than anything. That little grille which Aida peers through. And the armed guard outside.’
‘The harem is locked and guarded in order to protect the privacy and virtue of those within it.’
‘I know. And it’s a tradition that is thousands of years old, and I truly am not meaning to sound like one of those awful people who visit foreign countries only to deride the customs. It is just that I am not accustomed to it, and I never could be, no matter how luxurious. I can’t help thinking that it must have seemed like a gilded cage to a nomadic Bedouin like the Princess Elmira.’
The moment the words were out, she wished them unsaid. The air between them seemed to freeze. ‘What have you heard?’
‘Nothing.’ Stephanie shifted on her cushion, but it was so dark now, she could make out only his silhouette. ‘I only meant that as a Bedouin, accustomed to roaming the desert, it must have been an enormous change for her.’
‘Too much of one.’
His voice cracked. Horrified Stephanie fumbled for his hand. ‘Rafiq, I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m so sorry.’
He shook himself free and got to his feet. ‘I recall telling you, here on this very terrace, that I do not care to talk about the past.’
Stephanie scrambled up, tripping over the drying sheet. ‘I’ve talked about my past with you. It was painful, and I was terrified that you would judge me harshly, but—but you helped me see it in a different light. You helped me put it behind me. So don’t you think...?’
‘No.’ Unlike Stephanie, Rafiq seemed to have the night vision of a predator. He steadied her with his hands on her shoulders. ‘There is only one thing which will allow me to put my past behind me.’
‘The Sabr,’ she said, not because she understood, but because it seemed to be the answer to everything.
‘The Sabr,’ Rafiq said heavily. ‘My only route to atonement.’ His grip on her tightened. His lips were cool on her forehead and then he was gone, his shadow merging with the night.
Stephanie shivered. Inside the library, the lanterns still burned. She dressed hurriedly in the changing room, and brought one of the lanterns back out to the terrace. Was there a group of servants responsible solely for the palace lighting? There must be a great many of them. It must be a very tedious occupation.
She sat down on Rafiq’s cushion, shaking her head to clear it. Rafiq wanted to win the Sabr for his people. He wanted to win it to restore his family name. She understood both of those things, but what had he meant when he said it would allow him to put his past behind him, to atone? It made no sense.
She furrowed her brow, trying to recall exactly what had been said before this strange declaration. Elmira. He had once again been refusing to talk about Elmira, but what could Elmira have to do with the Sabr? Poor Elmira, who had died in her sleep two years ago. Elmira who, according to Jasim, paid the price for contaminating the stables with her presence. What heinous crime had she committed to force Rafiq to take Jasim’s side against his own wife?
It was cold. The sky was dark, a layer of black cloud blanketing the stars and the moon. Rafiq couldn’t have made it clearer that whatever atonement the Sabr represented, he would not confide in her. It hurt a little, but it was another apposite reminder. There were boundaries she must not cross, had no right to cross. She must not confuse the physical intimacy between them with anything more profound.
Picking up the lantern, with a silent apology to the servant who would discover it missing in the morning, Stephanie left the Pool of Nymphs and headed reluctantly back to her own luxurious prison quarters in the harem.
* * *
Rafiq sat alone at the second of the four Sabr marker towers. He could hear Nura, the chestnut mare he had ridden out, snickering softly to herself, though the night was too dark to see her. Black cloud covered the moon and the stars, but he did not need his eyes to sense the desert that surrounded him. The vastness of it never failed to fill him with awe. He leant back against the cool stone of the Sabr post, rubbing his eyes. He had intended to come out here to think only of Stephanie, to relive those charged moments in the hamam, but Stephanie had unwittingly conjured Elmira’s ghost. The two women were so very different. When he was with Stephanie, he had a taste of his future, free of guilt. He didn’t want to think of Elmira when he was with her. He didn’t want to make any sort of connection between them.
But Stephanie had made it all the same. A gilded cage, she had called the harem. Rafiq dropped his head into his hands, groaning with despair. Guilt descended on him like a carrion crow, doubts, like the predator’s vicious talons, picking at his conscience. So consumed he had been by his dream of restoring the Sabr, he had not listened, had not attempted to understand the consequences of his inaction and subsequent overreaction, until it was too late.
The clouds were beginning to clear. A single star appeared, and then another, and another, and the silver scimitar-like half-moon lit the desert, casting a shadow over the Sabr marker. It was too late for recriminations. Too late for regrets. Too late to wish it all undone. Too late for anything, save atonement.
Getting to his feet, he reverently kissed the stone of the Sabr post. The time had come to seize the day, be bold and act. Stephanie had shown him the way. Rafiq leaned against the marker, closing his eyes. Tonight had once again been like no other he could remember. It made him wonder how it would be when finally their bodies were truly united.
He hadn’t liked being at odds with her, though it had taken him a good many hours to accept that it was this, and not Jasim’s behaviour which troubled him. Stephanie’s opinions had come to matter a good deal to him. She had forced him to accept he was human, capable of misjudgements. She was not his conscience, but she was rapidly becoming his touchstone. Who would fulfil that function when she was gone?
He did not need to think about that yet, because Stephanie would be here for a good few months more. Calling to his horse, Rafiq rode out into the dark desert night.
* * *
Stephanie shifted uncomfortably on the high saddle of her camel. The promise of a visit to a Bedouin horse fair had been too exciting to resist, though she had resisted, until Fadil had promised he would summon her immediately if any new case of infection arose. It was now more than a week since her precautions had been fully implemented, almost three weeks since the last case, so there were grounds for optimism. There was also the fact that since the hamam ten days ago, she had not had the opportunity to be alone with Rafiq.
Not that they were alone now. For the last hour, the desert trail they had been following had been crowded with camels, horses, mules and even men trudging along on foot. The surface consisted of hard-packed mud studded with jagged boulders and pockets of soft, sinking sand, which forced her camel to perform an occasional disconcerting ungainly curtsy, casting Stephanie forward in the saddle, a motion which the camel took great exception to, throwing his head back and expelling a cloud of his foul breath. She had never been so glad of the keffiyeh protecting her face.
‘Is it much further?’ she asked, manoeuvring her grumpy ship of the desert closer to Rafiq’s own mount.
He shook his head. ‘I promise you, it is worth it.’
She could tell by the way his eyes crinkled that he was laughing at her. ‘It had better be.’
A few moments later, they crested a hill, and she forgot all her aches and pains at the sight which greeted her in the valley below.
