Isra’s eyes widened. “I do not—I have never . . .”
“Come,” he said, tucking her hand beneath his arm and leading her from beneath Delilah’s awning. He paused and turned back toward the wooden bin of crafts the bearded woman had produced, and reached inside to pluck a small circlet of dull beads strung on a thin leather strip from among the trinkets.
He held it up to the hirsute Delilah. “May I?”
“Certainly, dearie!” she called out in her childishly high voice. “With my love!”
Roman smiled at her and then took Isra’s left hand and slipped the beaded ring onto her middle finger.
“There,” he said and returned her hand back beneath his arm. “Now no one will question your right to purchase whatever your heart desires.”
She said nothing, and when Roman looked down at her, she was staring in the direction of her hand.
“Only don’t pay them what they first ask,” he cautioned.
She looked up at him. “What?”
“The merchants—they are terrible cheats. They always begin with a price that is at least twice the item’s value. You must refuse their first offer.”
Isra blinked. “What?”
Roman felt his smile soften and he stopped in the street, turning his body toward hers. He brought his left hand up to touch her cheek.
“Are you happy, Isra?” he asked.
“I—yes,” she said, her eyes still wide with confusion, doubt.
He leaned down until his nose touched hers. “Good. So am I. Let’s don’t spend all the money.” He pulled her along once more into the milling crush.
It took her almost an hour to warm to the experience, but once Isra had lost her anxiety, she picked and haggled, chose and refused from the vast and seemingly endless variety of items for sale at the market. Two long silken scarves in aqua and green; a pot of balm for her skin. A leg of lamb for Kahn. His back had been turned to her when she made her final purchase, and Roman was speechless when he saw the long white tunic, open on the sides and slit high in the front and back for ease of walking and riding. A long, narrow belt completed the costume. The garment reminded him of the Templars’, and although he didn’t know if Isra had intended the costume to allude to the fighting men he had lived in such close proximity with for so long, he was touched by the gifts.
“Now you can be a peacock, too,” she said, and it caused him to laugh up into the smoky, sunny sky and squeeze her hand.
He saw the thin copper circlet, wrapped around smooth, polished tigers’ eye gems, and broke his own rule by purchasing it outright at the merchant’s first offer. It was the only one of its kind among the cheaper, duller hair decorations, and he knew it was meant for the beautiful woman at his side—the woman who could command such a beast as the gem was named for. He slipped it over the plain scarf she wore on her head, and at her smile, Roman knew he would have paid any amount to see such happiness on her face.
They acquired meat on long sticks and sisal-wrapped jugs of wine and then took their meal on the edge of a common. Isra was fascinated by the tremendous diversity of the crowd, and Roman was fascinated by Isra.
How could such a gentle soul still be contained inside a woman who was so strong? How could she continue to reach out over and over to others—to him—when Roman doubted she had been shown care by anyone at all for years? When necessary, Isra would defend herself and those she wished to protect. But her physical beauty was so blinding, no one who met her could at once have any idea that even greater treasures lay beneath her exquisite exterior.
He wanted to kiss her then, but it was not yet time.
She caught him staring at her and he held her gaze for a long moment before rising and leading her back through the maze of streets to the alley they had rented. Performers all across the city came alive around them as they walked, the sky grew darker, the music grew louder, and endless torches and lanterns lit up Constantinople.
The nightly party began.
Roman waved a farewell to Zeus and the other men as they headed into the city’s interior, looking for fights and female companionship. He didn’t for one moment consider trying to mask the men’s intended destinations from Isra; she wasn’t stupid, and he would not disrespect her by treating her as such.
“Does it bother you?” he asked, suddenly looking down at her, surprised to see her face rather than the crown of her head, as was her usual posture when they were in public. At her frown, he clarified, “Being in the city?”
She gave a shrug of her slight shoulders and turned her eyes away, but only forward, not down. “It is a city,” she said easily. “Not my city.”
