Chapter 16: Harem Talk

When the news of this reached the harem, Maryam could not believe her luck. Most of the others crowded round her expressing their congratulations and envy, even some who had never spoken to her before because of her inferior status as a hostess. Even Djamilla came in and warned her that sleeping with the Emir was no guarantee that she wouldn't be strangled. As Maryam knew, the old Emir Ibrahim had occasionally had girls in his room with no eunuch attending them and they were always found to be dead in the morning.

A little later Maryam stood up and made a deep obeisance when the Princess Zubeydeh came over to her dressed in the strangest way. The Emir's mother was wearing a pale yellow garment which covered her skin almost as much as the shapeless shifts which Maryam had worn in her time as a kitchen worker, but which fitted Zubeydeh's figure quite closely. Evidently this was from her own choice, and she had brought it with her, since no such garment had ever been seen in the harem before. Any Western woman would have recognised it at once as a sundress.

"You are the one David has chosen for tonight, I understand," said Princess Zubeydeh in a calm voice, adding, "Oh do get up. We are both just members of his harem and you need not kow-tow to me."

«Maîtresse, je regret que je ne parle pas beaucoup de l'anglais, » said Maryam courteously.

Princess Zubeydeh switched immediately into passable French.

«My son will be very tired tonight. You must be very gentle with him and you must make him think he is wonderful. He has a temper and I don't think he realises yet how much power he has here; in fact I'm sure he doesn't. He would not want his carelessness to cause you any harm, » confided the older woman, «I want him to be happy here as Emir and I am very worried that he has not been properly trained for it. Only the oddest series of accidents made him the Emir and even then he had no warning and was never heir to the throne until it was suddenly his.»

«Mistress, I will do everything I can to please him, may he live for ever. He seemed to like me when we were being inspected; he touched me several times and smiled. I will be happy to be his companion tonight.»

Princess Zubeydeh thought, 'What a country! A slip of a girl is smiled at by a man she has never seen or heard of up to that moment and she is eager to share his bed.'

Aloud she asked, «How old are you, and what was your position here?»

«Maîtresse, je... »

Princess Zubeydeh interrupted her, «My name is Zubeydeh here. Do not call me Mistress for I am not the Emir's wife. Technically I am not even the Princess Zubeydeh, since David's grandfather stripped me of that title.»

«Who is David?»

«Sorry, the Emir our Master is, of course, His Magnificence, the Emir Muhammad Abdullah, may he live for ever, but in England he used the name David Ransome, and that is how I think of him. Here I am Zubeydeh but in England I am called Amelia Ransome by my friends and my husband. Now, you were telling me about yourself.»

«I think I am about nineteen years old. At least I came here eighteen years ago as a baby with my mother. I was used as a toy by the little Princess Marianne and so I learned French. Because I was Marianne's plaything they called me Marianne's toy and it became Maryam. After the Princess left to be married I worked in the kitchen for a time and then the Emir sent me to General Mustapha to be trained and now I am a hostess, » then quickly correcting herself Maryam added, «I was a hostess. Now I am a concubine of the new Emir, or ... or I will be tonight.»