by Lara Adrian
Zahirah could scarcely catch her breath for the way her heart was pounding. For some untold time, she stood in her chamber, trembling behind the closed door, wondering what terrible madness she suffered that she would allow herself to be kissed and pawed so brazenly.
By a Frank, no less!
She tried to be offended by the idea. She tried to blame the fierce thrumming of her pulse on mortification, tried to dismiss the heat she felt in her limbs and elsewhere on moral outrage. But there was no prudent explanation for the way her body sang at the memory of Sebastian's mouth on hers. There was no means of reconciling the fierce craving that made her keen for his touch almost as much as she scorned it.
That he had nearly undressed her right there in the bathhouse still stunned her. That he might have seen the shame she strove to hide from all the world shocked her back to her senses like nothing else could have. Chagrined by the weight of her secret, Zahirah pulled together the laces he had so deftly untied, and fastened them into a tight knot. No one could ever know the hideousness that lay beneath the mask of her clothing. Least of all him.
Indeed, she would rather die than let Sebastian know her for the abomination she was.
That, more than anything--more, even, than the risk of being discovered as one of the fida'i--terrified Zahirah. It set her to pacing the confines of her chamber, feeling trapped and threatened. Caged and desperate to escape.
Escape.
Yes. It seemed that was her best defense--her only defense--now.
Halim would be waiting for her at the mosque. Somehow she had to get out of the palace to meet him as planned. She would have to manufacture a reason for her flight, perhaps tell him that the captain had grown tired of her and ejected her, that she could not go back to the palace. She could say that her infiltration had failed, and they would have to devise another plan for eliminating the English king. She would tell him anything, so long as it would deliver her away from Sebastian.
By Allah's grace, Halim would believe her.
Anxious now to be gone, Zahirah tossed on one of the tunics and pantalets that Sebastian had given her, then retrieved her dagger from beneath the mattress of her bed and secured the blade at her waistband. Hastily, she fixed her veil and opened the chamber door to peer outside. The corridor was blessedly empty.
On silent feet, she crept out of her room and traversed the quiet artery of the palace hallway, each step full of purpose and steely determination. No one stopped her to question her destination until she reached the guarded palace doors. At her approach, two lances crossed before her like a gate, descending to block the way.
“Where do you think to go?” asked one of the knights in his rough Frankish tongue. He bared a yellowed, crooked smile that was anything but hospitable. “Bloody little infidel whore.”
Zahirah easily understood both his challenge and his epithet, but she masked her contempt with a level stare over the edge of her veil. Her answer, a similarly insulting explanation, voiced in swiftly spoken Arabic, garnered twin looks of puzzlement from the apes on watch. She stared at them, then finally issued her reply again, this time in flawless lingua franca. “I thought I would go to the mosque, to beg Allah to deliver Islam from the repellant and lingering stench of you Frankish dogs.”
The knight who had been silent until then, suddenly choked. His boorish companion turned three shades of red before his pride finally registered the barb in her attack. He cursed and took a threatening step toward her, but a glance over her shoulder stopped him in mid-stride.
“Is there a problem here?”
Sebastian's deep voice always commanded attention, and the effect was not lost now, on Zahirah or his guards. They snapped into a stance of deferential address; Zahirah simply froze where she stood, not daring to look at him after what had transpired in the bathhouse, and what was presently underway here at the palace gate.
When neither of the soldiers seemed sure what to say about the insolence of the woman in their captain's protection, Sebastian strode forward. “Let her pass,” he ordered calmly. The lances withdrew to upright position at once.
Surprised, Zahirah turned to meet his gaze. “You're letting me go to the Sabbath service after all?”
“Isn't that what you want?”
He had dressed, but despite his soldier's attire, Zahirah could not purge her vision of him as he had been in the bathhouse, clad indecently in just a scrap of white cotton slung low about his hips, his powerful body and sleek black hair wet from his time in the pool. The sight of him, all hard planes and bronzed muscular slabs, was burned into her memory like a brand. To her shame, she could not purge it, nor could she banish the queer stirring in her belly when she looked upon him now.
