The Fierce and Tender Sheikh (5 page)

“You will wish to visit at the palace with the Princess while your husband is searched for,” he remarked. “The Sultan asked me to extend his warm welcome to the adopted family of his cherished cousin.”

Farida smiled broadly, shaking her head, and patted Shakira's arm. “The Princess has her own family now, and I have mine. It is fitting that each return where we belong. I do not belong in the palace, but in my home.”

“It will take your husband time to rebuild.”

“And is not my place there, helping him?” Farida countered, polite but determined.

Sharif cleared his throat uncomfortably. It hadn't occurred to any of them that the woman would turn down even a short visit to the palace.

He was aware that Shakira was watching him closely. He smiled reassuringly at her, but he was saved from the searching question he could see in her eyes by Jamila. The little girl was sitting in the seat beside his, and now she lifted her chin and looked up into his face.

“Where is my Amina?” she asked sadly. “Do you have her?”

“Who is Amina?” Sharif dutifully enquired.

“Oh, Jamila,” Farida scolded gently. “How could His Excellency have your doll? He was not there that day! She lost her doll when they arrested my husband and took us from our home, Excellency. What a terrible day it was! And she has not forgotten. It was a doll I made her myself. I have told her, as soon as we have built the new house, I will make her another. It only needs one of my husband's old socks, Excellency, and some coloured wool.”

“I want my Amina!” said the child mulishly.

Sharif leaned down to her. “There are many beautiful dolls in the city. Will you come to the bazaar with me and choose a new Amina?”

Setting her mouth in a determined negative, Jamila silently turned her head from side to side. Her soft hair brushed up
against the high chair-back like a cat's fur, and Sharif laughed.

“Do not speak so when someone offers you a gift!” her mother admonished.

“I didn't speak,” the child protested, and they all laughed.

The plane taxied to a stop at a distance from the main terminal building, where a small marble-and-gold pavilion had been built for welcoming foreign dignitaries and VIPs out of the public eye. As they waited for the steps to be rolled into position a dozen people emerged from the building and came towards the plane.

Shakira had never seen such beautiful people. Men and women with sparkling eyes, smiling faces, flowing hair that gleamed in the hot sunshine. Their clothes were a mass of brilliant colours, and white so bright it blinded her. Even in her dreams she had not been able to imagine such a whiteness.

“Who are they?” she whispered, turning to Sharif.

“They are your family.” A stern-looking man in a white djellaba and green keffiyeh and a magnificently beautiful woman with black hair like a cloud down her back walked together, leading the group. They were tall and straight, and she couldn't seem to look away from them.

“The Sultan and Sultana,” said Sharif. “Your cousins.”

Something kicked in her chest.

The door of the aircraft opened at last, and Shakira stood for a moment looking out into the brilliant sunshine, at all the strangers who were not strangers. She swallowed, dropped her head, and tried to breathe, but her chest was too tight. She felt as if she were dying. She, who prided herself on her fearlessness. She had defied angry security men in shops, she had leapt from moving trucks…but now fear choked her.

She turned blindly towards Sharif, standing a few yards away, watching her with grave eyes and a mouth that was half smiling. Unconsciously she stretched out her hand to him, and he felt it as if tiny yearning tendrils reached for his heart.

“You come with me,” she pleaded.

The Cup Companion stepped over to her. “They are your family, Shakira,” he said, gently turning her to the door. “They are waiting for you.”

She looked out. They were all there. Her family. Her
family
. The little crowd called and waved to her, and she heard her name, her true name, on a dozen smiling lips. It was pronounced with love, as if she were someone precious, someone to cherish.

“Shakira!”
they cried. “Welcome home, Shakira!”

A
sweet wind was blowing, bringing the soft smells of the desert to her nostrils. The heat was dry; her tears evaporated even as they formed on her cheeks.

The tall, dark man in the white djellaba, his green keffiyeh lifting in the breeze, moved to the foot of the steps and stood looking gravely up at her. And with a blow that struck her heart, Shakira recognized the eyes in the stern, noble face.

