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Bekah listened as her soft leather sandals trod the gravel path. As she neared the King's garden the sense of chill dissipated and she felt safer. Through the vine-entwined corridor which connected her garden with his, she caught sight of Faroz talking with their children. It was a sight she did not often see and in the few moments she took to compose herself she watched them and allowed herself some reminiscences.
Saimak was now a little older than his father had been when she had first seen him, but what a difference. Bekah remembered the confident, even cocky adolescent whose poise and glance had so terrified her, barely into her teens. She had never seen one of the enemy before and there he was standing in front of her, being announced as her intended husband. She had been barely able to meet his eyes and had stood shaking beside him at their wedding ceremony. Yet her prayers had been answered, for he had left with his father immediately after the banquet to return to Pashia. It was two years later she had crossed over the mountains herself with Homay and her bodyguards. It was at another banquet she saw him again, took her place at his side in her gown of glowing amber and cream. He was less contemptuous of her then. He had been a gentle husband to her, firm but not unkind, but she knew he had never loved her as she had never come to love him, despite what her father had told when she had pleaded not to be married to him. She looked at him now to see the young man she had married but saw only the distinguished shades of grey at his temples, the frim jawline which had become firmer, the anxious years in his eyes. She moved quickly towards him.
"My family," she acknowledged, kissing her daughter on both sides of her face--a salutation Gjeela had only recently agreed to renew--and placing her hands on her son's brow. To Fayez she bowed her head and offerred her hand.
"Forgive my tardiness. I stopped in my garden for a few words of prayer for our banquet tonight."
The King took her hand again in the formal salute of husband and wife. The he stopped and stared at her.
"Your final preparations have come to naught."
"Pardon, my lord?"
"The jasmine flowers in your headress have wilted and those in your belt are crushed." He plucked one from her headress and held it before her.
"How came this to happen?"
"I, I know not, my Lord. I came directly from my quarters to my garden to yours. Although in my garden I felt a most unusual air, like the cold air of the mountain snows but so much more frigid."
"You shall do without them this eveing. The guests await us." With his own hands he plucked the other flowers from her headress, feeling them still stiff with cold. Bekah herself removed those from her belt and felt a similar chill. He looked at her eyes, finding belief in her words in the touch of the flowers himself.
"Let us enter, my Lord. Siamak, Gjeela, wil you march in front of us?"
The two nodded despite grimaces.
Fayez then held his right arm out in front of him, his hand facing up. Bekah placed her left hand, palm facing down, in his and together the two marched side by side, their hands recreating the old symbol of the sun's light wrapped over the moon. "Let me meet this visitor who has so many strange stories to tell us," she said aloud.
Then, as they walked together in stately form, Bekah wispered to him.
"My Lord, none of the guards were in my garden. Have they all been called elsewhere? The Emissary is to dine with us, but what of the fifty men or so who arrived with him? Has Morgôs prepared a watch from our guard to accompany them at their own lodgings tonioght?
Faroz halted but momentarily; none would have seen it, but Bekah felt the slight hesitation of motion through his arm. They made their entrance as he was reflecting upon her words.
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