Buch lesen: «The Princess's Secret Longing»

Chapter One
1396—the Alhambra Palace in the Emirate of Granada

Princess Alba lay in the dark, an unfamiliar noise had dragged her from her dreams. She turned restlessly, unable to work out what had woken her. All she could hear was a trill of birdsong. In her mind’s eye, she saw birds flying over lawns and terraces and flitting in and out of shrubs in the wilderness beyond the palace wall. They sounded happy. Free!

A lantern glowed softly in a niche, casting a gentle light on the sleeping forms of Alba’s sisters, Princess Leonor and Princess Constanza. Their black hair was loosely tied back for sleep, just like hers, and their eyelashes lay like dark crescents against their cheeks. Princess Alba and her sisters were triplets, identical triplets.

Alba yawned and, as she looked at her sisters, she was gripped by an odd fancy. It was as though she was looking at other versions of herself, versions which had yet to waken. Irritated, she brushed the thought aside. Her sisters’ features might mirror hers, but their characters—oh, so very different.

The bedchamber shutters were closed, and it was so early that nothing was visible through the star-shaped patterns cut into the wood. The Princesses hadn’t been long in their father’s favourite palace—only a few days—but already Alba knew that in daytime the piercings in the shutters turned bright sunlight into starry splashes on the floor tiles.

There it was again! That mysterious noise. Alba sat up. What could it be? The cry of a hawk? No, that was no hawk. That was surely—a baby.

Her breath stopped. Could it really be a baby? Whose could it be? It couldn’t belong to her father the Sultan, may God exalt him. The Sultan had only sired three children, Alba and her sisters. Sultan Tariq’s unfulfilled wish for other children—more precisely, for a son—was well known.

Alba scrambled to the window. Kneeling on a cushion, for the window was low and the floor hard, she shoved at the shutter and strained to hear more. She’d spent most of her life far away in Salobreña Castle and not once had she held a baby. A pang shot through her, violent and intense. If there was a baby in the palace, she must see it. Hold it.

Loath to wake her sisters, Alba snatched up a robe and veil and was dressed in no time. She took the lantern to light her way, crept softly downstairs and slipped out of the tower.

The stars were fading, the sky was turning pearly grey and the air was pleasantly cool.

Ahead of her, paths ran this way and that. Buildings were visible as black shapes at the end of the paths. So many walls and towers. Alba had yet to learn the layout of the grounds, but in this instance, it didn’t matter. That sound, the faintest of whimpers, was her guide. There was a baby in the palace!

Stepping on to the lawn, Alba sped past a hissing fountain. She entered a small grove of trees and was greeted by the heady scent of oranges. A section of the palace wall lay on her left hand and light glowed briefly from a guardhouse at the top. Her father the Sultan had many guards.

Mindful of the need for discretion, Alba tugged her veil tightly about her face. Sultan Tariq insisted that the Princesses wore veils, even when walking here in the palace grounds. Any man who caught a glimpse of her face would be severely disciplined. Alba wasn’t sure what form the punishment would take, it was enough to know that her father ruled with an iron hand. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if a guard suffered on her account.

God was with her, she saw no guards.

Several buildings were clustered behind a screen of myrtle bushes, the thread of sound came from the nearest. The strengthening light revealed a line of windows with arches shaped like horseshoes and a large door heavily decorated with ironwork. The door opened smoothly, and Alba entered a shadowy antechamber. An indignant wail echoed across the marble floor.

Excitement fizzing through her veins, Alba hurried towards a curtained door arch.

Since her father the Sultan only had three children, this building had to be part of Prince Ghalib’s harem. Prince Ghalib was Alba’s uncle. He was much younger than the Sultan and to say that he must find life difficult was an understatement.

Prince Ghalib was her father’s designated successor, he was an heir locked in a gilded cage. Like Alba and her sisters, her uncle wasn’t allowed his freedom. Alba understood why. Insurrections were commonplace in the long and bloody history of the Nasrid dynasty. Brother would kill brother and seize power. Doubtless, Sultan Tariq feared Prince Ghalib might stage a coup and overthrow him.

Determined to escape such a fate, Sultan Tariq had kept his brother out of the way at Salobreña Castle for years. The three Princesses had lived there too.

During that time, Alba had seen her uncle happy and she’d seen him angry. Prince Ghalib had many faces. Underneath them all lay a dark and bitter frustration. Alba sympathised, for she’d heard that the Sultan had made his brother promise after promise.

‘I’ll give you a castle, dear brother, never fear,’ the Sultan had vowed. Or, ‘I’ll put you at the head of an army.’

Her father had broken every promise. While the Sultan lived, Prince Ghalib would never be free, he was too much of a threat. It didn’t help that, unlike the Sultan, Prince Ghalib had fathered many children.

