Banished (Forbidden)

by Kimberley Griffiths Little

  “Who is the older woman between him and Kadesh? His wife?”

  “No, his sister-in-law, Kadesh’s aunt. The sister of his deceased mother.”

  “And the men and women at the other end of the table?”

  “King Ephrem’s sisters and their spouses. A few of their adult children and grandchildren.”

  The familial relationships made sense. The siblings and their spouses weren’t quite as elderly as Ephrem, but held themselves regally. The children were darling, ranging between the ages of three and twelve. Dressed in finery, a little wiggly, eating with their fingers and pretending to push each other off their pillows.

  And then there was a young woman sitting at the royal family table. Perhaps a year or two older than me. Overwhelmingly beautiful and serene. Her hair was a shade lighter than mine, shimmering with gold strands. Her makeup and complexion were flawless while she delicately ate her meal and chatted with Kadesh. I stared between them, back and forth, not daring to ask who she was, although I was going to be sick if I didn’t find out soon.

  My father leaned in. “Jayden, attend to your dinner. You’re shooting daggers at that princess.”

  “She’s a princess?” I asked faintly. I finished swallowing a wedge of melon and the juice dribbled unceremoniously down my chin. Quickly, I dabbed a napkin at it, gulping water to help the piece of fruit down so I didn’t choke on it.

  I knew there were princesses here—I’d met the Queen of Sheba—but I hadn’t expected a girl of such intimidating beauty to be sitting so close to Kadesh.

  “Chemish told me her name is Aliyah. She and Kadesh have known each since they were children. Much like you and Horeb.”

  Briefly, I closed my eyes. “Please don’t mention Horeb to me.”

  A pained expression crossed my father’s face. I knew the subject of Horeb and our escape from the oasis upset him. And my father didn’t know half of what Horeb had done to me.

  I couldn’t tear my eyes from the girl. Aliyah. She had to be the Princess Aliyah Tijah had mentioned. I watched her flirting with Kadesh. Leaning into him, touching his arm. While I sat far across the room as a guest without a name.

  I pushed my plate away. “I can’t eat. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re not used to these rich foods,” my father said, leaving portions of his own food untouched.

  “I’m so tired I think I could sleep for a week.” I tried to smile pleasantly, but I was faking every lift of my mouth.

  I hadn’t talked to Kadesh since our arrival and his attentions were being subverted by Princess Aliyah. Clenching my fists together, I suppressed the urge to take the dishes of sauces and yogurt and throw them.

  Insight flamed within me, like a match taken to an overfilled oil lamp. If Aliyah was the same princess who was liaison for the royal family to the Sariba High Priestess, that meant she might also be a priestess in training. I didn’t understand how a woman from the temple earned a spot at the royal family table.

  Or was I jumping to conclusions? A political liaison didn’t mean she was part of the temple. Only sat on boards and committees.

  “Your first courses are almost untouched,” Asher observed. “Are you ill, my lady?” He was still hesitant in his speech and manner after what had happened on the desert. As the son of the Edomite leader, his shame would haunt him for years to come. I wondered how he felt about returning home when this was all over. Seeing his mother and sister. His people who might never hold him in regard again. His life had changed irrevocably, and I couldn’t help feeling sympathy toward him. He was still young, but was supposed to be a man.

  I shoved down my fury at the flirting princess on the royal dais. “I think my stomach is now the size of a pea.”

  “You look absolutely lovely, Jayden,” he added with a shy smile.

  Chemish nodded his agreement. “Palace life suits you.”

  I tried not to blush. “I’ve been assigned excellent personal maids. They used their magical skills on a plain desert girl.”

  The compliments were words I wanted to hear from Kadesh. The room around me loomed wide and enormous, the distance between me and the man I loved as vast as the desert.

  While we ate roasted lamb and crisp steamed vegetables, a group of drummers thumped their instruments. The sound echoed through the high-ceilinged room and the pulse pounded my seat cushions, reverberating through my bones. My whole being responded to the sensuous sound, and the desire to dance lit a fire in my belly.

