“The men leave every morning right after breakfast,” Ella said. “They leave the horses they rode the day before and take a fresh string. They’re gone until dinner. You didn’t find out, by any chance, where it is they go, did you?”
Julia ran her fingers through her hair to try to tame the tangles and snarls that would likely have to be cut out in order to be removed. She frowned. “Ammon doesn’t talk about such things with me,” she said. “I wouldn’t understand him if he did.”
“Today is as good a day as any,” Ella said. “Will I have to talk you into this or are you coming with me?”
Julia’s mouth fell open. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “Ammon would be furious!”
“Okay, well, pissing off Ammon is not on my list of reasons not to do it,” Ella said.
“I can’t go,” Julia said.
Ella stared at her. She had expected this. Although it seemed inconceivable, Julia was happy here. Ella had already made up her mind not to argue with her. It would actually be easier and less noticeable for just one to slip away anyway. If she were successful, she would bring the rescue party back as soon as she could.
Assuming Julia wanted to be rescued.
“I’m still going,” Ella said. “Can I count on you to cover for me?”
“I don’t want you to go,” Julia said fretfully. “Ammon will be furious. He’ll think I could have stopped you.”
“Are you afraid he’ll hurt you?”
Julia thought for a moment and then shook her head. “No,” she said. “I just don’t like to make him unhappy.”
“I know. That’s really the worst part of all this,” Ella said sarcastically, “how unhappy it’ll make Ammon.” She grabbed Julia by both shoulders and gave her a quick hug. “I’ll bring help,” she said.
“You’ll die,” Julia said.
It was so much easier than she had imagined. Ella spent a few minutes playing with the children as she normally did, then scooped up one of the goatskin bags of water that hung where the camels and horses were tethered to a line. The women relaxed when their men were gone and settled into what looked like a good old-fashioned gossip session around the fire, which was always going.
Ella crept over to the largest horse. While she hated the bigger target he made, she thought he would be able to survive longer and go further than the others. She spent ten precious minutes watering him before untying his reins and leading him silently into the bushes. While her heart pounded and her ears seemed to pick up every sound on the wind, no one came after her.
When she thought she was far enough away, she climbed up on a large rock and onto the giant gelding’s back. There was no saddle. She saw the sun struggling ever skyward and paused to wrap a filthy hijab around her head. She still wore the blouse of her khaki riding outfit. The buttons were gone from the day Gita had examined her but she tied the tail of it at her midriff. Unfortunately, she was barefoot, as she had lost her shoes the day the Bedouin gang found her and Julia in the desert.
Seeing that the sun was rising in front of her, Ella turned the horse toward the east where she knew the river must lie.
She put the horse into a trot over the irregular, rocky ground. As she rode, she envisioned the river just over the next rise—although she knew it would be hours before she could possibly hope to see it. She tried to picture the look on Rowan’s face when she told him they were expecting a baby. She imagined the conversation between them. Surely, a baby would eradicate whatever hold Carol had on him. Surely, a baby would erase the doubts and second-guessing that had crept into their relationship.
And surely a baby would force him to forgive her for disappearing for three weeks without a word. Had it only been three weeks? It seemed like a lifetime. She was astonished at how quickly she had adapted to this time.
Ella came to a flat rocky terrain lined by scrub brushes. The sun was directly overhead now and the heat beat down on her like a mallet. She slowed her horse. As anxious as she was to get to the river, it wouldn’t do to kill the beast in the process. He was already drenched with sweat.
That’s not good, she thought. We’re both of us losing so much fluid and it can’t be fully noon yet. She wiped her face with her sleeve and was appalled to see that her sleeve was damp with perspiration. A line of sweat dribbled down from her brow from under her scarf. She halted the animal so that she could retch but she was too afraid to climb down for fear she would never get back on him.
So much for no morning sickness, she thought. Drops of vomit clung to her blouse and the sight of it only served to spur her anxiety. I need to get back. I need to get back NOW.
