He dug in his saddlebag again to take out a box of ammunition and hand it to her. "By the way," he said, "I buried your braid out there among the olive trees."
"Oh." She was afraid of what might happen if she looked at him again and dared only a glance at him. His mouth was twisted in an ironic grin. "I'm glad that's done."
"I sang a mournful dirge as I did."
How like him to distract her from whatever it was that had just happened between them. She returned his smile. "That was kind of you."
They were safe enough speaking English, so long as she was appropriately deferential to Foye. That wasn't difficult. He was a nobleman after all, and just now he intimidated her. The gentleness of his manners from Buyukdere had disappeared somewhere between then and now. She wondered if he was aware that he behaved differently. He must be; he was too intelligent not to be. A line between them had been erased, and she wasn't sure where, if anywhere, a new one might be drawn. She was a boy and not a boy. His servant and not his servant Female and not female. And when she looked at him, her stomach leaped off the end of the world.
Everything changed.
She was safe with him and not at all safe.
"You're doing well." He held her gaze again, and Sabine didn't know how to look at him anymore. She wondered what he saw when he looked at her. A brown-faced boy? A woman who did not interest him? Or one who did? Or perhaps nothing at all. She kept her head down. Did he even love her still? Had that changed with everything else?
"We will come out of this" he said. He kept his voice low, though it was unlikely anyone would overhear, and even if they did, that they would understand. "I promise you, I'll see you through this."
The intensity of his voice made her look up. "I know that."
"I'll get us back to England and we'll be married." He laughed softly. "I swore I never would. I told Lucey I was prepared to be the very last Marrack. I knew that for a lie when I said it, but I planned to marry a much older woman. Not some pretty young thing like you."
"There's time for you to change your mind," she said.
"I shan't," he replied.
"I
find you suit me very well now." He was sitting very informally, with one knee up and an arm dangling off his knee. His boots were covered with dust, as were hers, for that matter, and he, too, had a line of sweat running down the side of his face. The cloth he used to wrap around his lower face was loose around his neck. "Before long, you and I will be sitting in front of the fire at Maralee House remembering what an adventure we had."
"Telling our children about it," she said without thinking.
Foye didn't reply. His gaze stayed on her.
"Forgive me," she said. Her cheeks burned hot. "I spoke out of turn."
"You didn't," he said softly. 'It's just, I haven't even got us married yet, and you're on to the children. We will have them. But how many?"
She drew up her knees. "Half a dozen. Three girls and three boys."
"All as pretty as you," he said.
"All as handsome as you," Sabine replied.
"Heaven forbid," he said.
"We'll have beautiful children," she said, leaning toward him so she could keep her voice low. "Every one of them."
Foye threw back his head and laughed, not even caring that everyone looked at him. If Foye wanted to laugh at something his dragoman said, he was entitled. Sabine liked the way he looked when he laughed. His eyes sparkled, and his so unlovely face became, to her, preciously lovely.
Looking at him, she understood now the reason for her earlier failures in trying to draw him. In those attempts she had not known Foye nearly well enough and so had failed to capture what he was. She had missed the decency and honor of him in favor of replicating the ways in which his face did not please the eye, all the while knowing that something had not been right "I do want to sketch you one day," she said.
He shrugged. "You will one day."
The little privacy they'd had ended with one of the mercenaries calling her over to fetch coffee for Foye and herself. She found cups in their kit and went to the fire for their share. She thanked the Janissary in his language, but too formally, she thought Too much as if there were that barrier of gender that had colored her use of the language when she was a woman.
She took both cups back to Foye and sat down, this time remembering to sit cross-legged. She gave Foye his and sipped her own. She welcomed the sharp flavor, the aroma drifting up, invigorating even by scent alone. She'd been awake for too many hours to count, with several more facing her before any of them would have the opportunity to sleep.
After the coffee was consumed, the fires put out, and accoutrements stowed away, they watered their horses one last time. A few of the soldiers took another turn at the fountain. Her years of traveling with Godard had given her the ability to pack, thus she was no better or worse than the others at stowing away her utensils and Foye's, but her rug refused to be rolled as tightly as everyone else managed, and when she walked to her mare, she stood there stupid with the realization that she did not know the first thing about how to attach her gear. Her heart stuttered as she looked to see how the others were managing.
Foye walked over and under cover of engaging her in conversation, readjusted her rug, showing her as he did, the proper way to affix it. He did the same with her saddlebags. She had the same maddening awareness of him as she had before. Cognizant that Foye was watching her, she remounted on her own, and they were back on the road. Now that, she thought with no small pride, was well done of her.
They continued south to Aleppo. The sun beat down with no breeze but that generated by their motion. Dirt and sand constantly blew in the air around them. Sabine found herself glad for her headdress for it kept the wickedly hot sun from burning her head and neck. Like the others, she had a long cloth wrapped around her face to keep out the dust Foye avoided her as he had previously, keeping his stallion at the front of the party, which had the chief advantage of being out of the dust Before long she stopped hoping he would drop back and speak with her and simply concentrated on riding. Later in the afternoon, as they had in the morning, they ate hard bread, cheese, and bits of dried fruit, and sipped stale water in the saddle.