She was quiet for a moment as they neared the rear of van Groen’s wagon. Lou was already waiting for them, perched on top and obviously fatter for his recent excursion.
“I should have left when our mother was killed,” she said as they came to a stop, and Lou hopped down onto Roman’s shoulder. “Huda was beginning to question our life and not understanding what it meant, she had talked about the day when she would enter into the common room to be called on. Perhaps in the way that other girls with other lives dream of the day they shall marry. She thought it all jewels and perfume and being told that you are pretty.” Isra took her eyes from the falcon to look directly at Roman. “She was wearing one of my scarves, one of my robes, the day it happened. Playing pretend that went too far. I thought that by staying I would protect her, provide her with a place to live while I tried to find a better way. But instead it is my fault that she is dead.”
Roman looked down into her deep brown eyes, tearless now, but filled with a painful sincerity that seemed to pierce his own heart. He had not been expecting this admission, or this insight into the damage her heart had sustained. But he had always welcomed heavy weight.
“It is not your fault, Isra,” he said. “Nothing you did, nothing Huda could have done, warranted the actions of the animals who killed her.”
“I should have left with her after—”
“And gone where?” Roman interrupted. He took her parcels from her and set them inside the door of the wagon so that he could take both her hands in his own. “Where could you have gone alone, with a young girl? Tell me true and I will accuse you as you seem to want me to do.”
Her eyebrows rose into a sad frown. “Anywhere.”
“You say that now,” he said. “But you know the truth as well as I. Anywhere would have been as bad but likely worse. You both might have ended up dead.”
“Or just me,” Isra insisted. “Huda might have lived.”
“You’re right,” he said with a nod. “You could have died and Huda could have lived. She could have married a wealthy foreign mercenary and moved away to Spain and borne many children and lived a long and happy life.” Her chin flinched then, and that was all right; it was warranted, expected.
“I know what you are feeling, Isra Tak’Ahn,” he continued in a firm voice. “Why was I spared that day at Chastellet? Why was I forced to watch hundreds of men I’d lived with, worked alongside, die bloody, horrible deaths? My own apprentice—a good man, already with a wife and child at home—struck down while urging me to safety. Had he not done that, his child might still have a father.
“Why did Constantine survive the battle, survive the torment of Saladin’s prison, only to learn that Glayer Felsteppe had murdered his wife and only child? What of Asa; should he lose Fran after also losing their son to this life on the road?”
Her eyes were big and round now, perhaps with fright at the things he was saying, the wide open, bottomless, cold truth that Roman knew now stretched out before Isra like a black chasm. So he released her hands and grasped her shoulders, showing her that she was not alone in this discovery.
“I don’t know why I lived. I don’t know why Huda died. But I do know that neither of us can claim responsibility for any of it.”
“Perhaps,” she said quietly. “Perhaps you are right, Roman Berg. It does not make my regret any less, though.”
&n
bsp; “You wouldn’t be the woman you are if it did,” he said and then released her. “Now come, enough of this sadness and remorse. Let us revive our happiness of the day by letting our friends amuse us.”
* * *
Old Mother had done a fair business for the day, being situated nearer the end of the alley closest to the thoroughfare, but to earn her coins had meant calling out to the passersby all the long day and the elderly woman was clearly exhausted. She was packing up her small table when Isra and Roman reached her, the drawstring pucker of her mouth even more pronounced.
She was shaking her frizzled gray head. “Too far away,” she complained, her tone more concerned than plaintive. She flicked her hooded eyes to the street behind Isra and Roman. “Too many players.”
Mother’s words were echoed by the rest of the troupe—collectively, they’d not even earned enough coin to replenish what they’d spent on the rent of the alley.
Isra looked up at Roman’s face, and the worry was back in full force, carving great lines on either side of his usually smiling mouth.
“I’ll set out at first light,” he said. “Try to find a better location.”
Dracus shook his head, twirling his bow around on the toe of his boot. None of the pedestrians had been interested in his displays of marksmanship. “We can’t afford a better location now, boss,” he said. “We’ve got one night of rent left, food yet to buy on the morrow.”
