They had been married within the month and then she had left the elegant comfort of her father's Alexandrian house to live a life that found her wandering half the year across the Syrian deserts, and living the other half in the beautiful city of Palmyra. It was the custom of the Bedawi to spend the broiling summers in Palmyra, and so part of her dowry had been a fine house and gardens on the city's edge.

A terrible pain, far worse than any previous, ripped through her, and she bit down on her lip. It would soon be over, and her child would at last be born. Zabaai's eldest wife, Tamar, told her to bear down, and she did.

"Push, Iris! Push! Push!" Tamar encouraged her.

"Aiiiiii!" came the collective cry of the other women as the infant began to appear between its mother's legs.

"Push!”

"I am!" Iris snapped irritably at the older woman.

"Then push harder!" Tamar had no mercy. "The child is but half born, Iris. You must push again!"

Gritting her teeth, Iris pushed down fiercely, and suddenly felt something wet and warm sliding from her body, emptying her out, and miraculously the pain began to subside.

Tamar caught the child, and holding her up announced, "It is a female." She then handed the baby to another woman, and pushed Iris back onto the birthing stool. "You must yet bear the afterbirth. Only then will you be done. One more push will do it."

"I want to see my daughter!"

"Let Rebecca clean the birthing blood from her first. As always, you are too impatient," Tamar scolded, but she understood how it was the first-nay, every time.