Kiss Across Seas

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Neven drew in a breath and let it out. “Yes. I lied about my age. I don’t think they cared. Any hot body who could pull a trigger would do, toward the end.”

  Brody nodded.

  “Then that’s not the change, if there is a change,” Veris said.

  Rafe leaned forward and took the photo from Neven. “Let me see.” He turned it around and looked at it, then at Neven. “Yeah, these aren’t the same guy. This one is younger.” He held out the photo. “He doesn’t have the gray, or the crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes, like Neven here.”

  “How old is the photo?” Brody murmured to Veris.

  Veris turned it over. “October last year.” He looked back at the photo again. “The gray could be hidden. The laugh lines, though…” He looked up at Neven again.

  “Could your friend Jovan get someone in the same room as Kristijan?” Brody asked. “One of the Blood, who can get close enough to sniff him?”

  “You think he’s—I mean, Kristijan—is a vampire?” Alex asked.

  “It’s an explanation,” Veris said shortly. He put the photo down on the desk. “I’m sure you’ll understand why I’m going to ask you to stay in the house for a few days while we check this out.”

  Neven hesitated, then he nodded. “It’s a fair request, under the circumstances. I confess I want to know, now, the truth about Kristijan, if only to know the extent to which I must avoid Eastern Europe.” His smile was more of a grimace.

  Veris got to his feet. “Thank you. We’ll get the check done as quickly as we can.”

  As everyone left, Alex got to his feet and pocketed his phone. He’d finish reading the Interpol document later.

  Rafe was still perched on the ladder rung, his head down, peering at his phone.

  Curious, Alex moved to see which document he was studying. It would be a nice coincidence if he had the Interpol document open, too.

  It was the photo of Rafe and Veris, back in the fifth century.

  Rafe turned the phone over and glared at Alex. “Do you mind?”

  Alex stepped back. Disappointment swirled through him, mixed with tiny tendrils of anger. “I do, actually. When are you going to stop looking at that thing? You stare at it all the time.”

  “So?” Rafe asked, his tone cool.

  The anger grew. “So?” Alex repeated in disbelief. “It’s an old memory. You won’t leave it alone. It’s verging on obsessive, Rafe.”

  Rafe shoved himself to his feet, making Alex rock backward to avoid a collision. It put Rafe very close to him. Alex saw the same smoldering anger in his eyes that had been there for days.

  His own anger shriveled. Just for a moment, he had forgotten about what was happening in the past. What might be happening. What, in Rafe’s mind, was most certainly happening.

  Rafe lifted the phone again, thumbing through screens as he spoke. “I’m not nearly as obsessed about that as I am about Mişr.”

  “Do you have to keep calling it that?” Alex asked.

  “Mişr? Why not? That was what you called it, wasn’t it?” He held up the phone so Alex could see the pile of documents there, then turned it and glanced at the screen. “Eleventh century Mişr. The collapse and decline of the Fatimid dynasty. You had enemies on every front. Berbers, Christians, even your own people killed each other to decide who got the throne.”

  “There was a battle every day, it seemed like,” Alex agreed softly. He hadn’t thought of those dark days for a very long time.

  Rafe dropped the phone. His face hardened. “You kept and sold slaves.”

  Alex sighed. “Everyone did, Rafe. You know that as well as I. It was the way of it, then.”

  “You treated them like cattle, though. No, worse than cattle. The cattle you kept in barns. The slaves had to look out for themselves.”

  “I never personally owned a slave,” Alex said. It felt as if tiredness sapping at his bones. Remember you’re a good man, Veris’ voice whispered in his mind.

  “You’re probably raping her right now!” Rafe cried.

  Alex stared at him. “Is that what you think? That I could do that? Even then?”

  Rafe was breathing hard. Then his gaze dropped from Alex’s. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I just don’t know anymore. Your people had no respect for women, strangers, or anyone different from you. You killed off the girl children if you thought they would eat too much food.”

