The Bride Price (45 page)

“You have your memory back, then?”

“Yes.”

“Allah grant me strength, it is as I feared,” Sharif said. “You are right, monsieur.” He turned to Blaine wearily. “We must go upstairs, where we can talk.”

“You go with him.” Blaine nodded to Bryna. “You don’t need me for this.”

Solicitously she held her husband’s arm and led him up to the meager rooms. The mighty chieftain stood with his head bowed and his back to her as she closed the door.

“Let me tend your wound, my sheik,” she said, coming behind him to touch his shoulder.

“It is nothing.” He shrugged off her hand. “A man must have his pride, even if he loses all else. It is as the old woman predicted, my honor was your bride price. I have lost even that.”

“I cannot believe that,” she disagreed softly. “But what of a woman who loses her past, Sharif? Why did you not tell me the truth?”

“I feared losing you.”

“So much that you never let me make my own choice? Didn’t you know I would have never hurt you?”

“How is it then that I feel such pain, woman?” he asked savagely, “Your father has come to take you away. And this boy... he says you will marry him. You should have let me kill him.” He whirled to look at her for the first time, his eyes two cold points of hard steel.

“You do not mean that,”

“No, it is not the way of Allah.” He sighed. “But I will pay him a fortune to leave us. I will reimburse the bride price he paid for you, and I will pay your father.”

“You are talking about buying me,” she accused.

“I am talking about your true bride price,” he snapped.

Her chest heaving, she managed to control her temper and say with dignity, “I will not be bought or sold again, Sharif.”

“Because it is not the way of your country?”

“No, because—”

“Because you love the kaffir?” His voice was flat.

“No,” she answered hotly, “because I must go where I choose. I must decide. And you must allow me.”

Pain and comprehension on his face, Sharif said with hoarse intensity, “You say you want your freedom, but it is already yours. You ceased to be a slave when Nassar died. The only bonds that hold you now are the bonds of our marriage.

“What must I do to make you happy? Must I release you? Then, before Allah, I will do it. But first I must ask you...” The sheik’s craggy face looked as if it were carved from stone as he stared into the distance, unwilling to meet her eyes. He did not see the blaze of joy in them at his words.

He loved her enough to let her go! With such logic she must be mad, Bryna thought. But she was not mad. She was ecstatic, and she felt as if her heart would burst with happiness.

“Sharif...”

“No. I must know,” he insisted, “did you ever love me?”

“Oh, yes, my lord,” she murmured, “but never more than this moment.”

His tortured gray eyes met hers at last. Drawing her into his arms, he held her lovingly. “Then tell me and I will let you go.”

“I love you, my husband,” she whispered as his lips found hers.

The kiss they shared was fiery and passionate. Sharif’s touch was the touch of a man who knew there would be no tomorrow, the spilling out of all his emotion in one moment.

Releasing her abruptly, the sheik gazed down at his wife. “Allah grant you happiness, Bryna bint Blaine,” he declared with great effort. “I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I—”

“No, Sharif, do not say it.” She shook her head. “I must do what my heart wills.”

“What your heart wills?” he repeated hopefully.

“With thee I will stay forever, my beloved,” she said simply.

“And I with thee, my own.” Laughing incredulously and crying at the same time, Sharif enfolded her joyfully in powerful arms and his lips claimed hers once again. When they parted, his rugged face was transformed by the love he saw reflected in her blue eyes.

An arm around her waist, the sheik smiled down at her as they walked toward the door. “Come,” he invited, his voice rich and warm and tender, “my wife, my joy...my Bryna.”

Bryna stood on the sheltered balcony of Sharif’s home in Jidda, looking out over the harbor, watching the crowded sambuk that was bearing her father back to Africa sail out to sea. Her mind returned to the morning three days ago when she had decided to stay.

When she and Sharif had emerged from the house, the Arabs and the foreigners were still ranged on opposite sides of the fountain as if positioned for battle. But all of the faces, light and dark, were turned toward them expectantly.

“The lady Bryna bint Blaine stays with the Selims,” her husband announced to his men, hugging her close to his side.

A loud cheer rang out from one side of the courtyard. On the other, Derek swung into his saddle and grimly urged the camel to its feet. He did not have to speak Arabic to know Bryna had made her choice.

Riding close to the landing, he glared up at the Arab. “Do not ever hurt her, Al Selim,” he roared.

Lifting a restraining hand to his hotheaded men, who scowled ominously at the kaffir, the sheik called back. “I give you my word of honor, Inglayzi, I will make her happy.”

“I’ll come back and kill you if you don’t.”

“I believe you would,” Sharif murmured. Drawing one of his jeweled daggers, he held it by the blade and tossed it to the young man. “If I do not keep my word, I deserve to die,” he shouted.

Shoving it into his belt, Derek wheeled his camel and rode out of the courtyard.

“Follow him,” Sharif ordered his men, “and take the others with you. They are to have safe conduct to Jidda.”

