Chapter 10: Half-Sisters

David ordered DNA profiling of all the women in the harem and the twenty or so young children still living there. He gave samples himself and had them all analysed to check on who was actually related to him and to what degree.

The results fitted pretty well with what Kamal Qumsiyeh had said. He had three half-sisters in the harem, and a number of others who had been his grandfather's offspring. Several of the children shared the same grandfather as him as well as being children of his grandfather's harem women. The relationships would have crossed a genealogist's eyes, since mostly they arose from the habit of lending members of a harem to honoured visitors and of giving female children as presents. They also confirmed that Maryam was not a close relation of his.

He studied the results until he felt his head would whirl; to a mathematician the topology was interesting but needed more than a Ph.D. to understand. Then he decided to dismiss the three women who were his half sisters immediately. He didn't want to cause any more inbreeding and he was looking to have an heir as soon as possible. Maryam seemed the best bet to bear him a Crown Prince, if she could. He took care to warn the Chief Eunuch at breakfast that he wished to see the three women immediately after lunch.

The three women came into the interview room together and he looked them over. They seemed three fairly typical Arab girls and he gathered from the Chief Eunuch that he would need an interpreter for all three of them.

The first one he spoke to was Menar, who had been born in the old Emir's harem. She did not know, until David's inquiries had discovered it, that she was not the old Emir's daughter. Quite nonchalantly she agreed that it must have been a visit from the Prince when her mother became pregnant.

The Chief Eunuch admitted to David that they never kept records of who bedded whom and when. Orders were given that this record was to be kept in future, together with records of menstruation so that without the effort of DNA profiling David could know which children belonged to which fathers, at least in most cases.

Menar's mother had left the harem when she was still a small child and she could barely remember her. The old Emir had taken her own virginity but had then never sent for her again. Her body language made it quite clear that she would welcome David's attentions in his bedroom any time he wanted.

It turned out that the second girl, much the oldest of the three, spoke fluent French and understood some English, so the conversation ensued with David speaking English and the woman speaking French.

"Surely Yenta is a Jewish name?" asked David.