The Elusive Bride

Seven

26th October, 1822

Early afternoon

Anya’s tent in our camp at a desert oasis

When she emerged from Anya’s tent, Emily discovered that most of the men of their party had decamped, leaving only a small number on guard.

She paused beside Arnia and Dorcas, where they sat on rugs helping some of the other women prepare the evening meal. “Where are they?”

She didn’t need to specify who “they” were.

Arnia snorted, an eloquent sound. She didn’t look up as she replied, “The major sent scouts out. They returned to report there was another band of Berbers, of the same tribe that attacked us yesterday, camped a little way ahead, and they have more cultists with them.”

“Naturally,” Dorcas said, slicing a cleaned yam into a pottery bowl, “our men were all keen to turn the tables and attack the others before they can attack us.” She looked up at Emily. “That’s where they’ve gone.”

Emily frowned. “It’s almost like a game to them. A chess game, perhaps, but a game nonetheless.”

“Our men, their men.” Arnia shrugged. “All are warriors. They live to fight.”

“That is truth.” One of the Berber women nodded sagely. “Any fight is welcome to them, but they are happiest when they fight to defend us.” She, too, shrugged philosophically. “What would you? It is their role, so they are pleased to be useful.” With a gesture, she encompassed the circle of women happily preparing the meal. “As are we. We are not so different in that.”

Emily hadn’t thought of the matter in that light. After a moment, she nodded in acknowledgment, and moved on, strolling along the lake’s edge to where Anya and the older women-the dowagers-sat on rugs in the shade of a palm grove.

Anya waved her to join them. She sank down onto a rug next to Girla, whose fingers were busy knotting a fringe. Emily sat with her arms around her drawn-up knees. Resting her chin on them, she gazed out over the lake, gently rippling in the faint breeze, and let her mind wander.

After a time, Anya said, both voice and face serene, “If, as we must hope, our men return victorious, there will be celebrations again tonight.”

The other women nodded. Katun said, “They will expect it-it is their due, after all.”

That, Emily could understand, but…“Why is it that men seem to believe that protecting a woman somehow makes her…theirs?” She felt a blush heat her cheeks, but persisted. “They protect you, defend you from attack, and then growl and scowl if you do something they don’t like.” She glanced around the circle, saw no one laughing, not even smiling. All were listening, some nodding in understanding. “It’s almost as if once they’ve fought for you, they’ve won you-that after that they somehow, in some unspecified way, own you.”

Her heart may have made up her mind regarding Gareth, but she hadn’t forgotten his dog-in-the-manger behavior over Cathcart, something she’d been reminded of only a few hours before, when they’d arrived at the oasis and Gareth had once again transformed into a bear, dispersing the young Berber men who had gathered around eager to help her from Doha’s saddle.

She didn’t like being treated in such a patently possessive way.

Katun heaved a huge sigh. “It is the bane all women must bear.”

Anya’s lips lightly curved. “All women whose men are warriors, at least.” The others nodded. Anya’s old eyes met Emily’s. “It is the price one pays to have a warrior as your mate. He will protect and keep you safe, but in return…” Her smile widened. “They are, in truth, such oddly vulnerable creatures, at least where their women are concerned.”

“Their woman becomes their one true vulnerability,” Girla offered, “so as warriors to the core, of course they guard her most fiercely.”

“From anything and everything-real or imagined.”

The others laughed and nodded at Katun’s bald statement.

“It is truly said,” Anya concluded, “that the true value a warrior places on his woman is revealed by the depth of his…what is the word?”

“Possessiveness?” Emily suggested.

Anya pulled a face. “I was thinking of protection, but possession? That is true as well, I suppose. It is the other side of the coin, no?”

Emily thought, then nodded. “Yes, you’re right. Where one ends and the other begins…with warriors, the line is blurred.”

On top of a dune some miles from the oasis, Gareth, Ali-Jehan, and Mooktu passed Gareth’s spyglass among them as, on their bellies in the sand, they assessed the strength of the band of Berbers and cultists gathered in the dip below.

“There are many more of your cultists than I had expected to see.” Frowning, Ali-Jehan lowered the spyglass. “If they had such numbers, why did they not make a better show against us yesterday?”

Gareth had been wondering the same thing. There were significantly more cultists than tribesmen below. He took back the spyglass, again assessed the numbers. “In light of what we’re seeing, I suspect yesterday was a feint-a battle they never expected to win, but one to make us feel they pose no real threat. That’s why the other Berbers left so abruptly-they were committed only while the cultists were there to see. Once the cultists fell, they didn’t need to remain.”