  It was on the tip of Alex’s tongue to explain that Veris’ people sacrificed their children for favors from the gods. So had the Carthaginians. He gritted his jaw. It would only inflame the conversation. “Only the poorest of families would do that,” he said quietly, instead. “And not when I was human—that was a practice the Caliph disapproved of. Even if—if, Rafe—if those things had been part of my life as a human, that was all such a long time ago.”

  “Then why don’t you ever talk about those times?” Rafe demanded angrily. “You’ve hidden and deflected and avoided. Yet you could tell Sydney all about being in love with Taylor without blushing. Why can’t you talk about this?”

  Alex swallowed.

  “Because you’re ashamed of it,” Rafe said, his voice harsh.

  Alex curled his hands into fists.

  “I can hear your heart racing. Guilt is great for the metabolism,” he said bitterly.

  “That man, that life, was someone else’s,” Alex said sharply. “I left it behind, deliberately. I chose a different way. Why can’t you give me credit for that?”

  “What, you’re a different man now?”

  “Yes,” Alex said firmly.

  “Like Neven isn’t Kristijan anymore?” Rafe shot back.

  Alex wanted to say yes to that, too. Only, Veris wasn’t letting Neven out of the house. Veris would prowl the house, on guard, until it was established exactly who Neven really was. Even Veris didn’t think they could be so wildly different people.

  Rafe shook his head. “Yeah, just as I thought,” he said. He brushed past Alex.

  Alex tried to stop him, to explain.

  “Don’t touch me,” Rafe snapped.

  Alex recoiled, stunned.

  Rafe walked away. He didn’t look back.

  Chapter Nine

  Sydney could feel wakefulness coalescing around her like daylight grew in the morning. It inched in bit by bit. This was not the first time she had drawn toward awareness. There had been other occasions, then darkness had returned.

  The darkness didn’t return this time. She realized she was lying on her back on something warm and slightly yielding. She also became acquainted with pain. It existed throughout her body. It laid over her like a sheet.

  She groaned as it leapt and flamed along her nerves.

  “Don’t move,” came the quiet command. “You will only feel worse if you do.”

  That was Alex’s voice. Delighted, Sydney opened her eyes.

  The striped cloth overhead told her she was still in the eleventh century. Alim hovered over her. His head was bare, showing the black curls that he hated.

  He slid his hand under her neck and brought a metal cup toward her mouth. “Here. This will help.”

  He lifted her and let her sip the liquid. It was thick and gritty and the taste was dry, like her throat. She swallowed. It hurt to do that.

  Alim let her down again and sat back. He had rolled the sleeves of his shirt back to his elbows, a habit he still had, ten centuries later. It made Sydney’s heart ache to see it.

  “Pain killer?” she asked him. Her voice was hoarse.

  “That’s an interesting way of describing it,” he said. He didn’t smile. “Yes, it alleviates pain. You will sleep again.”

  “I don’t want to sleep,” she said quickly.

  “You’re safe here,” he said, just as quickly. He grimaced. “I didn’t listen to you. You were right about the women. You’re in my tent for now, while I care for you.”

  Her relief was so intense, it throbbed as hard as her body did. “Even now, you’re a doctor,” she bre
athed.

  “Doc-ter?”

  “Healer,” she whispered.

  “I…read books,” he said. “Sometimes, I can help the wounded because of my reading.”

  “Which gives you pleasure,” she finished.

  Silence. Then, “Yes. How did you guess that?”

  She realized her eyes were closed. She was already drifting away.

  The next awakening was easier. The pain was far less than before. The stripes overhead were dark. The light and shadow of a fire danced over them.

  Sydney turned her head. Alim stood by the opening to the tent. He was barefoot, bareheaded and still, watching the fire she could see out on the sand, ten feet away from the opening. The fire was a luxury. Firewood would be scarce out here. No wonder both sides of the tent opening had been tied back.

  A cool breeze touched her face and Sydney realized the other reason for the open tent. He was venting the heat of the day.

