The Bride Price

by Karen Jones Delk

  “Still unconscious,” Blaine answered in a low voice. “Is Mustafa out there?”

  “No.”

  “Then you must go find Ernst. We have to get out of Mecca as soon as possible.”

  “But what if Bryna awakens before I return?” the young man objected.

  “She will need some time. She may not recognize us at all.”

  “Surely she will when she sees us face to face.”

  “I don’t know,” the Irishman answered soberly, fingering the locket he held.

  “She must remember me,” Derek muttered. “I must speak to her, must make her remember.”

  “Don’t worry, lad. You’ll have your chance. We did not come all this way for nothing.”

  The young Englishman tarried a moment longer in the doorway, then withdrew and closed the door.

  In the outer room he paced, trying to collect himself before he departed on his errand. He grappled with the questions he had asked himself so many times since Riyadh. What would happen now that they had found Bryna? Would her memory return? Would she go with them, or would she prefer to stay with her sheik?

  Now another, more urgent doubt plagued the proud young man. Even if she chose him, could he forget she had given herself to another man? Would the specter of Sharif Al Selim, her Arab husband, haunt him forever?

  The room was dusky when Bryna stirred at last. Blaine sat very still, watching her, almost afraid to breathe. Her eyes opened and she stared at the ceiling, blinking at the ache of her head.

  Where am I? she wondered dully. The last thing she remembered was pain as the small kegs tumbled down around her head. And now she was in a strange room. Sensing another person nearby, she lifted her head, causing a sharp pain to ricochet in her skull.

  She lay back on the pillow with a groan. A powerful- looking man leaned over her. Lit from behind by light coming in from the windows and the glow of a lamp on the table, his face was in the shadows. Though she could tell his lips moved, she could not hear for the blood roaring in her temples.

  Who was he? He seemed somehow familiar. Where had she seen him before? Sharif had killed her kidnappers in the desert. Suddenly she knew that. Was this man another abductor? Was he the reason Sharif had wanted her to be guarded?

  Sitting up slowly, she watched the big man warily. He nodded in encouragement but made no move to touch her. Scooting over near the wall, she increased the distance between them.

  Seemingly unperturbed, he crooned in the strangely familiar language, “It’s all right, chère. Don’t be afraid.”

  “Who are you?” she demanded in Arabic. “What do you want?”

  Blaine tried not to show the chagrin he felt in the face of her hostility. “Try to remember,” he implored softly in French. “Your name is Bryna. I am your father.” Carefully he reached to the table behind him and slid the lamp over so it lit his face.

  Bryna’s puzzled gaze examined his bearded face. There was something familiar, she thought distractedly, chewing her lower lip. Then she gasped. His eyes were blue, like hers.

  Belatedly Blaine remembered the turban he wore and raked it off his head. As if mesmerized, she stared at his auburn hair, glinting in the lamplight.

  “I...I cannot remember,” she said in Arabic, shaking her head.

  Wordlessly he handed her the open locket. She took it and looked down at two miniatures, one of a beautiful young woman, the other of a handsome man. She scrutinized each one. Then she looked up at the man who sat beside her breathlessly, then at the tiny portrait. At last her gaze searched his face with dawning recognition. Bryna felt as if she had awakened from a long dream to totter at the brink of memory.

  “Père?” The word came unbidden to her lips.

  “Thank le bon Dieu, you remember.” Blaine sighed in relief. He put his hand out as if he would touch her, then thought better of it. “I don’t want to frighten you. You do remember, don’t you, Bryna?”

  “My name is not...Farha?” she asked uncertainly, her tongue stumbling over the long-unused French syllables.

  “Non, your name is Bryna Jean-Marie O’Toole. You are my daughter, and you were kidnapped from my home in Tangier.”

  “I thought I would never see you again.” With a strangled sob, Bryna buried her face in her hands and began to cry.

  “‘Tis all right now. I’ve come to take you home.” Her father took her gently in his powerful, protective arms while she wept. His deep, comforting voice murmuring in her ear brought a flood of lost memories that had nothing to do with him.

