The Eagle and the Dove Read online

  His voice broke into the seclusion she was trying to create behind her closed eyes. She felt his hand on her shoulder beneath the water. “Come,” he was saying. “It is time to move on.”

  She opened her eyes and found herself looking up into his smiling face bending over hers. “Move on to what?”

  “The next bath.”

  “Why isn’t one enough?” Grumbling, she hauled herself out of the water and watched as Abul plunged into the second sunken bath. He drew in his breath on a sharp cry as he sank beneath the surface, then rose up with the same rapidity, leaping out, his teeth chattering. Zayda came forward with a thick towel and began rubbing his skin vigorously.

  Puzzled, Sarita dipped a toe in the second bath and leaped backward with a shriek. “It’s colder than a mountain lake!”

  “Of course.” Abul laughed at her. “It’s to stimulate the blood.”

  “My blood has no need of stimulation,” she said firmly. “I like the other bath.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a coward.” Still laughing, Abul moved away from the attendant’s ministering hands and came toward Sarita. She backed away from him. “Come on,” he said, coaxing. “It only takes a minute, and it feels wonderful when you get out.”

  She shook her head. “No, I am perfectly happy with the other—oh, no, Abul, you cannot!” She squealed as he reached for her, pulling her hard against the cold, fresh length of his body. “No—no, you cannot throw me in.”

  “Of course I won’t,” he said, picking her up nevertheless. “Such violence would not be consonant with the peace and harmony of the baths.” He stepped with her to the edge. “However, I trust you realize what you are subjecting me to with a double immersion.” But there was a chuckle in his voice as he stepped off the edge and plunged them both deep into the icy water.

  Sarita couldn’t scream, the cold took her breath away, and she clung to Abul’s neck like a limpet, her body rigid in his arms as he resurfaced, shaking water off himself with all the vigor of a wet dog.

  He set her on her feet where she stood hunched and shivering, her eyes glazed with shock. “Don’t fight it, Sarita,” he instructed. “Relax your body.” When she looked blankly at him, still a rigid huddle, he took the towel from the waiting Leila and flung it around Sarita and began to dry her with a rough friction that set her skin atingle. Her eyes focused again, and she uncurled herself as the bitter cold gave way to the tingling warmth and a wonderful sense of energy and refreshment surged through her, replacing the earlier lassitude created by the hot water, and every bit as delicious.

  “That’s better,” Abul said. “Now tell me it wasn’t worth it.” He handed Sarita’s towel back to Leila, and Zayda began swiftly to dry him again.

  “It was brutal,” Sarita declared. “There was nothing peaceful or harmonious about it.”

  “That’s because you fought the sensation.” He was speaking quite earnestly as he raised his arms for Zayda’s toweling. “The lack of serenity was within yourself.”

  “You really do take this bathing seriously,” she said wonderingly.

  “Have you only just realized that?” Abul shook his head in faint reproof. “I thought I made that perfectly clear.”

  “You did, but I still didn’t understand. It’s rather outside my realm of experience.” She shrugged at this truth. “My people don’t do things just for the sake of them … or … or to create harmony with their minds and their bodies.”

  “Ours is an ancient civilization,” Abul said. “We have learned values that your world has not yet come to recognize.”

  “Perhaps we have different values,” she ventured, for some reason stung by this implicit criticism.

  Abul shook his head, a vestige of contempt curling his lip. “Not what we would call values.”

  “Well, we do not believe a man should be allowed to have as many wives as he wishes,” she snapped. “We believe a man should be true to one woman as she should be true to him. That is a value.”

  Disconcertingly, Abul laughed. “That is not a value. That is a denial of the infinite variety of relationships possible between men and women. Variety does not exclude loyalty or commitment.”

  Sarita flushed. “Since we have finished this bath, I would like to return to the tower.”

  “Oh, but it is not finished, cara. On the contrary, we have barely started.” He took her face between his hands. “I said there must be no disharmony. Have you forgotten?”

