As they walked, they found wagons veered farther off the road and into a spreading field, from which sounds of activity could be heard. Once again, music reached Isra's ears, and laughter. The wagons grew larger, and some had windows, but the oddest thing about them was that they appeared to have been painted and stenciled in bright colors, stylized versions of animals and men and birds decorating their bulky hulks.
Roman, too, veered off the road and Isra followed, walking in the deep, soft ruts left by scores of wide wheels leading into a fallow field where it appeared a common area had been set up. A large fire marked the center, ringed by metal scaffolds of spits and tripods and cauldrons. An old woman with straggly gray hair crouched near the fire, stirring the contents of a pot. Several chickens scratched through the dried and jagged stalks poking up through mud and dead vegetation; a pair of young children emerged, squealing and chasing each other before disappearing between another pair of wagons.
“There she is,” Roman said, and after a quick glance at his face, Isra turned to look beyond the fire and past the farthest wagon, where it seemed all the animals had been corralled.
There, indeed, had to be their donkey; it was smaller, fatter, and certainly better groomed than the rest of the animals gathered together beyond theâyes, certainly, that was the long length of sick rope, its red pennants fluttering in the morning air. Perhaps the donkey spotted Roman, for she gave a pathetic and lonely-sounding bray.
The old woman rose from a stool she'd had hidden in her skirts to reach up to one of the tripods and grasp a rope. Isra caught the flash of the curved dome of the bell that had, until recently, been attached to their own cart.
“Cheeky lot,” Roman said.
The witchlike figure rang the bell and then cupped her gnarled hands around her mouth, as if readying herself to give a shout.
But Roman stepped toward the fire, giving Isra little choice but to follow, while he called out to the woman. “Hark, mistress,” he said in a firm voice. “Who is the master of this party?”
The hag swung around and, although she did not seem surprised at their arrival, she did look appreciatively up and down Roman's large form, her eyes lingering on Lou.
“I'm the master, for all you need to know, Goliath,” she snipped. “I've got no scraps to feed the likes of you and neither does he. Be gone.” She began to raise her hands again, but Roman interrupted her.
“I've not come looking for a meal,” he said, and Isra noted how his voice grew deeper. “I've come for the belongings that were stolen out from under me in the night by someone or some
ones
in this group.”
“Bugger off,” the old woman muttered over her shoulder.
Roman began to march past the fire toward the corral, Lou maintaining his perch.
“Ay, now! Where do you think you're off to?”
He didn't turn around, and Isra stayed where she was, her hand gripping the knife hidden in her skirt. She was not going to let anyone sneak up behind Roman.
“That's
my
donkey,” he called out, pointing with a long forefinger. “
My
sick flags. And I'm taking them back.”
Isra felt her backbone tightening. “That is our bell as well,” she said to the old woman, who swung her wrinkled face around slowly. “And I believe you are making your porridge in what is meant to be a censer. You shall be ill from that, old woman.”
“You don't say?” the hag squealed. And then she reached up once more with her skeletal fingers and began ringing said bell as if trying to shake her own arm loose from her body.
As if by magic, people of all shapes, sizes, and even colors began to emerge from the spaces between the wagons, filling the common area and separating Isra from Roman. Her fledgling bravado disappeared like smoke from the censer, which now contained an unknown portion of contaminated foodstuff.
“He's stealin' the animals!” the hag screamed, pointing her bony finger toward Roman and then swinging around to face Isra. “And
she's
palmin' a blade!”
The crowd began to grumble, roughly one half turning toward Roman and the other half moving in Isra's direction. But Roman's strong voice cut through the rumblings.
“I have come only for what is mine,” he called out, and Isra couldn't help but notice the young boy with long, dirty brown hair cut straight across at his collarbone who sank back into the advancing crowd and disappeared. Perhaps he was the thief? But she could not devote further thought to him as Roman continued to advise the group.
“This donkey was stolen from my camp last night, not long after your party passed us on the road. I'm taking her back, along with our bell and censer and the flags indicating an infectious patient in quarantine. I mean no one here harm. Any of you noble enough to claim leadership of this den of thieves and deny me, step forward if you would.”
The crowd parted to let a man pass into the center of the clearing, and they backed away from him, leaving Isra a clear line of sight past this new stranger to Roman and the animals beyond.
