The Awakening, Zuleika and the Barbarian (22 page)

"Has he offspring?" the khan wanted to know. "We can leave nothing of him if we are to rule Dariyabar in peace, Zuleika."

She shook her head. "Golnar, his favorite, has seen that Haroun did not spawn children. She wanted him sultan first. She planned to have him marry Bahira's little sister, Tahirah. The child is too young to be bred, but Haroun would have had a sultana who would be accepted. Then Golnar would have birthed my cousin an heir of her womb. A sultan's first son, be his mother the sultana or a concubine, is the heir."

"A clever woman," Amir Khan noted. "I look forward to meeting her, my princess."

"Why?"
Zuleika demanded to know. She had hardly expected this.

"One should always know one's enemy," he said quietly.

"I want her sent from Dariyabar!" Zuleika said angrily.

"We will consult the genie on the best way to manage this woman," Amir Khan told Zuleika. "Come now, my beauty, and remember you promised to introduce us."

"I do not know if I should," Zuleika said.

He laughed. "Are you jealous then, my princess? You should not be. I am yours, and yours alone," he swore.

"Golnar is very beautiful, and does not appear to be what she really is," Zuleika said. "She will present herself to you as meek and mild, but she is evil incarnate."

"Is she really that wicked, or do you not perhaps exaggerate just a little to protect your place in my heart?" he asked her gently.

Zuleika could not believe what she had just heard from his mouth. Why was it that men could be such fools, and believe that every action or word a woman suggested had to do with them? She swallowed back her anger. "Golnar," she told him, "is far more iniquitous than you can possibly imagine, my lord Amir. When you are chosen by my father over my cousin, Haroun, when Haroun cannot be found, no trace of him at all, she will see all her plans and schemes coming to naught. That is when she will prove the most dangerous. She has an entire harem at her command, and she will use them and her own body to regain her objectives. If you believe otherwise, then I fear for Dariyabar."

"You will be my wife," he said to her in an attempt to reassure her. "But when your father crosses into the other world, I will be sultan, Zuleika. It is my will that will be law, and not yours. I have already warned you that I will not be tampered with in my rule."

"And I have promised you that I would but
advise
you. I advise you now to beware Golnar. Not because she is beautiful, and I am jealous, but because she is wicked, and will seek to destroy you. I cannot make you listen to me, my lord, but I hope that you have heard, and believed." She arose from their bed. "I must tell poor Rafa not to unpack, as we are to return to the city shortly," she said. And she left him.

Was she jealous? he wondered. He did not know her well enough to be certain, but her devotion to Dariyabar was fierce. Would her loyalty to him be as strong? Or would her allegiance to Dariyabar overcome even her fidelity to a new sultan, not of her family's blood? He could not know that until more time had passed, but by nightfall she would be his wife, and as she had so succinctly put it, she was the key that would open the gates of Dariyabar to him. The war was over, but was yet another war beginning?

Sultan Ibrahim sent out two litters. They were of sweet-smelling cedar, gilded in gold leaf. The larger and more elegant of the two had coral-colored silk gauze draperies and matching cushions edged in gold rope, decorated with gold tassels. The smaller litter's drapes and cushions were turquoise and gold. The sultan had also sent an escort of her personal guard, and his war elephants, who were dressed in bejeweled green silk covers fringed with gold beads and pearls, with matching bejeweled headpieces. There were blackamoors holding purple, rose, silver and sky blue silk parasols fringed in gold, and set upon tall ebony poles banded in silver. There were musicians in their colorful robes of stripes and brocades.

"What is all of this?" the khan demanded of Zuleika.

"My father is bringing us into the city with honor," the princess explained. "You do not come as a conqueror, but rather you enter as a welcomed friend. This way his people will more readily accept you as his chosen heir. While my cousin was not well liked, there will be questions that cannot be answered about his disappearance. Kansbar, however, will have the answers for us."

