The Serpent's Daughter

by Suzanne Arruda

  She heard a key turn in the rusty lock and the door hinges creak. Company. A burly Arab stood in the doorway with a lantern in one hand and a chicken leg in the other. He bit off a chunk of meat and chewed, waiting as though wary of some trick. Probably the same guard as last time. Jade spotted his crooked nose and the relatively fresh red gashes striping his face. Definitely the same guard.

  The guard tossed the bone to the floor and wiped his greasy lips with the back of his hand. He hung the lantern from a hook by the door and drew his dagger, a new one since Jade had taken his old one. Jade watched him approach her with the same slow steps that one would use to come close to a chained lion. Time to test his nerve, she thought. She waited without making any motion until he was inside her radius of movement. Then she leaped towards him, hands extended like claws, a snarl issuing from her throat. The man jumped up a foot and back two more in a lightning-fast move that would have made her old tomcat, Rupert, proud. Jade leaned back against the wall, chuckling.

  “I’m glad to see you’ve retained your sense of humor, Miss del Cameron. You’ll need it.” The hushed voice came not from the guard, but from someone standing just outside the door in the shadows.

  “It is safe,” said the guard. “She has not gotten loose this time.”

  “Lucky for you she hasn’t.” Jade’s captor stepped into the room and into the lamplight.

  “The mules,” exclaimed Inez, pointing to a pair of animals tied under a shelter of poles and palm fronds. She and Bachir had broken camp before dawn and arrived at the south palm gardens by late morning. Inez immediately recognized Jade and Mohan’s animals by the distinctive design on the saddle blankets. After Bachir convinced the Arab overseeing the animal’s care that Inez was the owner’s mother, they were allowed to inspect the panniers, where they found Jade’s boots. Inez stood on her tiptoes and pivoted around, searching for her daughter. “Jade!” she started to call.

  Bachir put his hand out and shook his head to stop her. Using Inez’s version of sign language, he touched his chest, then his lips, before pointing to a man who sold grain. Inez understood. He would talk to the man and find out when Jade had arrived.

  Inez waited by their animals as Bachir dickered for both information and a reasonable price for caring for their donkeys and the mule. That’s when she first noticed the crowd of men clustered at the far end of the field. They shouted and pressed forward, only to be driven back again. Something was definitely going on over there. Bachir came back with a frown. Inez didn’t wait for him to try to tell her he had no news. She gathered he had little beyond knowing when Jade had arrived. Instead, she pointed to the commotion, grabbed Jade’s boots, and led the way to the crowd.

  "Bennington!” exclaimed Jade. "I should have guessed. I’ve got to quit being so trusting.” She stared at his immaculately trimmed, creamy blond mustache and understood the Berber boy’s description. It wasn’t a red mustache, it was a blond one coated in the bled’s red dust. A third man peered around the doorframe. “And Mohan,” she said, switching to Arabic laced with French when the first language failed her. “You son of a legless camel and three blind dogs. It was you, not Bachir, who betrayed your people, wasn’t it?” The fact that he was not in chains told her as much, but she wanted to hear it from him.

  Mohan straightened to his full five-foot, four-inch height. “I did not betray them. It is for the good of my people, for my daughter, to abandon the infidel ways of the kahina. I cannot let you find the amulet. I want her to marry a rich man in Marrakech and live in a fine house, not practice magic.”

  “Then you betray yourself, Mohan. What chance would I have to find one silver charm in all of the Atlas or even in Marrakech? None. Unless,” she added, “you really believed it would call to me.” Her emerald green eyes locked on him, staring as though to bore a hole in his own eyes.

  Mohan threw his hand up in front of his face, palm out. “The evil eye!” he screamed in Arabic. “Five in your eye,” he shouted to ward off the danger from her stare.

  Jade laughed, her voice echoing in the chamber. “Your curse does no good, Mohan. I am the kahina’s right hand,” she taunted him. “I have her vision. Shall I prove it? You stole the bracelets from the other women to sell for yourself. I can see it.”