“Is that so?” the man asked amiably enough, still fastening the thin black belt around his green velvet tunic, looping the long end of it through itself so that it hung down against his leg. His hair was dark, thick, and longer on the top of his head so that it swooped and curved into an attractive wave over his brow. His skin was pale, in sharp contrast to his dark brows and lashes, like charcoaled slashes on his ivory skin.
“If anyone here has deprived you of your property, sir, then I extend to you my deepest apologies,” the man said, bringing one of his palms to rest on his chest. “Certainly I bid you retrieve your belongings with my heartfelt thanks for alerting me that there is a
thief
in our midst.” At his words, the crowd snorted and twittered.
Roman glanced to Isra and then nodded to the finely dressed and well-spoken man. “Very well. I'll only be a moment.”
“Of course,” the man continued, causing Roman to pause in turning toward the makeshift corral, “you will be able to prove rightful ownership before you remove them from my family's possession.”
“What?” Roman said.
“How do I know these things belong to you?” the man asked, looking around wide-eyed at all gathered there, and then fixing his eyes on Isra. “Perhaps
you
are the robbers, preying upon humble travelers and extorting them of their effects while you distract us with such a beauteous companion.”
“That is
my
donkey,
my
sick flags,
my
bell,
my
censer,” Roman growled. “And I mean to take them with me. I need not prove anything to you, for you know as well as I that none of these things were in your possession before this morn.”
The man shrugged, even as his eyes lingered on Isra. His smile was friendly, curious, and he did not seem at all perturbed at Roman's stern tone. He held up a finger and swung it between Isra and Roman.
“Which one of you is sick?” he asked.
“What?” Roman demanded again.
“You said those were sick flags; I don't believe they are to be flown in an arbitrary manner. The sheriff of the town we passed through yesterday warned of a man transporting a leper on the road ahead of us. But neither of you appear to be rotting where you stand. So I ask you: Which one of you is sick?”
Roman met Isra's eyes again but looked away. “That's none of your concern.”
“Well, that is too bad.” The man clasped his hands behind his back and looked down at his feet, as if considering. Then he looked up at Roman. “I think you'd better be on your way, then.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Roman said, and then turned and snapped the line of pennants from the tree, bringing the little donkey trotting to his side.
Isra brought a hand to her throat as a handful of men separated from the crowd after only a single glance from the well-dressed leader. All the men were large, wide, their sleeveless tunics displaying well-muscled arms.
But Roman knew what was about as he quickly turned and faced the five who stopped in a line before him, all crossing their arms over their chests.
“I don't think so, cap'n,” one said to Roman.
Roman sighed and tossed the length of pennant in his hand to the ground. He pushed away the head of the donkey, who seemed to want to hide her face beneath Roman's arm. Then he brought his hand to Lou, still perched on his shoulder, and lifted him off into the air. The falcon swooped low over the line of men, causing them to duck and cover their heads for a moment, and then Lou flew a tight circuit around the common, eliciting squeals from the crowd before settling on a branch above Isra.
“I have no wish to injure you,” Roman warned them. “Let me pass with my belongings and you'll keep your feet beneath you.” The crowd murmured at the implied threat.
“Looks like those things belong to us now,” the man responded. “I'd wager the one who'll be showing the soles of his boots to the morn stands before me.” Again, the crowd rumbled, but this time there was also laughter and shouts of encouragement.
Roman shrugged. “All right.”
The dark-haired leader strolled toward Isra, an easy smile on his face, his arms still clasped behind his back.
“Come no closer,” she warned him, trying to keep her voice from ascending.
But he paid her no heed, his smile deepening as his eyes seemed to take in the details of the veil over her head, her face. “I'm not going to harm you,” he said with a grin.
“No closer,” she reiterated, but he came to a stop only once he had reached her side.
He held up his hands. “Not armed. Let's watch together, shall we? Perhaps you will decide to continue your journey with us should something . . . unfortunate happen to your friend.” He turned to face the area where the horses were now wandering away into the camp, but no one gathered seemed to care in the least. Roman faced the five men before him. They squatted down and spread out, likely with the intention of circling him much as the animals had been corralled.
“It's a shame really,” he said, leaning to the side to speak to Isra. “He is impressive. Were you slaves together?”
Isra winced at him. But her attention was drawn back to Roman as the first man charged with a yell. In the next instant, that challenger was flat on his back, motionless in the dirt.
To Isra's surprise, the crowd sent up a polite cheer.
“Ah, very good,” the man at her side said. “But let us see how he fares against two.”
