Chapter Twenty-Five
July 2, 1811
Approximately eight o’clock n the evening. A moonlit night on the road between Aleppo and Iskenderun.
Sabine could not look away from Foye even though she knew she ought to. He didn’t look away, either. Butterflies took off in her stomach. Where Foye was concerned, she had too many conflicting emotions to know for certain what she was feeling. Anxiety over Nazim Pasha and whether he would discover who she was. Uncertainty about their sexual relationship. Foye had been so tender with her last night. So careful of her. He’d held back some part of himself, though, and it worried her. “Your favor?” she said. “What is it?” “Ask our Druze commander to join us, please.” Sabine nodded in reply and dropped back to summon the captain. When they were back with Foye, he said, “Please ask him how much longer we can expect to safely ride. I’m given to understand there is a small inn about four hours ahead.” Foye shot a glance at the pasha. “Ask the captain if he agrees we can safely ride until then.”
As she translated, she was horribly aware of the pasha listening. Her accent was good; mimicry was a talent of hers, and she’d been listening all day to cadences of the Arabic spoken among the Janissaries who were not native Turkish speakers. God help them all if she did not have the accent down. She felt her attempt to keep her voice in a lower register only increased the chances that she would stumble linguistically. But she managed to convey the questions without anyone accusing her of being anything but Foye’s dragoman.
The Janissary listened quietly, stroking his mustache as he did so. “The horses,” he replied in his accented Arabic, “will be fine until midnight.” He held out a hand and wiggled it back and forth. He didn’t seem to suspect she wasn’t a boy. Why, she thought, after all this time so near to the pasha, would anyone else? So long as she continued with caution. As long as she didn’t make a mistake. She might get them all killed if she did. “After that, we would be better off to rest if the Englishman hopes to arrive in Iskenderun on schedule.”
Sabine thanked him and translated for Foye, who looked happy with the opinion. “We’ll continue until we reach the inn, men.”
Shortly after this exchange, the pasha left Foye to confer with his men. Foye leaned close as she rode beside him, speaking in a soft voice. “I believe he’s convinced I intended to rendezvous with you at the first inn. He’ll be expecting me to dash off without him now, heading back there.”
“But we won’t.”
“No,” he said. “I hope he goes mad wondering why I haven’t. After tomorrow, we’ll have to be even more careful.” He let out a breath. “Damn but I wish this trip were shorter.” He glanced at her. “You’ve done well so far, Pathros.”
She swallowed hard. “Thank you, my lord.”
Twice as they rode, they heard horses behind them. Both times several of the pasha’s Janissaries moved off the road until they were out of sight. On both occasions, innocent travelers passed by. The Janissaries who’d split off rejoined them. Oh yes, Sabine thought. The pasha did indeed believe Foye had arranged to have Sabine join him somewhere on the Iskenderun road. So long as he believed that, she was safe from overt suspicion. But how long before he began to wonder?
Dusk turned to twilight and twilight to a moonlit night so bright the stars faded overhead. Before long, even the mercenaries drooped in their saddles, dozing as their mounts picked their way through the sandy, rock-strewn terrain. The horses, too, showed signs of fatigue. They had by now been on the road for so long she’d lost count of the hours, pushing through the mountains without cease.
They reached the inn shortly before midnight. This particular establishment was a plain mud building with narrow windows and a sagging roof, with no enclosed inner courtyard to protect the animals of a caravan. Most of the men would have to sleep outside. While the others dismounted and led their horses to the side of the structure to feed and water their animals, Sabine and Foye stayed in the front.
Foye surveyed the building. “It looks…unsavory at best.” The building was ramshackle, just one story with walls in poor repair. But there was food to be had inside. Hot food. Foye dismounted. “Negotiate our terms with the innkeeper,” he told her as he reached for her mare’s bridle. Sabine nodded and dismounted without help. She was quite good at it now. “I’ll wait for you here,” he said.
“And the pasha?”
“He can fend for himself. Keep your pistol at hand.”
She bowed to him. “Yes, my lord.”
Sabine secured their accommodations without incident. There was a rather exhilarating freedom to conduct such business entirely on her own. Foye had given her a purse for that purpose, which she kept tucked into her sash and brought out to count out the coins for their meal and room. Their Janissaries would be sleeping outside, however.
