The Ice Maiden's Sheikh

All around the room, eyes dark with blame rested on Jalia. She was saved from whatever might have been said next when Bari al Khalid’s uncle came into the room, looking harassed and bewildered.

“Bari has gone, too! The guards say he drove out a few minutes after Noor!”

“Barakullah!” Princess Zaynab wailed. “What is going on?”

Latif Abd al Razzaq spoke, his calm voice stilling the rustle of horrified panic. “One of the guards saw her drive away and came to tell Bari. He went after her to bring her back.”

Where Latif stood was suddenly the centre of the room. Everyone turned to gaze at him.

“He asked me to find Jalia and ask her what she knew.”

Again, as one, they all turned more or less accusing eyes on Jalia.

“I don’t know anything about it!” she wailed. “She didn’t say a word to me.” She flicked a glance at Latif. She was sure he had deliberately dropped her in it. “Is it possible she got a phone call—?”

“The maids say not.” Princess Muna answered her daughter.

“Where’s her mobile? Did she phone someone?”

“In her handbag, in the bedroom. She didn’t even take money, Jalia!”

“Oh, my daughter! What is to be done now?” Princess Zaynab cried. “If Bari finds her, so angry as he must be…”

“I will go after them,” Latif announced.

“Ah, Your Excellency, thank you! But if you find Noor—”

“Jalia will come with me.”

Jalia looked up in startled indignation. “Me? What good can—”

Her mother hurried into the breach. “Yes, go with His Excellency, Jalia. You might be able to help.”

Go with Latif Abd al Razzaq? The words had a kind of premonitory electricity that made her skin shiver into gooseflesh. Why was he asking for her company, when he clearly thought her poison?

“Help how? I don’t know where she’s gone!” she protested, but not one face relaxed. She glared at Latif. “I have absolutely no idea what she’s…”

He only lifted an eyebrow, but it was a comment that she was protesting too much. She could see in their faces that most people saw his point. Damn the man!

“Of course you don’t, Jalia,” Princess Zaynab murmured, patting her hand again, her soft dark eyes liquid with worry. “But Bari will be so angry. Please go with Latif. She may be…calm her down and bring her back. Tell her it’s not too late. We will wait here.”

Outside, a hot, dry wind smacked her, blowing her wedding finery against her body and dust into her eyes.

The hem of her flowing skirt and the bodice of her tunic were encrusted with gold embroidery, sequins and gold coins. How stupid to go searching for Noor dressed like this! As if she were one of the mountain tribeswomen she had seen in the bazaar, who even seemed to go shopping dressed in magnificently decorated clothes. Some of them were blond, with green eyes, like Jalia, though she had always believed that her own colouring came from her French grandmother.

By the time Latif’s car arrived from the parking area, her skin was glowing with sweat and she realized she had taken nothing to protect herself from the sun.

The Cup Companion’s ceremonial sword in its jewelled scabbard had been tossed into the back seat. He watched her silently as she slipped into the seat beside him.

“I can’t imagine why you feel you need me!” she remarked.

Sheikh Latif Abd al Razzaq gave her a long unreadable look.

“Need you?” he repeated with arrogant disdain, and she felt a strange, dry heat from him, like invisible fire deep under dry grass that hadn’t yet burst into open flame. “I was getting you out of the way before they all turned on you. Not that you don’t richly deserve it.”

As the big gates opened the car crept forward, and two men and a woman flung themselves towards it. One man had a camera on his shoulder, and the woman was thrusting a tape recorder towards Latif’s face as she banged on the window.

“Excellency, may we have a word, please?”

“Can you tell us what happened? Did the wedding take place?”

“Why did Princess Noor drive off?”

More reporters were now surging around the car, forcing Latif to drive very slowly to avoid running them down. The questions continued nonstop, shouted through the windows at them, while rapid-fire flashes burst against the glass. Several little red eyes gazed hotly into the car, as if the cameras themselves took a fevered interest in the occupants.

“Damn, oh damn!” Jalia cried.

“Don’t give them an opening,” he advised flatly.

Jalia had to admire Latif’s cool. Although forced to drive at a speed of inches per hour, he gave no sign that he heard or saw the media people. She, meanwhile, found her temper rising as the reporters deliberately blocked their path, banging on the car as if somehow they might not have been noticed.

The fact that the air-conditioning hadn’t kicked in and the car was like an oven didn’t help her mood.

“Princess! Your Highness!” someone called, and she turned in dismay as another flash went off right in her face. How did they know? She had been so careful!

“Can you tell us why Noor ran?”

“Where did she go?”

“Was she escaping a forced marriage, Princess?”

Forced? Noor had been laughing all the way to the altar. Jalia couldn’t prevent a slight outraged shake of her head. Instantly someone leaped on this sign.

“The marriage was her own free choice? Are you surprised by the turn of events?”

But she had learned her lesson, and stared straight ahead. “Damn, damn, damn!” she muttered.

Latif put his foot down on both brake and gas, spinning the tires on the unpaved road. Immediately the car was enveloped in a cloud of dust that blinded the cameras.

Coughing, frantically waving their hands in front of their noses, the journalists backed away. Latif lifted his foot off the brake and, belching dust, the car spurted away.

For a moment they laughed together, like children who have escaped tyranny. Jalia flicked Latif a look of half-grudging admiration. She would have congratulated anyone else, but with Latif there was an ever-present constraint.

“I’ve been so careful to avoid being identified!” she wailed. “How did they know who I was?”

Unlike Noor, who had reacted with delight, Jalia had greeted the news that she was a princess of Bagestan with reticence, and was determined to avoid any public discovery of the fact. She hadn’t told even her close friends back home.

Who could have given her away, and why?