Beloved

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The night was black and hot. Not a hint of a breeze stirred the fronds of the tall, stately date palms. The onyx sky was studded diamond-bright with stars, and all was very, very still, as if the earth itself was poised, waiting. On the edge of the great oasis city of Palmyra, the house of the famous Bedawi warrior chief, Zabaai ben Selim, stood alone. Within, a woman labored to bring forth her child.

Her slim white body was tense with the agony of her travail, wet with the perspiration of her effort and the intolerable summer weather. She bore her travail grimly, refusing to cry out, for to do so was a weakness of character in her mind, and she had not won Zabaai by weakness.

In her semidelirium she remembered the day she had first seen him. He had been visiting her father's house in Alexandria on business, and had by mistake wandered into the women's garden. Their glances had met, and her lovely gray-blue eyes had widened at his fierce black gaze. Her soft pink lips slightly parted with surprise, and her young breasts, heaving with emotions she had not known existed, aroused him. No word passed between them. He had not even asked her her name. Instead he had found his way out of the garden, sought out her father, and asked for her to wife. It had been a great impertinence on his part, for her father was not only one of the wealthiest men in Alexandria, he was also a direct descendant of Egypt's last great queen, Cleopatra.

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