The Secret of the Sheikh's Betrothed Page 3

  “The tribe, according to the last four censuses, is about sixty to seventy people, about fifteen households,” Rayyan stated. “Women marry out, and men bring their brides in to keep the tribe from becoming too inbred. They are small but wealthier than their size would indicate, partly from marriages and from the size of their herds, which have given them an excess of cheese and goat hair yarn and hangings to trade.”

  “Who do they marry?” Fathi asked.

  “Other crazy people who like wandering around in the desert,” Rayyan replied.

  “Great-grandfather did that. And Grandfather, even though city raised, enjoyed his trips into the desert,” Fathi pointed out. “He only stopped when we became his responsibility.”

  Both of them were silent for a moment, remembering their parents.

  “Father would be laughing,” Rayyan said wistfully.

  “And Mother would be furious.” Fathi smiled. “She would think this was barbaric.”

  Their parents’ relationship had been a love match, and they had met at university in the UK. Fathi and Rayyan had heard the story often enough when growing up. Their parents had met in a Russian literature class. Mother had been the only child of Arabic immigrants; they had expected her to go to university and have a career, not marry before she had even gotten her degree.

  “And welcome the poor girl with open arms,” Rayyan said. “All while scolding Grandfather for making this arrangement in the first place.” He sighed. “But this tribe marries other tribes, and sometimes people they have arrangements with, though no one who could be considered an outsider.”

  “Arrangements?” Fathi repeated.

  “With settlements where they trade their wool, meat, and cheese for grain, tea, and coffee,” Rayyan said. “Or did you think they stopped at a shop for all that?”

  “I do understand the desert isn’t like New York, where you can run down to the local bodega at three in the morning for a coffee,” Fathi snapped.

  “You’re marrying a girl who’s probably never seen a supermarket, never mind a modern city,” Rayyan said. “What do—”

  “I know that!” Fathi shouted. “It’s going to be worse than when we went away for college. The culture shock…. And what she’s going to expect out of this marriage.”

  “You couldn’t—” Rayyan asked.

  “Don’t even think of that!” Fathi snapped. He didn’t say anything else when he heard a quiet knock, and then Ece entered the room unasked. She walked close to the table, and Fathi knew she was trying to see the papers on it.

  “Sir, I’m leaving for the day,” Ece said. “Unless you still need my help….”

  “We’re fine, Ece,” Fathi assured her, moving so she couldn’t see what they were looking at. She was his secretary, and he should trust her, but he knew she would spread this news to whoever she could, since she would lose him as her “prize” when she realized he was to be married. He didn’t know what she would do then, but he didn’t want to deal with her hurt feelings. “I know it’s late. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  They were silent as she left. Fathi stared down at the table until she was out of the room. He was trying to make some sort of sense of the figures he was seeing, and failing to. Fathi knew his ability to track the numbers in the reports and understanding where they all fit had made him as successful as he was. But looking at all this information confused him, since it seemed written in a language he didn’t understand.

  “She’s not going to take the news well,” Rayyan said, bringing Fathi’s attention back to him. “I think she really likes you.”

  “I think she wishes to be my wife and not my secretary,” Fathi muttered.

  “It isn’t like you are limited to only one wife,” Rayyan chuckled.

  “I’m going to barely be able to handle one wife, never mind a second one,” Fathi snapped. “Tell me about my betrothed. That’s part of the reason you’re here.”

  “There’s nothing to tell, really. Ikraam is about twenty-one. Since there isn’t any accurate birth or death records, she may be slightly younger or older than that,” Rayyan said, getting serious and picking up a paper scrawled with notes. “She’s the only child of Muna and his second wife, Zaynab. Her oldest sister, Bahiyya, raised her after the death of her mother when she was nine. There are no maternal relatives to take the girl in, which seems slightly strange. Bahiyya’s much older than Ikraam. She was also older than Ikraam’s mother, which must have annoyed her when her father married. Bahiyya’s husband is now leader of their tribe. Bahiyya and her husband have six sons and one daughter. According to tribal custom, she can’t marry her daughter, Sabah, off until she’s married off all her sisters. Since her husband is the head of their household and shouldn’t be interested in things like this, she’s done all the negotiations for those marriages.

