The Bride Price (16 page)

Blaine and Derek left their house by the back way and looped around. They found the servant drowsing in the shade of a skimpy acacia tree. He did not even look up when the horse, tied to the drinking trough, nickered softly at the sight of the two strangers. Silently they stole into the stable and watched the house.

They did not have long to wait. Gasim soon emerged from the back door, straightening his clothes. Calling harshly to the servant, he walked toward his horse.

If Gasim Al Auf was surprised when the two men materialized from the shadowy stable, swords drawn, he did not show it.

“Ah, O’Toole Effendi,” he greeted his enemy in Arabic. “I knew we would meet again someday.” He unsheathed his own sword. Seemingly reluctant, the servant did the same.

Without warning, Gasim gave a bloodcurdling yell and charged at Blaine. But the big man was ready, and steel rang against steel.

Brandishing his sword lazily, Derek advanced on the servant at once, drawling, “It’s rather a poor idea, y’know, to interfere in a private quarrel.”

To his surprise, the little man answered in heavily accented English, “I agree it is unwise, but what can I do? Even slaves have honor.” With a look of resignation, he faced Derek.

“I’ve come for my daughter, Al Auf,” Blaine stated evenly, meeting every slash of Gasim’s blade.

“You have come all this way for an unworthy woman?”

“You knew I would.”

“I thought better of you, especially since you must know I have sold her by now.”

Blaine stepped up his attack in response, causing Gasim to fall back against the rump of his horse, which shied uneasily behind him. The Irishman was not even breathing hard when he resumed the conversation, “I imagined you would sell her, but I’ll have the name of the buyer from you before you die.”

“I will never tell you,” Gasim snarled.

The two old enemies fought savagely, unaware that the other battle being waged in the stable yard was over. Derek had disarmed the servant, though not as easily as he had expected, and now he stood with his blade against the little man’s throat. Neither moved as they watched Blaine press the pirate against the tree and disarm him.

With an enraged roar, Gasim drew his dagger, a match to the one he had left in the gate in Tangier. Using the tree behind him to launch himself, he lunged wildly at Blaine. But his foot caught in a root and he lost his footing, falling heavily at his opponent’s feet.

In fairness, Blaine waited for the pirate to rise, but he did not stir. Warily the Irishmen knelt beside him and rolled his limp form onto its back. Blood stained the sand beneath Gasim, and the ornate hilt of the dagger protruded from his chest.

The Arab’s eyes opened heavily. “You will never know, O’Toole.” His laughter ended with a last rattling breath.

Blaine’s face was bleak when he looked up at Derek. “Dead,” he muttered.

From the house, the death wail rose and the woman ran to throw herself across Gasim’s body.

“Perhaps this one can tell us what we wish to know before we kill him,” Derek suggested, shoving the skinny servant toward Blaine.

The Arab’s gaze slid around to the young man’s angry face. He did not believe they intended to kill him. They behaved in the strangest ways, these Inglayzis.

“Please,
sidi,
for you are my master...” He approached the big man beseechingly. “My name is Mustafa bin Abdul. Taken from an Egyptian ship, I became the slave of Al Auf, God blacken his face. Now I am yours, O victorious one.”

“All I want is some information, Mustafa,” Blaine answered.

“I live to serve.” He scowled down at the weeping woman and shouted, “Silence, worthless one! My
sidi
wishes to speak with me.”

“What did Al Auf do with my daughter?”

“That wicked one sold her to the slave trader, Nejm Al Anwar.”

“I suspected as much,” Blaine muttered, “but I could get no answers in the souks.”

Suddenly Mustafa saw a chance to ingratiate himself to his new master and perhaps to make a profit.

“In your wisdom, you know the reason, O’Toole Effendi,” the slave volunteered quickly. “The shopkeepers would tell you nothing because you are an infidel. Had your humble servant been with you, you would have learned that she is at Nejm’s no longer.”

‘‘Where is she?”

“I heard before we left Tangier that she had been sold again.”

“To whom?”

“I cannot recall. Alas, the gates of memory are locked to your poor servant.”

“Would a key of silver unlock them?” Blaine asked knowingly.

“Much better would be a key of gold, master.”

“I thought as much.” He tossed a gold coin into the dust at the man’s feet.

