The air was much cooler at this altitude and the previous night’s rain had departed, leaving only a cloudy mist of dove grey that evaporated as the morning sun rose higher, pushing back purple shadows.
Rabia sat with the other women on a blanket and was given a wide, round loaf of bread and a bowl of the thick stew of lamb and vegetables called utshu. She broke off a piece of bread and stirred it through the bowl. The flavors of paprika, cumin, and garlic filled her mouth – simple and satisfying.
The mountainous region of Jebel Akhdar was the most beautiful wilderness she had ever seen. High above the desert plains to the south, the undulating mountains were verdant. Trees, shrubs and grasses fed by a generous amount of rainfall that turned cuttings and ravines into waterfalls and rivers, feeding the livestock and permitting small holdings of crops to be planted.
It had been three weeks since she had left Pantelleria for Tripoli to be certain she arrived ahead of Orhan’s caravan. It had been many years since she traveled simply and on foot but the exercise had made her stronger. It stoked the fire of vengeance that woke her every morning and lulled her to sleep every night for the past four months.
Soon.
Soon, she would hold her son in her arms again and restore to him his rightful place. Soon, he would be a man of great importance, perhaps even greater than his own father.
A tribesman leading a magnificent seal-brown stallion crossed her view, the sun catching gold on the play of muscles as the creature walked. Man and beast joined the other horses and riders at one end of the encampment. The raiding party was twenty-five in all.
Several yards away from them, another group of men gathered. Unlike the Jabal al-Akhdar tribesman who were dressed in their customary white robes over wide-legged pants, these half-dozen men were dressed head-to-toe in black. Under their hip-length tunics, their pants were fitted at the legs and tied close to the ankles. Suspended from black leather belts were several knives glinting in the sun as they passed around a clay bowl from which they all drank.
Assassins.
These men were specialists in the art of death and were, according to Toufik, descended from the Nazari whose acts of bravery and brutality had become the source of legend. Their very name sent a shiver through her but Rabia suppressed it. She was being watched closely and would show weakness to no one.
The final plans had been worked out last night. The assassins had shadowed the caravan for the past three days and the tribesmen had recommended this location for the ambush. Toufik had acted as her intermediary. As a woman, merely her presence here was enough to arouse suspicion.
Never mind. The how and the why of it were of little concern to Rabia in the scheme of things, of idle interest only. The only things that mattered were her son being returned to her, those she-dogs who kept him from her punished, and Orhan dying in agony.
As the others in the encampment went about their morning’s work, the six assassins turned away, fell on their knees facing the northeast and, in unison, bowed until their foreheads touched the ground.
Soon. So very, very soon.
Toufik’s tall form caught her eye.
“I applaud your wisdom in demonstrating patience, my lady. Soon, the time will be at hand. I can suggest that you stay here, with the women—” Rabia’s brow puckered. She would not sit here amongst these useless women. She was about to rail at Toufik before she detected the edge of a smile. He continued, “—or you can follow me to a place high above the road where you will be able to see everything unfold.”
She inclined her head regally, as though she knew that was his plan all along.
The sun had risen a quarter higher in the sky by the time Rabia, Toufik, and two of the elders from the Berber tribe arrived at the designated spot, sheltered in the shadow of rocks. She was assured no one could see them from the road, a pale yellow path that cut in and out of the deep, green shrubs and luxuriant grasses found in the upper altitudes of the mountains. From here, they could see for miles.
At Toufik’s suggestion, she rested. The anticipation had exhausted her as much as the difficult hike up among the rocks where no paths led. She closed her eyes and listened to the blow of the wind whispering through the stones and rushing across the grass, a hissing sound that reminded her of the great plains of wheat she’d seen in Tunis.
She imagined her son. Seven years old, dark eyes like his father, reddish hair like her own. He had no fear of the other wives. If the boy was yet half the man Selim Omar was, he would have charmed some and terrified the others. She would quickly hold him to her breast and remind him, once again, he was her son, and vow to restore what was rightfully his.
The lesser wives had better not have mistreated him, otherwise she would kill them with her own hands.
Rabia awoke some time later to the sound of harsh whispers. She rose to her feet. In the distance, she could see outriders on horses in Orhan’s livery. The caravan followed along behind. The servants walked alongside the horses and camels. Onto some of these beasts were mounted hawdaj, beds covered with carpets made of colorful, knotted wool to protect the passengers from weather – and from prying eyes.
In one of those was her son.
Rabia didn’t notice the horsemen either side of the ravine until she heard the sound of blades withdrawn in unison. No sooner had the weapons been raised to the sky, the tribesmen descended, letting out a terrifying ululation.
The first outriders were killed before they could draw weapons. Servants scattered to avoid the trampling hooves of both horses and camels. Screams of pain and surprise reached her and made her heart treble in beat.
Distracted by the front assault, the caravan guards were unaware of the other threat until it surged from behind. The assassins set to work with brutal efficiency. They attacked only when confronted. They grabbed anything that looked like their target – a seven-year-old boy, tall for his age. Anyone who challenged them was put to the sword.
Where is he? Where is he?