Knowing that if she left the palace she might never see him again, Zahirah swallowed, then nodded. “Yes. It is what I want.”
“Very well.” He stared at her for a moment, then he flashed her a devil's smile. “You see?” he said, his voice pitched low before his guards, and edged with a meaning only she would understand. “I'm not such a terrible tyrant.”
Zahirah forced herself not to warm to him as she wanted to, but to show him only cool indifference. “Then, by your leave, my lord . . . “
She broke his gaze and turned toward the open palace doors where freedom awaited. When she would have taken the first step out, Sebastian cleared his throat.
“You can go the mosque as you wish, my lady, however I cannot permit you to go alone.” A mere glance from the captain brought Abdul hastening to her side. “Abdul has agreed to go with you in my stead. I trust him to see that you are kept safe.”
“I will guard her with my life, master,” vowed the gentle manservant. He bowed to the captain, then turned to Zahirah and granted her equal respect. “It is my great honor to be your escort to the jumah, mistress.”
Although it was better by some tenfold than being accompanied by Sebastian himself, Zahirah battled a wave of dread as she and Abdul were granted leave from the palace. If she had any hope of escaping now, she would have to find a way to lose Abdul in the heavy Sabbath crowds.
* * *
Abdul stuck closer to her than her own shadow for the better part of the day.
Zahirah tried to bore him with a languorous meander through the souk, pausing to browse every merchant's stall as if she had never been to market and could not move on until she had peered at and fingered every item set out for sale. Certain that he must be every bit as uninterested as she was, Zahirah told him that he should not feel obliged to tarry with her, but Abdul merely smiled and bade her take her time as he followed along without a single yawn or overture toward impatience.
When they paused to watch a Turk and his performing monkey, Zahirah tried to disappear into the crush of the gathering crowd, waiting until Abdul was thoroughly engrossed in the chattering antics of the simian jester, then slowly inching her way out of the circle of spectators. But Abdul could not be fooled. He was there at her side again before she could take the first step in flight.
By midday, not an hour or so before the call to jumah would sound, Zahirah had become desperate to lose him. She could not fashion a neat escape, nor could she risk going to the mosque to meet Halim so long as Abdul was fast on her heels. He seemed maddeningly intent to carry out his master's orders to watch over her, Zahirah thought with a grimace as they paused to rest near a city fountain.
She watched idly as a young mother passed before them, dragging her unwilling child in tow so she could scrub his face at the well. Abdul chuckled at the boy's irate squall and shot him a playful wink. Before long, both the child and the man were laughing. Zahirah found herself smiling, too, waving to the little boy as his mother finished with him at the fountain, then picked him up and carried him away.
In that fresh-scrubbed face, Zahirah suddenly saw the solution to her own dilemma.
There was but one place she could go where Abdul would not be permitted to follow: the women's public bathhouse.
“It is ne
arly time for the jumah,” she said to him, schooling her voice to a casual airiness. “Where will you be, Abdul, so I will know where to meet you when I return from the hammam?”
The manservant frowned slightly. “The hammam,” he remarked, contemplating the notion. “My master has charged me with your protection today, mistress. Perhaps I should go with you.”
“To the baths?” Zahirah gave an indulgent laugh. “What sort of protection might I need from a pool full of unclothed ladies?” She stood before he could think of further protest. “I will be fine, Abdul. Your Frankish lord need not even know I went.”
And by the time he found out, she would be well on her way to Masyaf to plot a new course of action for the English king's demise. Zahirah tried not to think of the guilt Abdul would feel for failing his master. Would Sebastian be upset over her flight, or would he be relieved? She did not know, and she assured herself she did not care.
Determined to have her way in this, she set her hand on Abdul's arm. “I know you are a good Muslim, Abdul. And I know you will not deny me the right to proper ablutions before I take my Sabbath prayer.”
