For some unknown, nerve-racking reason, this enraged her more than anything else he had said. ‘How dare you!’ she spat. ‘To pass such an opinion implies an intimate knowledge of my character that you neither possess nor deserve. I will tell you, simply to disprove your theory, that my name is made up of the two first letters of my parents’ names—Donald and Vera.’
‘You have parents?’
She gained a small sense of victory when his eyebrows winged with surprise. ‘I have,’ she told him bitterly.
‘Unlike you, I was not fashioned out of granite and camel hide!’
Ignoring the insult, he stood up, pulling her with him and retaining his hold upon her arm until she was positioned beneath a pool of light cast by the swinging overhead lamp.
‘Eh bien, ma petite,’’ he murmured, seemingly quite at ease. ‘According to Arab custom it is forbidden for us to see one another during the next three days, but soon the omission you mentioned will be remedied. You will have no cause to complain about our lack of intimacy when next we meet—on our wedding day. Until then, may le bon dieu grant me restraint.’ With a suddenness that caught her completely off guard she was jerked into his arms and lips unprepared for his kiss were brushed with the mocking murmur, ‘But not just yet ...!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
For three days the camp had been alive with the sound of festivity as the men of the tribe indulged in the feasting and revelry from which the women were completely barred. Incarcerated inside her tent, Dove had been forced to rest until she had reached a state bordering on screaming boredom which, on the morning of the fourth day, was relieved only slightly when Naomi entered the tent laden with a confusing array of paraphernalia.
Dove looked up, her grey eyes sparkling indignation.
‘Oh, how well you look!’ Naomi dropped her bundles and clapped her hands. ‘My husband is a very wise man, is he not?’
‘I needed a rest,’ Dove agreed dryly, ‘but I didn’t expect to be entombed, or made a prisoner. For heaven’s sake, when am I to be allowed to leave this tent? I’m not used to inactivity, it’s driving me mad!’
‘Today.’ Naomi smiled, patting a bundle she had retrieved from the floor. ‘In here is your wedding dress. I have come to prepare you for the ceremony.’
Shock stopped Dove from replying. In spite of having lived with the threat of marriage to Marc Blais hanging over her head for the past three days she had never let herself believe that it could really happen. Somehow, something or someone would come to her aid, she had comforted herself, because this was the age of women’s liberation, slavery had long since been abolished, any outcome other than freedom was unthinkable!
As, almost reverently, Naomi unfolded from the bundle a gown fashioned out of flimsy white silk, she explained in a high, excited voice, ‘Before donning your finery we must wash your feet in a clean vessel and sprinkle the water in the corners of the tent so that a blessing may result from this. We will then brighten your face, adorn your eyes with kohl, and stain your hands and feet with henna. You may have noted,’ she chattered on, confusing Dove utterly, ‘that nothing you have eaten during the last three days has contained mustard, vinegar, or sour apples.’
It was really too much of an effort to enquire why these items had been banned, so dumbly, storing up her defiance for later, Dove submitted to Naomi’s ministrations. But when the girl reached for the henna she rebelled.
‘No, thank you, Naomi,’ she stepped out of reach, clasping her hands behind her back.
‘But you must!’ the girl protested. ‘Henna is an essential protection against the devil who, if he is allowed, will make husband and wife fight! ’ Unable to understand the reason behind Dove’s hollow laughter, she persisted, ‘Please, let me smear just a little on your hands and feet.’
But Dove was adamant. ‘No henna,’ she insisted, determined to win at least one small battle.
‘Then take this.’ With a worried frown, Naomi handed over an amulet. ‘Slip it beneath the nuptial bed. Inside the tent that has been prepared for yourself and your husband I have left an egg which you must break as soon as you cross the threshold in order to induce fertility, for if you fail to give your husband a son your residence under his roof will be of short duration.’
To calm her, Dove nodded agreement, while privately resolving that at whatever cost the egg must remain intact!
When Naomi slipped the gown over her head Dove was shocked. It was sheer—high-necked, long-sleeved, with a skirt that fell to her ankles—yet was so transparent it revealed every curve of breasts, waist, and thigh. ‘I couldn’t possibly go outside wearing this!’ she gasped. ‘How, when you Arabs are so notoriously prudish, can you justify the wearing of such a revealing gown?’
