THE sound of prayer echoed in the ancient stone courtyard below the bedroom windows. Sighing softly, Bethsheba turned, her warm face nuzzling Suliman’s throat. Still half submerged in the deep primal waters of the unconscious, she found herself curving her nude body to his, her mind filled with images of Arabia, of Suliman and of sex.
A hand stroked her tousled hair. ‘Are you awake?’
Her gold lashes flickered as she said softly: ‘Mmm…’
The hand continued to stroke her hair as the deep voice asked, ‘How do you feel this morning, my queen?’
‘Marvellous!’ she said with a sleepy smile.
He laughed, the sound husky in his throat. ‘You are soft and yielding this morning, my love! I think the she-cat is tamed.’
‘I’m half asleep,’ she said, tensing in his arms, afraid he might have guessed her real feelings for him. ‘Of course I’m soft and yielding!’
‘Do not stiffen with pride, my love,’ he said deeply. ‘I want to see you like this. A woman has many sides to her—I want to see every side of you that exists.’
‘You’ve seen so many,’ she said, forcing herself to relax again, loving the feel of those arms around her and the feel of his nude body against hers. It was as though they had been lovers forever.
‘I wish to see many more,’ Suliman said. ‘You are seductress, warrior, she-cat, sated lover——’
‘And sleepy woman?’ she teased huskily, nuzzling his throat.
‘Soon, perhaps,’ he said deeply, ‘we will see the mother in you.’
She tensed, staring at his throat. ‘The mother?’
One strong hand moved to her belly. ‘You may have conceived last night. You may conceive to-night. Soon I may have the son I have yearned for, and——’
‘Conceived!’ She had forgotten all about that! In her blind passion she had welcomed Suliman’s hoarse cries of release last night without considering the fact that his seed was shooting irreversibly into her womb with each shuddering gasp. ‘I didn’t think of it! I didn’t think!’
‘Does the thought of bearing me a son fill you with such dread?’
‘You know it does!’ She felt such a fool! How could she have forgotten?
‘Yet you welcomed my body with the passion of a woman wailing for her demon lover.’ The strong hand cupped her chin, forced her to look at him. ‘What will you tell yourself if you have conceived? That I forced it upon you? That you were an innocent party in the conception?’
‘You know very well that I had no choice in what happened last night!’ she said, her cheeks burning with hot colour. ‘I admit, I did…I…I did enjoy it. But that doesn’t mean I——’
‘Do not lie to yourself, Sheba.’ The dark eyes seemed to probe her soul. ‘You are a woman now, and as such must accept that your mind knows exactly what it is doing: always.’
‘But you didn’t ask if I wanted a son!’ she said fiercely, her face burning now with resentment and embarrassment at his words. ‘You just thrust the decision upon me with no way out! It wasn’t what I wanted! It wasn’t what——’
‘I think you have conceived!’ Suliman cut in in a fierce whisper, his eyes intent as he stared at her flushed, frightened face. ‘You have!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she denied in a hoarse rush. ‘How can you possibly even——?’
‘You are a woman, Sheba, and it is your womb that will carry my son. How can you not know what is in your own womb? How can you not know the dark, primitive truths of your own body?’
She stared at him, struck dumb with fear. He was just trying to frighten her.
His hands covered her belly. ‘Your anger and fear stem from your knowledge of conception. Never before have you shown such a hysterical reaction!’
‘You’re mad!’ she whispered, hating him violently as she suddenly pulled out of his arms. ‘Mad!’
‘Hysteria means womb,’ Suliman said coolly, watching her. ‘Did you not know that?’
Fury rose in her overwhelmingly as she sat up, eyes flashing. ‘If you think I’m going to stay here, trapped in this intolerable situation with a raving lunatic for a moment longer than I have to, you’re out of your mind! I wouldn’t give you sons if you went down on your bended——’
‘We are man and wife now,’ he cut in, eyes hardening. ‘You will stay here as my queen and conduct yourself as your new status demands.’
