Sleeping with the Sultan

I discovered that the father I adored was a monster and nothing he said was to be believed.

She shrugged and lied again. “Nothing in particular.”

His gaze probed her for an uncomfortable moment, but to her relief he let it pass.

“And what happened to your letters?” he asked.

“What?” she asked blankly. She automatically leaned towards him as the waiter cleared her plate.

“The letters you wrote to the Crown Prince. What became of them?”

She really wished she hadn’t told him about that. It wasn’t a part of her past she confided very often. Something had knocked her off her centre tonight.

“I really don’t know.” Her tone said, don’t care.

“They were never sent?”

“Where to? My father told me Crown Prince Kamil had escaped from the palace as a baby, with his mother carrying him in a load of Ghasib’s dirty laundry. He said they got to Parvan, but no one knew any more than that, did they?”

He hesitated. “Some knew more.”

She wasn’t sure what made her ask, “Did you ever meet him?”

Again he hesitated. “Yes, I met him.”

“He died fighting in the Kaljuk War, didn’t he? Is that where you knew him?”

Sheikh Ashraf turned his head and lifted a hand as the waiter started to fill his glass with wine. “No, thank you.”

When he turned back he seemed to have forgotten her question. After a moment Dana nodded towards the row of medals on his chest.

“You were in the Kaljuk War?”

His eyelids came down as he nodded.

“Are you Parvani?” He didn’t sound it.

“I was born in Barakat,” he said. “I was in Prince Omar’s Company.”

The almost legendary Company of Cup Companions, led by Prince Omar of Central Barakat, who had gone to war on Prince Kavian’s side. She had followed their fortunes while still at drama school. All her friends had had crushes on the Cup Companions and had plagued Dana with questions, feeling sure that, because of her background, she knew more than they did.

And she had, a little. At least she knew what the term Cup Companion meant. “In the old days, it used to mean the guys the king went on the prowl with. The sons of the aristocracy. They weren’t supposed to know or care about politics or government, only wine and love and poetry.” Cue for sighs. “But nowadays it’s just the opposite. They’re the prince’s special advisors and stuff like that. By tradition he has twelve of them,” she had explained.

There had been many more than the twelve in the Company, of course. Others recruited had been made Honorary Companions. So it wasn’t foolish to ask, “Are you one of his Cup Companions?”

He replied with a little nod. She should have guessed before. But she’d forgotten until now that Cup Companions from Parvan and the Barakat Emirates were supposed to be attending tonight.

“What’s your interest in the al Jawadis?” she pressed.

He eyed her consideringly for a moment. “Prince Omar is related to the al Jawadi through the Durrani. I, too, am a Durrani.”

“And you want to help the al Jawadi back to the throne?”

His raised his eyebrows. “Tonight we are here to raise money not for the al Jawadi, but for the victims of the drought which Ghasib’s insane agricultural policies have created.”

“Maybe, on the surface, but you know and I know that tonight there are going to be lots of under-the-table donations to the al Jawadi campaign as well.”

“Do we?”

The waiter had refilled her wineglass and she took another sip. There was juice on the table for non-drinkers, but she noticed Sheikh Durran stuck to water. But refusing alcohol didn’t prove he was a good man. No doubt her father was doing the same.

“Born in Barakat, you said. Are you Bagestani by blood?” Not all the refugees from Ghasib’s regime had fled to England or Canada, by any means. More had gone to Parvan and Barakat.

“I am half Barakati, half Bagestani,” he said, after a pause in which he seemed to calculate.

“Ah! So you’re one of those who never stopped believing in the fairy tale?”

His lips twitched again. “You might say that. And you, Miss Morningstar—you do not believe anyone is capable of removing Ghasib from power?”

“Salmon or chicken?” the waiter interrupted, and quickly set down what she asked for.

She chose automatically and scarcely noticed the interruption.

“Well, there’s always the possibility that another ambitious nephew may one day be successful in some renewed assassination attempt, I suppose,” she allowed, helping herself to the beautifully cooked vegetables offered. “Or the Islamic militants may pull it off. But Ghasib does seem to deal with both those possibilities in a very convincing way, doesn’t he? I can’t help feeling that anyone with their eyes on power, even a prince, if there is one, might be content to wait until natural causes win the day for them.”

He concentrated on the vegetables for a moment. “You think the fear of death makes cowards of us all?”

His part of the conversation so far seemed to consist entirely of questions. “Maybe. It’s the undiscovered country, isn’t it? ‘Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,’” she recited.

His mouth went up on one side. It was the first smile she had had from him. “And who said that?”

“Hamlet. Isn’t that who you were paraphrasing?”

This produced a small laugh. Humour transformed him, she found. The fire in his eyes turned to sparkle, and he suddenly seemed much younger. Now she would place him at well under thirty-five.

“I was not paraphrasing anyone.” The flow to the new conversation was seamless as he pursued, “You know the play well?”

“I starred in a school production.”

“Interesting—I thought the star part was Hamlet himself.”

“It is the star part.” She grinned, but still did not feel easy with him. “I was at a girls’ school.”

“And you were the tallest girl?”

It occurred to her suddenly that he did not know who she was. That was why he had called her by her father’s name. Well, no surprise if a man like him didn’t watch the soaps, and she hadn’t yet landed a major film part.

She laughed. What did it matter? “Yes, I was the tallest girl by a long way,” she said. “I was a natural for the part.”