doesn't require great cleverness-just a suitably virtuous expression."She moistened her lips. "Deceit is very bad," she said. "But-perhaps-if a womanlied-she had some reason why she must."

"Of course." He smiled, but his eyes held a glitter of malevolence. 'The mostpersuasive of reasons. She was entirely too frightened of what might happen to her ifshe said the truth." He shrugged. "A misjudgment on her part, as it happened. Sheshould have been frightened of me instead."

"Did you beat her?" Zenia asked faintly.He gave a cold laugh. "I killed her, wolf cub."Zenia turned her face, looking at him slantwise beneath her kuffiyah. He seemed to have no expression, no hint of human feeling in his blue eyes.

He smiled, his teeth set together. "Why do you suppose an evil demon drives me tothe wilderness?"She busied herself with the ends of the kuffiyah, folding them and refolding them, terrified and desperate not to show it. "Still," she said, with a disinterested air, "Ithink the women of the English are the more comely.""Wellah, think what you please. It's hardly worth disputing about." Arden rose, reflecting moodily that in a land where a man had the right to murder his own sisteronly because there was dishonorable talk about her, he should hardly be surprisedthe boy displayed no sign of horror. Glancing down, he saw Selim began to tuck thehead scarf up to veil his face.

"No," Arden ordered, catching his wrist, "I do not want you to cover yourself.""My lord," the boy said, "I must!""Nonsense. Why? They will think something is amiss with your appearance.""Excellency-please hear me! I do not wish to marry!"Arden flicked the pearl behind the boy's ear. "Are you so handsome that only showing your face will instantly burden you with a wife?""But I'm certain I won't want any of their daughters here-""God take you, Selim-if you have some broken-headed idea of an English bride, believe me that it is impossible! They will hold you in utter contempt in England."

The boy flinched as if he had been struck. For a moment his lips trembled, his eyesmade large and dark and feminine by the kohl. "Will they?" he whispered."Be at peace, little wolf," Arden said gruffly. "And know that you are worth a thousand silly Englishwomen."Selim gave him a brief anguished look."It is true," Arden said. He found difficulty in speaking. "Ten thousand."The boy bit his lip. He gazed up with such an expression that Arden felt embarrassed."Come. Let us go," he said."But why must we go to the coffee-hall and-?""Hsst! Because I will it."Still Selim closed his hand entreatingly over Arden's fingers. "My lord, you do not understand-I cannot-""Ya Selim!" Arden gave the boy a hard cuff on the shoulder. "Be a man!"Selim instantly cast down his eyes, hiding his face behind the fall of tangled hair."And don't cry, damn you," Arden commanded in English. "Or I'll toss you down the nearest well, and you'll never get your teeth on a plum pudding."This being one of the cub's burning ambitions, the threat had its effect. With all the straight-backed arrogance of the condemned resolved to face his executionheroically, Selim rose, turning toward the door.Once the boy gave in, he did not cower. Arden had grown to treasure his little wolf, so full of baleful predictions of disaster-so hell-born brave that Arden had not yetfound the words worthy of telling him. He took a possessive pride in the youth whopaced through the bustling marketplace of Hayil beside him, moving with that free, graceful stride, the gold-fringed kuffiyah sweeping back with each step, as if they walked in the open desert instead of in the shadow of castle walls eight feet thick.

Bin Dirra's Shammar tribesmen awaited them in the wide market street, an escort of honor to the coffee-hall. For bringing Bin Dirra alive out of the red sands, the hospitality of his family and the Shammar tents had been pressed upon Haj Hasan and his little blood brother for weeks. At first, they had desperately needed the rest and recovery, but in the sweet welcome of the Bedu and the unchangeable cycle of nomadic days and nights Arden began to lose track of how long he had been in the desert at all. When he realized how he was drifting into the slow dream of the wilderness, he insisted gently that he must journey on. As he had departed the Shammar tents, eleven of the men had risen silently and come with him.

It was courtesy, for Bin Dirra's leg was still too black and swollen for him to travel to Hayil himself, but there was rumor in the air. It was whisper only, but the Shammar had drifted along in the desert, pausing at every Bedu encampment, diligently inquiring the news. The emir Rashid had called no one to Hayil, and yet the sheiks were finding reasons to gather there, and their men with them.

