Sweet Revenge

afternoon. She had a new dress, a beautiful one, of striped silk in all the colors of the rainbow. Catching her lip between her teeth, Adrianne turned her head to look at her mother.
    Phoebe slept, her face like marble in the moonlight and, for once, peaceful. Adrianne loved these times when her mother allowed her to climb into the huge soft bed to sleep. It was a very special treat. She would bundle up close with Phoebe’s arms around her and listen to the stories hermother told her of places like New York and Paris, Sometimes they would giggle together.
    Carefully, not wanting to wake her, Adrianne reached out to stroke her mother’s hair. It fascinated her. It looked like fire against the pillow, a gorgeous, hot fire. At five, Adrianne was already woman enough to envy her mother her hair. Her own was thick and black like that of the other women in Jaquir. Only Phoebe had red hair and white skin. Only Phoebe was American. Adrianne was half American, but Phoebe reminded her of it only when they were alone.
    Such things made her father angry.
    Adrianne was well tutored in avoiding subjects that might anger her father, though she couldn’t understand why being reminded that Phoebe was American made his eyes harden and his mouth thin. She had been a movie star. That description confused Adrianne, but she liked the way it sounded.
Movie star.
The words made her think of pretty lights in a dark sky.
    Her mother had been a star, now she was a queen, the first wife of Abdu ibn Faisal Rahman al-Jaquir, ruler of Jaquir, sheikh of sheikhs. Her mother was the most beautiful of women with her large blue eyes and full, soft mouth. She towered over the other women in the harem, making them seem like tiny, fussy birds, Adrianne wished only that her mother would be happy. Now that she was five, Adrianne fiercely hoped she would begin to understand why her mother so often looked sad and wept when she thought herself alone.
    Women were protected in Jaquir. Those of the House of Jaquir were not supposed to work or to worry. They were given everything they needed—fine rooms, the sweetest of perfumes. Her mother had beautiful clothes and jewelry. She had The Sun and the Moon.
    Adrianne closed her eyes, better to recall the dazzling vision of the necklace on her mother’s neck. How the great diamond, The Sun, flashed and the priceless pearl, the Moon, gleamed. Someday, Phoebe had promised, Adrianne would wear it.
    When she was grown. Comfortably, content with the sound of her mother’s even breathing and the thoughts of tomorrow, Adrianne imagined. When she was grown, a wornan instead of a girl, she would put on her veil. One day a husband would be chosen for her, and she would be married. On her wedding day she would wear The Sun and the Moon and become a good and fruitful wife.
    She would give parties for the other women and serve them frosted cakes while servants passed trays of chocolate. Her husband would be handsome and powerful, like her father. Perhaps he would be a king, too, and he would value her above all things.
    As she drifted toward sleep, Adrianne curled the ends of a lock of her long hair around her index finger. He would love her the way she wanted her father to love her. She would give him fine sons, many fine sons, so that the other women would look at her with envy and respect. Not with pity. Not with the pity they showed to her mother.
    The light from the hallway roused her. It slanted in as the door opened, then fell in a harsh line across the floor. Through the gauzy netting that surrounded the bed like a cocoon, she saw the shadow.
    The love came first, in a frustrated burst she recognized but was too young to understand. Then came the fear, the fear that always followed closely on the love she felt whenever she saw her father.
    He would be angry to find her here, in her mother’s bed. She knew, because the talk in the harem was frank, that he rarely visited here, not since the doctors had said Phoebe would bear no more children. Adrianne thought perhaps he wanted only to look at Phoebe because she was so beautiful. But when he stepped closer, fear rose up in her throat. Quickly, silently, she slid out of the bed and crouched in the shadows beside it.
    Abdu, his eyes on Phoebe, pulled back the netting. He hadn’t bothered to shut the door. No one would dare to disturb him.
    There was moonlight over her hair, over her face. She looked like a goddess, as she had the first time he had seen her. Her face had