Their second stop came an hour or two before full dark. They ate the same meal for dinner as they'd had for luncheon, followed by more of the strong, hot coffee that Foye and Sabine drank sweet as she dared make it from the small supply of sugar in her kit They barely rested after they ate, ten minutes at most Everyone remounted without complaint. No one spoke to her. No one assisted her. But she'd learned her lesson well. She knew how to fasten her rug and saddlebags, and she could mount on her own. They continued to ride well past treacherous dark, their horses stepping unerringly around obstacles in the uneven ground heading toward the city. They reached Aleppo shortly after nine o'clock. Sabine was at the outside edge of their procession when their party passed the Citadel of Aleppo, the great gleaming white fortress that sat on a hill in the very oldest section of the town. The castle dominated the city's landscape.
They continued into this ancient section of the city to the khans, inns used by the caravans that stopped in Aleppo on their way east or west to the port city of Iskenderun. As at Nazim Pasha's palace in Kilis, all the khans had arched entrance gates wide and tall enough to accommodate a fully burdened camel. The interior courtyard of the one Foye led them to was large enough to hold all the animals from two or more caravans. She did not yet read Arabic well enough to do more than guess at the meaning of the words inscribed over the gateway as they entered.
After dismounting, Sabine looked after her mare first but left the animal wearing both blanket and saddle as was the custom. She followed Foye inside. The others remained in the courtyard. She remembered to walk as if she weren't a woman, which wasn't difficult given the hours she'd spent riding. If she'd had bollocks she was certain they'd be as sore as her posterior. The proprietor recalled Foye from his previous stop on the way to Kilis and spoke enough broken English that Sabine's services were not required. Foye secured their accommodations himself.
It did not occur to Sabine until it was happening that she would be sharing a room with Foye. Alone.
Her stomach felt as if she had stepped off a very high cliff.
Chapter Nineteen
Aleppo, Haleb province of Syria,
July 1, 1811
A city continuously inhabited going back at least three thousand years before the birth of Jesus Christ, and presently under the putative control of the Turks. The very earth itself seemed to feel the regime could not last much longer, but no one knew who would take over once the Turks were gone. Nazim Pasha had his own opinion about that. As did Ibrahim Pasha, who had so resoundingly slaughtered his Egyptian competition earlier in the year. The French, the British, the Italians, and the Russians had their separate ideas as well.
"There's no help for it," Foye said to her when they were alone in a second-floor room. He unslung the heavier of his saddlebags and let it fall to the floor. The ceiling was high and painted in creams, blue, and gold in intricate patterns centered around flowing Arabic script The wood-paneled walls were just as intricately carved.
"I understand that, Foye," she said.
There was no furniture but for a low octagonal table and a narghile at the edge of the divan. At each end of the room, a lamp hung from a hook in the wall. Foye crossed the room and dropped his other saddlebag on the floor, near the divan.
"We aren't married yet," he said. He opened the cupboards built into the walls until he found the rolled-up mattresses. With both mattresses in hand he turned. "You have nothing to fear from me," he said.
"I know." Sabine put down her things, too, and helped him lay out the bedding. That done, she stood hands on her hips, longing to take a deep breath but unable to because of the cloth so tightly wrapped around her rib cage. Anxiety curled in her belly. She was excessively aware of Foye.
He frowned as he removed his pistols from his coat pockets and placed them beside his mattress. To them he added two knives and a dagger. She took another uncomfortable breath. "Why are you breathing like that?" he asked with a glance in her direction.
She gazed at him, knowing her cheeks were flaming red Could he tell under the artificial color of her skin? Here she stood, alone with a man she'd kissed until her knees were weak, and she still felt shy. Worse than shy. They were alone, and he was not the polite and controlled marquess she'd known in Buyukdere. As for why she was breathing as she was, she wasn't sure she could bring herself to tell him the problem, which was that her bosom was too tightly bound.
"Sabine."
For a man so temperamentally even, he had a talent for skewering one with a single glance. "I am not comfortable, Foye." He arched an eyebrow. She gestured at her upper body. "Here."
"Nor am I—" He scowled at her, but understanding had dawned. His gaze lowered to the vicinity of her bosom. "Ah. Yes. Our solution to the problems of anatomy."
"As you said, there's nothing for it," she said. She avoided looking at him by kneeling to unroll her rug and spread it over her mattress. She brushed away as much dust as she could. The room, beautiful as it was, was not very large. They would be close here. Very close. But nothing would happen. Would it? She kept her head down. Was that what she wanted?
"Sabine," Foye said.
She did not want to hear anything from him about her constricted bosom. She wished to God she'd never even alluded to the reason for her discomfort. All she'd done was destroy the illusion that she was Pathros and bring back all the discomfort from before. They were now both too aware of each other. Well, she was too aware of him.
"It would be best..." He coughed. "If we left our solution in place. Unless it's unbearable for you."
"No," she said. Lied. "It's not." She sat down, cross-legged, and was reminded that she too was armed when the weapons in her sash poked into her ribs. She took out both the pistols and the knife tucked into her sash. The purse he'd given her was there, too, but she left that for now. What had her life come to that she was pulling such deadly instruments from her clothing and thinking that perhaps she ought to have more?
"They make a rather impressive pile, don't you agree?" she said.
Foye looked over. "Formidable." He fetched his other saddlebag and moved both to one side. He, too, unrolled his rug and stretched out on the mattress. His feet hung off the end. "God willing, you will never use them," he said, tucking his hands under his head. "And, God willing, you will if necessary."
"Yes." She touched the larger pistol Foye had given her. Sabine would never have touched such a weapon. No one would ever think she could. But Pathros? He must be familiar and ruthless with such an instrument. "Do you think Nazim Pasha knows I'm gone?"
"Assuredly."
"He'll come after you."