Trent took one look at her and tipped his head to urge her to fall into step beside him. “Let us be on our way, before the emotions I see swimming so close to your surface cause you to change your mind.” He smiled softly, even if he didn’t stop walking.
With a sigh and a bit of a grouse that he seemed to know her so well, she hoisted her violin and her skirts, and strode out in his wake. The savannah grasses were thin here, and it gave her no comfort to realize that so many slaves had passed this way that a veritable trail had been worn into the plains.
The cart Trent pushed was covered with what was left of the sheet he had used to wrap her ankle the evening before. She reached out and tugged at one corner to see what the bulges beneath it were. Two wooden drawers with locks in the front face sat to one side. The rest of the cart had been stacked with a few ivory tusks. She dropped the corner of the sheet, her lips thinning at the sight of the ivory.
She glowered at the man beside her.
Trent swiped a trickle of sweat from his temple with his shoulder and didn’t even pause his trek down the path. “Lest you forget, my intentions when coming to the Interior were never to get rich on ivory, as I first told you. So don’t look at me as though I were something to be scraped from the bottom of your little boots. We are going to need the money I’ll get from selling this ivory to reserve passage aboard a ship for Zanzibar.”
RyAnne only sighed as she settled her violin into one corner of the cart.
It took them two days to reach the port town of Bagamoyo, and RyAnne’s revulsion as she walked the streets of the city was just as great, if not greater, than it had been the first time she’d been exposed to Bagamoyo from the deck of The Wasp in the harbor.
Trent led the way down a dusty street. Asha, bringing up the rear, pushed the rickety cart that had somehow miraculously made it this far. Row upon row of chained captives slumped against buildings on either side, awaiting their fate with vacant stares and glum expressions.
The sun baked down with merciless heat, yet none of the captives had any water.
RyAnne’s steps faltered. Slowed. Stilled. “Captain, surely there is something we can do?” A well sat in the middle of the next intersection. She lifted her skirts and started toward it, but Trent took her elbow and urged her down a side street in the direction of the harbor.
“We can’t just leave them!” She tugged away from him and started to go back, only to find Asha, arms folded, blocking her path.
Trent sighed. “RyAnne, there are slaves there who would not hesitate to attack you and use you as a hostage to try and negotiate their freedom.”
RyAnne felt tears sting her eyes. “But surely there are many more who would be appreciative of just a drink of water.”
Trent crossed his arms and kicked at the dust for a moment. He looked up and studied her face, then reached out to cup her cheek and thumb away a tear that slipped loose. “Aye. And well I know how your soft heart leads you into danger time and again.”
Asha spoke up from behind her. “Water will be given to them at noon.” When she glanced back at him, still unsure whether she could walk away without at least trying to offer some help, he gestured to the sun hanging just below its zenith. It would be noon within the next quarter of an hour.
“You’re certain?”
Asha nodded. “Many times I have…walked this city with Khalifa. Always water is given at noon.”
Trent took her hand and urged her to follow him. “Let us find a room, and then I will go to the docks to see if I can book us passage for Stone Town.”
And see if he can’t find more evidence to convict Brayden of slave smuggling. The thought washed a wave of despair through RyAnne. The world was a bad enough place without finding out that your childhood friends might be slave runners.
Reluctantly, she gave in and let him pull her down the alley. Asha took up pushing the cart behind them.
They had only gone about a few blocks when Trent came to a stop. RyAnne glanced up and realized they stood before an Arabic bookshop. Trent strode to the cart and opened one of the two drawers. He withdrew several missives, all of a similar size, and motioned with them toward the interior of the shop. “Care to join me?”
Asha folded his arms and stoically stood guard over the cart.
RyAnne, anxious for her first glimpse of civility in months, hurried to follow Trent inside.
A hunched elderly man with round spectacles perched on the end of his nose and a white kufi upon his head smiled from behind the counter.
Trent touched his forehead in greeting. “Unazungumza Kiswahili?“
The man nodded that he did indeed speak Swahili, and then his smile broadened. “But I also speak English, my friend.”