It occurred to her that she was no longer riding in a straight line and with the sun now directly overhead, her solar compass was gone. She prayed that she was going in the right direction.
Her head began to pound and she reached for her skin of water thinking it might be thirst that she just wasn’t recognizing.
With her head splitting and waves of light nausea crashing over her, she worked to distract herself by thinking of how Julia behaved with the nomads. Was it possible to change so much in such a short period of time? Was Julia being drugged? Was she poisoned from the sun? Had she just gone mad from British inbreeding? Before Julia began running to Ammon’s tent every night, she had at least been a companion in this misadventure. She was someone to scheme with whose future prospects were tightly aligned with Ella’s own. That all came to an abrupt stop when Julia became the leader’s woman. And then there was Ella’s pregnancy. Whatever friendship they had shared up until then altered when Julia found out Ella was pregnant. Whether it was envy or just that mysterious estrangement women who have never been with child must feel, Julia had emotionally separated herself from Ella.
It was hard enough to be out in the middle of nowhere held hostage by a primitive band of nomadic thugs. But to be pregnant, alone and a lifetime away from the man you loved was nearly unendurable.
Make that two lifetimes.
A sound shook Ella out of her thoughts. She had been riding for at least three hours and in all that time she had heard neither bird nor animal, just the steady sound of her horse’s hooves against rock. She scanned the horizon. She was closed in on one side by bushes and the endless sandy desert behind her. Ahead of her, the ground was rockier and flatter, a sure sign in Ella’s mind, that she was riding away from the desert and toward cultivated fields and the river.
In a panic, she applied her heels hard to her horse. He jerked to attention and launched forward into a gallop. She twined her fingers through his mane and gripped the reins. She hung on desperately as the horse careened down the path in front of her, spraying sharp rocks and pebbles behind him and up against her bare legs. She knew that to fall off at this speed would surely be fatal.
Oh, please, oh, please, she found herself praying as she neared the hilltop. Let the river be there. For my baby…
She felt her horse’s hind haunches gather for the energetic boost up the incline and she braced to stay on him as he charged up the hill. She heard nothing but the wind and the pounding of her own heart in her ears. As she sailed over the hill and began the wild descent down the other side, there was only desert before her unbroken by the green line of the Nile she so desperately longed to see. Just then, a rider appeared out of nowhere, directly in front of her. He wheeled his horse into her path, his Arabian robes flowing wildly about him in the stiff breeze, forcing her to veer off the trail.
Heaving with the exertion and oblivious to her frantic kicking to get him to run again, her horse sank to his knees on the ground. Ella jumped free at the last moment and scrambled away from the thrashing animal. The lone rider who had blocked her path dismounted and was striding toward her. Ella could see now that there were others with him.
With her hands and knees cut and bleeding, Ella sat on the ground, stunned, as the small group watched the large gelding quiver and then lie still. Slowly, Ammon turned his gaze on Ella.
It was a gaze
full of fury and murderous intent.
Chapter Sixteen
The ride back to the nomad’s camp was long and painful. Ella sat once more across Ammon’s lap. He gripped her tightly as they rode. At one point, Ella was sure she must have fainted. The sun beat down mercilesslly on the small band. Perhaps because they had just seen what the heat had done to their biggest, hardiest horse, they rode slowly. It was late afternoon when they arrived back at camp. Julia and the other women were standing at the edge of camp waiting for them.
Ammon grabbed Ella by the arm and lowered her to the ground. Her legs promptly gave way beneath her and she sagged to a sitting position by the horse’s feet. Julia ran to her but with a sharp word from Ammon, she stopped and simply stood watching. Seeing the worried look in Julia’s eyes, Ella feared she must look like how she felt: close to death. One of the Bedouin men had offered her water before loading her up for the ride, but Ella had not been thirsty. For a change, lack of water in the desert had not been the undoing of her. She still had half a skin of water when they caught her.
