“What are we doing here?” Khalid demanded quietly as she pushed him into a chair by an available table near the front.
“I’ll be right back.” She smiled at his irritation as she weaved her way through the crowd.
When she returned a short time later with two cups and a pitcher of wine, the corners of his eyes constricted.
“They are famous for their sweet wine,” Shahrzad explained.
He crossed his arms.
Shahrzad grinned knowingly. “You don’t trust me?” She poured some wine into a cup and drank from it first before handing it to him.
“Where did you get the money?” He took the cup from her.
She rolled her eyes. “I stole it. From the perfidious Sultan of Parthia.” As he raised the cup to his lips, she saw him smile. “Do you like it?”
He tilted his head in consideration. “It’s different.” Then he reached over and filled the other cup for her.
They sat for a time in comfortable silence, taking in the sights and sounds of the souk, drinking wine and enjoying the raucous conversations of those in various states of inebriation around them.
“So,” she interjected in a conversational tone. “Why are you having difficulty sleeping?”
Her question seemed to catch him off guard.
He stared at her over the rim of his cup.
“Do you have nightmares?” she probed.
He inhaled carefully. “No.”
“What was your last dream?”
“I don’t remember.”
“How come you don’t remember?”
“Do you remember your last dream?”
Shahrzad canted her lips to the side in thought. “Yes.”
“Tell me what it was about.”
“It’s a bit a strange.”
“Most dreams are.”
“I was in a grassy field with . . . my best friend. We were twirling. I was holding her hands. We were spinning slowly, at first. And then faster and faster. So fast it felt like we were flying. But it didn’t seem dangerous at all. It’s strange now that it didn’t seem dangerous, but I guess that’s the way of dreams. I remember hearing her laughter. She has the most beautiful laugh. Like a lark on a crisp morning.” Shahrzad smiled to herself in memory.
Khalid stayed silent for a moment.
“You have a beautiful laugh. Like the promise of tomorrow.” He said it gently, with the poise of an afterthought.
And Shahrzad’s heart hurtled about in response, roaring for attention.
Shiva, I swear to you, I will ignore the fickle little beast.
She refused to look at him as she drank from her cup and remained proud of herself for this display of fortitude, until she felt his entire body go rigid across from her.
A sandaled foot came crashing to a stop on the empty seat nearby.
“If it isn’t the beautiful girl with the barbed tongue,” a voice slurred from above.
When she gazed upward, her eyes thinned in disgust.
“Apparently, this is too popular a venue,” Khalid said, the tension banding across his features.
“For lecherous bastards and kings of old alike,” Shahrzad retorted under her breath.
“What?” the young man drawled, the wine clearly impairing his comprehension.
“Never mind. What do you want?” Shahrzad asked with a spark of annoyance.
The young man leered down at her. “Perhaps I may have been a bit forward earlier. But I’d like to share a recent observation. This one here?” He gestured toward Khalid with his thumb. “He seems entirely too grumpy for a girl like you. I think you’re much better suited for a man with charm. Such as myself.”
At this, Khalid made a motion to stand. Shahrzad placed her palm against his chest, her flashing eyes never wavering from the young man’s glazed stare.
“You seem to have forgotten—in a rather short time, I might add—that you called my mother a whore. In what world do you think I would prefer you to any man, grumpy or not?”
He grinned at her, his friends behind him laughing at her temerity.
“Don’t take it to heart, beautiful girl. What if I told you my mother really was a whore? Would that make it better? In any case, I happen to have a great appreciation for women of that ilk.” He winked at her.
The laughter behind him grew louder.
Again, Shahrzad felt the fury beneath her palm as she pressed against Khalid, keeping him in his seat with nothing more than the force of her will.
She nodded. “I can’t say I’m surprised. As for me? I believe I’ll leave this set of goods on the rack, as well. I have no interest in . . . tiny cucumbers.”
At this, Khalid’s head twisted to hers, his eyes registering shock. And the edge of his lips twitching.
The silence around them was deafening for a painful beat.
Then a wild chorus of amusement filled the air.
The young man’s friends slapped their knees and pounded one another’s backs as they guffawed at his expense. His face turned several shades of red once he comprehended the full breadth of Shahrzad’s insult.
“You—” He lunged for her.
Shahrzad bolted out of the way.
Khalid grabbed the man by the front of his qamis and hurled him into his passel of friends.
“Khalid!” Shahrzad shouted.
Once the young man managed to scramble to his feet, Khalid reared back and struck him in the jaw so hard he staggered into a table of dangerous-looking men, heavily engrossed in their dice match, with the betting at an all-time high. The coins and the astragali dice crashed to the ground as the table shuddered under the young man’s weight.