“This is highway robbery,” Derek objected when Mustafa picked up the coin and bit it. “I could have killed him. He’s lucky to get away with his life.”

“Let him speak.” Blaine held up a silencing hand.

Mustafa pocketed his money with a smug expression and said, “Now I remember,
sidi.
I heard she had been sold to Hajji Suleiman Ibn Hussein, a marriage broker of great repute.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

With a defiant glance at Derek, the servant wordlessly extended a grimy hand. When another coin joined the first, he said helpfully, “No doubt the hajji joined a caravan to the east. But to pursue him across the desert would be foolhardy,
sidi.
Would it not be better to send a message to his home in Baghdad? There is a man here who sends messages by pigeon...for a price, of course.”

“Of course,” Blaine agreed gravely. “And you could introduce me to him...for a price.” He was silent for a moment as he sorted through the options. “If you take me to this man, Mustafa, you may have your freedom.”

“I say...” Derek sputtered.

“May Allah bless you a thousand times!” the surprised Mustafa cried. In giving him his freedom, Blaine had gained a slave for life. “May your herds increase, my master. May you—”

“Enough, Mustafa. Take us to this man you know.”

“It is true, Bryna bint Blaine, you had no mother either?” `Abla’s gray eyes widened at the discovery, “Just like me?”

“My mother did not die when I was born,” Bryna replied, laying her needlework in her lap in favor of talking to the child. “But she died when I was very young. I barely remember her.”

“I do not remember mine at all,” `Abla said sorrowfully. “Sometimes I wonder about her. My aunts say she was beautiful and kind...like you.”

Bryna smiled down at the little girl sitting beside her. “She must have been special indeed to have such a special daughter. I am sure she would have been proud of you,”

“Do you really think so?” `Abla asked breathlessly. “Even though I am clumsy and in the way and my clothes are never neat?”

Bryna laughed aloud. “That sounds exactly like a description of me when I was your age.”

And were you sometimes lonely, too?” `Abla asked, suddenly serious again.

From across the main room of the harem, Latifeh, Sharif’s second wife, watched Bryna and `Abla while they talked, their dark heads close. Curious, on the pretext of inspecting the garment upon which Bryna worked, she ambled over to where they sat.

“It is beautiful, isn’t it, Aunt Latifeh?” `Abla asked as the woman examined the elaborate embroidery.

“It is good,” Latifeh admitted. She addressed the American girl in a pidgin mixture of French and Arabic. “Who taught you this?”

“No one,” Bryna answered shyly. Though she liked her more than Fatmah, she did not know Latifeh well. She did not yet know that this serious woman would be her instructor in the teachings of the Prophet.

“You knew how to do this before?”

No, I admired the border on your
thobe,
so I thought I would try it.”

“Mashallah,
you have done well.” Summoning her best French, Latifeh asked carefully, “Do you know what is called this pattern?”

Bryna shook her head.

“‘The Tent of the Pasha.’“ The woman’s hennaed finger traced the colorful stitches. “Such needlework is difficult.”

“Did you know, my aunt,” `Abla interjected, eager to share the bond between her new friend and herself, “that Bryna grew up in a huge harem, bigger than ours, perhaps even bigger than the emir’s?”

“It was not a harem,” Bryna corrected gently. “It was an orphanage.”

“What is this...orphanage?” Latifeh sat down, her eyes alight at the thought of adding new knowledge to her vast store.

“It is where children who have no mother or father are kept,” Bryna explained falteringly.

“They have no
amm—
no
uncle—to protect them?”

“No one.”

“I suppose it could happen,” the Arab woman granted dubiously. “But no one in their tribe takes them in?”

“In America, we—”

“Latifeh!” A disapproving screech interrupted the conversation and Fatmah descended upon them, her fat body quivering with indignation. “Have you nothing better to do than gossip with kaffir slaves?”

`Abla darted from harm’s way, out a side door, as the woman rose, shamefaced. Ordinarily the harem authority on etiquette and custom, Latifeh had momentarily forgotten Bryna’s station in life.

“Ya hú,
O worthless one,” Fatmah shouted at the foreign girl in Arabic, and waved her arms threateningly, “fetch me a sherbet from the kitchen and be quick.”