  She did remember...Nejm, Suleiman, Pamela. Images of humiliation, suffering, and death raced through her mind. But there had been joys as well. And through most of it, there had been Sharif.

  Sharif, Bryna thought with a sharp stab of pain. Why had he never told her the truth, not even her own name? He had allowed her to suffer months of torment, not knowing who she was. But the months had been filled with happiness as well, she admitted to herself. What was she to do?

  “What is wrong, chère?” Blaine asked, feeling Bryna’s body stiffen in his embrace.

  “So much has happened since I was taken. There are things you do not know...” She faltered, uncertain how to proceed.

  “I know about your sheik, Bryna,” her father said gently.

  “You do?” Her voice quavered, and she regarded him anxiously. “Then you understand? I do not know what to do. You are my father and I love you. But Sharif is good to me. He loves me. He saved my life. He took me in when I was all alone in the world. He risked everything to marry me. I do care for him, I cannot deny it. I don’t know what to do,” she repeated bleakly.

  “And I can’t tell you,” Blaine said almost sadly.

  “I came to take you home, but I will not insist you come out of a sense of duty. ‘Duty’ was the reason I left your mother, and I’ve regretted it every day since. Al Selim sounds like a good man, and I think he must love you very much. Do you love him?”

  Yes, I mean, I believe so.” She looked at her father miserably, her face splotchy from crying. “I don’t know. I am so confused.”

  “This is not going to be easy. Come here,” Blaine ordered gently. He led his daughter to a small basin of water and washed her face tenderly as if she were a child. “Bryna, there is someone else who loves you,” he said, “and you cannot dismiss him without hearing what he has come all this way to say.”

  “Derek? He is here, isn’t he?” she asked apprehensively. She’d loved him once, or thought she did. Did she love him still?

  “Yes.” He watched his daughter carefully. From Riyadh to Mecca, he had tried to prepare himself for this moment. He had suspected Bryna would have a choice to make when they found her, and he intended to see she had the freedom to make it.

  He opened the door. Bryna could hear the Englishman’s cultured voice ask worriedly from the outer room, “Is she..is she ready to see me yet, Colonel?”

  “Aye.” The wooden panel swung back to reveal the slender man. Even though she had expected to see him, Bryna’s breath caught. Under the beard and the turban and the shaggy brown hair was the same handsome young man who had haunted her dreams—Derek.

  He poised in the doorway, his hazel eyes locked on Bryna’s. The instant he saw the recognition on her face, he uttered a choked cry of relief and strode into the room, taking her into his arms. Neither seemed to notice when Blaine left, closing the door behind him.

  “Bryna, my love,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “We’ve found you at last.” Before she could speak, he kissed her.

  The feel of Derek’s lips on hers was pleasant and familiar. When he kissed her, Bryna was not unmoved, but his nearness did not stir the emotions in her it once had. So much had changed. He seemed more serious, and his face had an attractive, new maturity. And she knew she was a different person from that girl in Tangier.

  Drawing back, she gazed up at him with troubled eyes. “Derek, you do not know...many things have changed,” she began painfully.

&
nbsp; “I love you. That has not changed,” he interrupted, putting a silencing finger to her lips as he had months ago when he had proposed. “Do you remember how I feel about you?”

  “You said you loved me,” she confirmed softly.

  “And that I wanted to marry you. I still do. Please say you will be my wife as soon as we can get out of this godforsaken country.”

  “I am already married,” she said because she did not know what else to do.

  Bryna felt his arms tense around her before he released her, but the young Englishman’s manner was tolerant. “If it will make you feel better, we’ll have your Moslem marriage set aside when we get back to civilization. It means nothing. I won’t let Al Selim keep you here against your will anymore.”

  “Sharif would not do that,” Bryna protested, shocked that he would think such a thing.

  “What do you call locking a woman in a harem?” Derek asked, his voice becoming harsh as he paced. “Or giving her a different name? Or marrying her under false pretenses?”

  Suddenly Bryna felt weary, and the aching in her head returned with greater force than before. “I don’t know... I don’t know.”

