Beloved

Zenobia would not be put off.

'Do you know, little flower, how a child is conceived?'

'Yes.' she said softly. 'Mother had been telling me of these things, for she said that I would one day be a woman in my own body. When a man makes love to his woman a child is the natural result of their union. It is good, my mother said.'

'That is correct,' he answered her.

He did not elaborate. She understood enough that he might explain, and so he said, 'The Romans forced your mother to make love with them, Zenobia. When a woman is forced it is called rape. The Romans raped your mother, dishonoring her, dishonoring our father, our family, and the Bedawi. When they had finished with her they then cut her throat so there would be no witnesses against them. My mother they assumed dead without the knife.'

Zenobia was silent a moment, and men she said. 'Was Tamar raped, too?'

'Yes,' he said in a tight voice. 'My mother was also raped.'

'Is that why she hid me, Akbar?' Zenobia asked. 'She did not want me to be raped?'

'Had you been raped, my sister, the dishonor would have been the worst of all, for you are a maiden, and have never known a man. Part of your value to your future bridegroom will be in your virginity. A man marrying a maiden does not like to travel a road already well traveled by others,' Akbar said solemnly.

She became silent again, and snuggled deeper into his lap. She understood now why her mother had cried, and begged the Romans. She had been attempting to save her virtue, and her husband's honor. What awful beasts the Romans were! Zenobia wanted vengeance!

From her father's bedchamber came the sound of wailing. The other members of the tribe had arrived, and the women going into the room sobbed with sadness, sympathy, and shame. Zabaai ben Selim came out from his room, and said curtly to his eldest son, 'Bring Zenobia to her own chamber, Akbar. I would question her.'

Akbar arose, and carried his sister to her room in the woman's part of the house. Setting her down upon her bed, he patted her reassuringly and gave her a small smile. Zabaai's own face was grim and forbidding. He looked sternly at his young daughter. 'I have heard Tamar's tale, now I want to hear it from your lips.'

She gulped, and then told him the story from her child's viewpoint, blaming herself for causing me two women to be delayed. He said nothing. Whatever anger he felt toward his young daughter melted in the face of their shared grief. The Romans would pay! Oh yes! They would pay! A dozen of his sons had already been dispatched into the city with orders to bring the Roman governor back to him, along with Palmyra's young ruler, Prince Odenathus. Only when they saw the horror done his wives would he remove Iris's body from his bedchamber, and bury it with the honor it deserved.

His arm went tenderly around Zenobia and hugged her. 'You are not responsible, my child. Rest now, and I will send Bab to you. I regret that you must tell your story a final time to the governor.'

Zabaai left the room, his anger now beginning to surface over the shock and the sadness. He had been a citizen of Palmyra for his entire life. He also held Roman citizenship, as did all Palmyrans. It was incredible that imperial soldiers were allowed to get out of hand in a peaceful and nonhostile client city. Suddenly he wanted to be alone so that he might grieve, but it was not yet time for that. First he must beard the Romans, and demand his rightful vengeance.

Returning to the dressing room off his bedchamber he washed the desert dust from his face and changed robes. The slaves removed the basin of rose water that they had brought him. Then they perfumed and combed his beard. He was yet a fine figure of a man, of medium height with his full dark-black beard just beginning to be sprinkled with silver. Only his dark eyes, dull with their pain, betrayed his feelings.

His son entered the room. 'They are here, Father.'

Zabaai nodded and went out to greet his guests. 'Peace be with you, my lord Prince, and you also, Antonius Porcius. You are welcome in my house, though it be a house of sorrow.'

'Peace be with you also, my cousin,' the prince replied, but before he might say more the Roman governor spoke irritably.

'What is this urgency?' he demanded, his manners gone in the face of his annoyance and the heat headache that pounded in his temples. 'I am pulled from my couch by these bearded ruffian sons of yours, Zabaai ben Selim, and forced to come along without explanation! I remind you, chief of the Bedawi, that I am the emperor's governor in Palmyra, and as such I am to be treated with respect!'

