Then Zabdas summoned her to his office. “Your counsel has gone worthless,” he said peevishly. “Does your dotage come upon you at last?”
She bit back rage. “I am sorry, my lord, if no thoughts have occurred to me of late. I will try to do better.”
“What’s the use? No use in you any more. Furja, now, Furja warms my bed, and surely soon she’ll be fruitful.” Zabdas waved a hand in dismissal. “Well, be off. Go wait for Bonnur. I’ll send him. Perhaps at least you can persuade him to mend those woolgathering ways he’s taken on. By all the saints—by the beard of the Prophet, I regret my promises to both of you!”
Aliyat stalked through the empty part of the house with fists clenched. In the room of meetings she prowled back and forth, back and forth. It was a cage. She halted at the window and stared out through the grille. From there she could look over the walls around the ancient temple of Bel. Its limestone seemed bleached under a furious sun. The bronze capitals of the portico columns blazed. Heat-shimmer made the reliefs on the cella waver. Long had it stood unused, empty, like herself. Now it was being refurbished. She had heard at fourth or fifth hand that the Arabs planned to make a fortress of it.
But were those Powers entirely dead? Bel of the storm, Jarhibol of the sun, Aglibol of the moon—Ashtoreth of begettings and births, terrible in beauty, she who descended into hell to win back her lover—unseen, they strode across the earth; unheard, they shouted throughout heaven; the sea that Aliyat had never known thundered behind her breasts.
A footstep, a click of beads, she whirled about. Bonnur halted. Sweat sheened on him. She caught the smell of it, filling the heat and silence, man-smell. She was wet with her own; the dress clung to her.
She unfastened her veil and cast it to the floor.
“My lady,” he choked, “oh, my lady.”
She advanced. Her hips swung as if of themselves. Breath loudened. “What would you with me, Bonnur?”
His gazelle eyes fled right and left, trapped. He backed off a step. He raised his hands against her. “No,” he begged.
“No, what?” she laughed. She stopped before him and he must needs meet her look. “We’ve things to do, you and I.”
If he is wise, he will agree. He will sit down and begin asking about the best way to bargain with a caravaneer.
“I HAVE business in Tripolis,” Zabdas said. “It may keep me several weeks. I shall go with Nebozabad, who leaves a few days hence.”
Aliyat was glad she had left her veil on after reaching his office. “Does my lord wish to say what business it is?”
“No sense in that. You’ve grown barren of advice, as of everything else. I am informing you privately so that I can state what should be obvious, that in my absence you are to abide in the harem and occupy yourself with a wife’s ordinary duties.”
“Of course, my lord.”
She and Bonnur had thus far had two afternoons together.
THIRYA STIRRED. “Mama—”
Aliya pushed fury down. “Hush, darling,” she breathed. “Go to sleep.” And she must wait while the child tossed and whined, until finally the bed was quiet.
Finally!
Her feet remembered the way through the dark. She clutched her nightgown to her lest it brush against something. The thought flitted: Like this do the unrestful dead steal from their graves. But it was to life that she was going. Already the juices of it ran hot. Her nostrils drank the cedary odor of her desire.
Nobody else woke, and there was no guard on as small, as drab a harem as this. Her fingers touched walls, guiding her, until she reached the last dear corridor. No, do not run, make no needless sound. The beads in the doorway snaked around her. The window framed stars. A breeze from the cooling desert drifted through it. Her pulse racketed. She pulled off the gown and tossed it aside.
He came. Her toes gripped the carpet.
“Aliyat, Aliyat.” The rough whisper echoed in her head. Bonnur stumbled, knocked a stool over, panted. She gurgled laughter and slipped to him.