The Bride Price (11 page)

The British soldier held his ground stubbornly. “I am going with you.”

“No, lad,” Blaine said over his shoulder. “This is family business.”

“I am going with you,” the young man repeated firmly. “I have every right...as Bryna’s fiancé.”

“Her what?” the Irishman thundered, whirling on him.

Poised for confrontation, Derek did not flinch. “Her fiancé. Didn’t she tell you we are to be married?”

“She did not,” Blaine bellowed, his face turning even redder with restrained wrath.

“She must not have had time. I only just proposed,” the Englishman explained confidently. “We...we love each other, you see, sir. And I will not rest until she is safe again.”

“Lieutenant Ashburn,” Blaine said, combing his fingers through his hair wearily. How could Bryna have hooked up with a soldier? That was the worst choice of a husband she could make.

“Derek, sir,” he prompted.

“Derek, you do not know what you are getting yourself into,” Blaine informed him with ill-concealed impatience.

“I don’t care. I will not rest until we have Bryna back.”

You may care when I tell you who her abductor is.”

“I do not think so. Who do these people think they are to kidnap the daughter of a British subject?” Derek countered arrogantly.

“Bryna was taken by Gasim Al Auf,” Blaine went on, ignoring the young soldier’s comment. “That’s Gasim the Bad, one of the vilest pirates ever to ply the Barbary Coast. He withstood even the efforts of the American navy to rout him.

“Now he’s come to Tangier to seek revenge on me. I killed his only son in battle when his cutthroats tried to take one of my ships, so he’s taken my only daughter. A tooth for a tooth, the Arabs believe, and an eye for an eye. I’m fortunate he did not kill Bryna outright.” He sighed. “I don’t know what Al Auf plans for her, but I know I must get her back quickly, before he harms her.”

“We will, sir, we will,” Derek pledged earnestly.

Blaine gauged the young Englishman with shrewd eyes. Something about Derek’s story did not ring true, but whatever his reasons, the lad obviously wanted to go along. There would be time to sort out the details later, and in the meantime he could use a good man in a fight where he was going.

“Very well,” Bryna’s father conceded. “My informant tells me Gasim went to Tripoli three days ago. My arrangements are made. Make yours today and be ready to leave at dawn, if you’re going with me.”

Bryna shifted, stiff from long hours in the cramped litter. Opening the curtains a crack, she surveyed the barren wasteland through which her camel plodded. This was the Fezzan, the heart of North Africa, where each day passed under blazing sun as the one before it.

Christmas and New Year’s had come and gone since she had been sold into slavery. Every day, every mile took her farther from the promise she’d had of love and a new life. How often in the past three months, she had listened for the sound of pursuing hoofbeats. By now her father and Derek must know she’d been kidnapped. Blaine had sent for her and said he loved her. Derek had proposed and said he wanted to spend his life with her. Surely one—or both—would come for her. That they might not be able to find her she refused to consider. She remained stubbornly optimistic, refusing to surrender to despair, encouraging Pamela who already looked to her for guidance.

“What shall we do, Bryna?” the English girl asked frequently.

“We’ll live one day at a time and look for a way to escape,” was Bryna’s practical answer. “Whatever comes, we will survive.”

She wished she felt as confident as she sounded. Their small caravan crossed hundreds of miles of desert, traveling from well to brackish well. From dawn and into the night, the camels were on the move, their soft feet slapping against the sand. The caravan rode toward the rising sun and its blinding rays shone on white sand, reflecting into the squinting eyes of the travelers. They had made good time, traveling by night a few times to escape detection by raiders, camping during the day, hidden by the dunes, setting a constant watch and sweltering in their tents.

Bryna soon discovered life in the desert was exacting for the hardiest of souls. The travelers endured intense heat and cold, hunger, searing winds that intensified thirst, and sandstorms that left them searching for lost tools and implements when it was over. For weeks on end each person was rationed to a pint of precious water a day, meted out at the end of each day’s travel. To extend their supply, sour camel’s milk was added to make a mixture called
shanin.
True to Suleiman’s prediction, Bryna soon learned to appreciate even that.

