The Serpent's Daughter (11 page)

“Eat and drink,” he ordered. Before Inez could react to his unexpected entry, he slammed the door shut.

Inez threw herself on the door just as the bolt slid back into place. She pounded her fists on the thick wood and shouted with all the breath she could muster.

“What have you done with my daughter?”

CHAPTER 9

—The Traveler

JADE WAS NEVER A STRONG BELIEVER IN COINCIDENCE, so she quickly dismissed the possibility that another woman had been abducted.
It has to be Mother
.

“Bachir, do you know the way to this street they spoke of?”

“Yes, but there are many houses there. How will we know which one holds your lady mother?”

How, indeed
. As Jade considered this dilemma, she noticed an Arab made a wider detour around Bachir and herself. Jade remembered Mr. de Portillo’s observation that the Berbers were not always fastidious in their prayer, and Mrs. Kennicot’s comment that the mountain dwellers weren’t particularly ardent Muslims.
Treating us as infidels
. It gave her an idea.

“Bachir, if there were Christians living in the city, Nazarenes as you call us, how could we find out? Would the outside of the house look different? Would the Arabs put a mark on the door to warn others?”

“I know of no such mark,
Alalla
. You think these people who took your mother are Nazarenes?”

“They would claim to be, Bachir, if they were asked. But know that a
good
Nazarene would not abduct or murder anyone. ”

“If they are Nazarenes, they would drink wine?” Bachir asked.

Jade smiled, understanding where his questions led. “Yes, they probably would. And they would eat pork. So if someone delivered a basket of such forbidden foods to a door looking for the people who bought it, perhaps someone would point out the house of the Nazarenes.”

“If they do not slay us first,
Alalla
.”

“That is a danger
I
will face,” said Jade. “Will you help me?”

“I will help you find your mother,
Alalla,
if you will then help the one who sent me to bring you.”

“I will do what I can, Bachir,” she said, remembering that it was Bachir who found out the section of the
Medina
where her mother was taken.

Jade decided she’d draw less attention to herself in the square if she were on foot. She drove the car into a small gully at the edge of the olive grove. Considering the Panhard was completely covered in the desert dust, it should be well camouflaged. Then, leaving the idling car, she took her knife and carved out a niche in the ravine’s mud sides, large enough to hold the bulky carpetbag. She shoved it inside and covered it with the dirt. If Moroccans truly feared the
jinni
that haunted buried treasure, then the bag with the opal jewelry and spare clothing should be safe in the dirt. To be certain, however, she parked the car against the wall, blocking the bag with a wheel. Then she walked back to Gueliz district, carrying only the dwindling money reserves, her flashlight, the matches, a spare dry cell, and her small Kodak in the canvas shoulder bag. She doubted the utility of her camera, but if an opportunity to photograph the culprit presented itself, she wanted to be ready. Her knife went back into her boot sheath.

This activity only served to keep her anxiety from rising to the point of hysteria. Still, the dread for her mother’s safety became a bitter taste in her mouth.
Blast it! Why would someone do this?
If it was a kidnapping for ransom, surely they would have demanded some sum of money in the note.

Besides, her mother never gave the appearance of looking wealthy. As long as Jade could remember, her mother declined any offer of diamonds or other showy gems from Jade’s father. Instead, she preferred the simple opal jewelry that Richard del Cameron had presented to her when they were first married. Inez had always said the ranch and her family was all the wealth she needed or wanted.
Dad!
The thought of his grief if anything happened to his wife overwhelmed Jade and she stumbled.
Don’t think those thoughts. Mother is alive. She’s too proud to let anyone do her in without her consent.

Jade returned from the French district just before sunset, armed with two bottles of wine and a hind leg from a wild boar. There was little meat worth eating attached to the shank, but that didn’t matter. All Jade wanted was for a cloven hoof to stick out in view. Bachir met her with a small woven basket, and Jade tucked the offending pig’s foot in with the wine bottles and draped her pocket handkerchief over enough of the contents to cover the gaps and make it look full.