As if on cue, half of the remaining men advanced from opposite sides of Roman, the slighter of the two giving a great leap onto his back and locking his arms around Roman's neck while the man in front took a swing with a meaty fist.
Roman ducked, even while carrying his passenger, and came up with a two-fisted swing under the man's chin, followed by a kick to the groin that caused the crowd to give a collective groan. As the attacker crumpled to the dirt, Roman squatted and reached up over his head, yanking the man riding him in a wide arc, much like he would remove a shirt, and throwing him onto the ground with such force that debris flew up around the fallen man. Roman crouched down to face the remaining two opponents.
The spectators shouted and clapped; some even whistled.
Roman frowned and glanced at Isra, who turned and looked up quizzically at the man still at her side. She was unsettled to find that he was already regarding her.
“I am Asa van Groen,” he offered.
Two loud oofs and a strangled yell drew Isra's attention back to Roman, and she saw one of his challengers staggering backward in her direction, his arms windmilling.
Asa van Groen reached out and guided Isra out of the path of the defeated man just as he skidded into the dirt at her feet. He released her promptly, though, holding his palms up again, and Isra was stunned to see that in his right hand he now held the dagger she'd been clutching in her skirts.
Asa grinned at her before flipping the dagger in his palm and offering the weapon back to her, handle first. “I didn't want you to drop it in the commotion; it looks valuable.”
The crowd cheered, and Isra looked up to see Roman standing amid a pile of bodies, one of which was attempting to gain his hands and knees and crawl away. Roman bent down and snagged a loop of the pennants and wound them from his palm down to his elbow as he walked toward Isra. The little gray donkey trotted in his wake, as if terrified that she would be left behind, just as some beast gave what could only be described as a barking roar, a sound that was both terrifying and somehow familiar.
“Pardon my boldness,” the strange man asked, drawing Isra's attention to him, “but would you happen to be Egyptian?”
Chapter 8
R
oman threw the coil of sick flags onto his shoulder as he reached the hag squatted before the fire. She grinned up at him with all six of her pointed teeth while he unhooked the bell. With his other hand he pulled a rag free from a metal frame with a snap of cloth. He wound it around his hand before grabbing the censer, tipping the hinged lid open and tossing the gray, sloppy contents into the dirt. The censer lid clanged as he flipped it closed.
“You may keep the firewood that was stolen,” he said to the old woman, who only threw back her head and cackled as Roman turned to walk to Isra.
He didn't like the way the dark-haired man was standing so close to her. But Isra looked to him right away, and although her smile was reserved, he saw a sparkle in her eyes that he'd never seen before. Was that look for him? Or for the peacock who had been speaking into her ear while Roman was fending off five attackers?
She slid her dagger into her skirt as he reached her and then held out her hands, taking the bell and the coil of rope from him.
“Well done, my lord,” she said, looking into his eyes, and Roman felt an unusual swelling of pride as he realized the pleasure in her gaze was for him.
“I will echo that praise, if I may,” the man at her side said and held out his hand toward Roman as Isra moved behind him to grab hold of the little donkey's bridle. “Asa van Groen.”
Roman only looked down at the man's hand and then up into the branches of the tree overhead. He gave a sharp, thin whistle between his teeth and Lou descended at once to land on his caped shoulder.
Van Groen abandoned the gesture with the quirk of a dark eyebrow. “Ingenious disguise you've contrived. Is your master hunting the two of you? Or the three of you, I should say,” he added, glancing at Lou.
“I have no master,” Roman said. “And I'll warn you now: should our paths cross again on the road, and should any of your people come near, I won't stop at just giving him a thrashing.”
“I believe what you say,” van Groen allowed with a nod. “But
I
say, why not preclude the chance of an unexpected meeting at some future time? We are headed south, you are headed south; why don't you join us?”
Isra's head swung around to stare at the man, and even though Roman was learning that it was her habit to conceal her emotions, surprise was quite evident on her face.
“You stole from us, set five men upon my protector in hopes of killing him, and now that he has won you think we would travel alongside you?” she demanded, her tone growing haughty, her chin raising.
“Oh, no, my dear; they would not have killed him, never! What on earth would we have done with such a massive corpse, I ask you?” van Groen objected, a look of horror coming over his slender face. “Allow me to point out that there is great strength in numbers. It would be much easier for the two of you to travel to your destination in our midst than on your own. You're both rather . . . conspicuous.”
