Bertrice Small - Zuleika and the Barbarian

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.