The Love Slave Part 18

"It was the prestige of being able to say that his daughter Hatiba is the first wife of the Prince of Malina's son; the status and distinction of being able to claim that he and the Prince of Malina have grandsons in common. Being related by marriage to your family gives him new power among the mountain clans. That is what he wants."

"Do you love someone else?" he asked her bluntly.

Hatiba flushed, her pale golden complexion growing rosy with his words, but she answered him honestly. "Yes, and he was to have been my husband, but that your family offered for me. The contracts were already signed, the bride price and dowry agreed upon, although not paid. But then came your father's offer. My father tore up the contracts. The old qadi who had overseen them died suddenly. There was no proof that any agreement had been made. Since neither the bride price nor the dowry had been exchanged, my beloved was forced to watch as I was contracted to you. Ohh, why of all the girls you could have had did you want me?" Her gray eyes filled with tears, and she angrily wiped them away.

"I did not want you," he said quietly, deciding that her honesty deserved his in return. "I did not even know of your existence until the match was made. Last year I asked my father to find me a wife. I have spent most of my life a sea captain and trader. I knew how much it would please my father if I finally settled down.

"This spring I delivered to the caliph in Cordoba a slave woman whom I loved, and she loved me. You have been told, I know, that I was a Pa.s.sion Master. The girl was put into my care by an old friend of my father's. I trained her in the erotic arts, but I broke the cardinal rule of my own order by loving her, and by accepting her love in return. Neither of us had that right. In the end, for honor's sake, we did what we had to do. Zaynab went to the caliph's bed and quickly became his favorite. I came home to Alcazaba Malina to wed with you.

"It is unfortunate that we each love another, but we cannot change our fates, Hatiba. If I sent you back to your father this very day, it would change nothing. I should not have Zaynab, nor would your father's honor permit him to let you have your lover. You know that I am right. Neither of us knows if we can love the other, but I will give you the honor and respect that you deserve as my wife. More I cannot promise. Will you honor and respect me in return, Hatiba?"

She was astounded by his speech. Suddenly her cold and distant demeanor collapsed, and her face was that of a frightened young girl. "You must send me back," she half whispered. "I am not a virgin." Then she began to weep, childish little sobs of fear and sorrow.

"The rejected bridegroom?" he asked her gently.

She nodded, her gray eyes upon him, desperate with fear.

"When was the last time you lay with him?" Karim asked her.

"Three days ago," she said low.

"Your maidenhead is not important to me, Hatiba," he told her. "However, if you are with child by this man, I have no choice but to send you back to your father in disgrace."

"If I am with child, I could say it was yours," she replied defiantly. "No one could prove otherwise, my lord!"

"I will not sleep with you, Hatiba, for two months," he told her, "and now I will recall your handmaidens to keep you company this night. What a pity you were so foolish. I would have initiated you sweetly."

He left her weeping softly, and returned to his own apartments. "Tell Mustafa I wish to see him immediately," he told an attending slave.

Mustafa came, and Karim told him, "I must return to Alcazaba Malina to speak with my father. See that my wife and her handmaidens remain in her apartments. No one is to leave those rooms, Mustafa."

"Yes, my lord," Mustafa said with an impa.s.sive face. "Shall I have your stallion saddled for you?"

Karim nodded, and several minutes later he was on the road back to the city. Arriving at his father's house, he was relieved to find it quiet.

"Karim!" His father looked up, surprised, at his entry.

"What is the matter?" his mother said, a concerned look upon her beautiful face. "Why are you here instead of with Hatiba?"

Karim explained to both of his parents the scene that had taken place between him and his bride.

Habib ibn Malik was outraged. "You will divorce her immediately!" he said angrily. "I will find a decent girl for you, my son."

"No," Karim said. "The girl's father is to blame, but what is done is done. I will renounce her only if she has been foolish enough to get herself with child. I cannot accept another man's son as my heir. Tonight I want your physician to examine her to ascertain if she speaks the truth. Then I want her father informed. If the girl must be returned to her family, I want no doubt about the reasons why, and the bride price must be returned to me. That old Berber bandit will not profit at my expense and embarra.s.sment."

Habib ibn Malik sent for his physician, and the matter was explained to him. He was then sent to Karim's home to examine the bride. He returned almost two hours later and announced, "The girl is not a virgin, my lord Habib. She did not lie."

