Maram blinked. Two hulking shadows bracketed her favourite couch and the dark-clad figure who reclined upon the cushions.
"I'm still in mourning, you know," Anahita said, throwing herself down in a picture of despair.
Maram smothered a laugh. "In mourning for which husband? Do you even remember his name?"
Anahita sat up indignantly. "Of course I do. It was...um, Abd-something-or-other. I think. Oh, what does it matter? He never wanted me to address him by his name. I was supposed to call him Master, like I was a slave. Me! It is not fitting to speak ill of the dead, but that man..."
"Is not mourned by anyone, least of all you," Maram finished for her. "Father has a problem with Sheikh Basit. He is attacking the outlying towns and camps, taking our people as slaves."
Anahita frowned. "Then he is a fool, and Father does him too much honour, giving me to him as a bride. Is he at least a handsome fool?"
Maram shrugged. "I do not know. I have never seen the man. What do you care? All of your husbands meet untimely ends. One might think you drive your husbands to suicide."
"Oh, hush." Anahita flapped her hand at the nearest guard. For all that her sister never went anywhere without them, Maram had never learned their names. "Get us something to drink."
The man bowed and left without a word, while his twin folded his arms across his chest to appear even more formidable.
Anahita didn't even seem to notice. Maram would never understand why her sister favoured these two enormous men as her personal guards. They'd been a gift from her first husband, a man Maram knew deserved his untimely death ten times over.
"He cannot be handsome, or you would have kept this sheikh for yourself," Anahita said. "The gossip in the palace is that you have a new lover in the city. One you meet in the old bathhouse near the city gates." Anahita's eyes sparkled. "Who is he?"
Maram's heart ached at the mention of Aladdin. "No one." She wet her lips. "And he is not my lover. I met a man there once. I have not seen him since." But she would give everything she owned to see him again. Or for more than a kiss.
Anahita whistled. "A man who can resist you! A superior creature indeed. You must introduce me to this paragon. Perhaps he can keep me company when you go travelling again. A widow always needs so much consolation!"
"No!" Maram snapped, more sharply than she'd intended. She softened her tone as she continued, "You'll be living in marital bliss with that sheikh, I'm sure."
"Marital bliss is not for the likes of me, or you," Anahita said. "Why else would Father allow us to have apartments outside the protection of the harem?"
Maram shot a pointed glance at her sister's remaining bodyguard. Either one of them would be quite the temptation to her father's wives, some of whom had not spent a night with their husband since their wedding night. Someone who hadn't grown up in a harem might think it a place full of secrets, and it was, but secrets were the currency of the place, and they flowed as freely as coins in the marketplace. For a politician like Maram who was known to have her father's ear, nothing stayed a secret for long.
"Fate is fickle. You don't know what she might have in store for either of us. Perhaps you will find a handsome prince of a husband who will outlive you. And I..." She might meet Aladdin again, a man of vastly changed fortunes, who could marry her the way he wished to.
"You might find some prince who doesn't know the difference between a virgin and a courtesan, a man so stupid he allows you to rule in his stead," Anahita finished for her with a smile. "I know you. You would never be content to be anything less than a queen. I think you like the power you have over men when you travel to foreign lands. There are tales of queens who rule like men, I am told."
Maram thought of Queen Margareta, a world-weary widow who was lonely without her husband. "There are a few such women, and their lives are not easy. I would not aim so high. But sometimes it would be pleasant to be loved."
Anahita laughed. "As opposed to just being desired? You speak of that thing all the crusader knights long for. What do they call it? Some sort of divine cup? Or is it a bowl?"
"The holy grail," Maram said. "And no one knows what it truly is. They speak of a story about a knight named Perceval, or Gawain...ah, I forget. It is a favourite among foreign courts. The object is a myth, no more."
"Ah, there is always some truth in old tales, even if it is hidden deep. There are men who love their wives above all else." Now Anahita looked wistful.
"Those men are not princes, or men with power of any kind, then," Maram said gently.
Anahita grinned. "Not powerless at all. He must have the power to please you, surely?" She pumped her hips like a rutting man might, making them both blush.
"Enough about men. They are poor gamblers, for they never bet anything of value. I have new jewels and trinkets from my travels and I'm sure you have gifts from your latest husband that you haven't yet lost in a game of chance. What say you to dice, or a round of chess?"
"It has been a long time since I have played chess. I suspect you are after that necklace...or is it the jewelled dagger?" Anahita asked. "I must teach my men to play, so that I might stay in practice while I am with this new sheikh."
"Dice, then, for a fair match. You will like some of my new jewels, and I always did like that dagger." Maram clapped her hands, and one of her serving women fetched her dice box.
"Now you are home, we should go hunting. I have a splendid new falcon, Merlin, who has a taste for frogs above all else." Anahita grinned as she selected a die made of green glass.
"Frogs? She sounds like a very strange bird. Has she never tasted a fat pigeon?" Maram asked, choosing a die of rose-coloured wood.
"Plenty, but if she hears a frog, she will abandon the hunt to dive for the frog. Why, I've seen her skim through the bathhouse, making all the harem girls scream." Anahita's smile turned wicked. "They screamed even louder when they saw the size of the frog Merlin had plucked from their bath."
Maram tucked her feet up under her and shivered. "I'm sure I would scream, too. I do not like frogs. Slimy creatures."
"I'm told the crusaders eat them as a delicacy at home," Anahita added. "Perhaps Merlin was a crusader's falcon."
Maram felt sick at the thought of a frog anywhere near her mouth. "Enough talk of your crazy bird. Before you cast the dice, what do you hazard?"
"What would you like best, the necklace or the dagger?"
"The dagger, for it will defend me better against frogs," Maram said.
Anahita pulled the jewelled dagger from a fold in her robes, its sheath glittering with more jewels than the blade itself. "The dagger it is, then, though I doubt you will ever use it. A blade is not your style, sister. You are far more subtle than that."
"When men have had too much to drink, subtlety is lost on them, and a woman has need of a dagger," Maram said.