The Awakening, Zuleika and the Barbarian (24 page)

"Ohh, mistress, I was so fearful for you!" her slavewoman cried, and kissed her hand.

"Not so fearful that you disappeared last evening," Golnar snapped. "Word of my removal from the sultan's hall of audience must have traveled even more swiftly than the wind, for when I returned to the harem there was no one in evidence. The place might well have been deserted! Fearing for my life, I locked myself in my bedchamber. Go to the baths, and tell them I am ready for my morning ablutions."

"Yes, mistress," the slave replied, and scurried off.

In the baths, the slaves were silent as Golnar entered. They tended to her efficiently, and without their usual chatter. Like the prince's favorite, they had no idea what would happen now that Haroun had disappeared and the princess had returned triumphant with her khan. They dared offend no one until it was decided what was to happen.

Golnar was silent also as she was bathed, massaged, and oiled. She had to consider carefully how to remain within the palace. She was not a slave, at least. Haroun had seen her, and admired her, and asked her father for her as his concubine. Her father could not refuse, and was encouraged by his favorite wife to see that Golnar was brought to the palace as if she were a bride. The women had never particularly liked Golnar, but becoming the prince's concubine could but bring honor and glory to her husband's family. Now with Haroun gone, there was no excuse for her to remain unless she was asked. To be returned to her father's house, even with honor, was unthinkable!

She returned to her quarters, and ordered her servants to dress her carefully in sky blue silk robes. Her silver hair was dressed with small, fragrant flowers sewn to silver ribbons. Then she went to find the sultan. He was with the vizier, Abd al Hakim, but hearing she was at his door, Sultan Ibrahim told his guards to allow her to pass.

Golnar threw herself at his feet, and taking the hem of his red silk robe in her hand, kissed it.

"My lord! My lord! I beg your forgiveness for my behavior yesterday. You must understand that the great love I bear my lord Haroun precipitated my outburst. I did not realize that the princess was being wed. I am so ashamed if I spoiled her day. I hope you will forgive me, my lord sultan." She did not look at him, and kept her head bent low.

Neither the sultan nor his vizier were fools, but they were also men with daughters, and their hearts were good.

"Arise, my dear lady Golnar," the sultan said. "You have my forgiveness. I know your love for my nephew."

She stood, and there were tears in her light eyes. "Is there . . . is there any word?" she quavered in a voice filled with emotion.

The sultan shook his white head. "I am sorry, my dear. It is as if the earth opened up and swallowed him. Still we are searching every corner of the city, and the kingdom."

"Should I return to my father's house, my lord sultan?" Golnar asked him. It was a bold move, and one that could easily backfire on her.

"I have not given up hope, my child," the old man said. "Until we know for certain what has happened to my nephew, you will remain in your harem as you always have. It would not do for Haroun to come home and discover that you were missing, now would it?" He took her plump hand in his, and patted it in fatherly fashion.

"Ohh, thank you, my lord sultan!" Golnar cried, the relief in her voice palpable. She bowed low to the sultan, and asking his permission withdrew from his presence.

"Are you really unknowing of Haroun's whereabouts?" the vizier, Abd al Hakim, asked the sultan.

"I am indeed, and I expect I do not want to know," the sultan answered his old friend. "Zuleika has promised me that they have not killed him, but also that he will not return. If I sent Golnar back to her father's house now, it would appear that I knew something, and actually I do not. Nor do I wish to know."

"With your health so wonderfully restored," Abd al Hakim said, "you will reign over Dariyabar for many more years, my lord."

"No, old friend, I will not. My health has been returned to me for but a single cycle of the moon. My miraculous restoration began on the first day of the new moon. When that moon wanes into the darkness, I will die. This I know, for the genie told Zuleika it was so."

"Then you mean to make the khan your successor," the vizier said.

"I do. Who else is there? And at least my blood will flow in the sultans that follow Amir, as will his. He is a strong man."

"If your days are numbered, my lord, when will you announce this change in succession?" the vizier wondered. "If you say it too soon, there will be those who will wonder if you yourself did not dispose of your nephew."

"I know, and since I am unique in the knowledge that when I lie down to sleep on the last day of the waning moon I shall not awaken in this world, I shall make my announcement in the week before I die."

"There will be some then who will believe that the khan has had a hand in your death when you leave us," the vizier noted.

"There will always be those who believe that every coincidence is a conspiracy, my friend. It is human nature to see plots where there are none. You have been my vizier long enough to know that."

The vizier chuckled. "Too true, my friend. Too true. And you will leave the problem of Golnar to the next sultan, then?"

Now it was the sultan who laughed. "I think it better that I do, don't you?"

"The princess will not be pleased," Abd al Hakim said.

"My daughter will manage, nonetheless. She has, by a quirk of fate, been given a good husband. He is a strong man, and while he may listen to her advice, for she is wise, he will be the sole ruler of Dariyabar," Sultan Ibrahim said.

"For now I think both our daughters will revel in their lust with these men they have wed," the vizier chuckled. "Ahhh, to be that young, and full of love's juices once again. Bahira can scarcely keep her hands from her general, and the looks that the princess casts in her husband's direction are fiery."

And they were. The entire court had seen last evening how Zuleika of Dariyabar felt about the tall barbarian now her legal mate.

She could scarcely wait to leave the hall, and several times attempted to do so, but Amir Khan had prevented her, catching her hand hard, smiling at her and murmuring, "Not yet, my princess." Finally she had decided that if she left him, he would certainly follow.

"I am going to our apartments," she whispered softly. "Come to me as soon as you can," and she nipped at his earlobe.

"I will come when I can, Zuleika. There are many men here of great importance to Dariyabar whom I must meet. You know what is to come, but they do not, and I would have them our friends," the khan told his wife. Then he turned away from her to speak with a wealthy merchant of the city.