“Allāhu Akbar. Hayya ’alas-salāt,”
came the quavering call of the muezzin from the towering minaret. “God is the greatest. Make haste towards prayer.” Immediately all the activity ceased as the faithful hastened towards the closest mosque. A few of the Berber people followed, but most did not, electing to either pray where they were or not at all.

“Show me the way to these houses, Bachir, but stay clear of the square. These bad men told me in a letter to meet them there. They will be looking for me.” She pulled the hood of her dark robe over her head. “I will knock on the doors and find the correct one.”

Bachir ran his gaze over her weak disguise and shook his head. “It will not do,
Alalla
. You wear a man’s cloak, but it is not striped like that of an Amazigh man.” He stuck out one leg, exposing a bare calf and a foot shod in a plain leather slipper. “Your boots are not that of my people, either.” He pointed to her head. “You have no cap and your head is unshaven. No one will believe you as an Amazigh peddler.” He reached for the basket, taking care not to touch the hoof. “I will go to the doors. You keep watch.”

Bachir led the way into the city through the massive stone arch of the
Bab Agnaou
into the Kasbah. In the gathering dusk, Jade couldn’t make out much of the gate’s ornamentation, but then her attention was held prisoner by thoughts of her poor mother lying captive somewhere inside the city. She paid more attention to the mosque in front of her, trying to memorize the exit path. They jogged left in front of the mosque and turned east onto the broader Rue Arset el Maahl. Past the mosque rose another wall to their right. Bachir shied away to the opposite side of the avenue, his right hand held palm out against evil.

“What is it, Bachir?” Jade asked.

Bachir pointed to the wall. “El Badi,” he said. “Many
jinni
live there now.”

Jade wasn’t sure what El Badi was, but if it didn’t involve her mother, she didn’t care.

Once again, the streets began filling up with people as they emerged from the mosques, and several street vendors and water sellers in their distinctive wide-brimmed, fringed red hats took advantage of the evening traffic to gather some late-day business. A few feminine voices drifted down from the sheltered rooftops as the ladies enjoyed the evening coolness. She heard a child cry and a woman speak in soothing tones. Her own mother used to speak that way to her long ago, back in the hazy memory of toddlerhood. Then it ended. The love was always there, but the songs were replaced by instructions in proper etiquette. Jade wiped away a tear of longing and followed Bachir farther into the city.

Jade expected each house to bear some token of individual tastes, but from the exterior, there were few clues to indicate that these houses sequestered the wealthy and powerful. Perhaps fewer feral dogs lounged in the streets, but the plain wooden doors and the red-plastered exterior walls held no boasts of hidden opulence. A canopy of reeds covered the narrow passageway providing welcome coolness and privacy during the day’s heat but now effectively blocking out much of the lingering twilight.

Jade found a dark recess and snugged herself against a wall to watch Bachir as he knocked on a door and shouted to the occupants within. So far the results had been discouraging. No one came to the first door, the next two occupants cursed Bachir for carrying food of the infidel, and at the fourth, an aging slave merely slammed the door in Bachir’s face. Now, after yet another twist in the narrow road, Bachir tried again, this time stopping at a house with a door knocker shaped like a large insect. This was the first piece of ornamentation Jade had seen so far.

“I have delivered your food and drink.”

The door opened inward, exposing a short entryway and an ornately tiled wall. Jade knew that the entries to these houses were convoluted with a set of
chicanes,
halls that twisted and turned, designed not only to block the view from the street but also to impede the progress of anyone entering with unfriendly intent. It made the defense of the home much easier. Barring any entry to this one stood a veritable black giant. The formidable doorkeeper wore a resplendent robe of snowy white trimmed with a broad green sash. A curved dagger with a shiny silver hilt lay tucked in the sash within easy reach. Jade did her best to catch the rapid exchange.

“Who are you?” demanded the doorkeeper.

“I have brought the food and drink the master of the house ordered.”

“My master has ordered nothing. What do you have there?”

