gauzy pink georgette coat embroidered in the Eastern fashion with lots of silver thread.
But it was Zara who really stopped them in their tracks. Small and slender, wearing a beautifully simple, high-necked, long-sleeved white dress in heavy raw silk that hung straight and smooth to her bare brown feet in delicate gold sandals, her curling cloak of hair spilling over her shoulders and down her back, one gold bangle at her wrist, she was a vision. Lena eyed her with mock dismay.
“I dunno, you kinda make me feel overdone,” she observed plaintively. But a chorus of voices assured her that many men preferred the obvious, and large numbers of those who did were Oriental potentates.
“And me,” said one male voice. Greg moved to her side and mock-ferociously put an arm around her, leering down into her cleavage. “Any Oriental potentate is going to have to get past me first.”
“That’ll take about a minute,” another man observed.
Lena giggled and rolled her eyes. “Oh, Greg, as if I’d look at you if the prince wanted me!”
“Right, are we all here?” said Gordon’s dry voice above the nervous, excited banter. “Before we start, may I just remind you all that we will very likely be sitting on cushions on the floor, and that it is considered rude in this part of the world to direct the soles of your feet at anyone. So don’t think you can lie stretched out with your ankles crossed and feet pointing towards the prince. You sit with your feet tucked under you, one way or another. In addition—” He gave them several more pointers and then consulted his watch and said, “Right. Time we were off.”
And in a column of twos and threes they left the dining enclosure and began to move across the sand in the direction of what they were still laugingly calling the sultan’s tent.
They had barely set out when they saw lights, and a moment later they were greeted by a party of servants with flaming torches and a man dressed in peacock blue magnificence who bowed and introduced himself as Arif ur-Rashid, Cup Companion to the Prince.
“Very flattering,” Gordon muttered into Zara’s ear. “By tradition the further the king or his emissary comes to meet his guests, the higher the honour. We’ve been met effectively at our own doorstep. Very nice indeed I think we can look forward to a substantial feast. Pearls in the bottom of our wine goblets and told to keep them sort of thing.”
Zara gurgled into laughter. She was one of the few who recognized when Gordon was joking, and his eyes glinted approvingly down at her.
But it wasn’t quite so much of a joke as he had imagined. All the archaeological team gasped with awe when they passed through the doors into the tent.
It was like entering Aladdin’s cave. Everything glowed with richness and warmth. The colours were deep and luxurious—emerald, ruby, sapphire, turquoise. Every inch of walls, floor and ceiling was hung and draped with carpets, tapestries, or beautifully dyed cloth, and the furniture—of walnut, mahogany and other unknown, fabulously grained woods—had such a deep polish it seemed as if it would shine “even if no fire touched it ”
All the light came from naked flame, or flame under delicately painted or cut crystal globes that sent light shimmering around the room like a thousand flung diamonds. And all around them were handsome men in exotic dress introducing themselves as the Cup Companions of the prince. The team felt as if they had stepped back centuries in time, straight into the pages of the Arabian Nights.
One of the Companions had visited the dig earlier in the afternoon, and had been introduced to every member of the team by Gordon, and now they were all greeted by name. For several minutes they made conversation.
Then the heavy sound of a helicopter was heard close by. There was an expectant pause, during which the team found it impossible to chat normally. All of them were surreptitiously watching the entrance. Suddenly a group of men erupted into the room, talking and laughing, and bringing a vital and very appealing energy with them. As one man, the Companions in the room turned and bowed.
The new arrivals were all just as exotically and colourfully dressed as the Companions, and the brilliance of the prince himself was breathtakingly unmistakable.
His long, high-necked jacket was cream silk and seemed to be studded with pinpoints of green light from elbow to wrist and around the collar. His flowing Eastern trousers were deep green. Diagonally across his breast he wore a cloth-of-gold sash, and a double rope of absolutely magnificent pearls at least a yard long was looped and draped over his chest, and fixed at one shoulder with a ruby the size of an egg. He had a lustrous black moustache and thick, waving black hair, which, like the heads of all his Companions, was bare. His fingers were clustered with a king’s ransom in gold and stones.
He put up one arrogant hand in a gesture that in any other man would look, Zara thought, ridiculously theatrical, but in him seemed perfectly natural and engaging. Smiling broadly, he recited something in Arabic, and then said in English, “It is very kind of you all to come to my poor table. May so propitious an occasion be blessed.”
The efforts of the team to think of some suitable response would have made Zara laugh if she hadn’t been similarly dumbstruck herself.
Prince Rafi recognized Gordon in the throng and strode to his side to greet the director, where Arif joined him. The prince chatted briefly to Gordon and then Arif introduced Maeve, then followed the prince slowly through the room, introducing him to each member of the team. The prince tilted his head solicitously to each and shook their hands, exchanging a few words before moving on.
He made his way around the room and at last appeared at Zara’s side. Now she was aware of two things not quite so obvious from a distance—a heady yet elusive scent of sandalwood or myrrh or something similar, and the powerful physical aura of the man. He was not tall, but he exuded power.
“Miss Zara Blake, Your Highness,” said Arif, and a well-shaped, graceful hand was extended to her. Aware that she was blushing, Zara flicked her eyes to his face as she put her hand into his. “Miss Blake, His Serene Highness Sayed Hajji Rafi Jehangir ibn Daud ibn Hassan al Quraishi.”
The name rolled off his tongue like poetry.
“Miss Blake, it is a very great pleasure,” said the prince in a tiger’s fur voice, with such emphasis she almost believed him.
“How do you do, Your Highness,” Zara murmured, finding that, whatever her democratic principles, her head seemed to bow of its own accord. Dimly she supposed that was the definition of true royalty—when you couldn’t help bowing.
“I hope your stay in my country will be long and fruitful,” he said.
Zara looked up again, but found that she could not meet his dark eyes for long. She blushed even more warmly, though she had hardly blushed in her life. “Your Highness is very kind,” she murmured.
She expected him to move on then—he had only exchanged a few words with each of the others—but to her surprise he asked, “Your name is Zara?” He pronounced it with a little explosion of air on the first vowel. Zahra.
“Yes.”
“This is a very beautiful name. In my language it means both flower and splendour, beauty.” Without saying it, he managed to imply that she was well named.
“Ah . . . oh.”
“Are your parents perhaps Arabic speakers?”
“No