The Queen of the Englezys, it was said, was come in concealment, seeking a husband and a prince, and urging an uprising against Egyptian domination in the desert.

Selim had cast Arden such an unholy glance when they heard the rumor that he was hard put to keep a grave face. In truth, he was glad of the stir that this absurd twisting of his casual words seemed to have caused, counting on it to eclipse any undue inquisitiveness in Hayil about Haj Hasan the Blue-Eyed Moor. If the desert was disturbed, so much the easier to steal away with a certain purebred mare.

Here in Hayil the prince Abdullah ibn Rashid ruled, nominally in tribute and subjection to the Saudis of ar-Riyadh, but power hung in a delicate balance. The houses of el-Rashid and el-Saud eyed one another with mistrust across the ten camel marches to ar-Riyadh in the south, and both brooded under the Egyptian yoke with a malevolence barely concealed. Though there were Egyptian soldiers in the streets, a garrison living in uneasy company with their vanquished foes, the Bedouin here looked to Rashid as the governor of their hearts and lives.

To such extent as the Bedu ever looked to any man as their governor, at any rate.

Axden's troop of Shammar stalked before him into the emir's coffee-hall, without pausing in the sudden change from brilliant whitewashed light to the darkness of a hundred murmuring voices and the bell-like ring of coffee mortars. The brilliant glare from the door shone on one massive column in a row of pillars that marched into the shadows. Light shafts fell from tiny windows high above. The Shammar went directly to a corner where slaves tended a multitude of huge coffeepots upon the fire, joining the guests seated on rugs or leaning against the wall. "Salaam aleyk!" was met amiably with, "Aleyk es-salaam!" as they wished one another peace.

"Please God, you are well?" someone asked ritually.

"The Lord be praised, it is so, good man!" came the proper answer-always the same, whether all a man's camels had been raided and his women stripped and his sheep stolen.

"Behold my brother," said one of the Shammar, nodding toward Arden, "Haj Hasan, the Father of Ten Shots."

Arden slung his rifle off his shoulder as he sat down. He put his hand on the leather-wrapped cylinder of the gun. "God is great!" he murmured.

His reputation had preceded him. "The demon is bound there?" They leaned forward over the rifle with a wary fascination.

"To speak of it is dangerous," he said. "Wellah, let us talk of benign things. Here is Selim el-Nasr, the son of my father. I've sworn by my beard to seek a bride for him from among the best blood of the Nejd."

"No!" Selim exclaimed loudly. "Life of Allah, I will not take a bride!"

A shocked silence fell. Arden glanced aside at him. The boy stared back defiantly, such hot anxiety in his eyes and color in his cheeks that Arden was struck anew with the bleak elvish beauty of him, the pure, hungry, exquisite perfection of his face beneath the Bedouin kohl and bright adornment.

A feeling of strangeness came over Arden; a feeling of alienness deeper than any he had ever felt, even in the wildest places or the tamest ballroom, an estrangement from all that surrounded him but this boy, this little savage with the great kohl-lined eyes, who looked up at him with appeal, and more. With a desperate, wordless adoration.

And suddenly Arden thought, Oh my God.

The boy's feelings were shining in his eyes. Arden turned his face away with a sensation of shock. But this was no time to lose his wits. Without answering, without a reproof or any sign that Selim's outburst had disturbed him, Arden accepted a tiny cup of greenish brown coffee from the slave and sipped. "What is the news?" he asked mildly.

As if the boy's eruption had never occurred, the Arabs began to talk again. Selim cast down his eyes, his mouth set in a moody curve. The boy held his head so low that nothing was visible of him but the top of his hair. The pearl and the turquoise beads dangled gaily.

