by Laura Parker
Then she passed through the white plume of sweet piney balsam scent arising from the incense burner. Her footsteps faltered. This was no ordinary incense. Unless her nose deceived her—an unlikely event, for her sense of smell was highly trained—she had happened upon a rare prize.
She turned quickly to the merchant but kept her gaze lowered as she pointed to a bowl of small amber beads. “How much?” she asked in Persian.
“Four hundred tomans, gentle lady.” The exorbitant amount, nearly eighty English pounds, made her gasp and quickly turn away with a shake of her head.
As expected he hurried after her crying, “What would the memsahib offer me?”
She turned slowly to him, as if reluctant. “From where does your frankincense come?”
“Dhofar,” he answered promptly.
Japonica smiled behind her veil. The best frankincense in the world came from Dhofar. Therefore, every seller made such claims of his wares. Only an experienced buyer could recognize its distinctive aroma. Without a word she pulled several coins from her pocket.
Seeing the gleam of gold, the old man took it and then poured a handful of small translucent gold beads into her palm.
She pocketed the precious incense as the keening sounds of the call to the faithful arose from the nearby minaret According to custom, all women must leave the streets at the Moslem call-to-prayer.
In a low husky tone she hoped would not travel beyond the stall she asked, “Where may I find the home of the Hind Div?”
The merchant’s eyes grew so round she thought he would faint. “No, no, dear lady! You cannot mean to go there. That is where the devil resides!”
She did not miss the implication that he knew that there was a “there” to go to. Since he had already seen the gleam of her gold, she dug into her pocket and produced an amount similar to that which purchased the frankincense.
His ogle of horror turned quickly into a squint of calculation. “You wait,” he said, then turned and ran to the nearby stall to confer with two of his neighbors. They eyed her suspiciously as they spoke, using a mountain dialect of lisps and nasals sounds with which she was unfamiliar. The animated conversation drew the curiosity of other merchants until the group of three swelled to well over a dozen.
As the seconds ticked past she wondered if she had made a mistake in revealing her destination. But finally the merchant hurried back to her.
He motioned for her money and when she handed it over he said quickly, “Ala alshemal. Keep left. Forty paces!”
“How far is that?” But he had turned away and she knew she had been told all she would hear from him.
“Forty paces,” she murmured to herself. The number was of little use in a country where “forty” was used to express any large sum. Forty paces might mean forty or four hundred.
She did not bother to count her footsteps but she realized as soon as she entered the narrow lane he had pointed out that she was suddenly out of earshot of the marketplace. What’s more, there was music in the air. Someone was playing a hornpipe, an English sailor’s instrument, and the tune was none other than the Scottish air, “The Bob-tailed Lass.” What brazenness for the player to identify himself as an enemy of the French!
Yet that waggish insult might also be her luck. Surely this was an omen that she had found the lodgings of the Hind Div. He would fear nothing.
She hurried to the single narrow door in the high wall of the house and pulled the woven bell rope hanging beside it. She did not hear the bell sound but the music ceased and after a moment she heard a shout from above.
“You there! Go away!” a man dressed as a servant yelled out in very poor Persian. “We accept no visitors and want no peddlers!”
“I’m not a peddler!” she cried out in her own language and then immediately wondered if that had been a wise thing to do.
“English?” The man’s own voice was unmistakably accented in soft Scottish burr. “Do nae bestir yourself, lass, ’til I come down!”
In less than a minute a narrow panel opened in the door shadowed by latticework so that she could not see the face behind it. She moved in close to whisper, “I am looking for the man they call the Hind Div. Are you he?”
“Won’t say I am and don’t say I’m not. Only ye best come back tomorrow. ’Tis no night to brave the Div.” He snapped the little window shut.
She rapped on the door impatiently. “I have money.”
The panel swung open again. “How much?”
“Let me in and you may see for yourself,” she answered, sounding much braver than she felt.