  Mohan cowered against the outer wall, his hands outstretched in front of his face. Jade laughed and continued her tale. “You didn’t care about your people, only about the money. Then you found a buyer. You told him about the amulet and promised to bring it next time. You stole it and buried it in the caretaker’s hut on your last trip to sell rugs. You hoped the dead saint would protect you from the jinni when you came back for it. I saw you take it out. Did you rehide it? That won’t help you now. The ones who shun light love treasure. They do not willingly give it up. They will chase the one who took it from them.”

  Mohan’s face contorted in fear. He closed his eyes against her stare and covered his ears with his hands.

  Jade raised her voice. “Your only hope is to return it to the kahina, Mohan.”

  “Stop.” Bennington’s soft librarian’s whisper carried weight, enough to silence Mohan’s whimpers. “Fool,” he said to Mohan. “She cannot hurt you.”

  “The jinni can,” moaned Mohan. “And she has the evil eye.”

  “Then give the amulet to me,” suggested Bennington. He stood close to the doorframe, allowing the torch shadow to cover all but his clean-shaven chin. Now his soft, subdued voice carried a soothing quality such as one used with a frightened child.

  Mohan shook his head. “No. I promised her.”

  Jade turned her head to hear better. Her? Libby Tremaine had one of the bags. Did he mean her? It seemed unlikely. Or had Lilith herself been here at one time? Until now Jade had had only her own inner gut feeling to indicate that Mrs. Worthy was behind this mess, but she decided to try to play her hunch at the first available opportunity.

  “Fool,” hissed Bennington. “Do you forget who I work for?” He waved his hand to dismiss the Berber. “I will pay you later, when you hand over the amulet. Wait in the courtyard. ”

  Mohan raced up the stairs, leaving Jade alone with Bennington and the guard. Now was the time to voice her hunch. “So you and de Portillo work for Lilith Worthy,” she said. She watched to gauge Bennington’s initial response.

  He shrugged. “I prefer to use the term ‘partners.’ Mr. de Portillo is merely a convenient courier.”

  “Does she think I’ll interrupt this operation as I did the others? She forgets that I only found out about them by accident. I didn’t know anything about this and would never have been the wiser if you hadn’t pulled me into it by kidnapping my mother. I suppose Mother told you all about me on the boat and it made you nervous to think I was even going to be in the country. Or did you run into your boss when she visited the boat in London?”

  “On the contrary,” he said as he inspected his manicured nails and flicked away a speck of dirt, “that knowledge came to us through the contents of your mother’s letter.”

  Jade remembered the opened envelope of the last letter she’d received from her mother. She had always suspected that someone had been spying on her.

  “Spies,” Bennington hissed when Jade didn’t make a comment. “You see, as easy as it is to smuggle out of Tangier, it is still hard to smuggle into anyplace else. And the French have gotten rather uppity about all the hashish that comes into France from Morocco. We needed a . . . what is that new term you Americans use? A fall guy. So your arrival provided an opportunity.”

  “And you kidnapped my mother as bait to get me.”

  Bennington leaned against the wall, thought better of it, and brushed the cobwebs and dirt from his sleeve. “Not just you. Don’t you think a mother and daughter make a perfect criminal network? Mohan will tell the authorities where your charming mother is hiding and they will arrest her.”

  “And I presume you’ve been ordered to kill me? I’ve stepped on Lilith’s smuggling operations one time too m
any.”

  Bennington shrugged. “You do tend to get in the way, but you overestimate your impact and underestimate the extent of our activities. Still, I think the reason is far more personal. You killed her son, David. He was everything to her.”

  David. Jade had always felt he risked himself too much as a pilot in order to win her acceptance to his marriage proposal. Apparently so did his mother. Perhaps he’d written to her about the American ambulancier that he was striving to impress. That could go a long way, Jade thought, to explaining why Mrs. Worthy hated her so much. Jade’s unnerving dream of the dark lady popped unbidden into her mind. Part of it became clearer now. She understood the lone tear the dark lady had shed, and the subsequent terrible tree that grew from the gravestone, David’s gravestone. In her unconscious mind, she’d understood Lilith’s grief for a lost son, a grief that gave rise to a hideous vengeance centered on death.