"You will not speak of this to anyone," Habib ibn Malik said. "Later I may need your testimony before the qadi, but for now you will remain silent, Dr. Sulayman. Thank you."

The physician bowed and departed.

Habib ibn Malik then called to one of his slaves. "Go to the apartments of Hussein ibn Hussein and his wife. Tell them I must see them both at once. Then wait, and escort them here to me."

Hussein ibn Hussein and his wife, Qabiha, arrived shortly thereafter, puzzled, and not just a little frightened.

Habib ibn Malik wasted no time. "Your daughter is not a virgin," he said coldly. "She admitted such to my son, and Dr. Sulayman has confirmed her shame. I am also told that you had agreed previously to another match for Hatiba prior to my asking for Karim."

"There is no proof of such a contract!" Hussein sputtered.

"Aye, I understand the qadi responsible conveniently died," Habib returned dryly. "Nevertheless, the girl is not pure."

Hussein turned angrily to his favorite wife, Qabiha. "She is your daughter! Why could you not oversee her behavior?"

"She has been in love with Ali Ha.s.san since she was ten," Qabiha replied spiritedly. "They would have wed three years ago but that you would not let her go, and held her suitor off demanding a huge bride price! They are young and hot-blooded. They believed they would one day wed, my lord. I could not keep her locked up all the time. Do not blame me! She is your daughter too, and more like you than she is like me," Qabiha finished.

"He will divorce her! I shall have to return the three thousand dinars, and they are already spent," Hussein hissed at his wife as if no one else were in the room.

"If Hatiba is not with child, Hussein ibn Hussein," Karim said quietly, "I will keep her. If her lover's seed has taken root, then she must be returned to you. I do not hold the girl responsible for this disaster. I hold you responsible. Do you understand me?" Karim's face was fierce with anger.

"My lord," Qabiha pleaded her daughter's cause, "Hatiba is really a good girl, but she is strong-willed and has always had her own way. When her father would not let her wed Ali Ha.s.san, she became as I have never known her." The mother, Karim thought, very much resembled the daughter, but where Qabiha's gray eyes were soft, Hatiba's were hard and cold; except when she was frightened.

"You will stay with your daughter for the next two months," Karim told his mother-in-law. "I will expect that you monitor her behavior closely during that time and remind her daily of her duties as my wife. If at the end of that time I am absolutely certain she has proved infertile from her lover's seed, then I will return home to begin our life together. You will then be sent back to your husband."

Hussein ibn Hussein opened his mouth to protest, but an angry look from his wife silenced him. His jaws snapped shut with an audible click. "You are more than generous, my lord," he said, none too graciously.

Karim glanced at the man cynically. "You had best use the grace period I give your daughter to find the three thousand dinars of her bride price that you have so wantonly squandered. That gold is Hatiba's, not yours, Hussein ibn Hussein. It is for her safety and protection should she ever find herself without a husband. I would see it returned in two months to either me or to my wife."

His father-in-law looked away guiltily. "Yes, my lord," was all that he could now say, but his facile brain was contemplating how in the name of the prophet he would recover the money. Perhaps his new son-in-law might meet with some unfortunate accident Then the young widow would be returned to her family, bride price and dowry intact, and available for another match.

Karim watched as Hatiba's father narrowed his black eyes and considered his next move. It was undoubtedly underhanded. He hoped his new wife would avoid being returned to her father. It was not that he had any particular feeling for the girl, but having become more closely acquainted with his father-in-law, he was beginning to feel very sorry for her. He turned to his own father and asked, "Will you see that the lady Qabiha is transported to my home this night?"

Habib ibn Malik nodded. "At once."

Qabiha took up residence in her son-in-law's villa. Her daughter looked angry and sullen upon her arrival. Qabiha slapped her and said harshly, "You will no longer have your father to condone your bad behavior, girl. He may protest to the contrary and declare his innocence of the matter, but he knew what you were doing when you would ride off into the hills. He knew! Yet he placed you in this position for the sake of three thousand gold dinars and the chance to ally himself with the princely family of this city. You had best pray to Allah, my daughter, that you are not with child by Ali Ha.s.san. If you are, your father will kill you. I cannot protect you from him in this matter. What else can he possibly do with a daughter who has brought such shame upon her family, and still retain his own honor? You are fortunate in your husband, Hatiba, if indeed he remains your husband. If you are not with child, he says he will keep you. I cannot imagine any other man being so generous."