“So it was by way of a charade, in the hope we would…what is the phrase, let down our guard?”

Gareth nodded.

“There’s too many of them,” Mooktu murmured. “And those cultists down there-most have the look of assassins.”

Gareth had noted the same worrying facts.

Ali-Jehan frowned. “We might be able to take them, yet…” He waggled one hand. “With my mother and the other women in the camp”-he looked at Gareth-“and your women as well, I would prefer not to engage this group. I know my cousins the El-Jiri, and they are fierce warriors. If you say those others are also very able, then…”

When Ali-Jehan unexpectedly fell silent, Gareth glanced at him. “Can we avoid them?”

Ali-Jehan met his eyes, pulled a face. “No. The El-Jiri know my routes well, and they know the area around here as well as I.” He looked down at the camp. “Nearby is a fine place for an attack.”

Gareth hesitated. He and Ali-Jehan had got on well from their first meeting. They were much of a kind, warriors in more or less civilian guise, responsible for a band of civilians who traveled with them. They were of similar age and, Gareth judged, not all that dissimilar in character. With that last in mind, he ventured, “Is there any way we can contact your cousins down there-some way that won’t alert the cultists?”

Ali-Jehan looked at him, then looked down at the camp, surveying the outer edges, the horse and camel lines. “Perhaps.” He turned back to Gareth. “Why?”

Gareth explained his thinking, his putative strategy. A smile slowly spread across Ali-Jehan’s face. At the end, he nodded. “This we will do.”

They scrambled back down the dune, then Ali-Jehan picked two men, two of his extended family, and carefully explained what he wanted them to do.

Gareth and Ali-Jehan resumed thir position on the dune, and watched, patient and still, while the two tribesmen successfully carried out their mission.

It was another hour before the leader of the El-Jiri Berbers walked into their midst. He and Ali-Jehan exchanged elaborate greetings at some length, then set formality aside and got down to business.

Gareth was introduced and joined them.

Half an hour later, the El-Jiri leader smiled-a gesture that foretold death for someone. He nodded to Ali-Jehan. “It is good. We will do as you say. I must return to my men and pass the word. You will see when we are ready.”

Ali-Jehan smiled a similarly chilling smile. “And then we will rid our lands of these minions of the snake.”

Gareth watched the two Berber sheiks take leave of each other, watched the El-Jiri leader stride off through the dunes.

The unrolling of his strategy had gone more smoothly than he’d thought. With luck, the execution would be equally successful.

Emily was standing chatting about the cook-pots when the men, who had been absent for most of the day, rode back into camp-victorious.

There was no need to wonder at the outcome of their day’s adventures-the whoops, the prancing horses, the face-splitting grins were declaration enough.

Other Berbers arrived with them, including a leader who Ali-Jehan took to introduce to Anya. Relegated as usual to the company of the women, Emily heard only that the newcomer was the sheik of the El-Jiri.

Puzzled, she exchanged a glance with Arnia, beside her. “Weren’t the El-Jiri the Berber tribe who attacked us yesterday?”

Arnia nodded. “It seems they turned against the cultists.”

This time, however, there were wounded. Emily went to help tend them. From those she helped care for she gained a better description of what had happened.

Assassins. The word made her blood run cold. She’d heard too many tales of the viciousness of the cult’s most hardened followers. As she understood it, there had been more cultists, mostly assassins, than all the Berbers combined, but with Gareth commanding a joint attack-quite how he’d managed to get the two normally bickering Berber tribes to work together she didn’t hear-but all together and well directed, they’d triumphed.

Half the cultists had died, and the other half…they were the El-Jiri’s reward.

When she clearly didn’t understand what that meant, the woman whose husband she was helping bandage leaned close and whispered, “The El-Jiri sometimes deal in slaves. A group of men trained to fight? They would be happy to have them to trade.”

Emily paused, mentally questioning how she felt about that. But she’d seen too much of the cultists’ handiwork to think it anything other than fitting.

When she was free again, the sun had sunk low, and it was time for the evening meal. As the dowagers had predicted, there was a feastlike atmosphere, with much wild talking, laughing, and backslapping among the men. The women…

Now she looked more closely, Emily saw not resignation so much as fond affection in the women’s glances, in the way they waited upon their men. Their defenders and protectors. She’d heard enough to realize that, the way matters had stood before this afternoon, their caravan had been in grave danger of being attacked and overwhelmed when they attempted to move on.

