“Then he is a fool,” said Prince Rafi. “When a man sees what he wants, should he not take pains to achieve it instantly?”
Zara smiled. “Maybe he didn’t see what he wanted,” she said, and shivered, knowing it was a lie. The bandit chief had wanted her. There must be something about her that appealed to the Arab temperament, too.
A marriage made in heaven, then, she told herself dryly.
“What man would not have wanted you, so beautiful under the fall of water, your limbs bare and your skin so silken? He must have been jealous even of the eyes of his companions for the fact that they also saw the vision. If he did not pursue you across the sand and catch you up on his horse then, it can only be because he had other plans to obtain you. Did not King Khosrow fall madly in love with Shirin when he caught sight of her bathing? And he stopped at nothing to gain her.”
It was the naked passion in his eyes, more than anything else, that told her the truth. He had been veiling it from her all evening, letting her see only a portion of what was there. But now she saw again the black flame of complete and determined need burn up behind his gaze.
Her hand snapping to her open mouth, Zara gasped, an electric sound that caused conversation everywhere to stop. Her hand slowly lowered, while her eyes gazed helplessly into his. Take away the white keffiyeh that had enwrapped the bandit’s head and chin...
“A man would do all in his power,” Prince Rafi promised her softly.
“It was you!” she whispered.
His black eyes fixed hers, letting her read the truth. That was the reason, then, for the prince’s sudden interest in the team, for this dinner . . . she saw it all..That was why he had singled her out.
His Serene Highness Sayed Hajji Rafi Jehangir ibn Daud ibn Hassan al Quraishi was the man at the wadi she had thought the bandit chief.
Four
Zara succeeded in tearing her eyes away from the prince’s at last, and glanced up to see that the gaze of every member of the archaeological team was rivetted on her. The Companions, more socially skilled, pretended not to notice, and were making light conversation to their inattentive neighbours.
She really couldn’t think. She needed air, and solitude.
“Excuse me,” she said. Struggling to her feet again, the coat billowing and glowing behind her, Zara walked down the length of the room, past little clusters of people who tried to cover their fascination with chatter but could not help following her with their eyes.
Outside, the full moon glowed on the broad desert, its sweeping dunes, the tents of the archaeological team in the distance, and closer, the outcrop where the tall palms that surrounded the pool and waterfall were just visible above the rocks.
Pressing her hands to her hot cheeks, the robe billowing behind her, Zara moved towards it. There was a narrow defile in the rocks from this direction, dark now with moonshadow, but she knew her way through. Soon she was inside, listening to the rushing sound of the falling water.
It was Gordon’s theory that this was the original course of the river, before Queen Halimah, in one of her public projects, had diverted it, and that an underground stream remained as testimony, forced to the surface here by some geological fault, to form the delicious waterfall and its pools before disappearing underground again.
She was walking where Alexander the Great had probably once walked. Zara sank down on the rocks by the pool and dipped one hand in, leaning over to press the cool water to her cheeks.
The moon was strong, casting black shadows under the walls of rock, but she sat in full moonlight, and it glistened on the water, on her hair, and on her golden robe.
It was two thousand, three hundred and thirty years since Alexander had come here with his armies, but humankind had not changed very much. Men were still consumed by jealousies and passions . . . and sex was still like this river...try to divert it, and its power went underground, to force its way up at any weak spot...
She did not know what to do about Prince Rafi. That there was a powerful attraction between them she couldn’t, wouldn’t try to deny. She had felt it for him when she thought him a bandit, and finding him a king had certainly not lessened its force.
But she was a stranger in a strange land, a woman desired by a king. She had no idea what dangers awaited her if she gave in to what she felt, what he wanted. She spoke only a little of the language, knew not nearly enough about the country and its culture. Her knowledge of the area was all of the distant past, and she wasn’t sure that the autocratic powers and ways of the ancient kings whose names she knew had altogether passed into history.
Suppose she gave in to him, for one night, or one week, or . . . what would it mean, in the end? Did kings let women go after they had loved them, or did they guard them jealously in their harems, not wanting them, but not willing that any other man should ever have the power of being compared with the king as a lover?
Ridiculous. She was sure that was ridiculous. But what was not ridiculous was the fear she felt. The thought of letting him make love to her frightened her. No man had ever made her so nervous.
She heard a clinking sound, and something that sounded like a horse blowing. In sudden alarm, Zara lifted her head.
She was beautiful, a white dress and a flowing golden robe, and her black curling hair another robe over her shoulders and back, like the descriptions by the poets. Her face a painting, the eyebrows darkly curving, the mouth a perfect bow. The mountain tribes had their tales of the Peri, the race of Other, whose tiny beautiful women enticed men and disappeared, but this was the desert. Behind her the moon shimmered on the rustling water.
This was the one. There could not be another.
“Who’s there?” Zara called, trying to keep any sign of nerves from her voice, realizing she had been a fool to come wandering out here on her own. “Who is it?”
Suddenly the place seemed eerie, full of danger. Zara shivered and got to her feet. What a fool she was! What if Prince Rafi followed her out here? What if he had construed her movements as an invitation?
She heard a footfall. The waterfall disguised everything, but she thought it came from the passage. It was Prince Rafi. She knew it, and panic filled her blood with the urgent command to flee. She ran light as wind towards the sheltering rocks. Damn the moonlight! It caught in the glittering robe and would betray her whereabouts even in the darkest shadows.
Zara turned her head this way and that, peering through the gloom, trying to remember the layout of the place. There was a niche somewhere, a place to hide, but the shadows were very black. There was no time to think. She flung herself into the unknown.
Then she shrieked as the black horse reared up in front of her. Out of the shadows a body bent down and dark hands reached for her. The prince! My God, is he mad? she thought, in the moment before the strong hands grasped her, the powerful arms lifted her, and she felt the horse beneath her thighs and her face was smothered against his chest.
She clung to him for safety, there was nothing else to do. He had already spurred the horse to a wild gallop, and to fall now might kill her. Her heart pounded deafeningly in her ears. In the tiny part of her mind that remained cool, she had time to think, I didn’t scream. I suppose that counts as an invitation in this part of the world.
She couldn’t scream now—she was pressed into his chest, almost smothered. She smelled the odour of male sweat and desert and horse in the all-encompassing burnous he was wearing over his clothes, and the hairs lifted primitively on the back of her neck.
The smell was not right. He had been sandalwood and myrrh, and another scent, all his own, that was missing now.
In the same moment she heard a