"Generous?" Hatiba sneered. "He loves another he cannot have, Mother. My lost virtue means nothing to him. If he keeps me, it is for his benefit, not mine. He will never love me."

The days pa.s.sed quickly by. Karim rode with his two brothers and a group of friends most mornings, hunting in the fields and hills about the city. In the afternoons he visited Hatiba, always in her mother's presence. He discovered she was an appallingly ignorant girl. She could not read or write. She had no ear for music. When he brought tutors in to help educate her, she grew quickly bored and wept.

"She has absolutely no attention span, my lord," the tutor he respected most told him, speaking for them all. "She cannot be taught, but worse, she does not want to learn."

Afterward Karim groaned to himself, wondering what they would possibly have in common if she remained his wife. He found she was an enthusiastic game player, however. She played both chess and backgammon with a childish zeal, wagering wildly, clapping her hands gleefully if she won, pouting if she lost. It was something. He remembered his brother Ja'far's advice to get her with child and then find some exotic creature to start his harem. He sighed sadly. He didn't want a harem of exotic females, or a wife named Hatiba who was already proving more trouble than she was worth. He wanted Zaynab, and he would never have her. She was beyond his reach forever.

Finally the waiting period was at an end. Hatiba had bled twice since their wedding day, Dr. Sulayman coming to examine her during each cycle to be certain there was no fraud. Now the physician declared his wife not with child.

"You may enter her without fear, my lord. Any issue she produces in the next year will be your child without a doubt. She is healthy, and free of disease. She should prove a good breeder."

Karim sent his mother-in-law back to the mountains. He dismissed his wife's serving women for the next few days. He entered his wife's apartments, where Hatiba awaited him. There was no turning back. No excuse for putting her aside. It was time to begin his life anew.

Chapter 12.

"Drink this, my lady Zaynab," the physician Hasdai ibn Shaprut said, his arm bracing her, his other hand holding a cup to her lips.

"What is it?" she asked him weakly. Her head ached so.

"More of the antidote I have been giving you. It is called theriaca. Allow me to rea.s.sure you that you are going to be all right," the doctor told her. "We are fortunate you reacted so quickly to the poison you were given. It allowed us to diagnose you and save you."

"Poison?" A look of shock crossed her beautiful face. "I was poisoned? I do not remember. Who would poison me?" Zaynab asked, confused. How could she have made so strong an enemy so quickly?

"We do not know the culprit yet," the caliph answered her, "but if I find out who it is, she will die the very death she planned for you, my love." His face was grim with anger and frustration. His harem had over four thousand women in it: his wives, his concubines, those who hoped to gain his favor, his female relations, and their servants. It was impossible to keep track of them all. The a.s.sa.s.sin had been very clever. It was most unlikely they would ever find out who it was.

"How was I poisoned?" Zaynab queried Hasdai ibn Shaprut. "Is my poor Naja all right? He tastes everything I eat or drink."

"Other than the fact your eunuch is beside himself with worry and remorse, he is fine," the physician a.s.sured her. "The poison was ingrained into a shawl you wore. It seeped into your skin. It should have worked gradually, over a period of time, but instead the first time you wore it you reacted violently. You are obviously very sensitive to foreign substances, my lady, and a good thing too." He turned to his a.s.sistant. "Rebekah, show the lady Zaynab the shawl."

The older woman opened a metal container and displayed the contents.

"Who gave you this shawl, lady?" Hasdai ibn Shaprut asked her. "If you can remember, perhaps we will have our culprit. Do not touch it, I beg you. It is quite lethal, and must be destroyed. Just look."

Zaynab looked at the shawl. It was a particularly lovely fabric: a light, soft wool, dyed a rich rose color, with a fringe of even deeper pink. She had absolutely no idea where it had come from, and looked to Oma, who shook her head in bewilderment.

"It was not among the garments you brought from Malina," Oma said. "Remember this morning we were looking in the trunk for a shawl because the day was proving to be chilly? It was simply there on top of all the others. I did not stop to think where it had come from. I thought perhaps our lord, the caliph, had given it to you."

"Lady, I must ask this question," the physician said. "Can you trust your maidservant?"

