“Then you won’t come back with us?” Alex asked calmly.
Brody shook his head. “Well, I tried,” he said softly. “If you’re going to jump back, then I’m coming with you. Someone has to keep you two idiots alive.”
“What about us?” Alannah asked.
Brody looked at her. “Given what you just heard, you really want to risk it? With no training, no preparation? Kids your age got swept up by slave traders on a regular basis and shipped off. Just ask Uncle Rafe. He was fourteen when they grabbed him.”
Alannah looked at Rafe, who grimaced. “It’s true,” he said apologetically. “I hate to say it, Aran, but you’re young and good looking. Young boys then…they were a favorite among the rich.”
Aran shrank back against the seat and looked at Brody helplessly.
Brody stared right back. “You know my history,” he said calmly. “I wasn’t much higher than you when they sent me to Constantinople. I was too short and not strong enough to drive a chariot. That came later. They found other uses for me at first.”
“Stop, Athair,” Alannah said hotly. “We get it.”
“Do you?” Brody asked.
Alannah picked up Aran’s hand. “We’ll stay here,” she said. “We’ll watch Aunt Sydney.”
“You’ll have to watch all of us,” Brody told her.
“I’ll help,” Neven added.
Chapter Eleven
Sydney suspected that she was sleeping on her feet. She was tired and sore and worried, her thoughts circling endlessly, with no answers presenting themselves. If this had been L.A., she could have sorted things out in twenty minutes. A request to her directors would fix most things. Here, though, she was powerless. She didn’t know enough of the culture.
The other thing that was making her sleepy was the almost complete silence with which the caravan moved. Of course, there was no clopping of horse hooves, here in the desert. There was an occasional jingle of metal from their harnesses and that was all. Camels were also freakishly silent. Everyone who was on horseback probably was sleeping, while she had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. The pace was slow enough for everyone who was on foot to keep up, and so the horses and camels did not tire too quickly.
The night sky overhead was alive with stars. Out here, there were no city lights to ruin the view. Sydney could see the glow of nebulas and gas clouds and so many, many more stars than she had ever seen before. It made the night anything but dark. There was light all around them, bouncing off the white dunes.
She walked and possibly dozed, her mind foggy. No one spoke to her. There was just the gentle pull of the rope on her wrists and the whisper of a breeze somewhere overhead. It was not cold and it was not hot. In many ways, it was a beautiful night.
She just wanted to stop walking.
When the caravan did stop, she almost ran into Alim’s horse. Whispers passed back along the file.
“Storm! A storm is coming!”
Suddenly, everyone seemed to start rushing around. Camels trumpeted in protest and horses snickered and pranced sideways, made skittish by the panic in the air.
Sydney looked around, her heart thudding. The worry in everyone’s voices and hurried movements made her feel just as nervous as the horses.
Then she saw it. On the horizon, which was a long way away out here, a dun-colored band of cloud roiled. It glowed under the starlight and moonlight, stretched out before them with no edges. They were directly in its path.
Alim jumped from his horse and untied the rope from his harness and tossed it to her. “Hurry. Help me,” he said shortly.
Sydney struggled with the knot. It was too tight.
Impatiently, he untied it. “Take the covers.”
“Covers?” she repeated, pulling her wrists from the rope.
“Here!” The shout came from over her shoulder. She turned in time to get her free hands up to catch the bundle thrown in her direction and staggered backward under the impact. It was heavy.
Alim had pulled the saddle blanket off his horse. Now he took the bundle from her and unrolled it and shook out one of the layers, then tossed it over the horse’s back. It covered the gray from the neck down to his hooves. Alim tied the heavy cloth under the horse’s chin, then patted his nose, talking softly to him. He pointed to the pile of cloth at Sydney’s feet. “The gauze,” he said.
She picked up the light, sheer fabric. It looked like chiffon, but heavier and stiffer. Alim took it from her. He held the edge of it behind the gray’s head and dropped it over the horse’s face, then gathered it underneath and tied it off. It was a mask.
Others in the caravan were doing the same thing to their horses and the camels were being draped and covered, too.
Sydney watched, feeling useless and helpless. She didn’t fully understand what anyone was doing. The approaching wall of dust was driving them to hurry, hurry. Their haste made her own heart work hard.
Alim pulled a jar out of the pack attached to the saddle, where it laid in the sand. He took out the stopper and poured a sludgy oil onto his hand, put the pot down, then picked up one of the gray’s feet. He liberally coated the leg all the way up to the knee, so the hair looked black and glistened.
He moved to the next leg. Sydney jumped to pick up the pot still sitting in the sand and held it out. “Let me pour it. You’ll get sand on your hands if you do.”
He nodded and held out his hands. She poured another thick handful onto his palm.
They moved around the horse, thickly coating each leg. Then Alim stoppered the pot and shoved it back in the bag, lifted the saddle and put it back on the horse over the top of the covering and fastened it back into place. As he worked, three men hurried past, uncoiling a rope as they went and letting it lie on the ground beside the caravan. They carried more coils and when the current one ran out, they tied another to the end.