  “Why has the camp not broken up and moved away from this place?” she asked.

  Alim turned and came toward her. She was lying on the ground, she realized. There would be a carpet beneath and that was all. The cushions were for soft women and children, she supposed.

  He knelt down next to her and lifted her head.

  “No more,” she protested.

  He gave her stiff smile and slipped a cushion under her head.

  She settled back on it with relief. “Thank you. Is the camp…are they staying here because of me?” The idea frightened her. Rashid would be so very pissed to be anchored in place by a white whore.

  Alim shook his head. “It is Gamala’s time. Even Rashid would not gainsay such a moment.”

  “You are not tending her?” Sydney asked.

  “A woman giving birth?” He looked incredulous. “Gamala has her women for that.”

  “I’m sorry. Where I come from, very highly qualified doctors assist with birthing children. It ensures a safe delivery of the baby.”

  Alim considered her. “I had not heard it was so.”

  “In England, perhaps not. I am not from England,” Sydney said.

  “Your accent is flawless,” Alim said. “There is not a trace of another tongue in your speech at all.” He frowned. “Why did you ask why the camp isn’t moving on?”

  “It would be prudent to move on,” Sydney said. “You just fought an enemy. Naravas? Was that his name? He or his survivors will be angry at the defeat and most likely to come looking for you at the nearest water hole.”

  Alim sat back. He looked surprised. “You understand war strategy?”

  Sydney weighed her answer very carefully. Alim was talking to her, yet he was still wary. He had dismissed her mistake about attending the birth of a baby as foolishness, instead of simple ignorance about a different culture. She had to capture his attention in a way that ensured he would really listen to her.

  “Where I come from,” she said carefully, “I was a leader of men for many years. Such strategies come naturally to me.”

  “A leader? Of men?” Now he sounded as if he was laughing.

  “Warriors, all of them,” she added.

  Alim’s hand rose to his forehead. He touched the place where she had head-butted him.

  “That is not all I can do,” she assured him.

  Alim dropped his hand. “Your…city…allows a woman to do such things?”

  “The city I come from is sometimes called the City of Angels. Yes, our people encourage women to think like men. To be ambitious and to find a purpose in the world. To be useful beyond the birthing of babies and tending the home.”

  Alim’s lips parted. He looked as though he was going to speak, yet did not. Then he shook his head and picked up the same metal cup as before.

  Sydney shook her head. “No. Please.”

  “One more time,” he told her. “Next time you wake, the pain will be almost gone and the baby will be born. You will be strong enough to move, too.”

  Sydney let him dribble a mouthful of the concoction into her mouth and swallowed. “It tastes like dirty sea water,” she complained.

  “You know what sea water tastes like?” he asked.

  She thought of the times she had been dunked by big waves, gone diving beneath them and had snorkeled along the sandy bottom. “I do,” she said truthfully.

  “I have never seen the sea,” Alim said. “I know what it is, for others have described it. I cannot see it in my mind, though. It seems impossible to me that water could be everywhere, just out in the open like that, for as far as the eye can see.”

  “Just as the desert is there, out in the open, with sand as far as the eye can see?” Sydney asked him.

  He smiled. It was Alex’s smile and her heart shifted. “Just so,” he agreed.

  She slept.

  The next time she woke, it was bright day. The tent was closed and Alim was gone.

  Carefully, she sat up. For a book-learned healer, Alim knew his stuff. She did feel better. A soft blanket of some sort of wool dropped onto her knees. It had been covering her.

  Someone had taken the kirtle off and her shoes. She still wore the chemise but it felt as if even the under drawers had been removed. The chemise was cool against her skin despite covering her from neck to ankles and wrists.

  There was a low ache around her middle and along her back. Curiously, she raised the hem of the chemise to inspect her body.