Trent chuckled. “Then I’m doubly blessed to have stumbled upon your shop.” He laid the packet of letters on the counter. “I wonder if you have a moment to read a few letters?”
The shopkeeper tugged his spectacles up to his eyes and nodded.
Trent pulled one of the pages from its envelope and slid it across the counter. “Can you read that language?”
RyAnne felt a tingle of anticipation rush through her. If Khalifa had been hiding information in plain sight, the next few minutes might reveal it to them!
The old man’s eyes lit up. “Yes. Yes.”
Trent and RyAnne looked at each other exultantly.
Wizened hands drew the paper closer, and RyAnne held her breath.
After only a moment the old man set the letter back on the counter. He tugged his spectacles free and polished them with a cloth. “This letter is written to a man named Ali, yes?”
Trent nodded.
RyAnne stepped closer, not wanting to miss a word of what was about to be said.
The shopkeeper tapped the missive. “This is from his wife back in Oman. She writes of their two daughters, and Ali’s”—he paused for a quick chuckle—”wretched mother, who apparently lives with them in Oman.”
RyAnne glanced at Trent, her shoulders slumping. There didn’t seem to be any hidden information in that…did there?
Trent too looked disappointed. He handed the other letters to the man, who read each one to them word for word. All were similar correspondence from Khalifa’s wife. And none contained anything important.
Trent scrubbed one hand over his face, thanked the man, and paid him the few coins he requested.
Back out at the cart, Trent thrust the envelopes into the top box, and they continued on their way in silence.
RyAnne angled a look upward. Have you seen our suffering, Father? Where is the justice?
Silence was her only answer.
RyAnne sighed. And yet… Wasn’t that partly what faith was about? Trusting that God was good and His Word was true, even when things didn’t turn out exactly as hoped for?
Just before the wharf, Trent parked the cart outside an alehouse. The Sanskrit and English sign above the door read Rooms for Let. Trent paid a lad a few coins to guard the cart, and then he hoisted the two wooden drawers to his hip and handed RyAnne her violin. He led the way inside. Near a set of stairs off to the left, two turbaned men played a sitar and a tanpura. The room was dim and hardly appeared like a place to frequent. However, many tables were full, and the luscious scents emanating from the kitchen made RyAnne’s stomach grumble embarrassingly.
The proprietress, a stooped old woman with only one front tooth, who was barely visible above the back counter, informed them that she only had one room left for the evening.
“We’ll take it,” Trent said. “Please send up water for a bath.” He held out the required payment.
The woman snatched the shillings from Trent’s outstretched fingers and then tipped her head toward the north. “Baths two house that way. Big sign.”
It would be a public bathhouse then, and now that she was in the sheltered interior away from the grit and noise and anguishing sights of the city, RyAnne had no desire to go back out again. Besides, she’d gone for weeks on end without so m
uch as warm water to wash with, so any water at all would be a luxury. “Just a bucket of warm water will do. Can we at least have that?” She offered the old woman a pleading smile.
The woman sniffed, but snapped her fingers at a girl hovering in the shadows just behind her. The girl scrambled off to presumably fetch a bucket of warm water.
Trent gave Asha the bag of coins. “Get us some food?”
Asha sank down at one of the empty tables in the corner of the room.
Trent then touched a hand to RyAnne’s lower back and nudged her up the stairs. “I’ll bring you up a plate. I’m sure you are exhausted and would like to rest.”
RyAnne’s heart dropped. She was exhausted, but the truth was she’d only just gotten used to having the captain around again, and the thought of being without him, even for a little while, filled her with trepidation. “You aren’t going to leave me, are you?” The moment the words left her mouth, her face heated. She didn’t want to turn into a clingy woman who never wanted to let her man out of her sights. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t…I’ll be fine. It’s just that I’ve only just gotten you back and—”
Trent stepped through the door to her room and set the two drawers on a table. He took her violin and laid it next to them. Then, stepping back into the entry, he settled both hands on her shoulders and bent to meet her gaze. “I won’t be far. I need you to promise me you’ll stay in the room? I have to head to the docks and see if I can get a good price for that ivory and book us passage to Stone Town. But I’ll return just as quickly as I can, and tonight I’ll sleep right here”—he tapped one toe on the stone tiles beneath their feet—”just outside your door.”
