Desert Eden by Patricia Grasso

Author:Patricia Grasso
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

The sun was high in a cloudless sky on that Wednesday, a business day for Moslems, Christians, and Jews. Istanbul, city of many faces, had been awake for hours. Restless crowds filled the twisting cobbled streets; cries of vendors, selling everything from vegetables to yogurt to drinking water, rose above the din.

Khalid and Malik rode in companionable silence as they picked their way carefully through the crowded streets toward Beyoglu, the base for European merchants. Behind them rode Abdul, Rashid, and a contingent of ten warriors in the prince’s service.

Men, women, and children gawked at the prince’s entourage as it passed by. Seeing the beast who’d ordered the slaughter of hundreds of innocents, most adults made a sign to ward off evil. Christians crossed themselves; Jews turned their heads and sent up a silent prayer to Yahweh; Moslems fingered their masallahs, necklaces of blue beads that warded off the evil eye. Mothers, regardless of religious persuasion, whispered dire warnings to their wayward children and pointed at the Sultan’s Beast.

“You are creating your usual stir among Istanbul’s populace,” Malik remarked.

Khalid shrugged his shoulders and stared straight ahead.

“Scowl less, and the people will not fear you,” Malik suggested.

“Fear can be a useful thing,” Khalid said, glancing sidelong at his friend. “They hear the legend, see the scar, and fear the beast.”

“Your wildflower never feared the beast.”

Khalid said nothing, but his expression darkened even more.

“Do I detect trouble in paradise?” Malik asked. “Have you passed a sleepless night listening to your mother and wife fight?”

“Be quiet,” Khalid growled.

“You do seem tired and cranky.”

“If you must know, my wife has been nagging me,” Khalid said in a long-suffering voice.

Malik chuckled. “The Sultan’s Beast, the most feared man in the empire, hounded to distraction by that slip of a girl?”

“She insists I repeat my marriage vows in front of a Christian priest,” Khalid complained. “Last night, she found fulfillment in my bed but wept afterward. She says she cannot feel properly married without benefit of a priest, and our bedsport makes her a whore.”

“That problem is easily solved,” Malik said. “Send for a priest and have done with it.”

“The sultan’s nephew participating in a Christian ritual? That would cause a scandal.”

“No one needs to know,” Malik said. “It can be done in secrecy.”

“I would know,” Khalid replied. “Besides, that would not give me a peaceful night’s sleep. My wife’s nightmares about her father’s murder awakened me in the middle of the night.”

“Perhaps a visit from April would help.”

“I doubt it. Seeing the cousin would only remind her of England.”

Malik nodded. “Then, pass the night in another chamber.”

“Who would soothe her fears when she cries out in the night? Omar? That one is useless for anything beyond massages.”

Malik smiled. Apparently, the prince had been stuck by Cupid’s dart.

“I never realized that marriage was so irritating,” Khalid said. “My wife refuses to eat the white of an egg but does adore the yolk. This morning I had to eat her discarded egg whites.”

Malik laughed.

“If she wastes Allah’s bounty again, she will be sorry,” Khalid added.

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