Sad eyes gouging her heart, Father dropped his arms. “I will be careful.”
“Why can I not stay and also be careful?” She refused the traveling robe Nasira held out to her.
Nasira sniffed and wiped her eyes. She had been crying most of the night with Alya.
Father dropped his head. He took a deep breath and looked up again, straightening his shoulders. “It is decided,” he said. “Bahir will travel with you. When you arrive in Genoa you can decide to send him home or keep him with you.” He cleared his throat. “I hope you will keep him with you. You will find no greater champion than Bahir.”
As Nasira tugged the traveling robe about her, Alya stood rigid. She refused to participate in this.
“I am also sending the English with you.”
The news shook her out of her black mood for a moment. “Why?”
“His people have come to buy his freedom. It seems he is an important lord in his country. He will teach you how to go on amongst our kind.”
“They are not my kind.”
“They are.” Father strode toward her. “You must work hard to become who you are. Listen to the English, mind what he tells you, and you will make it easier for yourself.”
“Imagine.” Nasira gave a choked titter. “An English lord sweeping our courtyard, minding our goats.” Nasira attempted to lighten the air, but Alya refused to be cajoled like a sulky child. Like a discarded fruit rind her father tossed her away.
Father took her by the shoulder. “Come. I would have you out of the city before the sun rises.”
This was happening. He was sending her away. Alya’s tears welled again. “Do not do this, Father. Please, I am begging you.”
“I must.” He turned and stalked for the door. “If you are not down in a few moments, I will send Bahir to fetch you. He will tie you to your camel if he must, but you will go to Genoa.”
* * * *
Henry ducked his head and hid his smile. The look on Newt’s face was beyond price.
Newt grimaced. “I am not riding that.”
“Then you walk.” Bahir checked the straps on the litter one by one.
Even if he did want to run the bastard through, Henry admired his thoroughness. It galled him they would share this journey. Even more so knowing they shared a mutual goal. They had both pledged their lives to protect his girl on the wall.
Alya. He whispered her name, trying it out on his tongue. It meant heaven, divinity and so she had become to him. The lofty deity he scrabbled beneath. Dear God, Roger would kick his ass for that one. His breath hitched. His oldest brother, Roger, whom he had thought never to see again.
“Why can I not ride a horse?” Newt followed Bahir around the camel. “You have horses here. Not terrible stock either.”
Drawing himself up, Bahir glowered at Newt. “We have the finest horses of anywhere. Bred light of foot, soft of mouth and faster than the wind.”
Snorting, Newt crossed his arms. “Aye, but how good are they at stamping a foot soldier into the ground. Or biting a sword arm off?”
“You English.” Bahir shuddered. “Savages.”
“Savages who don’t ride camels.” Newt smirked.
“Then you are destined to be a footsore thirsty savage.” Bahir smirked back.
Dear God, they would still be arguing when the sun set. “They are not that bad to ride,” Henry said. “They sway a bit, and smell, but they don’t need to stop for water nearly as often as we do.”
“Aye, but I—”
“Get on the bedamned camel, Newt.”
Hidden by her hijab Alya stood in the doorway. Shoulders slumped, she dragged her feet to the litter.
Her nurse kept an arm about her shoulders. “All will be well, habibti. You will see. Your new family will love you just as we do.”
The master entered the courtyard, his expression an open wound as he stared at his daughter. They might never meet again. Henry understood some of his pain.
“Will you not say goodbye to your father, habibti?” They stood less than two feet away from him. Closer than Henry had ever been to the girl on the wall. Subtle notes of night-flowering jasmine twined around his senses.
“He sends me away.” Her niqab muffled her sniffles. “I have nothing to say to him.”
The slave wanted to bow to her pain, let her feel his silent support. However, Henry understood only too well what she risked by not making her parting sweet.
He slipped around the camel to stand beside her.
Bahir stiffened. “Get away from her.”
“Wish your father God be with him,” Henry said.
Her gaze flew to his face. Eyes like the dappled shade of the woodland, part green, parts golden stared at him.
He shook off Bahir’s grip on his shoulder. “You cannot know what the future holds, or if you might get this chance again. Tell him now that you love him. Carry that memory with you.”
Chapter 4
Newt’s face amused Henry endlessly. His kaffiyeh hid the smile that came more easily as the distance between them and Cairo widened.
“What manner of beast is this?” Newt pushed the kaffiyeh away from his mouth. Sitting stick straight in the saddle, his legs cinched the camel’s sides in a death grip. “And why can I not control it?”
“She follows the lead camel.” He pointed to Bahir’s back. “Sit back.” He tapped the backrest behind him. “See how Bahir hooks his legs up? Do the same, you will be more comfortable.”
“Is this English you speak?” Bahir turned his head to speak over his shoulder. “You are an interesting man, Henry.” The way the big sod said his name dragged it out ceaselessly into Hen-er-ree. “You speak your mother tongue, French and, apparently, Arabic.”
It only surprised him it had taken Bahir most of the day to mention that he had used her language with Alya.
“You bear watching.” Bahir nodded. “You appear to be a man of many secrets.”
“You asked me no questions.” Henry envied the ease of the big man atop his saddle. He swayed with the motion of the beast beneath him. A slow, somnambulant sway that blended with the silken swish of the camel’s feet on the sand.
Bahir grunted. “How long have you spoken Arabic?”
“Long enough.” Three years in which he had counted the days despite himself. “Ask me why I learned it.”
A long silence followed, and then Bahir said, “Why?”
“So I could tell you how much I want to rip your head off and shove it up your ass.”
* * * *
Alya’s cheeks burned at the English’s language. Hen-er-ree. She formed his name on a whisper. Did it have a meaning? Could it refer to his mind-stealing eyes? Blue as pure lapis lazuli, bluer than the merciless sky arcing above them. She had never seen eyes that color. They were wasted on a man who tended her father’s goats, and used his mighty shoulders for nothing more than toting rocks, sacks and whatever Bahir bade him carry.
Except, Father had said he bore the title lord in his own land, which made him one of the infidel knights.
She had caught a glimpse of them once when they rode into Cairo to speak with the sultan. With metal tunics, massive horses, and long, straight swords,