The action of the afternoon had eradicated that threat. The men had indeed defended and protected them.

She saw Gareth across the fire and was conscious of a flaring desire to go to him, to congratulate him, to smile and fill his cup and offer him the sweetmeats being passed around.

But she and he weren’t married.

She wasn’t his-so he wasn’t hers.

She didn’t have the right to share his triumphs, to laud and celebrate, and make much of him, as the other women whose husbands had fought were doing with their men. Even Arnia, she noted, smiled and waited on Mooktu, sitting just behind him, leaning against the back of one broad shoulder as she ate from her own plate.

Emily slowly circled the fire. Her eyes returned to Gareth-and his found her as she paused by Anya’s side. He smiled, and she smiled back-honestly, joyously-feeling within her the same emotion that colored the married women’s eyes-but then Ali-Jehan asked him something and he turned to answer.

Emily sank to the rug beside and a little behind Anya.

A second later, the older woman reached out and, without turning her head, patted her hand. “They are difficult, our men, but they are worth it in the end.”

Her gaze fixed across the fire pit, Emily discovered she agreed.

Three days later, a single cultist, disheveled, dusty, bearing wounds that, untended, had festered, groveled on the flagstones of a small courtyard in a quiet section of old Cairo.

Uncle looked down on the bedraggled head of the man who had just reported the complete and utter defeat of the men he had sent to capture the major. One question burned in his brain. “What of my son?”

The man, forehead to the stones, visibly shook with fear. “Gone,” he managed to gabble. “They’re all gone. All fallen.”

Uncle knew a moment of sheer madness, of keening devastation, but by sheer force of will he held it all within. “The Arabs we hired turned against us.” He still couldn’t take that in. In India, no one-no one-would dare betray the Black Cobra.

According to all precepts, he should ensure the offending Arabs were suitably dealt with-their children slaughtered, their women debauched and killed, a long slow death for the men. His vengeful soul cried out for that succor-he craved vengeance for his only son-but here, now, he didn’t have the time.

And he was running low on men. He had few of the elite he’d left India with left.

Swallowing his fury, his grief, his rage, wasn’t easy, but if he didn’t satisfy his master, all would be in vain.

He forced himself to swing away from the groveling man, to glare at his acting lieutenant, the one who would now take Muhlal’s place at his side. “Make sure-sure-that the major and his people are captured the instant the caravan comes in. Put men-”

“No. Uncle…”

Uncle swung back to see the man on the flagstones raise his hand in placation. “What?”

“The caravan is not headed here. I heard the Arabs talking before we were attacked-the major’s caravan heads to Alexandria.”

Uncle narrowed his eyes. “You are sure?”

“On my life, I swear it. The El-Jiri knew the Arabs with the major-they said they go to Alexandria.”

Uncle wasted no more time. Swinging to face his lieutenant, he rapped out, “Get the fastest boat you can find on the river-we must reach Alexandria before them.”

31st October, 1822

Before dinner

Anya’s tent in the Berber camp

They arrived on the outskirts of Alexandria just before noon the next day. The El-Jiri had taken their captives to some desert meeting place to the south. Gareth hadn’t asked too much about their plans.

He had suggested his party separate from the caravan some little distance from the town walls, but Ali-Jehan would have none of it. The caravan halted at their usual grounds, then Ali-Jehan, his mother, and a detachment of the guards, walked with them to the town gate.

There they parted, with much slapping of backs and shaking of hands-and, Gareth noted, embraces among the women. If asked two months before whether the Governor of Bombay’s niece could find her feet in a Berber tribe, he would have said no, but he hadn’t then met Emily. He was beginning to think very little could seriously discompose her for long; she seemed to possess the happy knack of coping, regardless.

Emily blinked rapidly and as they strode off down the street, looked back one last time to wave to Anya. She was even sorry to see the last of Ali-Jehan. He’d been an excellent companion for Gareth. Then again…she glanced at the man striding forcefully a pace ahead of her, his Arab robes swishing about his calves. After their days in the desert, he looked every inch an Arab sheik, and they his retinue, trailing after him.

Consorting with Ali-Jehan had uncovered a more primitive streak, or at least made it more readily detectable. She wondered how long it would take for the patina of civilization to gloss over it again.

Ali-Jehan had told them of a guesthouse run by a relative in which they would be safe. It lay in the Arab quarter behind the docks, but to reach it they had to traverse the town.