Prince Ghalib had been brought from Salobreña Castle to the Alhambra Palace at the same time as his nieces and, like the Princesses, he continued to be granted every luxury. Except his freedom.

Alba reached the curtained archway as the baby paused to draw breath. A woman was crooning softly, and her soft murmurings dragged Alba back to when she herself was little more than an infant. A sharp pain pierced her, like a lance to her heart. Mamá! Her mother, the Queen, had spoken to her in just such a voice. That was the voice of love, it was the most beautiful sound in creation and she’d not heard it in an age.

Curtain rings clinked as Alba pushed inside. If the baby was Prince Ghalib’s, it would be her cousin.

A young woman about the same age as Alba was lying on a couch with the baby. She looked across and gave a rueful smile. ‘My daughter is keeping you awake? A thousand apologies.’

My cousin. The baby’s cheeks were red with anger and she was waving chubby fists in the air. As Alba drew closer, she looked Alba’s way and the wailing cut off abruptly.

Alba’s heart squeezed. ‘What an adorable child.’ She tossed her veil over her head. Sultan Tariq’s strictures about the Princesses wearing their veils didn’t apply when the Princesses were in their private apartments because no man set foot in them. The same rule must apply in her uncle’s harem. No guard or manservant would dare enter the women’s quarters.

The woman on the couch studied Alba’s face, eyes wary. ‘I’ve not seen you before.’

‘No.’

Gathering the baby to her breast, the woman sat up. ‘May I ask who you are?’

Alba smiled and, since she only used her Spanish name when she was in the company of her sisters or her duenna, she gave her Moorish one. ‘I am Princess Zoraida.’

Her uncle’s concubine jumped up as though scalded and made a hurried obeisance. ‘Princess Zoraida!’ The baby in her arms wriggled.

‘Please,’ Alba said. ‘There’s no need for that.’

The young woman swallowed. ‘There is every need.’ Her expression was haunted as she looked Alba up and down. ‘You are the middle Princess, I believe?’

‘Aye.’

Dawn was breaking, and light was filtering into the chamber. The young mother looked past Alba towards the door arch, her expression pinched. ‘Where are the other Princesses, my lady?’

‘They are asleep. Please, do not concern yourself.’

The concubine bit her lip. ‘My lady, I doubt the Sultan, may he live for ever, would sanction your visiting Prince Ghalib’s harem.’

Alba held the girl’s gaze. ‘I shall say nothing of coming here.’

Her uncle’s concubine let out a trembling sigh. ‘Thank you, my lady.’

The baby had stopped crying, her eyes were fastened on Alba’s lantern. Gently setting it on a ledge, Alba held out her hands.

‘May I hold her?’

The girl hesitated and smiled. ‘Of course. Here, my lady. Yamina is usually very good, I don’t know what has got into her this morning.’

A warm bundle was thrust into Alba’s arms and she was transfixed by a painful emotion she could not name. Holding her cousin gave her a sense of belonging. Of completion.

‘Yamina is a lovely name.’

Alba could feel Yamina’s warmth creeping into her heart. Indeed, it seemed to fill every part of her, warming her in ways that the summer sun could never warm. She’d never felt like this before, such pain—yearning, she supposed. Such joy. Yamina was a sweetheart. Alba’s unconfessed miseries coalesced into a piercing spear of longing. A baby. This was what was missing from her life. A baby. For months Alba had felt restless and ill at ease, now she knew why. Deprived of love herself, she yearned for someone to love. She yearned for a baby.

Eyes misting, Alba cradled Yamina. She stroked her face, marvelling at the softness of her skin. Yamina was so trusting. So dear. Aching inside, Alba swallowed down a lump in her throat. ‘My cousin,’ she murmured.

Dark eyes watched her. ‘My lady, her life will be very different to yours. You are a princess. My daughter will be fortunate if she can remain in the palace. It is lucky she is a girl.’

‘Oh?’

The concubine shrugged. ‘Who can say what the fate of a male child of Prince Ghalib’s might be? However, since I have a daughter, I am hopeful she will be permitted to stay. Perhaps she will attend you, my lady, when she is grown.’

Alba stared. This child was her cousin and she might well become a lady-in-waiting. On the other hand, life was precarious and if something untoward happened to Prince Ghalib—what then? Yamina could be forced into servitude, she could be ill treated. Alba had never seen a servant beaten, but such things were commonplace, her father the Sultan was a hard taskmaster. As for his temper, it was as black as sin. Alba had witnessed his temper first-hand...

When she and the other Princesses had been riding from their old home in Salobreña Castle to their newly built tower in the Alhambra Palace, their father had almost killed three prisoners they had come across on the road. Spanish knights, they were being held for ransom. The knights didn’t speak Arabic and were ignorant of local custom, so they hadn’t understood they weren’t permitted to look at the Princesses.

