Hagar noted the change in Cecile almost at once but said nothing. The time for words was past. She merely wondered what had happened yesterday when the two had rode off into the desert together. In the evening when Jali had visited, he had told her he’d seen them return, covered with sand, their horses lathered with sweat. The conclusion Hagar’s mind wanted to draw was obvious, for which reason she rejected it. Between El Faris and Al Dhiba nothing was obvious. She sighed.
In a little over a week they would reach the coast. Many of El Faris’s people would leave him then, to linger near the desert until the coming of winter, and he would go on to Oman, a journey of three more weeks.
Hagar wondered what she herself would do. It was no longer clear in her mind. She wanted to see what was going to happen between El Faris and the she-wolf he had so aptly named. She smiled.
Al Dhiba was noble, brave, and, like the wolf, cunning. Perhaps more than she knew. She would, indeed, protect what was hers. She would claim it when she realized it was hers, and woe be to a rival! For, unlike other animals, the she-wolf mated exclusively. She would brook no competition. Hagar almost pitied Aza, “little dear one.”
Furthermore, she did not think she would have to travel all the way to Oman to see what would transpire. The tension was nearly palpable. It must break soon.
Early in the afternoon the Shamal returned. Word was passed through the caravan that they would continue on forced march all that day and the next. There was a good well ahead, and there they would camp for at least two nights. Both water and supplies were running low. The men would hunt while the women foraged in the desert for its sparse fruits.
Cecile was glad of the news. She bore the extended travel stoically, welcoming the fatigue it brought. When they camped for the night, she did not even bother to search for Aza, but lay her sleeping quilt at Hagar’s side. The old woman did not protest. Normal life had been suspended.
At the end of the second day, they came to the well. It was protected, the dunes soaring around them, bringing some relief from the raging Shamal. Camp was pitched, the animals watered, and routine resumed.
It had been difficult raising their tent in the wind. Tiny Aza was out of breath, her features glistening with moisture by the time they had finished. Cecile was filled with restless energy.
They sat together in their quarters. While Aza prepared the fire, Cecile spread their quilts. The younger girl smiled at her. “Thank you, Al Dhiba,” she said. “With two of us, the work is light, is it not? We are spoiled, I think.” She giggled and gestured around her. “Look at all our husband has given us. Tonight with the last of our stores, I shall cook him a special dinner.”
Cecile said nothing, merely nodded. She rose. “There is something I’ve forgotten,” she said in response to Aza’s questioning gaze. “I must get it from Hagar’s tent.”
The old woman looked up in surprise when Cecile entered. She arched her brows but remained silent.
Cecile smiled. “I have come for the rest of my things,” she said simply.
Hagar nodded toward the qash. “Go ahead,” she replied evenly. “The things I have given you are yours to keep. It is right you take them … now.”
Cecile knelt and swiftly made a bundle of the towb, makruna, and jacket. At Hagar’s bidding, she included the sliver of mirror and the coral necklace.
“Go now,” Hagar directed, “and properly enter your husband’s tent.”
Biting her lip, Cecile held back the too-quick reply. She was all action now, not thought. She took her things and left.
Aza watched Cecile carefully fold the items away in her box. She was pleased when Al Dhiba then brought forth a brand-new towb and makruna. She laughed happily when the copper jewelry followed, and clapped her tiny hands. “Oh,” she sighed. “You will look so beautiful. Our husband will be so glad!”
Cecile merely looked at her. She picked up a water skin and solemnly left the tent.
Aza was puzzled when Cecile returned, sat in the middle of the carpet, and disrobed. Puzzlement turned to shock when Cecile took a soft, clean cloth, wet it, and proceeded to wash.
Aza’s heart constricted, though she bravely endeavored to hide her emotion. A Badawin woman only bathed this way when she had lain with her husband. Is that what had passed between El Faris and Al Dhiba when they had ridden into the desert together?
It was ignoble, she knew, but jealousy stabbed at her heart. Is this why her husband had slept with, but not taken, her since their wedding night? Had he longed for Al Dhiba? If he had, why had he not simply called Al Dhiba to his bed? It was the Badawin way.