To her amazement the door opened. After a quick look left and right down the strangely empty alley, she stepped inside.
The moment she crossed the threshold a cool sweet breeze enveloped her with the scent of jasmine and orange blossom. The heat and dust and altogether unpleasant odors of the street were absent. She took several steps away from the entrance before the impression of otherworldly beauty brought her to a halt. This was the home of a very rich man.
She had been told that the most seductive quality of a Persian house was that it looked inward on a scented realm shaded and cooled and sealed off from the world. Now she understood. Pure white columns and archways gleamed dully in the indigo shadows surrounding a large courtyard. Gold-fringed pomegranate silk curtains fluttered on a breeze seemingly of its own invention, for the street had been stifling still. Flanked by the lush green of orange and lemon trees and lit from a mysterious source, a fountain stood in the courtyard’s center, shimmering with crimson and azure and gold mosaic tiles set in floral designs. This was the source of the single sound in the air, a charming burbling.
The sound of the door slamming shut behind her startled Japonica from her thoughts and she swung around saying, “I have come …”
She spoke to emptiness.
No one stood near the door. Nor, as her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, did she see anyone in any part of the courtyard. Sensing that she had made a mistake by entering a stranger’s home so precipitously, she rushed back to the door and pulled repeatedly at the latch but it did not budge.
“Bismallah! What trick is this?” she asked in Persian. No answer came back save for the distant echo of her own voice.
“Very well.” She straightened and turned back to the courtyard. Though her heart beat a tattoo worthy of a dervish dance, she would not show her fright. She lifted her voice and said coolly, “Tell the Hind Div I will wait for him by the fountain.”
She waited several long minutes in the silence. More than once the prickly sensation of being watched made her suddenly glance back over her shoulder. There was never anyone there.
She suspected the Hind Div-was deliberately testing her resolve. Such a man would only respect a show of courage. To dispel her nervousness, she reached out to splash a little in the water of the fountain. At the bottom of the crystal depths she saw a flash of a silver-white fin and then a red-gold tail as exotic fish swam in lazy circles among the lily pads and lotus flowers.
Moments later the tinkling of an unseen bell drew her to a nearby alcove. Unnoticed before, a large copper dish rested on a ledge, filled with skewers of lamb, fragrant rice, eggplant, tomatoes, hummus, baba ghanouj, several kinds of olives, and a large disk of bread. Beside it stood a cup of tea. Parched from her journey, she reached for it. Her host might be illusive but his hospitality lacked for nothing.
Only as the sweet brew touched her tongue did it occur to her that the sumptuous feast might be a trick to drug the unthinking. Quickly, she spit the tea back into the cup and put it down.
“Are you always so wary of your host’s offering, memsahib?”
That deep and mellifluously masculine voice, she knew at once, must be that of the Hind Div.
She turned slowly to look at him and nothing after that seemed quite real.
Chapter Two
He stood on the opposite side of the courtyard dressed from head to to
e in black, his features hidden behind a tuck of cloth from his turban. Only his eyes were visible and even from a distance they seemed to glow like a cat’s in the dark.
Behind her own veil, Japonica gaped in amazement. Her father had once kept a Caspian tiger in a bamboo cage until he could ship it to a menagerie in London. With a singular frightened fascination she watched that tiger slowly pace day after day, wanting to tease from its watchful gaze the thoughts of such a magnificent creature. The Hind Div possessed that same feline grace as he approached on silent feet.
He paused in half shadow two-arms’ lengths away, then he reached up and stripped away his mask. Japonica shrank back with a quick breath of alarm. The visage he revealed was striking! And terrifying! He bore on his face the markings of the Arabian cheetah!
Bold black lines slanted outward from his kohl-rimmed eyes toward his temples. Others scored his bronze skin from the inner corner of each golden eye toward the corners of his upper lip where thin stripes of black beard outlined his mouth then came together in a silky black twist of a tassel at the end of his chin. She had been wrong to scoff at his name. The being before her seemed the embodiment of an Oriental demon.
