Desert Fantasies(20)

She reached down and urged the young girl forward with a pat to her head. ‘Now, Cala.’

The little girl blinked up at her, and suddenly seemed to remember the package. She stepped tentatively forward, limping a little on her tender foot, a bandage strapped around it under her satin slipper. ‘This is for you.’

Aisha smiled down at her. ‘You didn’t have to bring me a present.’

‘We wanted to, Princess,’ the mother said. ‘To replace the abaya you ruined to bandage Cala’s foot.’

Aisha knelt down and touched a hand to Cala’s head. ‘How is your foot now, Cala? Is it still hurting?’

‘It hurts, but the doctor-man fixed it.’

And she smiled her thanks up at Zoltan, who was watching her, a strange expression on his face.

‘It will feel better soon, I promise,’ she said, accepting the parcel and pulling the end of the bow till the ribbon fluttered open. She pulled back the wrapping and gasped.

‘It is all hand-stitched, Princess,’ the woman offered proudly as Aisha lifted the delicate garment spun from golden thread and gossamer-thin.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, fingering the detailed embroidery around the neckline. ‘It must have taken months.’

The woman beamed with pride. ‘My family has always been known for our needlework. It was the least your generosity deserved.’

Aisha gathered the little girl in her arms and hugged her. ‘Thank you, Cala.’ Then she rose and hugged her mother too, careful of the now-sleeping baby in her arms. ‘Thank you. I shall wear it with honour and remember you always.’



She looked across at Zoltan and wondered if she should ask him first, but then decided it didn’t matter.

‘You will stay and eat with us, won’t you?’

The adults looked unsure, clearly not expecting the invitation, not knowing if she was serious. ‘We did not mean to intrude.’

‘You are not intruding,’ she assured them, hoping Zoltan thought the same.

‘Please, Mama,’ Cala said, tugging on her mother’s robe. ‘Please can we stay?’

‘Of course,’ Zoltan said in that commanding voice he had, as if there was never any question. ‘You must stay.’

They sat on cushions around a campfire, supping on spiced lamb with yoghurt and mint, with rice and okra, washing it down with honeyed tea under a blanket of stars. Afterwards, with the fragrant scent of the sisha pipe drifting from the cook’s camp, Cala’s father produced his ney reed pipe from somewhere in his robes and played more of that haunting music she had heard wafting over the headland when they had first arrived.

Cala edged closer and closer to the princess as the music wove magic in the night sky until she wormed her way under her arm and onto her lap. ‘Cala,’ her mother berated.

‘She’s fine,’ Aisha assured her.

The girl looked up at her with big, dark eyes. ‘Are you really a princess?’

Aisha smiled. ‘Yes, it’s true.’

‘Where’s your crown?’

She laughed. ‘I don’t wear a crown every day.’

‘Oh.’ The girl sounded disappointed. ‘Is Princess your name?’

‘No. Princess is my job, like calling someone “doctor” or “professor”. Of course I have a real name. My name is Aisha.’

Aisha.

Moon goddess.

Strange. He had never thought about her having a name. He had always thought of her simply as ‘princess’, but how appropriate she would have a name like that. Little wonder she looked like a goddess.

And here she was, his precious little spoilt princess, cuddling a child and looking every bit as much a mother as the child’s own mother did.

This woman would bear his children.

She would sit like that in a few years from now and it would be his children clambering over her. It would be the product of his seed she would cuddle and nurture.

And the vision was so powerful, so compelling, that something indescribable swelled inside him and he wished for it to be true.

Aisha. Sitting there with near-strangers, giving of herself to people who possessed little more than the clothes on their back and who had gifted her probably their most treasured possession. Giving herself to his people.

Maybe she was not such a spoilt princess after all.

And the thought was so foreign when it came that he almost rejected it out of hand. Almost. But the proof was right there in front of him. Maybe there was more to her after all.

‘Thank you,’ she said after the family had gone and they walked companionably along the shoreline under a sliver of crescent moon. It had seemed the most obvious thing in the world to do. The night was balmy and inviting, and he knew that she was not yet ready to fall into his bed, but he was in no hurry to return to his study of the centuries-old texts.