Rabia worried her inner cheek with her teeth, her repetitive prayer becoming more anxious as the dust rose, obscuring the melee below. The sound of panicked, stampeding animals ebbed and so, too, did the dust which settled lightly onto the blood-soaked ground.
Where is he? Where is he?
Rabia caught sight of something. She leaned forward. Was that him? Toufik grabbed at her elbow breaking her trance.
“Are you well, my lady?” he asked. She was only a few paces away from the drop below but, still, she glared at him and jerked her arm away as she stepped back from the edge.
“I’m quite well,” she snapped. “There are no more than seventy-five people in the caravan, how long can it take to find a small boy?”
“I counsel patience. He may have run away when the fighting began.”
“Then find him!”
“The assassins are professionals. I suggest we leave them to their occupation.”
The tone of voice was one Rabia had heard from her trusted retainer before – firm and condescending – but never, ever had it been directed at her. She stared into his pale blue eyes, waiting for him to remember his place, but the look was implacable.
“Watch your tongue or you may lose it as you did your manhood,” she warned at last.
Toufik grasped her by the elbow and squeezed the joint tight. He brought his face close.
“You may be queen in your walled garden, my lady, but out here you are a mere woman. The only reason you’re not a concubine is because of the respect I have been accorded by the other men. I don’t intend to lose that respect because my woman doesn’t keep her mouth shut and doesn’t do what I tell her.
“If you cannot control your emotions, I can give you a draught. If you will not control your emotions, then I will give you the draught by force. Which is it to be?”
His eyes bored into hers once more. Rabia looked away, boiling inside.
Shouts from below drew her attention once again. The battle was all but over. Both the Jabal al-Akh
dar and the assassins undertook separate missions to gather the scattered, to determine the value of each life and treat it accordingly.
Rabia looked at the tableau of death. A couple of the tribesmen picked up a gold-covered coffer and raised it to show the elders who now stood alongside her. Another man beside those with the coffer beckoned. The tribe elders made their way down through the boulders to the road. Rabia and Toufik followed behind.
She skirted the edges of the killing ground, strewn with animal and human corpses, holding a corner of her head scarf across her nose to help mask the smell of gore and death. Some more of the tribesmen returned from the chase to scavenge among the remains.
They examined everything useful, even down to the bridles on downed camels and horses. Carpets were stripped from the hawdaj – even the bloodstained ones – before being rolled up and strapped to the side of an unharmed camel which the Berbers decided now belonged to the tribe.
The assassins had not yet returned.
Rabia watched Toufik, trying to see if she could understand what was going on in that head of his. He walked up to the ruined caravan, toeing the bodies of the slain as though he were looking for something – for someone.
Her son?
Rabia quickened her pace until she was only a step or two behind. At first, her eyes merely skimmed over the scene, trying not to let the specter of death intrude so deeply, but she quickly found herself looking for the reddish-brown hair, like her own, among the slain.
Toufik kicked the timber-framed remains of a broken hawdaj and she saw it – a slender arm, smaller than a woman’s, on the ground, its owner hidden under the body of a fallen camel and its saddle blanket.
The eunuch moved on but Rabia stayed. She wanted to move on but couldn’t. Her body refused to obey her command, her feet remained rooted to the spot. Dread seemed to well up out of the ground, up her legs, through her body until it released itself with a scream.
She surged forward, frantically clawing the debris away from the body until a head with hair the color of her own appeared.
Rabia’s screech became louder and longer as the lifeless but half-open eyes of her son mocked the sleepy waking moments they had once shared. Those eyes would never open again.
Her son was dead.
Chapter Sixteen
Unlike the bright summer’s day that marked Laura’s first arrival in Palermo, late November brought cold, drizzling rain to mar today’s entrance. She huddled in a corner of the quarterdeck to keep herself out of the way of the sailors bringing the Calliope into dock.
Through the greyness, she saw the hawse lines tighten and felt the groan of the ship as it was finally secured. The slam of the rain-sodden gangway reached her.
“Are you sure you want to stay up here? You could have remained in the master quarters until we were ready to disembark,” said Elias.
Laura watched him shrug on an oilskin coat while she tightened his thick, navy blue woolen coat around herself, burying her nose into the collar that smelled of lemon, cedar, and a little of Elias himself.
She nodded and, with another reassuring glance in her direction, he went out into the rain, striding across the deck to meet another man. He was dressed exactly as Elias was, even down to the hat dripping with water.
She didn’t recognize him at first, but as they approached the quarterdeck once more, the man raised his head and she saw Jonathan Afua beneath the sodden brim. He greeted her with a warm smile and spoke loudly to be heard above the insistent rain.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t turn out better weather for your arrival, Miss Laura. I have a carriage waiting for you at the dock. If we leave now, we can reach Villagrazia before the noon meal.”
Laura returned the smile but cast her eyes across to Elias who was running through the ship’s manifest with the harbor master.
“Shouldn’t we wait for Elias?”
At hearing his name, Elias looked up from the log.
“I’ll be another few hours here. Tell Serafina to save some arancini for me.”
Jonathan unfurled a large, black umbrella he carried and held it to cover Laura. She felt butterflies in her stomach and chided herself for feeling nervous. She was heading into the unknown, she realized, but why should she feel this way when she was among people she knew and trusted?
