Hearts of Faith

8

When Zinneeraawoke the next morning, she found herself staring out an uncovered window, grilles pushed open, the most magnificent view of the streets, empty and dark last night, alive and full of people, the murmur of chatter reaching all the way to her in her bed. She could see the bright green leaves of palm, date and fruit trees and golden orange rooftops far into the distance. A smile spread across her face and she sat up, throwing on her white scarf which she had thrown on the floor beside her bed last night, too exhausted to change, and went to lean by the window. It was almost too beautiful to be real.

The door suddenly slammed open and Zinneera's hand immediately flew to her belt before realising her dagger wasn't there but on the floor. Safiyya and Maha eyed her from the doorway with raised eyebrows.

"And who did you think we were?" Maha asked, strolling inside and making herself comfortable on the bed as Safiyya shut the door behind them. "Intruders? In a place like this?"

"Well the whole point is that I did not know who you were." Zinneera huffed and ignored her friends, instead grabbing her travel sack and taking out a white cotton dress. "Is it morning?"

"Late morning." Safiyya answered. "The Ameer and his family have gathered for breakfast and we have been invited."

"And the best part is," Maha scowled, knowing the events of the previous night since Safiyya had informed her earlier on. "Our admirer Hamid will be there."

"Oh no. There goes my plan of having a good morning." Zinneera frowned, pulling up her sleeves to make ablution in the bucket of clean water that had been left by the door.

"It is not like there is much left of the morning to begin with." Safiyya smiled slyly. "So having a bad morning today is proportionately not going to affect the rest of your day much."

Zinneera narrowed her eyes at her friend who shrugged innocently. "Where are Maryam and Ismael?"

"They are downstairs already." Maha answered, looking away from the window she had been staring out of. "I sent Ismael down with Maryam. Although that was before Safiyya told me what happened. Truly, I cannot believe we were travelling with the Prince of Al-Amin, almost the Prince of all of Al-Hafah, and none of us could tell. Not to mention the way you treated him!" Maha looked highly amused.

"I did not treat him that badly." Zinneera rolled her eyes indignantly. "You both over exaggerate."

"You tried to add extra salt into his meals." Safiyya raised a finger.

"You paid every ballad musician to recite and sing around us on every occasion we stayed in a village or city." Maha raised two fingers.

"And you put a snake in his bag."

"It was a harmless one!"

"You knew he would wake up to stop you from leaving with your horse, so you woke up even earlier out of spite."

"You also misplaced an item of his every day to confuse him. And annoy him."

"Plus you grumbled about him regularly."

"And you were hardly kind when he spoke to you."

There was silence in the room as the girls stared at each other.

"To summarise," Maha finally said. "I think we will all be surprised if they do not announce your execution at breakfast."

"It does sound rather awful when you put it like that." Zinneera shrugged. "I would feel worse about it if he actually seemed to be affected by it. The man has less emotion than a grain of sand."

Safiyya sighed and shook her head.

"We will leave you to change. Do not be long or we will be late. Although I know how you like to make an entrance."