RyAnne wrapped her hands around his forearms. “Hurry back. And please be careful.”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “Khalifa is gone. There’s no need to worry about me. I’ll be fine. I promise you.”
Reluctantly, RyAnne let him go.
Hot water came, and she washed. Her ankle was much improved with the constant cleaning she’d been giving it, for which she was thankful.
A plate of curry and rice arrived, and she devoured it, not recalling the last time she’d eaten something so delicious.
And then she waited.
Garrett took the stairs to the upper floor of the Hunters’ home two at a time. Jasmine would be up in her mother’s room, just as she had been the past several times he’d visited. Each of those times he’d tried to coax her into resting herself, but she’d insisted that her mother’s recovery was too delicate to leave in the hands of someone else. She’d been sleeping in ten-minute snatches for the last two days. This time he was going to insist that she let the maid, Sarah, handle some of the care so Jasmine could get some proper sleep herself. Provided her mother was still fighting. He prayed she would pull through. Jasmine’s tender heart could not take another loss.
He knocked softly on the door. “Jas?”
A flurry of soft footsteps gave him a picture of her running on tiptoe to the door, and then it opened. Her eyes were bright and filled with a joy that gave him immediate relief.
“Is she better then?”
She nodded, excitement fairly vibrating from every pore in her body. “She’s finally able to hold down some broth. And kept a whole cup of tea down for the past twenty minutes!”
“Heaven be praised.” He could see the utter weariness clinging to her beneath the excitement.
She glanced over her shoulder to where her mother slept on the bed. “Yes. Indeed.”
Garrett reached out and took her hand.
She swung back to face him.
“I hope you’ll allow me to convince you to get some rest of your own now?”
She tilted her head as though considering that for the first time since her mother had improved. “Yes,” she responded slowly. “I think I might.” Even as she said the words, a large yawn stretched her jaw. She flushed. “Forgive me. I’ll just get Rory to take a turn watching her. We must keep fluids—”
Garrett lifted a hand to interrupt her, his relief over her agreement making him hasty. “I’ll get Rory after I escort you to your room. And I promise to instruct him to keep giving your mother fluids every…”
“Thirty minutes should be sufficient now that she’s on her way to recovery.”
Garrett nodded. “I’ll tell him.” He stepped back so that she could leave if she was ready. “Is there anything you need to retrieve?” He motioned behind her into the room.
She lifted her skirts and stepped past him. “No. Thank you.” She started down the hall with another yawn, but stumbled a bit and paused to lean one hand against the wall.
Garrett didn’t hesitate. “You’ve exhausted yourself beyond your strength.” He scooped her into his arms.
Jasmine didn’t even fight him. She nestled her head against his shoulder and mumbled, “I believe I have.”
She was asleep before he’d taken more than three steps toward her room.
Trent easily found a vendor near the docks who paid him top price for the ivory. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to find upon reaching the harbor, but certainly seeing Brayden Harcourt’s Indigo Fields floating placidly in the bay had not been on his list of possibilities. What were the odds that a Harcourt ship would happen to be in this harbor at the exact time Khalifa was set to arrive? Brayden Harcourt’s ship.
Trent snorted. Could Brayden truly be so arrogant as to be here himself?
He glanced over at Asha. “Did you ever see the man Khalifa worked for?”
Asha leaned into his heels and folded his arms dispassionately. “Two times each year for the past three years.”
Trent spun to face the man fully. “I say, what?” Surely he hadn’t heard correctly. Could his answers really be that simple?
“Hair the color of savannah grass. Eyes the color of the cloudless sky.”