Bachir held up the basket. The doorkeeper immediately drew his knife and grabbed Bachir’s cloak. “Dog. Would you pollute my master’s house? I should kill you.”

“Have pity,” wailed Bachir. “I mean no disrespect. This is for a Nazarene. Only I do not know what house to go to, and I will not be paid unless I deliver it to him.”

The doorman released Bachir with a slight shove. “You look for the house of an infidel dog of a Nazarene?” The man spat at Bachir’s feet. “I have seen one enter the last door.” He pointed to the end of the street where the houses formed a cul-de-sac. “Now go, and do not pollute this area again.”

After the door slammed shut, Jade called softly from the shadows. “You did well, Bachir. Thank you.”

“What will you do now,
Alalla?
”

“Get my mother.”

“You cannot go inside through the front,
Alalla
. The passages twist and turn. Someone will see or hear you.”

Jade smiled. “I’ll go in the way the women do, by way of the roof.”

Inez, her hunger abated by the stewed lamb and apricots, picked up the candle and looked around the room for a means of escape. Her prison measured about fifteen feet square, but contained nothing more than a worn rug and pillow in one corner and the wobbly little table beside the door. Something that looked like it might be a chamber pot sat in the corner opposite the rug. Apparently she was supposed to sleep on the rug. Inez brought the candle over and sniffed the pillow, her nose wrinkling in disgust. It smelled of old sweat and mold. She was sure the carpet was loaded with fleas.

Well, that settles that. I have no intention of staying in here.
But how to escape? The room had no window, and the door was bolted from without.
The hinges
. Inez set the candle on the floor and picked up the little table. With a twist, she pulled off one of the three legs, revealing a rusty, hand-hammered nail. She pushed the nail against the floor while holding the leg, forcing the nail to push up until she could pull it free.

Somehow, she sensed it’s what her daughter would have done in this situation. At least it matched the sort of antics Jade always tried at home. Like the time Inez took away Jade’s knife when the girl had carved her initials underneath the dining room table. The next thing Inez knew, Jade had flint-napped a knife blade and strapped it to a piece of elk antler with some rawhide.

Inez dug the nail into the wood around the middle hinge. As she slowly whittled away at the door to free the hinge, she sighed. What had she done wrong in raising that little wildcat of a girl? She did everything her own mother had done. She hired a tutor, she gave her lessons in proper decorum, but nothing worked. Of course Richard was partly to blame, as much as she hated thinking ill of her beloved spouse. He indulged the girl by taking her along on hunts. And those ranch hands. They were nice men in their own way, but they’d made a pet out of Jade and taught her horrid games like mumbly-peg, where they threw knives at targets on the ground. Perhaps if she’d been able to have a son it might have been different.

You don’t have a son. You have one daughter and you love her no matter how aggravating she’s been
. She attacked the wood with greater vigor and scratched her knuckles against the door.
She’s a lot like you,
taunted a voice in the back of Inez’s brain.
Remember when you slipped away in the night to see the Gypsies?

“But I always behaved myself in front of others,” Inez muttered to herself. If Jade had left that note as a ploy to force her to visit the souks with her … she let the thought dangle and worked the door with fresh resolve.
I’ll get out of here, find the authorities, and have them take me back to Tangier, and then that girl is going to get the scolding of her life.

Jade and Bachir padded softly down the deserted side street, keeping close to the walls to avoid detection in case someone kept watch from within. Not so much as a glimmer of lamplight shone from the latticed windows on the second floors. Jade peered up at the flattened roof two stories above her. The domain of the women, rooftops had access to the interior courtyards. But how to get to the roof from out here? From the roof of another house?

She studied the adjacent house. Two loosely nailed boards barred the entrance, and a white handprint marked the door. It reminded Jade of the handprint at the entrance to the Azilah tunnels.
Must be haunted
. Further proof of its uninhabited state came from the small pile of debris that had blown against the door. A tug on the barricades loosened them. One good jerk would free each one.