by Mary Lyons
They had been met at the airport by one of the most ancient-looking cars she had ever seen. Wheezing and gasping as if at its last breath, it had moved slowly along a winding. road behind their official escort--an equally old Landrover--which had raised such a cloud of blinding dust that it wasn’t until Badyr tapped her on the shoulder that she had realised that they had arrived at the Sultan’s palace.
Peering out of the car’s dusty window, she had been amazed and struck speechless by the sheer size of the mammoth, grey stone fortress-like building, hardly able to believe that this was where she was going to live. Built in the sixteenth century by the Portuguese to guard the entrance to the port of Muria, the capital of Dhoman, it was still heavily dominating the old walled city all these hundreds of years later.
Later that evening, as she and Badyr were changing their clothes prior to the first official meeting with the Sultan, Leonie had shivered as she gazed at her surroundings. Despite the heat, the stark grey stone walls gave off an unpleasant, clammy chill—accurately reflecting the frigidly cold welcome to her son’s wife extended by Badyr’s mother, the Sultana Zenobia. The only cheerful face had been that of his sister, Maryam, a pretty young girl of fourteen, who had given Leonie a shy smile of welcome.
When she and Badyr had walked through the great Moorish arch into the castle--the heavy wooden door thundering ominously as it was closed firmly behind them--he had mentioned that his father, the Sultan, had his own private apartments, and that they would be living with his mother whose large, private quarters were known as the Harem.
Leonie had felt inclined to giggle at first hearing of such an archaic arrangement, far more reminiscent of the Caliphs of Baghdad than the modern-day world! However, after what little she had seen of the palace, all desire to laugh had abruptly vanished. As for Badyr’s mother—while clearly doting on her son, the older woman had made it instantly and quite unmistakably obvious that she did not approve of his marriage.
Later that evening, Leonie had still been trying to dismiss the lump of depression in her stomach and think positively about her situation. It hadn’t been easy. As she had wandered disconsolately through the suite of rooms which had been allocated to them, she had shivered at the sight of the dank walls, bare of any ornament or decoration. All this place needed to make it a real home from home, she had thought almost hysterically, was a rack and some thumbscrews! Defiantly humming a tune under her breath in a vain attempt to try and keep up her spirits, she had slowly retraced her steps into the bedroom
Pausing on the threshold, her eyes had widened as she gazed at her husband. Badyr had finished dressing, his tall figure clothed in a simple, long white robe, edged about the neck and down the front by bands of gold thread. A large, curved ceremonial dagger, whose hilt and scabbard were made from heavily engraved solid gold, had been plunged through the front of the thick, wide gold belt clasping his slim waist; the only splash of colour being the length of shimmering multi-coloured silk wound intricately about his head to form a turban, the fringed end of which rested on his left shoulder.
Watching as he slipped on a flowing white silk cloak, edged like his robe with thick bands of gold, Leonie had blinked her eyes several times in an effort to clear her stunned mind. Talk about the Sheikh of Araby! Badyr had looked . . . well, there was no doubt that he looked absolutely sensational!
Unfortunately, it had seemed that Badyr took a less than enthusiastic view of her own apparel. His mouth had tightened with annoyance as he viewed the low-cut bodice of a long, sapphire-blue chiffon dress, supported by thin strips of satin tied in a bow on her bare shoulders.
‘Wallah—Leonie! You can’t possibly wear that!’ he had exclaimed in a harsh, rough voice. ‘Don’t you realise that my father would have a fit if he saw you in that creation? You must wear a dress that has long sleeves and which completely covers all your flesh. Surely you have such a garment?’
'In this climate? Are you crazy? Of course I haven’t!’ she had snapped: It had been a long, tiring day and she had felt as if she was going to burst into tears at any moment.
Badyr had taken no notice of her outburst, striding over to the heavily carved wardrobe, the only piece of furniture in the room other than the huge bed, to look swiftly through her clothes.