Roman leaned forward and down to gain the man's attention. “Stay away from our camp,” he reiterated. Then he straightened and motioned toward Isra to lead the donkey ahead of him. She urged the little gray animal on without so much as a further glance for van Groen. Roman followed.
“Very well, and you have my word!” the man called out behind Roman, but he did not bother to turn to look at him. “From this moment on, none of my troupe's shadows shall fall on your camp. But my offer stands; you are welcome around our fire if ever you change your minds. This day, tonight, a fortnight from now . . .”
“The forty-third of Never?” Roman returned over his shoulder. To his surprise, the crowd gathered in the circle of wagons erupted in good-natured laughter.
He followed Isra and the donkey up the slight rise onto the road and they walked for several minutes before they passed the last of the wagons. Only when they had barren fields interspersed with tiny plots of woodland flanking them did she turn to him.
“You were wonderful, my lord,” she said, her voice steady, honest. He looked sideways at her and saw that she wore an expression of openness rather than anxiety or secrecy. “Where did you learn to fight?”
“I had to learn young,” Roman said, feeling a heat come up his neck. “My size gave older lads wont to single me out, and there was little supervision of the apprentices. We had to fend for ourselves and for one another.”
“Do you often find yourself having cause to battle?”
Roman shook his head. “No. Not for years and years now. When I wasâ” He broke off for a moment to rearrange his words. “I sometimes had need to break up fights among my workers, usually caused by a woman or too much drink. But I've found that as men grow older, they become more loathe to instigate trouble with someone twice their size.”
She was looking down at the road before her feet when Roman glanced at her again, but there was a gentle smile on her lips.
“The intelligent ones,” she guessed.
Roman chuckled. He felt very good just then. His arm pained him a bit, but the strain was actually pleasant. He'd done no physical labor since he'd found Isra Tak'Ahn on the hillside, and his body was eager for release. Traveling by cart and then by ship for weeks did not promise to require any effort.
Unless they came across more brigands on their journey, that was. Roman almost hoped they would be a regular occurrence if it meant that same look of admiration from the woman walking at his side.
“What was that manâvan Groen, was it?âsaying to you?” he asked at last.
“He is strange,” Isra said. “He asked me if I was Egyptian.”
Roman turned his head toward her. “
Are
you Egyptian?”
“I am indeed,” she said. “In part. Perhaps.” She shrugged. “I never knew my father or his kin. But my mother's blood is Egyptian, and . . . and English.”
Roman's eyes widened and he longed to press her but would not now, noticing how her words were becoming hesitant again, her movements stilted. Perhaps this was a part of her life Isra would rather not expound upon, and although he again felt as if he could demand it of her and she would comply because of whatever debt she felt she owed him, Roman would not take advantage of her in that manner.
“English,” he said instead, allowing his voice to convey his interest but looking straight ahead at the road before them.
The birdsong and their own footfalls interspersed with the donkey's clopping gait were the only sounds for several moments.
“My great-grandfather married an English lady,” she said in somewhat of a rush, picking up their conversation as if it had never stopped.
Roman looked over at her with a grin. “You mean to say that your great-grandmother was an English lady? Titled?”
Isra nodded and looked over at him. “My mother warned us never to speak it as such. There are many in my country who hate the English. To admit that I am part Englishâno matter how small the partâcould have been very dangerous for us.”
“I see. Well, that is yet another reason why you cannot refer to me as lordâyou outrank me.” He paused a moment and then took a chance. “How did your English great-grandmother fare in Damascus?”
Isra shook her head. “She never saw the city. My great-grandfather died in England. One of his sonsâmy mother's fatherâreturned to the land of his ancestors, hoping to amass his own fortune.” She paused for a moment, letting the birdsong sing them along. “He was unsuccessful. He sold his only daughter into slavery and died penniless.”
Roman was shocked at the dramatic story of Isra Tak'Ahn's heritage and wanted to ask after it further but didn't wish to make her uncomfortable by prying.
So it was a surprise when she turned to him and asked suddenly, “Do I appear to be English to you?”
Roman took the opportunity to look directly at her, to study her, with an expression of concentration on his face. In truth, though, he wasn't seeking any specific trait; he was only enjoying her features at his leisure and with her permission.
“Not particularly,” he said at last, and then gave a little shrug.
“Not at all?” she pressed.
He looked at her again. “I don't think so. Why?”
Her eyes went to the road again. “My mother said she could see the English in me. In my skin. Huda's as well.”