Sultan Tariq had been so enraged by what he saw as the knights’ insolence, that he’d been prepared to execute them on the spot. If Alba and her sisters hadn’t begged for clemency, those Spanish noblemen would surely be dead.

There was no question but that the Sultan was inflexible and capricious. However, surely even he wouldn’t allow his niece to be beaten? Whatever happened to Prince Ghalib, she prayed her father wouldn’t force Yamina into servitude.

‘Will your daughter have a say in how she lives her life?’

‘No, my lady. Prince Ghalib, long may he prosper, will decide.’

Alba held the concubine’s gaze. ‘Then her life is little different to mine. I, too, must obey my father.’

When her uncle’s concubine looked at her, face suddenly blank, Alba knew a moment of shame. It was true that the three Princesses lived according to their father’s dictates, but their mother had been the Queen. The women living here were simply Prince Ghalib’s concubines. The life of such a woman, even one who had borne a child, was infinitely more precarious than that of a princess.

‘Men can be callous.’ Alba shook her head. ‘All they care about is their own pleasure. And war and conquest, of course.’

The concubine threw a nervous glance over her shoulder. ‘My lady, you must not speak in this manner.’ Her fingers crept to a silver bangle. ‘Prince Ghalib, may blessings rain upon him, is generous. He gives me gifts. He allows me to dress my daughter in the finest linens.’

Alba didn’t reply. The Sultan showered the Princesses with gifts too, although Alba had long suspected that the gifts were a means of their father displaying his range of influence. Frankincense and myrrh from the east, silk from Byzantium, silver from Arabia—all these and more had been given to his daughters. Not for a moment did Alba think the gifts were given out of love, Sultan Tariq didn’t know the meaning of the word. No, Alba was coming to suspect that the Sultan used gifts as a means of ensuring his daughters’ obedience. He wanted to keep them sweet. He wanted them to know how powerful he was. The question was why?

Alba pursed her lips and wondered if she would still be living in the palace when Yamina became an adult. The thought was unpleasant on several levels. The Sultan appeared to be in no hurry to arrange marriages for his daughters. Alba had had her fill of palace life—of the endless intrigues, of the constant tiptoeing around her father’s anger. If her father wasn’t going to arrange a marriage for her, she would have to find a way to escape.

Pressing her lips firmly together, Alba hugged her cousin. A sturdy leg had escaped its wrappings. Heart hurting, she stroked it gently.

‘Your daughter is beautiful,’ she said. ‘You are very blessed.’

‘Thank you.’

Soft voices reached them. A woman laughed. Her uncle’s harem was coming to life.

‘I ought to leave.’

‘That would be wise, my lady.’

Alba handed Yamina back and the young mother’s face softened into an expression of love and acceptance. It was then that the realisation hit home. Men didn’t understand love, they didn’t need it. Alba couldn’t be more different, she needed love as she needed air. She craved it. Love was what was missing from her life. This tiny child had shown her as much. If she had a baby...

Her days had felt empty because she had no one to love and care for. Naturally, Alba had her sisters, but she had come to fear that the love she felt for her sisters was all that she would ever have. She was a woman grown and sisterly affection was no longer enough.

Her mind raced. Given the number of concubines that must live in this harem, the bond between men and women must be weak indeed.

How many women lived in her father’s harem? She’d heard he kept a harem and had often wondered if that had been true in her mother’s time. How long had Father spent mourning Mamá? A month? A week? A day?

The murmur of voices drifted through the arched doorway. Water was being poured. There was much splashing. A loud yawn. It was odd to think that here in Prince Ghalib’s harem, Alba had been given a glimpse of real love. The bond between a mother and her child was surely stronger than steel.

Conscious that they might be interrupted, Alba drew her veil over her face. She hesitated. Before she left, there was something she must ask. ‘Is my father’s harem close by?’

The young woman’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Why, yes, my lady, if you continue down the path, it’s the next building.’

Alba’s hands fisted in her robes. ‘Was it here when my mother was alive?’

Her uncle’s concubine blinked. ‘I was not brought to the palace until after the Queen’s death, but I believe so. Generations of sultans have kept harems here.’

‘So, it’s true,’ Alba murmured.

‘My lady?’

‘Never mind. Thank you for allowing me to hold Yamina. Farewell.’

‘Farewell, my lady. Blessings upon you.’

‘And upon you.’

Curtain rings were clattering, trailing silks were whispering over the marble floor. Another few moments and the women and children of the harem would be fully awake. If anyone saw Alba, she would face a barrage of questions, she had lingered too long. Giving the young mother a parting smile, she slipped out of the chamber.

