The Bride Price (39 page)

“It may be honorable that we married, Sharif, but it was wrong.”

“What is wrong with giving the child a home?”

“But what kind of home will it be without love?” Bryna’s voice began to rise as she blurted, “Don’t you understand? I want to love you and to be loved in return.”

The words seemed familiar somehow, but she did not examine them. She was more concerned that she was about to cry in front of her new husband. Turning a rigid back to him, she blinked back angry tears.

She kept her face stubbornly averted when the man gently turned her to face him. With one crooked finger he lifted her chin, and she saw for the first time the light of hope her words had kindled in his eyes. “Do you love me, Farha?” he asked warily.

“Yes,” she moaned, suddenly bursting into tears. Chagrined, she buried her face against his shoulder and wept, her shoulders heaving with sobs.

“And I love you,
maddamti,
my lady wife.” Sharif embraced her blissfully, planting quick glad kisses on her lustrous hair, on her tear-wet face, and, lingeringly, on her willing lips.

“We love each other.” He laughed aloud, thrilled by the discovery. “We love each other, and that is all that matters.”

Suddenly he released her and led her over to sit on the bed. “The women still wait,” he reminded her quietly, sitting beside her. “You must scream now so they know you fight for your honor.”

She felt foolish, but she obeyed. She could not allow her husband to lose face. Tentatively she cried out, the volume rising until it was a resistant wail. At last unearthly shrieks of protest rose to a shattering crescendo. As it ebbed finally to terrified whimpers, the couple in the bedchamber heard the women run downstairs, almost tripping over each other in their haste to inform the others of the great battle.

Dissolving into gales of laughter, the sheik and his new wife fell into each other’s arms, the strain between them past.

When their eyes met, their faces sobered. Deliberately Sharif blew out the lamp. Then he eased Bryna back so she lay across the bed. Leaning over her, he murmured, “Now that the business of honor is done, let us get to the important task of making you my own.”

“I am yours,” she whispered, her arms sliding around his neck.

“Just as I am yours,” he answered, his voice thick with passion. He kissed her tenderly at first, but then with more urgency as his desire grew.

Gently he stroked the slender column of her neck, feeling the flutter of her heart under the ivory skin. She moaned softly against his mouth and laced her fingers through his long thick hair, seeking to draw him closer still.

Sharif ran a hand over Bryna’s shoulder and cupped one of her breasts, savoring for a moment the prickly feel of the velvet against his palm. But, determined to feel the satiny softness of her body, he quickly began to unbutton her dress. In her pregnancy her breasts were fuller than he had remembered, and he delighted in their instant response to his caresses.

It seemed Bryna also longed for the feel of warm, bare skin. Sharif’s breath caught as her fingers slid into the deep neckline of his
thobe
and traced the scar on his chest. Nearly trembling with desire, he stood and rapidly removed his
thobe.
Then, bending over her, he finished unbuttoning her dress, and arranged it so the length of her body was bared. She lay in a pool of moonlight, her skin very white against the blue velvet.

“Thou art beautiful, my beloved,” he whispered, coming to lie beside her again.

“And thou, my husband.” Bryna’s voice was husky with desire as she reached out to him. Eagerly, she molded her body to his hard length and her fingernails etched delicate patterns on his back. His hands stroked and caressed her slim hips and thighs before finding what he sought. She gasped but soon relaxed under his skillful hand. She exulted in the feel of skin against skin and wished to feel every part of his firm body. When her fingers, cool and gentle, curled around his heated shaft, the man murmured with delight, entranced with both giving and receiving pleasure.

When they could no longer stem the tide of desire, they united, reveling in sensation and the release their joining gave them. Finally Bryna slept, her head on her husband’s shoulder. Sharif pulled her close against his body and, before he slept, thanked Allah for his fortune.

When Bryna rose to bathe the next morning, her husband lingered in bed. Cutting his arm with his dagger where the wound would not be seen, he allowed the blood to drip onto the sheets. Only Faisal knew Bryna was not a virgin, and the secret was safe with him. What he did was shameful, Sharif thought soberly, but no one else must know the sheik’s wife was not chaste when she came to him.

