Free Secret of the Sands by Sara Sheridan Page B

and has turned away. He puts down the lamp and proceeds to sit on the plump cushions by the window, picking up a sweet from the rosewood box and chewing it as he mulls things over.
    ‘Light, girl!’ he calls.
    Zena hovers for a moment behind him, and then realising that he means her, she springs into action, taking the lamp from the low table and lighting the others one by one. The room gradually takes on a buttery glow. She can see now that the man’s silken jubbah is edged with intricate embroidery and that he wears gold earrings in a low loop in addition to his collection of rings. His eyes are pitch black – the darkest she has ever seen. She lays the lamp once more on the low table and steps back to wait for another order. But, before one can be given, the door opens and a slave boy enters. Taken back at the sight of Zena, he retreats slightly.
    ‘Ah, come in, Sam. Come in. Don’t worry about her,’ the man says, his dark eyes turning from the view across the midnight city and back into the room again.
    His gaze, Zena notices, is suddenly bright. The slave boy has skin as black as Zena’s own. He crosses to his master and kneels beside him. The man’s jewelled hand falls languidly onto the boy’s shoulder and then runs down the smooth skin of his strong, well-defined arm, stroking with surprising gentleness.
    ‘A nursemaid,’ Zena realises. ‘They wanted me because . . .’
    The boy raises his eyes towards her. ‘Is it your wish for this habshi to watch us, Master?’ he asks.
    The man cackles once more. He leans down and kisses the boy on the lips.
    ‘Go!’ he says over his shoulder without even looking at her. ‘Leave me!’
    Zena bows and leaves the room as gracefully as she can manage but in the hallway she hovers. Her mind is racing. She doesn’t know where she ought to go. She cannot remember the direction of the bathhouse or the kitchen. The household is asleep and the maze of hallways is dark and silent. There is no one around so she crouches against the wall and decides to wait. The master, may, after all, call for her when he has finished.

Chapter Thirteen
    Jessop has thoroughly enjoyed his stay at the encampment. He has made notes about the Bedu and their way of life, the details of the trading routes of the tribe and their customs of war and has even managed some observations on the way one family interweaves with another. The site is temporary, of course. The Bedu are set to graze their animals there till only saltbush remains. The wells fill up once a season and the Bedu will stay to drink the water dry and then move on. The tents are comfortable enough though and, like most nomads, the tribe is hospitable to a fault. An Arabic tribesman will go hungry himself in order to feed his guests lavishly. It is well known that if you come across a camp in the desert and are accepted as a guest, you’ll always be fed better than the people who actually live there.
    By the third and final day, the doctor is gratified to see that there is a marked improvement in all but one little girl who, Jessop now fears, might well lose her sight as the infection progresses. Clearly it had advanced too far by the time he arrived and he knows there is little more he can do for the child but clean the pus and hope her body might rally. The danger is septicaemia, blood poisoning. If the little girl succumbs to it she will almost certainly die. He has tried to transmit this information but fears it loses something in the translation. The devoted mother, meanwhile, has placed a copy of the Quran under the girl’s sleeping rug and spits into the child’s face to clean it (starting Jessop all over again on the painful process of the vinegar eye wash). Now, leaving her daughter in the care of others, the woman has taken to following Jessop, entreating him to save her daughter in the same way he worked his magic on the other children. No amount of explanation or reassuring smiles and hand gestures seems to communicate