Silly and ungrateful, a voice reproached her, one that sounded very much like Sophia’s. Inwardly, Laura grimaced but, to Jonathan, she gave a smile and even felt comfortable enough to move close to him as they crossed the rain-swept deck and down the gangway to where a small carriage waited for them. No sooner had they approached, the door was flung open and a feminine hand stretched out to aid her aboard.
“At last we meet, dear Laura, although I feel I know you already! I am Morwena, Jonathan’s wife. You don’t need to do a thing here except relax and have your baby. I’ve taken care of it all. You should see the beautiful cot and—”
Laura blinked rapidly, unable to draw breath to return the greetings.
Jonathan slammed the door behind him. “Slow down, Morwena, Miss Laura has only just arrived.” He rapped on the carriage roof to signal the driver to move off. He smiled again at Laura. “You’ll have to forgive my wife. She gets so far ahead of herself it takes the rest of us some time to catch up.”
Laura stretched out a gloved hand and Morwena squeezed it, returning her smile.
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. And I also want to thank you both once again for being so kind to me, a virtual stranger—”
Morwena dismissed her with a wave of a hand. “Stranger? I see no strangers. You are Sophia’s cousin and as she is married to Kit, and as Jonathan is one of Kit’s closest friends, so that makes you family and, besides, Elias is very fond of you. So perhaps there will be a wedding—”
“Morwena!”
Even Laura heard the tone of affectionate exasperation in Jonathan’s voice. She lowered her face to hide a smile but Morwena didn’t seem the least bit chastened.
“I talk a lot, so what?” she declared with a shrug of her shoulders. “Women, we like to talk a lot so it does not matter that Laura is English and I am Sicilian, we are going to be fast friends.”
The dark-haired woman’s vivacity touched something in Laura and she realized what it was. She had been treated liked a porcelain doll since their rescue from Al-Min. Even Sophia regarded her as a frail creature.
Enough! Enough of feeling sorry for herself. Enough of feeling bruised. Laura raised her head and smiled, allowing herself to be drawn along in Morwena’s wake.
“Yes. Absolutely, we are going to be fast friends.”
“Oh, I have letters from England for you,” Morwena continued. She opened a supple, brown leather satchel and pulled out a bundle of mail. “I have a gift also, but it will wait until we get to Villagrazia.”
“Is that the name of Elias’ estate?”
“No! That’s the name of the village. Elias calls his estate something, but I can’t remember it.”
They left the city, crossed the Oreta River, and ascended into the hills. The rain eased, leaving only swirling bands of mist in its wake.
Laura glanced at her escorts and saw Morwena had removed her right glove and had entwined her fingers through her husband’s, pale skin against darker. The love that flowed between them was palpable, even to her, a relative stranger.
How did they meet? Morwena and Sophia were not the only ones with insatiable curiosity if the subject demanded it. She would be sure to ask – and was certain Morwena would delight in telling her.
She turned her attention back through the glass, feeling a little like an intruder, still out of place. She idly rubbed her belly. Laura had not felt the kicks of the babe for a little while, perhaps the babe slept. She sincerely hoped so.
She caught the reflection of her traveling companions in the glass. Jonathan stretched out his legs, nearly filling the space, content to watch their progress from the other window, while Morwena examined some document
s.
“Is it far?” Laura asked.
“It’s only six miles away from the city,” Jonathan answered.
“You can even see the sea from the villa and, in the summer months, we shut up the shop for a couple of weeks and bring my father up to enjoy the cool of the hills,” Morwena added softly. “He’s not been well.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Laura offered. “I hope he makes a good recovery.”
“Unfortunately, that will not be the case. It is not that he is sick, but always forgetful. It has gotten worse over the years, but the shop is the one place he seems like himself. Until this year, he was still able to work by himself for a little while, but now…”
It was Laura’s turn to take Morwena’s hand and squeeze it with sympathy.
“I remember the name,” the Sicilian woman added quietly. “The name Elias calls his estate – Arcadia.”
“A menagerie would be closer to the truth,” Jonathan suggested and he grinned at Laura’s look of surprise. “He has a one-eyed goat and a three-legged dog.”
“Oh, and the litter of kittens the housekeeper was going to have drowned!” Morwena interjected. “Elias couldn’t bear for that to be done either. I had to talk him into letting me take some of them when they were older to keep the rats at bay in my warehouses.”
“Warehouses? You have more than one?”
Jonathan laughed out loud. “There are two. And my darling wife is not content with merely those. She has her eyes on a third.”
“The shop Sophia and I went to when we first arrived, that’s yours?” Laura couldn’t help asking. A woman owning a business. It was almost unheard of, certainly not common enough to pass unremarked.
“The business was originally my father’s,” Morwena explained. “As the daughter, my father’s care was left to me. But as his memory started to fade, I took on the business more and more until it became obvious to both my suppliers and customers that it was I, and not my father, who ran it.”
“That can’t have been easy, I mean, not everyone is accepting of a woman doing such things,” said Laura.
Revenge of the Corsairs Page 13