  “Then why drag me in here? Why didn’t you and Lilith just kill me when you had a chance? It’s a wonder you didn’t do it when I hired the car. I presume that was one of your confederates there posing as Madame Laferriere?”

  “Clever girl.”

  “I suppose you played on Libby Tremaine to write that note to Mother? And the man stabbed in the tunnels? Was he someone you couldn’t trust anymore?”

  “He was just a man we hired to capture your mother,” Bennington replied. “But we could hardly leave him alive after that, could we?”

  “Just like you can’t afford to leave me alive now?” As she asked, forgetting that Bennington hadn’t responded to the allegation against Libby, a new thought formed. Had Lilith returned on board ship, posing as the infirm Aunt Viola?

  “On the contrary,” said Bennington, “we need you alive to take the blame for this operation. If you turn up dead, then that takes the blame off of you. That little murder of the guide just sweetened the pot. So I’m not going to kill you. I’m sending you to hell instead. This evening, the slave market will have another addition to the usual fare. With any luck, you’ll end up spending your life in a harem in Timbuktu.”

  “You’ll pay for this, you bastard.”

  “Oh, no,” said Bennington. “You’re not my type, but I’m sure someone else will be glad to pay for you.” The last Jade heard from him was his soft, husky laugh as it echoed down the stairs.

  CHAPTER 22

  Slave markets used to occur on a weekly basis, generally in either

  the old square or in the carpet district. Potential buyers eagerly bid on

  black-skinned men from the south and blue-eyed Circassian women.

  But the French also put a stop to this practice in 1912.

  —The Traveler

  INEZ SECRETLY HOPED HER DAUGHTER was behind this commotion, just like when she’d put a box full of nesting mice in the church’s piano bench, effectively proving that several of the choir members could hit high C. But the fact that she didn’t hear Jade’s voice above the general babble told her that her hopes were in vain. Of all the times for her to not cause a ruckus, she’d have to pick this one. As she came closer, she could tell that the men’s voices weren’t angry, just excited.

  “Stand back, please. No, I do not want your rug. Hey, there! Get that camel away before he chews on my spars.”

  An American. Inez pushed through the crowd with Bachir’s help and came face-to-face with a yellow biplane and one frazzled pilot doing his best to protect it. He held his leather flight helmet by the straps and swatted at the Dromedary intent on taking a nibble out of the plane. Inez turned to Bachir and made a sweeping gesture to the crowd, followed by shooing motions. Bachir nodded and set to work.

  “Imshi, go away!” Bachir said, and waved away the men closest to the plane. Inez couldn’t tell what else he said, but judging from the wide-eyed expressions, it probably involved curses and an army of evil spirits haunting this machine. Whatever he said, it proved effective.

  “Thank you,” said the American. He patted the biplane. “I’ve been stuck here for the past two hours, afraid to leave her alone. It’s a good thing you happened along. . . .” The man stopped in midthought, his gaze taking in Inez’s features. Then after a few seconds’ study, he held out his right hand. “Pardon me for staring, ma’am, but you must be Mrs. del Cameron.”

  “Yes, I am,” said Inez as she shook his hand. “But how did you know?”

  “My name is Sam Featherstone. Avery Dunbury received a message from Jade. Said you’d been kidnapped. I came to rescue you.” He ran a hand through his mop of straight brown hair, which had flopped over one eyebrow. “It appears you don’t need my help anymore.”

  With what appeared to be a very casual and proper glance, Inez sized up Sam as she might a new horse. What she saw agreed with her. “Your gallantry is greatly appreciated, Mr. Featherstone. But don’t be too certain that I no longer need your assistance.”

  Sam made a quick survey of the area. “Where is Jade?”

  “That, Mr. Featherstone, is the question of the hour and why I am very glad you have arrived.”

  Jade pulled every trick she could think of to free herself but, unfortunately, her repertoire was limited. The rats, which had proven themselves useful with the leather bindings, were useless against iron, and there was nothing handy that would serve as a hammer and anvil to break the chains. The guard seemed mildly amused by her pretenses at fainting and needing water, and was far too wary of her after the last time to risk another ruse. That left trying to pull the chain out of the wall. If she’d hoped to have some help from rotting brick work, she was sadly mistaken. The bolt was driven into a stout stone pillar and secured with well-made mortar.