His retainers hurried to obey, and the foreigners’ camels bellowed and hissed at the hurried leave-taking. But when the dust cleared, Blaine remained in the courtyard.

“You will pardon me if I don’t run off with the others,” he said mildly, mounting the stairs to where the couple stood, “but I am not leaving Mecca until you and I have had a little talk...son-in-law.”

They had gone to Sharif’s huge home, where the men disappeared into the
majlis
for several hours, leaving Bryna to worry what the results would be when two such proud men met head on. When they emerged at last, Blaine was wearing the sheik’s other dagger and both men were smiling in satisfaction. Relations were guarded between them, but congenial as Blaine, accompanied by Bryna and her husband, rode to Jidda.

At the dock, where Blaine would find Derek for their voyage back to Africa, the farewell between the big Irishman and his daughter had been brief and tender and bittersweet.

Seeing his wife watching the harbor from the balcony, Sharif joined her, suddenly fearful that she might regret her decision to stay with him. Since that day they had talked for hours on end, getting to know each other, sorting out old emotions, laying to rest old fears. They spoke for the first time of the raid and of Bryna’s ordeal in the Rub al KhaIi. He knew now she had come to their wedding bed untouched. But the sheik found to his amazement that, beyond relief that she had not suffered ill treatment at Nassar’s hands or in the desert, the information made no difference in his feelings at all. He loved Bryna as she was, for all time, and he rejoiced that she loved him in return.

Silently now he went to stand behind her and slipped his arms around her waist, pulling her gently against his solid chest.

She tilted her head so it rested against his cheek and asked, “What did my father say to you to cause you to give him your other dagger, Sharif?”

“He wanted to know if I would follow the Moslem custom of having more than one wife,” he murmured, more interested in nuzzling her hair and kissing her ear than in conversation.

“And what did you say?” she asked without real concern. She knew the answer.

“I told him that I want no other, that his daughter is the woman of my heart.”

“And you gave your word?”

“I gave my word,” he confirmed with a chuckle, “and my dagger.” He tightened his arms and drew her nearer. “Are you happy, Bryna?”

“Very happy.” She sighed in contentment. “I always said I would choose my own family. I would love them and never leave them. I chose you and `Abla, but now I know I will always have my father, too.

“Besides,” she added sensibly, “I suspect he will be back this time next year.”

“So soon?” Sharif momentarily forgot his ardor. He was not sure how he felt about sharing his wife with anyone, not even her father. His time spent with his newfound father-in-law had been tense until they’d gained a wary mutual respect for each other.

“A lot can happen in a year,” Bryna was saying dreamily. “And he wants to see his only grandson before he is a man.”

“Grandson?” Sharif turned his wife to face him and discovered she was beaming. “Bryna, my joy, you mean...”

“I mean grandson. Your son, Sharif. Surely our first child will be a boy.”

“Allahu akbarl”
the man cried exultantly, hugging her close.

“Yes, my sheik,” she agreed softly, lifting her face for his kiss. “God is great. He gave us each other.”

In setting a novel in nineteenth century Arabia, I established a difficult task for myself. Little research material was available. Few Europeans of the period traveled on the Arabian peninsula and lived to tell of it. I discovered in the writings of Sir Richard Burton, C. M. Doughty, Karl May, T. E. Lawrence, Wilfred Thesiger and others, a life little changed over centuries.

Though more than one hundred years passed between Jean Louis Burckhardt’s wanderings in Arabia and Thesiger’s crossings of the Rub al Khali, their depictions of the Bedu and their customs were remarkably similar. I drew from various sources to describe Bryna’s experiences in the desert and the simplicity and honor of the Bedouin people.

Because Arab dialects are many and because my source material spanned a century and a half, the spellings in this book may depart from modern Arabic. When possible, I used transliterations by scholars such as Alfred Guillaume, who was the head of the Department of Near and Middle East in the School of Oriental and African Studies, and a professor of Arabic at University of London, and later visiting professor of Arabic at Princeton University.

I must admit that writing this book was a wonderful excuse to learn more about historical Arabia and the Bedouin people. As a child growing up in the humid delta country of Louisiana, I was intrigued by the desert, a fascination which was fueled in my adult life by conversations with friends who were employed by American companies in Saudi Arabia. I hope you enjoyed the product of my research as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Karen Jones Delk, who has also written as Kate Kingsley, is author of six historical romances published by HarperMonogram and Harlequin Historicals. Besides
The Bride Price
, her novel
Emerald Queen
has also been published online. Brought up in South Louisiana near the mouth of the Mississippi River, Ms. Delk now lives in Northern California where she spends most of her time being a partner in a broadcast consulting firm and keeping up with her actor/comedian husband of nearly forty years. She can’t imagine not writing and fits it into her schedule whenever and wherever she can.

Copyright 1992 by Karen Jones Delk

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Karen Jones Delk

Cover design by Jennifer Hoover Design

Cover photo by Denny Delk