Isra looked around while the two men discussed the surprisingly dire turn of events the troupe found themselves facing. This was Constantinople—one of the most decadent cities in all the world, filled with travelers, nobility, soldiers. Gaining this town should have earned the band coin aplenty to continue on toward Syria, but as Isra took in the other offerings now lighting up the night streets, she thought she realized why.
There, across the way, a man juggled long sticks of fire, alternately lighting and extinguishing each of his feet as the batons twirled.
She walked to the end of their all but deserted alley and looked in both directions: a man in the center of the avenue with a long sword poised half in and half out of his throat; a woman dancing in front of a tavern, her body covered in nothing more than a multitude of sheer scarves; farther down the thoroughfare, the familiar tall humps of camels dressed in red and gold costumes, ferrying drunken patrons in circuits.
Van Groen’s menagerie had dogs. A bearded woman. A juggler. Perhaps enough amusement for the northern continent, but here, in this city of excess, dogs were no better than lice.
“We stay much longer, we won’t have coin enough to leave,” Dracus was explaining to Roman behind her in an apologetic tone.
Isra turned around and looked past where Nickle had joined Roman and Dracus to the tall, shadow-draped wagon standing silently near van Groen’s.
It was one thing to go walking in the bazaar with Roman Berg in the daylight, quite another to draw attention to herself at night, when the exact manner of men she was seeking to hide herself from would be about the city streets. They were so much closer to Damascus now . . .
But Kahn needed to eat tonight, any matter.
And so did the troupe.
Isra could not simply stand by while Roman thought himself a failure when she might be the only one who could turn the troupe’s fortune. She knew he would never consider abandoning the caravan here, although they had plenty of coin to purchase horses of their own and continue on to Jerusalem without the troupe. Roman had given his word to van Groen, and Isra herself would not leave Kahn; after Fran, no one else was brave enough even to feed the tiger. They might have more than another week of travel out of Constantinople ahead of them, and—as a group, as a family—they needed coin and supplies.
She turned back to the street, and to the flame thrower whose circle of spectators was large and well-lit by the score of torches standing at the ready to aid his performance. Bright light danced over the crowd and across the street to barely tease at the entrance of the alley.
All that bright, rippling light would turn Kahn’s striped coat into exotic treasure.
Isra took a deep breath before spinning on her heel and marching toward the small cluster of folk now gathered around Roman.
“Ready Kahn’s wagon to be moved,” she called out in a clear voice as she approached. “Pull it into the street at the end of the alley, but do not let down the walls.”
They stared at her as if she had just commanded them all to fly, but she only continued in her instruction.
“We have no time for a curtain, but we will draw a bigger crowd if they can gather around.”
“Mistress,” Dracus cautioned, “we’ve paid no tax to perform in the street. If we are cited—”
Isra didn’t understand the intricacies of which Dracus spoke, and in the heat of the moment she didn’t care. She only knew she must act immediately if she was to retain her nerve.
“We will pay whatever fine we incur,” she said, and then gestured to the man at the end of the alley, who appeared to have accidentally or otherwise set his hair on fire and was dunking his head in a nearby barrel to the delight of the crowd. “Think you Kahn and I are no better than that buffoon?”
“Isra,” Roman said quietly, “the last time you were in Kahn’s cage, he attacked Fran. How will he react now, in this strange setting, with an unpredictable crowd? We are without even Zeus and the other men to ensure their distance.”
“Fran attacked Kahn. And I have no need of strong men,” she said. “I have a Roman soldier.” She held his gaze, forcing herself to be brave. “And I have faith in Kahn. Would that you have some in me.”
“I do have faith in you,” Roman insisted. “It’s only—”
“We are part of this troupe,” she interrupted. And then, more quietly, “I am part of this troupe. Everyone works,” she added with a smile, echoing some of the first words Fran had spoken to her. “If you do not like it, take it up with Asa when next you see him.”
