The Bride Price (A Historical Romance)

by Karen Jones Delk

  “Wallahi, I wish Sharif would sleep away his zahlán, his melancholy, whatever causes it,” Sa’id griped wearily after a long day’s chase. “To do so would be better—for all of us.”

  But the sheik would not, could not. Tired and restless, he lay awake at night, longing for the girl as her name echoed in his head. Truly it was best that men and women were kept apart, he reflected, fighting the ache to touch her, to lie with her, to be with her until the end of time. He must avoid her, or who knew what the consequences would be?

  * * *

  It had been a year since Bryna’s capture, and her burdens had never seemed so heavy to her. In need of solitude one afternoon, she walked alone in the lush oasis, settling beside the isolated pool farthest from camp. There in a copse at the water’s edge, she sat down despondently, hidden from prying eyes.

  While the caravan had moved through the desert, she had almost forgotten what lay at the end of the journey. Now she remembered with stunning clarity that when they reached Riyadh, she would be forced to marry Nassar. And she had wasted her only chance for freedom, she thought, surrendering to depression.

  Gazing at her reflection in the water, the girl felt the same disquieting emotion she had felt in the hammam. The face that stared back at her from the pool belonged to an Arab woman, draped and covered, perhaps doomed never to know freedom again. Deliberately she removed her ghata and veil and turned her face to the pale, dappled sunlight that filtered through the trees. For a long moment she savored the feel of the rising wind, rustling the leaves around her, stirring her unbound hair, until she heard for the first time a distant roll of thunder.

  It was going to rain, she realized with a start. She should get back to the camp. But when she picked up the crumpled pile of fabric that was her veil, she could not bring herself to put it on. It was the uniform of a prisoner.

  She was alone in a strange land. The more she knew about this wild country, the more she knew escape was improbable for her alone and impossible if she took Pamela, she thought bitterly. After months of wandering in the desert, she did not hold much hope that her father or Derek would ever find her. And how she hated the idea of having Nassar as a husband.

  If she had not been kidnapped, she and Derek might have been married by now. They might have gone to England, and she would have had a normal life, the family and the sense of belonging she had always wanted.

  Why was she torturing herself with what might have been? Bryna asked herself as she stubbornly tried to visualize Derek’s face, without success. Perhaps it had been too long since she’d seen him. Or perhaps the memory of his hazel eyes had been supplanted by the presence of a pair of piercing gray ones.

  Heaving a mighty sigh, she wondered again why Sharif had stalked away from her in anger the last time they had talked. She reviewed their conversation for the hundredth time, trying to decide whether she had said something that offended him. He had been so gentle one moment, so forbidding the next. Even as his smoldering gaze had followed her the past few days, she had not been able to forget the tenderness of his caresses. She had never known such a man, difficult and mercurial and remarkable.

  And now she did not even have the comfort of his friendship. She might never feel his touch again, might never touch him, but she could not bear the possibility that he hated her. Her loneliness seemed suddenly too much to endure. She began to cry softly, unable to hold back the tears.

  * * *

  Sharif also sought privacy. When he spied the first ominous black cloud, he knew every man in camp would seek shelter in his tent from the rain. He needed a moment of quiet before they came.

  As he walked beside the secluded pool, the sheik caught sight of Bryna sitting on the other side. She was alone, and he could not resist giving in to the desire to gaze upon her unveiled face once more. Shielded by the trees, he made his way toward her, stopping when he realized she wept. His heart nearly broke at the sound of her deep, hopeless sobs. Heedless of the impropriety of being alone with her, the man went to her.

  “Why do you weep?” he asked softly in French.

  The girl started violently but relaxed when she saw it was Sharif. “You frightened me. I did not hear you approach, my lord,” she said, dashing the tears from her eyes.

  “I asked, why do you cry?” he repeated.

  “Because I am lonely, because I am in a foreign place, because I may never go home again,” she answered, feeling oddly defiant.

  “Arabia is your home now,” the man insisted gently but firmly. Taking her hand, he pulled her to her feet. His searching gray eyes drank in Bryna’s beauty as the wind whipped her dark hair. Belatedly realizing he still held her hand, he released it.