Lines from a fairy tale about an Arabian sorcerer flittered through her amazed mind. “A charismatic man with piercing eyes and seductive airs/When he came into the room the mice jumped on chairs.” As she gazed into his golden eyes, as rich in color as the frankincense beads in her pocket, she believed this man capable of magic, and more.
“My servant claims you would break down my door.” He threw back his cloak and rested his left hand on the jeweled hilt of a wickedly curving scimitar tucked into the wide sash about his waist. As his golden gaze moved deliberately over her she felt a chill that had nothing to do with the mysterious breeze. “You are either very brave… or very foolish.”
Foolish! her dazed senses whispered. Just by staring at him she violated a rule of etiquette for any Persian woman. Yet who could look away from this glorious, frightening being who seemed not quite real?
Heart pounding as though it would break free of her ribs, she bowed her head and answered in her most formal Persian, “I beg your indulgence, buna sahib. I am abashed with awe to be in the magnificent presence of the Hind Div.”
He was silent so long she cast a dubious gaze upwards. Nothing in the dark shadows cast upon his face offered her reassurance. “For this pitiable utterance I am roused from my slumber? Sobhanallah!” he pronounced in disgust, then turned and strode away.
“Wait! Oh no, wait!”
She started after him but his footsteps quickly outpaced her. When he disappeared behind a curtain she paused. Was he truly insulted by her greeting? Or was he incensed by her refusal of the hospitality of his house? There were few greater insults in this part of the world.
From out of nowhere a hand grasped her upper arm from behind. With a cry she swung round and up into the arresting face of the Hind Div.
“Bismallah!” she whispered in true fright, for it seemed impossible he could have doubled back so quickly.
He smiled but it did not touch his penetrating gaze. “You are impetuous, are you not?”
“You speak English!” To be perfectly accurate, he spoke with the cultured tones of a London aristocrat.
“You begin to bore me, ayah,” he replied, slipping back into Persian. His hand dropped away from her arm. This time he did not simply disappear but crossed the courtyard at a leisurely stride.
Her first impulse was to flee while his back was turned. She began to tremble. His cheetah gaze and stealth terrified her. Yet, if she fled how would the viscount escape Baghdad? No, she must not fail. But how could she match the audacity of a being who did not seem quite mortal? She had no skill in sorcery and beguilement. She had only the desperation of fear.
She took a few steps after him and called out, “Impatience seldom yields a handsome reward, burra sahib.”
He continued on as if he had not heard her. Yet, before he entered the tented pavilion at the far end of the terrace he glanced back. “Are you worth my patience, ayah?”
She drew in a long breath scented by the first waft of night-blooming jasmine. He addressed her with a term for a lowly servant. Her fear vanished before a rare spurt of Fortnom temper. When he disappeared into the pavilion she hurried after him. Man or magician, he would not so easily dismiss her!
Unseen hands parted the curtains when she reached the entrance. This time she betrayed no surprise. Her guard was set against his charlatan tricks. He would not amuse himself at her expense a second time. Yet the man who stood in the center of the room lit by torches mounted at each of its corners could not be ignored. Repulsed yet attracted by his exotic countenance, she had to admit his fascination and his capacity to surprise.
In the miraculous space of seconds he had replaced black garments for an abe of richly embroidered gold silk over loose-legged trousers. His turban was gone. Long silky black hair flowed onto his shoulders yet there was nothing in the least feminine in the display. As he turned toward her she saw the seductive line of his mouth curve upward and knew she was about to be tested once again.
As he approached she felt no inkling of danger, only the presence of a power so strong it withered the urge to resist it. The feline markings made it impossible to determine the true features of the man beneath. That very ambiguity made him at once the most hideous yet masculine man she had ever encountered … if he were a man.
