The Serpent's Daughter

by Suzanne Arruda

  Slowly she crept closer, hugging the wall. The caretaker’s hut and the untended saint’s tomb stood before her. Again she waited to see if anyone had stayed behind or returned. Her sore knee told her to be wary, but she knew part of the danger was tied to her not being in hiding rather than in the proximity of attackers. She darted over to the hut, again pressing her back to the wall; waiting, listening.

  The only sound came from the singsong yowling of the territorial neighborhood cats. No humans loitered nearby. Jade ducked into the hut and strained to see through the gloom. Her hand reached out and felt at the dirt floor and found a small hole. Mohan had dug something up here. The amulet? Which meant that Mohan, not Bachir, was the traitor. She’d have to find Mohan. Maybe he went back to the caravansary to retrieve the mules. It was worth a try, and besides, she wanted her boots and the dagger she’d tucked into the sheath.

  Jade slipped out of the hut and headed back into the more open street where she felt safer. She hadn’t quite passed the old abandoned tomb when a hand shot out and grabbed her arm, pulling her inside.

  CHAPTER 20

  Tucked away in the cities and along the countryside are shrines to the Islamic saints.

  They are usually tended by a holy man. Many people, especially women, come to these

  shrines to beg favors of the saint. It is also an acceptable excuse to leave the harem.

  —The Traveler

  INEZ DID EVERYTHING SHE COULD to speed up their progress, short of carrying her donkey. The little animals set their own pace and no amount of cajoling, coaxing, pleading, or scolding would change it. She and Bachir had started late enough to begin with, and night seemed to fall early in the steeper valleys where their path led them. Patience was not Inez’s strong point. Heaven knows it should have been after dealing with all of Jade’s escapades throughout the years. She’d prayed for patience often enough. Somehow she seemed to end up instead with only a tremendously large share of stubborn determination: the same stubbornness of Jade’s that drove Inez to distraction.

  They made it halfway down the mountain the first day and now they were close to the foot of the mountains, trying to coax a balky little donkey to brave the Oued Issil. The river had risen from snowmelt, but had not reached anything resembling a dangerous flow. The donkey just didn’t feel like going any farther. Inez didn’t remember any of the animals going slowly on the way up the mountain. Apparently, this one liked going home, but didn’t care to leave it. She’d just have to convince him that the trip was in his best interest.

  Inez rummaged in the saddlebags for the tea-making supplies. Bachir, thinking she was thirsty, offered his water bag, but Inez declined with a smile and adding her thanks with a shukran, one of the Arabic words she’d picked up from Jade. “Sugar,” she said.

  Bachir shook his head, not understanding. “Sugar,” she repeated, and made the motions of making tea.

  “Ah,” said Bachir. He nodded and grinned. "Sūkkar,” he said in Arabic, emphasizing the similarity between the two words. He reached into the supplies and handed over the sack of sugar loaf.

  Inez thanked him and broke off several chunks, putting all but one in her dress pocket. She fed the other to her donkey. He took it greedily, licking the palm of her hand before nudging her for more. Inez handed the pouch of sugar back to Bachir, then gripped the animal’s halter in her right hand, holding it close to his head. Then she took out another lump of sugar and held it with her left hand extended as far as she could. The donkey’s nose quivered, and he strained against her grip to reach the treat.

  “You want the sugar?” Inez asked in a soft, gentle voice. “Go get the sugar.” She took a step towards the riverbed, and the donkey followed, his tongue extended as he tried to reach the treat. Step by step they went until they reached the bank. When her donkey balked, Inez fed him the sugar. Then she repeated the process, slowly but surely luring the animal across the stream. Bachir followed with his less recalcitrant beast and the pack mule.