  “Bahiyya married off the other four sisters many years ago. They were all power marriages that brought the tribe some sort of advantage, from better grazing grounds to trading rights in one or two villages.” Rayyan paused. “She’s the power behind the throne, in a manner of speaking. If she had been a son, Bahiyya would be the one leading her people and not her husband. But rumors are that she has Hashim under her control, she’s the one making all the big decisions, and he’s just her errand boy. The best evidence for this is she’s his only wife. They’re either madly in love, or he’s too afraid of her to take another wife or even a mistress.”

  “So why did she wait so long to marry off Ikraam?” Fathi asked. “If Grandfather hadn’t approached them, would she have ignored the contract? Had she been trying to get in touch with us and just hadn’t been able to? Or is her husband sleeping with her sister and she’s ignoring it?”

  Fathi thought for a moment, then continued with “Or Bahiyya’s wanting to get a better offer for her sister, and so she was willing to ignore our contract with her family. She could have been using her to not marry off her daughter until she made a good contract for her.” He sighed. “I don’t have enough information to approach this negotiation.”

  “First of all, Grandfather’s going to be the one doing the negotiations,” Rayyan explained. “He’s going to be the most experienced one to deal with them, and they will want to deal with the go-between instead of you. The groom’s family and the bride’s are the ones who handle all of this. Second, don’t treat this like it’s just a business deal. You’re going to have to live with this woman for the rest of your lives. Stop acting like this is her fault.”

  “We don’t have to,” Fathi snapped. “She can make herself comfortable anyplace she wants, and we don’t have to see each other ever again after the wedding.”

  “Is that fair to her?” Rayyan asked.

  “Is this fair to me?” Fathi snapped. “If you’re so worried about her, you marry her!”

  “I might,” Rayyan shot back. “But make friends with her and see what the two of you can work out. You know Grandfather is going to want the two of you living together.”

  Fathi nodded, his anger deflating. This probably wasn’t any better for the girl. Ikraam. He was going to have to remember her name. He was going to have to think of her as a person, not a business deal or some weird and unwanted thing Grandfather had thrust upon him. They were never going to get along if he continued to think of Ikraam like that. Fathi hoped he wasn’t too much of a disappointment for her, because he knew he wasn’t the man of a young girl’s dreams.

  “I don’t think this is going to be any easier for her than it is for you,” Rayyan continued in a softer tone, echoing his thoughts. “Meet her, talk to her. See what you can work out.”

  “She’s not going to tell me the truth,” Fathi said. “She’s a traditional girl, who’s been raised to believe a man will take care of her and control her for the rest of her life. And have you forgotten, we’re probably not going to meet before the wedding? We’ll be married before I can even talk to her.”

  “It’s not going to be that…,” Rayyan started and then sighed. �
��It will be, I’d forgotten how segregated a traditional family is.”

  “Because we don’t have to worry about that,” Fathi pointed out. “It’s not like there is anyone but the three of us we consider as immediate family. We rarely talk to the women who are related to us. Plus it isn’t like anyone we know lives like that anymore, except a few very traditional families. Even then, the women aren’t isolated. It’s just they go to women-only colleges and things like that, but they can talk to people and see the world. They aren’t stuck in the back of a tent, eating after the men in the family. She’s going to have been isolated from everyone, not just me. And I’m going to be having this conversation on my wedding night.”

  Rayyan rolled his eyes at him. “I’m sure you’ll figure out a way of meeting her. Also it’s not like you’re interested in doing anything else with her.”

  “Ikraam, her name is Ikraam,” Fathi blurted out. “We should start referring to her by her name.”

  “It would be better,” Rayyan said. “Let’s hope she lives up to her name.”

  Fathi frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Ikraam means honor,” Rayyan explained.

  Fathi looked over at him, shaking his head with a smile. “I didn’t think you’d get that into your research.”