Night fell in the Sahara, cold and clear and starlit. The men huddled together around fires of dried camel dung and reveled in the small victory of surviving another day in the hostile environment. Shouting in the desert stillness, they told fantastic stories, greatly embellished and as old as time and the desert, which made them forget the rigors of their journey for a while. They spoke of epic acts performed by them and by heroes long dead.

Bryna and Pamela talked, too, slumping wearily in their tent. Their conversation was not of deeds, but of dreams and memories. Pamela told Bryna of her quiet, comfortable childhood in the ancestral home and of the excitement of her first social season. Bryna recounted her trip to Morocco and spoke of Blaine and Derek.

For both girls, past and future seemed far away. There was only the present, scorching heat and white sands. They scratched dry, parched skin and conjured up images of clean, cool water that did not reek of goatskins or taste of sour milk, of pools in which to bathe. Then they sipped gamy-flavored water from their goatskins once more before retiring. Exhausted, they lay on their pallets and tried to ignore the continual thirst and hunger pangs they now knew so well.

In the emptiness of the desert, Bryna thought of survival and not of escape. Suleiman taught the women some Arabic, for they would find little French spoken in Arabia. She found it difficult but loved the poetry of the formal language.

As her vocabulary increased, the girl brightened with hope each time the palms of an oasis appeared on the horizon. From behind her veil she scrutinized each tiny village, those dusty collections of hovels populated by no more than a few families, a midwife, and an imam to lead them in prayers. Nowhere was there succor for two white women being taken to Arabia against their wills, not from the residents of the oases, not from the provincial representatives of the Ottoman empire, not from the tribal sheiks through whose territories they passed.

At Abu Hamed, Suleiman hired Sudanese guards, three of them boys, to see his party safely across the Nubian Desert to the port of Suakin. After nearly two weeks, the caravan climbed from the desert to the heights. A pleasing breeze swept over the travelers, and the Red Sea stretched out below them, sparkling in the afternoon sun.

Their shadows were long in front of them when they descended to camp on the shore of a small cove. From the mountainside a huddle of mud brick buildings could be seen in the distance to the north. Tomorrow Suleiman’s party would sail from Suakin, but tonight they would camp outside the town.

The camel drivers chose an even, sandy patch next to a grove of palm trees and set up the tents. As usual the women were herded into their tent while the men celebrated outside. Even Suleiman’s Nubian guards joined in the lightheartedness, conversing happily with the guides, who were from a village near their home.

Now everyone could relax. The women, safe in their tent, had been no problem on the journey. Food and water were plentiful, and Suakin was nearby if they needed more. One of the pack camels was slaughtered, and the men cast lots for the delicacy of the raw, salted liver. Tonight they would feast.

Bryna watched through the tent flap while the men ate, then smoked after dinner. They were cheerful and noisy, and bursts of laughter could be heard while the women ate dinner in their tent. The men stayed up quite late, talking and telling stories from their inexhaustible supply. Even Suleiman contributed, choosing from the stories of Scheherazade, directing the conversation away from the subject of women and houris, for he was ever mindful of the treasures in the tent behind him.

Even when the slave trader, tired and sated, retired to his bed, Bryna continued her vigil. She watched guides, slaves, and camel drivers roll up in their cloaks and lie down beside the dying campfire. The Nubian assigned to guard the women’s tent snored lightly, leaning against a tree, his musket held loosely between his knees. The only sign of activity in the sleeping camp came when two of the Sudanese boys, free from their elders’ watchful eyes, crept to the beach for a moonlight swim.

When no one in the camp had stirred for a long time, Bryna picked up a small water skin and opened the tent flap. She glanced up at the full moon and wished the night were not so bright.

She slipped out of the tent with no clear plan of action. She had discussed escape with Pamela many times, but the English girl maintained it was too dangerous, that she could never survive such an attempt. At last, Bryna had privately concurred.

She regretted leaving Pamela, but she knew it was the only way to save both of them. The English had only just begun to make their presence felt in Egypt. If Bryna could reach them in Cairo, she could secure asylum for herself and rescue for her friend.