  “But it did not come from me in the beginning,” she retorted. “I did not criticize your people the way you criticized mine.”

  “It was no criticism, simply a statement of fact.” His hands slipped to cup the curve of her shoulders. The surface skin of his palms was cold, yet she could feel the warmth of the blood pulsing beneath, just as she could feel it beneath her own cooled flesh. His body was very close to her, so close that if she breathed deeply, her lifting bosom would graze his chest. She wanted to step back, turn her head, do something—anything—but found she was rendered as immobile as Lot’s wife.

  “Cry truce,” he said softly. “I will draw no more unfavorable comparisons.”

  “No more cold water, either?” It was not a bad attempt at a playful response under the circumstances, but her voice sounded slightly thick.

  He shook his head and released her shoulders. “A little more, but this time I promise you will welcome it. Follow me.”

  She followed him across the hall of immersion, through an archway, and then into a small enclosed room where the searing heat scorched her lungs and set the sweat flowing on her skin almost before she had stepped inside. “What is this?” She stared as Leila bent to feed the brazier in the corner of the room. Zayda laid fresh towels on marble slabs set within arched recesses at the sides. Both women then left the mist-wreathed chamber.

  “Here we bathe in steam,” he said, stretching out on his belly on one of the towel-covered slabs. “Lie down and keep very still.”

  Gingerly, she imitated him. It was hard to breathe, and a deep enervation seemed to reduce her to a mere formless, sinewless puddle of sweat. “Is this supposed to be pleasant?” she inquired breathlessly of her silent companion.

  Abul turned his head indolently to regard her. “It is if you keep very still and don’t talk. Let your body do its own work.”

  “But I can’t breathe properly.”

  He sighed, stretched out a hand, and lifted a small handbell. “Go with Leila, then.”

  “But are you not coming too?” She sat up slowly as the attendant came in. Her head spun for a second.

  “I am accustomed to it. My tolerance is much greater. Leila will bring you back if you wish it when she has cooled you off.”

  Sarita couldn’t imagine wishing to return to this steamy inferno. She followed Leila into a chamber next door, and this time the icy water the attendant poured over her sweat-slick skin as she stood in a small sunken well felt astoundingly wonderful. She turned under the stream, offered her body for the slightly abrasive pads Leila used to rub her down, and purred with contentment. She was still twirling and purring for the patient Leila when Abul came through from the steam room.

  She looked so like an utterly contented cat as she arched her spine and threw back her neck in the extremity of bliss that he was hard pressed to keep his laughter to himself. Amusement was only a part of his response, however, as he watched the gyrations of that lean, sinuous, exquisitely formed little body, and he welcomed Zayda’s jugs of cold water with more enthusiasm than the natural progression of the baths might seem to warrant.

  “You will grow more used to the heat with practice,” he observed, turning his back on the entrancing sight of her.

  Sarita was about to tell him that she wouldn’t have the opportunity to become used to it, then remembered she was supposed to give the impression that she had accepted his edict and was no longer planning a precipitate departure. She mumbled vaguely.

  Leila, having patted the surplus moisture from her skin, was gesturing
invitingly toward an archway leading into another hall. Sarita followed and then stopped with a cry of delight.

  The most entrancing music filled the hall, a gentle plucking of lute and lyre, the delicate purity of a flute. She couldn’t at first see where it was coming from. There were four marble columns in the center of the hall, and perfectly matched arches built into the walls on all four sides. The walls were inlaid with tiles, penciled with lapis lazuli and gold leaf. Leila was indicating that she should lie upon a cushioned divan, but she hesitated, still searching for the source of the music.

  “What is this place?” Her voice was not above a whisper. An ordinary pitch would have seemed sacrilege.

  “The Hall of Repose.” Abul spoke behind her. His voice was soft, though not a whisper.

  “Where is the music coming from?”

  “From the gallery. The musicians are up there.” He pointed upward, and she saw the four galleries of the upper story.