Dracus was looking back and forth between Isra’s face and Roman’s, and Isra could feel his anticipation. Finally, he blurted, “Well, boss?”
“Do whatever she asks,” he said at last.
Isra hesitated for only a heartbeat of time, afraid that if she spoke so much as a word of thanks her bravado would leave her. And so she strode toward the wagon, her heart pounding in her chest, her skin tingling.
She enlisted Delilah’s help with her hair, and the woman made quick work of Isra’s long tresses, producing a mass of thin plaits twisted with flowing, silken ribbons. In the bottom of a flat, shallow trunk beneath Asa’s cot she found one of his short, fitted green tunics and slipped it on over her gown. The last two pieces of her costume were the black leather whip and the tiger’s eye circlet given to her by Roman only hours before. She placed the bejeweled copper low on her head, bisecting her forehead, then turned and held out her arms for Delilah’s inspection.
The woman’s beard twitched as she considered Isra’s costume. “It’s a strange combination,” she admitted and then nodded her head. “I think it will be a great success.”
They left the wagon, and Isra saw right away the crowd that was already gathering on the thoroughfare at the end of the alley, curious about the contents of the painted wagon and about the large man dressed in the long tunic and belt, his leather hood lying over his shoulders where Lou perched regally. Together, man and bird paced in a circle around Kahn’s wagon. Gunar was atop the fantastically painted cage, Asa’s long staff in one hand and the stiff collar around his own neck, striding along the edges, his words rolling over the crowd.
“From the darkest corners of the jungles lining that great river, where even the bravest men dare not tread, comes the most exquisite pairing of beauty and terror ever seen by northern eyes.” Gunar glanced down the alley and saw Isra approaching, and then turned his attention back to the crowd while sweeping his arm behind him. “Brace yourselves for the most thrilling sight ever witnessed by man: Kahn the Terrible and his queen!”
/> Isra swept into the circle of light on the thoroughfare and felt the eyes upon her, but she gave herself no time to succumb to fear. She advanced, circling the wagon herself as she spoke, throwing her arms wide and gesturing with the leather whip.
“Many years ago, in a city so rich its streets were lined with gold and silver,” she called out in a robust voice, “there lived a great prince. He claimed great wealth and commanded powerful armies, but his most longed-for treasure was the heart of a poor young woman from a village under his rule.”
She stopped in her march and reversed direction as she noticed more and more people drawing near the wagon. Even the flame thrower himself had paused in his performance and now looked toward Isra with interest. Dracus and Helena and Nickle were circling the crowd with the baskets and Isra was encouraged by the tiny clinks she heard in the still night air.
“His station would not allow him to make the poor village girl his wife. Eventually she was married to a man of her class and soon had a family of her own. The great prince was heartbroken and swore he would have no other. Instead, he took to leaving his palace in the dark of night to stalk the jungle around his love’s village, watching her as she tended her house and raised her children. The pain of departing from her grew greater with each rising of the sun, until he could no longer bear leaving the jungle even for a short time lest he miss catching a glimpse of the woman he loved.
“The prince soon became wild; his hair grew long and striped with the shadows of the thick forest, his teeth became great fangs with which he caught his own game to eat, and he soon developed a taste for raw flesh.” The crowd gasped and Isra reversed directions again. “The people of the city mourned the loss of their ruler. Many, many years later, the village woman’s husband died, and as the prince was by all accounts no longer a prince but a feral creature, there was no law that said he could not now claim his love. So, one evening as dusk was settling over the village, he left the shadows of the jungle to approach his heart’s desire as she drew water from the well.
“When the old woman looked up, she saw not the handsome young man she might have loved in her youth but a huge, vicious beast, creeping toward her in the low brush with growls and tossing of his great maned head.” Isra stopped and threw out her hands. “She screamed in terror, ‘No!’ and backed away from the beast, who followed the woman, trying to speak words of comfort: ‘It is I, my love; I’ve come for you at last.’”
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