  “You may find it strange here now, but you will learn to love it,” he assured her, struggling to keep his voice light. “Here you will marry and have children and grow old and fat and contented. And it will not be such a bad life, eh?”

  Surely that was not a description of life with Nassar, Bryna thought bleakly. She looked up at the man sadly and whispered. “I am a freeborn woman, my lord. I have a home and I want to go back to it.”

  Pain wrenched the sheik at the thought of Bryna’s leaving, and he interrupted harshly, “Enough. Do not say more.” Placing his hands on her shoulders, he caught her gaze and held it. “Do not speak of your past. Bryna.” he commanded in a gentler tone. “You will only make yourself sad.”

  “But, Sheik Al Selim—”

  “When you marry,” Sharif went on with effort, “you will be a slave no more.”

  “No, I will be Nassar’s wife,” she murmured dejectedly, thinking one was as bad as the other.

  “Yes, his wife.” The sheik’s voice was harsh as he tried to control his emotions. “Have you not learned enough of our ways to understand Insh’allah ‘?”

  “As Allah wills. I know,” she whispered shakily.

  All at once Sharif’s hands tightened and he drew her against his hard, muscular body. Gazing lovingly into her eyes, he murmured her name and lowered his mouth to hers, claiming it tenderly.

  Bryna’s emotions were at war. She had wanted this to happen, she realized, although Nassar would kill her if he knew. She had longed for Sharif’s touch, but this could not be. She must not allow herself to feel anything. The pain would be too great, for she could never truly have Sharif.

  But, against her will, her body responded hungrily to his caresses. When his lips found the pulse in the sensitive spot below her ear, she forgot her qualms and molded herself against him. His mouth returned to hers, demanding this time, as his tongue darted between her parted lips., exploring, exciting, inciting. Liquid heat flowed through her veins, and she returned his kiss with ardor.

  Shaken by their passion, they stood locked in an embrace, the rising wind whipping their robes about them.

  “Bismallah, what have I done?” the sheik groaned suddenly, finding the strength at last to thrust Bryna from him. “I have told myself again and again that what I feel for you is wrong. Can it be Allah’s will that I love you as I do?”

  “Sharif,” she whispered, her expression as miserable as his.

  “No! What is written cannot be unwritten. Veil yourself now and return to the tent of your sidi, your future husband,” he forced himself to say. “We must not be alone together again.”

  Trembling, Bryna picked up her veil and tied it into place with numbed fingers. Avoiding the man’s tormented gray eyes, she turned without a word and stumbled down the path to the camp.

  While Sharif watched her depart, the sky opened above him and rain began to pour. His despairing face was lit by the jagged bolt of lightning that rent the dark sky, and the rain mixed with the first tears he had shed since Noorah’s death.

  CHAPTER 16

  The air was clean, and glistening raindrops still hung from the trees when Sharif announced his intention to go falconing the next morning. He had to get away from the camp, to put thoughts of Bryna away from him for a while.

  “Wallahi,
tonight we will eat bustard,” his retainers exclaimed excitedly to each other as they mounted their horses and rode into the desert.

  Late in the afternoon two camel riders approached the Selim camp, wearing the robes of a tribe far to the west. Because the men were away, it was the duty of the sheik’s wives to greet the guests and make them comfortable. Fatmah and Latifeh followed the codes of Bedouin hospitality scrupulously.

  Anyone seeking hospitality in a Bedu camp was an honored guest for three days. It was the custom that the first day was for greeting, the second day for eating, and the third for talking. After that time the host might ask tactfully if he could help the visitors prepare for the continuation of their journey.

  The hunters arrived just before sunset, quiet and subdued after the strenuous exercise. Sharif immediately noticed the two strange camels hobbled near the others, and he stiffened. The last time he had seen them, they wore the small saddles of southern tribes. Now they wore the double-poled saddles of this region, but he recognized them: they belonged to the raiders who had killed his brothers. Dismounting, the sheik inspected the brand on the flank of each animal. There could be no doubt.