‘It is for your husband’s eyes alone!’ Naomi was scandalised. ‘Although the nuptial tent is but a short distance away, you will be heavily veiled and cloaked so that your beauty is concealed from all other eyes but his.’ She stepped back, offering Dove a small hand mirror. ‘Well, what do you think? Are you not a glowing bride?’
Not even to please Naomi could Dove feign interest in her reflected image. Grey eyes looked alien behind heavy rings of kohl. Stars and crescents fashioned out of wafer-thin gold—good luck charms loaned by the women of the tribe—fringed her forehead and perched incongruously on top of her head was a cardboard crown over which was to be draped her headdress, the fine cashmere shawl Naomi was holding in readiness, draped fondly over her arm.
‘You are pleased?’ Naomi almost pleaded.
Dove shrugged. ‘All this means nothing to me, I’m completely indifferent.’
The girl looked worried, her lips parted as if to speak, but she changed her mind. Then prodded by an urge to help, she blurted, ‘I sense that all is not well between yourself and Monsieur Blais—however, desire in the eyes of a bride can be a strong power.’
She had not thought it possible for Dove’s face to whiten even more, yet it looked ashen when she murmured, a far from happy bride, ‘Perhaps, Naomi, but from the satisfaction of desire can arise despair ...’ Muffled up to the eyes in a cloak and many scarves, she was later escorted by the women of the tribe to the tent that had been specially erected for the bridal pair. It was similar in size to the one she had left, the floor carpeted as before, but taking pride of place was a sleeping couch draped with blue silken covers embroidered with the lucky bridal omens of stars, crescents and circles denoting everlasting love. In the centre of the tent was a chair—the throne on which the queen was to await her king—but after Naomi had ushered out the giggling women, she dared to confess: ‘There is a spyhole in the wall of the tent through which we can watch the festivities. It is not allowed, but some of us disobey the rules now and again, for how,’ her slim shoulders lifted in an artless shrug, ‘if we are unaware of what pleases our men, are we to know, when our turn comes around, how to give them pleasure?’
Feeling like a trussed and painted doll, and with the same lack of emotion, Dove joined Naomi who was peering out of one of two holes that had conveniently appeared, at just the right height, in the wall of the tent. They looked out on to a man-made arena, a circle of pushing, shoving, gesticulating men whose attentions were pinned upon two animals pacing the perimeter of the circle made by the crowd. The animals were rams with twisted horns and tails hanging heavily with fat, their skins shorn almost to a shave.
‘Make way, make way for the lion of the desert! ’ called out a man in charge of one of the rams. ‘Make way, and see how my warrior will devour the miserable goat of my adversary!’
The man in charge of the other ram jeered and shouted back praises of his ram. ‘My ram could fight an elephant, if there were any in this barren desert!’
They then released the rams and skipped out of the way as, with fire in their eyes, the rams began butting each other. One ran round the circle and charged at his enemy. Repeatedly, they rose on their hind legs, thudding once, twice, three times before, to Dove’s horror, their horns became e
ntwined. Sickened, yet unable to force her eyes away, she watched the two owners separate the rams who, once they were released, ran backward, then hurled themselves against each other with renewed fury. Dove’s heart thudded in time with drums beating out an hypnotic rhythm, the sound rising above the noise of men shouting themselves hoarse as they formed into rival camps, urging on the ram of their choice.
Dove’s sympathies were with the smaller ram, so she felt heartened when it began beating its larger opponent towards the edge of the circle. Panting and foaming, the larger animal, maddened by the pain of a broken horn, charged like a demon at the little ram which, much to her relief, avoided the thud, gave him a broadside and brought him to his knees. Painfully, he rose, only to receive some more of the same treatment. Defeated, he retreated not just to the edge of the circle but straight through the crowd and into the desert where he could nurse his pain in peace.
When a rich throaty roar erupted from the throats of the men Dove turned aside, aching with pity for both animals, the vanquished and the victorious, angered by the barbaric pageant enacted for the enjoyment of savages, one of whom would shortly make his way into the tent to proclaim himself her husband!
