Sweet Revenge (42 page)

It had stayed so much the same. As they drove into town, Adrianne saw that in spite of the buildings, the modern roads, and the stubborn struggle of Western expatriates, Jaquir was as Jaquir wished to be. She had seen that at the airport, as women, loaded down with baggage, bedding, and strollers were herded into separate buses and ushered through a door marked
WOMEN AND FAMILIES
, always policed by men barking orders. She saw it now as the minarets on the mosque pierced through the pristine blue sky.

Noon prayer call was over, so the shops and markets were open. Though she kept her window up, she could almost hear the hum of activity, the cadence of Arabic, the click of prayer beads. Women wandered the stalls, in groups or accompanied by a male relation. Policing the streets, jealously guarding the religious laws were the
matawain
with their straggly henna-tipped beards and camel whips. Through the tinted window of her limo Adrianne watched one advance
on a Western woman who’d had the bad sense to push up her sleeves and reveal her arms.

No, it may have been the last years of the twentieth century, but Jaquir had changed little.

Date palms lined the road. So did Mercedes, Rolls Royces, and limos. The House of Dior boasted two doors, one for males, one for females. She caught the glint of precious stones beaming in the midday sun in a shop window. There was a donkey, laden with dust, being led by a man in a white
throbe
and broken sandals.

Here much of the housing was made of mud, and no more permanent than the desert sand. Yet flowers climbed the walls. Windows were latticed, always latticed, to hide the women within—not because they were prized and revered, Adrianne thought, but because they were considered foolish creatures, victims of their own uncontrollable sexual drive.

Men, robed and turbaned, sat on red carpets eating sandwiches.
Shwarma.
Odd that the taste of the spiced lamb on flat bread came back to her, she mused.

The limo passed through the market and climbed. Here the houses were more elegant, shaded by trees. One or two even boasted the luxury of grass. She thought she remembered visiting in one of them, drinking green tea in a dim parlor with the sound of silk rustling and the smell of incense clogging the air.

They drove through the gates to the palace, past the dark, blank eyes of the guards. This, too, had changed little, though her child’s mind had lent it more grandeur than it deserved. In the harsh afternoon sun its stucco walls were brilliantly white. The green tile roof was an arrogant slash of color. Its windows, most curtained against the glare, glinted. Its minarets rose, but in deference to Allah rose no higher than those of the mosque. Parapets circled so that in times of civil strife or foreign attack it could be defended. The sea hammered at its back. Its gardens were lush, shielding it from prying eyes, and, more, shielding the women of the house from temptation when they chose to wander through them.

Though there was a door for women as well as one for men, it was to the garden rather than the main entrance the limo drove. Adrianne’s brow rose only slightly. So, she was to
be delivered to the harem before seeing Abdu. That was perhaps for the best.

She waited until the driver opened her door. Though she was certain he must have been a relation, however distant, he didn’t offer a hand to assist her out. His eyes remained carefully averted. Gathering up her skirts, she stepped out into the blast of heat and scent. Without a backward glance she let herself in through the garden gate.

There was a trickle of water from the fountain, the fountain she knew her father had had built for her mother during their first year of marriage. It fed a small pond where carp grew as long as a man’s arm. Around it flowers bent, drawn to the moisture.

Before she reached the hidden door, it was opened. Adrianne stepped through, beyond the black-clad servant, and smelled the women’s scents that brought her back to childhood. As the door shut, closing her in, she did what she had longed to do throughout the long drive from the airport. She pulled off her veil.

“Adrianne.” A woman stepped into the shadowed light. She smelled strongly of musk and wore a red-sequined gown suited to a nineteenth-century ball. “Welcome home.” As she spoke, the woman gave the traditional greeting, a kiss on both cheeks. “You were only a child when I last saw you. I am your aunt, Latifa, wife of Fahir, brother of your father.”

Adrianne returned the greeting. “I remember you, Aunt Latifa. I’ve seen Duja. She’s well and happy. She sends love to you and honor to her father.”

Latifa nodded. Though Adrianne outranked her, she had given birth to five strong sons and held a place of honor and envy in the harem. “Come, there is refreshment. The others want to welcome you.”