  He strode to his tent, and there his suspicions were confirmed. Last year’s marauders, now dressed as tribesmen of the West, lolled insolently in his majlis against his woolen saddlebags, rudely refusing to rise to return his greeting.

  A long moment passed as the men appraised each other. It was obvious the way Sharif’s jaw worked that he knew them, and under other circumstances he would have killed them on sight. But Fatmah and Latifeh had not known. They had behaved as proper Arab wives, and now these murderers were his guests. He was bound to honor that commitment.

  Sharif’s dilemma made the visitors bold. They greeted the great sheik like an old friend, making themselves comfortable, taking the best meat at dinner, drinking more than their share of coffee, and monopolizing the conversation, traits most uncharacteristic to the Bedouins. Sharif knew they were disliked by everyone in camp, but he could not ask them to leave before the prescribed three days were up.

  Late in the third day, when the visitors should have been thinking of departure, they pushed the limits of hospitality too far. As they lounged in Sharif’s majlis, watching Bryna and Pamela at work around Nassar’s tent, they asked if they might use them since they were only infidel slaves. Nassar searched for an appropriate answer. It was the practice in some southern tribes, but slaves or no, these women were to be his wives and the young man had no wish to share them.

  To his amazement, before he could reply, Sharif erupted in anger, driving the visitors from his tent.

  “Hayâtak, by thy life! You despoil our hospitality,” he roared. “Sons of camels, thou basest of Arabs who ever hammered a tent peg, get out!”

  “We are your guests,” one of them whined. ‘‘Your food still fills our bellies.”

  “Yes, wallahi, and while it does, I will not kill you. But the moment you rid yourselves of it, your lives are in peril. Flee, dogs, or die.”

  Muttering to each other, they grabbed their belongings and departed, riding into the desert with many looks backward. The last sight of them from the camp was when they halted atop a dune. One of them looked back at the tents and lifted his clenched fist as he cursed the inhabitants, “God destroy your house and all who dwell in it!”

  In the sheik’s tent the men looked at each other uneasily, but no one spoke. Secretly Nassar was elated that Sharif had solved his problem for him, but what his uncle had done was shameful. Perhaps he was temporarily possessed by an evil spirit, Sa’id suggested, expressing a willingness to treat his deranged friend with a hot iron to rid him of the curse. When Sharif declined, they watched their leader closely for the rest of the afternoon, relieved that although he brooded, he did nothing else out of the ordinary.

  The next night whoops filled the air and raiders rode into camp. Against the rules of ghazzi, they attacked after midnight and fired the tents before making away with the camels.

  Bryna and Pamela rose from their pallets to the barking of dogs and confused shouts, to ringing steel and sporadic gunfire. They rushed to the curtain that divided the women’s quarters from the main section of the tent. Through the open front they saw figures milling around the camp.

  Fire provided illumination, and in its glow Bryna saw three raiders dismount swiftly and run toward their tent. She smelled smoke, and suddenly the goat-hair fabric over their heads blazed in the night air. The women ducked to escape the inferno, wrapping their veils around their heads.

  Bryna ripped at the curtain between the sections of the tent, and the girls stumbled through the rent. In the majlis, Nassar freed his mare, unfastening the iron ring that linked her to the tent pole. Then, drawing his sword, he faltered, looking bewildered against the backdrop of flames.

  “Come,” he shouted, suddenly in control of the situation when he saw Pamela’s panic-stricken face.

  Just outside the tent, Bryna saw `Abla dart out of the way of one of the raiders’ grasp. Tossing a small water skin to the girl, she shouted, “Run, `Abla, run!” The child staggered when she caught the skin but quickly scurried into the darkness.

  Bryna’s interference turned the raiders’ attention to Nassar’s tent. The soft young Arab brandished his sword awkwardly and tried to shield Pamela with his body. One of the attackers aimed his lance at Nassar and took a menacing step forward, his arm tensed to hurl the weapon. Suddenly Fatmah appeared from nowhere and threw herself in front of Nassar. When the raider released his spear, the old woman was impaled first. The shaft went through her body and pierced Nassar. For one horrible instant Bryna could not tell whether it had also wounded Pamela. Mother and son slumped to the ground while the horrified English girl looked on. With a triumphant shout, the marauder claimed her.