“There is a warm spring a quarter mile beyond the building,” she told Foye. “A small one, but we are welcome to use it to bathe. The path, I have been assured, is well marked. They are happy to provide us with coffee and a narghile, my lord.”
A servant showed them to their room. He carried in one hand a lamp that he hung on a hook on the wall by the door. When she saw the condition of the room, a far cry from the khan in Aleppo, for a stomach-curdling moment. Sabine thought Foye would insist they remount and ride to the next available inn—God knew how long that ride would be.
Three or four men would fit inside this crude room, no more. That was not so unsatisfactory an arrangement since the inn, with its single story, had rooms that were open at the back but for a low wall so that travelers could sleep with their horses or pack animals near at hand and within sight. Their men would not be far. Neither, of course, would the pasha’s men. Or the pasha himself.
From over the low back wall, she could see that the pasha’s men had just finished setting up a tent. The spears of his rank were already planted outside, and there were men standing guard. Since Nazim Pasha was nowhere in sight, she assumed he was already inside the tent.
Foye’s Janissaries had already set out their bedding and blankets on the other side of the low wall that separated Foye’s room from the outside. Another of the soldiers stayed with the horses, holding onto the picket line. The pasha’s men were farther away. Some had already lit fires; others were quite plainly on guard. The rest went inside to eat.
The interior of the inn was not large enough for Foye to eat separately from the others as ought to have been the case for a man of his rank. Instead, he sat at the head of a table with the rest of his Janissaries and servants crowded around the sides and opposite end. She had negotiated a meal for all his men. The elbow of the soldier sitting next to her dug into her ribs.
The pasha entered with two servants and a broad-shouldered Janissary who took up position behind the pasha’s seat. At Foye’s instruction, she ordered meals to be sent to the two guarding the horses, leaving the table by herself to do so. No one thought it odd or unusual. Quite the opposite, in fact. This was what it was like to be a man. To be free to conduct one’s business and expected to be competent enough to do so without need of supervision. When she returned from making her request, she retook her place at the end of the table and dug into her food.
The pasha and Foye had fallen into conversation. The subject was poetry, of all things. A specialty of hers. She and Godard had made a thorough study of French poetry. She bent her head over her bowl, concentrating on blocking out Foye’s conversation.
The meal was rice with lentils and a small amount of meat. She didn’t care whether the meat was chicken or goat or mutton; it was marvelously good to put hot food in her stomach after so many hours gnawing on dry bread and hard cheese. The others, Janissaries and servants, felt the same, for they all sat in silence for some time as they ate. Only the pasha and Foye spoke.
“Pathros,” Foye said when she pushed away her empty bowl, “please tell the others they may go to the spring to bathe when I’ve returned from the same. Have the captain and one other come along to guard the path.” He blinked twice and rubbed a hand over his eyes. Was it possible he was as tired and out of sorts as she was? Up to now, he’d seemed impervious to any of the hardships of the day. “Tell them as well that they’re to take turns standing sentinel. Our captain may choose his guards as he sees fit for the task.” He stared at her a moment. “Tell me if that’s clear, or have I only babbled at you?”
“Perfectly clear, my lord.” She bobbed her head and quickly relayed Foye’s instructions to the Druze captain. He nodded. Foye made his good-nights to the pasha, and Sabine hurried to follow him.
Foye continued walking. “We’ll need a change of clothes. You’ll have to valet me, Pathros.”
“My lord.”
One of the Janissaries sat with his back against the half wall, holding the rope that bound the horses together. She ignored him while she gathered clean clothes for herself and Foye and what bathing items of Foye’s she could find.
There were windows in the wall opposite, tall and latticed as was the fashion here. Another Janissary was just visible in the darkness, sitting on the other side of the wall, not far from the horses. Another had a small fire going and was grinding the coffee beans for the drink that would keep them awake while they stood sentinel. Most had already said their evening prayers and laid out their own bedding.
The Druze captain and a second man appeared, and Sabine adjusted her own weapons in her sash. The four of them headed for the springs under the full moon and the watchful eye of Nazim Pasha, standing arms crossed in front of his tent.