Here, too, little had changed. There was the scent of spiced coffee and the heavy seduction of perfume mingling with the bite of incense. A long table had been spread with a white cloth edged in gold and was laden with food no less colorful than the gowns of the women. There were silks and satins, and even though the temperature soared, the sheen of velvet. Beads and spangles glistened. There was the warmth of gold, the ice of silver, and always the sparkle of jewels.
Bracelets clanged and lace whispered as traditional greetings were exchanged.

She brushed her lips over the cheeks of Abdu’s second wife, the woman who so many years before had caused Phoebe such unhappiness. Adrianne could find no resentment. A woman did as a woman was bid. That was confirmed as Leiha, already the mother of seven, and more than forty, was obviously pregnant again.

There were cousins she remembered and a score of minor princesses. Some had cropped or crimped their hair. This was, like the vivid gowns, something they did for their own pleasure, and like children with a new toy, to show off among themselves.

There was Sara, Abdu’s latest wife, a small, big-eyed girl of about sixteen who was already swollen with child. From the looks of it, both she and Leiha had conceived at about the same time. Adrianne noticed that the stones on her fingers and at her ears were no less brilliant than those worn by Leiha. Such was the law. A man could take four wives, but only if he could treat each equally.

Phoebe had never been an equal here, but Adrianne couldn’t find it in her heart to despise a young girl because of it. “You are welcome here,” Sara said in a whispery, musical voice that stumbled over the English phrase.

“This is Princess Yasmin.” Adrianne’s aunt put a hand on the shoulder of a girl of about twelve with dusky cheeks and thick gold hoops through her ears. “Your sister.”

She hadn’t expected this. She’d known she would meet Abdu’s other children, but she hadn’t expected to look into eyes the same shape and color as her own. She wasn’t prepared for the spark of kinship or recognition. Because of it, her greeting was stilted when she bent to kiss Yasmin’s cheeks.

“Welcome to my father’s house.”

“Your English is good.”

Yasmin lifted her brows in a gesture that told Adrianne though she was months away from the veil, she was a woman. “I attend school so that I will not be ignorant when I go to my husband.”

“I see.” The acknowledgment was equal to equal as Adrianne removed her
abaaya.
Gesturing a servant aside, she
folded it herself, and carefully. Sewn into the lining were the tools of her trade. “You’ll have to tell me what you’ve learned.”

Yasmin studied Adrianne’s simple white skirt and blouse with the eyes of a fashion critic. Once Duja had smuggled in newspaper pictures of Adrianne, so Yasmin knew her sister was beautiful. She thought it a pity Adrianne hadn’t worn something red that glittered.

“First I will take you to my grandmother.”

Behind them women were already dipping into the buffet. Food, the richer the better, was a favored recreation. Talk was already centering around babies and shopping.

The old woman seated in a brocade chair was resplendent in emerald green. The wrinkles and folds of her face had fallen into jowls, but her hair was stubbornly hennaed. Fingers, curled a bit with arthritis, were studded with rings that flashed as she cuddled a boy of two or three on her lap. Two servants flanked her, waving fans so that the smoke from a brass incense jar would scent her hair.

It had been nearly twenty years, and Adrianne had been only eight when she’d left, but she remembered. The tears started so abruptly, so stunningly, she could do nothing to stop them. Instead of the greeting expected, she went to her knees and laid her head in her grandmother’s lap. The mother of her father.

Her bones were thin and brittle. Adrianne could feel them beneath the stiff satin. Her scent was the same, incredibly the same, a mixture of poppies and spice. As she felt the hand stroke her hair, she leaned into it. The sweetest, the kindest memories she had of Jaquir were of this woman brushing her hair and telling her stories of pirates and princes.

“I knew I would see you again.” Jiddah, a frail seventy, the mother of twelve, the only wife King Ahmend had ever taken, sat stroking the hair of her much-loved grandchild and cuddling her newest against her breast. “I wept when you left us, and weep when you come back.”

Like a child, Adrianne dried her cheeks with the backs of her hands. She rose up for the kiss. “Grandmother. You’re more beautiful than I remembered. I’ve missed you.”