The bride was radiant and the groom a contented man when Bryna and Sharif rejoined the Selims for the week-long wedding celebration. When the household settled back into the everyday routines, `Abla was delighted to have a new
umm,
and Bryna relished family life, savoring every mood of pregnancy.

Still, sometimes she sensed a brooding uneasiness in her new husband. She knew that Sharif loved her, but at times he seemed distant and reserved. During those times Bryna realized how little she knew him. Perhaps the child growing inside her would bring him closer to her. She wanted so much to give him a son.

But Bryna’s ardent desire to please her husband was not to be realized. Three months into her term, she was taken suddenly with a severe case of cramps. Retching and doubled over with pain, she was carried to her bedchamber and the hakim was summoned. Before Faisal could arrive, her body ejected the child she carried.

After the doctor had seen her and given her a sleeping draft, Sharif went to Bryna. His rugged face, made young by love, looked lined and haggard from worry. He feared his wife would die.

Bryna’s face was pale and lifeless against the cushion. Her dark hair streamed out onto the pillow in the dying sunlight. A muezzin shouted from a nearby mosque as Sharif entered her room, but he ignored the call to prayers and went to kneel at her bedside.

She opened her eyes drowsily and seemed surprised to see him. One hand lifted weakly to smooth his hair. “Did you not hear the call to prayer, my husband?”

“I would rather be with you.” He took the hand in his.

“I lost the baby, Sharif,” she whispered painfully.

“I know, my joy.”

“I am so sorry,” she choked through unshed tears.

“Oh, Farha, there will be other children—boys, girls, it makes no difference. Do you not know that I love you?”

“Do not stop loving me, Sharif.” She wept against his shoulder. “I do not think I could endure it. I have lost the baby. I have lost my past. I have lost everything but you.”

“I will never stop loving you, my own. You are a part of me now.”

He stayed with her as she slept through the evening prayers. It was only a matter of time before her memory returned, he thought bleakly. What would happen then? Would she be content to be his wife, or would she want to return to her old life? Would she hate him for doing what he had done to keep her beside him? The sheik brooded beside her bed until the night sky was touched with the dawn of a new day.

When Bryna awoke, her manner reminded her husband of the way he had found her in the desert, numbed and docile. She quickly regained her strength, but she was not the same. Not Sharif, not Taman, not even `Abla could chase away the sadness. She no longer slept at night, hoping to elude the nightmares that returned with frightening regularity. She fretted, trying to recall names, faces, places. But she could not make the puzzle fit together.

Sharif could not bear to watch her pain. Feeling twinges of guilt, he considered telling her of her past, but he hesitated. What did he know? Her name, her age, that she had a father who might one day appear to claim her.

At last, when he felt his wife had recovered enough, Sharif desperately suggested a change of scenery—Mecca, where they could seek the blessings of Allah and his wife could drink the magical, curing waters of Zem-Zem.

He was surprised when she balked at the idea until he understood she was fearful to return to the desert. He explained that after their successful raid on their enemies, the Selims had nothing to fear in the desert. They would take no more than half a dozen retainers and ride for the holy city.

Reassured, Bryna was cheered. The shadows left her eyes for a time and the entire household gladly set about making the necessary arrangements for the journey.

Giving her something to keep her mind busy might not benefit him forever, the sheik realized bleakly, but perhaps it would postpone what he feared most—the return of Bryna’s memory.

Three men in Algerian dress stood across from Sharif Al Selim’s home, watching the bustling servants in the courtyard.

“You are sure this is the right house?” Blaine asked impatiently.

“It is, but we cannot simply storm the gates,” Ernst responded. “We are not even certain your daughter is here, O’Toole Effendi. Besides, these Aribi are very possessive with what is theirs.”

“Bryna is not theirs. She is a free woman,” Derek snapped.

“One of the Selims paid for her, and he is not likely to see it your way,” the guide maintained reasonably. “If she is in the house and he does not wish to surrender her, there is not a lot we can do...legally.”

“All the more reason to go in after her,” Derek muttered, hating the helplessness he felt.

“How many times...” Blaine began ominously.