‘And provide you with a ready-made dynasty? Go to hell! What about my life? What about my career?’
‘The career you longed to escape!’ His eyes spat contempt. ‘Do not try my patience, Sheba! The life you led in the West was stifling you—killing the life force daily! That is why you ran to me when I called, and that is why you will stay.’
‘You forced me into a marriage I didn’t want!’ she cried bitterly. ‘You forced me to sacrifice my innocence beneath your insatiable demands! Now you would force a son on me that I——’
‘I did not force anything!’ he bit out, sitting up, eyes leaping with rage. ‘Nothing I have done has been against your will, and until you admit that to yourself and to me we will have no peace!’
‘I don’t want peace!’ she said furiously, hating him as she faced him across that silken bed, both of them naked and burning with a whirlwind of dark emotion. ‘I want to go home! I want to go back to Tangier and to the West!’
‘The West is closed to you forever!’ he snarled. ‘Why must you turn your face from the truth?’
Rage exploded in her and she hurled herself at him, screaming senselessly, hitting out blindly, her hands beating at his chest and his shoulders, her nails trying to scratch his face as he fought her back, finally managing to catch her flailing arms, his fingers biting into her wrists as the air was fraught with bitter sounds of violent emotion from them both.
He was breathing harshly as he took control of her. ‘You fight yourself, not me! Your own desires, your own needs, and your own secret wish to remain here with me!’
‘You’ll twist anything to your own advantage,’ she choked out, heart thundering as she accepted defeat bitterly, her hands clamped by his like man- acles on her wrists, ‘but it won’t change the way I feel! I hate you and I want to leave!’
‘My love,’ he said thickly, eyes fierce, nostrils flaring, ‘you only hurt yourself.’
‘Don’t call me your love!’ she flung bitterly, tears stinging her eyes. ‘You don’t give a damn about me! I’m just a possession to you!’
‘Possession,’ he said quickly, ‘is nine-tenths of the law!’
‘But it has nothing, nothing and nothing to do with love!’ she said rawly, and the tears threatened to engulf her, overwhelm her, choking her so violently that she felt her chest welling up with them, pain stinging her heart, her soul, her mouth, nose and eyes.
Suliman watched her in tense silence for a moment. Then, ‘Love is the plaything of Western vanity. It has nothing to do with life or with the succession of a throne. You are not here to be loved, bint, but to be a queen.’
‘Oh, God, you bastard!’ she said hoarsely, fighting, with every ounce of pride left her, not to cry. ‘How can you sentence me to a loveless life of duty!’
‘Because it is written,’ he said tightly, mouth hard.
‘It is not written!’ Frustration made her voice choked with emotion. ‘It’s just a dusty old legend, and one I will not agree to play out with you. Do you call this freedom, Suliman? Is this the wonderful “freedom” you spoke of when we first——?’
‘We will not discuss this here,’ he bit out, and thrust her from him, getting out of bed, his nude body magnificent as sunlight touched its tanned, muscled, hair-roughened splendour.
‘When will we discuss it, then?’ Bethsheba demanded hoarsely, hating him as she sank back on her heels, watching him from the bed and feeling more frustrated and alone than ever in her life before.
‘This afternoon,’ Suliman said under his breath, and turned to look at her, dark eyes hostile. ‘I will send for you and we will talk.’
‘And in the meantime,’ she asked bitterly, ‘what am I to do? Sit in your harem and bathe myself all day?’
‘No, bint,’ he said bitingly, nostrils flaring, ‘you will bathe and dress immediately! Then you will be taken to the House of the Artist in the Seventh Courtyard!’
‘The House of the Artist?’ she demanded angrily. ‘What are you talking about now? What artist?’
‘You will find out, bint,’ he said tightly, bitterness in the hard line of his mouth as he snatched up a dark red caftan from a chair and pulled it over his head. ‘Until our appointment this afternoon, Sheba—I bid you good day!’
