The Companion (7 page)

He did not press her but looked out on the dark sea through the great stern windows to where the lanterns of other ships bobbed on the swell.

“And you, sir? Where do you go?” Suddenly she wanted to keep him talking.

“Perhaps to Suffolk. My brother will be surprised as well. Henry inherited a couple of years ago. He will no doubt have set things to rights. He was always very practical.”

His tone said he denigrated practicality. She decided being practical had its deficits. “Then you also must have lost your father,” she said, hesitating. “My condolences.”

“Unnecessary, believe me.” He tossed off a glug of wine. “The old autocrat terrorized his family and brought the estate to wrack with his gambling and his . . . other habits.” He shook his head to shake off any effect his father had on him. Ludicrous, of course, but natural.

“Fathers can be complicated. My own father loved me but was so distracted he sometimes quite forgot to provide for me. His payments to my school were irregular to say the least. The silver lining was that I was forced to insist he take me with him at fifteen. The independence I learned arranging his expeditions would be useful anywhere but England.”

“How do you mean?” He put his hand out to toy with his wineglass. It was inches from her clasped hands. She felt it like a magnet. If she was not careful, she would take it in her own.

“Only . . . only that in England no one seems to allow females to provide for themselves.”

“Females provide for themselves in quite a determined manner on the Marriage Mart.” His expression darkened.

“By getting a man to do so by proxy,” she protested. “A husband controls his wife’s fortune, her property. A woman is lucky if her father can negotiate settlements to provide for her widowhood. No, I was thinking of something more direct.”

His smile was very small. It changed his face. “You mean setting up as a governess?”

She sighed. “I hope I do not have to resort to employment. Almost no one wants their children to learn archaeology and geology and Arabic.”

His brows drew together. “Perhaps your aunt will help you to a suitable match.”

“Unlikely. I will never marry a man I cannot respect, or even . . .” Should she say it? What was this man to her that she should refrain? “Love.”

“I hope you have choices which suit you, then.” He dismissed her as naïve.

“I have a fair portion which should let me live independently.” She did not relish being thought naïve, whether that
was true or not. She rushed on. “Father put money in the Consuls in my name. I was considering whether to offer up my portion to support his next expedition when he was struck on the head by that perfectly arbitrary bit of masonry.” She sighed. “I can’t help feeling his death was a judgment on my selfishness.”

“Selfishness?” Rufford snorted. “Because you
considered
keeping the provision he had made for your future in just such a case? And don’t tell me you believe in divine retribution for your thoughts, because anyone who plays chess as you do would be lying.”

All the tears she had not yet shed tangled in her chest and made breath difficult. “You don’t understand how important his dream was to him. A significant discovery would mean he had mattered. He wanted to find that lost city more than he wanted anything.” She smiled wistfully. “Including me.” She came to herself. “My portion would have been a small sacrifice.”

She sipped her Madeira, conscious of his gaze.

He said in a tight voice, “You would not want to find that city. It is evil.”

“So the folklore says,” she agreed eagerly. “I collected maps, testimonials, even all those tales of bloodsucking and ancient evil. I found one Imam, very old, in Tunis, who I think has actually been to Kivala. I know we could have found it. We were on our way to consult him when my father . . .” Her companion’s face contorted in horror. “Whatever is the matter?”

Mr. Rufford was saved by the pipe to dinner from answering. He sprang up as though released and knocked his head upon a beam, swearing under his breath. When he raised it, he was master once again. “Shall we?” he asked, only a slight hoarseness conveying the distress she had witnessed.

She nodded, her brow knotted. Why that severe reaction? What had she said?

She preceded Mr. Rufford across the deck to the Captain’s cabin, his bulk and his emotion a dark force almost palpable behind her, his cinnamon scent dissipated by the
ocean air. The mystery of the man was not lessened by her conversation. She doubted that a dinner in the very public company of the ship’s officers was likely to shed any light on that mystery. But the voyage was long and suddenly very much more interesting than she had thought it would be.