Ernst eyed them balefully and admonished, “My plan is still the best. You must wait until I can get inside and find out what is going on from one of the servants.”

“I am not sure they’ll let a tinker into that palace,” Derek said derisively.

“Then it’s just as well he’s a seller of knives and blades,” Blaine retorted, running out of patience. “A great sheik will be interested in what he has to sell. Why do you think he decided on that disguise?”

“Before I visit the sheik, I will visit the souk to see what information I can gather,” Ernst intervened. “You should go to the coffeehouse to meet Mustafa. He’s probably found lodgings for us by now.”

As the men parted company, Blaine and Derek cast one last, hopeful glance toward the palatial house. Then in gloomy silence they walked to the coffeehouse, but when they arrived Mustafa was nowhere to be seen. Hot and disgruntled, they dropped onto a bench outside to wait.

“What time is it?” Blaine asked in the French they had used since Tripoli.

“Must be past four,” Derek replied, fishing for the ornate watch he carried. As he pulled it from the front of his
thobe,
the scrap of green cloth in which it had been wrapped fluttered onto his lap. “It’s half-past,” he pronounced with satisfaction.

Glancing over at him, Blaine said, “I thought we never would get rid of the suspicious old coot who sold that watch to you. I think he would have crossed the desert on foot, just for the pleasure of quizzing us.”

“We wouldn’t have gotten rid of the worthy sayyid if I had not bought the watch and financed his return to Jidda.” Absently Derek picked up the green cloth and mopped his perspiring face with it.
“Zut,
but it is hot,” he complained.

“Kaffir! Blasphemer!” a furious voice roared behind them, and a stout rod whistled through the air to descend on Derek’s back.

Shielding himself from a rain of blows, the Englishman struggled to his feet as the
muttawwah
swooped down upon him. The furious Arab yanked the cloth from Derek’s hand and waved it under his nose.

“How dare you wipe your worthless face, using the sacred color of the Prophet?” he demanded shrilly. “Bear witness, people,” he addressed the curious crowd that began to gather, “Allah punishes those who defile the memory of his messenger.” The old man applied the rod vigorously across Derek’s shoulders several more times.

The young soldier did not understand why he was being beaten; he knew only that he was under attack. With a bellow, he charged the
muttawwah,
intent on returning the abuse.

“Derek, don’t.” Blaine grappled with him futilely. “He is one of their holy men. You will get us killed.”

“What is this language they speak?” the
muttawwah
shouted, wild-eyed. “They are indeed kaffirs—foreigners! One blasphemes and the other has the blue eyes of a sorcerer. Hold them lest they use evil magic to escape.”

Filled with holy purpose, the bystanders rushed toward them.

A little way down the narrow street, two litters approached the market, bound for a last-minute shopping trip. Their procession, led by a slave bearing a pot of smoldering incense to sweeten his mistress’s progress, slowed when the bearers were forced to sidestep avid spectators hurrying toward the commotion ahead.

In the lead litter, the curtains stirred slightly as Farha Al Selim, wife of the great sheik, called out to the old servant who walked beside her conveyance, “What is going on in the street ahead? I hope it is not another public execution.”

“Perhaps there will be a beheading later. They say two kaffirs struck a
muttawwah,
“Abu Ahmad replied disapprovingly. “They will be taken to jail in a moment and then we can get through.”

Bryna settled back, sweltering in the closed vehicle. After removing her
burqu
in the privacy of her litter, she fanned herself with the stiff veil. The delay was a minor annoyance, but she wondered how her impatient stepdaughter was faring in the litter behind her.

They inched through the milling throng until Bryna’s litter was almost even with the
muttawwah
and his prisoner. She peeped through the curtain, but the crowd blocked her view. Gawking bystanders jumped at the back ranks in an effort to witness the foreigners’ arrest. One of the observers leapt up, coming down on the foot of one of her bearers, bringing all of them to a halt while the injured one yelped in pain.

Bryna clung to the frame as the litter jostled and swayed. Her bearers were experienced, and the litter was not in danger of upset. Abu Ahmad shouted at them nevertheless not to drop his mistress.