  When they made the other side, Inez’s tattered dress was soaked from the hips down. The sun hadn’t yet set, but already the air was chilling, and Inez began to shiver. Bachir hobbled the animals and started a fire. Reaching Marrakech and finding a mule-headed daughter would have to wait until tomorrow. In the meantime she needed some way to communicate with Bachir. She’d picked up some of the Moroccan Arabic already, matching repeated words with Jade’s translations; words such as “amulet” and “kahina,” which played a role in this adventure they’d found themselves in. Others such as “souk” she’d learned from Jade earlier. Now, with these rudiments, she attempted to form a plan with Bachir. What words she didn’t know she’d try to supplement with pictures scratched into the dirt. If that failed, maybe some of that Indian sign language she used to use with the old Navajo on their ranch would work.

  Underneath her anxiety and fatigue she felt a new sensation: excitement, the thrill of being alive. Her pulse quickened as though she were a sapling coming to life in the spring, ready to burst forth into leaf. She hadn’t felt this invigorated since she and Richard had ridden to what had become her new home in New Mexico. The thought of her husband brought a smile and a warmth to her face, quickly followed by a pang of regret as sorrow for lost opportunities rose to the forefront.

  How many times had she passed up taking overnight trail rides with Richard because she had to entertain some new lawyer’s wife or a territorial representative who might assist her husband’s ranch? She’d taken pride in her role as a wife, doing what she could to further her husband’s prospects. I did all of it for you, Richard. But did he know that? Or did he just see their worlds taking them in different directions?

  I have to get home to him.

  “Quiet. You’re in danger.” The voice came out in a husky whisper with a faint trace of an English accent. The grip on Jade’s arm pinched like a vise.

  Jade pulled back, but the grasp tightened. “Tell me something I don’t know,” she said. “Who are you?”

  “Shh,” admonished the hidden speaker. “They may still be near.”

  “Mr. Bennington?”

  “The same.” He moved out of the little bit of twilight that reached this alley. “We must stay out of the light so we won’t be seen. Is your mother safe?”

  “How do you know about my mother? What are you doing here?”

  “Not so loud,” Bennington cautioned. “We should go someplace else to talk.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until you let go of my arm,” said Jade. The hand released her. She stepped back a pace and locked eyes with his. It was difficult to do with his dark glasses. The man matched Jade’s height as she stood before him in her bare feet. His face was immaculately shaven except for his impeccably groomed blond mustache.

  “Sorry,” he whispered. “I needed to get your attention. It’s rather a long story.” Seeing Jade wait with her arms folded across her chest, he took a deep breath and continued. “As you already know, I was looking to engage a nurse in Tangier, someone to take my Aunt Viola back to London. I should never have let her talk me into bringing her out here on this trip, but I’d hoped the ocean voyage would be good for her. And selfishly, I wanted a chance to see the world.”

  “Go on.”

  “I was coming back to the hotel when I overheard Patrido de Portillo talking to the Tremaines. Common sort of people,” he added as an aside. “Never did like them. Mrs. Tremaine especially. Always mocking my aunt, and de Portillo struck me as the sort who preys on older women. I felt he was looking for hints as to how well-off your dear mother was financially.”

  He shook his shoulders as if to pull himself back on track. “They were planning what I thought sounded like a rather childish joke on your mother,” he said. “They were going to leave a note for her purporting to be from you. I believed they had seen that you and your mother tended to be, er, at odds with each other and simply wanted to play on that. I got the impression that you had angered them somehow at breakfast. ”

>   “And you did nothing about it?” Jade’s voice was low, a menacing growl.

  “I planned to. You must believe me, but just then the nurse I was looking for found me and I’m afraid I became rather caught up in my own domestic details. I wouldn’t have thought any more about it, but later on, as I took my aunt to the boat, I heard the police were looking for you. Something about you claiming a kidnapping, and they accused you and your mother of committing murder. I tried to tell that Deschamp chap what I knew, but he wouldn’t hear a bit of it.”

  “So you came all the way out here to warn me?” Jade didn’t bother to hide her incredulousness. “How did you even know where to look?”

  Mr. Bennington sniffed. “To answer your first question, what would you have me do? I felt partly responsible for not having warned you or your mother of what I deemed was a rude joke. But once I thought your mother was in danger, I couldn’t abandon her. She was always so kind, inquiring after Aunt Viola on board and even offering to stay with her, a dear offer but one I never felt I should take advantage of. I should think you’d be a bit less critical of me, you know.”