‘I must leave you now.’ Naomi frowned, worried by the bride’s unseemly lack of emotion. ‘After the men have finished eating they will accompany the bridegroom three times around the nuptial tent, banging it with canes to expel any evil spirits that might have found entrance within. Only when they are certain it is safe will the bridegroom be allowed inside.’
‘Must you go?’ Dove pleaded as Naomi made her way towards the exit. ‘They’ll be eating for hours yet, stay and talk to me, please!’
‘I cannot!’ Naomi wrung her hands, moved almost to tears. ‘Tonight my husband has commanded that I wait upon him. I must have time to prepare.’
Feeling mentally and physically frozen, Dove sank into the chair. Night had fallen and the air had grown chilly. She huddled into the cloak, trying to instil warmth into a body unacclimatised to sudden, vicious cold, completely unprotected by the diaphanous gown. For what seemed hours the men’s meal dragged on, yet she could not bring herself to care about the fact that she could no longer move limbs grown stiff with cold, nor even find the energy to move her position on the hard, unyielding chair.
When finally a sound penetrated her frozen stupor, the sound of many footsteps circling the tent, of sticks smacking hard against the leather, she felt too ill to care. Cold had numbed every nerve so that she was incapable of moving so much as an eyelid when the tent curtain parted and her bridegroom stood inside.
‘Mon dieu!’ She wondered if she had dreamt the fierce whisper. ‘What have they done to you!’
She cried out in agony when he jerked her to her feet and began forcing her to walk, stopping every now and again to massage her limbs, carrying out the exercise until he was satisfied that blood was once more coursing hot and vital through her veins.
‘Idiote!’ he ground, before scooping her into his arms to deposit her on the couch. He lay down beside her, wrapping her so tightly against him with his heavy cloak she could feel the thud of his heartbeats, the heavenly warmth of him flowing into her body, the strength of arms enfolding her like protective wings.
Compassion gained him victory where force would not. With a sigh of contentment she relaxed against him and slept, unaware that her childish trust had condemned him to endure a night, prolonged as a lifetime, crammed with frustrated doubts.
Her sleep was relaxed yet not undisturbed; many times during the night she stirred, her mind vaguely troubled, only to be comforted with a soothing murmur, a tightening of cradling arms and even once a feather-light kiss upon her eyelids. But when morning came she opened her eyes and found herself alone. She jerked upright, staring dazedly at the wedding gown she still wore, then long and hard at the pillow next to her own bearing an indentation where a dark head had rested.
In that startling second dreams became reality.
She had spent the night in Marc’s arms; the warmth, the tenderness, the cosseting she had imagined were part of a beautiful dream had unbelievably occurred! Her cheeks burned as, searching her mind, she recalled pressing close to a rock-hard body in search of warmth, of rubbing her cheek against a chest downed with fine hairs, that had tickled her nose and made her want to sneeze; the drumbeat thudding in her ears had not been an echo retained from the festivities but the beat of his heart, a steady, even throb that had not been allowed to accelerate even though the temptation must have been great!
She was still staring blankly into space when he entered the tent looking well-groomed and freshly shaven. When he saw that she was awake he crossed over to the couch and without speaking sat down on its edge. Slowly, quizzically, he took stock of her anxious face.
‘How are you this morning?’ he asked gravely. ‘Feeling any after-effects?’
‘None at all,’ she stumbled, mentally adding: unless you count dismay and burning embarrassment!
‘Good.’ His reply was absent. A tide of colour swept into her cheeks. There was something in his look she did not understand, it was as if he were examining thoroughly a face he had never seen before, his interest as intense as his concentration. When she could no longer bear the pulsating silence, she blurted:
‘I seem to recall ... I vaguely remember ...’
‘Spending the night in the arms of your husband?’ he helped out dryly.
‘Yes ... No! That’s silly,’ she stammered, ‘because for one thing, I don’t consider that you are my husband and for another, we didn’t spend the night together—at least ...’
‘Not in the sense I had intended.’ Once again he deliberately misinterpreted her thoughts.