Four

Damn her eyes! Why did he have to be confined on a ship with one of the few English people who knew anything at all about the legends of an evil in the desert?

Ian stood at the rail again watching the lights on the merchantmen, now drifting farther away, now nearing in the wee hours as the convoy cruised slowly on at the speed of the most sluggish of her members. The boys heaving the log sang out four knots at most.

Supper with the officers stopped any prying questions. And it had allowed him to take his gauge of her more fully. She spoke fluent Turkish. He had not let on that he understood her as she complimented the Turkish sailing master on the science of navigation his ancestors had defined. Only the Captain or the passengers could initiate conversation, and Tindly was a blockish man who indulged in avaricious anecdotes. So she made it her job to knit conversation together across the table of officers with practical questions. She dealt with the crew’s attention good-naturedly, not mistaking it for real regard. She
did
have social graces. They were simply different from those practiced in London drawing rooms.

She was not conventionally pretty and she definitely thought she had no beauty. She might be wrong. Her tawny
green eyes were certainly a shock in the light. They made her look exotic. And there was something about her . . . Just what it was eluded him. Was it that she was an original? What woman did he know who could give him a game of chess and spoke Turkish? Or was it the way she moved, with unconscious . . . freedom? Whatever it was, her particular charms would not be valued in parochial England. He gazed out over the waters. The fact that she was intelligent and even knew Kivala by name meant his secrets were not safe. She was a woman, too, and therefore untrustworthy. An image darted into his brain of lithe white limbs, billowing silk curtains, compulsion overwhelming even pain with lust. . . .

“Jib and topsails!” Bare feet hurried unseen and a triangular sheet flapped into place.

He jerked himself from the rail and lurched across the waist to climb the forward stairs to the bow. Let the wind wash his thoughts clean. White water coursed out from the ship’s side.

He would never allow a woman to overcome him again.

He thought of his brother Henry and his Mary. If only you could keep that first tenuous promise of happiness and interlocking sympathies throughout the years. How many marriages had he seen where the woman strove in subtle ways to make her husband feel smaller, more mean-spirited, than he was and in consequence behave that way? Would his father have been the absent wastrel if his mother had not been the oppressive saint? They lived only to torment each other and gain the upper hand. No, women were not for him.

He steeled his emotions. When he got to Stanbridge Court he would find Mary grown into a fat shrew and Henry looking for more temporary and convenient comforts elsewhere while taking solace in the fact that he was immortal through his children.

Immortality . . .

The caravan gathered at the edge of the desert. Braying camels settled in the sand, their packs piled beside them, their brightly colored rope halters fitted with dangling tassels to keep the flies from their eyes. Still their ears twitched almost constantly. Flies were everywhere. Men in striped burnooses and plain walked among the beasts. Others bargained with merchant victualers in loud voices. Boys hopped among the camel drivers, hawking figs and dates
.

Ian stumbled into camp, urged on by shouting in a language he did not understand and by the crack of the whip across his bare back. He was linked by rough hemp rope at the neck to five others, all half-naked as he was. They had fitted him with rough sandals to protect his feet. His breeches had been replaced by a scrap of cloth tied around his loins. How he had survived the march from the slave market in Algiers to this remote stretch of godforsaken desert he could hardly tell. His back was raw with lashes. The rope at his neck, rubbing the sweaty skin, had worn a necklace of blood. He was burnt by the sun. For days he had stumbled on, delirious with sun and the infection in his shoulder. But slowly he had regained his senses. The slaves were given water at intervals and allowed to sleep, a rough canvas slung over them when their small party stopped in the worst heat of the day. The six slaves were all fine male specimens, big, with powerful muscles and comely features. Only one other European, a Frenchman, was tied in their train. The rest were Arabs and a huge black man. Ian spoke excellent French, enough to communicate with the Black and the Frenchman, but the slaves were beaten for speaking to one another, so it came to nothing
.