His moment of protest was utterly ignored. As Arden sat beside him drinking, they were besieged with brides and rumors. The ibn-Aruks had four marriageable daughters, each more beautiful than the next. The Prince Rashid meant to unite the tribes and rise against the Egyptians. No, Rashid meant to fall upon the Saudis while they were weakened by the failure of their own rebellion last year. Ibn Shalaan's youngest daughter was better looking and better bred than the Aruk girls, but he doted on her and wouldn't let her marry until she was thirteen, though no doubt the proper bride price might make him reconsider. Rashid would not dare to attack ar-Riyadh, not while the Egyptians had their big cannon there, the guns of the Franjy infidels.

"But now the queen of the Englezys comes," a scar-faced Bedouin said confidently.

"God willing."

"Ay, wellah!" everyone said in chorus. 'The queen!"

"If the Saudis do not arrive first, by Allah," someone said grimly. "The Harb say that they ride here even now with Egyptian soldiers, to check any plan Rashid brews."

"God send that the queen brings her army with her, then." An untidy beard gave the Bedui a piratical air. "The army of the Englezys!" he said reverently.

"What do we need with an army of infidels?" another man exclaimed. "Billah, are we not Bedu?"

"My wife's sister is married to an uncle of the emir," a handsome young nomad offered earnestly. "Her cousin is a lovely girl, they say, and ready to be wed."

"The tribes are not in harmony. The Muteyr will not stay to fight the Saudis," someone commented. "Already they fold their tents, even before the queen comes."

"Aye, there is bad blood between Rashid and the Muteyr. They will not fight for him."

"But they hate the Egyptians."

"If the queen comes, God be praised, they will fight for her!"

"Will Rashid marry the queen, do you think?"

"Nay, she is a Christian!"

"No!" The chorus of denial on this point was vehement. "She is not Christian, or she would not come to help the Moslemin!"

A wizened old man wandered over and sat smoking silently next to the fire. In a pause, he reached to finger Selim's pearl. "Ay billah," he murmured. "If the young prince does not care for the virgins of Hayil, I have a cousin in Mogug who has a daughter ... it is said, by God, that she is worth a string of pearls!"

Arden lowered his coffee and met the old man's eyes. Hoots of derision arose about them. "Mogug!" the others shouted. "There is no such girl in that poor place!"

The ancient made a deprecating gesture and rose, withdrawing. "Allah send me peace! Perhaps it was at Aneyzah, then."

Arden smiled at him. "When you remember, O my Father, yallah, hasten to come and tell me."

The old man touched his forehead and ambled away. Arden accepted another thimbleful of coffee, playing the part of a courteous guest, but while he sat with the rest on the carpet-covered floor, his mind was distracted elsewhere.

He felt quite certain that he would receive a visit from the old man-it was with that purpose he had braided the pearl, the token designated in the intercepted letter to Abbas Pasha, behind Selim's ear, and ruthlessly compelled the reluctant bridegroom through his paces. But it was the other revelation that forced itself into his reckoning, that made him stare so severely at a slave offering him more coffee that the servant moved away for fear of the Mogreby's Evil Eye.

Arden was angry at himself. He had never considered himself an intolerant man, certainly not a righteous one, but he found that he was intensely discomfited by this new intuition. At the same time he thought himself a simpleton not to have considered it-the boy's air of delicacy had been plain from the start, and many of the Ottomans viewed such things with complacency, even considered the love between a man and a boy to be on some finer plane than that between man and woman. Arden made a conscious effort to view it in the same spirit, but he felt as if he had smacked face-on into a stone wall-there were many things he could accept, and a number of things he could deeply admire in the Eastern culture, but he found that he could not bear that Selim had come to think of him in that way.

Now that he was attentive to it, he saw that at least one man, a sleek-looking camel broker from Damascus, stared at the boy with something beyond mere curiosity- with a hungry look of recognition. Selim's anxious fingers clung to Arden's arm with even more apprehension than usual. Arden scowled at the fellow fiercely to warn him off. The camel buyer smiled and made a brief bow as he turned away.

When the mejlis was called, all rose to attend the emir's daily gathering in the wide street outside. Arden walked with Selim instantly behind him. He did not, could not bear to look at the youth as they found a place in the shade of a wall, settling down cross-legged with the Shammar, but he felt the Bedu and the townspeople observing him and Selim, some with a hard curiosity that he distrusted. He was fully appreciative of the company of his Shammar, for such looks could turn ugly.