The very picture of Brayden.
Trent tapped a fist to his lips. He had to think. “Would he recognize you, do you think? This man?”
Asha shrugged. “To most Anglos, one native looks much like another.”
That was true enough and could work in his favor. “Asha, you understand that freedom is yours, correct? So nothing I ask of you is required?”
Asha gave a curt nod.
“Very well. Then we wait.”
“He will come,” Asha asserted. “Always he comes near two hours before the setting of the sun.”
Trent glanced at the sun. It was still early afternoon. So they were in for a long wait, then. He scrubbed his hands over his face and sauntered to a slab bench against the shake siding of an alehouse. The deep canvas awning overhead would ensure that, come late afternoon, he and Asha would be cloaked in shadows.
As they settled in to wait, Trent willed away the trembling in his limbs. Why did he suddenly feel as though he had stepped onto a thin ledge that jutted out over a canyon with hundreds of hungry lions below?
He’d been more than disappointed to learn that Khalifa’s letters really were nothing more than communications from back home. But the answers he’d been hunting could be within his grasp by this evening.
In that same amount of time, things could also turn terribly wrong.
A metallic tingle spread across his tongue.
Things had definitely been going more wrong than right lately.
RyAnne paced the small room, hating being separated from the captain only days after their reunion.
And it was stifling! Sweat trickled in a rivulet down her back, and her neck was damp and sticky.
She paused at the built-in window bench, hoping for a breeze, or at least something beautiful to look at. But the only view was of the stone wall of the next building across the back alley, and despite the fact that her window was pushed wide open, no breeze even stirred the gauzy drapes.
RyAnne fanned her face with her hand, trying to be grateful as she recalled that only a few days ago she had been chained to several other women and bound for slavery. She oughtn’t be so
disgruntled.
Flapping her hand only made her hotter, so she gave up and glanced around the room, hoping for something to use as a fan. Her search landed on the two wooden drawers.
Quickly, she crossed the room and opened the first drawer.
RyAnne hastily extracted one of the envelopes and put it to use. Her eyes dropped closed in satisfaction at the first few puffs of stirred air that cooled her neck. She moseyed back to the window again. If she couldn’t see anything, she might at least be able to hear the sounds of the city. She sank onto the pillowed window seat and, since there were no windows in the building across the way, audaciously propped her feet against the casement on the other side and pulled her skirts up nearly to her knees.
“Sweet relief!” Mother would flay her for such unladylike conduct were she here, but Bagamoyo was even hotter than RyAnne ever remembered Stone Town being.
She sat fanning for a long time, and then as she cooled, the soft lull of gull-song and the plush comfort of the pillows at her back lured her into a hazy world halfway between wake and sleep. She settled the envelope onto the cushion at her side, snuggled deeper into the soft seat, and gave in to the luxury of a nap.
When she woke, she could not have said how long she had slept, but it had been long enough that the sun had sought out her resting place, and she was once again dripping with perspiration. Tongue thick with thirst, she rolled from the cushion and padded her way over to the pitcher and glass on the table near the door.
She downed a full glass of water and another half before her thirst was quenched. Drizzling some of what remained in the cup into one hand, she then set the cup down, rubbed both hands together, and then patted the water droplets across her face and neck. She doused her arms next, stopping herself short of soaking her entire head with the water that remained in the pitcher. Now to get a breeze working with the water. She moved back to the window seat and took up the envelope to once again fan herself. The air moving against her damp skin felt like a little bit of heaven.
Something caught her eye. She paused for a moment and frowned at the envelope. There was a round brown dot just to the right of the address that she would have sworn wasn’t there when she first took the letter from the box. She examined the seat cushion to see if something had been spilled on it that could have transferred to the envelope. The captain likely wouldn’t take kindly to her getting anything on any of them before he could turn them over to Commodore Cornwall.
The Joy of the Morning: A serialized historical Christian romance. (Sonnets of the Spice Isle Book 6) Page 4