  “Sorry,” said Jade, her voice softening. “It’s been a trying day.”

  “Apology accepted,” said Bennington. “As to how I knew where to look, I wasn’t certain, but I hazarded a guess. I knew Mr. de Portillo had engaged a motorcar to Marrakech. Imagine my surprise when I found that the Tremaines and the Kennicots had also decided to go to Marrakech together. I don’t think the Kennicots planned to leave quite so soon, but it seems you took the second-to-last available car in Tangier, so they joined forces with the last car. It was too much of a coincidence to suit my mind.”

  “Impressive bit of detective work, Mr. Bennington,” said Jade. “How in the world did you get here, then, if we took all the cars?”

  “It was not easy,” he whispered, pulling himself up very straight and tugging on his tweed shooting jacket. “Especially with the local French constabulary looking for you. If you must know, I hired a camel as far as Rabat and engaged a motorcar there. I only arrived yesterday. Then I heard this commotion in the square and saw those men attacking a native woman. Imagine my surprise when I saw your face and realized it was you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Bennington. Perhaps with you telling the officials here what you know, they will apprehend these people.” Jade recalled that she had no idea where de Portillo resided. “I don’t suppose you know where any of them are staying, do you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. Come with me.”

  Jade hesitated, partly because she wanted to know where they were going first, and partly because, with her bare feet and aching joints, she really didn’t want to go very far without getting her boots or at least another pair of those slippers.

  Bennington noticed she wasn’t right behind him and turned back. “What’s wrong?” he whispered.

  Jade pointed to her feet and legs. “War injury.” As she voiced it, she realized the left knee still throbbed, which meant her attackers were probably on their way back. “We can’t stay here. I should see the slipper merchant, too,” she said, “to get something on my feet.”

  Bennington motioned for her to follow him as they passed silently down that alley, paralleling the dried-fruit market just south of them. After a quarter mile, Bennington pointed to a small garden area, hidden behind a house and screened off by latticework. “Why don’t you hide in there,” he suggested, “and I’ll get some shoes for you.”

  Jade agreed, opened the old gate, and slipped inside. Through the latticework, she watched Bennington walk off to the open streets and turn north towards the Souk Smata where the babouches were made and sold. She hoped he could persuade someone to open shop at this hour. Jade found a low bench and sat down to wait, straightening her legs in front of her to ease the pain in her knee.

  From the far side she heard the gate creak open. She tried to bolt, but the lattice fence was too high. Someone threw a chloroform-laced bag over her head.

  “Very clever to double back,” said an Arabic voice in English. Then his gloatings muted into a distant, throaty buzzing as everything went black.

  CHAPTER 21

  Above the great Bab Agnaou, the gate into the Kasbah, a greeting carved in

  elaborate script translates, “Enter with blessings, serene people.” To emphasize that

  latter point, especially for anyone who couldn’t read, heads of enemies were often

  hung from the gate. It was a practice the French decided was in bad taste, at least

  ornamentally, and banned it. Several nesting storks make up the deficit.

  —The Traveler

  INEZ SAT BY THE FIRESIDE, head bowed as she poked at the fire with one of the few branches they had left. They had made it down the mountain, but stopped after again crossing the snow-fed river. Bachir had insisted on halting among the cedars during the day to cut branches. At the time Inez had felt it was a waste of time. Surely, she thought, if they just pressed on they could make Marrakech after nightfall. But apparently Bachir had known the little donkeys’ limits. Pausing to cut the branches had given the animals a chance to rest and forage. Without those respites, they might not have even reached the foot of the Atlas.

  As soon as they had stopped for the night, Inez had learned the wisdom of Bachir’s hesitation. A wind, formed by the descending mountain air hitting the hot air over the plains, blew the dried clay up into a thick red dust. It might have been passable during the daytime, but it obscured what little light was left. Inez remembered the open wells and brick pits from her passage in the other direction. She didn’t relish falling into one of those in the dark. The dust storm didn’t last long, but by then Inez was resigned to stopping for the night.