The prince arrived, taking his place on a raised platform, a mud bench built into the wall and covered luxuriantly by Baghdad rugs and pillows. Princely enough he was, Abdullah ibn Rashid, dressed in Indian silk of purple and a long shirt of perfect white linen, with a loose black sleeveless abah over all. He wore a pair of golden-hilted daggers thrust in his sash. Colorful kuffiyahs draped his narrow, frowning face, one head scarf laid over the other, bound about his forehead with ropes of gold thread. With his beard trimmed to a neat and elegant point, he was the epitome of the desert prince, dark-eyed and lean, his look flitting restlessly over the crowd, always moving and searching even while he listened to the complaints and petitions and kissed the cheeks of tribal sheiks.

First among equals, Prince Rashid. He had won his position by arms, as the lieutenant of a rebellious Saudi who even now languished in Cairo, prisoner of the Egyptian viceroy. The Saudis, those old Wahhabi fanatics, were broken. The Egyptians garrisoned their capital of ar-Riyadh, a small island of soldiers surrounded by the enemy Bedouin, pursuing the ancient policy of encouraging hate and division between the tribes. And Rashid held his majlis with an Egyptian officer beside him -but they bound this hawk by fragile jesses.

The sheiks were gathering. If Prince Rashid could unite them, if he could hold them together even for a season, they could turn upon their tyrants and break the Egyptian's grasp.

One by one, the day's cases were presented to the emir and summarily decided. Once the Egyptian officer made a protest, and Prince Rashid added a beating to the fine assessed against a man who had spit at an Egyptian soldier.

More often he consulted the kady, the man of religious law, for some interpretation or scripture from the Koran.

It was long and rather boring. Arden saw the camel broker who had stared at Selim rise and pass through the crowd, going forward to speak to a man who sat beside the emir-one of the prince's brothers, Arden thought. The brother leaned over and murmured to Rashid. The emir nodded. His searching gaze swept over the crowd and for an instant seemed to light on Arden.

The prince lifted his hand, beckoning.

Damn and blast, Arden thought.

"Come, I would ask the news of my beloved Shammar," Rashid said in a carrying voice. "Come, come, God be praised that you have arrived well and brought your guest."

Selim was all but hidden behind Arden as he and the Shammar rose, going forward to greet the prince. The boy would have stayed behind, but Arden reached down and hauled him up, pushing him ahead with a bit more force than necessary.

"Ya sheik!" the Shammar addressed their emir; or even "Ya Abdullah!" without courtly ceremony, in the Bedouin way. The prince had dismissed any townspeople with the proud gestures of royalty, but he was gentle with the desert nomads. Well he might be, Arden thought, for they were assembling in force, three thousand spears and camels outside his walls, and he was, in the end, no more than one of them-elected by violence and personal honor, his authority accepted while he was powerful and just, but easily abandoned for sufficient reason. And to the Bedu, any reason was likely to prove sufficient.

Arden was more polite, as a stranger at the emir's pleasure. He had not requested a private audience; he did not wish to draw attention to himself, but Prince Rashid's fretful gaze fixed instantly on his face.

"By Allah," he muttered to one of the Shammar, "I am told he is Mogreby, but he has the eyes of Sheytan!"

Arden cast down his devil's blue eyes. "I am of Andaluz, O Long-of-Life," he said. "My mother was a princess of that country."

"Look up at me! I am not afraid."

Arden lifted his eyes. He allowed a faint smile to touch his lips, a smile that said, I didn 't think you were. But he spoke nothing aloud.

Rashid grinned suddenly. "Sit down!" he said, waving toward his right.

It was a mark of honor and preference, one that Arden would just as well have done without. But to efface himself now was impossible. He settled cross-legged on the rugs beside the emir. The prince's kady gave Arden a narrow, excited look. Arden hoped the man was not whipping himself into a religious fervor.

With a flick of his hand, Prince Rashid bid the rest of the Shammar to sit. Selim was doing his best to be invisible, slipping into a position at Arden's feet."And what is the purpose of your journey?" Rashid demanded."I must find this son of my father a bride, for I have vowed that I will do it, if I must come to the ends of the earth."