‘What are you thanking me for?’

‘Lots of things,’ she said. ‘For sending Ahab to look at their children, for one. For arranging the necessary transport to hospital for the operation Katif needs, if not the operation itself. And for not minding that the family shared our meal.’

‘Be careful, Princess,’ he warned, holding up one hand. ‘Or one might almost forget that you hate me.’

She blinked, though whether she was trying to gauge how serious he was, or whether she had been struck with the same revelation, he could not be sure. ‘So you have some redeeming features. I wouldn’t go reading too much into it.’ But he noticed her words lacked the conviction and fire of her earlier diatribes. He especially noticed that she didn’t insist that she did hate him. He liked that she didn’t feel the compunction to tell him. He sighed into the night breeze. It had been right to get out of the palace where everything was so formal and rigid, where every move was governed by protocol.

In the palace there was always someone watching, even if it was only someone on hand and waiting to find out if there was anything one needed. For all its space, in the palace it was impossible to move without being seen. He curled his fingers around hers as they walked: in the palace it would have been impossible to do this without his three friends betting amongst themselves whether it meant that he would score tonight.

‘You were good with that child,’ he said, noticing—liking—that she didn’t pull her hand away. ‘I suspect you found a fan.’

‘Cala is very likeable.’

‘You were equally good with her family, making them feel special. If you can be like that with everyone, you will make a great sheikha. You will be a queen who will be well-loved.’

She stopped and pulled her hand free, rubbing her hands on her arms so he could not reclaim it. ‘If I’d imagined this walk was going to provide you with yet another opportunity to remind me of the nature of this marriage, and of my upcoming duty in your bed, I never would have agreed to come along.’

He cursed his clumsy efforts to praise her. ‘I am sorry, Princess. I did not mean …’

She blinked up at him, her aggravation temporarily overwhelmed by surprise. He was sorry? He was actually sorry and he was telling her so? Was this Zoltan the barbarian sheikh before her?

But then, he wasn’t all barbarian, she had to concede. Otherwise why would he have sent anyone to look at a sick child? Why would he have approved his uplift in a helicopter, no less, and the required operation if he was a monster?

‘No, I’m sorry,’ she said, holding up her hands as she shook her head. ‘There was no need for me to respond that way. I overreacted.’ Because I’m the one who can’t stop thinking about doing my duty …

The night was softly romantic, it was late, soon it would be time for bed and she was here on this beach with a man who came charged with electricity.

‘What did you do before?’ she asked, changing the subject before he too realised why she was so jumpy, resuming her walk along the beach under the stars. ‘Before all this happened. Were you always in Al-Jirad? I attended a few functions at the Blue Palace, but I don’t remember seeing you at any of them.’

‘No, you wouldn’t have,’ he said, falling into step beside her as the low waves swooshed in, their foam bright even in the low moonlight. ‘I left when it was clear there was no place for me here.’

‘Because of Mustafa?’

‘Partly. My father always took his side. I was twelve when my mother died and there seemed no reason to stay. Mustafa and I hated each other and everyone knew it. For the peace of the family, my father sent me to boarding school in England.’

She looked up at his troubled profile and wondered what it must have been like to be cast adrift from your family because you didn’t fit in, when you were possibly the only sane member in it.

She slipped her hand back in his and resumed walking along the shore, hoping he wouldn’t make too much of it. She was merely offering her understanding, that was all. ‘Is that where you met your three friends?’

‘That was later. We met at university.’

‘And you clicked right away?’

‘No. We hated each other on sight.’

She looked at him and frowned. He shrugged. ‘Nothing breeds hatred faster than someone else telling you who should be friends.’

‘I don’t think I understand.’

‘It’s a long story. Basically we’d all come from different places and somehow all ended up in the university rowing club, all of us loners up till then and intending to row alone, as we had always done to keep fit. Until someone decided to stick us in a crew together, expecting we “foreigners” should all get along. For a joke they called our four the Sheikh Caique.’ He paused a while, reflecting, and then said, ‘They did not laugh long.’