When he was closer to her than was proper he bent to whisper in a breath scented by cloves, “When, I wonder, will you astonish me, bahia?”
For one amazed moment she felt the tantalizing heat of his skin against hers through her veil as he rubbed his cheek catlike along hers. Through the thin silk the rougher texture of his beard grazed the summit of her nose. Then he drew back. He was smiling but it did not put her at ease. “You smell delicious, bahia.”
“It is a perfume of my own design,” she answered, then wished she had not.
“Ah, so that is the source of your magic.” He reached out to touch her, the merest contact of a single finger stroking the upper edge of her veil, and it sent a ripple of pleasure along her cheek.
She jerked away, hoping he had not seen her response. She should resist the lure of his gaze. That was where his potency lay, in the thrall of those golden eyes.
“What other skills do you possess, bahia?”
She glanced up again and met the frightening strength of will behind those topaz eyes. “I have come on a most urgent matter, burra sahib.” She reached into her sleeve and produced the letter Lord Abbott had given her.
He took the missive and without even a glance tossed it onto a nearby table inlaid with rare woods and mother of pearl. “Have you so little courage you cannot speak for yourself? Come. I show myself to you.” He reached out toward her again. “Will you not unveil for me?”
“No!” She backed away and received the derision of his rich laughter.
“So then, you have a little courage. Beautiful women usually do.”
There was no answer she could think to make to his compliment. How disappointed he would be if he knew only a drab wren stood behind her abeyya and veil. So rich and powerful a man must have a harem, each concubine more lovely than the next, the least of them a dozen times more beautiful than she.
He moved toward the center of the room and a low wide divan covered in silk and furs. Climbing nimbly upon it, he then reclined in a supine position upon the pillows and shut his eyes. After a few moments she heard the soft sounds of sleep coming from the bed’s occupant.
She approached the bed warily, her gaze darting into distant corners shaped by draperies undulating on the breeze. Surely he did not mean to keep her waiting while he dozed? If this were another prank she would be ready.
Yet the strangely painted face she looked down upon bore the unguarded expression of a man in repose. What insolence! She had to resist the urge to prod him with the toe of
her slipper. Instead she folded her arms under her bosom and said in her most disparaging tone, “It is said the Hind Div is a being of infinite resourcefulness. Alas, I have witnessed only the shabby tricks of an commonplace conjurer who soon wearies of his own sad antics.”
Though his eyes remained closed she saw a smile of bright ambiguity blossom on his mouth. Was it amusement or derision? Without the witness of his eyes she could not guess. “Ask your favor, ayah.”
This time she did not hesitate. Unlike the convoluted formality of the Persian language, the directness of English best served her purpose. “I seek your services to carry three people from Baghdad to Bushire.”
“Any camel can discharge that errand,” he answered in an obscure dialect of the northern provinces. Did he think by doing so he would confound her?
“Not any camel,” she answered in kind, for she had become familiar with many of the tongues in which the spice business was transacted. “The one I seek must be able to conceal its passengers inside its hump.”
He sighed deeply, eyes still closed. “I know of no such beast.”
“Surely the Hind Div could conjure one.”
She expected a greater reaction to her taunting but he merely shook his head against the shimmering surface of the pillows. “The fate of three Farang is of no great moment in Persian affairs. The Hind Div denies you.”
She bit back the retort that came to her lips. So he had guessed she was Farangi, English. Yet who was he to reject her plea? He was not a Caliph to wield despotic authority over defenseless subjects. He had not even heard out her offer.
“A wise man never hears the ‘no’ in a refusal, only an invitation to continue until a bargain has been struck.” Her father’s advice came back to her now. The Hind Div must have a price.
She said softly, “Do you not find it strange that despite his treaty with the French, the Shah has not ordered the English from his land?” She glanced at him dozing like a cat. “Perhaps it is so that he may frustrate the cause of the one with the other. It is a prudent man who keeps his enemies and his friends equally close.”