"You find him a bride, wellah!" Rashid repeated, bemused. "This is an honorabletask, but why have you come so far?""Because the young sheytan will have no brides!" Arden exclaimed. "Ask those who were in the coffee-hall if it is not so!"This raised a laugh and a murmur among the crowd. Selim pressed back against Arden's knee. He thought he could feel the boy shaking. But he had no choice but tobrazen the thing out, whatever Selim might wish."Let me see this one," Prince Rashid said, beckoning. "Stand up, boy."Selim was trembling visibly now. He came slowly to his feet, his head lowered."Come here," the emir said. "Closer."Selim took a reluctant step."Here!" Rashid exclaimed, scowling. Arden took Selim's elbow and thrust him in front of the prince.For a long moment, Rashid looked on the boy. His kady leaned over and whispered in his ear. Rashid did not take his eyes from Selim, but his hard mouth curveddownward.Suddenly he rose, taking the boy's chin between his fingers and jerking his face up.Selim made a faint sob, a sound of such terror that Arden came to his feet. The boy lifted a slender hand, as if reaching out to him-but Arden was not looking at that.He was staring at Rashid and Selim-at their profiles, one so close to the other.Like a landscape lit by a bolt of lightning, he saw it.Rashid: dark, hard, black-bearded, Arab. Male. And Selim: none of those things.

None of those things.

The prince turned his head, looked at Arden with his mouth pulled down in a cruelcurve and his black eyes ablaze."Is it she?" he hissed.Not until Rashid said the word did Arden feel as if his mind could encompass it.She.

She! He wanted to turn his face to the burning blue sky and shout it in frenzy. She!He had known it. His body had known it, dreamed of women, dreamed of her, thesoft hand in his sleep, the angel that sang in his burning visions.

She.

His throat would not manage words. He only glared back at Rashid, mute.

"Come!" the prince said, halfway to a snarl. "May it please Allah-you are mine!"

He turned, his robes swirling. But the Egyptian officer stepped in front of him. Rashid stopped, then put out his arm and flung the man aside. He turned to the crowd and lifted his hands.

"The Queen!" he shouted in a huge voice that rolled across the stirring crowd. "The Queen of the Englezys! She has come to me!"

"The Queen!" It was a murmur, a rushing wind in the mass of desert warriors. "She is come!"

They rose, the Shammar, the Annezy, the ferocious Kahtan and the Sherarat, the sheiks and nomads of a hundred tribes, with their legions camped beyond the walls.

They began to press forward. The kady leapt, onto the prince's platform.

"Allah akhbar! The holy war begins!"

"Jihad!" roared the crowd in return. "Allah akhbar! Thibahum bism er rassoul!"

The slaves and soldiers near the prince broke into confused fighting. Arden grabbed Selim's arm, but the emir had him-her-in a vise grip, hauling her toward a low door into the castle. Arden held on, staying with her, slamming the Egyptian officer against the wall with an elbow in his throat.

"Jihad!" the crowd kept howling, a thunder now against the echoing walls. "Kill, in the name of the Prophet!" The last thing Arden saw before he ducked into the black passageway was the Egyptian officer go down beneath the curved knives of twenty screaming Bedouin.

CHAPTER 7.

"Who are you?" Lord Winter demanded through clenched teeth.Zenia sat down with her back against the wall, her face hidden in her knees.'Tell me, damn it!" he shouted. His voice echoed back from the walls of the empty room, an unused harem filled with rugs and pillows, lit only by barred windows highabove. "Tell me!"

"Lady Hester is my mother," she whispered."Of course," he muttered. "Of course it would be Lady Hester. The queen of thebloody desert! Queen of a bloody lunatic asylum!"

She could feel him staring at her. She could not look up; she was without even tears.

Her hands would not stop shaking.Suddenly she felt his fingers on her cheeks, forcing her face up as the emir haddone. Lord Winter's blue eyes searched over her features, intense.

"Do you know your father?" he demanded. "Do you know who your father is?"