No Brighter Dream: The Pascal Trilogy - Book 3 (14 page)

Ali gazed at him solemnly. “Then if this is true, why is it so terrible to be an infidel? Why have people had Holy Wars for years beyond counting?”

Pascal sighed. “Because unfortunately, people tend to be more inclined to see their differences rather than their similarities. We are all cut from the same cloth; it is only the cut of the cloth that varies. It makes as much sense to kill someone for what he wears as it does for what he believes.”

He threw another pebble into the lake. “Can you imagine how surprised those same people must be when they all end up in heaven together, after arguing to the death over whose God was the true one?”

Ali’s eyes lit up with delight at the image that conjured up. “The angels must have a hard time explaining,” she said.

He stood and held out his hand at her. “I doubt much explanation is necessary. Shall we go back to the house now? My wife is going to beat me if I don’t produce you soon.”

Ali nodded and took his hand, and he helped her to her feet. They walked along in companionable silence, Ali turning their conversation over in her mind.

As different as these ideas were from everything she’d ever been taught, in an odd way they made perfect sense, even though it was all still too new for her to accept just like that. And yet Pascal seemed as comfortable with Allah as she was, but also as comfortable with his Christian God…

She suddenly stopped. “Pascal?”

He glanced over at her with a smile that was so like his son’s that it made her heart ache. “What is it, Ali?”

“Why does Handray not know about Allah?” she asked. “You must have explained this to him as you have to me?”

Pascal took a moment before he answered. “Andre once knew Him very well,” he said quietly.

“Then why does he refuse to speak of Him?” she asked, truly confused. “It cannot be easy to know Allah and then lose Him. It would be like cutting off one’s arms and legs.”

“I don’t think Andre has lost Him, exactly. I think he has merely misplaced his faith in Him, as he has in many things.”

Ali’s eyes filled with tears. “Poor, poor Handray,” she whispered. “No wonder he is so sad.”

Pascal released a heavy sigh. “We are all tested in one way or another during our lifetime, Ali. I have to trust that Andre will survive his period of solitude and come back to us.”

Ali flashed a huge smile at Pascal. “Oh, yes,” she said with confidence. “Handray will come back. Allah will only let him wander in the desert for so long before returning him to his proper place, whether Handray wishes it or not.”

Pascal gazed at her for a long moment and Ali had the oddest sensation that he was looking straight into her soul.

“You are wise for one so young,” he finally said. “I am truly grateful that God has brought you to us.”

She beamed. “I think I might be grateful too. And I do feel better about being born a Christian, if you are sure Allah does not mind. Thank you for explaining.”

“It was my pleasure.”

“Pascal … would you tell me some of these stories you spoke of? Maybe the one about Gabriel and the woman called Mary and the baby?”

“I’d be happy to. Why don’t I tell it to you now, while we walk back?”

Ali nodded happily and listened carefully as Pascal began.

“A very long time ago in Galilee,” he said, “there was a young woman named Mary, who lived in the city of Nazareth…”

All during dinner Ali’s gaze kept slipping back to Andre’s parents. His mother was one of the most beautiful women she’d ever seen. Ali had never known that hair could be the color of copper, but it was the duchess’s eyes that held her, for they were the exact shade of Andre’s, that strange but compelling color somewhere between gray and green. She had a beautiful smile too, warm and kind like her husband’s.

But what Ali liked most of all about Andre’s parents was the way that they looked at each other, as if there were a silent language passing between them that only they could hear.

It made her think of music, sweet and resonant, of the sound that the waves made as they washed back and forth on the shores off Xanthos. She had spent many hours sitting on the sand, doing nothing but listening. Andre thought her very silly when she tried to explain it was the music of Allah playing.

“Ali?” Lily asked. “You look very far away.”

“Oh. I suppose I was,” she said. “I was thinking of Xanthos, where I lived with Handray.”

Lily smiled encouragingly. “Would you mind describing it to us? I would so like to hear about your time with our son.”

Ali hesitated. She didn’t want to upset Andre’s mother, who so obviously missed her son, by drawing too sharp a reminder of his time away from them. But the expression on Lily’s face was so imploring that she didn’t see how she could refuse. After all, they had nothing else but Jo-Jean’s letters.

