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.