the asthma that affects me. Only grief.’
She reached out and took Alex’s hands.
‘That you will understand for I read grief in your face as well. It is not so long since you lost someone?’
Alex turned away so she wouldn’t reveal the tears that filled her eyes. It was tiredness that had weakened her so much that a few kind words from Samarah should make her want to cry. Weakness was a luxury she couldn’t afford—like the pride that was still eating into her bones over her request for wages.
Samarah took her hand and led her into the building.
‘I know I gave you little time to pack, but you will find clothes in the dressing room next to your bedroom and toiletries in the bathroom. We will eat in an hour. Hafa will show you the way.’
Alex thanked Samarah and followed Hafa, who had appeared silently in front of them, back to the splendid bedroom.
Clothes in the dressing room?
Alex looked down at her serviceable jeans and checked shirt, then caught up with her guide.
‘Samarah mentioned clothes,’ she said to Hafa. ‘Are my clothes not suitable here?’
Hafa smiled at her.
‘Because you are a foreigner no shame attaches to you, but I think Samarah has chosen clothes especially for you—a gift because she likes you—and she would be pleased to see you wear these things.’
‘Very diplomatically put,’ Alex responded, smiling at the woman, worry over her request to the ‘new highness’ pushed aside by the kindness of the women she was meeting.
Not to mention the thought of a shower and getting into clean clothes. Packing in a hurry, she’d grabbed her passport, a small travel pack, underwear and two clean shirts, thinking her jeans would do until she returned home. At the time, all she’d intended doing was accompanying Samarah home, but the older woman’s asthma attack on the flight had frightened both of them, and Alex had realised she couldn’t leave.
So she’d have to send her bank details to the prince, though her stomach twisted at the thought, and she felt ill remembering the contempt she’d seen in his eyes.
The same contempt she’d seen in David’s eyes when she’d told him about Rob’s debt and offered him back her engagement ring, certain in her heart he wouldn’t take it—certain of a love he’d probably, in retrospect, never felt for her.
His acceptance of it had cut her deeply—the one man she’d been relying on for support backing away from her so quickly she’d felt tainted, unclean in some way.
But David was in the past and she had more than enough problems in the present to occupy her mind.
Inside her room, fearing she’d lose the courage to do it if she hesitated, she dug a notebook out of her handbag and scribbled down the information the prince would need to transfer the money. At the bottom she added, ‘Thank you for doing this. I am sorry I had to ask.’
‘This note needs to go to the prince,’ she told Hafa, who took it and walked, soft-footed, out of the room, the roiling in Alex’s stomach growing worse by the moment.
Forget it. Have a shower.
The thought brought a glimmer of a smile to her face and she pushed away all her doubts and worries. If the bedroom was like something out of the Arabian Nights then the bathroom was like something from images of the future. All stainless steel and glass and gleaming white marble, toiletries of every kind stacked on the glass shelving and a shower that sprayed water all over her body, massaging it with an intensity that had been delicious after the long flight.
She stripped off, undid her plait and brushed it out, deciding to try some of the array of shampoos that lined the shelves and wash her hair. The shampoo she chose had a perfume she didn’t recognise, yet as she dried her hair she realised she’d smelt the same scent here and there around the palace, as if the carpets or tapestries were permeated with it.
She sniffed the air, liking it and trying to capture what it was that attracted her.
‘It’s frankincense,’ Hafa told her when Alex asked about the scent. Frankincense—one of the gifts carried by the wise men! Again the unreality of the situation hit her—this was truly a strange and fascinating place.
By this time she was showered and dressed, in long dark blue trousers and a matching tunic top—the least noticeable set of clothing she’d found among an array of glittering clothes in the dressing room—and Hafa had returned to take her to dinner.
‘I’ve heard of it, of course, but I don’t think I’ve ever smelt it,’ Alex said, and Hafa smiled.
‘It is special to us,’ she replied, but didn’t explain any more than that, simply leading Alex out of the suite of rooms and along new corridors.
What seemed like a hundred women were gathered in a huge room, most of them seated on carpets on the floor, a great swathe of material spread across the floor in front of them, the material loaded with silver and brass platters piled high with fruit and nuts.
Hafa led Alex to where Samarah sat at what would be the head if there were a table. Samarah waved her to sit down beside her, greeting Alex with a light touch of her hands, clasping both of Alex’s hands together.
‘Tomorrow we will bury my son, my Bahir,’ Samarah told her, her voice still hoarse with the tears she must have shed in private. ‘You would feel out of place in the traditional ceremony so Hafa will look after you, but tonight we celebrate his existence—his life—and for this you must join us.’
‘I am honoured,’ Alex told her, and she meant it, for although she’d only known Samarah a short time, she’d heard many tales about this beloved son.
Serving women brought in more silver plates, placing one in front of each of the seated women, then huge steaming bowls of rice, vegetables and meat appeared, so many dishes Alex could only shake her head. Samarah served her a little from each dish, urging her to eat, using bread instead of cutlery.
‘We do eat Western style with knives and forks as you do,’ she explained, ‘but tonight is about tradition.’
And as the meal progressed and the women began to talk, their words translated quietly by a young woman on Alex’s other side, she realised how good such a custom was, for Bahir was remembered with laughter and joy, silly pranks he’d played as a boy, mistakes he’d made as a teenager, kindnesses he’d done to many people.
It was as if they talked to imprint the memories of him more firmly in their heads, so he wouldn’t ever be really lost to them, Alex decided as she wandered through the rose garden when the meal had finished.
She’d eaten too much to go straight to bed, and the garden with its perfumed beauty had called to her. Now, as she walked among the roses she thought of Rob, and the bitterness she’d felt towards him since he’d taken his own life drained away. At the time she’d felt guilt as well as anger about his desperate act. She’d known he was convinced that finding out the extent of his indebtedness had hastened their mother’s death from cancer, but Alex had been too shocked by the extent of the debt and too devastated by David’s desertion to do more to support her brother.
Forget