‘Wait!’ she cried in consternation as he strode to the door and pulled it open. ‘For God’s sake, Suliman! You can’t just walk out like this! Not in the middle of an argument as important as——’
‘I see you alter your tone, bint,’ Suliman said bitingly, turning at the door with hostile eyes, ‘but only when I alter mine! If you wish it to be this way between us, carry on! But it will be a marriage-bed of scorpions, and, believe me—I will sting you to death before I allow you to sting me!’
The door slammed behind him so violently that the sound was like a slap in the face to Bethsheba, who flinched, staring at the closed door with tears burning her eyes.
He didn’t love her! He only wanted her to bear his sons and be a constant living replica of a gold statue that his people worshipped! It was intolerable!
She threw herself down on the pillows, sobbing uncontrollably. What a monstrous tangle she was in. Did he really think her pregnant? It didn’t bear thinking about. How could she possibly be pregnant…after only one night of lovemaking? She wouldn’t let herself be! She wouldn’t have it, wouldn’t let it…
Sitting up, she took deep breaths, fighting for calm. Of course she wasn’t pregnant. It was just Suliman’s nonsense making her hysterical, fright-ening her out of her wits. If she was pregnant all hope of getting out of this without serious trouble would be finished: she would have to have the child, regardless of where she had it or who eventually looked after it.
But I’m not pregnant, she told herself. I’m not pregnant and I’m not Sheba and I’m not staying here a moment longer than I have to.
The women came to her within minutes of Suliman’s leaving. They took her to bathe in the presence of Sheba, and as she floated in the warm water she looked at her gold-skinned body and saw the marks of Suli than’s passion, dark and excitingly vivid on her flesh. Pride warred with anger, and passion tipped the balance as she looked down at those marks and shuddered with remembered excitement, closing her eyes, the steam rising to dampen her face and hair and make her remember…Oh, he had been so exciting, so masterful, so expert and so passionate!
The House of the Artist was quite a long walk.
The Great Palace of Suliman, she realised, was almost a city in itself. There were acres of corridors and colonnades, more gardens with statues and fountains than she could count. One circular pillared courtyard had a gold-domed roof and doors leading off it: doors with the sound of offices within which the sound of typewriters and fax machines and telephones made her stare in shock as the women urged her to follow them.
Suddenly they were out in a vast sprawling courtyard. It was filled with noise and people and life. There were stalls of food, of ripe oranges and sticky dates and fat olives. The scent of fresh meat and fresh-baked bread filled her nostrils as she walked.
People were everywhere, with dark faces and chattering voices. She passed a kissaria filled with a profusion of scents: jasmine and oleander, marigold and musk. There was a silk shop, and the array of wild colours made her stop, delighted as she fingered the fuchsia-pink and firecracker-red, the aquamarine and sunset-orange.
A coffee-shop made her burst out laughing, staring at the ancient stone building with its jaunty Arabian sign. Chairs and tables sat outside it, brilliant white in the sun, and people sat there lazily, drinking spicy coffee and eating Turkish delight.
Then they were walking down a long, cool stone alleyway. It had high crumbling walls, and Bethsheba’s dress rustled as she walked, her white silk head-dress and white yashmak hiding her golden hair and skin from the people.
The Seventh Courtyard was utterly charming. With ancient yellowing walls and tiny huddled houses, it had a lovely square with trees and plants, a circular fountain, and an ambience of artistic bohemia.
The House of the Artist itself was a tumbledown building of yellow stone. A beaded curtain hung over the entrance, a dog sleeping in the hot sun outside it and the scent of coffee wafting from within.
Bethsheba was urged inside.
‘Hello!’ she called, and her voice echoed.
Her gold-sandalled feet click-clacked on the stone hallway, the cool air instantly reaching her as she heard, with some surprise, the hiss of air-conditioning.
Walking through the first stone doorway, she entered a large airy room. Paintings and statues were stacked higgledy-piggledy everywhere. Some were unfinished, some complete. An easel stood by the window, sun shining on bright wet oil colours on the canvas.