‘You are right, there is nothing here that is suitable,’ he had muttered. 'However--yes, this will do.’
‘That . . .? But . . . but it’s only something to wear on the beach!’ Leonie had looked with dismay at the plain black, flimsy garment. Made from fine lawn and cut in the shape of a caftan, it might be just the thing to wear over a swimsuit, but there had been no way it was going to be suitable for this evening’s reception.
‘Beach—what beach?’ Badyr had given a harsh, sardonic laugh. ‘Where do you think we are, the South of France? Surely you can’t have been so foolish as to imagine that you will be allowed to sunbathe or go swimming, here in Dhoman?’
‘But I thought . . .’
‘You’re not expected to think, Leonie!’ he had snapped curtly. ‘Just do as you’re told, and put that dress on as quickly as possible. My father is a great stickler for punctuality and will be furious if we are late.'
She had been much too shocked by the sudden and completely unexpected change in her husband’s personality to do more than snatch the material from his hands and run blindly towards the bathroom. How could Badyr, who had always been so kind and gentle, talk to her in that harsh, caustic tone? And why she had to wear this caftan, she had had absolutely no idea. Wiping the tears of self-pity from her eyes, she had contemplated the black sack-like dress with distaste.
‘Well, I hope you’re satisfied? she had grumbled, as she had walked slowly back into the bedroom. ‘As far as I’m concerned, I think I look simply awful.’
‘We have no time to worry about how you feel, it is far more important not to keep my father waiting,' he had retorted sternly, taking her hand and leading her swiftly from the room.
Her first meeting with the Sultan had proved to be something of an ordeal. A small thin man, he had slowly entered the large room where she and Badyr, together with his mother and sister, were waiting. Moving in majestic silence towards a low throne, he had completely ignored his wife, his daughter and the son whom he hadn’t seen for some years, as he beckoned Leonie over to sit on the carpet beside him. She hadn’t known what to do, so she had remained sitting quietly, peering up cautiously through her eyelashes at the austere, melancholic expression on his face.
After an interminable silence, he had turned towards her, his large dark eyes almost sleepy-looking beneath their heavy eyelids, and politely asked if she had enjoyed her journey, and was there anything that she required?
Leonie had been struck dumb, completely nonplussed by his question, which had been spoken in perfect English. What on earth was she supposed to say? A quick glance at Badyr’s stern face had given her no assistance, although his dark eyes seemed to be trying to tell her something. But what? She had hesitated and then, remembering how she hadn’t been able to understand a word of the argument between Badyr and his aunt, she had asked if she could have a tutor to help her to learn Arabic.
The sudden, electrifying tension which swept through the room as she voiced her simple request had been very frightening. Nobody had moved, nobody had spoken a word, yet all the members of his family had seemed to be waiting with bated breath for the reaction of Sultan Raschid.
‘Hmm,' he had murmured, after a lengthy pause. ‘I do not normally believe in education, and especially not for women, of course,' he had added, giving her a wintry smile. ‘Perhaps you are not aware of the interesting fact, but it is precisely because the British were so foolish as to educate the masses in India, that they lost their empire.’
The Sultan had seemed to be expecting an answer. ‘No, I . . . didn’t know that,’ she had mumbled, wishing that she had never opened her mouth. There was no doubt that Badyr's father was a very peculiar old man, but this was clearly neither the
time, or indeed the place, to publicly disagree with his nonsensical statement about education in the Indian sub-continent.
‘However, learning to speak our ancient language is something of which I am prepared to approve,’ Sultan Raschid had said, after another long silence. ‘It shall be arranged.' He had stood up. ‘I will now retire and hold a private conversation with my son.’
