”

She scrambled to her feet. “I’m sure that would have been more to your taste, O Great Father of Ten Shots! I’m surprised you didn’t do it yourself!”

“I would have, if I’d got there soon enough,” he said viciously. “If I’d known about you!”

She felt a wild desire to defend her mother, and so attacked him instead. “You were her particular friend! You could have helped her!”

“She was impossible to help.” He tore off his kuffiyah and flung it away, pacing. “I gave her a thousand pounds every time I came, to pay some of her debts, but she had it spent before I ever got out the gate, buying French champagne and silk suits for her bloody pashas!” He stopped before her, looking at her with narrowed eyes. “I never cared a damn what she did with the money—it was her life, she could live it as she pleased, but my God,
look
at you! If you’ve had a new shirt on your back in the last ten years, I’ll be devilish amazed to hear it.”

A deep sob welled up in her, choking her angry retort. She pressed her fist to her lips.

“For Christ’s sake, don’t start—” He broke off, his jaw taut.

She tried to stop them, but the warm tears tumbled down her cheeks. “I wanted English sh-shoes.”

His gaze flicked to her bare feet, and up to her face. He squeezed his eyes closed, shaking his head with a twisted laugh. “I would have seen that you were sent to England.” His voice, when he spoke, seemed oddly helpless. “I don’t know why you didn’t tell me.”

“I was afraid of you,” she said weakly.

“But why?” He shook his head again, as if in bewilderment. “Why?”

She moistened her lips and looked down. “I’ve heard you and my mother,” she said in a small voice. “You don’t like females.”

“What?” he asked blankly.

“You agreed with her. You said you detest women.” She hesitated. “I was afraid you would leave me if you knew. Or—or... you killed a woman for deceit. I thought—as long as I was Selim—you would abide me for a companion. You would not leave me here.”

There was a long silence. She swallowed in a dry throat and looked up. His black hair was tousled by the kuffiyah, touched with sweat and dust.

“Abide you.” He scowled fiercely as he lifted his hand and wiped the tears from her cheek with the back of his knuckle. “My God, I’m alive because of you.” His touch moved over her skin, slightly rough, tears and a few grains of sand on his fingers. “Little wolf! What’s your name?”

“Zenobia,” she said.

His fingers stilled. “Naturally,” he said in a dry tone. “Oh, naturally!” He stepped back and threw his hands wide. “Zenobia, queen of Palmyra!” he said with a savage flamboyance. “I can guess whose vanity that was meant to serve.”

“You can call me Zenia, if you don’t like it,” she said. “My mother did. She thought I was too missish to be a namesake for Zenobia.”

“Did she?” He gave a scornful laugh. “I’ll wager she never saw you drag a camel up a sand dune.”

Zenia looked at the floor. “No.”

“But you’ve lived with the Bedu. A long time.”

“For eight years. She sent me to them. To live like this.” She added violently, “I hate the desert! I hate it! I don’t want to die here!”

He stood watching her. Zenia covered her mouth with the back of her hand, trying to hold back the pressing sob.

“You won’t,” he said, his blue eyes sober and clear. “I made a promise to you. I’ll keep it, little wolf—unless they kill me first.”

They were pawns. She was. Arden was not certain what his role must be, but he would go to whatever length he had to go to get her safely out of here.

He was afraid it would require a brazen walk through the fire of revolt. Prince Rashid called him into audience without her, demanding to know what forces the Englezys could bring, and Arden lied flagrantly. Ships and guns and men—he described them in detail, and put their arrival at a date as far distant as he dared.

“Two months,
billah,”
Rashid said, displeased. He drew on his long pipe.

“We could have made arrangements with you privately,” Arden said. “You’ve made your move too soon.”

Rashid’s dark eyes widened a little at this blunt speaking. “There was no choice. The Saudis are a half day away.” His lip lifted in scorn. “Those Wahhabi dogs come on the leash of their Egyptian masters. I will receive Prince Khalid el-Saud this evening.”

“With hospitality,” Arden asked, “or with fire?”

Rashid looked from one to another of the men who sat about him in the room. “We shall see, Englezy. We shall see. It is with God.”

“Does my queen have your protection?”

He bent his head in acknowledgment. “She is under my protection.” With a slight smile, he said, “Perhaps I should marry her today.”

