Lord of Desire (45 page)

Mahmoud did not know much else about the French army's intentions, or about his lord's plans. He thought it was a French general who led the column, but Alysson was certain Gervase had come as well.

"Those son of swine!
Blacksmith's blood!" the boy cried, raising his fists in the air.

Knowing she would get little more useful information from the impassioned youth, Alysson made her way on shaky legs to the tent entrance, where she met a scene of bustling activity. The Berbers were making preparations for the battle to come, outfitting their mounts with weapons and food. Already tall saddles were bristling with arms and other accoutrements, while the horses' caparisoned bridles sported blinders, which would prevent the animals from being distracted by surrounding objects.

Alysson stood watching silently, her heart in her throat. The peaceful Berber camp had instantly become an instrument of war.

Yet how could she blame them? War was the only thing these sons of the desert understood. To them, war was survival. And total loyalty to their lord was a duty. They would live or die for him, as he commanded.

Saful, particularly, was a loyal servant, Alysson knew. Directly in front of her, the blue-eyed equerry was saddling several mounts, one of which was Jafar's favorite black stallion. It appeared that Saful would accompany the Berbers into battle. Naturally he would be anxious for war. Not just for glory, Alysson suspected, but rather to redeem himself for his failure to guard her.

Just then she saw Jafar striding rapidly across the camp toward his tent. Not wanting to face him, she retreated inside to a far corner.

Her precaution was wasted. Jafar entered the tent, his eyes searching the shadows, and Alysson knew he was looking for her.

Spying her, he came to a halt. His face was taut as he stared at her, his eyes restless.

She thought he meant to say something, but without a word, he crossed the room and went into the bedchamber. In a few moments, he returned, dressed completely in black—full trousers, soft boots, tunic, burnous and turban.

“I will leave twenty of my men here in the camp for your protection, and that of the other women," Jafar said as he finished buckling the scabbard of a jeweled sword around his waist.

Alysson didn't contradict him, though she felt certain his men would not be for her protection, but rather to guard her. Jafar's next words took her aback.

"They have orders to escort you to
Algiers,
if it should happen that I don't return."

She stared at him in shock, startled more by hearing him voice her unspoken fear than his promise of safe escort. The stark realization that she might never see him again filled her with dread.

If he didn't return . . .

Her throat tightened. She couldn't bear to think of such
a possibility. Despairingly, she averted her face, not wanting him to see the fear in her eyes. She had wanted to plead with him to spare Gervase, but the words were overshadowed now by the absurd desire to beg Jafar not to die himself.

For a long moment she felt his gaze on her, searching and intent, while a keen tension filled the silence between them.

Finally Jafar crossed to her side. She stood frozen, immobile, as slowly, hesitantly, he took her hands in his.
"Alysson . . ."

She wouldn't look at him.

Again she thought he intended to say something, perhaps to repeat his reasons for seeking vengeance against Gervase. But he couldn't justify his violence to her, any more than she would be able to accept Jafar's death. There was nothing more to be said.

In the end, he gave a sigh and released her hands. Murmuring a brief farewell, Jafar turned slowly on his heel and left the tent.

The ache caught Alysson unaware. Could she bear to let him go away thinking that she hated him, that she didn't care whether he lived or died?

She tried to run after him, but her weak legs wouldn't allow her. Instead, she stumbled to the entrance, where she came to a sudden halt.

It was a sight to behold—nearly two hundred Berber warriors on their prancing steeds, their highly burnished weapons flashing and sparkling in the noonday sun. They looked as fierce and indomitable as the land they lived upon. In the faint breeze fluttered the green banner of the Holy War, alongside Jafar's own standard of red and black.

Jafar was already mounted on his magnificent black charger, his demeanor commanding and as intent as a desert hawk.

Please,
she begged silently.
Please take care.

He had started to turn the stallion when he caught sight of Alysson standing there, looking up at him with mute wretchedness. Jafar tensed, dreading to hear the words on her lips. She would ask him to spare her fiancé's life, and that he could not do. He waited, while the grit churned up by the horses' hooves swirled around him.

"Please . . ."
she
whispered,
her voice so low that he strained to hear. But the words choked in her throat, and the remainder of her plea was lost as tears welled in her lustrous eyes. Faltering, she pressed a hand to her quivering mouth.

Jafar felt his heart wrench with a bitter emotion more powerful than anything he'd ever felt. He didn't need to hear the words; she was pleading for Bourmont's life, he could see it in her eyes.

Abruptly, he whirled his mount.

He didn't look at her again as he took his place at the head of his troops. With effort, Jafar managed to pretend that he hadn't seen the despair on her pale features, hadn't noticed the heartrending trembling of her mouth. With grim determination, he even attempted to dismiss her from his thoughts as he focused on the battle ahead.