The style was recognisable. Edouard de Chanderay, she thought, staring in amazement. Whoever had done these paintings and statues was imitating de Chanderay with considerable skill.
A footfall behind her made her turn.
‘Hello.’ A tall man with a red-gold beard and straggly hair stood in the doorway wiping a knife dry on a cloth. ‘You must be Sheba.’
‘Yes!’ Her eyes raced over him, recognition shocking her into silence.
‘I’m Edouard de Chanderay,’ he said, extending a clay-caked hand. ‘Enchanté, Madame El Khazir!’
Silent, awestruck, she took his hand and shook it, still staring up at that familiar face, the fierce blue eyes brilliant amid that red-gold hair: a lion’s mane was so fitting for the face of a genius. He was one of the most respected artists of the time, and she felt herself deeply honoured to even look upon his face.
‘Forgive me,’ she said huskily when she saw his quizzical frown, ‘I’m staring, I know. But—but I can’t believe you’re here! It doesn’t seem real! How did you come to live in this place? Don’t tell me the sheikh kidnapped you too!’
Chanderay laughed drily. ‘No, of course not!’ The light French accent was pleasing to the ear, softening his every word with a trace of summer and sophistication. ‘I came of my own free will—and with the greatest of pleasure, I can assure you.’
‘But how?’ Bethsheba was still incredulous. ‘I mean—how did you find this place?’
‘I flew to Marrakech and turned right,’ drawled Chanderay, white teeth flashing against that red-gold beard. ‘On y va! I have coffee with halva in the kitchen. I will tell you my story there—before we start our work.’
She followed him along a winding corridor and found herself in a small sunlit kitchen, the ancient stone painted thick white and hung with jaunty mugs and photographs and wicker plant-baskets. There was a photograph of Chanderay with Picasso, and Bethsheba looked at it with a sense of wonder.
‘I’ve been here five years already,’ Chanderay told her as he poured rich coffee into two cups, and set halva out on a brass plate. ‘And I can’t tell you what a difference it has made to my life.’
‘The privacy?’
‘Alors!’ He laughed, blue eyes flashing to her face. ‘No reporters! No crowds! No fans! And above all—no phonies standing around discussing my paintings in order to impress their friends!’
Bethsheba took the coffee he handed her, and smiled at the French painting and lettering on it: ‘Chaperon Rouge cherche jeune loup’—Red Riding Hood seeks young wolf!
‘Here,’ Chanderay perched on a white stool, ‘nobody cares about my reputation. They just admire my status, my paintings—and then they get on with their own lives! There is no invasion of privacy. I am accepted for who I am—not for the proclamations of the Western Press.’
‘You found all that a headache?’ She nodded, understanding. ‘Yes, it can be distracting at best—painful at worst.’
‘Besides,’ Chanderay shrugged broad wiry shoulders, ‘all this colour and life in Suliman’s world! What a fabulous place it is! The weather, the noise, the landscape, the flowers…’
‘It’s paradise, isn’t it?’ she agreed, and her gold eyes slid to the window of yellowing stone behind him, half in sunlight, half black shade. ‘But how did you find it, Chanderay? It’s hardly a major place on the tourist trail.’
‘I met Suliman in Paris,’ he said simply.
‘Paris!’ She stared, eyes wide.
‘Yes, he’s a very cultured man, isn’t he? Deeply artistic, highly educated, very progressive in his attitudes.’
Bethsheba just stared, speechless. Were they discussing the same man? Sheikh Suliman El Khazir, the man who had re-introduced her to the wilderness of the desert, the barbaric luxury of Arabia, and the freedom of everything that went with it? Of course, she had grown so accustomed to his perfect English—with only a light Arabic accent that grew stronger when he was angry—that it had never occurred to her to wonder where he had acquired it.