  “I am sorry, darling. It is just that I have waited so long to find you, to know that you are mine.” Taking her hand, he said solicitously, “I know you are tired and you’ve had a terrible shock today. I can wait a little longer. I won’t press you.”

  “Merci,” she whispered, gently reclaiming her hand.

  When they joined the others in the outer room, Ernst looked up from the camel’s bridle he was mending and smiled approvingly. “Mashallah, now I see the reason we have searched all Arabia.”

  “Oui,” Blaine agreed, beaming at his daughter with paternal pride.

  “Bon soir, Mademoiselle O’Toole.” The Swiss guide rose and presented himself with a courtly bow. “I am Ernst Mann, guide and traveling companion of these demented kaffirs.”

  “How do you do, Monsieur Mann,” she greeted him. But her gracious smile faded when she heard the call to evening prayers from a nearby minaret. “I must send a message to Sharif,” she said to her father. “He is probably out of his mind with worry.”

  “You cannot, mademoiselle,” Ernst interjected, “if you do not wish to endanger our lives.”

  “Sheik Al Selim would not harm you.” Again Bryna found herself in the uncomfortable position of having to defend her husband.

  “No, but could he keep others from doing so? We are infidels—kaffirs—in the holy city of the Moslems.”

  “What he says is true, my lady,” a wiry man spoke in Arabic from the landing, where he had halted to listen to the conversation in the room above. “They would die terrible deaths, and so would I, for bringing them here. I beg you to reconsider.”

  “This is Mustafa, who is bringing our dinner. May I suggest that we eat, then talk of business?” Ernst said.

  Dinner was a noisy affair, with conversation conducted in French, English, and Arabic, depending on the pairings. Despite his initial disapproval of the unveiled woman, Mustafa took a liking to Bryna and was ecstatic to have someone new to talk to. Throughout the meal the four men regaled Bryna with tales of their adventures. When the meal was finished and they sipped their coffee, the conversation turned to plans for departure.

  “Whether you go or stay, mademoiselle, it will be better for the rest of us to go quickly,” Ernst said, summing up their situation.

  “You cannot consider staying,” Derek objected at once, “not now that you have a chance to go home.”

  “I do not know what to do,” Bryna confessed miserably. “I do not think I’ve ever been so confused. Not even when I couldn’t remember who I was. I must speak to Sharif.”

  “And so you shall,” her father declared firmly. “We both will...tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 24

  No one slept in the Selim household. It was nearly dawn when Sharif questioned the figure kneeling before him in his majlis. “Tell me once more, Abu Ahmad,” he interrogated the aged servant again. “You never saw her again after the boy ran through the market?”

  “No, my sheik. One moment the lady Farha was there, the next moment she was not. I saw no one following us, no one who wished to do us harm, I swear by the Prophet. I searched the bazaar, every stall, but no one saw her once the confusion started. And this was all I found to show she had been there at all.” He held out Bryna’s burqu toward the man.

  “Where can she be?” Sharif’s face was agonized. “Who could wish to harm her?”

  In a panic when Bryna had not returned that night, the sheik himself had searched the bazaar. Wise men said that evil lives in the two holy cities, for no sooner were pilgrims forgiven their sins than they sought others to take their place.

  He had frantically combed the deserted maze of streets that were Mecca, past the doors of coffeehouses closed for the night; past sleeping households; past mosques, where beggars and pilgrims slept, lining the walls. At last he had found Abu Ahmad seeking shelter in one of the mosques near the souk. The intrepid old warrior had feared to face the sheik’s fury if he came home without his mistress.

  “Please, my lord,” Abu Ahmad entreated, “fear not. As soon as it is light, I will search the market again. Surely someone saw something.”

  “My men and I will search with you,” the sheik said grimly. “We will find Farha if we must take Mecca apart.”

  “Insh’allah,” muttered one of his retainers. “And the dogs who have taken her will die this day.”

  “Perhaps no one has taken her,” Sharif mumbled more to himself than to the others. “Perhaps her memory has failed her once again.”

