"I could have waited until you had bathed. Never mind, I'll hold my breath." She went back into his arms and hugged him affectionately. "What news?"

"Not good." Sacha's smile faded. "The Mother Superior wrote your father a letter inquiring if your journey had gone well and if Captain Braxgan had proved trustworthy."

Tess's eyes widened. "Not good indeed."

"It may not be so bad, imp." Sacha touched her nose with his index finger. "Your father was going to set off the day after I left to find the captain and question him. Perhaps the good captain may have set sail from Diran.''

"Or he may not." She nibbled at her lower lip. "My father doesn't know you're involved?"

"Not yet."

"He suspected nothing when you left hurriedly?"

"My august father and brother were about to go on a fishing expedition on the Zandar River, and I told your father I was joining them." He pulled a face. "The excuse was a trifle flimsy considering my feelings for their royal absurdities, but it served."

"Not for long. Diran has few inns, and you would be easily remembered." She frowned. "And Galen is even more memorable."

"Denigration again," Sacha said mournfully. "Only to you, brat."

"Sorry." Her tone was abstracted. "My father's not stupid. He'll ask questions in Diran and find out about the marriage and be on his way to Zalandan in—" She stopped, trying to estimate. "How long do we have?"

Sacha ceased trying to comfort and told her the truth. "A week. Perhaps less."

She breathed a sigh of relief. "I was afraid he was on your heels. It may be enough. The carobel race is run tomorrow morning, and the final council meeting follows. Galen could have his union of the tribes before my father arrives."

"Events have progressed amazingly since I left Sedikhan. What was the impetus?"

"Tamar."

Sacha nodded. "Every tribe we passed had news of his raids." He turned and moved toward the entrance of the tent. "Well, as you so rudely suggested, I must bathe and change before I sup with Galen. You'll be there?"

"No."

He turned to look at her in surprise.

She smiled with an effort. "I still have much to do. I'll sup with Viane and perhaps join you later."

He studied her thoughtfully for a minute before he shrugged. "As you like." He paused. "How is Viane?"

"Well." She frowned. "But it's just as well you've returned. Kalim has proved much too obliging with the pigeons."

"I suppose that remark has deep significance, but I don't think I'll take the trouble to fathom it." He opened the flap of the tent. "Kalim is riding in the carobel?"

"Yes." Tess frowned. "Are you?"

"Probably, it usually proves amusing."

"Amusing? Just exactly what is this carobel race?"

He raised his brows. "You don't know?"

"I've been more concerned with the festival itself. Galen said only it was a race of some sort."

"A very special race. The course is laid out over six miles of desert and rough hill country."

"Jumps?"

He nodded. "Five. That's where most of the carobels are shattered."

"What?"

"A carobel is a two-foot pottery jar that's filled with heavily perfumed water, corked, and strapped on each rider's back. The pottery is paper thin, and only the best riders have a good enough seat to return to the encampment without breaking their jars and drenching themselves with the perfume."

"What a challenge." Tess's face was suddenly alight with eagerness. "It must be very interesting."

Sacha's smile faded. "It's not for you, Tess."

"I didn't say I wished to race. I only said it was interesting."

Sacha gazed at her skeptically. "The other riders would be outraged if a woman rode in the race."

She lifted her chin. "But I wager I could best them. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad for them to know a woman could ride as well as they."

"You're the majira of El Zalan. It would throw the sheikhs into a turmoil and possibly disrupt the council."

Her eagerness was submerged in disappointment. "True." She shrugged. "I was only thinking anyway. I suppose it doesn't matter."

Sacha breathed a sigh of relief as he turned to leave. "Second thoughts are always best."

Tess asked dryly, "How would you know?"

His eyes twinkled as he glanced over his shoulder. "Not from experience. I stumbled across that truth in one of the boring tomes my tutor once made me read."

Sacha was gone when Tess returned to the tent late that night, but the lantern was still lit. Fully dressed, Galen sat on the divan.

Tess braced herself when he glanced up from a stack of papers on the low table before him. His face was expressionless. "I was wondering if you intended to come back at all tonight."

"I would not cause you such embarrassment." Tess moved across the tent toward him. "Sacha told you about my father?"

Galen nodded. "It doesn't matter. By the time he arrives, I'll either have a united Sedikhan with which to intimidate him, or—"

"Or?"

"Or we'll have disintegrated into a pack of ravening wolves." He smiled grimly. "Either way, he'll not find the prospect pleasant for him here in Sedikhan."

She glanced away from him. "You won't give me up to him?"

"I promised you that you'd not have to go back to him. How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not like your father?"

"I thought… if Sedikhan is united, isn't my part over?"

"It's over when I say it's over."

"You think you'll still have need of me?"

He looked down at the papers before him. "We have a bargain. You promised me a child, and I won't be cheated."

She didn't have to leave him yet. The relief she felt was frightening in its intensity. She turned hurriedly away and moved toward the curtained alcove. "You won't need a child now."

"I'll decide what I need." A hint of ferocity tinged Galen's voice. "And what I'll take."

Raw anger and frustration vibrated in the tent, and for the first time Tess became conscious of the air of suppressed violence surrounding Galen. "You won't take anything that—"

A scream tore through the night!

Tess went rigid.

Another scream. A woman's scream of agony.

"Stay here." Galen was on his feet, running toward the entrance of the tent.

She was supposed to stay and listen to that poor woman screaming?

Dear God, what if it was Viane?

Galen was already several yards away when Tess reached the entrance of the tent.

Another scream.

Half-dressed men streamed out of the tents, lanterns were being lit.

Tess darted across the clearing toward Viane's tent.

"Tess, what is it?" Viane, her maid at her elbow, held back the tent flap. "That scream…"

"I don't know."

However, Galen seemed to know. He was striding through the tents toward the north end of the encampment.

Tess hurried after him. They were now passing through the area of the El Kabbar, but no one was coming out of these tents.

Another scream… closer.

She rounded the corner and almost ran into Galen, who had stopped and was standing watching something occurring before Hakim's tent. "What's happening?"