A Wind in Cairo (33 page)

Her hair tumbled silken over his center. He gasped. With the last vestige of his strength, he staggered to his feet.

She came with him, arms about him, protests flooding.

He flinched from the stab of sunlight. From eyes like blue stones, hardened against grief, widening with shock at what was there to see.

Beauty, yes. White and gold. His eyes found it pleasant. His body was cool to it. It was not Zamaniyah.

The Frank fled into the glare. The flap fell slantwise, letting in a spear of light. Her voice rose beyond it.

Khamsin had lost the power to move. He stood still in the sudden flood of light. He watched the tent fill to bursting with men, steel, outrage. Hard hands tore at him, rent him from Zamaniyah.

He fought. He surprised himself with strength. But they were too many, too merciless. They hurled him down. They set steel to what mattered most.

He wanted to laugh aloud. That was always the first thing they thought of.

One of the swordpoints twitched too close. The prick of pain slew his laughter. He lay very still, struggling to breathe softly.

Zamaniyah was crushed in her father's embrace. He held her as if he would never let go; he rocked her; he wept.

But his eyes were on Khamsin, and they were implacable.

At last his arms unlocked. He held his daughter back a little, stroked her hair out of her face. Her cheeks were as wet as his. “Little one,” he said, rough with tears. “Little pearl. I thought I'd lost you.” He touched her face, her shoulder, her hand. “How warm you are! You were so cold.”

She shivered. He drew her to him, more gently now, wrapping her in his robe. He kissed the top of her head.

“And now,” he said. His voice had changed. His face had gone terrible. “And now, daughter. What is that?”

His finger pointed to Khamsin. Who knew that he was far from prepossessing, sprawled naked on carpets with a half-dozen swords pinning his privates; but surely he had not earned such scathing contempt.

Her cry was soft, but it was deadly fierce. She broke free and leaped, beating back the startled swordsmen, dropping beside Khamsin. She was even more angry than he. Their eyes clashed like blades; she hissed, even though she could see that his captors had not harmed him.

She pulled him up. He let her. But when he stood, with utmost delicacy he eased away.

For all her fire of temper, she could see what he was doing. She let him go. She smoothed his hair with a hand that spoke more than any flood of words. She spun upon her father. “That, as you put it, is the man who died to give me life.”

“He lives,” al-Zaman pointed out. “And it was not a man who died for you. It was a stallion.”

“It was Khamsin. This is Khamsin.”

Tensed for incredulity, Khamsin reeled before belief. Al-Zaman was mad, if most methodically so. He could accept what had his mamluks, even his concubine, rolling their eyes and muttering. “And for that, he was given human form?”

“He was born a man,” said Zamaniyah. “He offended a mage. For that, he walked in beast's shape. When he offered his life for me, he redeemed his sin. He won back his humanity.”

Khamsin took note of how she said it. And how her father received it. Al-Zaman's eyes narrowed. “He carried you? He served you?”

“With heart and soul,” Khamsin said. He mastered his rearing temper. He bridled it; he won it to his will. He bowed low before his mistress' father. “Your servant, my lord.”

The booted foot rose over him. He braced for the blow.

“I would not,” said a gentle voice.

Khamsin stilled where he lay.

“Faithful service,” continued Ali Mousa, “should receive a just reward.”

“I am just,” said al-Zaman. “I do not geld him with my own hands. He was alone with my daughter.”

“Alone, yes!” she cried. “And too exquisite a gentleman to do more than look at me.”

“That is enough,” said al-Zaman.

Khamsin rose to his knees. The Turk's sword hissed from its sheath. He tilted back his head, parting his beard, baring his throat. His eyes, he knew, were anything but cowed. He could not make himself fear the steel that glittered so close, so thirsty for his blood. What did it matter? The man had the right of it. Zamaniyah was not for him. Could never be for him. He had had that brief sweet hour with her. It sufficed. He could die for it; he did not care.

Except…

Another face hung over him. Far finer, paler, older than the face of al-Zaman, though not much older in years. Sorrow had aged it; care; weariness.

Slow light was dawning in it. Khamsin's glance flicked. Thin ivory fingers closed about the hand that held the sword. Dark eyes peered, seeking a face beneath the forest of hair. Tensing, lest it not be the one he prayed for; darkening, brightening, as hope ebbed and flowed.

