Scandal's Daughter (17 page)

“You seem to have thought of everything!” James said with admiration.

“If not, I shall be in bad trouble.” Hamid drew a finger across his throat.

“It’s deuced good of you to take the risk for us.”

“The prophet forbids the persecution of women. Also, England drove the French from Egypt and I believe the time will come when England and Turkey will be allies against the Russian bear. I hope you will speak well of my country when you reach home. Now I must go and see what is happening outside, and you must move your belongings. Do not delay.”

Cordelia hastily bundled up the clothes while James lugged the baskets to where he had left the lamp. Then she scooped up the spilled coins.

“You had plenty of money all the time,” she accused. “I thought you were destitute.”

“A loan from Uncle Aaron.” He looked down at her, half abashed, half laughing. “Though I doubt I shall ever be able to repay it. I didn’t know about your brilliant haggling. For all I knew you were an extravagant female who would waste the ready as if it grew on trees. Besides, it seemed a good idea sell your diamonds where we could and to save my funds for emergencies.”

“In the village we could not sell a diamond.”

“No, but by then revealing my hitherto concealed wealth would have made you angry. I hoped if I waited until we were in desperate need, you would be more pleased than annoyed.”

“Perhaps,” she grudgingly admitted.

He went off with the last load and she took the opportunity to tie her purse around her waist under her clothes, a much more complicated manoeuvre than taking it out. It was heavy again, with the bandits’ gold, and the sack the captain had given her was still three-quarters full.

James came back with the lamp. She gave him his purse and the sack of gold. “We’ll keep this with us for the moment,” he decided. “Is there anything else?”

Cordelia glanced around. “No... Yes, look, they left several muskets!”

“Splendid! We’ll take a couple of those, one to shoot and one to load. I’ll teach you to load while I fire.”

“I know how to load. A pistol at least and it cannot be very different.”

“Good gad, how on earth...?”

“Count Szambrowczyk taught me to shoot.”

“We’ll take four of these, then, though I’d rather have a rifle and a brace of pistols, and a shotgun for game. And here are powder and ball. Bring a light, will you?” His arms full, he started off towards their cache, asking over his shoulder, “Who the devil is, or was, Count Whichik?”

She wished she had not mentioned the count, talk of whom could only lead to the revelation of her mother’s disgraceful history. “Captain Hamid may return with his soldiers at any moment,” she pointed out, following him with a lamp. “We must go and lie down. Do hurry.”

“Don’t want to break an ankle. Careful now!” he said as she stumbled. The swinging lamp cast monstrous shadows of strange limestone formations. “This place would be worth exploring.”

“Not now!”

“No, right now we’d be better off dead.”

“Oh James, what a horrid way to put it! I was sure the captain was going to kill us himself when he spoke of reporting us murdered by the brigands. How did you guess he meant to pretend?”

“Hamid is a natural gentleman. Being one myself, I recognize the breed.”

“Indeed,” said Cordelia sceptically. Captain Hamid might qualify but she was far from persuaded James Preston did.

They returned to the brigands’ nest. James picked up a dirty blanket and regarded it with disgust. “Squalid, and probably verminous. Still, beggars can’t be choosers.”

“We should have kept one of ours. Too late now. Just pray it doesn’t make us sneeze.”

“Nor squawk when the fleas bite. You take this and I’ll bring a carpet to lie on, or we’re going to be devilish uncomfortable.”

Even with a carpet under them, spread on the flattest space they could find on the murky outskirts of the circle of light, they were vastly uncomfortable. Ridges and bumps obtruded themselves beneath Cordelia’s spine. One slight pressure she had grown used to, though, failed to make itself felt on the back of her neck: her pearls were gone.

The string must have broken while she was head down over the bandit’s pony. The pearls were not valuable in comparison to the diamonds, but it hurt that she had lost her last memento of Mama.

“Is your hair sticking out?” James asked.

“No, I forgot.” Reaching up to arrange her braid, she turned her head and held it at an awkward angle. The blanket smelled abominable.

“Faugh!” said James, flipping back the edge covering their faces. “We’ll pull it up when we hear them coming. Listen.”

She lay rigid, straining her ears. The distant gurgle and plink of water was suddenly loud. Their breathing soughed like a sirocco and her heart thumped a drumbeat against her still aching ribs. Her wrists and ankles hurt where they had been bound. She did not dare stir.

“Relax your muscles,” James whispered. “Let your feet flop sideways. Corpses don’t stay heel to heel and toe to toe.”

“How did you know my toes were pointing up?” said Cordelia, letting her feet flop.

“I can feel how stiff you are.”

“We are not touching.” