She did not know why she had failed to conceive after Amira. Clearly, it was God’s will, but as for other reasons, she had none. Now, after thirteen futile years, she was again with child. It was a miracle. She staked all her hopes on it. At the same time, she could not forgive Omar for his betrayal. She turned him away, that dreadful night when their daughter walked in on them. Yet, even then, she was only waiting for the right moment to tell him the wonderful news.

Then, at the end of the third month, came the morning of blood. The midwife had nothing more to say than the obvious; it was a miscarriage. But the bleeding continued, and a doctor was summoned. There were only five in the kingdom, three attending on the royal family. This man, a short, balding Turk, was one of the three. Like all Remali women who needed a full physical examination, she wore a veil while the physician probed her nakedness.

“Madam,” he said when it was over, “your last delivery must have been very difficult.”

“It was,” she answered. “I’m told I could have died.”

“I was sure of it. Internally, there is a great deal of damage. Scars. Adhesions. Have you had pain?”

“Some.”

“The surprising thing is that you conceived at all. I’m very sorry to say, madam, that you will have no more children. I would even recommend, for your health, that you consult a specialist in Europe, a surgeon. I’ll tell your husband this and give him the names of two or three men on whom you can rely absolutely.”

“It’s kind of you, sir, but I doubt that it will come to that.”

“Probably not,” the doctor said with a trace of anger. “In al-Remal we are certain that everything follows the will of God, and that is certainly true. But what makes us think that the will of God is not expressed in the healing hand of modern medicine?”

“I don’t know, doctor,” Jihan replied. “I’m only a woman.”

O

That was the beginning. Until then, the dream had been only a coincidence, a diary entry. Now it came more and more often, until it was a constant torment, like the presence of the new wife herself.

Then out of nowhere came the real-life nightmare of Laila Sibai, a girl she regarded almost as a daughter. She dared not protest, dared not say a word against the sentence and execution, not only because her whole world demanded acquiescence but because she was terrified by a mother’s intuition that Malik was involved. She thanked God when he left for Europe. Yet, now he was truly lost to her, not merely a boy gone off to school, but a man gone out into the world. And soon, Amira would be lost, as well, lost to a husband who would take her away like a camel bought in the market.