The Bride Price (22 page)

Although Bryna suffered in the heat, she could not understand the behavior of the Bedu. The hotter it became, the more they bundled up, claiming it built up a layer of cool air between their skin and their outer clothing. In desperation she tried their method, but she found the dampness repugnant.

She was drooping listlessly on the back of her plodding camel, wishing for a breeze, when Sharif rode the length of the straggling
smala,
pausing an instant near the women. He did not stop or even slow his camel, but his gray eyes flicked over the girl. Sensing she was being scrutinized, she straightened and turned to see who watched her. When her gaze found his, the man scowled and urged his camel on at a gallop.

For no reason, tears pricked the backs of Bryna’s eyelids as she watched him ride away, his white kaffiyeh fluttering behind him. Would she ever understand this hard, unyielding man? she wondered miserably. Since the night she had visited his room, something had changed between them. It seemed as if he could not forgive her for going there, even though she had done nothing wrong. Now every time he looked at her his expression became grimmer and more forbidding than before.

Yet she had seen his face suffused with tenderness, had witnessed his kindness to `Abla. He had even touched her own face with surprising gentleness. What had turned that gentleness to harshness?

* * *

Resuming his place at the head of his
smala,
Sharif gave the order to stop for the night. He answered the questions posed to him, but he did not join in the conversation of the men gathered around his campfire. In fact, the sheik did not even hear them as his mind returned to his last meeting with his aunt.

He had found Alima in her harem garden, tending her potted fruit trees. Each one was a dwarf, rare and unusual in Arabia, and the old woman fussed over them as if they were her children.

“So you have come to bid me farewell, my lord,” she said when the man was settled on a bench with a cup of
rubb Rumman.

“We leave at dawn,” Sharif confirmed.

“I will miss you, nephew.” She smiled sadly. “Whose conversation offers me as much enjoyment and stimulation as yours?”

“You could come with us,” he offered softly.

“And share a harem with Fatmah and Latifeh? I think not,” his aunt snorted uncharitably. “Just knowing they are married to my favorite nephew is curse enough. I do not wish to see them every day. No, thank you, I will stay in Taif, in my own home.”

Knowing the subject was closed, the sheik did not argue.

“How fares the blue-eyed American, Sharif?” Alima asked, seemingly absorbed in pinching the buds on a tiny lemon tree.

Sharif tensed, immediately on guard. He knew his aunt too well to suppose the question was casual.

“Well enough.” He shrugged indifferently. “She is learns our customs and a little of our language. And `Abla seems to like her. Why do you ask?”

“Because I, too, like her. I have watched her a great deal over the past few months, and there is much to like. This girl is fair, my sheik, and she will make a fine wife—”

“For my nephew,” he finished for her flatly.

Alima frowned at him in annoyance. “She will be wasted on Nassar.”

“What are you saying, Aunt?”

“I am saying,” she explained patiently, “that you should buy Bryna bint Blaine from Nassar.”

“What!” the man exploded, springing to his feet.

“Your nephew wants the blond houri, not the other. Well, perhaps he wants her, but only because he is greedy for women. He is even greedier for money. I tell you, he would sell this Bryna for a price, and she would be good for you, Sharif. I know it.”

“Because you had Hirfa read the sands again?”

“I knew it before,” Alima replied defensively, but she held her ground in front of him.

“Do not tell me you are beginning to believe the nonsense that old woman tells you.”

“You are changing the subject, my lord,” Sharif’s aunt said calmly. “We were speaking of Bryna. Tell the truth. Do you not find this woman pleasing?”

“She is foreign.” he countered almost desperately.

“Your mother was foreign to our ways,” Alima reminded him calmly.

“I have two wives already.” Crossing his arms on his chest, he stared stubbornly at a spot over the woman’s shoulder, refusing to meet her eyes.

“There is room for another.”

“Not this one.”

“You find her beautiful,” Alima accused gently.

“Disturbingly so,” the sheik admitted, “but it makes no difference.” Weary of argument, he sank down on the bench and turned troubled eyes on his aunt. “Hear me now, Alima, for I will not say this again. What you suggest cannot be. Bryna bint Blaine belongs to my nephew—as his intended wife.”

“He has not married her yet,” Alima argued.

“Upon my orders.”

