Aarif’s eyes held hers and she didn’t look away. She reached one hand out in farewell, and to her surprise Aarif clasped it, his fingers, dry and cool, wrapping around hers, sending a jolt of startling awareness along her arm and through her whole body.
Her fingers tightened on his, and as the moment stretched on—too long—neither one of them let go. Neither of them, Kalila felt, wanted to. She should have pulled her hand away. Aarif should have loosened his grip.
Yet neither of them did, and the moment stretched on suspended and endless, as they remained, linked by their clasped fingers, holding each other’s gaze with a silent, suppressed longing. Kalila felt a clamour of different emotions rise within her: the need to be understood, cherished. Loved. The idea, strange and impossible, that this man could be the one who would.
Then, as if rousing himself from a dream, Aarif shook his head, the light in his eyes replaced by an even more disquieting bleakness, his mouth returning to its familiar, compressed line. He dropped her hand so suddenly Kalila’s arm swung down helplessly in the darkness, landing in her lap with a thud. She curled her fingers, now burning with the memory of his touch, against her thigh as Aarif turned away.
‘Goodnight, Princess,’ he said, and disappeared silently into the darkness of the garden.
CHAPTER THREE
BY THE time Kalila awoke the next morning the city was alive with excitement and activity. She could sense it from the window of her dressing room, which faced east towards Makaris. She smelled it on the wind carried from the city, the scents of frying meat and spices, felt it in the air as if it were a tangible thing.
Kalila felt an answering excitement in herself, although her mind skittered away from its source. She was not looking forward to her marriage, yet she found herself eagerly anticipating the journey to Calista. With Aarif.
Stop. She shouldn’t think like this, want like this. Yet the desires she felt were formless, nameless, and Kalila knew it was better for them to stay that way. Safer. In a fortnight, she would marry Zakari. There was no escaping that fate. Yet if she could afford herself a few brief, harmless moments of pleasure before then—
Stop.
‘Kalila! It is time you dressed!’ Juhanah bustled in, clapping her hands as she beamed in excitement. She would be accompanying her to Calista, and would stay for as long as it took for Kalila to settle.
And how long would that be? Kalila wondered, feeling the familiar despair settle over her once more. Days, months, years? Ever?
‘Kalila, my princess.’ Juhanah knelt by her side as Kalila sat on the window seat, one shoulder propped against the stone frame. ‘It is time. Prince Aarif wishes your bags to be loaded, everything is prepared.’
‘Already?’ She turned away from the window. Her clothes and personal items had already been packed; many of them she’d left in boxes, shipped from England. She did not have too much to bring, clothes, a few books and photographs, nothing more. They felt like scraps being brought to a feast, a humble and pathetic offering.
‘Juhanah, I don’t want to go.’ The words tumbled from her and her lips trembled. She pressed them together tightly, willed herself not to cry. Tears, now, would do no good. Still, she had to speak. She needed to give voices to the nameless terrors clamouring within her. ‘I don’t want to marry him,’ she whispered.
Juhanah was silent for a moment. Kalila couldn’t look at her; she felt too ashamed. ‘Oh, ya daanaya,’ Juhanah finally said, and rose to put her arms around Kalila. Kalila rested her head against Juhanah’s pillowy bosom, let herself be comforted like a child. ‘Of course you are afraid now. If King Zakari had come, perhaps it would be different. It is a hard thing, to travel to a strange country and wed a strange man.’
‘But I don’t think it would be different,’ Kalila whispered. ‘I realised that last night. I don’t want to do it, Juhanah. I don’t care what he’s like. He doesn’t love me.’
‘In time—’
‘In time comes affection, understanding, kindness,’ Kalila cut her off. ‘Maybe. I’ve been telling myself that for years. But why should I settle for such things? My father was able to have a love match. Aarif’s father and stepmother—Anya and Ashraf—had a love match. Why not me?’
Juhanah released her, her mouth pursed thoughtfully. ‘Aarif’s father?’ she repeated, and Kalila flushed.
‘Zakari’s father as well. Why must I settle?’
‘You are doing a great thing for your country,’ Juhanah told her, and there was a warning note in her nurse’s voice that reminded Kalila of when she’d been caught stealing honey cakes from the kitchen. ‘You must act like the princess you are, Kalila, and do your duty.’