Surprised and bewildered by the palpable sighs of relief with which the Sultan’s pronouncement had been received, Leonie had scrambled to her feet on legs which felt numb; it had been obvious that sitting on a hard floor for any length of time was an art she had yet to acquire. By the time she had risen, the Sultan had whisked himself out of the room, with Badyr moving swiftly in his wake. Looking around, she had been disconcerted to receive an ice-cold glare of dislike from Sultana Zenobia, before she had spoken sharply to her young daughter. Maryam, who seemed the only normal person in the extraordinary palace set-up, had smiled and given Leonie a friendly wink, before she hurried away from her mother.
Left totally on her own, Leonie had had no idea what she was supposed to do. After many false turnings and getting completely lost once or twice, she had found her own suite of rooms. Sitting all alone for what seemed liked eternity, she had eventually taken off her dress and crawled miserably into bed. There had been no sign of Badyr, and she had finally drifted off to sleep, her cheeks damp with unhappy tears.
That first evening at the palace in Dhoman had been a precursor of all that was to follow: long periods of silent loneliness, interrupted by occasional meetings with the Sultan, who had surprised everyone by taking a considerable interest in his son’s new wife. Other than copies of the Koran--printed in Arabic, of course--there had been no books in the palace, and since Leonie had omitted to bring any reading material with her to Dhoman, she had frequently given thanks to whatever had prompted her request for tuition in Arabic. She had been convinced that without the daily lessons she would have gone stark, staring mad.
Badyr’s mother, Zenobia, had made life in the palace as uncomfortable for her son’s wife as she possibly could, never letting up on what Leonie came to see as the older woman’s relentless, guerrilla warfare. Meal times would be suddenly and unexpectedly altered for no reason, and more often than not Leonie would go downstairs to find that all the food had been eaten. After a while it had seemed easier to arrange for her personal servant, Hussa, to bring the food to her rooms--thus increasing her lonely isolation.
The main pinprick, until Leonie began to master the intricacies of the extremely difficult language, had been her mother-in-law’s refusal to speak to her in anything but Arabic, although Leonie knew from Maryam that the older woman possessed a good command of English. The servants, of course, only spoke in their own language, and she had been reduced to spending hours acting out the simplest requests, which often resulted in tears of frustration on her part unless she could find Maryam and gain her assistance.
It had been Maryam, a bright and amusing fourteen-year-old, who had helped Leonie to retain her sanity. lt had seemed that there was nothing the young girl didn’t know about what was going on in the palace, and also in the country at large. It had been through Maryam that she had first come to know that the Sultan had another wife, the Sultana Fatima, and two other young daughters who lived in a far wing of the palace.
‘Mother and Fatima get on very well. Fatima’s so fat and lazy that she always agrees with everything Mother says,’ Maryam had grinned. ‘However, the most important aid to their friendship is that Fatima hasn’t produced a son, who might have threatened Badyr’s chance of succeeding my father as Sultan. That’s been my mother’s greatest fear. She didn’t want Badyr to come back here,’ Maryam had added with a worried frown. ‘Not when father’s so . . . well, so odd--if you know what I mean?’
Leonie had known exactly what she meant. Sultan Raschid, who at first sight had seemed to be such a benign, if somewhat peculiar old man, had turned out to be not only odd and eccentric, but a man of whom his wife, Zenobia, was clearly terrified. When Leonie had seen that hard, tough and ambitious woman quailing with fear in his presence, she had recalled the words of Badyr’s aunt in Abu Dhabi. Had it been Sultan Raschid to whom she had referred as ‘very dangerous?
The edicts issued by the Sultan: banning such items as sunglasses, the live playing of music and radios, cigarettes, dancing, all travel between towns without a permit, and even the wearing of trousers by men, had been irritating but relatively harmless. However, it was his fierce, obdurate refusal to spend any of his vast oil revenues on important and necessary items such as schooling or medicine that had led to the present unrest and rebellion in the western part of the country. There were, apparently, only three small primary schools in the whole of Dhoman, and no hospitals or health service other than that offered by a small clinic in Muria, run by a dedicated group of American doctors.
