Poor Rani. She had been so excited to show her the gown when she’d returned from her meeting with Zoltan, so delighted to tell her what was planned for her preparations the next day—the fragrant oil-baths, the henna and the hairdresser. Aisha had taken such strides to hold herself together until then, all the way from the library through the convoluted passageways and along the cloistered walk to her suite. It had been so much effort to hold herself together that, in spite of all of the young girl’s enthusiasm—or maybe, in part, because of it—she had taken one look at the dress, collapsed onto the bed in tears and told the girl to go away.
The breeze from the open doors beckoned her, carrying with it the late-afternoon perfume of the garden below, the heady scent of jasmine and the sweet lure of orange blossom. It drew her to the window, to where the soft inner drapes danced and played upon the gentle breeze. She stood there for a moment before venturing out onto the balcony of her suite. The sun was dipping lower now, the evening rays turning the stone and roof of the palace gold, even in the places it was not. The garden was bathed in half-light, the sound of the splashing fountain and birdcalls coming from its green depths like an antidote to stress.
It all looked so restful and beautiful, so perfect, even when she knew things were far from perfect, that she could not resist the lure of the perfumed garden.
A set of stairs led down from the balcony. She looked back into her suite and realised someone had already taken away the jacket she had torn off and discarded en route to her bed, but it didn’t matter, because she probably wouldn’t need it anyway. It was deliciously warm and without the sting of the sun’s rays. It wasn’t as though she was planning on running into anyone.
She wasn’t in the mood for running into anyone. A lifetime of training had told her that she must be presentable at all times, in all situations, prepared for every contingency; given a lifetime of doing exactly that, only to find that your life could take a bizarre turn and force you into marriage with someone just because some crusty old piece of paper said you must, what then did it matter how she looked? She finger-combed her hair back from her face and smoothed her creased trousers with her hands. That would do. Once, she might have cared, but today, after all that had happened, she felt a strange sense of detachment from her former life.
It didn’t matter any more.
If she could be married to someone she hated because the ancient alliance between their two countries dictated it, then nothing mattered any more—not how you looked, how you acted or certainly not what you dreamed and wanted from your life. Only that you were a princess. Only that you came from the right breeding stock. And Zoltan hated her anyway. It wasn’t as though he cared how she looked.
Zoltan was stuck with her, just as she was stuck with him, and somehow that thought was vaguely comforting as she descended the stairs into the garden. After all, why should she be the only one inconvenienced by this arrangement? Why should she be the only one to suffer?
Her legs brushed past lavender bushes intruding onto the path as she walked, releasing their scent onto the air. She breathed deeply, taking it in, wishing herself the soothing balm it promised.
The garden was deserted, as she had hoped it would be, silent but for the rustle of leaves on the breeze, the play of water and the call of birds. She drifted aimlessly along its paths, breathing in the scented air, delighting in the discovery of the ever-changing view and the skillful placement of a bubbling bird-bath or a flowering frangipani to surprise and delight. She stopped by one such frangipani tree laden with richly scented flowers, picked a cluster of bright white-and-yellow flowers to her face and drank in their sweet perfume.
Her mother’s favourite flower, so her father had told her when she had leafed through her parents’ wedding photos. She could see her parents’ wedding photos now, and her mother’s bouquet, all tight white rosebuds amidst the happy brightness of frangipani flowers as she drank in that sweet scent.
She wondered what her mother would tell her now. Would she be as cold and clinical as her father, who had told her today that there was no point thinking or dreaming or wishing for things to be different, because she was what she was and that was how it was to be? Or would she be more understanding, at least empathetic of her situation?
And not for the first time she wondered about her own parents’ marriage, wishing she knew more of the circumstances of how they had met. But her mother had died way too early for her to be interested in any of that, and now it was all so long ago.
She arrived at an opening in a wall, keyhole-shaped, potted palms on either side. A path to another garden? she wondered. But as she looked through it she could see it was not one but a series of archways through which she caught a glimpse of greenery and whispering palms that beckoned to her.
She looked back, trying to get her bearings so she would not get lost, saw what must be her balcony above the tangle of vegetation and realised she was in the far corner of the square, the other side of the palace to where the library lay.
Further from Zoltan, she figured, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt to venture a little further, especially not if this was to be her new home.
She encountered only one other person, a maid, who blinked up at her, bowed and soundlessly and quickly moved on.
She passed by a bird-bath with a bubbling fountain where birds splashed happily, oblivious to her passing, and the breeze whispered through the palms, the promise of the archways luring her on. She loved them all. Every one of them was decorated slightly differently, one whose walls were covered with blue-and-white mosaic, another inlaid with mother-of-pearl, the last with a pair of peacocks with bright and colourful plumage, every one of them a work of art.
It was as she passed beneath that last richly decorated arch and wondered what she would find beyond that she heard it, a voice, a shout, and then splashing and laughter. Men’s laughter, coming from some kind of pool. She swallowed as she swung around, pressing her back hard against the cool, tiled wall, grateful she had heard their voices before stumbling unknowingly into their midst. She should not be here. She had come too far.
And then she heard his voice amongst the others, Zoltan’s, and the bitter taste of bile rose in her throat as she remembered how supremely difficult it had been to walk from that library with her back straight and her head held high when all she had felt like doing was collapsing in a heap in despair—how it had taken every shred of her self-control to force herself to wait until she had walked through the door of her suite before she could let her tears go. She could not bear to see him again with those memories so vivid in her mind.
His voice rang out again, issuing some kind of challenge. There were calls and laughter, and the challenge seemed to be accepted by another. The unfairness of it all grated on her raw nerves, rubbed salt into her still-fresh wounds. Clearly Zoltan was not agonising too much over the stress of a forced marriage, for all his protests about not wanting to take a wife. Clearly he was not suffering unduly, if he could take time out to frolic in a pool with his friends without a care in the world. And clearly he had not felt the need to cry his heart out on his bed at the unfairness of it all. The truth of it struck home again. She was nothing in this world but a pawn in a game where she didn’t even merit a move.
There came a splash then, the sound of thrashing water and cheers, and curiosity got the better of her. Who were these men with Zoltan? Could they be the ones who had accompanied him to the desert encampment last night? Maybe she could take one look. It wasn’t as though the pool was private; there was no gate and she was simply out walking.
Making sure she stayed in the shadows under the archway, she peered out past the garden surrounding the pool. There were two men there, neither of them Zoltan, standing cheering at the far end of a broad sapphire pool, partly shaded by twin lines of palms. Though it was nowhere near shady enough to hide the scars that marred one man’s back, the skin twisted and brutal-looking, and she wondered what could have caused such a mess as the water of the pool