They did so at a steady, unhurried pace, once again all careful to do nothing, say nothing, that might get them noticed by any watchers the cult had posted. This time, as Gareth had lectured them, it wasn’t simply a matter of avoiding being caught. If the cultists knew for certain that they’d arrived, they would be systematically hunted-and given that they had no transport onward yet organized, being sighted at all raised the prospect of being cornered before they could get away.

By the time they left the central part of the town behind, Emily’s nerves had tightened, stretching taut in a manner she’d forgotten over recent days.

Eyes flicking watchfully from side to side beneath the veil of her chador, she discovered something else to miss about traveling with the Berbers. Security. Safety. She’d forgotten what not having them was like.

Accustomed to command, to managing men, Gareth was aware of the rising tension in the group at his heels.

He shared it.

Alexandria was an ancient town. The narrow, twisting streets, with house walls built right to their edges, formed warrens tailor-made for assassins. If assassins were trailing them, by the time any of them saw the danger, it would be too late.

The last days had seen them cross out of the desert into the wide, flat fields of the Nile delta. Low lying, with numerous minor rivers cutting through the landscape carrying the waters of the mighty Nile to the Mediterranean Sea, the delta region was not only easier to traverse but also provided much better cover in which to conceal a caravan. Ali-Jehan had planned to take his people across the main channel of the Nile today, so that they would be well away from the usual places where caravans to Alexandria camped.

Gareth had enjoyed his time with the Berbers, and hoped they would be safe, that no harm would befall them through helping him and his small company.

He glanced briefly to the side, from the corner of his eye confirming that Emily was walking no more than a step behind him. While they’d been with the Berbers, he’d known she was safe. Safe with their women-as safe as she could be. Now…

He was once again gripped by a familiar tension, felt responsibility for her safety once again weigh heavily on his shoulders. He didn’t resent the burden; not for one minute would he have handed it to another.

What he did resent was that, courtesy of his mission-no, courtesy of the Black Cobra-she, her life and her future, were once again in real danger.

Under real threat.

He wasn’t at all happy to be back in civilization.

They found the guesthouse, and were made welcome by Ali-Jehan’s cousin and his wife. To Gareth’s relief, the guesthouse had no other patrons staying that night. He immediately negotiated to close the house to all others, something Jemal-Ali-Jehan’s cousin-was happy to do when Gareth dropped triple his expected takings into his palm.

They were accustomed by now to settling into new accommodation. Mooktu, Bister, and Mullins walked the perimeter and assessed the defenses, while the others efficiently stowed their belongings in the guestrooms they chose, then gathered in the main salon, where, it then being early afternoon, their hosts served them a meal of flat bread, fish, and mussels.

When Jemal placed a large platter of prepared fruit on the table, then bowed himself out, Gareth looked around the table, and decided everyone seated about it deserved to hear all he had to say. All of them, having selected various fruits, seemed to sense his intention, and looked expectantly up the table at him.

Emily sat at the other end. She arched her brows, waited.

Gareth grimaced. “First, we need to be extra careful. This is a major Mediterranean port-there will definitely be cultists here, watching, although not necessarily specifically for us. We cannot afford to give them any definite sight of us, any confirmation that we are indeed inside the walls. If we were leaving tomorrow, it wouldn’t be such a danger, but until we’re ready to quit this town, it’s vitally important they don’t know we’re here.”

He looked at Mooktu, Bister, and Mullins. “What are our defenses like?”

The other two looked to Mullins.

“Better than we’d hoped. The other houses are built right up to this one at the back and both sides, and the wall at the front is nice and high.” Mullins pointed upward. “Best of all, this house is the tallest in the immediate area. From the roof, we can keep watch over all approaches while staying largely out of sight ourselves.”

Gareth put a few more questions, but Ali-Jehan had steered them well. The house was a highly defendable abode. “Good. We’ll keep a guard on the roof at all times. Aside from all else, it’s the most obvious way for them to try to gain access to the house. To us.”

Jimmy volunteered to take first watch.

Gareth nodded. “You can go up when we finish here.” He glanced around the table. “Our most urgent need is to find transport onward. We need to reach Marseilles, preferably as quickly and as easily as we can.”

“Is there anyone here you can approach for help?” Emily asked.

Gareth shook his head. “Not safely. Theoretically the consulate would assist us, but with Ferrar’s political clout, it’s too risky, and I have no old friends here, no one I can absolutely trust.”