Tents dotted the perimeter of the caravan, the inner ones fine, the outer ones shabby and ragged. And one tent, much richer than the others, stood at a distance from the bustle under some waving palms. The awning had worked borders in blue and gold. Nearby, a litter sat in the sand, colorful silk pillows just visible inside the thick draperies
.

The slaves were whipped toward several large posts driven deep in the sand and set with heavy metal rings. Another half-dozen well-made males were already shackled there. At some distance a rabble of other slaves, ranging from old to young and including some women, huddled in a rope pen. A fat bearded man took charge of the newcomers and shouted at them, gesturing toward an anvil. They shuffled forward, and the hemp at their necks was replaced by a heavy metal wristband, closed by a bolt pounded home with a great hammer on the anvil. Each shackle carried a length of chain. Thus separated, they were chained to the posts. There was no awning for the slaves. They sat in the heat, drooping. A boy came over with a bucket from the nearby oasis. The water was hot and brackish, but each gulped their share from the ewer
.

Ian dozed, fevered dreams of England tumbling in his head. As the sun dropped below the horizon, the caravan began to murmur. Lamps flickered in the beautiful tent. Ian could see a form moving inside, a particularly lithe female form
.

As the twilight deepened, the flap of the tent opened and a woman emerged. Immediately stares from every part of the caravan camp converged upon her. And what was more natural? She walked with hips thrust out, long legs creamy white emerging from an almost translucent skirt in dusky orange, slit to her hip. Ian had never seen a more shapely leg. Her torso was both covered and revealed by an X of cloth that covered her breasts and bared her belly. Around her neck was a collar six inches wide made of long cylindrical beads of crystal, jet, and lapis lazuli that matched the earrings that dripped from her ears
.

It was her face that hypnotized. Her nose was long, straight, her lips full in a small mouth. She had a delicate, pointed chin. But her most striking features were her eyes. They were black, as far as he could tell in the dim light, and outlined in kohl so that each streaked out to a point on her temples, making her look Eastern and exotic, as though she were not the embodiment of the exotic already. Her cosmetics and her dress were Egyptian, yet the white of her flesh contradicted them. The air around her seemed to vibrate with vitality. The thrust of her hips proclaimed that she knew men; the cold insolence of her eyes said that she was mistress of them
.

And so she was. Men bent low before her and pushed their foreheads into the sand. She must certainly be the owner of the caravan and all its contents. The tall, thin figure who had bought Ian walked behind her, his hood now thrown back. He was no slave, for his look was proud. Behind him ran young boys, perhaps fourteen, slaves by the chains on their thin wrists
.

She looked about her at the quiescent caravan and issued some peremptory orders Ian did not understand. The tall Arab gestured toward the stakes where the new slaves were tethered and whispered in her ear. Their keeper beat the slaves into appropriate prostration. Raising his eyes, Ian could see her feet, toenails painted with delicate opalescence so that they gleamed even in the twilight, silver rings upon two or three of her toes. An anklet thick with tiny bells tinkled. The scent of cinnamon and something else wafted over him. He had never felt so wretched as when the finely worked leather of her sandals stopped before him. She spoke to the keeper. Her voice was musical, throaty. The keeper poked Ian’s shoulder with his whip, his rough voice humble. Ian struggled to his feet and the keeper urged the others up as well. Then a boy went along the line, jerking their loincloths from them until they were naked before her
.

Ian wondered that he could yet flush with all he had endured in the last weeks. The boy stepped up in response to her instruction and squeezed Ian’s testicles. Ian bellowed and slapped him away. The keeper struck Ian about his head with a truncheon and knocked him to his knees, where he crouched in defense. Swearing, the keeper kicked him in the ribs. Ian’s head cleared only slowly. The queenly woman asked the boy a question. The boy responded in the affirmative, then went down the line, apparently testing each man for evidence that he was not a eunuch. The others learned from the results of Ian’s outburst and did not protest. The woman conversed with the tall Arab. She pointed to six of the slaves, including one of the Arabs from his party, the Black, and Ian. Then she drifted away on the slight breeze that breathed hot on Ian’s neck. The tall Arab stalked silently behind her
.