Tall stone buildings rose on either side of the narrow streets, almost blocking out the clear, blue sky. The heat in Genoa lay over her in a humid blanket. It felt thicker than the dry desert air of Cairo. The smells, too, reminded her how far from home she had traveled. Genoa smelled of horse, leather, and human waste. Occasionally the delicate floral scents from the brightly colored window boxes would provide a reprieve, but otherwise the city stank.
Like tangled thread, the streets wound up from the port and into the hills beyond. Up there, grand stone edifices peered down their noses at the braying, brawling city below them.
The greenery amazed her. Growing over walls, trailing down from window boxes, choking up small gardens and squares. The tall, spindle-like trees Henry called cypress trees abounded, wafting their woodsy-herbal scent throughout the city as Henry led her up toward the elegant villas.
The streets grew quieter the higher they went. The flood of people slowed to a trickle of elegantly dressed men and women strolling in clusters of two or three. Liveried, another new word, servants bowed their heads in passing and carried on about their business. Henry told her they wore the colors of their masters.
In his new tunic, Henry looked very fine this morning. Fine, but different and as much as she admired his broad shoulders and trim waist, his new clothes marked him as separate from her. Not the man who used to stare up at her in the courtyard at twilight. She did not think he knew she had seen him there in the shadows, always watching her with stark hunger on his face. A sharp pang shot through her middle. She missed that man and their secret connection. Now he spoke a different tongue, dressed as another, and even carried himself like another man.
“In your tongue, how would I greet you?”
He smiled at her, his golden hair framing his head. “You would say, ‘good morrow’ if it was morning. Or you could say ‘good day.’ If we were particular friends, you could say ‘hello.’”
Her breath caught when he smiled at her. Like a stray beam of sunlight wandered into her day. “Are we particular friends?”
He laughed. “Hello, Lady Alya.”
Shyness beset her but she tried anyway. “Hello, Henry.”
“Perfect.” He tightened his grip about her fingers. Bahir did not like that Henry touched her to lead her through the city, but this was how they did it here. Even Bahir must see she was not the only lady walking about with her hand resting atop her escort’s.
She looked over her shoulder at Bahir. “Hello, Bahir.”
Bahir tried to frown, but ended up grinning instead. “Hello, Alya.”
“Lady Alya,” Henry said. “Only her family or her husband may address her simply as Alya.”
Bahir tensed and glared at Henry.
Henry sneered back.
These two would come to blows any moment and today they irked her. She did not want their constant enmity to ruin her day. “Bahir is my family,” she said. “So, he may call me Alya. He is all that I have.”
Clearing his throat, Bahir stared above her head. “We should walk.”
“How do you say that in English?” She turned back to Henry.
English turned out to be a funny language, full of new sounds and ways to contort her mouth. For the first time since leaving Cairo, Alya felt light and happy. The weight of her father and her journey lifted long enough for the girl she used to be to come out and play.
Bells pealed the hour as noon, and the heat drove them back to their boat. Voices rising and falling in prayer, a solemn procession of monks crossed their path. Alya stood beside Henry and waited for the men to pass. Sunlight bounced off the gleaming pates of their tonsures, the heavy incense lingered in their path. She had followed her father’s faith since birth, and this was the first time Alya had heard the mass sung. She wanted to follow the monks to the tall, forbidding church at the end of the square, but Bahir shifted beside her. Soon she would not have to conceal her faith from those about her.
The activity on the docks receded as the devout went to prayer. Their ship bobbed at anchor in its place amongst all the other tall masts.
Newt lounged on the deck looking rumpled and smug. As they climbed aboard he rose. “Did you have a good walk?”
“We did.” Alya answered before Henry or Bahir. Her head buzzed with all the things she had seen. Later, when the heat of the day drove her to rest, she would unpack all the sights in her head and examine them.
Henry approached Newt, his shoulders tense. “Did you find what we were looking for?”
“Aye.” Newt straightened his tunic. “Alya’s family has a villa in the city. They are at home.”
Chapter 9
Today Henry would lose his girl on the wall. Belowdecks, Bahir took her morning bathing water and saw her dressed as he and Newt waited to escort her. The dull blade in his chest twisted again, widening the aching cavern. In his years in Cairo, she had stood as his beacon of hope. A beautiful star in his dark firmament. Those twilight moments a bittersweet reminder that he yet lived.
He would return her to her family and safety so that after today she would no longer stand alone in a hostile world. The rightness of it did not alleviate his ache over her loss.
Newt strode toward him, a bundle and dark cloth tucked beneath his arm. He surveyed Henry from boot to crown, and nodded. “You look more like the Sir Henry who used to box my ears.”
“They were an easy target.” Henry hid beneath carefree grin. When Newt came to him as a lad on the cusp of manhood, those ears had stood out and begged to be cuffed.
Newt chuckled and held his parcel out to Henry. “I found this the day you were taken. It got trampled beneath hooves, but I had it repaired. It is time for you to don it again.”
Henry took the surcoat from him. It shook in his hands and he held it open before him. Dragon head proper upon argent. The colors of Sir Arthur of Anglesea. His colors. The ones he had worn so proudly on his chest as he rode to join the pilgrimage. Colors he had seen so stained with blood and corruption they made him feel sullied. He shoved them at Newt’s chest. “I will not wear this.”
Newt squared off. “It is time, Sir Henry.” He labored the “sir” and pushed the surcoat back.
How to explain that it would never be time to wear these? That man had died long before he’d been pulled from his horse in battle. The Henry who wore these colors had ridden out, despite his family’s vehement protests, so sure he understood the rights and wrongs of the world. Wrapped in more than a silk surcoat. Enshrouded in his sense of righteousness and holy fire. One by one his dreams of glory had drowned in a wave of vice and cruelty. The man he had become blazoned no colors, held no faith, and had no right to those things anymore. He shoved the surcoat into Newt’s chest. “Nay.”
“Aye.” Newt pushed him back a step. “This is who you are. Son of Sir Arthur of Anglesea, knight of the realm, and the man who taught me how to hold my head up.”
“Sir Henry?” Alya took his breath away in the red silk. Her sooty hair lay in a gleaming sable cascade down her back.
Newt punched his shoulder. “A lady such as that deserves a knight by her side.”
Henry donned the surcoat. It had grown snug across the chest and shoulders. Bloody thing near strangled him, and he tugged at the neckline.
Alya touched the dragon’s head. “What is this you wear?”
“They are my father’s colors.” Her fingers burned through the layers over his chest.
Stepping back, she tilted her head and studied him. “You look very fine, Henry.”
“Sir Henry.”