  There were people up there … men … and she was standing quite naked. Her arms flew to cover her breasts.

  “There is no need. They are blind. The women of the seraglio use the baths frequently, and they must not be seen by any man but myself. But that is no reason why they should be deprived of music.”

  Her arms dropped and she gazed at him in horror. He looked puzzled for a minute, then gave a short laugh. “Foolish!” he said. “I did not say they were blinded. They are blind because they were born that way.”

  Sarita bit her lip, guilty as charged. For one dreadful moment she had thought these people capable of such a barbarism. She did not understand them or their ways, and with the inexcusable arrogance of ignorance, she had drawn an appalling conclusion.

  “I am sorry,” she whispered, staring at the tiles at her feet. “I don’t know why I would think such a thing.”

  Abul tucked an errant curl back into the knot on top of her bent head, saying mildly, “You will learn. I understand that we are strange to you.”

  “But I am not strange to you.” She knew that to be true. “My people are not strange to you.”

  “No,” he agreed, “but then, I have traveled many places and done many things. I know much that you do not.” He smiled down at her. She looked so crestfallen, the physical euphoria of a minute ago vanished. “Oh, dear, this is not achieving what I had hoped it would, Sarita. I can feel you jangling like an ill-hung bell. Let Leila ease you now.” He pushed her gently toward the couch. “We must address such issues in a different environment.”

  Sarita was still too discomfited to respond and obediently lay on her front on the cushions, aware of Abul stretching beside her on the couch’s twin. She watched as Leila held a small pan over a candle, shaking it gently. The strains of music floated down, and the air became filled with a delicate perfume. Her embarrassment faded as her body relaxed again.

  Leila tipped the contents of the pan into the palm of her hand. Rubbing her palms together, she turned to Sarita’s prone body and began to massage the warmed, perfumed oil into her spine. Sarita’s eyes closed involuntarily, all tension now dissipated. Maybe there was some justification for treating the rituals of the baths as something almost sacrosanct. Maybe she could become accustomed …

  “Allah!” Leila’s soft-voiced exclamation was no less filled with horror for its lack of volume. She had come upon Sarita’s feet.

  Abul said something lazily in Arabic.

  Tutting, Leila turned to a table on which reposed a variety of instruments and more oil.

  “What were you saying?” Sarita opened one eye. “I did not understand.”

  “You will,” Abul murmured.

  She did the minute Leila, her composure seriously fractured, lifted her feet with a distressed murmur. Sarita felt something scraping against the leathern soles and with an indignant exclamation pulled her feet away. Why would these people not leave them the way they were? Surely they must understand that they served as shoes? But they didn’t understand; she’d had ample opportunity to realize that.

  “My feet are my own,” she announced with great clarity. “I do not wish you to touch them. Would you translate that please, my lord caliph?”

  “No,” Abul said definitively. “It is uncivilized to mar your beauty in that hideous way. Besides, there is not the slightest need for it anymore.”

  Oh, but there is. Sarita bit her tongue but pulled her feet again free of the woman’s grasp. She made as if to turn over and then subsided with a gasp as Abul, in one swift movement, swung himself oft his couch and straddled her, sitting lightly on her bottom.

  The feel of his flesh pressed with such an intimate weight against her own shocked her into rigid immobility as she buried her face in the pillow. She felt Leila resume work on her feet as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. But then perhaps the caliph made a habit or sitting naked on naked women to keep them still. In this place, when it came to the caliph and women, anything seemed ordinary.

  “Such a small creature is very easy to restrain.” Abul’s laughing tones came from above as he moved his fingers strongly into her neck and shoulders so that, despite her shock, she could feel herself relaxing again. “Are you going to lie still for Leila, or shall I stay where I am?”

  “Keep still,” Sarita mumbled into the pillow.

  “I didn’t catch that,” he said politely, bending closer to her ear. “Speak a little louder.”

  “I said I’ll keep still,” she declared on a rushed exhalation.

  “Pity,” Abul said, swinging off her. “I was enjoying the feel of you.”