"You have yet to bring the genie forth, my princess," the khan said. "Should I not know this magical creature before I enter into Dariyabar?"

"Yes! Yes!" she agreed, and ran to fetch the battered metal bowl in which the genie resided.

"I thought you said the bowl was gold," he remarked.

"Do you believe I could have brought a gold bowl from the palace unimpeded?" she laughed. She set the basin on a low table, and invited him to sit next to her. When they were both settled she said, "Kansbar, genie of the golden bowl, great guardian of Dariyabar, come forth, I pray you."

"You are very deferential," the khan whispered to her. "I thought genies were at our service, and must obey."

"You haven't met Kansbar," she murmured with a smile.

"Where is he?" the khan inquired.

"Wait, and be patient," she said. Then, "Kansbar of Dariyabar, come to me, I beg you!"

Suddenly, before the startled eyes of the khan the bowl began to glow, and become the most shining gold he had ever seen. The dents and scratches disappeared, and it was filled with a crystal clear liquid. Then a turbaned head appeared on the surface of the water. The genie had a beautifully barbered black beard, and for someone as old as Zuleika claimed he was, his face bore no signs of age. Atop his head was the most fantastic cloth-of-gold turban with a pigeon's-blood ruby in its front folds, the like of which the khan had never seen. Black eyes stared up at them from the liquid.

"Well," Kansbar said, "what is it you wish of me, my princess?"

"I would present Amir Khan to you, great Kansbar," she replied. "I thought it only proper you meet before we enter the city."

The genie nodded. "Shortly, my lord khan, you will be my new master," he said. "I can but hope our faith in you is justified. Do you swear to rule wisely over Dariyabar?"

"I will do my best," the khan answered.

"You must do better than your best!" the genie roared. "The Gods! The Gods! Is this human no better than the fool, Haroun? My princess, have you been befuddled by passion, and a lusty cock? You are certain this man is the one?" Kansbar looked distinctly dubious.

"I will rule with justice and equanimity, Kansbar," the khan replied. "I am a human, and more I cannot promise, for I will not lie simply to placate you. I am a warrior. I expect you to advise me in matters of governance so I may be fair, and learn from your wisdom."

"He shows promise, I will agree," the genie said grudgingly in response to the khan's speech, looking directly at Zuleika. "And he would, it seems, have a sense of honor which is more than the foolish Haroun had. Very well, I will accept him on one condition, my princess."

"What is that, mighty Kansbar?" she flattered the genie.

"My bowl must remain with you until I am certain that he can be trusted," the genie said. Now his gaze swung to that of the khan. "Will you agree, Amir Khan? Will you accept my judgment in this matter, and know that Zuleika of Dariyabar will understand when the time is right for you to have possession of me?"

"Are you not obliged to obey me when I am sultan of Dariyabar?" the khan asked.

The genie shook his head. "I am only required to obey those in the direct bloodline of Dariyabar's founder, Sultan Sinbad," he explained. "When the time comes that the princess believes you are fit to be my master, that will change, but the choice is mine, not yours."

"I have no option but to agree, then," the khan replied, "but I trust Zuleika. Shortly she will be my wife. I know she will not act against me or the best interests of Dariyabar, great Kansbar."

"No, she will not," the genie responded. "Zuleika of Dariyabar understands loyalty, and will keep faith with you, Amir Khan, as long as you keep faith with her. Listen to her, and trust her words. Now, it is time for us all to return to the city." And the genie was gone, his bowl emptied, dark and battered again.

Amir Khan didn't know whether to laugh, or not. "He is a powerful presence," the khan finally said.

It was Zuleika who laughed. "He is, but wise beyond all. My ancestor found him in a bottle by the seaside, and released him. He granted Sinbad three wishes. The third wish was that Kansbar remain as the protector of Dariyabar always, and be subject to the will of Sinbad's direct descendants until the day came that there were none, at which time the genie would choose his new master."

"So the key to Dariyabar must open two locks, and not just one," the khan observed.

