Rana looked fondly at Mohammed. He was an attractive man, she knew. He had many female admirers and lovers with his bronzed body, dark looks, and intelligence. What would he have thought of the be
auty? Rana wondered. Would he have wanted her too?
"Majeed and my sons discovered her in the desert," Rana began slowly.
"Oh yes?" Mohammed feigned interest, but what he really wanted to do was to find Majeed and shake some sense into him. He was a foolish man, letting a servant girl come between his wife and his duties.
Mohammed had always enjoyed his harem, but his duty had been to Yasmeen, to impregnate her with heirs. When she had failed to birth sons, his interest had begun to wane. Now, a second marriage was inevitable, especially since Yasmeen was missing.
"She is beautiful. Even my sisters cannot compare," Rana replied, staring wistfully into the distance.
"That is saying something. Your sisters' beauty is well known," he replied.
"Yes," Rana said, remembering that her eldest sister had almost married Mohammed.
"After they brought her here, Majeed seemed captivated. Indeed, I think he thought of little else. He wanted her, I know. He took me once, wishing I was her," she confessed. Rana blushed in the tent. She knew Mohammed would keep her secrets.
"But Allah the merciful, forgive me. I am glad she is gone. I begged Majeed to send her away," Rana cried out suddenly. "Her beauty is such that it will drive men mad to possess it!"
Mohammed laid a hand upon her shoulder.
"Be calm, sister. Perhaps she and the other servant will find work together in the city," he said.
"Perhaps. But I do not think she was a servant," Rana said, shaking her head. "No, she was not a servant."
"I'm going to find Majeed. He needs to see reason and stop behaving like a foolish boy." Mohammed said as he stood up to leave Rana’s tent.
Rana smiled.
"You are a good man. A good brother," she said to him.
Mohammed turned to go. He was almost to the tent's opening when he heard Rana whisper softly, "I have never seen hair that color, like the golden sands of the Sahara.”
Mohammed stopped. His blood turned cold and he felt himself shudder.
"What did you say?" he asked. He turned back to Rana.
"What?" she asked. She had spoken her comment aloud but had not realized it.
"You spoke of hair the color of the Sahara," Mohammed said.
He knelt in front of her, grasping her shoulders in his large hands. Mohammed almost started to shake Rana. The first time he had laid eyes upon Katharine, he had thought her hair the color of the Sahara. The panic gripped him and frightened him.
"Yes?" Rana almost winced as Mohammed's hands threatened to crush her slim bones.
"Who was she?" he asked hoarsely.
"The girl, the foreigner, she was the one they rescued. The one Majeed wants, the one who has escaped, with golden hair and eyes like the Arabian Sea," Rana said, confused at Mohammed's fierce reaction.
"No. No!" he whispered to himself. Mohammed almost cried aloud, but managed to hold himself still. Oh Allah! No! he thought.
***
Katharine breathed in the sea air as the ship's journey continued and the weeks passed. It was as uneventful as her previous journey had been fraught with chaos and gloom.
Perhaps it was due to the money she had promised Adib, but he was intent to see her safe and free from harm.
The sailors were a suspicious lot and, as usual, thought a woman aboard to be bad luck, but they treated her and Dunya respectfully.