  But fatigue was taking its toll on me and the heat of the room made my neck perspire. Finally, the waitstaff served luscious cakes and berries artfully arranged on dessert plates, and then receded into the dusky background while the lamps around the perimeter were extinguished.

  All eyes were drawn to the main floor where the lights glowed more ardently.

  An ache of homesickness began in my feet and spread through my body. I wanted to move, to whirl, to feel the power and awe of the dance shoot through my hair and fingers and toes. My hips began to sway, my arms desperate to float overhead just as they had on the night of my betrothal dance. I wanted to relive the exhilaration, the intoxicating thrill of my shimmying hips.

  A set of draperies opened on either side of the room and eight female dancers entered, spinning in dresses of magenta, white, and gold decorated in beads and coins. The girls’ hair had been magnificently draped in jewels, their eyes large and exotic.

  I clutched the edge of the table to keep myself anchored.

  It had been too long since I’d danced. Months seemed like years. Watching the girls on stage transported me back to the night of my betrothal dance. The long-ago sound of trills and laughter rang in my ears, the sweet aroma of sugared dumplings filling the tent.

  One dancer caught my attention with her languid moves and swirling dress. I leaned forward, my eyes sliding along the girl’s hips and torso. Her body was strong and tall as a jeweled column, just like an Egyptian goddess. My gaze narrowed and I gasped into my linen napkin. Behind the exotic costume and makeup, I recognized the distinctive dancer.

  It was Leila.

  25

  My father recognized Leila a fraction of a moment later and he rose from his seat, jaw sagging, dazed by shock. “Leila!” he cried, his voice hoarse.

  “Father!” I hissed, clutching at his hand to keep him next to me. “Please.”

  Asher glanced at us, confusion in his face.

  I shook my head at him. The room hushed, all eyes mesmerized by the dancers.

  “She’s alive, father,” I whispered.

  “But she was in Egypt,” he said, slowly sinking back to the cushions. “How did she get to the land of Sariba?”

  “I’m just as astonished as you are. But just think! She’s here. We can bring her to the palace.” I rubbed my bare arms, a chill turning me cold when I recalled those two men with their pleated linen, bald heads, and falcon-headed staves, who had watched me enter the city in the procession. They were Egyptian. They must be some of the magicians Tijah had mentioned. Were they the men who had kidnapped Leila and the other girls from the Temple of Ashtoreth? Instead of taking them to Egypt, they had brought them to the southern lands.

  None of it made any sense, but instinctively I recognized the reason those foreign men had watched me so particularly and performed their mocking bow. Because they knew I was Leila’s sister. I shivered, feeling those ominous eyes on me all over again.

  The music changed, the flutes and harp taking the melody, slowing the pace as the dancers widened their circle.

  Before I was even aware she had risen from her chair, Princess Aliyah drifted down the steps of the dais. The fabric of her long, red gown slipped along the brilliant tiles as she joined the dancers in the center.

  Making eye contact with each guest, the girl danced slowly about the room. Her hands moved in sculpted poses. Fluttering, wrists rolling luxuriously, fingers arching delicately. She told a story while her hips circled, and I was envious. I wanted to dance, too. In the priv
acy of my mother’s tent, laughing with Leila.

  But right now I just wanted to grab my sister and escape this place.

  As though she’d read my mind, Aliyah glanced up and her eyes locked with mine. Before I knew what was happening, she crossed the floor and pulled me to my feet.

  Kadesh jumped up from his chair, brows pulled together, and panic on his face. He didn’t sit down, but continued to stand, arms folded over his chest.

  “No,” I protested. “I can’t—” I wanted to slink back to my table, but my hand was stuck to hers as though stitched together with invisible thread. She pulled me onto the dance floor, and the music took over. We whirled and dipped in the circle of girls. I flung my arm toward Leila, but she was always just out of reach.

  The audience’s faces blurred. So many eyes on my body and hips. My face flamed, but I couldn’t get away from Aliyah and her hypnotic smile.