  Exhausted, she sat on the floor, toying with the padlock that secured the iron band around her waist. Could she pick it? Lock picking was never a skill Jade had bothered to learn. She had watched her father do it once when they’d lost the key to a document box. He’d used two tools, but told her that one could work if you raked it hard across the tumblers. Well, what do I have to lose?

  She searched for something to use as a tool. A fibula might have worked, if she hadn’t already used them to elude capture. She had no knife except for one tucked into her boots, which were back with the mules. The smooth little amulet around her neck wouldn’t do either. Mother would probably say if I hadn’t bobbed my hair, I’d still have hairpins. Her gaze strayed to one of the resident rats chewing on something in the nearest corner.

  “You wouldn’t have any ideas, would you?” she asked. The rat bared his yellow teeth at a second rodent who’d come to inspect the first one’s intended meal. At first Jade didn’t recognize the contested prize, then as she let her eyes adjust to the dim light seeping through the door, she identified it. The chicken bone.

  The bone was out of hand’s reach, but not out of reach of her foot. Jade worked the iron waist binding up as high as it would go and extended her right foot towards the corner. She could barely see the bone in this position, but she was more concerned about how the rat would feel about a succulent bare toe poking him. She pulled back, found a broken piece of ceiling plaster, and tossed it at the rat. The surly rodent waddled to safety, giving Jade a chance to snare the bone with her toes. Success! To her delight, it was a well-gnawed leg bone, partially sharpened at one end.

  “Thanks, buddy. I owe you. If I get out of here, I promise never to call a rotten person a rat again.”

  Jade shimmied around in the snug band and inserted the sharpened bone tip into the lock. Too wide. She held the bone against the stone wall and studied it before beginning the process of reshaping it. It should look like a key, she thought, with a slightly wider tip to turn the pins inside the lock. Jade rubbed the bone against the stone, slowly abrading it. Gradually she wore away the back half of the hollow bone. Next she gently filed away the sides, careful not to snap the increasingly fragile tool or lose the enlarged tip. Every few minutes, she tested it in the lock. As soon as it slipped in freely, she went to work trying to jimmy the pins inside.
>
  She tried to imagine a key and how it turned. She concentrated on feeling any resistance to her bone pick as it swiveled and pushed the inner workings. She turned an ear to the lock, bowing low over her waist, straining to hear any clicks. Nothing.

  Finally in her frustration, she smacked the makeshift key against the wall, driving it deeper into the tumbler. Now I’ve done it, she thought. Probably wedged it in there for good or broken it. She grabbed the bone’s end, gave it a gentle twist, and raked it out of the keyhole at the same time. The lock clicked open. Recovering from her astonishment, Jade quickly removed the padlock and opened the waist iron. She let the chain and the heavy iron band slip silently down to the floor. Now for the door. She’d worry about the wrist irons later, when she was clear of the house.

  As if on cue, the door opened and the guard entered. This time he carried an old flintlock pistol and it was pointed directly at her. The slash marks on his face blazed like a brand in the ruddy glow of the lantern resting at his feet. With his free hand, he hung the key outside the cell, picked up the lantern, and hung it on a hook inside by the door.

  “Good,” he said in heavily accented English. “You have saved me the trouble of unchaining you.” He grinned, revealing rows of stained teeth. “Now we will go to the marketplace. ”

  Inez finished summarizing the events from her kidnapping to the present as she, Bachir, and Sam walked into the Medina, to the caravan hostelries where most travelers lodged themselves and their animals. When Inez saw the assorted camels, mules, donkey, and rare horse stabled in the lower quarters, she wondered why Jade hadn’t come here with her animals. Perhaps her daughter had hoped to avoid detection by staying outside the gates, just as she and Bachir had done.

  Bachir excused himself in French, first pointing to his eyes and ears and then to the caravansary in an effort to communicate that he was going to try to gather information on Jade’s whereabouts. Sam, who had learned a smattering of French during the Great War, managed to understand his intent.