Abdul's kindly features were pinched with doubt, but, praise Allah, his sigh was relenting. “My master is correct; you are stubborn. Very well, mistress. Go to your hammam. I will wait for you outside the bathhouse.”
She had to work to keep her gait light, resisting the compulsion to dash for the bathhouse like a mare kept to her bit overlong and finally given her head. Abdul kept pace with her, dropping back only as they reached the squat building that housed the women's pools and fountains. With a quick glance to make sure he stayed, Zahirah entered the dark shade of the bathhouse.
She did not trifle with the pretense of partaking in the ritual baths. Instead, she dashed past the pillared, wide open chamber where some two score women of varying ages and sizes sat about gossiping and laughing and soaking in the steamy pools of water. Zahirah directly headed toward the back of the public house, ignoring a wrinkled crone who scolded her for her haste, and nearly crashing into a servant who carried a tray of depilatory creams and brushes.
At the rear of the building, beyond the private rooms and privy, was an exit that opened onto an alleyway. Servants used it to dump refuse; Zahirah used it to begin her escape. Pushing the small door ajar, she slipped out of the bathhouse and skirted to the edge of the building where it opened onto the wider, bustling avenue. She peered around the corner to where Abdul dutifully waited her return, then, with only the slightest degree of regret, she stepped into the current of the crowd and let it carry her, fully concealed by the masses, toward the mosque at the city's heart.
She did not even see Halim until he grabbed her by the arm and hauled her out of the churning throng of the faithful.
He took in her fine new clothing, and gave a snort. “He dresses you well. You must have more talents than I give you credit for, O sainted daughter of Sinan.”
When she would have snapped back a retort for his implication, Halim took her in hand and led her across the sprawling courtyard of the mosque, to a quieter spot just inside the shaded overhang of the grand arcade. People swarmed about, but the bulk of the populous flowed past without taking the slightest notice of a private conversation, their collective minds set on reaching the prayer hall for the jumah.
“You should not have chanced sending your message to the palace,” Zahirah scolded in a tight near-whisper. “It might have easily been intercepted before it reached me. As it was, the Frankish captain nearly caught me with it.”
Halim shrugged. “It was a risk, but I trusted you would know what to do.”
And he did not care a whit that his actions might have put her--and her mission--in jeopardy, Zahirah understood from the glint of indifference in his hard eyes. “You said you had information, Halim. Let us have done with it.”
“There is news at the docks of a supply shipment en route to Lionheart. The vessel is due in port any day now, where it will be moved to caravan for delivery to the English king. Rashid al-Din Sinan does not want those supplies to reach their destination.”
“An ambush, then?” guessed Zahirah.
Halim nodded. “Twenty Masyaf warriors will be loosed on the van once it passes Gaza. Richard's army is weary. If those supplies do not reach him, he will be forced to retreat back to Ascalon at once. Back to where you will be ready and waiting.”
Zahirah frowned, considering her present intent to leave the palace--and Sebastian--behind.
“I should think this news would cheer you,” Halim remarked. “Are you not anxious to fulfill your mission?”
“I am. But there have been some . . . complications.” She steeled herself to the suspicious look Halim gave her and forged on with her plan. “The Frankish captain, he--he is no fool. He scarcely lets me out of his sight. On the few occasions that he does, his manservant is never far behind. When Sebastian himself is around, he affords me no room to think . . . no room to . . . breathe. I can't go back there, Halim. The risk of discovery is too great.”
Halim's dubious glare had gone from questioning to coldly accusing. “You fear him, this Sebastian?” He spat the foreign name like an oath. “You fear him more than you fear failing your clan? More than you fear my promise to you the day I left you with the Franks?”
Allah, forgive her, but she did. She feared Sebastian more than everything else combined. She was afraid of what he did to her, afraid of what he made her feel. Most of all, she was afraid of losing her heart to him, a risk she could ill afford and a shame she could never bear.
“My mind is made up,” she told Halim, more forcefully now, mustering every scrap of her resolve. “I'll figure another plan to carry out my mission, but I'm not going back to the palace.”