But as he rode out of camp with his army of warriors, he was aware that Alysson's haunted gaze followed him all the while.

Against all inclination, despite his most determined efforts, her gaze continued to haunt him. Even on the eve of battle, Jafar couldn't forget the wrenching pain of leaving her behind.

It tormented his thoughts some twenty hours later, when he was ensconced with his men on a plateau of the Ouled Nail
mountains
. Jafar
lay
on his stomach, overlooking the narrow gorge below, a field glass pressed to his eye. His Berber warriors were scattered among the mountain ridges and crevices, waiting eagerly for the engagement to come. Beside him was his chief lieutenant, Farhat il Taib—the same red-bearded Berber who had acted as interpreter when they'd first accosted Alysson Vickery and her party nearly a month ago.

Alysson . . .
his vibrant, defiant captive.
She would never forgive him for what he was about to do. She would—

"They come, lord?" Farhat questioned softly.

Jafar was grateful for the interruption of his tortured thoughts. "Yes.", A quarter hour more, perhaps, and the enemy would appear blow.

He passed the glass to his lieutenant,
then
glanced over the heights, searching the shadows made by the glaring sun. The black burnouses of the Berbers blended well with the shadows as they waited under ledges and behind rocks. Like himself, his men were seasoned fighters who had seen several campaigns, but Jafar's strategy now was very different from the first battles Abdel Kader had fought against the French.

In the early years of the war, the Arab forces had proved victorious in driving back the rapacious French. Abdel Kad- er's army had exceeded 40,000 troops, while his cannon foundry and manufactories had supplies his Berbers and Arabs with the munitions of war.

But that was before they'd had to fight the likes of General Thomas-Robert Bugeaud, a marshal of France and commander of the French forces in Barbary. Bugeaud had revolutionized French warfare by mounting his infantry troops. With vastly superior numbers, he'd dealt Abdel Kader several stunning defeats,
then
set about the ruthless, wholesale destruction of the Kingdom of Algiers and the widespread massacres of her peoples. Abdel Kader's once-powerful army was reduced to partisan resistance, confining themselves to harassing the enemy, cutting off communications, executing sudden and unexpected sallies.

Jafar had developed his current battle plan along these lines. He commanded a smaller force by half than Gervase de Bourmont, but he had the element of surprise on his side, and a keen knowledge of the mountains. He and his men occupied the principle pass of the Nail, a narrow defile through which one could emerge from the High Plateau into the Sahara.

With great care, Jafar had planted the rumors that Alysson was being held captive here in the district of the Ouled Nail tribe. His plan was to oblige the colonel to enter the mountains by the gorge, where the constricted space would preclude the possibility of cavalry movements. Once Bourmont had passed below, Jafar's men would send an avalanche of scree and boulders into the gorge, cutting off the colonel's retreat. When the battle started, the Frenchmen would be entangled among ravines, trapped amidst precipices.

As for the vast remainder of the French troops, Khalifa Ben Hamadi would keep them occupied by falling on the enemy's flank. Here in the gorge, the Berbers would be led by Jafar's chief lieutenant, Farhat. Jafar wanted to be entirely free to meet his longtime enemy the colonel face-to- face.

"It is as you said, lord," Farhat murmured, handing the spyglass back to Jafar. "The colonel is in the lead."

Jafar held the glass to his eye, running it over the French troops as they filed through the mouth of the gorge. There were some eight hundred men, all mounted, most wearing lightweight blue uniforms and kepis with neckcloths. At the rear rode a detachment of men dressed like the native Bedouins—a crack cavalry unit of Arab spahis employed by the French army.

The column was armed with two howitzers, yet the colonel's forces would never have the chance to fire their cannon; Jafar's warriors would prevent it. They stood ready to fire at his signal on the slender column as it wound through the rocky pass.

Jafar's glass swept nearer, over the leaders, and his jaw muscles clenched as he found the face he was seeking.

Bourmont.
The name whispered like a demon through his mind.

Yet, oddly, he couldn't summon the fierce hatred that had always accompanied the thought of his blood enemy. Rather he felt numb, except for the tight knot in the pit of his stomach, and a dull ache in the vicinity where his heart should be.

How could that be so? For seventeen years he had waited for this moment. For seventeen years vengeance had driven him.
Vengeance for the torturous murders of his parents.

Forcibly Jafar tried to dredge up the brutal memories of that day when he had been forced to become a man, to remember the crimson blood draining from his father's body, the screams of his mother. Yet all he could see was Alysson, the image of her pale face and the sadness in her lustrous eyes.