Page 44 of Company of Thieves
“Not bathe, swim. I could wear my undies and ... right,” I said, realizing that although I badly wanted to help emancipate women, I wasn’t going to be able to do it starting with Az. “OK, so a swim is out. What about a walk? Can we take a walk? Just the four of us?”
He shook his head. “The prince would not like it. He wishes for you to stay here until he returns for you.”
“But Etienne isn’t here. Even if did want to hurt me, he has no idea I’m in town. What if we walked to the north? That’s the opposite direction of the camp, and it’s even less likely that we’d run into Etienne there. Plus, I’ll have all three of you to protect me.”
It took a good ten minutes of wheedling, but at last Az agreed that I could take a short walk, but only to the north, and we had to stay off the road.
The region around Tozeur was filled with dried riverbeds called wadis, sharp, dusty rock outcroppings, a variety of scraggly shrubs that seldom grew taller than three feet, and numerous date trees. To the south, beyond Alan’s camp, the terrain turned to undulating waves that transitioned into the sand dunes of the Sahara, while to the north, the land was arid and uninspiring. But I was determined to take pleasure in every minute of it as we strolled along the middle of a wadi, taking delight in the few birds that flitted high overhead playing hide-and-seek amongst the date trees. The wadi swung to the east, and Az stopped us, saying we needed to turn back.
“You’re a party pooper,” I said, unwilling to go back to house arrest. “All right, all right, I know, it’s not safe. Let me just pop up to the top for a second so I can see what the landscape is like—then we’ll go back.”
Az grumbled, but pulled out a skin containing wine, taking a pull on it while I scrambled up the wadi bank. As I crested it, I stopped, staring with first surprise, then horror at the white-and-black airship that was moored about fifty feet away, my appearance startling an armed guard who spun around to look at me.
I looked at the guard. I looked at the giant Black Hand image on the forward-most envelope. I looked at the group of people who were lounging around outside open cargo doors, all of whom stood and gawked at me.
“The prince’s woman!” one of the men said in French, pointing at me.
“Oh, shit,” I swore, and for a fraction of a second, the immediate future was laid out before me just as if someone had filmed it. I saw my three guards streaming up over the wadi bank, only to be slaughtered by the approximately fifteen Black Hand men. That I was caught was not disputable—they had me, and I knew it. But I’d be damned if I sacrificed Az, Yussuf, and Ajay because I had to take a walk.
All that went through my mind while one second passed to another, and then I was running, racing away from the wadi at a speed that I had not, to that point in my life, ever achieved.
There was a shout that I feared was from Az, but I didn’t slow down to look back. I ran like I was trying to qualify for the Olympics, leaping over small rocks and shrubs, heading, for some reason that I couldn’t explain, for the road that snaked northward. If I could just get the Black Hand guards far enough away from Az and company, then perhaps they would survive.
As best I can figure it, I lasted about a quarter mile; then the fact that I wasn’t in the shape of someone qualifying for the Olympics caught up to me.
As did Etienne’s men.
The first one to reach me launched a flying tackle that ended up with me flattened, the breath knocked out of me, and my mouth full of dirt. I limped and swore as the full contingent of men hauled me back to their airship, but even though I spat out dirt and invectives equally, I didn’t see any bodies near the wadi. I sent up a little prayer that Az and company had gotten away, my mind so busy with that, I didn’t even object when I was tossed into a small, airless storeroom on the airship.
I sat there for what seemed like an interminable time, guilty, angry with myself, trying to think of an explanation for Alan—assuming I ever saw him again—and in general utterly miserable. The incarceration reminded me of the time a year before when I’d been imprisoned on a trumped-up charge. I’d survived then by going over the acts of revenge I would perform on my captors, lovingly detailing them, as well as thoughts of what I’d do when I returned to my own world.
This time, my thoughts spun around Alan, just as if he was a lodestone. If the guards had gotten away and told him I’d been captured, what would he do? Would he come after me? Try to take down Etienne? Would his father stand for that?
I was confident that Alan wouldn’t just wash his hands of me, but realistically, was there anything he could do? “If his dad is so damned insistent that they work with the Black Hand, then he won’t be able to do anything against Etienne without causing a civil war, and Alan isn’t stupid. He knows he can’t win that.”
I gnawed on my lower lip while I worried, suddenly sitting upright when I realized that not only had I fallen asleep, but the floor under my feet was vibrating in a familiar manner.
The airship was moving. I peered out a small, grimy porthole, barely able to see a few wispy clouds and rolling brown earth sliding away beneath us.
At that moment, the door behind me opened, and Etienne himself stood with a smug smile on his face. “How very thoughtful you were to deliver yourself to me. It’s almost as if you know of the many plans I have for you.”
I slumped back on the narrow cot, my heart sinking. I was well and truly in it this time.