Zaynab was outraged. "How dare you?" she said icily. "I would trust Oma with my life, sir. She is with me by choice. I offered to free her and send her back to Alba. She refused. She even refused to marry Alaeddin ben Omar because she would not leave me." Zaynab reached out for her friend, and Oma, tears in her eyes, took her hand. "Oma is faithful. She would not harm me."

"Lady, I beg your pardon, but I had to ask," the physician said.

"Can she travel?" the caliph interjected, surprising them all.

"Where would you take her, my lord?" Hasdai asked.

"Al-Rusafa. She will be safe there while she recuperates," the caliph replied. "We will travel in stages, first to the Alcazar in Cordoba, and then the next day to al-Rusafa."

"Yes," the physician said thoughtfully, "yes, that would be a good idea, my lord. At al-Rusafa you can control her situation much better. Is the palace still habitable? You have not been there since the court removed to Madinat al-Zahra."

"I shall keep her in a little summerhouse in the gardens that is quite habitable. It will not be the first time I have taken a pretty girl there," Abd-al Rahman said with twinkling eyes. "It is peaceful there," he amended, a bit more soberly.

"All her clothing will have to be burned," the physician decreed, "and her jewelry boiled in vinegar. We cannot be certain that the poison has not been infused into other of her possessions."

The caliph saw the storm building in Zaynab's eyes, and quickly said, "I will have a brand-new wardrobe made for you, my love. Besides, I like you best as nature has fas.h.i.+oned you. There is none fairer than you, my darling Zaynab. I thank Allah that you were not taken from me."

"Oh, my lord, you are so good to me," she answered him sweetly, but she was both angry and frightened at the same time. Iniga had warned her of such things as poison, but she hadn't taken her friend seriously.

Hasdai ibn Shaprut thought to himself that the caliph was falling in love with her, or at least believed he was. In the few years he had known Abd-al Rahman, he had never seen him act this way with a woman. What had begun as blind l.u.s.t was softening as his master learned more of the Love Slave than just her nubile body. As for Zaynab herself, the physician did not believe she was in love with the caliph. She respected him, was perhaps a trifle afraid of him, and might harbor a small affection for him, but love? No. Whether she was even capable of love he could not ascertain, not knowing her well enough. Did a female trained to lead such an unnatural existence really know how to love? It was a challenging conundrum.

She was frankly the most beautiful female the physician had ever seen. He understood the caliph's fascination with her youth and beauty. Zaynab was the love of Abd-al Rahman's old age as Abis.h.a.g had been the last love of King David. He would probably get a final child on her. Even though he was over fifty, the caliph was yet potent, as the existence of his two youngest sons proved.

"How is she?" the lady Zahra asked Hasdai ibn Shaprut. She had requested that he come to her apartments before he departed the harem. "What was the matter with her? Is she with child?"

"Someone tried to poison her," the physician said quietly. "The caliph is very angry. Fortunately, I was able to save her." And why is the caliph's first wife concerned? he wondered. Zahra did not usually bother with those she felt beneath her.

"Then she will live," Zahra said calmly. "He is too old for such a plaything, you must agree, but will he listen to me? No! It would have been better if he had given her to Hakam, do you not think, my lord?"

"I think my master, the caliph, is happy with the lady Zaynab. I think him fit enough to indulge his pa.s.sions with a beautiful girl," Hasdai ibn Shaprut answered her. He had never before seen the lady Zahra exhibit such rancor. Why was she jealous? Her own position was secure, as was that of her eldest son.

"Men!" Zahra said disgustedly to the caliph's second wife, Tarub, after the physician had left. "They are all alike! Our lord endangers his health with that girl. He does not think of his value to al-Andalus."

"If he is happy," Tarub said wisely, "is he not of greater value to al-Andalus? What do you have against Zaynab that your jealousy burns so hot? None of the others have ever caused you to turn a hair, Zahra. From the beginning this girl has been mannerly, and has politely deferred to you. She causes no dissensions among the other harem women. Indeed, she keeps more to herself than any I have ever known. I have heard no complaint against her, nor would she appear to have any fault that should distress you. Why do you dislike her so?" asked Tarub, a Galacian whose once red hair was now faded.

"I do not dislike her," Zahra protested. "I am simply concerned over our dear lord's health." The first wife was a Catalan, from a country known for the intellects of its people. It had been that which had first attracted Abd-al Rahman to Zahra.