  The bruises were huge, black things, trending to red and purple in the middle. There were scrapes, which were minor. The bruises were the primary damage and they were all over her torso. She felt carefully around and the tenderness on her back convinced her the bruises were there, too. Her thighs were also covered. The women had done a great job of utterly immobilizing her. Gamala had kept her out of her husband’s bed, which Sydney was just as happy about. A few bruises, even massive ones like this, was a compromise she could live with.

  She looked around the tent with interest. It was dim in here despite the dazzling sunlight shining through the chinks and cracks of the cloth covering. The heat was building, too.

  Off in the corner, in a neat pile, was a collection of big cushions, the same as the one that had been under her head. Another pile of bags and pouches sat next to them. Saddle bags and packs for possessions, she guessed.

  On the other side of the central tent pole from where Sydney sat, there were four more cushions, laid out to form a crude mattress. Next to them were the three books that Alim had taken from Etienne’s saddlebags and that Rashid had told Alim to keep.

  Sydney leaned over to pick them up. The movement made her back twinge. It was not a hot agony like she had first woken to. Moving more carefully, she picked up the books and put them in front of her, then opened the first.

  There were no blank pages like there sometimes was in modern books. The main text started right there on the first page.

  Genesis 1:1

  In the beginning…

  She put the bible aside and picked up the next book, opened it and scanned the first page.

  Hippocratic Corpus.

  Delight filled her and she turned the page. Alex had spoken about this book before. It had been a major influence on his decision to learn all he could about medicine and healing and good health.

  He had even spoken about Hippocrates to Taylor, in Jordan.

  And here the book was, in her hands.

  “You understand what the books say?”

  Sydney looked up. Alim stood just inside the tent flap. She had been so transfixed by the book she had failed to notice the tent opening. “I do,” she said. “You do not?”

  “It is not a language I know,” Alim said. He came closer, looking over her shoulder at the text.

  Sydney pointed to the bible. “That one is the Christian Bible.”

  Alim picked it up and pointed to the crucifix carved into the leather on the front of it. “I know,” he said and put it aside. “What is that one you are reading?”

  “This is the Hippocratic Corpus.
I know a little about this book. It is a collection of essays on the teachings of the Greek philosopher, Hippocrates. He was a healer as you…seem to be,” she amended awkwardly.

  Alim’s face lit up. “Yes! I have heard of this Hippocrates.” He went over to the pile of bags and packs and dug through them, then produced a slim book with long brass pipes across the spine. “Hippocrates is mentioned in many of the medical texts.” He opened the book, so the spine was pointing to his right hand and flipped through the pages backward. “Here,” he said and turned it around to show Sydney.

  She looked at the text. It was Arabic and for a minute it looked as strange to her as it always did. Then her eyes seemed to tighten their focus and she could read it. It was perfectly clear and as simple as the Roman alphabet was to her. “Who is Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari?” she asked.

  Alim sat back. “You can read it,” he said, sounding winded. “Such an accomplishment is unusual in a woman,” he added, sounding apologetic.

  “You were testing me?”

  “No. Well…perhaps a little.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari believed that the mind was just as important as the body in any therapy. He wrote an encyclopedia of medicine. I have a copy of it at home. There are seven volumes and it is far too heavy to carry when we travel. I carry this, instead.” He touched the book in a way that told Sydney it was very personal to him.

  “You wrote this?” she asked.

  “These are not original thoughts,” he said quickly. “Those phrases and ideas I have found the most moving among the many I have read, I copy here, to take with me when I travel.”

  “Then this…caravan is not home?” she asked.

  He looked amused again. “Certainly not.”

  “But, the women, the children…” she said helplessly.

  “We should not bring our beloved ones with us when we travel?”

  “I suppose so,” she said carefully. “Is Cairo your home, then?”

  “Al-Qāhirah,” he amended.

  “Of course. I know it as Cairo. My apologies.”

  Alim glanced at the other book in her hands. She held it out to him. “This is Latin,” she told him, for she knew the text was Latin as surely as she knew the color of his eyes and the flecks that shone there when the sun touched them. “There are many great books written in Latin. I am surprised you do not know it.”