Arden said nothing.

“What is she to you, O Father of Ten Shots?” Rashid inquired mildly.

“My queen,” he said. “I am her sword and shield.”

“It is well, by Allah. She is a virgin?”

“Yes.”

Rashid nodded. “We have heard of her mother, the English queen Esther. Her courage, it is said, would shame a man’s. This daughter too—she has ridden in
ghrazzu
and crossed the sands. It is a wonder of Allah. She will breed fearless sons, God willing.”

“Inshallah,”
Arden murmured. “You must protect her.”

“And the bride-price?” the prince inquired mildly.

Arden looked into his black, shrewd eyes. It struck him that the case had gone far beyond caution. “A single mare,” he said. “The String of Pearls.”

For a moment Rashid said nothing. Then he shrugged. He rose abruptly, with a haughty move, and all his men with him. “When the time is ripe, I shall take you to see my mares. You will find pearls enough among them, by Allah.”

It was a damned quiet rebellion. The silence made Arden uneasy as he pretended to sleep through the midday heat.

He and the girl did not speak. After his first fury had subsided, he felt disarmed and awkward, unable to think of any word of reassurance that was not a lie. It seemed better to say nothing, the way they had said nothing in the sands.

Instead Arden had prowled the chamber, looking for escape, but the windows were three times his height off the floor, the central row of columns too wide around to be useful for anything, even supposing he could contrive some sort of rope, and the door impenetrable short of fire or axe. Finally he sat down, dropping onto his back against a dusty cushion.

For the hours that they waited, their fate swinging in balance, he lay on the rugs, listening and thinking and watching.

There was nothing soft or voluptuous in her. She was female as a she-animal was female, her beauty hard-edged; almost painful, keen as the blade of sword.

Zenia. Zenobia. He could not seem to make either name fit her. She was Selim; his wolf cub, his free-striding child of the desert.

He closed his eyes. And started to his feet when the shouts and the slam of the lock finally came.

Zenia knew before any word was spoken that they were in grievous danger. In the barren guardroom, spears and weapons were piled high, the Wahhabi warriors and Egyptian garrison standing cold-eyed as she and Lord Winter passed.

She walked first, still in her ragged desert shirt and bare feet. Lord Winter came behind her; when they had left their imprisonment he had stood back as if in homage to her, and flanked her now like an honor guard.

She recognized the role that she must take, though they had not spoken of it. It was as if from the moment the soldiers had come for them, she was locked with him in sense and spirit, knowing his mind as she knew her own.

At the door to the emir’s hall, she paused. The feast had already been partaken by the guests of honor, and now groups of men huddled around the huge trays, scraping up what was left of the rice and lamb. Prince Rashid stood overlooking all, his arms crossed, a solemnly courteous host. The Saudi emir sat upon a pile of rugs, his robes all purest white, austere beside Rashid’s brilliant purple and green and red. The
agha
that was bound about the Saudi’s head scarf was of plain dark wool instead of gold. To his right in an honored position sat an Egyptian general, conspicuous by his Turkish pantaloons, red cloak and tall betasseled fez. He held Lord Winter’s revolving rifle across his lap, so absorbed in examining it that he did not even look up when all conversation ceased.

Zenia stood in the door. She felt Lord Winter’s presence at her back. In the silence she could hear him breathing, soft and steady, his calmness like a firm hand on her shoulder.

Her chin was high. She thought of her mother; she
made
herself her mother, Lady Hester who had defied all danger, challenged Ibrahim Pasha himself. Her mother, whose whole life was unflinching, reckless, scornful courage. She walked down the center of the hall and stopped.

“Who are you?” she demanded of the Saudi prince in a voice that rang high to the roof.

His lean jaw dropped a little under the hooked beak of his nose. His black eyes grew furious, and for a moment, just a moment, he made as if to rise.

He caught himself in time. It would have been an acknowledgment of her rank if he had stood for her. The men grouped about him muttered softly, and then quieted as Prince Rashid lifted his hand.

“Khalid ibn Saud, of long life and prosperity, may Allah bless my prince,” Rashid said, smoothing over the moment. He turned his head slightly toward the Wahhabi emir. “The daughter of Esther, queen of the Englezys, who searches the desert for a blooded prince to marry.”