No one he would trust with his life, let alone hers.

“As I said,” he went on, “we need to be cautious. If that means all the rest of you stay here, indoors and out of sight while Watson, Mooktu, and I spend a few days finding the right ship, then that’s the way it will have to be.”

He expected arguments, protests at the very least. Instead, after a moment of regarding him, Emily surprised him by nodding. “Very well.”

There was little else to say, not until they’d assessed their chances of finding a ship to carry them to Marseilles. He, Watson, and Mooktu resettled their robes, then left the house for the docks.

Emily watched them go, then followed Jimmy up onto the flat roof, but couldn’t spot them amid the teeming hordes in the streets.

Anxiety-a feeling that was sufficiently unfamilar it impinged on her awareness-blossomed, spread through her. And gripped.

After a moment of staring across the roofs of Alexandria, she turned away and went downstairs. Finding Dorcas and Arnia, calling Bister and Mullins to join them, she sat at the table and briskly said, “We need to make lists. One, of the items we need for the next few days, and another, of the supplies we should have to see us through to Marseilles.” Determined to keep busy, she looked at the others. “Do we have two pieces of paper?”

Gareth, Watson, and Mooktu returned to the guesthouse as evening was closing in.

Emily was waiting in the large front room. She searched their faces. “No luck?”

Gareth shook his head. “Although there are a large number of ships putting out each day for Marseilles, most are booked for months ahead.” He sat at the table as she sank into the chair at the other end.

Watson and Mooktu sat as Mullins came to join them. “So what are our options?” Mullins asked.

Dorcas wandered in as Watson replied, “Today we were inquiring about the most direct route, but there are other routes we could take.”

“It also occurs to me,” Gareth said, finger tapping the table, “that the direct route will be the one the Black Cobra will expect us to take. I would expect to run into heavier concentrations of cultists if we go that way.”

Watson spread his hands. “We’re in Alexandria-essentially all of Europe lies north of us. We could go by numerous less-traveled ways.” He looked at Gareth. “Do we have to go via Marseilles?”

Gareth nodded. “My route specifically directs us through Marseilles.”

Watson grimaced. “That reduces our options, but still-we could go via numerous routes around or over the Mediterranean.”

“But, for example, a route north along the coast and then east via Turkey, Greece, and Italy to France would surely take much longer.” Emily glanced at Gareth. “Do we have the time to amble?”

He met her gaze, shook his head. “It’s taken us longer to get here than Wolverstone anticipated. He wants me-us-in England by mid-December.”

Emily blinked. “Today’s the first of November.”

“Exactly. So allowing for the necessary days to cross France…we need to reach Marseilles as soon as possible.”

“In that case,” Watson said, “we’ll have to travel by ship all the way.” He glanced at the others. “Travel by sea is significantly faster than travel by land. On one of the more direct routes, a fast ship could make the run to Marseilles in anything from nine to fifteen days.”

“But we can’t find passage on one of those,” Mooktu rumbled. He looked at Gareth. “And we don’t have time to wait here until berths become available.”

Gareth humphed. “Sitting here just waiting for the cultists to stumble over us is not an option in any case.”

“So we take our next best option.” Emily turned to Watson. “Whatever that is.”

Watson frowned. “I would say…either via Italy, then Corsica, to Marseilles, or, possibly, west to Tunis, and then north to Marseilles.” He looked at Gareth. “I know the distances, but sailing times are harder to guess. We’ll need to ask around, then see what ships might be heading that way with space enough to take us.”

Gareth nodded. “Tomorrow. We’ll go down to the docks at first light. It’s less crowded then.”

“I have been thinking,” Mooktu said, “that if the cultists sent to watch us here have not yet been warned that we are going in disguise, then they are less likely to spot us.”

“True. So we’ll need to remember to always go disguised.” Gareth glanced around the table. “It would be preferable to stay in our Arab clothes even in here.”

Emily was perfectly happy to do so; her Arab clothes were less confining and in this climate certainly more comfortable than gown and petticoats. She’d tried to hand back the garments the Berber women had loaned her, but they’d waved their hands and told her to keep them and use them while she was in Arab lands.

She caught Gareth’s gaze. “We’ll need to go to the souk tomorrow. We’ll do that while you’re at the docks. We’ll take Mullins and Bister, and be extra careful, but it won’t hurt to take a look around.”

He didn’t like it-she could see that in his eyes-but eventually he inclined his head. “No, it won’t.”