“So you will not even offer to buy her?”

“No,” Sharif said harshly, “it would not be right.”

“You will not seek the will of your heart.” The old woman sighed in resignation. “Marry her to Nassar quickly, Sharif, and settle them in their own home. You cannot keep her with your harem. Lo, she may be as fair as the moon, but she will be as unattainable to you. It is not a good thing to have your heart’s desire at hand, my nephew, and still unreachable.”

In his camp in the desert, Sharif forced himself to turn his attention to the matters at hand. But when he lay down to sleep that night, his aunt’s words still rang in his ears.

Tired of riding and of feeling Fatmah’s baleful stare upon her, Bryna dismounted and walked to the fringes of the
smala,
where she was joined by Taman bint Sa’id. Seeing the older girls walking together, `Abla soon came to dog their steps, nearly treading on their heels in her efforts to stay close.

In the beginning `Abla had been their translator, but now they spoke mostly in Arabic, falling back on French only when Bryna did not know the proper word. The child listened to the conversation approvingly, smiling in encouragement when the American girl faltered or mispronounced a word. She was proud of her student, for Bryna was learning quickly.

She was pleased, too, with the friendship between her cousin, Taman, and Bryna. Although Taman was older, `Abla had always thought her a silly female, always fussing with clothes and casting sidelong glances at the young men. But now she did not seem so bad. Perhaps she should not tease Taman so much, `Abla mused.

Quickly she abandoned that generous thought. Taman was so easy to tease. It had been funny at first, watching her cousin posturing, trying to imitate the behavior of the other women toward the kaffir. The Arab girl had struggled to maintain an air of superiority, trying hard not to like the foreigner. But in the end, Bryna’s friendliness and Taman’s kind nature had overcome all the obstacles to friendship.

“Wait. Look,” Taman murmured, slowing so `Abla nearly collided with her.

Bryna looked at them questioningly as the Arab girls turned to watch a handsome young man who reined his camel to a halt, his gaze fixed on the ground.

“Watch him,” `Abla whispered excitedly. “Daoud bin Hatim is the best hunter of hares in the whole tribe.”

Suddenly the young Arab threw himself from the back of his camel and approached a hole in the sand stealthily. Falling onto his stomach on the ground, he thrust his hand in the hole and withdrew a kicking hare by its ears. He held it up for the approval of his companions, who observed from nearby, and smiled at their cries of
“Mashallah.”

Then, drawing his knife, he cut the animal’s throat expertly and hung it by the feet from the frame of a pack saddle, high above the ground.

“How did he know there was a hare in the hole?” Bryna asked curiously.

“Because there were tracks going into it, but none coming out. Daoud’s eyes are sharp indeed” – Taman sighed admiringly —”and so dark and beautiful.”

“His eyes are so dark and so beautiful,” `Abla mimicked, retreating rapidly when the older girl wheeled on her. “And so often they are turned toward you, my cousin.”

“`Abla bint Sharif, I warn you,” Taman threatened in a low voice, “do not embarrass me.”

“Daoud already knows you like him,” the child said, giggling as she scuttled just out of reach of the blushing girl.

Suddenly ‘Abla lost interest in her game. Pointing toward a group of children congregated around a small tree jutting from the sand, she cried, “Look, a jinni tree!” She raced off at once to inspect the tiny scrub plant decorated with bits of fabric and shiny scraps of metal as an offering to the spirits.

Bryna glanced at Taman sympathetically, knowing how she hated to be teased. The youngest child of Sharif’s cousin Sa’id, the girl had been named Taman, which meant “That’s the lot.” With five daughters and only two sons, her parents had finally wearied of disappointment, and after Taman there were no more children.

Bryna had become fond of the Arab girl in the past few weeks. As they became acquainted, they found they had something in common, a love of herbs and healing. Soon Taman was identifying desert plants for Bryna while they walked and describing their uses. She also introduced the foreigner to
thaluk,
a salad plant, and
thunma,
a wild tuber that tasted rather like potato. Together they hunted for wild leeks and sorrel to give some variety to their monotonous desert fare.

Now Taman’s pleasant face was dark with wrath toward her small cousin. “Do not mind what `Abla says, Taman,” Bryna advised softly. “She is just a child. Everyone knows Daoud is going to offer for you. The only question is when.”

