The Price of Oud E-Book

alastair macleod

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

In modern day Arabia, great wealth and conspicuous consumption has brought pressure to bear on the natural world as suppliers seek to meet the demand for luxury products.

Omar, is employed by his Sheik to seek out the most expensive perfume in the world, but finds himself facing the violent underworld which has emerged to meet this demand.

Leseprobe

Alastair Macleod

The Price of Oud

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “the method has become an idol, he must transcend the practice for it is an obstacle.” Qurani. BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

The Price of Oud

Dubai

The smoke swirled upwards towards Sheik Shadid

of the Bani Malik. It clung to his clothes.

He passed the brazier to his companion. He in turn wafted it into his beard and robe then passed it to his brother, then it went around the whole group. When at last it reached Omar the smoke was almost out, the Oud burned away.

Only Sheik Shadid could afford such an extravagance of Oud and to share it with so many.

It was the scent of power and now Omar had a little of it too as the smoke clung to his cotton cloak.

It was a binding - he was bound to the Sheik by blood but also by trade.

Omar had delivered this Oud at great peril.

Getting it out of Cambodia had cost the life of his companion Abdellatif, knifed at the docks, in the mistaken belief that he, Abdellatif, carried the Oud when in fact it was packed in a life vest strapped round Omar’s body.

For so rare had Oud become it was worth its weight in gold.

Used for thousands of years in Arabia and the Near East as a perfumed smoke wafted into the face and beard and into the clothes, for some it had become an addiction.

Increased wealth in Saudi Arabia created rising demand and supplies were running low.

And now wealthy Chinese wanted to acquire it for temple incense but also, like gold, to store it as an investment, for the price rose inexorably.

Omar felt this was sinful, to buy it and never burn it; never to release the aroma.

He left the gathering and as he walked to his car he adjusted his head cloth, his ghutra, from a cobra to a trumba. He would see Samira now; perfumed as he was, he imagined himself as totally desirable.

A young man, Omar was 28. He was of medium build, his complexion dark, his features prominent. A dark beard and dark eyebrows - his hair covered by his ghutra and the black roped egal. His immaculate white robe indicated his rank, another wealthy young Saudi.

But unlike most of them he did not just squander his wealth on cars and flats. He had gone into dealing - first yes in expensive cars, then into property.

But it had become apparent that really big money was in rhino horn, elephant ivory and in his new role working for the Sheik, supplying Oud.

The wood of the Agar tree only became Oud when the tree was infected, via a cut or a wound, by a bacterium that infected the growing wood. The tree reacted by producing a resin that permeated the heart wood. Pieces of this heartwood could be removed and when cut into slivers and burnt produced the most amazing aroma.

Wild Agar trees were rare and maybe only one in ten were infected.

Omar drove to the flat of his first and as yet only wife, Samirah.

He strode into the elaborately tiled lobby. Potted palms lined the walls.