When she started to walk away, Halim reached out and grabbed her by the arm. “You haughty bitch. Do you think it's so easy? Do you think you have anything to say in this?”
“Let go of my arm, Halim.”
She wrenched it away, but the fida'i took two steps forward and hemmed her in, backing her up against a pillar of the mosque arcade. Above the garlic stench and humid rasp of Halim's breath, the muezzin called the fourth prayer. The wailing summons echoed through the courtyard and spread over the rooftops of the city, beckoning the faithful to the jumah while Halim stared at Zahirah with murder in his eyes. She felt a sudden press of cold steel at her breast, and knew a moment of true fear.
But she refused to cower. Her hand slipped beneath her tunic to wrap around the hilt of her dagger. She would meet him steel for steel if she had to. “If I die, Halim, I promise, so do you.”
“Draw your weapon, then,” he taunted, “if you think you can reach me before I gut you open.”
“Mistress, is everything all right?”
Zahirah turned her head with a start, shocked to find Abdul standing but a few paces from where she and Halim were engaged in a deadly impasse. The manservant looked from her to the fida'i, who held the dagger poised to kill at her heart.
“Foolish girl. I told you to come alone,” Halim growled at Zahirah.
Abdul took a step forward as if to help her. “Mistress, do not worry. I will not let him harm you.”
“Abdul, go!” Zahirah ordered him, too caught up in the moment to trifle with appearances. “I beg you. Go, now!”
He did not heed her warning. Bravely, Abdul walked toward Halim, unarmed but unwary. “Let this woman go. Your sister belongs to my master now. Do you harm to her, you do harm to him, and that I will not allow.”
Halim gave a snort of derision. “My sister. Oh, yes. I had nearly forgotten.”
Abdul frowned, clearly confused. His gaze darted to Zahirah in question. He smelled the lie. Her heart squeezed for the flicker of doubt that crept into those gentle, sagacious eyes. “Abdul,” she said, shaking her head, “please, you do not know what you are doing.”
“I vowed to protect you, mistress,” he said, though it was clear from his expression that if he did so now it was out of du
ty to his master more than any lingering affinity for her. He turned a look on Halim and strode forward, reaching for his arm.
It happened in the blink of an eye, but to Zahirah, unable to do more than cry a warning as Halim struck, the sequence of events played out as in a dream: slowly, image by agonizing image.
At Abdul's approach, Halim turned, dagger in hand. Abdul reached for it, batting his arm as if to swipe the weapon away. Though slighter in build, Halim was stronger, infinitely better trained. He met the blow with easy defense, following the arc of Abdul's strike before coming back around to deliver a vicious attack of his own. The dagger in his hand was nothing more than a glint of polished steel, a blur of light that cleaved the air before sheathing itself in Abdul's unprotected chest.
Zahirah shrieked and ran to him, but it was too late. Halim withdrew his blade, and Abdul instantly crumpled to his knees. The wound seeped a crimson stream, a river of blood spilling through Abdul's fingers as he coughed and clutched at his chest to staunch the flow.
“Allah curse you, Halim!” Zahirah cried, racing to the dying manservant's side. “You had no cause for this!”
“I told you to come alone,” he said with a killer's calm. “Next time, perhaps you will be more inclined to abide my orders.”
“I swear, I will see you dead for this!” she railed at him, but when she looked up, Halim was gone and she was alone with the terrible consequences of what she had inadvertently brought upon Abdul.
“Mistress,” he said, looking up at her in stunned disbelief, his voice thready, so painfully thin. “I am dying, mistress.”
“No,” she said, choking on the word, knowing it for a lie. “Abdul, forgive me, please. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.” She held his head in her lap, watching in horror as he wheezed from deep within his chest. Death was beginning to creep into his kind features. Zahirah tugged on the loose fabric of his tunic, trying to cover his wound, trying to blot away the blood that refused to cease flowing. “Oh, Allah. Have mercy, I beg you.”