'It is in that very capacity, Antonius Porcius, that I have summoned you here.'

'You? You have summoned me?' Antonius Porcius's voice was an outraged squeak. His small double chin quivered angrily.

'Yes!' came the thunderous reply. '/, Zabaai ben Selim, ruler of the Bedawi, have summoned you! You would do well to listen carefully, my lord Governor, to what I am about to tell you. This morning my people and I departed Palmyra for our annual winter trek into the desert. As you well know, we leave this time each year, during the rainy season in the desert, to graze our herds outside Palmyra's boundaries.

'Two of my wives were forced to remain behind, for my only daughter, Zenobia, dislikes this winter wandering, and with a child's logic believed if she hid we would have to leave her in Palmyra. Of course, her mother and Tamar found her. As the women made to leave they heard unfamiliar footsteps on the stairs leading to my bedchamber, and with incredible foresight Tamar hid my little daughter beneath a bed. Praise the gods that she did!

'Roman soldiers had broken into my house, Antonius Porcius. Led by their centurion, they attacked my two wives, raping them, leaving Tamar for dead, cutting my poor Iris's throat. All the while, hidden beneath the bed, my poor little girl cowered, terrified!

'Those men were Roman auxiliaries, Antonius Porcius! Auxiliaries of the Alae! It should not be hard for you to track them down. I want them punished! I will accept nothing less than then-deaths, Imperial Governor! Nothing less!'

Prince Odenathus looked distressed at his elder cousin's words. 'Your lovely Iris, dead? Zabaai, what can I say to you? How can I comfort you for such a loss?' Then in a sympathetic gesture he tore his robe. 'What of the child, your daughter Zenobia? She was untouched?'

'Yes, the gods be praised! The soldiers did not suspect that my innocent little daughter was also within the room. Had they found my precious child I have no doubt whatsoever that she too would have been viciously attacked! What kind of men are you allowing into the legions these days, Antonius Porcius? Palmyra is not a newly captured city where Romans may rape and loot at will. We are a client kingdom whose citizens are proud to possess Roman citizenship!'

Antonius Porcius, a man in his early middle years, was shocked by what Zabaai ben Selim had told him. He was a fair man who loved Palmyra-indeed, had lived in it most of his adult life. Still he was Rome's governor, and he had to be sure that the Bedawi spoke the truth. 'How do I know what you say is true, Zabaai ben Selim? Where are these women you say were attacked? Can they identify their attackers?'

'Come with me!' Zabaai led the way into his bedchamber, where Iris's battered body still lay amid the tangle of her shredded clothing. Tamar, in shock, still sat on the floor, her back against the bed, her eyes staring vacantly. The smell of blood in the hot, closed-up room was now quite apparent, and the flies buzzed noisily about the dead body.

The Roman governor, a small, plump man, looked upon Iris with open horror. He had met her on several occasions and remembered her as beautiful and gracious. The bile rose in his throat, and he gagged it back uncomfortably, ashamed of his entire sex in the face of this tragedy. 'Your evidence is irrefutable,' he said sadly. 'Rome is not at war with Palmyra and her loyal citizens. We are the keepers of the peace. The men involved in this terrible incident will be found immediately, tried, and punished as quickly as possible.'

'Today,' came the harsh reply. 'The sun must not go down upon those criminals unpunished. The soul of my sweet Iris cries out for justice, Antonius Porcius!'

'Be reasonable, Zabaai ben Selim,' pleaded Antonius Porcius.

'/ am being reasonable!' thundered the Bedawi chieftain. 'I have not sent my men into the city to cut the throats of every Roman soldier they happen upon. That is being reasonable, my lord Governor!'

Suddenly Tamar's eyes refocused, and she spoke. 'I can identify the centurion involved, and his men, my lord Governor. I shall never forget his hellish eyes, for they were like blue glass. There was no feeling in them at all.