Ammon dismounted, threw Ella over his shoulder and stalked to the center of the camp. Ella was so exhausted that she took no notice of what people were doing. But in the back of her mind she could hear the women scurrying around, gathering the children, and greeting the other men.
Julia ran to Ammon as he deposited Ella on the ground by the five-foot tall wooden post jammed into the center of the camp. She grabbed the sleeve of his robe and Ella could feel her friend’s fear rippling off her in waves. Seeing Julia so frantic awakened something in Ella and she began to panic too.
“You can’t do this, Ammon!” Julia shouted. “She is with child! She is ana hamel!”
Ella watched Ammon shove Julia away so hard she fell down. Julia jumped up immediately and ran to face him again. When Ella saw her friend plead for her, her hands began to shake.
“I won’t let you do this!” Julia shouted. Ammon barked an order to his men. Two men grabbed Julia and dragged her to where the other women stood. Ella could hear Julia’s screams give way to sobs. It suddenly occurred to her that she was going to be killed. She twisted her head around to see if Ammon was wielding his large khopesh for the beheading and the fear pushed into her from every side.
She began to scream.
Ammon wrenched Ella to her feet and pushed her face-first into the post. He wasn’t as tall as Rowan and when he came around to the other side of the post to jerk her hands around it to tie them, she could easily look into his eyes to see the wild anger there. And something else. Humiliation. She had embarrassed him in front of his people and now she would die a gruesome death in order to raise him back up.
Ella knew she was powerless. She placed her cheek against the harsh splinters of the post to wait for whatever would come. She thought of Rowan going through his daily round back in Dothan, hurt and wondering why she hadn’t come home. She thought of their unborn child, the one Rowan would never know about—safe for now, tucked away from the harsh realities of the world in the cushioning pillow of her body. She found that above all else she was most sorry to have failed this little being who depended on her for life. She closed her eyes and tried to block out the sounds of Julia’s sobs and her own ragged breaths as she waited.
Ammon disappeared behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. The gesture startled Ella and she opened her eyes. He ripped her blouse from her body. She caught the motion out of the corner of her eye as he flung the shirt aside. The sun had gone down an hour earlier and Ella felt a cold breeze on her naked back and shoulders. It was then she knew she would live.
Her moment of relief was short lasting. The first lash felt like a white-hot poker lancing her tender skin in a prolonged, sizzling agony. She heard the sound of the whip as its long tail raced through the air and hit her high on her shoulder, tracing a line of fire all the way to her bare hip. She screamed and clutched the pole in front of her. The second lash came quickly behind the first, hitting her lower but biting into her with equal ferocity. Ella felt her knees give way with the brutality of the second lash but Ammon had tied her tightly to the post. Her secured arms were forced to support her body as she collapsed from the pain. After the second lash, Ella stopped hearing Julia’s hysteria or the jeers and laughter from the surrounding crowd. She only heard the whistle of the lash as it tore through the air before it assaulted her on her vulnerable, naked back. She felt and would remember every stroke that split open her back in jagged lines of agony. The pain encompassed her whole world—blotting out sight and sound—but she found she couldn’t faint. She couldn’t find release from the hell of what Ammon was doing to her. As she tensed against the seemingly endless onslaught, she felt the lashes—not quite as strong now—targeting lower down on her body. The last five strokes were dealt expertly and solidly against her backside and legs—both protected by her khaki trousers.
When twelve lashes had been administered, she waited—quivering, her heart racing, her legs still supporting her by leaning against the post—as Ammon flung down the whip. She forced herself to look him in the eye as he untied her hands. That seemed to startle him but he returned her gaze. She could swear she saw the barest upturn on the corner of his lips as he looked at her. By God, there it was. Respect.
Before she could fall he caught her in his arms and carried her to her tent.