Fuming with silent anger, Bryna went to do as she was bade. When she returned moments later, Latifeh was deep in discussion with Fatmah.

“...have never seen her smile before,” Bryna overhead the younger wife say. “When she is with the infidel, it is as if she is a different girl.”

“I tell you it is not good,” Fatmah argued. “The proverb says, ‘A child’s heart is like a precious jewel without inscription—’”

“I know,” Latifeh cut in. “‘It is therefore ready to absorb whatever is engraved upon it.’
But I tell you there has been no one to engrave upon `Abla’s heart. Our husband hardly acknowledges her existence, and neither you nor I have taken the time to teach her. What harm can this friendship do?”

“Much, I fear. Quiet, now,” Fatmah cautioned, seeing that Bryna had returned. “So there you are, daughter of Satan.” She accepted the dish with ill grace. “It took you long enough.”

Bryna did not reply, but again she understood she was not welcome in the women’s quarters, for many reasons.

Little attention was paid to her or to Pamela, however, as frantic preparations began for the feast of
Eed al Adha
. In the bustle of activity, the foreign women were busy from dawn to dusk, dragging wearily to their beds at night. Because they ranked lowest in the harem, they were given the most menial of tasks.

For Bryna, this meant grinding grain for the innumerable loaves of flat bread that would be consumed during the feast. A huge mortar and pestle were placed under a carob tree near the kitchen, and she was positioned there, facing the house, with huge bags of grain. Her task was mindless work, and at first she felt an impotent anger at her situation as she ground the grain and sifted the husks from the fine meal all day, pausing only for meals and a short kef in the afternoon.

With so much time to think, memories of other times returned, but Bryna would not allow herself to dwell on them. They were too painful. To keep her mind busy while she worked, she watched the comings and goings of the household, listening to passing conversations while she mentally reviewed the Arabic `Abla was teaching her. In exchange for French lessons, the little girl had undertaken Bryna’s education with glee and surprising ability.

On the day before the feast, while Bryna labored, Pamela appeared in the kitchen door, seeking a breeze to cool her. At Nassar’s insistence she was kept inside, where the sun would not darken her skin or coarsen her hair. She had been sent to assist in the baking.

After glancing cautiously over her shoulder into the kitchen, she hurried to where Bryna sat beneath the tree. “Won’t you be glad when this day is over and we can have a bath?” she asked in greeting.

“Very glad,” Bryna answered, imagining a long soak in warm water to relieve the ache in her shoulders and back from bending over the mortar.

Pamela leaned against the tree trunk and ran her fingers through her sweat-soaked hair beneath her
ghata.
“I have never been so hot in my life.”

“Not even in the desert?” Bryna teased, continuing to work.

“Not even then,” the English girl confirmed. She stared up the hill at the servants who dug pits in the ground at the side of the house, a distance from the men’s wing. Behind them, Fatmah and Latifeh toiled in the heat to pitch a large tent. “I understand that the pits are for cooking, but what are they doing?”

“Building a tent large enough to hold all the male guests. That’s their job as the sheik’s wives. It seems everyone has a task,” Bryna added, nodding toward `Abla, who followed the women, beating tent pegs into the hard ground with a small stone hammer.

“We certainly have our tasks in the kitchen.” Sighing, Pamela stirred and faced back toward the house. When no one seemed to be looking for her, she settled back against the tree again. “We’ve been cooking for days, and I am heartily sick of the smell of goat and sour milk.”

Bryna nodded sympathetically, but before she could speak the cook appeared in the door to the kitchen and scowled at Pamela.

“I am coming,” the blond-haired girl called to him in French. “I knew he would come looking for me, she muttered to Bryna. “He is turning into such a tyrant.”

“I thought you liked him.”

“He is a lamb, but if he makes me say
La ilaha-illa-llah, wa Muhammad rasuli-ilah
one more time, I think I shall scream.”

“There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah,” Bryna translated. “He wants you to be a good Moslem.”

“What are we going to do, Bryna?” Pamela asked intensely. “I cannot give up Christianity for Islam, can you?”

“No,” the American girl admitted soberly. “I know we must face it eventually, for Nassar has made it clear I must become a Moslem or be sold into a bordello.”

“Then we will become Moslems,” Pamela said insistently. “I do not believe he would sell me, but I could not bear to be separated from you.”