“Xanthos sits in the most beautiful valley in all of Turkey,” she began, trying to set the scene for her story. “It is lush and filled with many forms of wild animals, birds, trees, and flowers. Handray taught me all their names in Latin,” she said proudly. “And he taught me to gather plants to make good medicines, like the one he gave me to make me better when I was dying.”

Pascal’s gaze dropped for a moment, and Ali wondered why he suddenly looked sad. “Did I say something wrong?” she asked.

“No, Ali,” Pascal replied, looking back at her. “It is good to hear that Andre is using his knowledge. It is only that it reminded me of a time when we used to do that together. Go on, won’t you? Where is Xanthos, exactly?”

“To reach the ancient city,” she said, “one must cross a broad plain which on one side has many banks of sand, and on the other side are tall mountains.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, seeing it exactly. “Water falls from these mountains into the deep ravines below,” she said, “feeding the streams and rivers, and from the waters of Massicytus, the highest mountain of all, rises the great river of Xanthos which runs to the sea…”

A surge of homesickness came over her as she spoke of Umar and his village, described the tents where she and Andre and Joseph-Jean had lived, recounted the rhythm of their days. But as she spun her stories into the hushed, attentive silence, she began to enjoy herself, warming to her narrative.

“…And there Umar and I were,” she said, “our camels neck to neck. I knew I was going to win, for I had bet an entire piastre on the race, my camel being the fastest.” She grimaced in memory. “But then the silly beast missed his step at the very last, and I went tumbling off his back and hit my forehead on the ground with a great crack. I thought Handray was going to murder me, he was so angry.”

“What did he do?” Matthew asked with alacrity. “Nothing too dreadful, I hope?”

Ali looked at Matthew with exasperation. “Of course he was dreadful, as he should have been,” she said. “He had told me I was not to race camels with Umar and I disobeyed him.”

“Did he beat you?” Matthew asked, frowning.

“Handray does not beat people,” she said. “Except for one time, when he knocked my wicked uncle Hadgi to the ground.”

“Did
he?” Pascal asked with interest.

“Yes, and it was very pleasing, since Hadgi used to knock me down all the time. You should have heard the crack—just like a pistol shot, and Hadgi went straight back into the vegetable stand and took it to the ground with him.”

“Goodness,” Pascal said. “Andre must have been very annoyed indeed.”

“He was. His face looked like a thundercloud. And that is just how it looked when I fell off the camel, so I should be grateful he did not do anything worse than shout at me very loudly.” Ali rubbed the place on her forehead where the huge lump had been. “That made my head ache even more than it already did.”

“I’ll bet he left you lying there too,” Matthew said.

“No, he did not,” Ali retorted. “He picked me up in his arms and carried me all the way to his tent. Then he wrapped my head in a big bandage with a smelly paste on it,” she said, pretending she was winding a turban over her head. “He told me I deserved every moment of the stench.”

Pascal smiled down at his plate.

“And then he sat there and glared at me for the next few hours and would not allow me to close my eyes or go to sleep, which was the meanest thing of all, since there were two of everything in front of me.”

“Actually,” Pascal said mildly, “I believe he was trying to save you from the results of a concussion. Sometimes people who go to sleep when they’ve had a bad knock on the head don’t wake up again.”

“Really?” Ali said, fascinated. “Then Handray was not punishing me?”

“No … I think you probably frightened the daylights out of him, and this is why he was so angry.”

Ali considered this. “Maybe. It is not easy to frighten Handray, but he did look very upset, it is true.”

“Can’t you imagine how he must have felt, Ali?” Pascal refused the footman’s offer of more wine. “You were under his care, after all. He was responsible for you.”

“Yes,” she said indignantly, “and look what he did with his responsibility. He knew Allah had given me to him, but he still sent me away the first chance he had. But I have a plan to get back at him when he returns.”

“And what is that?” Lily asked, a smile hovering on her lips.

“I am going to be a perfect English lady. It will make Handray very, very cross because he despises perfect English ladies.”

“Oh?” Lily said. “It’s the first I’ve heard of that.”