Alim picked up the rope and tied the horse’s reins to it. All along the length of rope, others were doing the same.
Then he jumped back onto the horse and settled himself. He pointed. “Give me that.”
Sydney picked up the last item in the cloth bundle. It was the heaviest and largest. In the moonlight looked like one of the sheets they used for the tents. It was striped and thick. She handed it to him.
Alim took it and shook it out, then laid most of it on the horse’s back, so it spread out behind him like a giant cloak. He held out his right hand, leaning over the horse. “Give me your hand,” he said urgently.
“What?”
He looked up at the coming storm. “Now. Hand.”
Bewildered, Sydney reached up to take his hand. His touch was just as she remembered and it overwhelmed her for a split second with memories of Alex’s hand holding hers, stroking the back of it, kissing her palm, while looking up at her with liquid, smoldering eyes.
Then Alim hauled her off her feet, up into the air. Her butt was placed on the back of the horse and his other hand steadied her. “Leg over.”
She swung her leg over the horse’s head, which turned her to face forward. Hastily, she pulled at the voluminous over-tunic, so she was decently covered.
A cry rang out from the front of the caravan. She didn’t recognize the words in it, yet everyone else did, for at the same moment, everyone moved forward. The cry had been a direction to start.
The big tent sheet dragged on the ground behind them, hissing softly. Ahead of them, another horse was tied to the rope, its rider pulling a sheet just as Alim was. Behind, more horses and camels, all led by the central rope.
“I don’t understand,” Sydney said.
“You will,” Alim replied. His voice was grim. “Have you ever seen a sand storm?”
“No,” she said honestly. “I’ve heard a little about them.”
“A bad storm can tear flesh from bones. It can bury a man alive. Only a fool is caught in the open during a storm. We are very unlucky this night.”
She didn’t say what she thought, that it had been Rashid’s
anger and impatience that had set them on the path into the storm.
Alim was not guiding the horse. The reins tied to the central rope were doing that. “Who is leading?” she asked. “Who holds the beginning of the rope?”
“Faruq, Rashid’s lieutenant, will guide us tonight.”
The air stirred and made her veil flutter.
“It comes,” Alim said. She could hear the tension in his voice. His thigh brushed hers as he moved behind her. She heard the cloth shift, then it passed over her and came down around her, enclosing her inside with Alim.
“Pull it down, so you are completely covered, then tuck it under your feet,” he instructed, his voice louder inside the enclosure.
She adjusted the cloth, then bent and tucked it around her feet and calves. The boots would also protect her. She straightened up carefully. The cloth was thick enough that it stood rigidly around them, reminding her of heavy canvas. It might have been stifling beneath it, except that the air could escape under the bottom edge of the cloth and fresh air could enter the same way.
Sydney grew aware of Alim behind her, close enough so she could feel his warmth. He was human and hot.
The wind made a soft whistling sound as it blew against the cloth, inches from her face. She drew back, startled. Sand pattered against it, pressing the cloth closer.
“Push it away if it bothers you,” Alim said.
She pushed experimentally at the cloth. It popped back out like a dent in a car panel. Through her fingers, she could feel the pepper of sand against it on the other side.
“It won’t stay there,” Alim warned her. “This is just the beginning.”
She shivered.
“You may take off your veil, if you wish. There is no one here to see you.”
True. “How long will the storm last?” she asked as she unhooked the veil and let it fall to one side.
“A while.”
“Why try to travel through it? Why not put up tents and shelter that way?”
“Out here in the open, a tent would soon be buried. We could not have built a tent secure enough to withstand a storm, before the storm reached us, anyway. It would not protect the animals, either.”
“Then why not…I don’t know, circle the camels? Huddle together?”
“To be buried together?”
“It seems pointless to try to keep going through this.”
“To stop would be more dangerous. As long as we keep moving, in any direction, the sand cannot build up around us. We must simply walk and keep walking, until it is over and it is safe to stop once more.”
“The leader, Faruq—he is not trying to head in any direction?”
“He will pick the safe path. Along ridges and high places, avoiding the depressions and valleys that may fill with sand. It will not matter where those places take us, not until we can look up at the stars and see where we are.”
Sydney considered that for a moment, as the sand rattled against the cloth. The wind was louder now, singing high notes and pressing at them through the protective covering.
“Your horse—”
“His name is Basel. It means ‘valiant’.” Alim’s voice was full of pride.
“Basel. Why did you coat his legs in oil?”
“It will protect them against the blowing sand, if the cover does not.”
Sydney realized she had relaxed completely. Alim was a stranger in Alex’s body, yet this was Alex and her body knew it more thoroughly than her mind. She was tired from the walking and she could feel herself slumping. Even the all-enveloping clothing that sat oddly and shifted in strange ways when she moved had stopped bothering her.
It seemed natural to lean against him, only Alim would resent that and probably consider it highly inappropriate. Instead, she stiffened her back and sought another topic. Talk was safe. While they were under this cover, Alim did not seem to mind talking. He had been easy in his speech inside the tent, too. Sydney took note of that. Appearance was a thing, for him.
