Releasing Henry. Sarah Hegger
his heel and stalked across the oasis to where a small band of the escort crouched. “We have bigger problems than a dirty tribal boy.”
“What sort of problems?” Newt followed on behind him.
He needn’t bother. Bahir would deem it beneath him to share the information with them. Henry wanted to punch the bastard in the small of his back, right at the tender spot that would bring him to his knees.
He followed Bahir anyway.
Bahir and the leader of the escort spoke urgently to each other. From the look on the leader’s face, he would not be joining Bahir’s band of admirers. Thus far, the only person who seemed to tolerate Bahir was Alya.
For the escort, Bahir had switched to Arabic. “How many?”
“Three dead.” The leader rose wearily to his feet. “Five injured.”
“Pack up, we need to move.” Spinning again, he marched away.
Henry stepped into his path. “Would you care to explain?”
“Nay.” Bahir squared off.
One of these days, Henry promised himself, there would be a reckoning between them. “I gather there’s a problem. Her father gave her into my care as well as yours. I suggest we try to work together on this.”
Bahir curled his lip back. “She is nothing to you, English. You purchased your freedom with this journey.”
“Tell me anyway.” Henry stepped back into his path.
With a grunt, Bahir scratched the back of his neck. “I see you found a sword.”
“Aye, and I know how to use it.”
Newt snorted and muttered something Henry did not want to hear.
“I do not have time for this.” Bahir stepped around him.
“Feisty bastard, isn’t he?” Newt watched him go. “He probably bleeds sour piss if you cut him.”
Henry turned to the escort leader. He jerked his head at Bahir disappearing form. “What did he say to the boy?”
“That one.” The man spat. “The Devil! He said we need to leave. Now.”
“Why?”
“These men.” The man gestured to the desert around them. “They did not find us by chance. They were sent here. They want the girl.”
He might have guessed. Desert nomads tried not to involve themselves in the business of the cities. Unless a strong incentive was provided for them to do so.
No need to bury the dead because the desert scavengers would make short work of them. The injured were being loaded on slower camels to return to Cairo. May luck be on their side, because they had a nightmare journey ahead of them, and always the chance the nomads would decide to avenge their dead.
Henry strapped his sword to his pack aboard the camel. He had a sword now and Bahir could pry it out of his dead hand.
“Why her?” Newt joined him in packing up their belongings.
“It’s political.” How to describe the shifting quicksand of Cairo politics? “The Genovese have been here for a while, even before our bedamned foray after glory. When Frederick came with his army it upset the balance. There are those who are angry with the Sultan for being so conciliatory with Frederick’s army. Still others who feel he should have chased us down and finished what the Nile started.”
Newt nodded. “Why didn’t they?”
“It’s against the rules of war.” It still baffled Henry, this society. So many contradictions within contradictions and all governed by Allah. “The Sultan is a devout man, he follows the rules of war.”
“Which are?” Newt grimaced at his camel.
“Far more honorable than ours.” Henry threw his leg over the saddle. “Mount up. We’ll be riding hard for Alexandria.”
* * * *
Pushing their animals, they rode fast through the night. As much as it galled Henry to admit it, Bahir knew his desert and he moved them across it with eerie skill, finding landmarks in the seemingly unbroken expanse.
They ate as they rode.
The men formed a tight unit around Alya’s litter. Tense and alert, Bahir on his faster camel rode patrols into the desert.
As dawn broke over the silent city, they reached the outskirts of Alexandria.
“This city gives me the willies.” Newt shuddered and glanced about him. “All these old buildings, now ruined.”
Henry nodded. He had not traveled through Alexandria with Frederick’s army but instead come from Acre overland in a brutal journey that had killed many fine men and beasts.
Great, ancient edifices loomed on either side of the wide roadway they traversed. Strange and unknown statuary adorned the buildings belonging to a people they could only guess about. Unworldly creatures wrought of finest white stone, paying homage to pagan gods.
The city grew livelier as they approached the docks. The stench of fish, oil, and bilge reached them first. Newt muttered profanities as they wended their way through the early morning travelers to the dock.
“Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.” The muezzin’s haunting call wailed over the city.
The caravan moved to the side, along with a pair of silk traders pushing their wares along in a cart. Prayer mats appeared, laid out facing east. The traders and the devout in their caravan paused to pray. Standing first, hands crossed before their chests, eyes closed, they chanted. Like a ripple, they bowed from the waist, rose again. The soft-sung chant rose and fell as the men at the roadside bent their knees, pressing foreheads to the ground.
Silent out of respect, he stood beside Newt. He remembered a time when prayer had been the most important part of his day. The hours he’d spent in silent communion with his God some of his most cherished memories. In his moments of deepest anguish, when he had first been sold into slavery, Henry had believed God had turned his back on him, forsaken him in this place.
Now he understood an opposite truth. Henry had turned his back on God. In the face of all the evil he had witnessed he could not give his faith and his obedience. Sometimes he felt as if the evil had seeped through his skin into his very bones and lay waiting there for the day he would turn to it. He could not face any god with the blood that stained his hands, the deaths that stained his soul.
With prayer over, the men stood, packed away their mats, and life resumed again.
Bobbing like apples in a barrel, the ships rode the harbor tides, their barren masts skeletal against the lightening sky.
Bahir led them straight to a large ship close to the harbor entrance. A man came out on deck and he and Bahir exchanged greetings.
In a squalling mass the camels were brought to their knees, and the party dismounted.
The man Henry guessed as captain by his rich raiment and air of command crossed to the dock and spoke quietly to Bahir. The conversation seemed to go on for a while, the captain gesticulating and Bahir shaking his head. Eventually, Bahir turned wearing a face like a smacked ass.
“Unload the camels,” he yelled. “Put everything on the ship.”
He went to Alya’s litter and handed her out.
Above her niqab, her gaze darted about, alive with curiosity.
Keeping his hand beneath her elbow, Bahir trotted her on the boat and took her down below.
Newt sighed. “I do miss seeing a saucy smile on a pretty wench’s face. How is a man to know what a girl looks like?”
“Alya is beautiful.” The words escaped him.
Newt looked at him sharply and raised a questioning