Laura Kinsale by The Dream Hunter Page A

pillows. Princely enough he was, Abdullah ibn Rashid, dressed in Indian silk of purple and a long shirt of perfect white linen, with a loose black sleeveless abah over all. He wore a pair of golden-hilted daggers thrust in his sash. Colorful kuffiyahs draped his narrow, frowning face, one head scarf laid over the other, bound about his forehead with ropes of gold thread. With his beard trimmed to a neat and elegant point, he was the epitome of the desert prince, dark-eyed and lean, his look flitting restlessly over the crowd, always moving and searching even while he listened to the complaints and petitions and kissed the cheeks of tribal sheiks.
    First among equals, Prince Rashid. He had won his position by arms, as the lieutenant of a rebellious Saudi who even now languished in Cairo, prisoner of the Egyptian viceroy. The Saudis, those old Wahhabi fanatics, were broken. The Egyptians garrisoned their capital of ar-Riyadh, a small island of soldiers surrounded by the enemy Bedouin, pursuing the ancient policy of encouraging hate and division between the tribes. And Rashid held his majlis with an Egyptian officer beside him—but they bound this hawk by fragile jesses.
    The sheiks were gathering. If Prince Rashid could unite them, if he could hold them together even for a season, they could turn upon their tyrants and break the Egyptian’s grasp.
    One by one, the day’s cases were presented to the emir and summarily decided. Once the Egyptian officer made a protest, and Prince Rashid added a beating to the fine assessed against a man who had spit at an Egyptian soldier.
    More often he consulted the kady, the man of religious law, for some interpretation or scripture from the Koran.
    It was long and rather boring. Arden saw the camel broker who had stared at Selim rise and pass through the crowd, going forward to speak to a man who sat beside the emir—one of the prince’s brothers, Arden thought. The brother leaned over and murmured to Rashid. The emir nodded. His searching gaze swept over the crowd and for an instant seemed to light on Arden.
    The prince lifted his hand, beckoning.
    Damn and blast, Arden thought.
    “Come, I would ask the news of my beloved Shammar,” Rashid said in a carrying voice. “Come, come, God be praised that you have arrived well and brought your guest.”
    Selim was all but hidden behind Arden as he and the Shammar rose, going forward to greet the prince. The boy would have stayed behind, but Arden reached down and hauled him up, pushing him ahead with a bit more force than necessary.
    “Ya sheik!” the Shammar addressed their emir; or even “Ya Abdullah!” without courtly ceremony, in the Bedouin way. The prince had dismissed any townspeople with the proud gestures of royalty, but he was gentle with the desert nomads. Well he might be, Arden thought, for they were assembling in force, three thousand spears and camels outside his walls, and he was, in the end, no more than one of them—elected by violence and personal honor, his authority accepted while he was powerful and just, but easily abandoned for sufficient reason. And to the Bedu, any reason was likely to prove sufficient.
    Arden was more polite, as a stranger at the emir’s pleasure. He had not requested a private audience; he did not wish to draw attention to himself, but Prince Rashid’s fretful gaze fixed instantly on his face.
    “By Allah,” he muttered to one of the Shammar, “I am told he is Mogreby, but he has the eyes of Sheytan!”
    Arden cast down his devil’s blue eyes. “I am of Andaluz, O Long-of-Life,” he said. “My mother was a princess of that country.”
    “Look up at me! I am not afraid.”
    Arden lifted his eyes. He allowed a faint smile to touch his lips, a smile that said, I didn’t think you were. But he spoke nothing aloud.
    Rashid grinned suddenly. “Sit down!” he said, waving toward his right.
    It was a mark of honor and preference, one that Arden would just as well have done without. But