Page 46 of Company of Thieves
“Hallie!” he said on a long, gasping breath, sitting upright, and immediately regretting that movement when the world wobbled around him.
“Thank the gods, you are not insensible,” a voice said behind him. “Az was convinced the imperator had bashed your head in hard enough that he’d left you an idiot. You look like you’re going to vomit.”
Alan gripped the side of the bed he sat on, his eyes closed as he fought to keep the contents of his stomach where they were. It took a few minutes, but at last the pain ebbed enough that he could open his eyes and face his friend. “Where is she?” he asked Zand.
“I’m sorry to say that the revolutionaries have her.”
“When?” he asked, closing his eyes for a moment, the sickness rising again in his throat as he thought of his dove, his sweet, unconventional, endlessly fascinating Hallie, in the hands of Etienne Briel.
“Yesterday. It is almost morn. Your father’s men struck you down, thinking you were going to attack him. You have been insensible for more than twelve hours.”
“Christ,” Alan swore, wanting to get his hands first on Etienne, and then on his father. “And Hallie?”
“She ran into the revolutionaries’ airship outside of town.” Zand recounted the happenings of the previous day. “She deliberately led the Black Hand away from her guards, Alan. Do you think she wanted to be captured?”
The pain of imagining her having been taken from him was almost too much to bear, but he pushed his emotions down, knowing he needed his wits to be sharp. “She loathes Etienne almost as much as we do,” he answered after a moment. “It’s more likely that she thought she could lead the revolutionaries away from them in order to protect them.”
“Why would she be so foolish?” Zand asked, shaking his head.
Alan met his gaze with one filled with pain. “Because she values the welfare of those around her.”
“My prince!” Yussuf, who had evidently been lurking outside the tent, threw himself at Alan’s feet. He was almost immediately followed by Ajay, who followed suit, leaving both men now prostrated before him. Slowly, Alan stood, fear gripping him with sharp, razor-like talons.
Azahgi Bahajir entered the tent and moved to stand before him, before he knelt, his head bowed. “My prince, we have failed you. We have shamed ourselves and our families, and we humbly ask that you relieve us of our heads, for we do not deserve to live.”
For a moment, Alan’s hand itched for a sword. He had placed Hallie in his trusted guards’ care, and this was how they repaid him? But even as that thought flitted through his head, he realized that short of handing Hallie over to Etienne, his men were no more to blame for her capture than she was. “You have indeed committed a grave sin,” he said after a suitably weighty silence. He knew the men’s pride was at stake, and since he, too, valued those who served him, he said in a voice that was harsher than he felt, “Henceforth, you owe me a debt that will be fulfilled by your service until such time as I say it has been redeemed. Now rise, and get your things packed. Send a servant in to pack mine. And you,” he said, turning to Zand when the other three men, with stunned looks on all three of their faces, bowed and hurried out. “You can tell me what’s happened while I was lying with a broken head.”
“Etienne returned before your father from the hunt,” he said, watching Alan while he got into the familiar gold tunic and leggings. “I couldn’t have stopped him if I had wanted to, since most of the men were with you, and the imperator left behind a good two dozen men. I had a few men trail him—they reported that he entered an airship that was moored north of Tozeur and left almost immediately. That was after noon, yesterday.”
“We’ve lost a whole day,” Alan said, wincing when, without thinking, he tried to don a turban. “At least I know where he’s headed.”
“Bohemia?” Zand asked.
“France. Marseilles, to be exact.” Alan caught sight of a flash of yellow in his shaving mirror and stood for a moment, looking at himself.
“What are you going to do? Other than go after her, of course. One of the men said that you told your father that he was dead to you, and that you would no longer do his bidding.”
“Akbar is dead,” he said slowly, still eyeing his reflection. “He was killed by the imperator.”
Zand said nothing, but his eyebrows rose. Slowly, deliberately, Alan removed the gold clothing of the Moghuls. He threw it on the ground, then turned to a chest that was seldom opened, pulling from it the Western clothing that Alan Dubain wore while he graced the court of William VI.
“So that’s what you’re thinking,” Zand said, watching as Alan donned trousers, shirt, and waistcoat before attaching a collar to the shirt, and pulling on a short suit coat. “Akbar dies, and Dubain lives?”
“I do not ask you to follow me,” he told his friend, turning to face him. “My actions will be irrevocable. My father will send assassins after me for daring to defy him.”
Zand grinned, and punched him on the shoulder. “Since when has there been any love lost between the imperator and me? He would have beheaded me for daring to ask for Safie’s hand had you not intervened. I will follow you in this as I have in all other things.”
Alan gripped Zand’s arms for a moment, grateful that his old friend would support him no matter the risk. “I will see to it that you are not sorry.”
“Please tell me that Safie is about to join her brother in heaven, because I can’t live much longer without her.”
“You may take her with my blessing,” Alan answered, and, as a servant entered, directed him to packing up the necessary items.
“What will you tell your father?” Zand asked, having ordered a servant to do likewise with his effects.
“That Akbar is dead,” he answered, glancing at the big tent. Four guards stood at attention at it. The sky was lightening, but it wasn’t yet dawn. “Have the horses loaded. If anyone tries to stop you, kill them. Yussuf! Gather the men, but be quiet about it. Don’t disturb the imperator’s people.”
It took time to get theNightwingloaded with supplies, horses, tents, and personal effects, but Alan felt infinitely better for doing something. He spoke to his men, gathered outside the camp, and told them that he was resigning from serving the imperator, but that he would leave the decision of what they wished to do up to them.