Well, that was Alex through and through. Even in her time, he was conscious of what others would think, that his behavior or appearance did not cause offense or would not be considered inappropriate.
Yet he was Rashid’s number one fighter. It was one of the stranger juxtapositions in Alex’s life.
She recalled the frantic decamping, compared to the slow, measured walk of the caravan. It was another contrast.
It reminded her of the reason they were here. “Alim…if I may ask and not cause offense…would you mind telling me what happened with Gamala?”
“She died,” he said shortly. “Her child was female. Rashid was displeased.”
His tone suggested that was the end of the discussion as far as he was concerned. She could almost see him shrug, even though she had her back to him.
“What happened to the baby?” she asked. No one had spoken about the child. Sydney suspected—and feared—her mother’s fate had been hers, too.
Alim stiffened. She could feel his mental shields snap into place. “The baby?” Even his tone was stiff and proper.
“Yes. What happened to the child? Did Rashid…did she die, too?”
Alim didn’t answer at once. Sydney counted Basel’s steps, that she could feel by the motion of the horse’s withers under her. The wind was starting to shriek now. It was muffled by the cover, which was leaning toward her with the pressure of the wind.
“I know not what happened to the child,” Alim said at last. “It was a girl,” he added, as if that was all the explanation that was needed.
Sydney bowed her head. It did explain the silence about the child’s fate. Gamala’s murder had been brushed off as the outward indication of Rashid’s displeasure. A small, useless girl-child failed to register on their awareness at all.
Only, Sydney had noticed. She wondered if she was the only one to mourn the tragedies.
Alim stirred. “You have much to learn about our ways.” He raised his voice to be heard over the wind. “You will become accustomed to them by and by. Then you will understand the imperatives that drive them.”
“I know a girl is an economic drain,” she said tiredly.
“Women have their uses,” Alim replied. “Rashid knows that. He was angry because of the slur upon his manhood.” He paused. “My family is not poor. Another girl would cause no hardship. Economics would not have been in his mind when Rashid was presented with his child.”
Sydney could hear what Alim was not saying. Rashid does not think strategically. He killed Gamala because of pride, not cold logic.
Alim would never directly or openly disparage his brother, especially to her, an English woman and a stranger. Yet he was talking to her. Explaining. It was another huge concession, albeit one he was making where no one could see him do it.
“Was it Rashid’s pride that made him kill Etienne, the knight?” Sydney asked. “I am a woman and he thought I was telling him what to do, so he did the opposite to prove to his men he was not being directed by a woman and a whore?”
“You begin to understand my brother,” Alim said, his tone warm and approving. “You were not telling him what to do?” he added.
“You thought I was directing him, too?” she asked, startled.
“I did,” Alim said. “You spoke…like a man would speak in that situation. You spoke as an equal.”
Sydney sighed. “Perhaps I did,” she admitted. “Where I am from, women are considered the equal of men in all but physical strength. They vote—they can speak about political matters and they are listened to. Such habits of thought are hard to disperse quickly.”
“Your world seems as strange to me as mine must be to you. Where is your world?”
“A very long way from here,” Sydney assured him. “Yet my world is not the strangest world out there. You find Christians strange, or you did until you learned their ways.”
“I suspect I have only looked upon the surface of the Christian world. Books only reveal glimpses. There are stranger worlds?”<
br />
“You have heard of the Northmen?”
“The marauders who pillage wherever they go? Yes.”
“There is another strange world. Then there are Tartars.”
“I have also heard of Tartars. Very fierce. Good fighters.” His tone was one of approval.
“There are more worlds beyond the edges of the known worlds,” Sydney told him. “My world is one of them.”
“You come from a place that no one yet knows about?” Alim said.
“Yes.”
He fell silent, considering that. “If your world is so marvelous, why did you come here?”
He had accepted without question that unknown places existed. For people of this time and place, such hidden, mysterious worlds were commonplace—the stuff of fantasy. That would make it much easier for Sydney to explain away any gaffs she made.
She composed an answer to his question. “My world is a marvelous place, Alim, yet because we are merely human, our flaws cause problems. Jealousy and covetousness, greed and falsehoods…each of us works to eliminate these undesirable qualities in ourselves and in our world. People do not kill each other freely there,” she added and paused, her heart thudding.
“Nor do they here,” Alim said in agreement.
She sighed. What Rashid had done was not considered murder. That was the problem.
“These flaws you would rid yourself of…they are what sent you here?”
He was staying ahead of her explanation, anticipating her.
“Someone…an evil person…wanted to harm my sister. The evil woman couldn’t find her, so she came to me and threatened to harm me if I did not tell her where my sister was. So I left.”
“To protect your sister?”
“Yes.”
“You have travelled all this way just to evade the witch?”
“The…witch…would have found me again if I had not travelled this far.”
“You must love your sister greatly.”
“I do,” Sydney said truthfully. “I also hate what the witch was trying to do. She wanted to harm my sister only because my sister has a gift the witch wanted and couldn’t have. I jumped…I ran away, because it would stop the witch’s plans. Such evil must be prevented, or it breeds more evil.”
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