The Fierce and Tender Sheikh (7 page)

Shakira gazed at the stern, noble face. “He is like you,” she said softly, for what she saw was not eyes and mouth, but the heroic humanity of the portrait.

She was enchanted by Sharif's stories, thrilled by them. Although many in her family took part in this area of her education, the stories he chose to tell her somehow seemed to connect to her own experience. Sharif's retelling of history made her feel proud not merely of her brave ancestors, but of herself. As if, in surviving the life she had, Shakira had been following in their footsteps. He made her feel that she had always been a princess.

“This is the great Suhayr, your ancestress, who ruled Bagestan after her husband died, while her son was too young to rule. When she was threatened by a great army, she sent a message to the King. ‘Why do you invade my country, at such cost to your reputation? For if you defeat me, they will say only that you have defeated a woman. But if Allah should grant me the victory, they will say that you have been defeated by a woman.' And he was struck by the truth of her argument, and withdrew his army.”

She loved listening to him, and in giving her her lost past, he also gave her her lost self—as an artist restores a work of art, painstakingly filling in the blank areas of the pattern.

The way he had given her her name.

At night, still, when she couldn't sleep, she often crept across to his room, clambering up the balcony to appear at his window with dark questing eyes, never quite sure of her welcome.

Sometimes, if he were still at his desk, she would sit and
watch as he worked, drinking tea and munching the burnt sugar medallions that a servant had left warming for him. If it was late, he would put her straight to bed, and sit beside her as she fell asleep.

The times she liked best were the nights when he tossed down his pen and they spread cushions on the balcony and he sat with her there, watching moonlight turn the garden into a place even more magical than it was by day. He told her stories from fairy tale and from history, and she told him stories of her past. England, and the camps, and the hazy, happy time before, with her family.

She told him most often of her brother, dreaming that Mazin was still alive, and how it would be when they met again at last.

There was one story she never told him. It came to her tongue many times, but Shakira bit it back. It was a horror story, from the camps, but however many stirring adventures Sharif described to her from her family's past, this was a part of her that could never be told.

A
llahu akbaar…. Allahu akbaar….

Shakira awoke in the first grey of dawn, to the sound of the muezzin.

God is great.

She sat up with a start, gazing around in the gloom. Where was she? Why was she alone in such a big tent? And why was the tent so clean? Its sides fell in gauzy white folds all around the space where she lay. That, too, was covered in clean, white cloths. Behind her were fluffy cushions and pillows, and room enough for a dozen others to sleep. But where were they?

Come to prayer.

It was a sound from her childhood, but unfamiliar now. Had she died? Was this heaven?

It must be. Everything so clean and white, and with so much space all to herself—she was in heaven. How strange that she didn't remember her death!

Slowly memory began to return—first, that she no longer slept under a tent, but in a small, hot room in Burry Hill De
tention Centre. Then she had a vision of Sharif Azad al Dauleh, and then, in a sudden rush, she remembered everything.

The palace. She was in her room—her
rooms,
for the apartment she had been given was large. She had been home, with her true family, for nearly three weeks.

Come to prayer.
In the camps there had been no muezzin, and whether she slept like the dead, as she had last night, or tossed for hours wondering at the silence and the luxury that surrounded her, or, most happily, fell asleep on the cushions on Sharif's balcony, the call awakened her in the morning.

The voice reminded her of a time long past, when, at the door of her father's study, she would see him at prayer, and know that all was right with her world because her father talked to God. She could almost hear the low murmur of his voice now.

Bismillah arrahman arraheem….

Shakira slipped to the edge of the bed, whose firm softness she was at last getting used to, and reached her feet down to the still astonishing silkiness of the beautiful white carpet. In the gloom the pattern of delicate arabesques and guls in a palette of greens seemed like mystical symbols rising from a white sea.

The sky outside was slowly paling to reveal the room. The Sultana had somehow understood, and the newfound princess had been given a bedroom decorated in pure white. To be so clean! It was like a dream. No wonder she had imagined she was waking in heaven.