A wordless cry warbled from her throat, and she dashed down the steps and stopped in front of him.

“Who are you?” she whispered. “Are you—”

“I am your cousin Ashraf,” said the Sultan simply.

“Oh, you look like my father!” she cried, and that other, beloved face was sharp and clear in her memory, as it had not been for too long.

Shakira stood for a moment, not knowing how to deal with the powerful feelings that rose up in her. After a lifetime without closeness she had no instinctive way to express the overwhelming mixture of love, joy, pain and almost terrifying relief.

Ashraf broke the tension by wrapping her in a tight embrace. “Welcome home, Cousin,” he said.

For a moment she resisted, her thin body tensing as if for an attack. Then a strange, unfamiliar sensation burst up, driving a sob into her throat: the human comfort of touch. Hot tears burned her eyes, too powerful to resist, though deep instinct told her it showed a dangerous weakness.

Crying in front of so many people! How they would treat her now—they would take all the drinking water, steal her food! And yet—the arms around her felt so safe, like something she remembered feeling, long ago….

Before she had time to sort out such conflicting emotions, Ashraf released her to be embraced again, this time by the magnificently beautiful woman with the cloud of black hair, whom she had seen from the plane.

“I'm Dana, Ash's wife,” Shakira heard. “Welcome! We are so happy and thankful to have found you at last. What a terrible time you've had! But you're safe with your family now.”

Hani had always been able to contain his tears. Sometimes he had felt that his soul was so dry tears would never happen to him again. In the camps that was a good thing.

Shakira, though, could not stop her tears. From that moment of learning her true name, she seemed to have lost her power over her emotions, over the feeling that flooded from her eyes. And now, held in the tall Sultana's embrace, head against her breasts, as her mother had held her long ago, and no one since, Shakira was overwhelmed.

“You're safe here,” the Sultana said again, as if she understood everything. “It's all right.”

The Sultana's gently smiling face bent comfortingly over her, and that tore away the last vestige of self-control. Shakira wept and wept. She wept for Hani, she wept for Shakira, she wept for her loss, and she wept for her homecoming. She wept because she was torn with a confusing mix of grief and joy, and she wept for shame at her unaccustomed weakness.

She lifted her head at last, her face streaming, while her breath settled down with long, shuddering sobs. She felt ashamed, and didn't know what to say to regain face. Hastily she lifted the hem of her T-shirt to wipe her nose and face, and gave the Sultana a nervous, tentative smile.

“Oh, you are
so
like Ash!” Dana cried. “I can see how you knew her, Sharif!”

“Am I?” Shakira asked, partly because it was so completely thrilling to think that she shared a family resemblance with someone living, and partly because, even now, she doubted what was happening. Could it really be true that she was not only part of a huge family, but also that this family was the ancient royal house of Bagestan?

The others crowded round, and added their voices to the Sultana's. “Yes, look, she's just like the portrait of Grandfather's sister!”

“You've got Ash's eyes, for sure! Hi, Shakira, I'm your cousin, too! My name's Noor. Welcome to the family!”

“I don't think we'll introduce everyone now,” Dana said, sensing too much tension in the thin little body under her hands. “Let's take Shakira home. She's tired from a long trip. And her foster family, too.”

The Sultana turned to where Farida stood next to Sharif, Jamila clinging to her leg, the baby in her arms, and put out her hand. “We are so very grateful to you for your friendship with the Princess. Of course you will come and stay with us at the palace for as long as is necessary for us to find your husband.”

Farida moved a fist to her heart and bent her head respectfully.

“Excellent Lady,” she began, “I am honoured by your hospitality. Hani's place is with you, that is her home. But my home is my home, and I long to go there at once. There is no need to trouble you further. If your generosity will allow us only a little food and water for the journey, we will walk. I know
the ferry boat captain—he will agree to carry us when he knows our story. My husband will pay him when he returns.”

