“Of course, my lord.”
She and Bonnur had thus far had two afternoons together.
15
Thirya stirred. “Mama—”
Aliya pushed fury down. “Hush, darling,” she breathed. “Go to sleep.” And she must wait while the child tossed and whined, until finally the bed was quiet.
Finally!
Her feet remembered the way through the dark. She clutched her nightgown to her lest it brush against something. The thought flitted: Like this do the unrestful dead steal from their graves. But it was to life that she was going. Already the juices of it ran hot. Her nostrils drank the cedary odor of her desire.
Nobody else woke, and there was no guard on as small, as drab a harem as this. Her fingers touched walls, guiding her, until she reached the last dear corridor. No, do not run, make no needless sound. The beads in the doorway snaked around her. The window framed stars. A breeze from the cooling desert drifted through it. Her pulse racketed. She pulled off the gown and tossed it aside.
He came. Her toes gripped the carpet.
“Aliyat, Aliyat.” The rough whisper echoed in her head. Bonnur stumbled, knocked a stool over, panted. She gurgled laughter and slipped to him.
“I knew you would come, beloved,” she sang. His arms enclosed her. She clawed herself tight to him. Her tongue thrust between his lips.
He bore her down, they were on the carpet, the thought flashed that she must take care it show no stains, he groaned and she reached after him.
Lantern light glared. “Behold!” Zabdas cackled.
Bonnur rolled off Aliyat. Both sat up, crouched back, crawled to their feet. The lantern swung in Zabdas’ hand. It sent huge misshapen shadows adance over the walls. She saw him in fragments, eyeballs, nose, wet snags of teeth, wrinkles, hatred. Right and left of him were his two sons. They bore swords. The steel gleamed.
“Boys, seize them!” Zabdas shouted.
Bonnur reeled. He lifted his hands like a beggar. “No, master, my lord, no.”
It tumbled through Aliyat: Zabdas had planned this from the first. He had no passage arranged with the caravan. ; These three waited in another room, their light muffled, for that which he knew would happen. Now he would be rid of her, and keep her property, and believe that even an ifrit— or whatever inhuman thing she might be—would not return from the punishment for adultery.
Once she would have welcomed an ending. But the weariness of the years was burned out of her.
“Bonnur, fight!” she screamed. “They’ll tie us in a sack and the people will stone us to death!” She laid her hands on his back and shoved him forward. “Are you a man? Save us!”
He howled and leaped. A man swung sword. Unpracticed, he missed. Bonnur caught that arm with one hand. His fist crunched into the nose behind. The second brother edged around, awkwardly, afraid of hitting the wrong body. The struggle lurched past Aliyat. It left a smear of blood on her. She bounced clear.
Zabdas blocked the doorway. She snatched the lantern from the old man’s feeble grasp and dashed it to the floor. Oil flared in yellow flame. He staggered aside. She heard him shriek as the fire licked his ankle.
She fled past the beads, down hall and stairway, out the rear door, from the lane into ghost-gray streets between blank walls. The Philippian Gate stayed open after dark when a caravan was making ready. If she took care, if she moved slowly and kept to the shadows, its sentries might not see her.
Oh, Bonnur! But she had no breath or tears to spare for him, not yet, not if she wanted to live.
16
Those in the caravan who glanced behind them saw the towers of Tadmor catch the first sun-gleam. Then they were up the valley and out on the steppe. Ahead of them the sky also brightened-until the last stars faded away.
Signs of man were sparse on that day’s travel. After Nebozabad left the Roman road on a short cut across the desert, there was nothing but a trail worn by the generations before him who had fared likewise. He called halt for the night at a muddy, pool where the horses could drink. Men contented themselves with what they carried along in skins, camels with what scrawny shrubs were to be found.
The master strode through the bustle and hubbub to a certain driver. “I will take that bale, now, Hatim,” he said. The other grinned. Like most in this trade, he considered smuggling to be a part of it, and never asked unnecessary questions.
The bale was actually a long bundle tied together with rope, which had been nestled into the load on the camel. Nebozabad’s slave carried it back, into the master’s tent, laid it down, salaamed, and went to squat outside, forbidding intruders. Nebozabad knelt, undid the knots, unrolled the cloth.
Aliyat crept forth. Sweat plastered her hair and the djellabah he had lent to the curves of her. The countenance was hollow-eyed, the lips cracked. Yet once he had given her water and a bite of food, she recovered with eerie quickness, well-nigh minute by minute as he watched.
“Speak low,” he warned. “How have you fared?”
“It was hot and dry and gut-wrenching bumpy,” she answered in a voice husky more than hoarse, “but I shall forever thank you. Did a search party come?”
He nodded. “Soon after we left. A few Arabian soldiers, rousted out—after Zabdas gained himself ill will by waking the qadi, I gather. They were sleepy and uninterested. We need not have hidden you so well.”
She sighed where she sat, knees drawn up, ran fingers through her matted tresses, gave him a smile that shone and lingered in the lamplit dusk. “You cared, dear friend.”
Cross-legged before her, he scowled. “Reckless was I. It might cost me my head, and I’ve my family to think of.”
She reached to stroke fingers across his wrist. “Rather would I die than bring harm on you. Give me a waterskin and a little bread, and I will strike off across the desert.”
“No, no!” he exclaimed. “That would be a slower death. Unless the nomads found you, which would be worse. No, I can take you along. We’ll swaddle you well in garments too large, keep you offside and unspeaking. I’ll say you’re a boy, kin to me, who’s requested a ride to Tripolis.” He grinned sourly. “Those who doubt the ‘kin’ part of that will snicker behind my back. Well, let them. My tent is yours to share while the journey lasts.”
“God will reward you, where I cannot. Barikai in Paradise will intercede for your soul.”
Nebozabad shrugged. “I wonder how much good that will do, when it’s the escape of a confessed adulteress I’m aiding.”
Her mouth trembled. A tear ran down the sweat and grime dried on her cheeks. “It’s right, though,” he said in haste. “You told me what cruelties drove you from your wits.”
She caught his nearer hand in both hers and clung.
He cleared his throat. “Yet you must understand, Aliyat, I can do no more than this. In Tripolis I must leave you, with what few coins I can spare, and thereafter you are alone. Should I be charged with having helped you, I will deny all.”
“And I will deny I saw you. But fear not. I’ll vanish from sight.”
“Whither? How shall you live, forsaken?”
“I will. I have already seen ninety years. Look. Have they left any mark on me?”
He stared. “They have not,” he mumbled. “You are strange, strange.”
“Nonetheless—simply a woman. Nebozabad, I, I can do somewhat to repay a morsel of your kindness. The only things I have to offer are memories, but those you can bring home with you.”
He sat motionless.
She drew closer. “It is my wish,” she whispered. “They will be my memories too.”