No matter how hard she tried, Aza could decide on no explanation for the apparent turn of events. El Faris and Al Dhiba had made love together, or they had not. Either way, she consoled herself, they would soon reach the coast and Al Dhiba would leave them. This she was sure of, for there had been no word to the contrary from either Al Dhiba or their husband. Soon, yes, Al Dhiba would be gone.
Yet Aza was not comforted. Especially when she viewed the results of Al Dhiba’s ablutions.
Clean at last, Cecile dressed in the new towb. Her flesh tingled as the soft material slid down over her body. She cinched her waist with the red belt and sat down to attend to her hair.
It was clean but for the sand that clung to it. She untied her braids and brushed until her hair shone and crackled beneath her fingers. Then she deftly refashioned the plaits and wound the new makruna around her head. She fastened the earrings through her ears and slipped the bracelets over her hands. Badawin style, she pushed two above each elbow and let the rest clink at her wrists just below the fall of the wide, full sleeves.
“You are very beautiful,” Aza offered generously, and sighed. She took a long, shivering breath, held it briefly, and said, “I would be honored if you … if you would take our husband’s dinner to him this night.”
Aza was not quite sure what she felt when Al Dhiba declined. Many things. Which she was left to ponder alone when the other turned and strode from the tent.
Dawn of the following day the hunters rode into the desert with laden-packed camels, as well as horses, for they would have to ride far to find game. It was a small band only, led by El Faris. The women spread out across the dunes, searching for their own contributions to the dwindling stores.
Aza and Cecile set out together, though the younger girl was now oddly uneasy in the other’s presence. Aza glanced at Al Dhiba and remembered what had occurred the previous night.
Nothing actually, or so it had appeared on the surface. Al Dhiba had returned shortly after she had left, apparently to obtain more goat-hair thread from Hagar. Then she had sat at her loom and calmly proceeded to weave for the rest of the afternoon.
Yet there was tension in the air. Aza had felt it. By the time their husband had come to the tent at dusk, it was almost unendurable.
She had expected something to happen then, but it had not. He had looked in on them, and had noted Al Dhiba’s appearance, she could tell. Aza had seen the barely perceptible widening of his eyes, the look of approval. But he had said nothing, acknowledging Al Dhiba’s beauty with the scarcest of nods.
Aza had feared Al Dhiba would be offended. But she had not appeared to be. Serene, she had resumed her weaving.
When night fell and they had crawled into their quilts, Aza had lain trembling. Would he call for Al Dhiba now? she wondered. Was that the reason for the unabated tension? Was it what all three of them had seemed to have been waiting for?
But no, he had not called. To either of them. Aza did not know what was happening, and she was frightened.
Now, in an effort to ease her discomfort, she approached Cecile and shyly touched her hand. “Come,” she said. “This way, I will show you how to hunt for that which grows beneath the sand.”
Cecile nodded, having wrapped the end of the makruna across her nose and mouth. The wind whipped her skirt, and sand swirled about her ankles as she followed Aza to the base of a nearby dune.
Only a pitiful, straggling growth marked the treasure hidden beneath the ground. Aza dug in the sand and triumphantly extracted a bulb. “This is at-tita,” she explained. “From it we will make a dish called mutita.”
The explanations and discoveries continued. Cecile was amazed at how much could be found on the desert when one looked. Besides the at-tita they gathered tel, the dark red fruit of a thorny shrub which would be boiled into thick syrup, and they collected the sweet fragrant juice of the rimt shrub.
The steadily blowing Shamal forced them inside finally, to shake the sand from their clothes and breathe a little easier for a time. For the remainder of the day, they made bread, hamida, and reconstituted leben from the store of igt. They also made a fresh supply of date paste and a thin gruel consisting of ground wheat, water, and salt. The tel syrup would be poured on top.
“And by tomorrow afternoon,” Aza said, “if the hunters have been lucky, we will have fresh meat.”
Cecile looked up. “They return tomorrow? Are you certain?”