  Funny how easily she’d slipped back into life on the trail. It had been years since she’d bedded down under the open sky, the Milky Way spread overhead like a casket of gems spilt out onto black velvet. She even remembered how to start a fire with flint and iron; a skill, along with her abilities to handle the animals, that went far in winning Bachir’s approval. Those same two skills, along with her beauty and daring, had also won the heart of her husband.

  She closed her eyes and recalled the day they’d met. He had come to Andalusia, looking for adventure and the remnants of his own Spanish past. He found her instead, dancing and singing with the Gypsies around their encampment. Richard rode up to the camp on a bay mare and dismounted. Inez took one look at his smiling, tanned face and wavy hair, the color of rich walnut, and felt her stomach flutter. She remembered the assured way that he walked, not cocky or swaggering like a few of the dons’ sons she knew, but like a man in control of his life and with no need to prove it.

  She’d danced up to him, swishing her full skirts and twirling in the uninhibited flamenco style of the Roma, as the Gypsies termed themselves. He responded by joining in, clapping the rhythm as he stepped lightly around her. She felt his warmth behind her back, and quivered when his arm brushed hers in passing.

  Never had she felt so on fire, so alive, as she did then. They spent the rest of the afternoon together, riding across her family’s estate. Few men could maintain her pace on a horse, and she led him in a wild chase. Eventually, after clearing a stream, he’d caught up to her and, in one sweeping motion, clasped her around the waist and lifted her off her saddle and onto his during a full gallop. Once she rested securely in his embrace, he drew to a halt and kissed her lips, eyes, and hair. She knew then that there would never be another man for her.

  Afterward she took him home and introduced him to her parents. They were not impressed by an American cowboy, even if he did own land in New Mexico. They had other plans for their only child. Inez and Richard eloped the next night and were married by a sympathetic Benedictine priest in the village.

  That memory fled in the face of another, this time in New Mexico. She and her husband had set up a camp in the mountains where his family had long ago been awarded land. Only they were not alone. A slender you
ng girl in braided pigtails, jeans, and a denim shirt joined them. Together they dug a small pit in which to bury potatoes to bake under hot coals. Richard reclined on the grass with his guitar and played the song he’d learned from the Gypsies. This time it was little Jade who danced while Inez clapped out the rhythm. Inez had always wondered where Jade had learned the flamenco and why she hadn’t joined in the dance herself that evening. Now she knew the answer to that first question.

  She still wondered about the second.

  The headache, the dank smell, the cold stone floor, and the curious squeaks seemed all too familiar. “I think I’m having what they call déjà vu,” Jade mumbled. “I’ve been here before. ” She shifted her legs, found them unfettered, and sat up. That’s when she heard something clank. A foot of stout iron chain bound her wrists to each other in front of her. Another six feet circled her waist and shackled her to the far wall, giving her just enough length to lie down or visit a slop bucket in the back corner.

  “I know I’ve been here before.”

  The squeaking, which stopped when Jade moved, started up again. Probably the same rats, too. “Hi, fellows,” she said to the rodents. “Remember me? I have it on good authority that you’re actually jinni in disguise. So how about getting me out of here again. Can anyone pick a lock?” When the rats didn’t come any closer, Jade slumped against the wall. “I forgot. You aren’t supposed to like iron, are you.”

  She wondered how long she’d been unconscious. Was it still night? Did Bennington come back with those slippers, find her gone, and look for her? She should have known better than to go back to that caretaker’s hut. Her assailants must have figured out her trick and doubled back themselves. Then it was just a matter of waiting for an opportunity, and she had handed it to them. Or Bennington handed it to them. Jade chased away the thought. After all, she had no evidence that he had betrayed her. But cynicism reared up in her mind and taunted her. No one could be that altruistic to travel alone over half the length of Morocco just to save her and her mother, could they?