Confused colour stampeded in her cheeks. ‘You’re purposely trying to embarrass me,’ she told him with an attempted dignity. Suddenly aware of the see-through quality of her gown, she reached for the bedcover and pulled it up to her chin, directing a glare of indignation his way.
To her dismay he responded by reaching out to tug the blue cover with its spattering of symbolic charms out of her tightly clenched fists. ‘How like a woman,’ he regarded her coolly, ‘to spend hours in a man’s arms and then pretend coyness in the light of day. Night madness, daylight sanity, is that it?’
Feeling naked under his clinical eye, she gasped, ‘Why must you insist upon implying an intimacy that doesn’t exist? All right,’ she became reckless, ‘I admit that we spent the night together, but as a brother and sister would, as two strangers might if they were forced by circumstances, as we were.’
She had no idea what she had said to light the kindling of flame that flickered dangerously in his eyes as he leant closer, sending her cowering into the cushions.
‘As two strangers might! That is exactly it! If I allow you out of here with the bloom of naivete still upon your cheeks the sharp-eyed Bedouin will not be deceived. Woman of the East are taught guile in their cradles, but you, grey dove, carry an aura of innocence that only a man’s passion will erase. I give you a choice—accompany me on the honeymoon Rahma insists we must share, or remain here in the camp where, if I am to retain the respect of my friends, I must parade before them a wife who is seen to be submissive, adoring, and much loved.’
Dove was left in no doubt that he meant every word of the steadily uttered ultimatum. His pride was as fierce as that of any true son of Adam, a pride he would retain at whatever cost to herself. She swallowed to clear her throat of fluttering panic and managed to whisper:
‘A honeymoon, you said? But where ... and what about the children?’
‘There is an oasis just a day’s ride from here where we can stay long enough to satisfy Rahma that the proprieties have been observed. The children are perfectly happy here; a helicopter will be sent to pick them up as soon as their father decides it is safe for them to return to the palace.’ He rose to his feet, anticipating her decision. ‘I’ll leave you to get ready—don’t be long, I want to set off before the whole camp
is astir.’
She fumbled her way into the loose shift and cloak Marc had left beside the couch, then, winding a long scarf Arab-fashion around her head, she hurried from the tent wishing, as she approached his waiting figure, that she could say goodbye to the children yet reluctant to waken them at such an early hour.
There were very few of the tribe about as they left the camp to cross the lonely desert. It was a grey morning with little wind, the beginning of a day that was to pass almost entirely in silence. For the first few hours Dove hardly noticed, glad of the opportunity to sort out her thoughts, to become accustomed once more to the rolling gait of the camel, and to plan for the future, plans that did not include Marc Blais, the desert, or even the children. She had to return home. She would take the best-paid job she could find, then clear off the debt she owed him in small but regular instalments. She did him the justice of owning that he cared nothing for the money; he had simply wanted a hold over her, an incentive to make her stay. But that was now impossible. Nothing on earth, she decided, could induce her to remain for a day longer than was necessary. She dared not! Not when she had committed the ultimate folly of falling in love with a man whom she had been expressly forbidden to love, a desert nomad who valued his freedom above all else, a man, what was more, who could not hide his contempt for every member of her sex.
She had come to terms with the fact that morning, had allowed her honest heart to acknowledge that last night, although the happiest she had ever spent, had not been enough. She had wanted more, much more! Which was why she had to get away before the taunting devil discovered her secret.
Marc gave no clue to the thoughts that cast a morose shadow across his features. He spared sufficient attention to help Dove dismount from the camel when they stopped to prepare a meal, enquired once if her head was sufficiently protected from the sun but otherwise, as they travelled weary, hot miles of uninhabited sand, she might, so far as he was concerned, have been invisible.
Just when she was sure she had reached the end of her endurance they came upon a well trodden track. Her spirits lightened but after a while began to droop again as they journeyed further miles without seeing a sign of habitation. Fatigue was an ache throbbing through her body when at last she caught a glimpse of green, then distinguished fields of wheat being watered from trip buckets raised from wells by animals descending ramps.
Son of Adam Page 13