Staying close to the tents, she stole to the edge of the dark camp. She ran silently across a moonlit clearing toward a thicket of palms that stretched almost to the beach. Among the trees she dropped to the sand and listened, her heart pounding, but she heard no sounds of pursuit.

She made her way toward the water, halting in the shadows when she reached the cove. The coastline, washed with gentle waves, stretched north for nearly a mile to another stand of trees that ran down to the waterline. A rocky promontory prescribed its southern boundary.

A short distance from the grove of trees that hid her, the two Sudanese boys, stripped to their loincloths, frolicked in the surf. Their voices carried clearly on the night breeze. She was glad of the warning, but if they were not quiet, they would wake the camp. Then their swim—and her escape—would be ruined.

She spied their clothes where they had left them just a few feet from her hiding place. Rapidly she gauged the older of the two boys as he thrust himself upright in the water. He was about her size, she judged, elated as a plan came to her.

Creeping to the edge of the grove, she used a long stick to drag his clothing to her. Quickly she doffed her djeIlaba, keeping only her sturdy leather sandals, and donned his clothes. His aba was scratchy and smelled of sweat, smoke, and camel dung, but it would serve as a disguise.

Bryna took care to wrap the turban cloth tightly around her head. She had learned that the larger the turban, the more prominent the wearer, and she had no wish to draw attention to herself.

Before she left, she gathered her own clothes. When the boy discovered his were missing, he would set off an alarm. The entire camp would search, and if they found her garments in the sand, they would know at once she was gone. She must give herself as much of a head start as possible.

Wadding her clothes into a compact ball and shoving it under her arm, she slung the water skin over her shoulder and ventured out into the moonlight. She would walk first to the south, she had decided, leaving footprints in the sand to mislead her pursuers. Then she would take to the water and double-back toward the north and town.

Drawing a nervous breath, Bryna strode across the beach at an angle to the swimmers. She was almost past before they saw her and called softly, thinking she was the friend they had left in camp. She was grateful when the moon disappeared for a moment behind a wisp of cloud. In the darkness perhaps the boys would not be able to distinguish the face under the turban.

Conspiratorially she gestured to silence them and shook her head at their invitation, pointing toward the rocky promontory. She hoped she looked like a lad who was out to explore.

Apparently they decided that was just what she was. They did not continue to call but threw curious glances over their shoulders as she sauntered along the beach. In close-knit tribal life, solitude was not a concept easily understood. Bryna could feel their eyes upon her as she stopped here and there unconcernedly to pick up seashells.

Losing interest in her, they continued their water sport. When Bryna reached the promontory, she continued her charade, bending frequently to examine small pools in the rocks. Finding a large crevice, she hid her clothing and continued to ramble. At last she rounded the point and was blocked from the swimmers’ view by a huge boulder.

Instantly she ripped the turban from her head and wrapped the long, lightweight cloth around her waist, securing the water skin against her body. Bryna had never swum in an ocean before, but she was a strong swimmer. She only hoped she could drift silently past the boys. After diving into the chilly water, she paddled out about a hundred yards, then turned northward with swift sure strokes.

She drew even with the Sudanese boys as they played. They were not aware of her presence as she knifed underwater silently. She surfaced a good distance beyond them, gasping for air, blinking saltwater from her eyes, then resumed the smooth, even strokes that would carry her to the north end of the beach and the grove of trees that slanted out to sea.

She dog-paddled until she found her footing, then waded ashore at the far end of the cove, crouching so no more than her head was visible on the surface. When she was quite close to the shore, she ducked under a wave and let it carry her into the stand of trees. Sand and shells cut her hands when she thrust them out in front of her to cushion the impact as she collided with a tree trunk.

Stunned and waterlogged, she sprawled in the sand and watched the wave that had carried her recede. Then, scrambling to her feet, she plunged into the shadow, where she poised, listening. No alarm had yet been raised. She paused long enough to unwind the long strip of fabric from around her waist and wring it out. Hastily she wrapped the limp, wet turban around her head again.