  “I’m actually very good at running down things like that,” Rayyan told him with a sad smile. “I… I like studying and research. It was a lot different for me in university.”

  “You know you don’t have to be a company drone,” Fathi told him. “I enjoy it. You should do something you enjoy too.”

  Rayyan smiled. “Let’s get you through this first, and then you can worry about me.”

  IKRAAM wondered if he was insane. Bahiyya had told him he was going to be married and then neither said nor did anything else. She made no announcement to the tribe, like she had with their sisters. There was no one congratulating him on his good fortune, the rare times he left the family tent. No preparations were being made to have the tribe travel for the wedding feast to wherever his groom dwelt. He didn’t know whether that was comforting or whether he had imagined the whole thing. Ikraam wondered if he should bring it up again and then decided it wouldn’t be wise. What would happen would happen, and he could do nothing about it. Sabah’s fate was another matter. Ikraam was determined to plead with his betrothed for her safety, regardless of what happened to him.

  He sighed. It could be his own intended was as much of a brute as Ghalib. He knew nothing about the man, not even his name. All he knew was the man was city raised and the grandson of a man who owed his father a great favor. That wasn’t much and didn’t tell him about the character of the man he was to marry. But then, what else was he to expect? He had no say in the arrangement. And he doubted his intended was any happier about it. He might already be married! Ikraam wouldn’t mind being the second wife; he wasn’t proud like his sisters. If his intended already had one wife, he might not be so angry about the trick Bahiyya had played on him.

  Ikraam should be grateful Bahiyya hadn’t thrown the traditional red blanket over his head and dragged him off to his groom, like she had all their other sisters. Ikraam smiled grimly. Maybe it was because Bahiyya knew he was in the habit of carrying a dagger as a man did and that he had taught himself to use it. Or was it she wouldn’t even attempt to keep their customs when she knew Ikraam wasn’t the blushing maiden everyone thought he was?

  Bahiyya had kept him even more isolated than her daughter from the rest of the tribe after his mother died. He worked on his weaving in the tents and rarely left it; Bahiyya had spread the rumor he was “delicate” and “fragile,” unable to socialize with the rest of the women. At the rare women’s gathering he was allowed to attend, Bahiyya kept him in the background and quiet. If he didn’t behave to her satisfaction, he was taught a very painful lesson when they returned to the harem. Ikraam freely admitted his sister had him properly trained and tamed, just the way she wanted him. He had also known since he was very young he wouldn’t survive very long if he declared his true gender. He chafed at his restrictions, but even if he claimed his manhood, his sister would continue to be his jailer for his very short life.

  And being a woman wasn’t as much of a burden as Bahiyya thought it was. He had no interest in learning to shoot and hunt, and liked weaving and knitting. Ikraam knew the quality of the weavings they traded with the townspeople for supplies would suffer when he left, since he was one of the tribe’s best weavers. That might be one of the reasons his sister hadn’t married him off before, and not that she had been waiting for his groom to remember he was betrothed. Bahiyya made a large profit off of his work when she traded it to other tribes and the townspeople. She was going to miss that money when he was gone.

  “We are moving out soon,” Bahiyya announced, striding into the harem. Shedding her chador with an easy twist, she shook her braids free. She looked at Ikraam impatiently, wanting some sort of response from him.

  “The entire tribe?” Ikraam asked, wondering if Bahiyya was expecting him to beg her to delay the marriage. The tribe had only arrived here a few days ago, and there was still plenty for the herds to eat, so he was confused about why they were to move.

  “Just the family,” Bahiyya said with a cold smile. “Your marriage isn’t an important enough matter to disrupt the herds by driving them on to unknown grazing.”

  Ikraam’s stomach twisted unpleasantly, and pain stabbed into his heart. Bahiyya was serious about just dropping him off with his groom and leaving him to his fate after wringing as much out of his intended’s family as she could. And he was unhappy, in a way, since he wasn’t going to be treated as a bride, with the small rituals that made one’s transition from maiden to womanhood slightly easier. It was stupid and he knew Bahiyya just wanted to get rid of him, but it still hurt.