  Sarita slumped into the cushions. “You aren’t playing fair.”

  “I never promised to play fair, only that I wouldn’t force you,” he returned, sprawling again on his own divan. “You know perfectly well that I intend to use every opportunity for persuasion that I can create.” He turned his head sideways, regarding her with a mischievous gleam. “And that, my obstinate guest, includes sharing the long hours of the night.”

  Another night like the last? No, it wasn’t to be borne. “I shall refuse to come to you,” she said with a bravado she recognized as only form. “You cannot compel me into your bed.”

  “You confuse cannot with will not,” he said rather thoughtfully. “In this place, I can compel anything, but I don’t see the need. I shall simply come to you.”

  And you won’t find me, Sarita thought with the fierce resolution that seemed all she had left with which to combat the insidious persuasiveness of her present situation.

  Leila was drawing something down her back, something with an edge to it. “What is she doing?” Sarita tried to crane over her shoulder.

  “Pulling the dirt from your body,” Abul said. “It comes away with the oil.”

  “I cannot possibly be dirty,” Sarita exclaimed. “Not after all those baths.”

  Abul chuckled. “Ordinary water cannot purify in the same way. The steam releases the impurities; the oil and the strigil remove them.”

  How was it possible to be so amazingly ignorant about something as basic as cleanliness? Sarita wondered. Or perhaps she meant, how was it possible to be so amazingly fussy, to invest such a basic matter with so much science and importance? She could imagine how the men of her tribe would mock, would regard such nicety as effete, some sign of weakness. But there was nothing weak or effete about Muley Abul Hassan.

  “Turn over,” Abul said, his voice drowsy as he rolled onto his back. “Leila wants to do the rest of you.”

  Sarita complied, glancing sideways at her companion. His eyes were closed, his body perfectly at rest as Zayda applied oil and the strigil. How could he be so apparently unmoved by the proximity of her nakedness? He must still desire her; why else would he promise to carry his battle of persuasion to the next inexorable stage? It was a mortifying truth that she was not similarly unmoved by his body. Indeed, the urge to run her hand over the golden length of him, to feel the muscular swell beneath the skin, to linger in the concave well of his belly, to move her f
ingers downward …

  She suppressed a soft moan as her nipples burned, her body shifting uneasily on the cushions, and closed her eyes tightly on an embarrassed prayer that Leila had noticed nothing. It occurred to her that she was responding exactly as Abul wished, that this was all part of a devious purpose. He knew from last night that she was far from impervious to him. In these sensuous, perfumed halls devoted to the body’s pleasure, where nakedness was so natural, how could one help but be aroused, or at least abidingly aware of one’s body and its sensations? The artful persuasion was all around her, she realized. It was not to be resumed; it had never ceased. Only in escape lay salvation …

  Escape from what? What was salvation? She woke in languor with these questions buzzing gently in her head. Her eye fell on the deserted couch beside her, and she was conscious of a deep disappointment. “Where is the lord Abul?” She spoke without volition into the silence, forgetting that she had no verbal means of communicating with the keepers of the baths.

  “He is with his son. He always spends this hour of the day with him.”

  The soft voice was a woman’s, one she had not heard before. It came from behind her head. Sarita sat up and turned sideways. The woman who stood there was very beautiful: midnight-dark hair caught up beneath a scarf of silver tissue; dark eyes delicately outlined with kohl; skin the color of the golden bloom on apricots; a tall, luscious body that made Sarita think of an orchard in full harvest. “Who are you?” But somehow she knew.

  “The lady Aicha, sultana to the caliph.” The woman inclined her head slightly. “And how are you called, Christian?”

  “Sarita of the tribe of Raphael,” Sarita said, for some reason giving her full identity, as if she were undergoing a formal interrogation. She looked around for something to cover herself with, feeling suddenly vulnerable in her nakedness in front of this woman whose rich, bejeweled, flowing robes bespoke authority and considerable status.