The Sheik Retold(21)

I recognized the sincerity of his efforts to please me yet found it annoying nonetheless. I longed to shout for him to go away. Instead, I mimicked his air of civility, taking a small sip and nodding approval. He departed with a satisfied smile.

Once he was gone, I sprang to my feet, abandoning the tea pot to pace the tent. I felt weary, restless, and desolate. Although I was wound up at the thought of seeing the sheik again, almost anything seemed better than confinement alone in his tent.

A noise outside attracted my attention.

I ventured cautiously into the open doorway leading out to the camp. It was covered by a great awning supported on lances. I stepped out from under its shade to look about. All around me was a vast oasis—bigger than any I had ever seen. In front of the tent there was an open space with a thick belt of palm trees beyond. The rest of the camp seemed to lay behind the sheik's tent.

The place was alive with men, and horses were everywhere, some tethered, some wandering loose, some exercising in the hands of grooms. Mounted men on the outskirts of the oasis occasionally crossed my view. Those who passed by salaamed but took no further notice of me. The longing for fresh air and the desire to move about and see the place had only grown stronger. I was animated with excitement for the first time since my arrival.

Having lounged most of the day in nothing but my robe, I hurried to dress. I poured enough water into the basin to sponge myself clean and then raked my fingers through my tousled hair. I threw on my breeches and stomped into my boots, kicking defiantly at the button-less blouse that still lay on the floor, inflamed anew at the man who had bound me to his bed. I wondered with dread what he might have in store for me this night, but immediately banished the thought of him from my mind.

After shrugging into a clean blouse, I ventured back through the living room and outside under the awning where I watched the camp with breathless delight. This was the desert indeed, the desert I had dreamt of, the desert few could ever expect to see.

Before I had come to Africa, the life of an Arab sheik had been nothing but a vague fantasy. The term sheik itself was elastic. I had been shown sheiks in Biskra who were nothing better than second-rate camel traders, who drove hard bargains to hire out mangy camels and sore-covered donkeys for trips into the interior. My own faithless caravan leader, Mustafa Ali, had also called himself "sheik."

But I had heard also of other sheiks who lived far away across the shimmering sand, powerful chiefs with large followings, but of those sheiks, I'd had only the haziest idea. When not engaged in killing their neighbors with gleaming scimitars, I'd envisioned them drowsing away whole days smoking opium from a hookah, lying about in a perpetual state of lethargic self-indulgence. I'd seen pictures of some, mostly fat old men sitting cross-legged in the entrance of their tents, waited on by hordes of retainers while looking languidly out at some miserable slave being beaten to death. I'd never expected the orderly camp of the man whose prisoner I had become. This sheik's life appeared hard, strenuous, highly occupied, and his camp was full of magnificent horses.

I spun at a sudden noise. With teeth bared in fury, a screaming chestnut came past the tent, taking complete charge of the two men who clung to his head. He came to a halt opposite me, quivering all over and refusing to budge, his ears flattened to his finely sculpted head. He snatched continually at his grooms, who seemed unable to manage him. With teeth flashing, he flung himself backward onto his haunches, lifting one of the unwary attendants off his feet. The boy landed on his rump and scrambled away with a howl that provoked a shout of laughter from a knot of men who had gathered to watch.

"He is rightly named Shaitan, madam, for he is assuredly possessed of a devil." Gaston had joined me to watch the chestnut's antics as it plunged violently and then broke away from the second man. The animal then headed, tail held high to the edge of the oasis with a stream of men following after him. The Frenchman laughed. "The mounted men will catch him."

"Is he just amusing himself, or is it really vice?" I asked.

His expression sobered. "Pure vice, madam. He has killed three men."

"Then he should be shot," I said indignantly.

The man shrugged. "Monseigneur is fond of him."

"He is valued above the lives of these wretched people because Monseigneur is fond of him?" I was stunned. I should not have been. It seemed compatible with the merciless character I had seen—the one I had experienced firsthand. He would come back soon, and with his arrival, my courage would sink just like the red ball still glowing in the heavens.

I turned from my dread-filled thoughts to look upon more of the horses that were being led across the camp. "They are magnificent," I remarked, "but also much bigger than any other Arabians I have seen."

"They are a special breed, madam," replied the Frenchman. "Monseigneur's horses are known through all the Barbary States, and as far as France." A note of pride had crept into his voice. I still couldn't comprehend the admiration and devotion the brute inspired in those around him.

"But how can he keep so many when there is no grass?" I asked in puzzlement.

The Frenchman smiled. "This breed is not like your frail English horses that require lush pasture and grassy meadows, madam. These are a product of the desert for a thousand years, just as the Iteema dates upon which they thrive."

"Dates?" I repeated in astonishment. "These horses survive solely on the fruit of palm trees?"