“Lima,” Jallal drawled the girl's delicious name. He sat with the children of the sheikhs, discussing in an adult way what was troubling the hearts of the young men.
“Beautiful,” Teshan agreed. A son of the sheikh Medan.
The person responsible for the discussion quietly passed by. She was wearing a Northern light dress and necklaces. The sandals were also foreign, one could walk barefoot in the Sultan's garden, so soft were the grass and the ground in the garden, but the Northern sandals protected from the stones with a hard sole, so that even if Lima walked on sharp stones, she wouldn’t feel them. Aivaz followed her, looking around warily, protecting her from possible attacks. The brother and sister who had always quarreled in Iceland became close. They had no one else to be friends with. Aivaz couldn’t follow his father, who constantly spent hours at the meetings of the Sultan, where children were forbidden to enter. Aivaz knew his father was thinking about how to protect his people, so he didn’t bother him. He met a boy yesterday. Enefrey. The son of a slave. And the grandson of the gods. It couldn't be so, and Aivaz was trying to wrap his mind around. The boy was dressed in Northern clothes, although the servants were bringing them local clothes every morning, each time different, waiting patiently for the guests to appreciate the Sultan's mercy.
Lima and Aivaz went into the bushes, where the Northern children, out of habit, made a shelter hidden from the eyes of outsiders.
“I knew you were here,” slipped to them Enefrey, whom didn’t catch the Sultan yet. The boy spoke to them in the Northern language.
“Why are you called Enefrey?” the girl asked.
“My great-grandmother is Enefeya. Northern Princess. She was captured long ago by my great-grandfather. And married her.”
Aivaz froze. Enefrey melodiously laughed.
“They were good together, great-grandmother said that she only dreamed of one thing, that I was born in the house of blacks. She had black children, and her children had black children, and she vowed then that she wouldn’t die until Northern hope was born in the house. And so I was born.”
“Is your brother your blood one?” asked Ayvaz, “Or are you from another father or mother?"
“Jallal? His’s my blood brother,” Enefrey smiled warmly, remembering the brother. Ayvaz felt a twinge of jealousy. He believed that the northerners should stick together and that Enefrey, when his father found a way out, would go to North with them – he was a very worthy man.
Ayvaz's brows drew together.
Enefrey looked at Lima.
“You have eyes like my father’s.”
Lima sighed and rolled her eyes.
“Gods, what is this?" I probably need to put on a para-ja here…”
“Paranja,” corrected Enefrey, smiling.
“Why my eyes bother everyone so much?! I don't see anything unusual about them! We have many ones who have such eyes.”
‘It’s because your women sleep with our men,” smiled Enefrey.
“My mother isn't like that!” Lima got offended.
Ayvaz wanted to boil over, but he remembered his father had said something similar, and he didn't say anything.
“Maybe the mother of your mother,” shrugged Enefrey.
“Is Enefrey in the garden? It’s time for him to go studying,” The Sultan was asking a group of children about the boy.
“He was somewhere here, maybe at the fountain?” Jallal called aloud to his brother.
“I will go to our shelter not to be found,” smiled Enefrey, waited until there was nobody around the bushes, and crept out to the garden.
“What do they want from him?” Ayvaz asked irritably.
“I'm here,” gently, sharply replied Enefrey, going to the brother. The Sultan smiled, scooped him up, and carried him to the palace.
Jallal chuckled and shook his head.
“I'll go to buy some jewelry to give it to Lima,” he said.
“Wait, I'm with you,” said the vizier's son.
The company trailed behind, why, yes! One needs to help a friend conquer a woman.
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