‘Yes. I know.’ She’d accepted that many years ago, had told herself it many times. Yet all those resolutions crumbled to dust in face of the harsh, present reality. ‘I know,’ she repeated, and if Juhanah heard the damning waver of doubt in Kalila’s voice, she did not comment on it.
‘Now, come. You must dress.’
‘I’m not wearing another costume,’ Kalila warned. ‘I won’t truss myself up like a harem girl so the people of Makaris can be satisfied.’
‘Of course not,’ Juhanah soothed. ‘Besides, it wouldn’t be sensible for travel.’
Kalila gave a little laugh, and Juhanah smiled encouragingly. She was wound so tightly, so desperately, she realised, and that little laugh reminded her of who she was. Who she used to be. She was a girl who laughed, who loved life, who embraced each opportunity with pleasure, abandon.
She was not this skittish, frightened, desperate creature. She would not let herself be.
In the end she chose a pair of loose cotton trousers and a matching tunic in palest green, embroidered with silver thread. She plaited her hair once more, and wore silver hoops on her ears, a silver locket that had been her mother’s around her neck.
Juhanah went to supervise the packing, and Kalila was left alone in her childhood bedroom. In a few moments she would say goodbye to the palace, the staff, and then her father. Bahir would fly to Calista for the wedding, but it wouldn’t be the same. When she walked out of the palace, she would be leaving this life for ever.
The thought saddened her. She’d grown up here, explored the echoing, shadowy corridors, curled up in a sunny window seat, sneaked into her father’s library or the palace kitchen. The first time she’d been away from home for any length of time had been when she’d gone to Cambridge.
And what a different life she’d had there! A shared flat with a few other girls, nights out at the pub or takeaway pizza and a bottle of wine, everything casual and messy and fun.
She felt as if she were two people, the princess and the person. The queen-in-waiting and the modern girl who just wanted to be loved.
Yet you couldn’t be two people and still be happy. Still be yourself. So how would she survive in the coming months and years, when she took on the mantle that was so foreign to her, queen, wife? How could she be happy?
Again Aarif’s image flittered through her mind, tempting, treacherous. She’d been happy in his presence. She shook her head as if to deny herself that forbidden truth, and left her bedroom. From the window in the upstairs corridor she saw a motorcade assembled in the palace courtyard. There was a van for her cases, a car for Aarif, another for her father, a car for her and Juhanah, and another for the palace staff accompanying them to the airport.
It was a parade, and she was the centrepiece. Kalila closed her eyes. Her fingers curled around the sun-warmed stone of the window sill, and she held onto it like an anchor.
‘I can’t do it,’ she whispered aloud, though there was no one to hear. Her own heart heard, and answered. I won’t.
The sun beat down on Aarif as he stood in the palace courtyard, waiting for Kalila to arrive. A light wind blowing from the desert eased his discomfort, and he was grateful for the refreshment. He’d been up since dawn, seeing to arrangements; he wanted nothing left to chance or circumstance, no more mistakes to be made.
The first one had been bad enough.
Aarif’s mouth twisted in a grimace as he recalled his private interview with King Bahir last night, after dinner. The king was too shrewd and politic to be overt about his displeasure, but he’d made his disappointment over Zakari’s absence known.
Aarif had done his best to be apologetic without weakening his own position, or that of his brother. He half-wondered if Bahir was making a bigger to-do about Zakari’s absence than perhaps was warranted; it could be, in future, a necessary bargaining chip.
And what of Kalila? His mind drifted back to the evening in the garden, the scent of roses mixed with a heady scent that he felt—feared—was the princess herself. He’d watched her out of the corner of his eye as he’d sat on the bench, less than a foot away from her. He’d seen how the moonlight had gleamed on her heavy, dark hair; he’d found his eyes drawn to the bare, graceful curve of her neck.
He’d felt her fingers in his, and he had not wanted to stop touching her. It had been a balm, that gentle touch, as if she’d understood him. As if she’d wanted to.
Yet even more than her appearance or touch had been her words, her smile. You look as if someone came at you with a scimitar. No one talked about his scar, no one asked him to remember. No one made him smile.