“This is what our husband said. He does not wish to be gone from camp too long. They will try to return by midday on the morrow, before the hours when the Shamal blows its fiercest.”
Cecile nodded slowly, absently, the idea only half-formed. She wasn’t even sure where it had come from, or what would happen if she carried through with it. The reality of it seemed far off yet. She knew only that it was something she must do. The urge was as unremitting, as hotly insistent as the unending desert wind.
Though the Shamal had not gathered its full force, Matthew hurried, almost able to sense the strange disturbance in the air. The going was slow, however, the camels laden with the spoils of their hunt. There was hubara, antelope, and gazelle, even a few stingy hares.
The camel’s plodding gait began to annoy him. Turfa trotted ahead, carefree, and Al Chah ayah walked behind, patiently. But Matthew felt neither patient nor carefree. He wanted to be back in camp. To see her, hear the sound of her voice, know she was near. The strange tension that had existed between them was electrifying, stimulating, mystifying. He needed it.
Turfa paused, pricked her ears, and set off at a lope. Camp must be near, Matthew thought. Beyond the next dune perhaps. It was difficult to tell exactly in this sea of frozen swells.
But camp was not what Turfa had scented. Matthew saw as his camel topped the ridge, and his jaw tightened in response to the hammering of his heart.
She knelt at the foot of the dune, lap filled with at-tita bulbs. Turfa romped about her, joyfully, pausing occasionally to lick at her cheek. Unaccountably irritated, Matthew halted the camel and glared down at her. He said nothing until the other riders had filed around them and disappeared over the next dune.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he growled. “Out here all alone?”
Cecile glanced at the bulbs in her lap and said nothing.
“The Shamal regathers,” Matthew continued. “You’ve seen the way it blows the sand. And you have been caught in a sandstorm before. Or had you forgotten?”
Cecile shook her head and returned his hard, bright blue gaze. “I have forgotten nothing. Go back to camp and do not worry on my account.”
Oddly, the retort died on his lips. A gust of wind sent a skitter of sand from the crest of a dune, and Turfa edged away in the direction of camp. Without another word, Matthew urged his camel on and followed his hound.
But he felt her watching him until he crested a dune and disappeared beyond it. And was overcome with a nearly overpowering urge to return to her. Yet he would not, could not. Gritting his teeth, Matthew continued on.
“Oh, my husband, I am so happy to see you!”
Aza had knelt at his feet the moment he stepped through the tent flap. Now she raised her adoring eyes and said, “I will unpack the camel and tend to your mare, then rub your feet as you like. Will this please you?”
Matthew smiled down at the young and lovely woman he had taken as his wife. He cared for her, deeply. So why did he feel so overwhelmed with guilt?
“Tend to the mare, Aza. Thank you,” he replied at length. “But … but leave the camel for awhile. You can tend to her later.”
He wasn’t even sure why he had said it. When Aza had departed, Matthew flopped against a cushion, found he could not sit still, rose, and began to pace.
The tent flap whipped widely, caught in another gust of wind. Sand swirled through the opening. The Shamal builds, Matthew thought. He whirled and paced the length of his tent once more, thumbs hooked in his dagger belt.
He halted when Aza reappeared. “How may I serve you now, O lord of my tent?” she inquired softly, timidly. “Would you like something to eat? Water, perhaps?”
Her head was bent, her shoulder bowed. He could not endure the sight of her gentle subservience another moment. Ignoring the startled cry, Matthew threw aside the flap and strode from the tent.
She was not where he had left her. He wasn’t surprised. Nothing, in fact, surprised him anymore. Not even what she had done, or what he was in the process of doing. Sensing which direction she had taken, he prodded the camel onward.
He caught sight of her at the top of a distant dune. She hesitated, the wind billowing her towb as if beckoning. Then she turned and disappeared.
Slowly, inexorably, the wind resculpted the dunes. The ridges became sharper, more narrow, as the sand scattered away, whirling through the air and tumbling down the slopes. Windblown gusts of it skated through the troughs and stung his camel’s knees. She knelt, willingly, and he dismounted.
