The Scorpion’s Bite by Aileen G. Baron Read Free Book Online

egomaniacal windbag, a virago, and the world’s greatest expert.”
    “Expert on what?”
    “Everything. Ask her anything, she knew more about it than God.”
    Behind them, a door closed and they heard the tap of small scampering feet.
    A child’s voice called out, “Wait for me, wait for me,” and they turned to see Prince Hussein running toward them.
    Hussein clasped Glubb’s hand. “Grandfather says that Abu Hun…Glubb Pasha is a great hero,” he said to Lily. “Grandfather says that he saved my cousin Faisal’s life and rescued Iraq from the Germans. My cousin is the king of Iraq.”
    He was talking about the eight-year-old king, the grandson of Lawrence’s Faisal.
    “You were going to call Colonel Glubb ‘ Abu Huniak ,’ weren’t you?” Lily asked the young prince.
    “It’s not polite to call someone a name. Someday, I will be king, like my cousin Faisal, and kings are always polite.”
    “Your grandfather told you that?” Lily asked.
    “Grandfather is wise and kind. He is always polite.”
    “Who taught you English?” Lily said. “You speak it very well.”
    “When the war is over, grandfather says, when it is safe in England, I will go to school there, to Harrow with my cousin Faisal. And then I shall go to Sandhurst, like Glubb Pasha, and become a great warrior.”
    A door along the corridor opened, and a uniformed guard approached. “Your Highness, His Majesty is looking for you.”
    Hussein released Glubb’s hand. He went with the guard, turned back, and waved at them. “ Ma’a es salaam ,” he called as Lily and Glubb watched him continue down the corridor.
    Glubb waited until he was out of sight before he said, “Back to Gerta Kuntze. She stirs up the Bedu to plot against the Allies for her friend Rashid Ali al-Gaylani.”
    “The former prime minister of Iraq?”
    “The very same, the engineer of last year’s insurrection, a plot to kill young Faisal. We intervened, rescued Faisal, and sent Rashid Ali into exile.”
    “Rashid Ali is a Nazi sympathizer?”
    “More than that. Sold Iraqi oil to the Kraut, sent Iraqi artillery against our base in Habbaniya. We took care of him last year,” he said again, and laughed. “They call it the Anglo-Iraqi War. Imagine that.”
    She had heard about the war. Glubb led the invasion.
    He stood against the window. The bright sun behind him outlined his silhouette and made it difficult for her to see the expression on his face. “Rashid Ali fled to Berlin. Now he and his friend, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al Husseini, have tea and cakes with Hitler.”
    Behind Glubb in the garden blowsy Damask roses nodded in a slight breeze that blew the spray from a fountain in the center toward the ring of dark pink flowers.
    “While they talk about their plans to rule the Arab world and eliminate the Jews?”
    “Just so.” He took a deep breath, shook his head. “None of it is easy. Lawrence had it right. We’ve been led into a trap in Mesopotamia that we can’t escape with dignity and honor. And all the while, Gerta Kuntze travels from tent to tent, lives like a Bedu, lice and all, calling herself the Empress of Mesopotamia.”
    “She’s an archaeologist?”
    “Vocational.” Glubb sighed. “Rashid Ali may be in Berlin, but he still pulls the strings in Iraq.”
    Lily remembered a picture she had seen of little Hussein and the young king, Faisal, standing together, arms over each other’s shoulders. They looked like twins, but Hussein’s eyes were laughing while Faisal’s were sad and full of foreboding.
    “The Arabs believe in fate. If Faisal is fated to be killed by Rashid Ali, then he will be.”
    “Even if it takes forty years?”
    “Or less,” Glubb said.
    ***
    Lily rode back to the hotel in the Packard. She sat straight in the plush beige back seat, feeling grand and a little royal, wondering if she should give a queenly bow and wave to the fellahin who gazed after them when the town car passed.
    Before she went