“Therefore this retreat. At such times as I deem right, when your services are not required elsewhere, Bonnur, I will send word. You will leave the house and enter this section by its back door, on the lane behind. And I will give you a signal, Aliyat. You will betake yourself directly here. In fact, sometimes you will come here to be alone. You have desired to help me; very well, you may look over such reports and figures as I shall lend you, undisturbed, and offer me your opinions. This will be common knowledge. At other times, unbeknownst to anyone else, you will meet Bonnur.”
“But sir!” Red and white went in waves over the boyish face. “The lady and I and nobody else? Surely a maidservant, a eunuch, or—or—”
Zabdas shook his head. “The protestation does you honor,” he replied. “However, a watcher would defeat my whole purpose, which is to give you a true feel of conditions in Tadmor while avoiding derision and insinuations.” He looked from one to the other of them. “I never doubt I can trust my kinsman and my first wife.” With a flick of a smile: “She is, after all, aged beyond the usual span of me.”
“What?” Bonnur exclaimed. “Master, you jest! The veil, the gown, they cannot hide—”
“It is true,” said Zabdas, a low sibilation. “You shall hear of it from her, along with things less curious.”
12
A day approached sunset. “Well,” said Aliyat, “best we stop. I have duties still before me.”
“And I. And I should think upon what you have revealed to me this time.” Bonnur’s voice dragged.
Neither of them rose from the stools on which they sat facing. Abruptly he colored, dropped his gaze, and blurted, “My lady has a wonderful intelligence.”
It felt like a caress. “No, no,” she protested. “In a long life, even a stupid person learns a few things.”
She saw him break down a barrier so that he could meet her eyes. “Hard to believe you are, are old.”
“I carry my years well.” How often had she said it precisely thus? How mechanical it had become.
“All you have seen—“ Reckless impulse: “The change of faith. That you were forced away from Christ!”
“I have no regrets.”
“Do you not? If only for, for the freedom you have lost— the freedom your friends have lost, the simple freedom to look upon you—”
For an instant she was about to hush him. Nothing closed off the doorway but a bead curtain. However, such a thing muffled sound somewhat, and deserted corridors and rooms stretched between it and the inhabited part, and he had spoken softly, deep in his throat, while tears glimmered on his lashes.
“Who cares to see a hag?” she fended, and knew she was teasing.
“You are not! You shouldn’t have to cower behind that veil. I’ve noticed when you forgot to stoop and shamble.”
“You have watched me closely, it seems.” She fought a dizziness.
“I cannot help myself,” he confessed miserably.
“You are too curious.” As if a different creature used her tongue, her hands: “Best we quench that. Behold.”
She drew the yashmak aside. He gasped.
She dropped it back and stood up. “Are you satisfied? Keep silence, or we shall have to end these meetings. My lord would mislike that.” She left him.
Her daughter met her in the harem. “Mama, where have you been? Gutne won’t let me play with the lion doll.”
Aliyat groped after patience. She ought to love this child. But Thirya was whimpery, and sick half the time, and resembled her father.
13
Sometimes the sameness of the days broke, when Zabdas gave Aliyat materials to study and report on. In the room that was apart, she tried to grasp what she read, but it slipped and wriggled about like a handful of worms. Twice she met there with Bonnur. The second time she took off her veil at the outset, and she had dressed in a gown of light material. “The weather is blazing hot,” she told him, “and I am only an old granny, no, great-grandmother.” They accomplished little. Silences kept falling between them.
More days flowed sluggishly together. She lost count of them. What difference did their number make? Each was just like the last, save for bickerings and nuisances and, at night, dreams. Did Satan brew certain of those for her? If so, she owed him thanks.
Then Zabdas summoned her to his office. “Your counsel has gone worthless,” he said peevishly. “Does your dotage come upon you at last?”
She bit back rage. “I am sorry, my lord, if no thoughts have occurred to me of late. I will try to do better.”
“What’s the use? No use in you any more. Furja, now, Furja warms my bed, and surely soon she’ll be fruitful.” Zabdas waved a hand in dismissal. “Well, be off. Go wait for Bonnur. I’ll send him. Perhaps at least you can persuade him to mend those woolgathering ways he’s taken on. By all the saints—by the beard of the Prophet, I regret my promises to both of you!”
Aliyat stalked through the empty part of the house with fists clenched. In the room of meetings she prowled back and forth, back and forth. It was a cage. She halted at the window and stared out through the grille. From there she could look over the walls around the ancient temple of Bel. Its limestone seemed bleached under a furious sun. The bronze capitals of the portico columns blazed. Heat-shimmer made the reliefs on the cella waver. Long had it stood unused, empty, like herself. Now it was being refurbished. She had heard at fourth or fifth hand that the Arabs planned to make a fortress of it.
But were those Powers entirely dead? Bel of the storm, Jarhibol of the sun, Aglibol of the moon—Ashtoreth of begettings and births, terrible in beauty, she who descended into hell to win back her lover—unseen, they strode across the earth; unheard, they shouted throughout heaven; the sea that Aliyat had never known thundered behind her breasts.
A footstep, a click of beads, she whirled about. Bonnur halted. Sweat sheened on him. She caught the smell of it, filling the heat and silence, man-smell. She was wet with her own; the dress clung to her.
She unfastened her veil and cast it to the floor.
“My lady,” he choked, “oh, my lady.”
She advanced. Her hips swung as if of themselves. Breath loudened. “What would you with me, Bonnur?”
His gazelle eyes fled right and left, trapped. He backed off a step. He raised his hands against her. “No,” he begged.
“No, what?” she laughed. She stopped before him and he must needs meet her look. “We’ve things to do, you and I.”
If he is wise, he will agree. He will sit down and begin asking about the best way to bargain with a caravaneer.
14
“I have business in Tripolis,” Zabdas said. “It may keep me several weeks. I shall go with Nebozabad, who leaves a few days hence.”
Aliyat was glad she had left her veil on after reaching his office. “Does my lord wish to say what business it is?”
“No sense in that. You’ve grown barren of advice, as of everything else. I am informing you privately so that I can state what should be obvious, that in my absence you are to abide in the harem and occupy yourself with a wife’s ordinary duties.”