Outside the Sultan’s palace, his subjects were living a life of unrelieved hardship, their dire poverty compounded by the dreadful conditions in which they lived. Malaria was rife, tuberculosis and trachom--that dreadful, blinding disease of the eyes--were chronic conditions which affected most of the inhabitants.
Inside the palace, the old grey walls almost shook and trembled with the ferocity of the daily rows between father and son. Badyr, who was growing increasingly tense and angry at his inability to persuade the Sultan to distribute some of his wealth among his people, had told her that the infant mortality was among the highest in the world.
‘No wonder my father doesn’t bother to build any more schools,’ he had raged one evening when they were alone in the privacy of their suite. ‘Judging by the way the poor, tragic little babies are dying, there will be no need for more school places. Is it any wonder that many of our people are beginning to listen to Marxist propaganda? Who can blame them for seeking to overthrow my father’s unjust, uncaring rule?’
Quite apart from her imprisonment within the harem quarters of the palace, and the deliberate unkindness of Sultana Zenobia, Leonie’s difficulties had been compounded by the fact that Badyr was so often absent. He rose early, and only returned to their rooms in the palace late at night. She had no idea where he went or whom he saw, since he categorically refused to discuss the matter. It had only been from Maryam that she learnt of his secret talks with some of the influential tribal Sheikhs, and even more secret meetings with members of the Sultan’s army and air force.
Increasingly, it had seemed as if the only moments she and Badyr shared together were those when he slid silently into bed at night, often waking her from an uneasy sleep as he sought the comfort of her arms. As the weeks had passed by, his lovemaking became more intense and more strained. It had been as though he wasn’t making love to her any more, but somehow trying to exorcise his increasing frustration and anger with his father, by demonstrating his ruthless dominance of her body.
She had tried very hard to be understanding. She had known how frustrated Badyr was by his father’s obstinate refusal to discuss the affairs of the country, and she had realised that his position was becoming even more untenable than her own. But there appeared to be little she could do to prevent herself from becoming increasingly resentful, both of the way he had virtually abandoned her in this vast palace, and his use of her body to gain physical and emotional relief.
Being able to wear a king’s ransom in jewellery, and clothed in the rich silk and satin gowns given to her by Badyr, meant nothing--not when compared to the loss of her liberty and the increasing tension between them. Eventually, of course, she had rebelled; rejecting his approaches and refusing to respond to his demands. And it had been then that their relationship quickly disintegrated into what seemed a war of attrition. Badyr had no longer whispered soft, sweet, tender words of love. With savage, bitter determination he had broken through the barriers she tried to erect between them, and using all the sexual mastery at his command he had aroused her weak flesh until she had been helpless, unable to do anything
but respond feverishly to his lovemaking; her eyes filling with tears of shame and humiliation as night after night he had cruelly demonstrated her physical weakness.
‘We can’t go on like this, Badyr—we simply can’t!’ she had cried hopelessly one evening, impotently beating her fists against the hard body pinning her to the bed. ‘
‘Why not?’ he had demanded with bitter ferocity. ‘Your body is crying out for my touch!’
‘No . . .!’
‘You lie,’ he had grated thickly, grasping her wrists and pinning them above her head. ‘I’m an experienced man, Leonie, and I KNOW when a woman is crazy with
desire for me,’ he had added cruelly.
He had been right, Leonie admitted to herself later, writhing with self-contempt. There had seemed to be nothing she could do to prevent herself from submitting to his demands. He had only to look at her and she trembled with desire, her flesh melting at his slightest
touch.
Despite her pleas, he had made love to her that night with a desperate intensity that far surpassed anything she had experienced before. It was as if he was demanding not only her submission to his bodily needs, but her total subjection to his will, withholding complete satisfaction until she begged and pleaded for mercy. The passion that exploded between them following her moaning, abject capitulation had been savage and brutal, leaving Leonie to mourn the final nail in the coffin of all her hopes and dreams; weeping for the loss of warm, tender love as she found herself trapped in the dark forces of a living hell.