‘Suliman came to an exhibition of mine,’ Chanderay told her. ‘We hit it off instantly. He loved my paintings and sculptures—he bought several of them on the spot. We ended up talking for hours, and finally met for dinner at Fouquet’s on the Champs Élysées. I spent the evening complaining—as usual!—about the lack of privacy my success had brought me. I complained about the Press, about modern life, about phonies and about my growing inability to believe as strongly in my work because of it as I once had.’
‘You lived in Paris at the time?’
‘I had an apartment in Paris—a villa in the south: Grasse, to be specific,’ he said. ‘Suliman suggested a month’s holiday at his place in the Sahara. I was going to Marrakech that summer anyway, so it seemed quite predestined. I took him up on it.’
The mention of destiny took her breath away. Quickly, she said, ‘You came here? To this palace? Not his House of the Seven Suns at Agadir?’
‘I came straight here,’ he agreed. ‘Stayed for a month, fell in love with the place, and couldn’t bear to leave. I went home, sold my villa and came straight back with as many things as I could carry!’ He laughed. ‘I’ve been here ever since.’
‘You rode from Marrakech?’ she asked, frowning. ‘By horse? That must have been a terrible journey!’
‘Rode!’ He burst out laughing. ‘Of course I didn’t ride! I flew here in Suliman’s private jet!’
‘His jet?’
‘Yes.’ Chanderay’s straggly red brows lifted. ‘Didn’t you know Suliman had a jet? There’s a landing strip at the back of this palace. Haven’t you seen it?’
Bethsheba stared, shaking her head, her eyes wide with shock as she reeled under the impact of all this information from a renowned genius who obviously knew Suliman El Khazir better than she did.
Chanderay idly handed her a sweetmeat and took one for himself. ‘Yes, it’s really very handy. I can fly anywhere I want, come back when I like, live with one foot in the West and one in the East.’
‘You continue to go back, then,’ she asked shakily, struggling to accept all of this, ‘to the West?’
‘Of course! I am not a complete lunatic, madame! The art world is in the West, and I need it as much now as I ever did. The peace and anonymity I need is here, in the East. But I need to exhibit my work. I need to sell it and I need to keep my name in the public eye. These things are important to every artist, no matter how successful he becomes. An audience, after all, is still an audience, and I do not paint solely for my own pleasure. Like small boys, all artists need to cry, “Look, look what I have done!”‘
Bethsheba laughed, fellow-feeling in her gold eyes as they met his. ‘It’s no different for little girls!’
‘Of course.’ Chanderay smiled, inclining his head. ‘For you, it is the silence when you hold a perfect note and let it fly above the music, knowing that those who listen are as impressed by it as you.’
She flushed a little, lowering her lashes at the accuracy of his statement. ‘I still find it incredible, though,’ she said huskily, and looked up at him, ‘to think that Suliman brought you here…’
‘Yes.’ Chanderay nodded. ‘I am proud to be his friend.’
She smiled, touched.
‘And you must be very proud,’ he added, ‘to be his wife.’
A shiver ran through her as her heart skipped several beats. Chanderay thought Suliman loved her. The pain suddenly returned, and with it the sting of rejection as she remembered what Suliman had said this morning: love is a plaything of Western vanity and has nothing to do with the duty of a queen.
He would never love her. Never; and suddenly the pain was intolerable.
‘Shall we get on with our work?’ Chanderay drained his coffee and stood up.
‘Our work?’ She looked at him with a jolt.
‘Didn’t Suliman tell you?’ He frowned with some surprise. ‘I am to sculpt you.’
‘Sculpt me!’ Bethsheba stood up, staring in awed disbelief. ‘You! Edouard de Chanderay!’
His frown deepened. ‘I am flattered by your awe, Sheba. But I would rather not encounter it here. This is my sanctuary. Here, I am just a man who paints: I would prefer to keep it that way.’
She flushed. ‘I’m sorry…forgive me…’
‘ça fais rien.’ He shrugged. ‘You must have the same pressures, the same violation of privacy. All I ask is that you remember why I came here, and treat me as the man you find me—I have the right to be real while I am still alive.’ A smile touched his mouth and his blue eyes glittered. ‘Time enough to be a genius when I am dead!’