Zuleika thought a moment, and then she nodded. "I suppose that you are right, my lord Amir," she told him.

"I do not know if it pleases me that you have such control over my life, Zuleika," he told her.

"Because I am naught but a woman?" she asked him.

"No, because I prefer to control my own fate, princess," he responded.

"None of us controls our own lives, though sometimes we believe that we do," Zuleika answered him wisely. "We are, all of us, in the hands of the gods, my lord. You are, I believe, meant to follow my father on the throne of Dariyabar, and you will. That I possess the golden bowl counts for little, for in time I will give it to you. But Kansbar is right when he says you are untried yet. He will, himself, I promise you, instruct me when the time is propitious for you to have the bowl. It will not really be my decision at all. I am but his caretaker by virtue of the fact that I am my father's last child."

"You have the skills of a diplomat, Zuleika," he said with a small smile. "When shall we go into the city?"

"First I must bathe," she said to him. "I scent your lust upon me, Amir Khan. I would prefer my father did not when we meet again. Can a bath be brought to me?"

"We do not have such accoutrements to offer, being an army," he said, "but we bathe ourselves in a stream behind the camp out of sight of the city, my princess. I shall call Bahira and Rafa to you, and see that the area is free of my men." He bowed to her, and then was gone from his tent.

Shortly afterwards Bahira arrived, looking slightly the worse for wear. "I have found a man who can actually tire me out," she announced with obvious pride. "Never did I dream of such a lover as General Sabola. Now, tell me what has happened." She sat down on a pile of cushions opposite her friend.

Zuleika once again told her tale of the last day; of how the genie had managed to restore her father's health for a moon cycle, but no more. The secret of Haroun's disappearance was also shared, and Bahira laughed to learn of the prince's fate.

"What of Golnar?" she asked the princess.

"Her fate will be decided later," Zuleika said.

"Then we are to go home!" Bahira clapped her hands.

"I am to wed the khan tonight. I will see that Sabola is wed to you as well, Bahira. You must have the authority of a wife, as must I, for these men will want other women, you may be certain," Zuleika said.

Bahira nodded. "Yes," she agreed. "We must be mistresses in our own homes. Then the beautiful litters and the caravan sent out from the city are our escort."

"Yes," Zuleika said.

"Come, my girls." Rafa now reentered the pavilion. "I am to take you both to the bathing pool. The khan and his general have seen that the area is cleared of others. The sooner you both bathe, the sooner we can go back into the city, and civilization."

The two young women followed Rafa from the tent and through the encampment down a small hill and into a grove of trees. There was a crystal clear stream that entered the pool, with a delicate waterfall that soared above the pond. The girls quickly threw off their robes and dove into the water, squealing at its icy cold.

"I am told there is a warm spring to your right," Rafa called.

They moved to where she pointed, and were rewarded with a flow of almost hot water. Rafa handed them soap-filled sea sponges, and they washed quickly, then swam back beneath the waterfall to rinse themselves. Then the two frolicked, laughing and splashing water on each other as they played.

"Go back to the pavilion," the khan murmured in Rafa's ear.

She turned, and cast a surprised look at him and the general.

"You will all have to bathe again," she warned them.

"We will," the khan chuckled.

Rafa shook her head. "The enthusiasm of youth is to be most wondered at, my lord," she remarked, and then she moved back through the trees, and was gone from their sight.

The khan and his general stripped their loincloths off, and dove into the pool, startling the two young women who screamed at first, not realizing who had joined them. When they saw however that it was Amir Khan and Sabola, they began throwing water at them, laughing.

"You must not get us dirty," Zuleika protested as the khan swam next to her.

"We will bathe again, my princess," he said. "Sabola and I are filled with a wicked lust, and must satisfy it before we go into the city. You do not want us to disgrace ourselves before your father." He pulled her into his arms and began kissing her, his tongue pushing past her lips to seek her out and play.