Sir Hen-er-ree. This is what they called themselves, Father had told her. Sir this and sir that. Did they call their women thus? Sir Alya. It made her giggle.
Ears always pricked for the slightest sound she made, Bahir’s head swung in her direction.
She shrugged to indicate it was nothing, and went back to scouring the desert landscape for something of interest.
With midday heat trapped within its fabric confines the litter grew unbearably hot. She tied one of the curtains back. The first breeze of evening fluttered through the silk tassels and made their shadows dance across the desert floor.
Bahir rode in the front. Behind him came Henry and his pretty friend. Newt. What manner of name was Newt? If she dared she would ask them. Perhaps somewhere on this trip Bahir would allow her near enough to do so.
Her eyes ached from crying. Dry and gritty now that she had no more tears to shed. Behind her lay Father and Nasira. Her beautiful chamber draped in sunlight silk that her father had given to her when she became a woman. Her peaceful rooftop courtyard where she stood to watch the sun set, or sat beneath the canopy and painted. In the heat of the day she might lay upon a bright bed of cushions content to drowse and dream.
In her wake came the heavily laden camels with her baggage. Filled also with gifts, Bahir told her, for her new family. Spices, silks, costly perfume oils, ouds and attars, and rare myrrh. Costly, precious gifts to buy their love for her.
Bahir thought her ignorant. In faraway Genoa, her family would view her as strange and the enemy. Had they not sent their brothers, fathers, husbands and uncles to fight her kind? To bring them the word of God. Her father had raised her Christian, so she had that in her favor, but not much else. They would not see a niece or a fellow Christian when they saw her. They would see a hated foe, a nonbeliever.
What did Henry see? Or his pretty friend?
They saw a mound of dark fabric. A pair of eyes peeking over the top of her niqab.
She tweaked the front curtain for a better view of Newt. Near as tall as Henry, but younger and narrower across the chest and shoulders. His dark hair fell to his shoulders. He had the sort of face to make a girl sigh and pine like the descriptions of the poets. Only now he did not look so poetic, perched like a nut atop his camel. He would be bruised by the time they stopped to rest.
Bahir planned to travel well into the night, to take advantage of the coolness. They would stop to rest through the hottest time and travel when the sun lost some of its blaze.
Henry swung in his saddle and looked at her. Even from here she caught the pure blue of those eyes. His kaffiyeh concealed the rest of his face. A mercy, as covered in grime and dirt as it was. His people called hers savages. Hah! At least they were savages not frightened of soap and water. She lifted her chin at Henry and dropped the curtain closed.
* * * *
As much as he sympathized with Newt’s pain, Henry stood ready to pound him into the desert by the time Bahir called a halt midway through the next day. They entered a small oasis, barely more than a few palms sheltering a deep well.
“Jesu and his ever-loving Father’s balls.” Newt tumbled off his kneeling camel. He arched his back this way and that and hobbled a few steps forward. “I have never ridden anything more uncomfortable.”
“You get used to them.” Henry watered the animals as Bahir got Alya settled.
Bringing down her litter, Bahir made a makeshift tent with the coverings for her to crawl inside and sleep through the heat of the day.
“I will never grow used to that.” Newt stood beside his camel and sneered at her.
Eyelids closing against the bright day, she chewed her cud.
“Here.” Henry showed Newt how to drape his kaffiyeh over the camel’s saddle, and prop it to make a shady patch. “You need to sleep now. We will move again once it grows cooler.”
Newt eyed his small tent. “Will we eat, or is the big bastard determined to starve us as well as break our asses?”
“Later.” Henry tossed him a small sack of dates. “Put those in your cake hole and stop whining.”
Alya had crawled in beside her camel and out of his view.
“English!” Bahir stalked toward him. “Keep drawing water. You smell like a goat, and I will not be subjected to your stench all the way to Alexandria.
Solely based on who made the demand, Henry considered objecting, but he suspected he did smell like a goat.
The fabric surrounding Alya twitched. So the lady wanted to see what happened all about her, did she? If Bahir knew he’d probably slap a blindfold on her as well as the rest of her swaddling.
In a desert, you never wasted water, so he drew a small pail for himself and moved between two date palms.
“Here.” Bahir tossed him a bag of sweet sand.
Henry caught it. “Would you like to wash the crack of my ass for me.”
As he’d said it in English, Newt snickered.
Clever enough to catch the intent of his comment, Bahir glowered at him.
Henry met his stare.
With a sneer, Bahir turned away and yelled orders at the guards. A few baleful looks tossed toward him gave Henry a childish surge of satisfaction. The big turd might need to watch his back.
Stripping off his tunic, Newt joined him. “God’s wounds, it’s hotter than hell.”
“You grow used to it.” Henry shucked his loose linen pants and hauled the tunic over his head.
“Nay, you don’t.” Newt wet himself and spread sweet sand all over his body. “Been in this sodding place for more than a year looking for you. I’ll never fancy being baked alive like a loaf of bread. Give me the cool rains of home over this sweat hole.”
Henry tried not to remember cool autumn rain that brought the promise of winter. Fresh April showers auguring spring. Wintery hard-driving tempests straight off the freezing sea. Nay, he had not allowed himself to remember. At the end of this journey they waited for him. He could almost taste the rain on his lips. Sweet sand stung the cuts and sores on his arms but he worked it into his skin. Bahir insisted the servants bathe regularly, but working like an ox meant many cuts and scrapes.
Newt hissed. “What happened?” Staring at his back, Newt’s expression grew clouded with anger. He jerked his head at Bahir. “He do that?”
“Only one or two.” Henry shrugged. “The worst came before him.” He had not seen his back, but his obedience had come slowly. Mostly at the hands of the couple who found him and nursed him back to health. A few more from the slave traders who objected to his attitude. Bahir had whipped him in the beginning, trying to beat the resistance out of him. It galled Henry most that it had worked. Sooner or later every man’s head bowed beneath the pressure of wanting to live. The big bastard tended to threaten now more than whip. The memory of Bahir’s whipping had kept every servant in the master’s courtyard under control.
“I’ll kill him.” Rigid, gaze locked on Bahir, Newt stood.
Henry used the water to wash the sweet sand off. “Not if I get to him first.”
* * * *
Alya should turn her head and not watch as the men cleaned themselves. Bahir would be displeased. When she had gone with Nasira to the suq, she had been forced to drop her gaze away from the partial nudity of the beggars and ignore the mostly naked slaves herded into pens.
Well, if Henry did not want her to look, he should not stand where she had a clear sight of him. Even now, darkened by the sun, Henry’s skin remained fairer than the men about him. Would his fairer skin feel cool to the touch? Or would it be warm and dry, surprising her like the