Zuleika decided that she was offended. This was their wedding night. Their real wedding night. There would be no amusing sexual games with Bahira and Sabola. Tonight they would be together, and have the leisure to enjoy each other.
And he preferred to remain in the hall to chatter with merchants?
He would pay for that insult, she decided silently to herself. She walked slowly through the hallways of the palace to her own apartments.

Rafa greeted her, her look questioning. "Where is the khan?"

"In the banquet hall talking with the city's men of business," Zuleika responded, her tone distinctly annoyed.

Rafa considered a moment, and then she said, "He is wise to do so. When he is sultan one day, he will need their cooperation."

"Any other time but tonight," Zuleika replied. "This is our wedding night! And do not tell me that I have already tasted pleasures at his hands, that is not the point.
This is our wedding night!"

"You are a grown woman now, my princess," Rafa said. "You will be our sultana one day. You must think of Dariyabar."

"Do not presume to tell me my duty towards Dariyabar, Rafa," Zuleika snapped. "I have done my duty toward this kingdom always and ever.
But this is my wedding night!
Go now, and leave me to myself. I do not need you to find my lonely bed."

Rafa bowed, and departed. It was always better to take Zuleika at her word when she got like this.

Alone, the princess looked about, and decided that she would bathe in her private bath. She shrugged her gown from her body where she stood. Rafa would pick it up in the morning. She walked naked to her bathing room, filled the sea sponge with fragrant liquid soap, and washed herself. Next she rinsed herself in the marble shell basin beneath the fish spigots, finally descending into her bathing pool. She felt calmer now, but she was still angry. Well, had she herself not told him she was the key to Dariyabar? He had possessed himself of the key, and now he had what he had fought for for three years. He had Dariyabar. Her father would be dead by the end of the moon's cycle. She looked through the pale cream and gold marble pillars separating her bathing room from her gardens, and saw the thin crescent in the sky.

Each day the moon grew fatter brought her closer to losing her father. Would it not have been better if he had died several nights ago? At least then he would be safely with her mother, and she would not have to bear this eternity of waiting. Ibrahim had always favored her brothers, but she knew now that her father admired and respected her even if she was a female. And he had always been good to her. It was something to remember, and it was a good memory. She floated lazily in her bathing pool, her long, dark ebony hair streaming out behind her.

But she would not be just a sultana. She knew everything that there was to know about Dariyabar, and its history. Amir Khan had to listen to her, and at least consider her advice. She would not be an ornament, or a creature to be appreciated only for the pleasure she could give him. She was far more intelligent than her brothers had been, and she was equal in intelligence to the khan. Why were men so stubborn? Sabola wasn't that difficult. He had departed the banqueting hall with Bahira early.
But Sabola is not to be the next sultan
, a small voice murmured in her head. "The Gods!" Zuleika swore. She hated that little voice, especially when it was right.

"May I join you?"

Zuleika turned her head in the direction of her husband's voice. "Have you concluded your business, my lord?" she said, half-angrily.

"I have," he calmly replied. He went about washing himself in an efficient manner, rinsed, and then dove into the bathing pool, surfacing next to her. "I am surprised that you do not understand the importance of what I was doing tonight," he began.

Zuleika's feet hit the marble bottom of the bathing pool, and she whirled about to face the khan. "I understand everything, my lord! Given the brief time we have for you to soothe the citizens of my city before my father dies, you must make the most of your time.
But this is our wedding night!
Could you not have waited until tomorrow?"

"Now, my princess," he began, almost laughing at the look of pure outrage on her beautiful face, "the opportunity was there to show the merchants and ship owners of Dariyabar that I am not a barbarian, though you have all called me thus. They needed to know that I understand the various elements that make up their great trade. That my main goal in attacking the city was merely to gain an entry to the sea and that trade. They needed to understand that I am not a monster, that I love and adore their princess," he finished with a mischievous smile.

"Do not try to wheedle me, Amir!" she grumbled at him.

"But, my princess, who else is there for me to wheedle?" he teased her, and reaching out, he pulled her resisting form against his.

"I hate you," she said, half-heartedly.

"No, you don't," he replied.

"So you love me?" she said, and began to melt at the pressure of his thighs and his belly on her thighs and belly.

"From the first moment I saw you," he confessed.

"Indeed?" she replied.

"I am an impulsive man," he told her. "You do not yet love me, my princess, but in time you will. You are a careful woman who must consider the entire issue before you will commit yourself, or in this particular case, your heart."

It startled her that he should know her so well after only three days. "You are arrogant, and you presume far too much," she responded, and pulling away from him swam to the steps of the pool and stood up, looking back at him a moment. Slowly she ascended the marble steps, the droplets of water gleaming like diamonds on her beautiful lithe body. "It is possible that I just might forgive your behavior tonight," she told him, drying herself off. "You have pleased me in the past. It is possible you may do so again, my lord."

He chuckled. "Now, my princess, who is being naughty?"

Zuleika ignored his remark, and picked up a crystal flask containing a thick pale green cream. "You will rub me with this lotion," she said, and turning, moved slowly back into her bedchamber.

He quickly dried himself with a length of toweling, and then followed her. She was already lying upon her belly. A warm breeze, scented with damask roses and lilies, blew through the silk gauze draperies that hung between the marble pillars through which he viewed a walled garden. There was the song of a nightingale coming from that garden. Straddling her, he used her delightful and provocative bottom as a seat. Uncorking the crystal vial, he watched as the pale green cream coated its sides, finally pouring itself out into his palm. He set the container aside on the ebony table. Then rubbing his two hands together to distribute the fragrant cream, he began to massage her with slow strokes of his big hands.