  Drums throbbed at the soles of my feet. I wanted to grab my sister and steal her away. Find out what had happened to her when I saw her disappear down the stairs at the Temple of Ashtoreth with her kidnappers. Mostly, I wanted to flee from the watching audience. It was humiliating to dance before Kadesh and the king and my father, but I also felt a compulsion to dance. To move my hips until I dropped into a dreamless sleep from which I’d never awaken. The dichotomy made my head ache.

  Aliyah’s touch mesmerized me. I couldn’t seem to catch a proper breath. I was drowning in the music and she was the siren pulling me to sea.

  When we performed the final shimmies, my hips moved faster than I’d ever experienced before. The audience of guests and dignitaries were on their feet clapping.

  At last, I sank to the floor with Aliyah to bow before the royal family.

  When I rose to my feet I tried to catch Leila’s attention again. Her eyes glazed over me without recognition, as though the eerie fog from outside had slithered into the hall and blinded her.

  “Leila!” I whispered, but my sister never looked back as she followed the other dancers out the banquet hall doors. A strange heaviness weighed me down so that I could barely lift my arms. Like I was moving in a fog, too. A prisoner of Aliyah as she held my hands in hers.

  Kadesh hadn’t moved, staring at me with consternation. What right did he have to be angry—after all the secrets he’d kept? Secrets of past betrothals and missing parents he wouldn’t talk about. It hadn’t taken me long to notice Kadesh’s parents were not in attendance on the royal family dais. I felt betrayed in a way I couldn’t understand, even though he’d never outright lied to me.

  When Aliyah led me back to my father’s table, my legs were wooden, like a doll from the marketplace. An inanimate object dressed up in fake finery.

  The princess kissed my hand and tingles of heat shot up my arm. When she lifted her eyes to mine I wanted to recoil. “You dance exquisitely, Princess Jayden,” she said.

  “You know who I am?”

  “I know everything about you, daughter of the Nephish. Welcome to the kingdom of Sariba.”

  She bowed to my father, and then to Chemish and Asher. Moving with elegance, Aliyah glided back to the dais. My body sagged as though she’d pulled out my soul in tiny pieces.

  Once the applause died down, it was obvious the crowd was expecting the royal patriarch to speak. King Ephrem waved a feeble hand at his nephew to do the honors.

  Kadesh’s fingertips touched the top of the table in front of him, skin darkened by months of sun. “Dear friends, thank you for your generous welcome home. It’s been a long year, not without strife and death and loss. I’m grateful to feast my eyes upon you, my fellow citizens in this glorious land of Sariba. I’m honored to welcome guests and fellow travelers from the kingdom of the Edomites and the tribe of Nephish.”

  All eyes turned to us, murmurs of welcome rippling throughout the hall.

  “It’s a privilege to have Lady Aliyah in our presence. We’re grateful for the alliance we have with the kingdom of Sheba and its princess.”

  Kingdom of Sheba?

  I groaned within myself, feeling stupid not to have made the connection earlier. Aliyah was a princess of Sheba. Sister to the queen. That’s why she sat at the royal table. I’d been a fool to worry about Kadesh marrying the Queen of Sheba. What better way to forge an alliance than by uniting Kadesh and Aliyah, a princess his own age—and the two families who ruled the world’s frankincense trade?

  Now I could see the resemblance between the two women. The same lavender eyes rimmed in gold. The same ebony hair, golden skin, and flawless figure.

  My maid’s words returned to haunt me. Princess Aliyah must be the girl Kadesh was betrothed to. The girl he had once imagined sharing his bed in the marriage tent.

  Even the Queen of Sheba had given me a subtle warning. Although why she would caution me about her own blood sister was mystifying. Her secret messages to Kadesh in the anteroom of the palace back at Sa’ba now became even more baffling—and even more sinister.

  I stared daggers at Aliyah sitting next to Kadesh side by side on the kingship dais. Her perfect red lips, that stunning face inclined toward Kadesh. She smiled prettily at his speech, reaching out a finger to touch his cloak possessively.

  I didn’t belong here. I was a fool to believe Kadesh’s family and kingdom and obligations wouldn’t have a hold on him. A hold much stronger than mine.

  I’d come to Sariba only to have my heart shattered.

  So I did the only thing a desert girl could do.