In the bathroom she brushed her teeth, then ritually washed her face and hands and feet, still sparing with the water, and remembering her first, luxurious bath in this room. In the bedroom again she stepped over to the prayer rug lying in one corner and, with gratitude deep in her heart, softly began the recital of the dawn prayer, as she had heard her father do so long ago.

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful…

Afterwards, she stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the courtyard and the reflecting pool. As always, her heart lifted at the harmony of so much natural and man-made
beauty. The fountains were silent at this hour, the water flat and smooth, with the early light glinting from the still surface. The magnificent domed balcony where generations of monarchs had taken their leisure was perfectly repeated in the mirror of the water.

On the other side of the court lay Sharif's apartment, and as always at this hour, his light was already on: the Cup Companions of the Sultan worked hard and long in the great task of helping him rebuild the country.

Shakira smiled and leaned on the balustrade, waiting for him to appear, as he did every morning, to greet her.

A gardener with a rake walked by below, yawning. Lights were coming from a few ground-floor windows, for many of the palace staff were already settling to their work, starting early while it was still cool, in order to rest in the heat of the day.

What a difference from life in Burry Hill, where no one had anything productive to do! There had been no sense of purpose in the camps, no buzz of useful activity as she sensed here, not only in the palace, but everywhere in the country.

Shakira had eagerly asked the Sultana what work she would be assigned to, but Dana said only, “For now, you have plenty to do just recovering, and getting used to things, and getting to know your family.”

And in truth, that was enough. As well as learning to find her way about the palace and getting to know the various members of her family, past and present, she had been caught up in a whirlwind of pampering, discovery and laughter as the three cousins undertook what Noor had dubbed The Princess Makeover Project.

When she passed a mirror now Shakira only blinked at herself. Her hair was only a half inch of curl, wrapped around her skull like a cap. Even to make her a boy they had never cut her hair so short.

“The hair's too damaged to recover. Best to take it all off,” Noor's hairdresser had insisted. At first Shakira had looked
even more starved, though everyone pretended she didn't. But now they didn't have to pretend so hard—Shakira was already putting flesh between skin and bone.

Her skin glowed with sweet-smelling creams and oils, too. Shakira lifted her arm and sniffed the still faintly lingering scent. How strange to have a perfumed cream! They had asked her which cream she wanted, and she had chosen the pink one that smelled of roses, and thought how strange it was that she should smell like the memory of her mother.

She wore clean clothes every day. That seemed a miracle, too—the closets and cupboards so full of clean new clothes, the maid holding things up for her to say what she wanted. She wore white most of the time because she couldn't get over the magic of whiteness. Her sandals were white, too, the softest leather she had ever touched. Even the pyjamas she wore now in the fresh morning air, watching as the palace awoke, waiting for Sharif to appear, were white.

Sharif hadn't flinched when he saw her almost-bald head. His face had been the same as always. As if…she searched for it…as if he had always seen what was inside anyway, and the outside didn't matter.

She wiggled her almost-healed ankle, and was reminded of that first meeting, on the road. That first sight of him, so tall and noble, defending her from the trucker…she had felt hungry for something she couldn't name. The right to trust someone, perhaps. The longing had made her feel weak, and that was dangerous.

But in the end she had trusted him. And her life had…

“Princess!”

She wouldn't have heard the whisper if she hadn't had every sense alert. Shakira leaned over and peered into the gloom of his balcony.

“Look down!”

A shadowed figure was standing below in the courtyard, but even without the voice she would have known who it was.

“Sharif!”

“Good morning,” he called softly. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes. The muezzin woke me. What are you doing down there? Wait!”

She leapt up onto the balcony wall and, clinging to the arabesques sculpted into the stone face, went over and down with the fearless aplomb of a monkey.

“Dammit, Princess!” Sharif complained, watching helplessly as she clambered down to the balcony below, then over that and down again, her legs kicking the air for a moment until they found the tiled pillar. She clung to that with practised ease and slid down till she was standing beside him, barefoot and rumpled.

