"Have you told her that yet, Haroun?" Zuleika asked him dryly. Bahira was her best friend. They were like sisters. Haroun was very mistaken if he thought Bahira a meek little ewe sheep who would follow her lord and master without question. She must find a way to protect her friend!

"The time is not right yet for me to announce my choice of a wife. Not until you are safely ensconced within the camp of the barbarian, Amir Khan. I suspect he will be quite pleased to have the sultan's daughter for his new plaything, cousin." Haroun smiled broadly.

"But not as his wife?" Zuleika probed.

"This is not a negotiation we are having with Amir Khan," Haroun said. "You are a gift. One does not put conditions on a gift."

"You are a fool, Haroun, if you believe that by giving Amir Khan the sultan of Dariyabar's daughter he will pack up his armies and go away. Do you think he has been besieging us for three years so he might be given the gift of a woman?"

"They say that Amir Khan is an intelligent man. Surely by now he has come to realize he cannot take the city. Without the city, the rest of Dariyabar is useless to him. We make a great public presentation to the khan of the princess Zuleika, Sultan Ibrahim's only surviving child. A peace between us is inevitable under such a circumstance. We give him the means of saving face. He can depart without embarrassment, or shame. After all, cousin, no one has ever successfully besieged Dariyabar."

Zuleika swept her cousin a low bow. "I bow, Haroun, to your clever plan," she told him. Then she turned and left him in the sultan's gardens, knowing as she went that he wore a smug smile upon his too-handsome features. He was a fool! And she would make certain that he did not follow her father as ruler of Dariyabar. But she must work quickly for Haroun, she now realized, was a ruthless man. As soon as he had gotten rid of her, and made Bahira his wife, her father's very life was in jeopardy.