BUSINESS
Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.
Category: Angst, drama, romance.
Rating: M (eventually)
Feel free to post this story on any other websites you see fit, as long as you include the following info:Author: Hallospacegirl
Email: hallospacegirl1013 (at) lycos (dot) com
Author's note: All of my original characters bear no resemblance to anyone, living or dead. I'm just writing this for fun and pulling "facts" from my ass, so please excuse any departures from real life.
Chapter One
It was Saturday afternoon and the traders were back again. From the third floor window of the British Hotel, Marjorie watched them ride in on their camels and come to a halt outside of the blackened steel gates encircling the hotel.
Four shaggy dromedaries, loaded down with bulging canvas sacks of silver goods that flashed under the sun, and three men.
Tuareg men.
She knew that much from the luminous indigo cloth that they wore like mummy wrappings, and from their leathery dark skin that was stained blue with the dye. They were unloading their wares from the camels when five Egyptian men, dressed in ill-fitting British police uniforms and neatly bundled white turbans, emerged from the hotel and approached the traders.
They conversed together in Arabic; from what little Marjorie could overhear, the Tuaregs spoke the language haltingly, in a glottal and throaty accent that was unfamiliar to her. She couldn't understand any of the words except for when both parties shook their heads and said: "La. La."
No. No.
The policemen jabbed their fingers at the slobbering camels and then pointed into the distance, and the Tuaregs repeated: "La."
She could feel the tension rising into the already chokingly sweltering air, and briefly wondered if a fight was going to break out between the Egyptians and the Tuaregs. She watched the policemen fingering their British-issued handguns that were hanging from leather holsters at their waists. The Tuaregs sneered and stood their ground amidst their swathes of blue.
Perhaps guns were hidden between the folds of their clothes, or better yet, swords. She realized that she was not afraid at the prospect of a bloody battle breaking out at the doorstep of the British Hotel, and that she was in fact looking forward to it. She entertained the vision of heads flying and swords flashing as the ambassadors' wives ran scattered and gibbering through the courtyard like chickens.
Right now they were still wandering languidly among the palm trees, coquettishly twirling their parasols at their shoulders as though they were still expecting someone to give a damn about the milky paleness of their skin and cast them an amorous second glance.
It was Cairo, not London, and nobody gave a damn. And to think that three weeks ago she had come within an inch of being lured into the silly little gossip circle: "Mrs. Harrington, we would be so honored if you could join us in an afternoon tea in the courtyard. God's own Earl Grey from England, not that ghastly cardamom substance the heathens drink here. This place is insufferable, don't you think? Not fit for humans. Heaven knows how we could survive without each other. British solidarity, ladies, and a glorious cup of Earl Grey. What do you say, Mrs. Harrington?"
La, la, la.
She had feigned dysentery and clapped herself up in the sweltering hotel room for a week, doing nothing but reading Alfred's travel guides and history books, and by the time she dared to emerge, the ladies had already finished establishing their clique without her.
From then on it was an unspoken war of sidelong glances. Marjorie would catch them smirking at her from behind their teacups, and she in turn would laugh to herself each time they surreptitiously rouged their lips for the handsome Arabic men that would occasionally pass through the hotel lobby.
Those wives were all daydreaming of a desert romance with a dark-skinned stranger, but nobody was brave enough to actually follow through with a seduction. One glance from an Arab, and they would fall upon themselves giggling and blushing like children. And Marjorie suspected one man in particular was the focus of their fantasies, a tall and tattooed – wait.
Outside of the window. There he was.
The man was striding across the courtyard to the gate, where the police and the traders were now breathing guttural insults down each other's throats. His back was turned to her, but she could tell from his garments and his walk that it was the stranger whom she had seen in the hotel five or six times within the past month.
He was neither Arabic nor Tuareg nor Bedouin. He wore a large black turban that was wrapped sleekly and held together with a leather band, and his forehead and cheeks were adorned with blue-black tattoos of hieroglyphs and other unfamiliar symbols. Tattoos of thin triangles ran the lengths of the expansive backs of his hands. Mountains? Spikes? No. Claws.
One smothering afternoon she had chanced upon him conversing with Alfred in the corner of the third floor hallway; he had rolled his sleeves up to the elbows, and she had spied a tattoo of an eye on the inside of his wrist.
He had noticed her first – his brown eyes glaring under furrowed brows and his full lips curled in a grimace, revealing teeth – but she could only bring herself to call out her husband's name.