"It is not his health that is in question," Tarub said with some small humor. "It is poor Zaynab who was poisoned."

"He loves her," Zahra almost whispered.

"Ahh, so that is it," her companion replied. "Oh, Zahra, what matter if he loves her? He loves me, and you are not the least jealous. He loves all the charming and not so charming concubines who have given him children, particularly Bacea and Qumar. You are hot jealous of them in the least. If he loves Zaynab, he loves you better. Indeed he loves you best of all. He always has. Did he not name a city for you? Madinat al-Zahra. How marvelous that a man of Abd-al Rahman's age can still find new love!" She laughed.

"Praise Allah for it! We came to Abd-al Rahman at the same time, you and I. How many years ago was it? We were young girls. Your son was born but two months ahead of mine. I do not curse Allah that it happened that way. I rejoice in my children and my grandchildren. I accept that time has pa.s.sed. You seem unable to do that, Zahra. It is growing worse for you with each year. You are no longer a girl. You never will be again. I think your jealousy lies not so much in that Abd-al loves Zaynab, but that she is young and extravagantly beautiful. You cannot change that any more than you can change the fact that you are past forty."

"You are cruel!" Zahra cried, tears springing to her eyes.

"I am honest with you as I have always been, dearest friend," Tarub replied. "I tell you that our husband will always love you best, Zahra, no matter who else he may love as well. Accept that truth and let your anger and your jealousy die, lest in the end they kill you, or the abiding love that Abd-al Rahman has for you. Will you throw away all those happy years?"

Zahra did not reply, but rather she turned her head away from her friend. Was Tarub right? she wondered. Or was her fellow wife simply saying those things to soothe her feelings? Abd-al Rahman did not seem to rely upon her as he once did. She remembered when his oldest concubine had died. The lady Aisha had been the first woman he had ever known. She had been older than he was.

Aisha was a gift from the old emir Abdallah, the caliph's grandfather, who had raised him. Abd-al Rahman had genuinely liked her. She had initiated him into the erotic arts, but she had also become his trusted friend as well. Long after they ceased their amatory adventures, he regularly visited her apartments, and he held her in the highest esteem. When Aisha had died, she directed that her vast fortune be used to ransom men and women of Islam held captive in Christian lands. So few were found that Abd-al Rahman was at a loss as to what to do with Aisha's monies. Whatever he did, he wanted it to be something Aisha would have approved. It was Zahra who had suggested that he build a new city.

It was more a walled town than a city. The site chosen was on a slope of the Sierra Morena overlooking the Guadalquivir River, to the northwest of Cordoba. It had been begun almost ten years ago, and was still not finished. There were three levels, the first of which was completed and held the royal palace. Ten thousand laborers were used in the city's construction as well as fifteen hundred beasts of burden-mules, donkeys, and camels. Six thousand stones were hewn to fit the buildings and walls each day. The roof tiles were covered in gold and silver leaf. The city was a full mile wide east to west, and half a mile north to south.

Each of the three levels planned for the city was set high enough to allow the level below it a clear view. Beneath the royal residence was a level consisting entirely of gardens, orchards, a zoo for the caliph's exotic creatures, and an aviary filled with wonderful birds. The bottom level of the town held the government offices, residences of those important people attached to the court, public baths, workshops, armories, the mint, barracks for the vast royal guard, and a mosque.

Although Zahra had joined the caliph on his expeditions to the construction site in the early years of its building, he gave her a marvelous surprise the day he moved the inhabitants of the royal palace there from Cordoba. As they approached the entry gate, he had advised her to look up. When she did, she saw a marble bust of her own head over the entrance to the city. Wordlessly she looked at him, and he told her that the city's new name would be Madinat al-Zahra, the city of Zahra.

"But should it not be Madinat al-Aisha in honor of your old friend, whose vast funds provided the wherewithal for the city?" she asked him, heart beating excitedly. She knew he would refuse, for he did love her above all women. In deference to Aisha, however, she felt she should at least ask him. Allah! Had any woman ever been so honored?

Now, however, Abd-al Rahman had a new interest in life. The Love Slave, Zaynab, consumed him entirely, it seemed. Zahra sighed She was working herself into a jealous fit again. Was Tarub right? Tarub was not a woman to lie, even to herself. She was kind and practical and honest to a fault.