  Another Bedu, not much more than a boy, advanced menacingly on Bryna. Suddenly Smemi raced toward her attacker, snarling and snapping. The raider halted, obviously terrified of the shaggy beast. But Smemi’s fearsome growl ended in an agonized yelp when a spear pierced the back of his neck. With an anguished cry, Bryna knelt and cradled the dog’s big head in her lap, his blood pouring onto her thobe. With a salute to his rescuer, the boy seized her and dragged her through the camp toward the camels.

  Both Bryna and Pamela fought their attackers, kicking and biting. Bryna’s captor struck her, bringing the taste of blood to her mouth. Her head reeling, she was vaguely aware that men fought for their lives all around her. She could hear the moans of the wounded, and some of Sharif’s men sprawled dead on the ground. With an exultant shout, another raider joined his comrades, hauling Latifeh’s protesting figure behind him.

  “Bryna!” She heard her name faintly through the screams and the crackle of the fire.

  Unmindful of the consequences, she tore at her captor’s viselike grip and strained to see over her shoulder. In the fray behind her, Sharif fought wildly to reach her. When the raider yanked the girl toward his camel, she tried to wrench away. He clouted her again on the side of the head. The last thing she saw in a blur of pain was Sharif as he fell, wounded.

  The three women were hauled roughly onto the camels in front of their captors. Bryna was thrown over the saddle so hard that she gasped for air, feeling as if her body were bruised to its very core. Through a red haze of pain, she recognized the two Bedu who had abused their hospitality only a few days before.

  With a shout, the rest of the raiding party bolted to their camels and, driving the Selim herd before them, galloped out of camp. Bryna was jarred in front of the gangly Bedu boy until they had traveled nearly ten miles. Then the party halted for a brief rest. Latifeh scolded loudly while trying to hide her face from her abductors. She had not even had time to snatch up a veil during the attack. The women were shoved from the camels and their wrists bound, the ropes tied to the camels’ saddles.

  The raiders lingered for a few minutes, congratulating each other, so secure were they in their victory. Then most of the me
n remounted and headed west across the desert, singing victory songs as they rode. The three who had taken the women remounted and urged their camels forward, dragging their captives behind them.

  Bryna felt as if her arms would be torn from her shoulders each time the camel jostled. None of the women wore shoes, and soon their feet were cut and bleeding from the sharp, cutting edges of the sand. Latifeh’s face was a mask of suffering, and Pamela looked as if she were unconscious on her feet. Only the will to survive kept Bryna going.

  When the sun rose, the men did not stop for prayers but forged deeper into the Rub al Khali, the Empty Quarter. A desert within a desert, it covered thousands of miles of inland Arabia. There was little water, less life, and no hope. As the day wore on and the blazing sun beat down on them, the men, displeased with the slow pace, gestured for the women to be taken back on the camels. Wearily they obeyed; there was no hope of escape.

  The party passed through mile after mile of glistening white sand, rippled by the heated wind that blew it against them. In the stark emptiness, dead plants poked through dunes, giving the land a wasted, barren look. Tying their kaffiyehs around their faces, the men took their prisoners across the singing sands, where every step murmured with a harmonic effect.

  As evening fell and Bryna thought she would die of thirst, they stopped. The sun had created mirages all afternoon, but no water was found. The men had drunk from their skins, but they had given none to the women. Now they offered no more than a grudging swallow. After securing the women, the men unsaddled the camels and set up a skimpy camp with no tents, only a three-stone fireplace. They untied Latifeh and demanded she cook for them.

  While the old woman bent stiffly to her task, the men came to where the girls sat, still bound. Pamela’s captor ripped the headdress from her head, and his beady eyes lit at the sight of her fair hair. When Latifeh saw what they were doing, she railed at them, interjecting her ample body between them and the girls. With a curse, one of the raiders slapped her and shoved her out of the way. The Arab woman fell heavily, her head hitting one of the stones of the fireplace. She did not move again. Unconcerned, the men returned to their inspection, forgetting their hunger.