"Alfred – what—"
"Margie, my darling, this—"
And the man had said something under his breath, something that sounded like: "I told you, no." And he had looked away from her and disappeared.
That night at dinner, as Alfred entertained a rapt Charlie with stories about mummies come to life, she had found herself thinking back to the stranger with the tattoos, and wondering what they meant, and what other secret markings were adorning his body, out of sight.
Now, from her seat at the windowsill, Marjorie watched as the man approached the scuffle, barking hoarsely at both the police and the Tuaregs in rapid-fire Arabic.
She finally caught a word from the dense tirade. "Inshallah…" Something about God's will; he was threatening them.
The policemen finally threw up their hands in frustration and rocked back on the heels of their leather boots. Somebody within the group yelled in heavily accented English: "Go back to the desert where you belong, you bloody Med-Jai."
But nevertheless five minutes later, the police had retreated inside the hotel, and the Tuaregs had loaded up their camels and started down the dusty road that led to the outskirts of the city.
She noticed now that the ambassador's wives, who were clustered like a gaggle of white geese at the fountain in the center of the courtyard, had been watching the scene all along. And when the man passed them as he walked back to the hotel they all grinned dumbly like painted clowns.
And when he came within fifteen, twenty feet from the hotel building she realized that he was now looking up at the window and staring back at her.
She didn't know what came over her – it could have been the heat, or the satisfaction of seeing the scuffle come to an end, or the delicious prospect of imagining those women bubbling over with anger and jealousy underneath their prim little parasols. She leaned her head out of the window and said, "Good afternoon, sir."
He paused in his tracks. He didn't speak; he was half-frowning at her with an inscrutable expression. And then he nodded at her, once, and continued on his way to the entrance of the hotel.
She leaned out of the window a fraction more. "Is Med-Jai your name, sir?"
He stopped again. Looked up. Then: "No."
"I am sorry for prying," she began loudly, feeling a smile creeping onto her face; she wasn't sorry in the least and she could tell from his answering glare that he knew perfectly well. "I am truly sorry for prying, but I remember that you met my husband a week or two ago. Alfred Harrington, curator of Ancient Arts at the British Museum? We were never formally introduced." She darted a glance to the ladies at the fountain and saw that they were throwing daggers into her with their eyes. She turned her attention back to the man. "My name's Marjorie. And you are—"
"Med-Jai is the name of my tribe," he interrupted her in a lightly accented baritone. "If you'll excuse me—"
"I don't mean to sound like a nosy busybody, but what business did you have with my husband? The way you two were talking – was it about something terribly exciting?"
"Business, Mrs. Harrington, is never terribly exciting."
"Is that why my husband refuses to tell me anything about your meeting with him? I'm intrigued. I'm very intrigued."
"As they say in your country, curiosity killed the cat."
"But they also say in my country that a cat has nine lives."
"I find it difficult to believe that a woman like you still has any to spare."
"What are you saying, Med-Jai? That I'm too reckless or that I'm too old?"
He only stared blankly her, and then, suddenly, let out a short laugh. He shook his head, his black wavy hair brushing his shoulders, and began walking to the door of the hotel. "Have a good afternoon, Mrs. Harrington."
"What do your tattoos mean?"
He halted in his tracks for the third time. "Excuse me?"
"The tattoos on your cheek, your forehead, your hands, and your wrist. What do they mean?"
That expression on his face – Marjorie finally realized what it was. He was incredulous. For a full ten seconds he seemed as though he was teetering between embarrassment and fury, between storming off or shouting at her to go back inside and stop making fools of the both of them. And then his face dissolved into a grin and he shook his head again, slowly, eyeing the ground and toeing at a clump of dirt with his boot. "It means," he finally said, glancing back up, "that you have been paying too much attention."
"I've been living in dreary old London for my whole life. I can't help myself. It's the cat in me, I suppose. The cat with no lives. Wouldn't you agree?"
"Mrs. Harrington," he replied quietly. His face had lost its smile. "I agree that it is appropriate for me to end this conversation."
"Your tattoos, Med-Jai."
"Goodbye."
"Your name—"
"Ask someone else if you're this curious, Mrs. Harrington," the man said, flinging open the door of the hotel and stepping inside, "like your husband."
From across the courtyard, some of the ambassadors' wives were staring at her with eyes as round as full moons, and some were squinting at her with eyes as narrow as sickle moons.
TO BE CONTINUED…