“You come back to me a grown woman, with the look of your father.”

She stiffened, but managed to smile. “Perhaps I have the look of my grandmother.”

Jiddah smiled back, showing teeth too white and straight to be her own. The dentures were new, and she was as proud of them as she was of the emerald collar at her throat. “Perhaps.” She accepted tea from a servant. “Chocolate for my granddaughter. You still have a taste for it?”

“Yes.” Adrianne settled on a cushion by Jiddah’s feet. “I remember that you used to give me a handful all wrapped in red and silver paper. I’d take so much time unwrapping them that they’d melt. But you never scolded me.” She noticed then that Yasmin was still standing beside her, her young face impassive but for a glint in her eyes that might have been jealousy. Without thinking, Adrianne lifted a hand and drew her down to the cushion. “Does Grandmother still tell stories?”

“Yes.” After a brief hesitation, Yasmin unbent. “Will you tell me about America and the man you will marry?”

With her head against her grandmothers knee, and a cup of green tea in her hand, Adrianne began. It wasn’t until later that she realized she’d been speaking in Arabic.

As far as palaces went, Philip decided he preferred the European style. Something in stone with mullioned windows and old, dark wood. This one was dim, as blinds and shades and lattices closed out the power of the sun. It was rich, certainly, with wall hangings spun from silk, and Ming vases tucked into wall niches. It was modern. The bath in the suite he’d been given had water that steamed hot out of gold faucets. He supposed he was too British to appreciate the Eastern flavor of prayer rugs and gauzy mosquito netting.

His rooms overlooked the garden, which he could approve of. In spite of the sun, he threw open a window and let the hot scent of jasmine blow in.

Where was Adrianne?

Her brother, Crown Prince Fahid, had met him at the airport. The young man, barely into his twenties, had worn a burnoose over an impeccably tailored suit. Philip had found him a perfect example of East meets West with his excellent English and his inscrutable manners. His only reference to
Adrianne had been to tell Philip that she would be taken to the women’s quarters.

Closing his eyes, he imagined the blueprints. She would be two floors down and in the east wing. The vault was in the opposite end of the palace. Tonight he would take a tour on his own. But for now—he flipped open his suitcase—he would play the perfect guest and prospective bridegroom.

He’d taken advantage of the huge sunken tub and had finished his unpacking when he heard the prayer call. The deep throated voice of the muezzin came through the open window.
Allahu Akbar.
God is great.

With a glance at his watch Philip calculated that this would be the third call of the day. There would be another at sundown, then the last at an hour past.

The markets and suqs would close, and men would kneel to touch their faces to the ground. Inside the palace,
as
everywhere else, all business would stop in submission to the will of Allah.

Moving quietly, Philip opened his door. It was as good a time as any to take stock.

He thought it best to check out his neighbors first. The room next to his was empty, the drapes drawn, the bed made with military precision. The room across was the same. He edged down the hall and pushed open another door. Here there was a man, no, a boy, bent in supplication, his body facing south toward Mecca. His prayer rug was threaded with gold and the hangings over the bed were royal blue. Philip pulled the door to before making his way to the second floor.

Abdu’s offices would be there, along with the council rooms. There was time enough to look if warranted. He walked down to the main floor, where the rooms were quiet as a tomb. Conscious of the time elapsing, he made his way through the winding corridors to the vault room.

The door was locked. He had only to take a nail file out of his pocket to open it. With a quick glance right, then left, he slipped inside and shut the door behind him.

Where other rooms had been dim, this was dark. There were no windows here. Wishing he’d risked bringing a flashlight, he groped his way in the direction of the vault. Its door was smooth steel and cool to the touch. Using his fingertips
as his eyes, Philip measured its length, its width, the position of the locks.

As Adrianne had told him, there were two combinations. He was careful not to touch the dials. He used his nail file to measure and found the keyhole oversize and old-fashioned. The picks he carried wouldn’t work on a lock that old, but there were always other ways. Satisfied, he stepped back. He’d need to come back with a light, but that was for later.

His hand was nearly on the doorknob when he heard footsteps outside. There wasn’t time to swear as he plastered himself against the wall behind the door.