Cecile made no move except to pull the makruna away from her face. She wore no veil. The Shamal tangled her braids and clinked the copper bracelets at her wrists.
“Come back with me now, Dhiba. Come back to the tent. Please.”
Cecile shook her head, swinging the earrings against her slender neck. A half smile curved on her lips.
The expected surge of anger did not come. Because the exchange, Matthew realized, both his request and her response, had already been written. They now merely acted their parts, playing the game as it must be played between them. And it was her move. Hands on his hips, feet splayed, he waited.
Her smile never faltered, nor did her gaze. She unwound the makruna, let it trail for a second from her fingertips, then dropped it. It blew away, twisting and turning through the trough, and was gone.
The copper bracelets tinkled as she unplaited her braids. One by one they were loosed until her hair whipped about her like a tattered satin banner. Then, with exquisite laziness, she lifted the hem of her towb, drawing it up and away from her body. The act was accomplished with such innocent sensuality that it stunned him.
She stood naked before him. Nothing moved but the wind and the raven tendrils of hair that curled and twined about her body, caressing it.
He was paralyzed, limbs immobile as the blood thickened in his veins, burning him. Her name on his lips, but he could not speak it. One small bare foot moved, then the other, closing a fraction of the distance between them. She halted.
Now he saw the scar, the mark of the she-wolf curving jaggedly across her breast. “Dhiba,” he whispered hoarsely, finding his voice, and banished the remaining space between them.
Still they did not touch. The Shamal lifted her hair and tangled it about his own shoulders now, binding them.
His dagger belt dropped to the ground. She fell on her knees and removed his boots, then gazed up at him, eyes wide and questioning. He answered by lifting her to her feet. He did not release her arms.
They sank to the sand together, remaining on their knees. He traced her scar with the tips of his fingers. She unwound his khaffiya and laid it aside. The wind billowed his robe as he pulled it over his head. His black hair blew about his neck and against his cheeks. She smoothed it from his face.
His chest was darkly matted. Cecile touched its softness and caressed the knotted muscles of his arms. His hands cupped her breasts. Neither noticed that the wind had died. They did
not feel the electricity in the air, for it already crackled between them. Far to the northwest the sky reddened. Matthew closed his eyes and kissed her.
The air was suddenly very still and hot. Cecile felt the moisture start on her skin, and when she pressed against him their wetness mingled. She moved, undulating, reveling in the slipperiness of their bodies. Then her lips parted, and his tongue explored the exotic sweetness of her mouth. Their limbs twined, and they sank upon the sand.
Chapter
19
THEIR LIPS MET AND A STILLNESS AS TOTAL AS that which now blanketed the desert overcame them. Passion too long denied strained between them, clamoring for release. The pain of it was so exquisite that it held them clutched in its spell, motionless. When their lips finally parted, there was no sound but the ragged whisper of their intermingled breath, no sensation but the thudding of their hearts. Their bodies were numb, their senses overloaded.
Reality became a dream. They were lost, floating in a time and space all their own. Like innocent children who had awakened to find themselves in a world of fantasy, they were dazed and full of wonder.
The exploration was instinctive, the mutual touching not meant to excite but to reveal. As Cecile lay on her back, hands still resting on Matthew’s shoulders, he leaned over her and traced the contours of her body with the tip of his finger. He followed the curve of her jaw to her chin and down in a straight, searing line from her breasts to her navel, across her flat, hard belly to the soft, secret place between her thighs.
Something jumped and quivered within her. Cecile sucked her breath in sharply, but the touch did not linger. With the whole of his palm now, Matthew retraced his finger’s journey, feeling her smooth and supple flesh, the hard ridge of her breastbone, the velvety soft hollow of her throat. He briefly cupped each small, firm breast, then reached into the glistening lengths of her hair, spread about them on the sand like a pool of deep dark water.
A mild shock coursed through him as he gathered a mass of it into his hand and lifted it to his face, experiencing its silken softness through the sensitive flesh of his lips. Then he released it, uncurling his fingers slowly, and watched it slither across his palm to lay on her breast.
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