“Good morning, Hani,” he remarked dryly, and she tilted her head back and laughed her gamin laugh at his apt use of the name. Sharif always knew.

“This is nice, to walk in the garden before it is light,” she said, as they turned and followed in the wake of the sleepy gardener. A leaf fell on the pool, sending ripples through the perfectly reflected image of the columns and dome of the
talar
. The tiles were cool underfoot, but the breeze carried the scent of the day's heat to come. Shakira bent and picked up a fallen blossom that was still fresh, and touched its tender leaves with wondering hands.

She lifted it to her face, finding joy in the silkiness and the scent.

“Smell,” she commanded him softly; and he bent his face to it, and the rose was between his mouth and her palm like a kiss.

When he straightened again, neither knew whether a moment had passed, or a lifetime.

“Princess, I came to say goodbye,” Sharif began.

He saw it hit her, a lightning bolt cracking through her, and he cursed himself for his stupid clumsiness. Words had a different meaning for this child. When would he learn that?

The big dark eyes, still circled with hollows of deprivation, fixed his face in incredulous denial.

“
Goodbye?
Are you leaving?” she cried. She did not pronounce the word, but he could hear it.
Me.

“Only for a week or two, probably,” he supplied hastily. “But it might be longer. I can't be sure.”

She scarcely seemed to hear.
“Why?”

Should he have foreseen this? What had made him underestimate his impact on her life so grossly? He remembered the way she had pronounced that word
family
. Remembered her soul-deep joy. Now she was surrounded with family, and yet…

He should have known. If he, whose heart was rarely touched by feelings of deep connection with another human creature, felt that the tendrils of this child's essence had somehow reached into the deepest parts of his self, was it really so hard to understand that she, too, felt a bond?

“Why?” she cried again.

He hesitated. They had decided against telling her, but now—what was best?

“It's—I must go, Princess,” he said at last. “The Sultan has given me an assignment…to—”

“Tell him no! Why does it have to be you?”

“Princess, when the Sultan requests a thing, it is
hearing and obeying,
” he said awkwardly.

“You can't go!” she said, fiercely angry, because it would be weakness to be hurt, weakness to plead.

Sharif pressed his lips together, more and more furious with himself. There were a dozen better ways he could have handled this.

“You are with your family now, Shakira. You won't miss me as much as you—”

“Don't—”
she began fiercely, and then, abruptly, her feelings shut down. Miss him? Why should she miss him? She had her family, and even if she hadn't, she didn't need anyone! She could survive, she always had.

His heart protested as he watched her face close against him. Her eyes lost all expression. She shrugged her thin shoulders up around her ears and forgot to lower them.

“I don't care if you go.” Her lively voice was dead, flat and dismissive. “I don't need you. I have my family now,” she said, as if he hadn't just said the same thing.

“Shakira, we weren't going to tell you why I'm going, but I think it's best if I do. The Sultan—”

“I don't care!” It was true. Her heart had performed the old familiar function, though she was hardly aware of it, shutting its gates against the pain of loss. “Anyway, I won't miss you, because my grandmother is coming to see me today,” she told him haughtily, hardly remembering how she had treasured up this joy to share with him. And now, instead of a shared joy, it was armour against him.

Something in him urged him to break down the walls she had suddenly erected, but he would not obey the urge. He had to go, and she would forgive him when she learned the reason. But it was better if she did not know now.

And it was true enough—she had her family.

“Ah,” he said, smiling a little. “So today you meet the great Suhaila? That is excellent news.”

“Yes!” she cried, still angry. “She's a famous singer, Sharif! So you see I don't care if you won't be here, because I will be talking with my grandmother!”

She tossed something down, turned and ran back up the tiled path. At the pillar beneath her own balcony, she leapt up and clung, and with hands, knees and feet, swarmed up till her fingers found a better hold in the sculpted stone. Then, lightly, agilely, without a backward glance, she went up and over the wall and was gone.

He bent to pick up the discarded flower at his feet. Its hurt perfume scented the air strongly now: its heart had been crushed by those thin, agile fingers.