Swiftly, she retraced her path through the orange grove. The sky was tinged with pink and the tower Sultan Tariq had built for the three Princesses loomed up in front of her. It was an imposing building, so much so, that when Alba had first seen it, she hadn’t noticed how far it was from the rest of the palace. That had not been an accident, she realised. Sultan Tariq didn’t want his daughters near the rest of the harem.

From this angle the Princesses’ tower, though glowing warmly in the rays of the rising sun, looked as forbidding as a prison. Goosebumps ran down her back.

What if the Sultan decided to keep his daughters in the tower until they were wrinkled and grey? He was so controlling, it was entirely possible. Look at what had happened to Mamá. The Queen had been born in the neighbouring Kingdom of Castile and she’d had the misfortune to be captured by the Sultan’s troops. The story went that as soon as the Sultan set eyes on his Spanish captive, he’d wanted her.

It hadn’t been love. It couldn’t have been love, as far as Sultan Tariq was concerned love was all about possession. He’d made Mamá his Queen and she’d never returned to Spain.

Had Mamá been given the chance to refuse him? Alba doubted it.

Had she missed her homeland? Most likely.

Was that why Mamá had died when she and her sisters were small? Was her father’s iron will to blame?

Briefly, Alba wondered if she was misjudging him. She burned to know whether he had plans for her and her sisters. They had reached marriageable age, and not once had he mentioned marriage. If she never married, she’d never have a child.

Unfortunately, even if the Sultan were to arrange a marriage for her, Alba didn’t trust him to find a good husband. Men were cold and, in her experience, heartless. Her father certainly was, though she ought, in justice, to accept that other men might be different.

Concubinage was another possibility. That girl in the harem had told Alba that Prince Ghalib was good to her.

Unfortunately, Alba didn’t think the Sultan would permit his daughters to become concubines. He was too proud.

Alba had done her best to learn about the world outside the palace, and what she’d discovered had made her extremely wary. Men were belligerent. Her father’s borders were never safe, there was always a new conflict to worry about. Men cared about power, they craved money, possessions and land, which was why all the great marriage alliances were made with political aims in mind. If men thought about love at all, it must come very low on their list of priorities.

She almost tripped over a paving stone as the realisation hit her. She had no need to marry to have a baby. If she could get away from her father, she could surely find someone to give her a child.

Why tie herself to a man? She would be content on her own. She had caskets overflowing with jewels. She had the means to bring up a child without a husband. Her baby would want for nothing. Most importantly, her child would know what it was to have a mother’s love. Her child would live free.

Alba’s heart ached as she stared at the top of the tower where her sisters were sleeping. That tower was a gilded cage. And there was no way she was going to waste her life in a cage. If her child was to enjoy true freedom, it must be born well away from Sultan Tariq. She must, must, must get away.

Would her sisters come with her? Alba’s pulse quickened as she thought it through. That would be wonderful, the three of them would set up home together, they would support each other as they had always done. And she could have a child. Her sisters would love it almost as much as her.

Where? Where might they go?

The Kingdom of Castile—her mother’s homeland—seemed as good a place as any. In Spain, Alba could look for her perfect man. A handsome man who would give her a beautiful child and then leave her in peace. An honourable man who would not lord over her in any way. A man who...

A memory stirred in Alba’s mind. She was looking into the grey eyes of one of the Spanish knights her father had almost cut down on the road to Granada. She’d only seen him a handful of times, and always from a distance. The first time had been when he’d limped off the prison galley at the port in Salobreña. Captured in a border skirmish, he’d barely been conscious, because of a leg wound courtesy of her father’s troops.

Alba reached the tower door, puzzled as to why the memory of that knight kept coming back to her.

The second time she’d seen him had been on the road to Granada. She’d been thankful he’d survived the privations of her father’s prison. His green tunic had been somewhat the worse for wear, but he’d been allowed to keep his gold ring—proof of his high status, no doubt.

There’d been something about the way he’d looked at her, and Alba didn’t think it was simply that she was unused to a man’s regard. He’d made no attempt to hide his curiosity. His gaze had been frank. Admiring. The knight had liked what he’d seen, and he’d made no attempt to hide it. Best of all, she’d seen not the slightest trace of the tyrant in him.

He was brave too. Her father had been bearing down on him, scimitar in hand like a vengeful demon, and that knight had stood firm. For a moment, he’d even looked amused. Amused? Sultan Tariq’s fury was never amusing.

Alba could be reading too much into a look. She was, after all, unused to men. She must take care. However, the appreciative glint in those grey eyes gave her hope. That man didn’t look like a bully. He liked women and he liked them to like him back.

If life didn’t improve here, Alba could think of no better place to settle than in her mother’s homeland, preferably with her sisters. All she had to do was to work out how to get there.