The Arab girl smiled diffidently at her friend and revealed, “He needs only a few more camels. He will ask my father for me as soon as he can meet my bride price.”

Seeing her young cousin returning, Taman rapidly changed the subject. “I think by afternoon prayers, we should reach the well,
Bir
al Nafud. I will be glad to have clean water to drink again.”

“Me too,” `Abla cried, falling into step behind them. “I am tired of drinking
shanin.
Won’t you be glad to reach the well, Bryna?”

“I look forward to being in a place for more than one night,” the American girl replied fervently. “Pamela needs to rest. We will stay there a few days, won’t we?”

“lnsh’allah.”
Taman shrugged. “But probably, for the grazing is good there.”

Suddenly sand flew as a blur of brown fur raced in a tight circle around the girls. Squirming with bliss at finding Bryna, Sharif’s saluki barked joyously and bounded along beside her, his paw now completely healed.

“By Allah, what was that?” Taman laughed, shaking sand from her aba. Then she turned to Bryna in mock exasperation. “Does every beast in camp follow you? If it is not the sheik’s hunting dog, it is Nassar’s mare.”

“I like animals,” the other girl answered simply.

“I know and still I—”

“Allah protect me from the devil,” `Abla squealed from behind them as if she were frightened. Only her mischievous grin gave her away as she squeezed between the two older girls and pointed at a huge camp dog headed their direction.
“Ya ummi,
save me! Here comes the big black dog again.”

The little girl’s dramatic display of nervousness set the little saluki off again. Yipping shrilly, he left Bryna’s side to tear back and forth along the length of the caravan.

“Surely you do not believe the big dog is possessed by demons just because he is black,” Bryna chided the child over the din.

“Fatmah says—” `Abla began.

“Fatmah says I could be a bewitcher because I have blue eyes,” Bryna interjected, “but you do not believe that.”

“It makes one wonder, though,” Taman said with a chuckle, “when you make friends with such a fearsome beast as this one.”

The huge black dog loped toward them, his pink tongue lolling out of his mouth. Matted and flea-ridden, his coat was thick and shaggy. The veteran of many battles, his nose was crisscrossed with scars, and most of one ear was missing. But when he saw Bryna, his bushy tail wagged happily.

She gave him a friendly scratch behind the ears. This dog belonged to no one and to everyone, and his function was to guard the camp from strangers. He bared sharp, pointed teeth, and his deep bark sounded the alarm when anyone approached day or night.

Because the Bedu did not name even their salukis, Bryna privately dubbed the big dog Smemi, after `Abla’s favorite story of a little boy who could hear everything, even the dew fall. She alone seemed to have no fear of the big dog. Although Taman and `Abla no longer ran, they eyed him distrustfully as they walked.

Ahead of the procession, the saluki ran now for the sheer joy of exertion. As he zoomed past them, the men paused in their talk to watch. Then they resumed their good-natured argument where they had left off, debating who bred the better camel, the Al Rashid or the Al Murrad.

Only Sharif and Nassar turned in their saddles to watch as the graceful saluki looped back on the desert floor to circle three female figures lagging at the back of the train. Both men recognized Bryna’s tall form at once.

Nassar glowered in her direction, sulky at seeing her afoot. “Wallahi, why do I bother to furnish that one with a camel?” he asked peevishly of no one in particular. “She hardly ever rides with the women. Bryna bint Blaine is to be one of my wives, yet she trails behind us like a serving girl.”

Sharif said nothing, but his gaze rested on her for a long moment. Then, cursing under his breath, he turned to the limitless horizon.

True to Taman’s prediction, the
smala
reached
Bir
al Nafud, just before afternoon prayers. It was a barren spot in the desert with only a few stunted bushes to give evidence of the presence of water nearby. The well itself was nothing more than a hole in the ground. The tribe waited while the water was tested. Finding it clean, the sheik signaled for the camels, the Bedouin’s first concern, to be watered.

The clamor was deafening as camels spit and roared and herdsmen shouted. Once the herd was watered, a semblance of order returned and the men turned their attention to their horses. The children drove the flocks of sheep and goats to the troughs, and the women set about building the tents. The moon was high overhead by the time silence settled over the camp.