Shakira sensed rather than saw the glance that the Sultan and Sultana exchanged. Dana smiled at Farida again. “I am so sorry. There is no ferry now, and nowhere on the island for you to live. Nothing has been rebuilt yet. But you are very welcome—”

Shakira suddenly stood straighter. “Why is Farida not allowed to go home?” she demanded, the Hani in her suddenly taking the opportunity to exhibit strength after the terrible show of weakness her tears had been. “She wants to go to the island, to Solomon's Foot! Do you think to be on Solomon's Foot without a roof can be worse than to live in Burry Hill Detention Centre?”

“Cousin,” the Sultan intervened, “it is not—”

Shakira could not have defined the feelings that now drove her.

“Why can't she go home?” she demanded hotly.

They all went still, looking for a way to deal with this unexpected challenge, but before anyone could muster a response, Sharif stepped out to face her, offering himself as a target. There was a kind of indrawn breath amongst those who watched, because now it was between these two, and they wondered how the Cup Companion would handle it.

She was quick to take him up on the offer. “You said you would take us home!” she accused.

Sharif met her glance firmly.

“You who have waited so many years to find your family—to find even your self, your own name, Shakira, do you imagine that everything good happens in one moment? Farida must be happy for the moment simply to be in Bagestan amongst her countrymen. She must wait a little longer to be in her own home.”

“Why must she wait?”

Her fiery rage did not abash him. “She must wait because
only those who are patient shall receive their reward in full,
”
he quoted gently. “Your protection of your friend does you honour, Princess, but she must submit to this.”

There was a moment of silence while the thin boy-girl and the tall, strong man gazed at each other. Shakira breathed deep then, and as the strange rage passed, the tension left those watching, as if with one shared breath.

“Oh,” Shakira said. She turned to Farida. “I hope it will not be long.”

Farida smiled.
“Nobody can be given a blessing better and greater than patience.
Did not the Prophet himself say it?”

The young mother turned to the Sultana and bowed her head again. “Excellent Lady, I am honoured to be your guest.”

 

In a high, blue-tiled wall an arched wooden gate opened inwards, and the little cavalcade of cars slipped from the narrow street into the courtyard within.

Shakira, in the back of a limousine between two cousins whose names were part of a jumble of names and faces, bent her head back and gazed out the rear window up at the arch as the car passed under it.

There were windows above the archway. She looked around the courtyard, where the cars were parking, one by one, in front of another, smaller archway. She guessed that it must lead out onto another street. The courtyard was faced with worn yellow brick, and the ground, too, was paved with it. Green plants lined the base of the walls, and two trees reached for the sky. Sunshine slanted down, giving the ancient brick a warm, comforting glow totally unlike the sterile structures at Burry Hill.

“Is this the palace?” she asked in wonder. “It's beautiful.”

Noor chuckled a little, not unkindly, because this area was simply the private entrance and parking lot for the palace.

“You'll see how beautiful it is,” she promised.

As the family clambered out of the various vehicles and urged her towards the archway, Shakira looked through, gasped and cried out, “Oh, it's like heaven!”

Beyond the arched passage was the most beautiful garden courtyard of the palace, and ever afterwards she would remember her first glimpse of it.

It was a wide rectangle, overlooked by tiers of arched balconies, and shaded with trees and ornamental shrubs, many in full flower. In the centre was a broad reflecting pool from which water bubbled up over a tall marble fountain, spilling water over its levels with a sound that was pure intoxication.

“A fountain!” she whispered. She turned to share the wonder, and saw Sharif. He was standing a little apart from the cluster of her family behind her, for they had pushed her in first, wide-eyed and speechless, to give her the garden in all its glory.

She smiled at him, her eyes alight, her gaze impelling him to her side. “Have you seen it before?” she wondered.

“Many times, Princess. My rooms are there.”

He pointed up through the trees to a balcony above, from which a profusion of plants tumbled down into the magic garden. She stared at him, her mouth open.

She turned to her excited family, who crowded around now, well pleased with her reaction. “Do people live here?” she demanded.

“
You
live here!” someone informed her.

“Yes, and I think we'll take you to your rooms now, Shakira,” Dana said quietly, because it was very evident that the princess, still half a boy, half in her former life, had had about as much as she could handle for the moment.