“I do like your skin,” he blurted out, regretting it even before all the words had passed from his lips. “The coloring of it, I mean. It's darkrent.
Different
. Dark. Darker. Darker than mine. Which is very pale. You've noticed.”
He had to nearly grind his teeth to get his mouth to stay closed.
Isra laughed. “I like your skin, too.”
He took the next several moments to grin at the road like a fool. When he was fairly certain he wasn't in danger of complimenting her on the fact that she had hair growing on her head, he tried again.
“Why do you think van Groen asked if you were Egyptian?”
“I do not know,” she said, shaking her head. “I am not missing from Egypt; no one knows of me there. If he had asked were I Damascene, I would worry.”
Roman agreed. “What of Saladin? Could he have been warned that sensitive information was perhaps lost to a woman from Damascus who is now missing?”
“I suppose it is possible,” Isra said, “but not likely. The men I betrayed would rather put an end to me themselves than admit to their ruler that they were bested by a woman. It was a strange question, though. He is a strange man,” she repeated.
“Well, you can put him from your mind,” Roman said as they came upon the tracks where he had pulled their little cart off the road the night before. He passed Isra and the donkey to walk into the tall grass first. “We shall hitch up our well-mannered girl and be on our way, never to see Asa van Groen again.”
He looked up with a smile at their fire, hardly smoldering now, and then stopped, feeling Isra come up behind him. The only other things in the clearing besides grass and tree were the obvious circles of wheel ruts in the mud around the smoking pile of coals.
“That son of a bitch,” Roman muttered.
* * *
“He knew the cart was being stolen as he gave us his pretty speech,” Roman muttered as he walked along with Isra at his side, still leading the reluctant donkey. They were once more going past the long line of wagons pulled off the road and headed into the clearing.
“It could not have been van Groen himself, my lord,” Isra said. “There was a boy, though . . .”
Roman raised a hand and Lou gave an uneasy flap of his wings. “It matters not. Van Groen
knew
.” Roman was going to find that ebon-haired peacock and put the man's angular face on the backside of his skull.
The sounds coming from the camp as they entered this time were louder, more raucous than when they'd been there an hour earlier. Every few moments a shout would erupt, or a set of shrill screams. The air was strung with the perpetually panicked, jingly barks of small dogs. As strange as the whole lot of them were, cheering on the man they stole from when he was set upon by five of their own, it wouldn't have surprised Roman should he discover they had taken to poking each other with long sticks to the rhythm of a tune.
As they came into view of the common area, he saw what had to be the entirety of the population of the caravan gathered into a sea of humanity beyond the fire. He slowed, Isra and the donkey keeping close to his side, to observe what the strange group of travelers were about.
He couldn't quite tell, only that the mass seemed to collectively move a score of feet in one direction, heralded by a loud scream or shout. But the next time the flock of people swooped, Roman and Isra's presence was detected by a man standing in the back of the crowd nearest them. He glanced their way and then looked back at them, an alarmed frown coming over his long, sallow countenance.
Just so
, Roman thought to himself.
He should be alarmed, the thief.
The man began flapping his hands in their direction and came at them in a trot. “Go back!” he called. “Run while you still can!”
“Not likely,” Roman shouted, standing taller. The man himself was unusually tall and thin, and Roman took rare advantage of his stature. “Find your Asa van Groen and tell him I've come for my cart.”
The man seemed to grow thinner as he drew closer, and Roman fancied he could almost see the joints of his skeleton as his clothes flapped on his frame. “Van Groen can't be with you at the moment,” he said, glancing over his shoulder as he reached them. “Heed my warning and
run
. Your life is not worth a wooden cart, friend.”
Roman shoved the man aside, striding toward the group of folk gathered with their backs to him.
“My lord?” Isra called after him.
“Back in a thrice,” he assured her over his shoulder. He was rather looking forward to impressing this Egyptian beauty who had descended, at least in part, from English nobility.
But then a frightful roar came from the crowd knotted together perhaps only twenty paces before him, and the throng seemed to turn at once and stampede toward Roman, swerving around him, knocking him to the ground and sending Lou flapping to safety as they leaped and screamed and dispersed among the wagons.
Roman rolled onto his stomach and looked up in the direction from which the crowd had run.
There stood Asa van Groen in the bed of Roman's own cart, his arms outstretched, a long, curling whip in one hand, turning his body in a slow circle. A boy of perhaps ten with long, stringy hair peeked over the top of van Groen's arm.