  I ran.

  26

  I was gone before my father could grab me. I heard him calling my name, but I wove through the crowded room and then shot out the door.

  No servant tried to stop me. No guards barred the doors. Everyone gazed at me with dreamy expressions on their faces—as though Aliyah had put a spell on everybody. How did she do it? Her otherworldly beauty? An herbal potion?

  Seraiah had tried to warn me of the magic in these lands. Powerful sorcerers who worshipped gods of the underworld. But even magic had its tricks and illusions.

  Aliyah had seen me rise from my seat. Watched my face drain white, the ghost of a smile on her ruby red lips. She knew I was running. For all her smiles and grace and kisses, she’d intended this outcome all along. She’d come here to intimidate me. To show off my kidnapped sister right in front of me and my father.

  I didn’t understand how she was connected to the Temple of Ashtoreth and the magicians and kidnappers from Egypt, but I knew deep in my belly she was. Why else would Leila be in the same room and unable to recognize her family?

  The hallways and corridors were a maze. I was the rat, cornered, with nowhere to hide, and I couldn’t remember how to return to my own rooms.

  Finally a set of steps appeared. I raced down the staircase to an outside door. Surprisingly there were no guards standing sentry. Was that part of Aliyah’s plan? If she was only a priestess-in-training and this powerfully potent, the Sariba Goddess must be formidable indeed. The realization terrified me. I wasn’t safe in these lands, and neither was Leila.

  Outside the doors, I found myself in the misty fog. The stuff swirled around me, thick as soup, clinging to me in the same way Aliyah had. Gray wisps ran along the paving stones.

  There were no stars or moon. Which path led to the mountains and which to the sea? If there were palace guards keeping watch, they were well hidden. A fact that didn’t make me feel very safe.

  I ran up and down several paths with raised flower beds, nearly crashing headlong into a garden of thorny rosebushes. A perfumed rainbow of reds, yellows, pinks, and purples. I caught myself just before I fell into a fountain. Even this late at night a fine mist of water sprayed into the air.

  Then I heard the sound of camels and memories crashed. A giant tidal wave of grief. As if I’d conjured it out of the mists, my family surrounded me like specters: my mother baking over the fire, Leila fashioning a new hairstyle in the copper mirror, my father driving down the tent stakes while baby camels toddled about the campsi
te.

  How drastically my life had changed. How complicated it had become. “Mother!” I whispered to the heavens above me. “Why did you leave me alone?”

  The muttering of camels grew louder. I followed the brick path, and wooden doors appeared out of the fog. Pushing through, I entered a series of enormous barns filled with the king’s camels in individual stalls. One of the camels began to bray and I almost burst out laughing. Shay stood before me, placidly eating her dinner, blinking her long, dark lashes.

  “Oh, Shay.” I flung my arms around her neck and she bumped her nose into me in return. I held on to her as if I was trying to hold on to the past. “I hardly recognize you with the beads and tassels of Sariba. Why do they have you locked up in here?”

  Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the back of each stall opened onto a wide, spacious corral. “Aren’t you spoiled? No standing in the rain. Food whenever you want it.”

  My milky white camel nibbled at my hair, eating some of the gold shine, and then wrinkling her nose at the strange taste. “Don’t make yourself sick.”

  Tendrils of fog slithered through the open barn door. I’d forgotten to close it. But from out of the dark night Asher suddenly rushed through, halting when he saw me.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded. “Has Kadesh entrusted you to be my bodyguard again? Well, I don’t need a bodyguard any longer. I don’t need anybody.”

  Asher glanced down at his clenched hands, not answering at first. Then he said, “I chased you all over the gardens. Why did you run away?”

  I stared at him, surprised Asher would run to my aid after what had happened to him and Laban on the desert that awful night. “Can’t you tell I want to be alone?”

  “You’re crying,” he said.

  I turned away, feeling stupid for weeping, but his presence just reminded me of the mortification I’d endured in the royal dining hall.

  His voice softened. “You’re tired, Jayden. You’ve undergone a brutal journey of more than three full moons. I’m sure you’re missing home, your mother.”