She found herself in an ornate bedroom, heavily hung in crimson brocade. One wall was bare of drapes, covered with knives of all kinds. Swords, daggers, scimitars, curved knives, long narrow knives, short thick knives. The air was heavy with some exotic perfume that Fran found vaguely displeasing, especially when joined to the disagreeable impression made by the weapons. But she had no time to worry about it.
There was a telephone by the bed and she snatched up the receiver.
‘How do I call the ambassador?’ she asked urgently.
She thought perhaps Yasir hadn’t heard her, for he only smiled. Fran put the receiver to her ear, but heard nothing. The phone was dead.
Then she noticed that Yasir was holding the wire in his hand. He had pulled it out of the wall. As she watched, he turned the key in the door.
And now she realised that there was something horrible about his smile.
‘I want to call the ambassador,’ she said, more firmly than she felt.
‘I’m afraid that wouldn’t suit me. I prefer that you stay here-with me. Ali can have you back when I’ve finished. If he still wants you by then. Which is doubtful.’
Why had she ever thought this was a charming young man? Behind the handsome face his eyes were cold and dead.
‘You’re mad,’ she breathed, backing away from him. ‘What do you think Ali will do to you?’
‘Oh, he’ll be very angry at first, but I’ll just make myself scarce for a while and he’ll forget. Women matter very little in this country, and the idea of two men carrying on a feud because of one is ridiculous.’
‘But it’s not about that, is it?’ she said to keep him talking. ‘Not on your side.’
‘How clever of you. No, you’re just the instrument. Ali will get over this in time, but he’ll suffer, and that’s what matters. All my life he’s taken everything from me, including the throne that ought to be mine. Now I’ve taken something from him. And I’m going to enjoy it.’
He made a determined move towards her. She backed off. Alarm was rising as she saw the dimensions of the trap she’d walked into. Yasir’s apparent good nature was a mask that deceived even Ali. Beneath it was cold hatred, and it was all turned on her.
Yasir was smiling again, a cruel smile, as though he was relishing the fight to come. Fran forced herself to stay calm and stop backing away. Yasir looked at her breast rising and falling, clearly enjoying himself. He didn’t see that she had changed the shape of her hand, so that it was balled into a fist except for two fingers. He came close, reached out to grab her.
The next moment he let out a yell of agony as Fran rammed her extended fingers into his solar plexus, with all her force. He doubled up, clutching his middle, his face contorted with pain and outrage.
But he was between her and the door. She was still trapped with a vicious man who no longer cared what he did, as long as he could show his hate.
‘You are going to be very sorry for that,’ he grated.
‘Not as sorry as you’ll be when Ali hears,’ she said breathlessly.
‘He won’t care about you once he knows you came with me. You’ll be so much waste to be disposed of.’
‘You’re lying to convince yourself. Ali loves me.’
He was still gasping, but he bared his teeth in a travesty of a grin. ‘You westerners with your foolish notions about men and women. Women are playthings, and he knows that as well as any man, whatever he may have told you. He’ll tell you himself, always assuming that he bothers to see you again. Now come here.’
Behind her was the wall with the knives. Unable to see what she was doing, she scrabbled and felt a hilt against her fingers. She wrenched, and to her relief it came off easily. Holding Yasir’s eyes with her own, she brought it around to the front. It had a long, wicked-looking blade.
‘I will use this if I have to,’ she said deliberately.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ he sneered. ‘I’m a prince and Ali’s cousin. Shed my blood and see what your lover does with you. It won’t be pleasant.’
She had a terrible fear that he might be right, but she kept her face impassive while she raised the knife to the level of his eyes and thrust it towards him in a series of little jabbing movements. As she’d hoped, he jerked his head back. She kept coming forward, trying to get between him and the door, but she couldn’t manage it. It was stalemate. She could keep him off, but not defeat him.
And then she heard a commotion below, the sound of footsteps running upstairs, a man’s voice that sounded like Ali’s-
Yasir heard it too. His eyes glittered with spite. Moving too fast for her to follow, he grabbed the knife by the thin blade and pulled his hand down it. The next moment there was blood everywhere as the razor edge sliced his arm. He fell back to the floor at the exact moment that the door crashed in, and Ali stood there with a face as black as thunder. Behind him stood two huge men in the uniform of his personal guard.
‘Arrest her!’ Yasir shrieked. ‘She tried to kill me. I’m bleeding to death.’
The guards made as if to move but Ali raised a hand and they fell back. He stood in silence, looking from Fran, stood holding the blood-stained knife, to his cousin.
‘Give that to me,’ he said to her.
‘Ali-listen to me-’
‘Give it to me,’ he repeated in a voice of deadly quiet.
In despair she handed him the knife. He turned away from her, dropped to his knees beside Yasir, and examined his wound. At last he rose.
‘Guards,’ he said in a voice that was cold and bleak, ‘arrest this man.’
‘She’s a murderess!’ Yasir cried.
‘If she had killed you, it would have been no more than you deserve,’ Ali said. ‘Think yourself lucky that I don’t kill you myself. Take him away. Have his wound tended and see that he is watched at all times.’
Yasir set up a howl of rage, but the guards ignored it, raising him and hauling him off.
Fran leaned back against the wall, faint with relief.
‘I thought you were going to-’
‘You should have known me better,’ Ali said. ‘But we can talk later. Come.’
He was wearing long, flowing robes. He put an arm about her shoulders, enfolding her in a gesture of protection, and led her out of the house. He held her like that until they reached her tent.
‘He only wanted to get me away from you to make you suffer,’ she gasped, weeping. ‘I took the knife from his wall to fend him off, but I never used it. He cut himself deliberately when he heard your voice. Ali, you must believe me-’
‘Hush, I do believe you. He will be punished, never fear.’
‘How did you know where I was?’
‘Leena saw you speaking to him in the garden. She understood the danger better than you, and fetched me. You are shaking.’
She was trembling violently, from her own actions as much as Yasir’s. Ali took her face between his hands.
‘You were very foolish to go with him, but you were also wonderful. I am proud of you. My lady is a tigress.’
‘I thought you were going to arrest me-’
‘Then you did me an injustice. As though I could ever doubt you.’
His trust in her was unbearable. Fran forced herself to say, ‘Ali, I have to be honest with you. I went to Yasir’s house because I was trying to escape you.’
He stared at her blankly. ‘You went from me to him?’
‘No, of course not. I went because he told me I could telephone the British ambassador.
‘You-meant to leave me? Using the help of that creature?’
‘I didn’t know what he was like or I wouldn’t have gone with him,’ she cried. ‘What was I to do? Ali, this has to end; I must leave here.’
‘After last night-the closeness we discovered?’
‘It’s because of last night.’
‘Are you saying I was wrong?’ he asked in disbelief. ‘That I only imagined what happened to us in each other’s