Bethsheba laughed, and followed him out into the hall, then up the winding white-painted steps to his studio which overlooked the bohemia he had found here, the huddled yellowing houses and acres of blue sky so clear that it seemed closer to God and eternity than any sky on earth.
‘Remove the yashmak, please,’ Chanderay said as they entered the studio, ‘and the cloak and veil. Suliman wants your statue to do your beauty justice.’
The veil, cloak and yashmak fell to the floor, and Bethsheba posed on the white stone plinth in white harem silks, her breasts full and straining at the white-gold bodice, her belly left bare, her slender legs clearly visible beneath the white silk skirt. Bells on her ankles and gold hair tumbling down around her slender shoulders, she posed like a legged mermaid, her hands lifting strands of hair behind her head, her spine arched like a bow. The statue would be unutterably sensual.
‘Tell me of your work,’ Chanderay asked as he made a primary impression of wet clay, his strong fingers kneading it into shape. ‘Your career must have introduced you to many fascinating people.’
‘It has,’ she said, smiling with pride as she watched him, ‘but I think the most incredible thing about it has been meeting such famous people and finding they have heard of me!’ She laughed, lifting her brows. ‘It never ceases to amaze me!’
He nodded. ‘And that will never change. One meets people one admires and is astonished to find admiration in their eyes, too.’ He slid a finger over her clay shoulder, rounding it deftly. ‘You will be happy here with Suliman. He understands artists, and his love for you can only grow.’
She stiffened, pain in her eyes. ‘I might not be happy here. Certainly not if I’m being turned into a statue of an old dead legend!’
‘You’re used to fame,’ he said, frowning at the obvious emotion in her voice. ‘Surely this is no different?’
‘It feels different!’
‘I don’t see why.’ He said, ‘It was inevitable that Suliman would marry an artist.’
She stared, lips parted in surprise.
‘Now—could you resume the pose? Yes…arch your back…flaunt your sensuality for the man who has commissioned this statue!’ His eyes danced. ‘You are Sheba—remember?’
For hours they worked in the sunlit studio. Chanderay’s hands and fingers moulded the clay lovingly. A pot of water beside him had knives, spatulas and needles it in which he used, wetting the clay constantly with a small soft-haired brush. The scent of the clay was in her nostrils as she sat in her provocatively sensual pose by the stone window, but the clay itself was all over Chanderay’s hands and bench and clothes.
At three o’clock, Suliman sent for her.
With a thudding heart, Bethsheba slipped her cloak, veil and yashmak on and left Chanderay’s house, preparing herself to see her new husband and hear the answers to the questions she had asked this morning.
The two handmaidens had an armed guard with them, and Bethsheba walked in the centre, escorted as befitted a queen—or a prisoner. Back through the teeming alleyways and courtyards she went until the royal quarters loomed ahead in yellowing stone, and as her eyes traced the gold carvings on the walls she felt a lift of her heart and thought: home.
To her surprise, she was led to the office section in the circular courtyard that was the entrance to the royal palace. The handmaidens led her across the marble floor, typewriters and fax machines clattering louder now as she approached a large oak door.
Inside the room, she stopped dead, catching her breath. It was a modern office, with a champagne carpet, mahogany desk, black leather chairman’s seat behind the power-desk, a fax machine in the corner, and vast panoramic windows at the back.
Outside, on a long strip of black tarmac in the desert, glittered a bright red Cessna private jet. The jet gleamed at her, symbolising everything that was Suliman, as it stood, a brilliant piece of twentieth-century power, on the stark landscape of the desert.
Her image of Suliman collided with the reality and split apart into two men, deeply opposed, the schism healed by her presence and by the deep split in herself, which she was only now beginning to understand as she stood in that modern office in the barbaric palace and stared out at that jet.
The door closed behind her. Bethsheba whirled, heart in her mouth.
Suliman closed the door slowly and leant on it.