The movement of being carried so swiftly away, combined with the fact that he deposited her face down on her sleeping pallet, produced a terrible wave of nausea in Ella. She wasn’t sick but her head spun as if the tent had been picked up by a whirling maelstrom and she was in the center of it. The smell of him in the small tent was overpowering so she knew when he had left by the sudden absence of the choking rank odor. The next thing she felt were cool fingers brush her hair from her damp forehead as Julia murmured to her.
“It’s okay, Ella,” she said. “It’s over now. You’re going to be okay.”
Her back and shoulders were ablaze with pain, each stripe competing with the other for dominance of agony. They crisscrossed in vicious raised welts, some bloody, the rest just angry and swollen. She bit the dirty cloth pallet when Julia touched her shoulder and stifled her scream even though only Julia would care. Julia dabbed an unguent on Ella’s wounds.
“How do you feel, Ella?” Julia whispered. But Ella didn’t answer. She was alive. Anything beyond that would be a lie. She wasn’t good. She wasn’t fine. She was only alive. She thought of the baby. We are alive, and the thought nearly brought a smile to her face.
That night she slept fitfully, her back in constant pain. She couldn’t eat or drink, her head felt like jackhammers where operating from the inside. Before she finally fell into a fevered sleep, she noted that Gita had joined Julia and her last thought before oblivion was that maybe she was going to die after all.
When her broken and beaten body finally succumbed to the effects of the torturous day, Ella fell into a deep and troubled dream. The camp was quiet and she was alone in her tent. Suddenly, the tent flap opened and Rowan entered. He knelt by her bed and helped her to a sitting position.
“Rowan, you’re here,” she said, tears mingling with her words. “You’re here in Egypt.”
“Not only that, babe,” he said, his grin reassuring and familiar. “I’m here in 1922.”
“I don’t even care how it happened,” Ella said. She fell into his arms and realized her back didn’t hurt any more. “I’m just so glad you’re here. I have so much to tell you, Rowan. So much has happened. I’ve been such a fool. Can you ever forgive me and give me a second chance?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“Rowan, I have something to tell you.” Ella pulled away but held him at arm’s length. “We’re going to have a baby.”
She watched him as a slow grin spread across his face. “Are you sure?” he said, glancing down at her stomach.
“Yes. Are you cool with that?”
In answer, he took her
into his arms and kissed her like she hadn’t remembered him doing since Heidelberg.
“I love you, Rowan,” she said, so happy she thought she’d faint.
“I love you, too, Ella,” he said, kissing her again. “Looks like we’re a family.”
Howard Carter’s Camp, the Valley of the Kings
Rowan woke with a start. A line of perspiration had broken out across his brow. He watched the moon through the flap of his tent and felt an overwhelming disappointment filter through him.
Just a dream. It had seemed so real. Ella had been so….
He sat up in bed and felt the excitement of his dream and his tumultuous thoughts ricochet around in his head.
She’s pregnant.
He wanted to jump out of bed, pull on clothes and resume the search immediately. Not only was she alive, she was pregnant with their child. Dream or not, he knew this as surely as he knew anything.
Whatever else might happen from here on, he had to do whatever was necessary to find her and bring her home. There was a baby now.
* * * *
Julia knelt by Ella and soaked a wet cloth in a basin.
“Who is Rowan?” she asked.
“Why? Have you heard something?”
“You said his name while you were in your fever.”
Julia placed the wet cloth gently on Ella’s head. Ella was still lying on her stomach, her face turned toward Julia.
“He’s my husband,” Ella said.
“I’m so sorry, Ella. I really am. I tried to calm Ammon but he just went berserk. For a minute there, I thought he was going to kill you.”
“For a minute there, I did, too.”
“Since they won’t touch you because of your condition, I didn’t think he would beat you like that.”
“Well, now we know it’s less about protecting the baby and more about keeping themselves untainted.”
Journey to the Lost Tomb (Rowan and Ella Book 2) Page 17