Ali Mousa broke al-Zaman's grip upon the hilt, cast the sword away. Al-Zaman stared uncomprehending at his empty hand, his frail and aged enemy.

The sharif had forgotten him. Khamsin blinked against the blaze of joy. “Hasan?” whispered Ali Mousa.

It was less a nod than a collapse. Ali Mousa was there, holding him, thin and startling-strong, saying his name over and over.

It ended quickly. Ali Mousa had drawn taut. “You were…you were slave to…these?”

“To the woman who died for you.”

That struck true, and deep. He looked long into his son's face. “You have changed,” he said, very low.

“I'm older,” said Khamsin.

“Older,” his father said, “and thinner, and harder. And stronger. So much stronger.” He took Khamsin's hands in his. They were broader than his own, and smoother, uncalloused; and younger. But the shape was the same, the long fingers, the elegant oval of the palm. He held them to his heart. It beat hard. His eyes were bright with the tears which he was too proud to shed. “All the while, so close, so very close. And I never knew.” He spun in sudden, icy rage. “You! O my enemy. Did it amuse you, this mockery? Did it cost you dear to purchase the spell, to enslave my son to your daughter? And then, at last, to kill him. Knowing that I did not know. Laughing behind your eyes, to see what a fool I was.”

“No.” Khamsin's voice barely rose above a murmur, but it brought them all about, even his father, even al-Zaman poised to leap for his sword. “No, Father. It was my doing, every bit of it. They never knew. They never gave me aught but honor.”

“Slave's honor,” grated his father.

“Servant's honor. And far more than I ever deserved. I took a woman by force, Father. I was her guest; she had healed me; and I destroyed her. I deserved worse than death. I received not only justice but mercy.”

Zamaniyah spoke above his head. “We didn't know, my lord. We never would have shamed you so.”

Ali Mousa's head bowed. He looked shrunken, tired. “Was he a good servant?”

“He learned to be.”

The sharif frowned faintly. “I would hardly have believed it possible.” His frown darkened. “If you touched whip to my son's body—”

“Never,” said Khamsin. “Not once; though I provoked her richly. It's a Greek way. It is,” he said, considering it, “very strange.”

“It works,” she said.

He looked at her. His heart melted and flowed. His body yearned toward her.

Sternly he mastered himself. “Father, I earned what I had. Sheikh Uthman would never have spared the lash as this lady did. He would have beaten me to death inside of a month, or sent me back as a worthless dog.” Khamsin met the outraged eyes. “You wanted me trained, Father. Do you care how anyone did it?”

“I care who—” Ali Mousa stopped. Suddenly, astonishingly, he laughed. “Ah, Allah! How inscrutable indeed are Your ways.”

He had not yielded. He could not look with hatred upon Zamaniyah. But al-Zaman, who had given him nothing but hate, whose sword he had found raised to cleave his son where he lay… “A Muslim,” he said very gently, “may not enslave a Muslim. Do you contest that, O my enemy?”

Al-Zaman met his subtlety with brutal directness. “It is yours. Take it. My gift to you: I leave it whole. Only let it never again cast eyes upon my daughter.”

Ali Mousa bowed with flawless courtesy. “For my oath,” he said, “which purchased your daughter's life, I leave you unslain.” He beckoned. One of his escort covered Khamsin with his own green cloak. “Come,” said Ali Mousa.

Khamsin was trained to obedience; and, O miracle, to prudence. He came. It cost him high to come with eyes that did not turn, did not yearn, did not cling to Zamaniyah. Still more did it cost him to hold back the tears.

It was better thus, to end what could never have been. Without a word. In the cold fire of their fathers' enmity.

Zamaniyah watched them go. Her soul was empty. Jaffar was dead. Khamsin was lost. There was too little left of her for speech.

Someone buzzed at her ear. Abd al-Rahim, rapt in righteous anger. Had he been there all the while? “That appalling creature,” he said, glaring at the open tentflap, at the light now freed of their shadows. “That he dared—that he dared to lay hands on you…”

Her eyes burned, dry as sand. Such daring. Such sweetness. Such perfect cowardice. He could have left her with more than this stretching emptiness. He could have given her what the Hajji's daughter had had. Zamaniyah, at least, had wanted it.