“Well, it is true. And he will be very sorry to see what became of me, all because he banished me. Of course, first I must grow breasts and my hair must be long enough to fall down my back again,” she hastened to add. “But when all of that has happened, which Georgia has promised me it will, Handray will see me and ask, ‘Who is that horribly civilized creature?’ ”

She picked up her napkin and fanned herself with it, batting her eyelashes. “And I shall turn to him and say, ‘But it is Miss Alexis Minerva Lacey. Do you not recognize me?’ And then when he has recovered from his shock, I might forgive him and allow him to dance with me. What do you think?”

Ali looked around the table, wondering why Matthew’s ears and neck had turned bright red, and Andre’s parents were gazing at each other with mutually unfathomable expressions. She stole a glance at Georgia, who was watching Nicholas with a broad smile.

Ali turned her head and looked down at the other end of the table only to see Nicholas’s shoulders shaking, one hand covering his eyes, which didn’t come close to disguising the tears of laughter streaming down his cheeks.

“What is so amusing?” she asked indignantly. “Do you think I cannot become a fine lady?”

“Not at all,” Pascal said quickly, his voice slightly unsteady. “I think you will make a very fine lady and give Andre a well-deserved shock. You must let us know how it turns out.”

“Oh, I will,” she said. “By the time Handray comes home I also plan to be educated. I will be able to converse on every topic he can think of in six separate languages.” She nodded decisively. “All of that learning should give my breasts plenty of time to develop. Ha! I will show him.”

She happily dug into her pudding.

Later, when the house was still, Ali crept down the stairs, careful not to make a sound. The huge house felt oddly still around her, but in a nice, comfortable sort of way. It was hard to believe that it had been nine months since the first time she had entered it, her arm practically pulled out of its socket by Mrs. Herringer.

She let herself out the door and started toward the lake, an important mission on her mind. The waxing moon bathed the damp grass in silvery light, and as she crossed the expanse, a solitary hoot of an owl sounded loud in the hushed night.

The water of the lake lapped soothingly against the bank as she reached it. She wore nothing but her night shift, and it only took her a moment to slip it off. She wanted Allah to see her exactly as He had made her, with no embellishments of any kind, no clothing to confuse the issue.

Instead of kneeling she stood straight and raised her face to the star-clustered sky.

“Allah, I have heard many strange and miraculous things today,” she said gravely. “But I need to know directly from You if they are true. If they are, and You do not make any difference between Muslims and infidels, and if You really do not mind my being born a Christian, please would You let me know?”

Ali waited. At first there was nothing. But then the wind picked up, causing goose pimples to stand out on her skin and her legs to start trembling with the sudden cold.

“Oh,” she said, unsure. “Is this a sign, mighty Allah?” She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to still the shaking of her body.

A cloud scudded across the sky, obscuring the moon, and Ali nervously bit her lip—first the cold wind, and now the moon going out? Allah’s answer was not looking favorable.

“Allah,” she whispered despairingly. “You put me on earth to love Handray, did You not? And You sent me to England where his home is, to wait for him to return. Why would You go to all this trouble for me if You were not the One Great God for all people?”

It was a good question, she thought. Andre’s father had made such a convincing argument, and he’d done it without any of the shouting or screaming or frenzied waving of his hands that Hadgi and the others always used when speaking of Allah.

Instead, he had spoken quietly of God and angels and a holy baby born in a stable in a country not so far from Turkey.

She thought yet again about the wonderful story he’d told her, about the shepherds that the angels had summoned from their field, and the animals who had gathered with them to praise the tiny infant who lay in the manger.

But best of all to her mind were the three great kings who had come to the stable, bearing gifts of precious incense and perfumes, and jewels too, if she knew anything about it. Sheep, shepherds, bejeweled kings. Oh, and a great eastern star.

Yes, it sounded to her like just the sort of thing Allah might arrange. And He’d had the good sense not to arrange it in England where the dear baby might have died of the winter cold.

Allah was all-wise.

With that thought a rush of warmth and love suffused her, filling her being with peace and joy, as always happened when she addressed Allah, and Ali knew she had her answer.