'May I come with you? It will be far more interesting than chatting with the women. I am not used to sitting about doing nothing but painting my toenails and soaking in a perfumed tub.'
He chuckled sympathetically. 'When you are my wife you may come with me, Zenobia.'
'Hades!' She realized she would be forced to remain in the women's quarters, caught between Al-Zena and Deliciae.
He read her thoughts, and chuckled at her discomfiture. 'Ah, my poor flower, caught between the wasp and the butterfly.'
'How did you know what I was thinking?' she demanded.
'The look on your face was stronger than any words you could have spoken,' he replied. 'If you become my wife, Zenobia, I will not pen you in a harem, I promise you. You will be free to come and go as you please, for I will do what no Prince of Palmyra has ever done for his princess. I will make you my equal.'
'I don't want to live in the women's quarters,' she said suddenly. 'If I become your wife, I want my own house within the palace. I would choose my own servants, and purchase my own slaves. I want no spies in my household.'
She drew her mare to a halt. The sun was now risen, and the sky was bright blue and cloudless for as far as the eye could see. Following her lead, he stopped his stallion, and turned to face her.
'I am unschooled at playing games, Hawk,' she said quietly. 'Let us be frank with each other. You wish to marry me, and my father has agreed to it, but how soon depends on me for both you and my father have understood my need to accept this marriage. My father believes that you are the right man for me, and because of the great love he bore my mother he would have me happy. I am fortunate. Not many men would understand my feelings.
'I am also fortunate in his choice of a husband for me, for you, too, understand that I cannot be fettered. I must be free! You have been kind to me, and I believe that I am beginning to care for you. The things that I shall ask of you will not be difficult.'
'I understand,' he answered her, 'and you may have anything that is within my power to give you, Zenobia.'
'Ah, Hawk, you make very rash promises,' she teased. 'One should never agree to anything until one has heard all the terms.'
'Would you teach me, my flower?'
'Can you not learn from a woman?' came the sharp retort.
'Do you love me a little?' he demanded.
'I think I fell in love with you on the day your mother was killed. You were so confused, and hurt and frightened. I wanted to reach out then, and hold you in my arms; but I was Prince of Palmyra, and you but the child of my cousin. It was not meet that I comfort you greatly, though I wanted to, Zenobia.'
She was very surprised by this confession, and quite pleased as well. Still, he must not be allowed to become sure of her. Both Tamar and Bab said that a woman should never allow a man to become too confident. 'I hope you are not going to tell me you spent the three and a half years since my mother's death pining for me, for I shall not believe you, Hawk.'
'I forgot completely about you, my flower,' he said bluntly, pleased with the outraged gasp that followed his statement. The little minx was suddenly too sure of herself; and had his father not warned him never to let a woman become too confident?
'Then how can you say you love me?!'
'I loved the child that day, and when I saw the lovely girl she had become, I fell in love all over again. I will never lie to you, Zenobia. I love you.' He reached out and took her hand in his. 'Oh, my flower, I do love you. Have pity on this poor prince who would lay his heart and his kingdom at your feet! When are we to wed?'
'Just a little time,' she pleaded.
'I cannot wait long, Zenobia. I am a lonely man, and I long to have you by my side to love, to talk with, to share with.'
He could have said nothing more calculated to win her over. 'I will marry you as soon as the priests permit,' she answered him, and when his eyebrows lifted in surprise at her sudden decision, she smiled. 'You need me, my Hawk. Have you not just said it? Our marriage has been a fact since you and my father agreed upon it. Only the date has remained in doubt. Logic tells me if I was distressed by the thought of your being with Deliciae last night, then I must love you a little, even if I cannot admit it to my self yet.'
'Oh, Zenobia,' he said, 'I wonder at the woman you will become!'
'Why should you wonder?' she laughed. 'You will be here to see.
He, too, laughed. 'So I shall, my flower. So I shall!' Then, turning his horse back toward the city, he said, 'It is time we returned, Zenobia. I will not race you, but let us gallop a way so Al-ula may show you her paces.'
Before his words had died on the wind she wheeled the mare about and was off. Surprised-she was always surprising him- he put spurs to Ashur and followed her. Together they thundered down the barely visible desert road leading back to Palmyra, the horses' hooves stirring up tiny puffs of yellow dust. He watched her, bent low over her mount, tendrils of her wind-loosened hair blowing about her face. What a glorious creature she was! This girl- woman who was so soon to be his wife.
As they came through the main entry into the large courtyard, the guards at the palace gates were hard pressed not to grin at one another in pure delight. Leaping lightly from her mount, Zenobia cried out triumphantly, 'I beat you!'
'We weren't racing,' he replied.
'Weren't we?' Her gaze was mocking, but then she turned and, again laughing a soft provocative laugh, ran into the building.
He felt a quickening in his loins, and then he chuckled. Their wedding day could not come soon enough to suit him. Despite his crowded day, he intended seeing Zabaai ben Selim before the sun set, and settling with him the details of his betrothal to Zenobia. A public announcement would be made the next day, and then the little minx would be committed. Purposefully he strode across the courtyard to his own section of the palace. Soon, he thought, soon my flower, and then neither of us shall ever be lonely again, for we shall have each other forever.
3
Palmyra, queen city of the Eastern Empire, lay almost halfway between the equally ancient city of Baghdad and the blue Mediterranean sea. It was said to have been founded by Solomon, a fact of which the Palmyrans were mightily proud. Built upon and around the great oasis where the major caravan routes between east and west crossed, it was the city through which all the riches of the world passed en route west to Europe or east to Persia, Cathay, and the Indies. Greeks and Romans, Syrians and Jews, Arab merchants of all tribes gathered here, building great storehouses and warehouses in which safely to keep the silks, carpets, spices, ivory, jewels, grain, and dates that passed through their hands. They built luxurious villas in which to house their families, as well as their concubines, for as all inanimate valuables arrived in Palmyra so did the choicest of the world's slaves.
The architects of the city had a passion for columns, and all the major buildings were adorned with them. About the central courtyard of one temple were raised three hundred seventy graceful colonnades; and upon projecting stones half way up each column stood statues of Palmyra's most famous men. The city's main avenue was lined on each side with two rows of pillars, seven hundred and fifty to a side; and the Temple of Jupiter had a mile-long colonnade consisting of fifteen hundred Corinthian columns.
The city had been built for merchants by a wise king, and a thousand years later it was still firmly controlled by commercial interests. The main business and shopping streets were all covered over, so even in the heat of a summer noon one could conduct his business in relative comfort. Although not prone to attack due to its inaccessible location, Palmyrans had raised around the city a wall seven miles long, to discourage the boldness of desert raiders.
This was the kingdom over which Zenobia bat Zabaai would soon reign as wife to its prince. Zabaai ben Selim