She sucked in a breath. “I died,” she said. “I died, and I don't remember. I slept, I dreamed, I woke and he was there. And so much was gone. Is gone. I'll never see him again. Or Jaffar. Or—”

She swallowed the rest of it. Her throat spasmed. She fought it open. “I didn't know that I was happy.”

If any of them spoke, Zamaniyah did not hear him. The silence stretched. For all that she could do, the numbness was passing. She was alive. She felt. She grieved; and yet she breathed, and in breathing was a subtle joy.

The world was a shadow and an exile. But such a shadow. Such an exile: sweetness clothed in pain.

Abd al-Rahim was gazing at her. For a moment she saw his eyes unguarded.

No wonder he always made her blush. His adoration was as naked as—as—

She must not think of that one. He was gone. This was present, and permitted; and yes, fair to see. Very fair. And he loved her to distraction.

Her heart was cold. All the sweet warmth that had roused in her was gone. Death had taken it. Khamsin's death.

“Lady,” said Abd al-Rahim. “Oh, lady. To see you alive again…”

She let him take her hand. She even let him kiss it, though only once. He held it to his heart. Such joy he took in it. She was glad that he could be so glad.

Maybe that sweetness would come back. When she had rested. When she had forgotten ivory and cedar, and a narrow Arab face, and dark eyes startling against the pallor of it.

“Lady,” Abd al-Rahim said again, more diffident now, though he spoke quickly enough to tumble the words together. “When it seemed you had died, when we dared to dream that you would live again, I asked—your father said to me—he allowed me— He has given me leave to win your favor. If you would, Lady. If you could…I would joyfully ally my house with yours.”

She stood very still. Oh, indeed. Did her father think that she was a fool or an infant? Could he not have given her even an hour's grace before he loosed on her this eager child?

There was no answer in al-Zaman's face, no anger, no triumph. He had done what he had done. He willed what he willed. And he had seen deadly danger here, and he had moved as swiftly as mortal man could move, to turn it aside.

She spoke almost gently. It was not, after all, Abd al-Rahim's fault that her father had decided to sell her quickly, while anyone was willing to have her. No more was it her father's fault that he wished to preserve the honor of his house. “This is very irregular, my lords.”

“It is,” said Abd al-Rahim. “But it is permissible; and we do it only and always for your sake.”

She stifled the spit of rage that wanted to burst out of her. “For my sake. Yes. My word is not enough, nor my honor sufficient; I am tainted with his simple presence.”

Abd al-Rahim's eyes glittered. “That—that—there is no word for him in any human tongue. An animal, a shambling animal. How dared that sorcerer inflict such a horror upon you?”

He did not know, she reminded herself. Again. He was only a boy, and in love, and a stranger to magic. “It's over now,” he said, soothing. “Never again. I'll defend you. I'll keep you in joy and in peace. You can forget it all, and know only contentment. My love, my protection; if Allah wills, my sons—”

They were chains, those words: gentle, and loving, and merciless. They bound her. They led her from the tent. Already Abd al-Rahim had claimed her even for her father's eyes to see. It was his arm, and not al-Zaman's, which circled her shoulders; his strength which bore her through the stares and murmurs of the camp; his cloak which slipped as if of its own accord to veil her head.

The war was won. The alliance was broken, Mosul driven back, Aleppo laid low and suing for peace. On the morrow the sultan would begin his march on the city.

He kept no greater state for that he was now a king twice over. He sat in the glittering throng of his emirs, in his accustomed lightless black; but his smile had gained a new brilliance. He saw her passing well beyond the circle, wrapped in the cloak, walled in her lords and masters, and yet he knew her. He stood up in front of everyone, forgetting rank and dignity to abandon his place, to thrust through the emirs, to seize her in a bruising embrace. The force of it spun them both about, left her breathless and dizzy.

He held her at arm's length and drank her in. She was aware, dimly, of Abd al-Rahim hovering, of her father standing close. Then she forgot them. The sultan was drawing her with him. Emirs were retreating, doing their best not to stare.

She kept her eyes down. Or tried. They had a will of their own, to wander upward, to reckon faces. Simply for prudence, she told herself. She should know who was there; who had seen what there was to see.