  “When are we leaving?” Ikraam asked. He was proud his voice was steady, the tone calm and accepting. He felt a small bit of satisfaction at the disappointment on Bahiyya’s face, no doubt because he wasn’t protesting more about their journey.

  “In a few days,” she said carelessly, even as she was watching him like a hawk. “It will take that long for Sabah to get ready for her journey to her new tribe.”

  “I will be ready,” Ikraam murmured. It wasn’t like he had much to pack.

  He wanted to scream at his sister, though, for sending her daughter off to a tribe of thugs with that alliance. They didn’t need that tribe. He was sheltered, not stupid. They had wealth and didn’t need to send Sabah off to such a minor tribe. But Bahiyya wanted both of them gone, and so they would be sent out of her life.

  IKRAAM snuck out of the tent later that night. He knew most everyone was asleep, except for the ones guarding the camels. Bahiyya probably thought either he or Sabah would try to steal one and escape. He was just sneaking out to say goodbye to Saumer, just in case—he didn’t trust Bahiyya to tell him the truth about when they were leaving, and she might prevent him from having another opportunity. The cat would be nowhere near those beasts, so the guards wouldn’t see him. Ikraam moved easily in the night, finding his way to the edge of the camp. He then waited for his friend to find him. After a few minutes of standing and listening to the wind, he saw Saumer sauntering toward him. Ikraam knelt down to pet him as soon as the cat got close enough to do so. He buried his face against Saumer’s back, feeling the prickling of tears against his eyelids.

  “I need to leave you very soon,” he whispered.

  The cat rumbled and settled his head on his lap. Ikraam sniffed but refused to cry. He was losing his only friend in the world. Saumer was a creature of the desert and wouldn’t want to be trapped in a city. And what would happen to Saumer if he followed? Would his new husband let Saumer be or try to show his “manhood” and shoot the cat? It was better they said goodbye now.

  Ikraam became aware he was no longer alone when Saumer growled deep in his throat, sensing an intruder before Ikraam had. He didn’t know how long he had spent with
his face buried in Saumer’s fur. He hadn’t cried, because he knew if he started, he would have howled to the heavens his protest at this marriage. It was not that he thought he should have a say in who he could marry, but his sister callously leading him to the slaughter was breaking his heart. He was aware Bahiyya never cared for him, but he didn’t think she could be this cold.

  “You are just saying goodbye to that animal,” Bahiyya spat.

  “What did you think I was doing?” Ikraam demanded.

  “I thought you at last grew a backbone,” she snapped.

  “And run where?” Ikraam shot back. “Who was I supposed to run to?”

  “You have some sense, it seems,” Bahiyya drawled. “I thought you would have tried to take Sabah and flee.”

  “I admit I’d thought of it,” Ikraam said, putting his body between his sister and Saumer. Saumer wouldn’t attack her, but he had no such assurances Bahiyya wouldn’t have someone shoot him. “But I know enough that we had no place to go.”

  “Don’t get ideas above your station,” Bahiyya said, wisely keeping her distance from Saumer at the throaty sound the cat suddenly made at her words. “Get married like the dutiful daughter that you are.”

  “And leave you to run our father’s people as you think it should be?” Ikraam asked. “I ask nothing for myself, but please, end Sabah’s marriage to Ghalib. It won’t be good for her.”

  “She’s finally useful for something,” Bahiyya huffed.

  “How long will the alliance last after her death?” Ikraam asked.

  “It will last long enough for her to have spawned a son or two for din Qamar,” Bahiyya chuckled. “You have enough troubles of your own. Don’t worry about hers. Ghalib will simply teach her to be a proper wife.”

  “Like you are?” Ikraam asked.

  Bahiyya glared at him as she spat out, “If I left things in Hashim’s hands, we would be herdless.” She took a deep breath. “Because I’m a woman, I must wait on the pleasure of a man,” she snapped. “I’m thought to be less than him because I don’t have a cock. I should have been Father’s heir and not you!”