  Or perhaps, he thought wretchedly, it has returned.

  That morning, while Sharif and his men combed the souk, Abu Ahmad returned to the spot where he had lost his mistress. Nearby he found a stooped old crone who sold baskets, sitting in the sun. She rose respectfully when the man approached her. Yes, she thought she remembered the woman who stood near the barrels before they fell. But no, she had seen nothing else, only the excitement of the chase.

  “She was hurt when the barrels fell, sidi,” the woman’s grandson volunteered helpfully. “I saw it. Two men took care of her.”

  “What men?”

  “Two of the ones who are staying above the shop of the olive merchant.” The boy nodded to a doorway across the street. “I think she is there yet.”

  So that was how she had disappeared so quickly, Abu Ahmad realized with relief. She was simply taken in when she was injured. Then he scowled darkly. Two men helped her? He must tell his master immediately so Sharif could reclaim his wife before any harm was done.

  * * *

  Bryna awakened slowly to the rhythmic pounding from the other room as Mustafa prepared the morning coffee. Soon other noises drifted in from the street. Mecca was awake and beginning a new day. Sluggish after a poor night’s sleep, she rose and dressed, then went out to meet the others.

  In the majlis she found the air electric with tension. Mustafa fussed over breakfast, advising fretfully that the sheik’s men were already searching the market. Ernst did not seem to hear him. He ate silently, his mind full of plans for departure. Blaine sipped coffee and watched his daughter. Although he lounged on a cushion, he was poised, as if ready for action at an instant’s notice. But it was on Derek that Bryna’s gaze rested worriedly. He had already honed his sword this morning, and now he oiled his pistol, a preoccupied frown on his face. It was as if he were preparing for war instead of flight.

  After breakfast Ernst and Mustafa went to oversee the loading of the camels and Blaine disappeared into the bedchamber to gather his belongings. Sheathing his sword and tucking his pistol into his belt, Derek came to stand beside Bryna.

  She accepted the hand he offered and allowed him to pull her to her feet. The young man stood very close, but he did not touch her.

  “Bryna, I have been thinking,” he said huskily. “You are right. We’ve both changed a great deal in the past y
ear. In fact, it seems a lifetime ago since that night on the Mab and half a lifetime since I proposed to you in Tangier.

  “I don’t know if we will get out of Arabia alive, but I’m not sorry I came. I’ve learned a lot, about friendship and loyalty and love. You must believe me. It was not money or position or influence that brought me here, not all this way. I came for you. And somewhere on the journey, I realized why I had to find you, because I want to give instead of always taking, because I want what is best for you, because I love you.”

  Oh, Derek,” she whispered, her eyes brimming with tears. She did not know what to say.

  But the young man did not seem to expect an answer. He drew her into his arms and kissed her tenderly, savoring the feel of her in his arms. Then he released her and went outside without a backward look to prepare for the trip to Jidda.

  Turning, Bryna saw her father in the doorway, and her face crumpled. “I am so afraid I will do the wrong thing.” She wept, accepting the handkerchief he offered.

  “I know, chère. I worry for you, too,” Blaine said sympathetically, putting his arm around her shoulders. “But all will be well if you follow your heart. Whatever happens...Insh’allah. Your sheik would tell you so himself.”

  “Insh’allah, “ she repeated doggedly.

  As her father opened the door to the stairs at the back of the building, the sound of horsemen reached their ears.

  “It is Sharif,” Bryna said positively.

  “Stay here,” Blaine ordered. He paused just outside, blocking her way. “I do not want this sheik to haul you onto his horse and gallop away with you. He and I have a few things to discuss.”

  Over Blaine’s shoulder, Bryna could see Sharif and his men gallop into the dusty stable yard. The sheik led the way, Târiq rearing in the center, while his men ranged around the enclosure, cutting off Derek, Ernst, and Mustafa from the building.

  Sharif wasted no time in polite greeting. “I have come for my lady, Farha Al Selim.” His glare swept the courtyard. His retainers pulled their swords and brandished them in murderous warning at the men beside the camels. “Give her to me or you will surely die.”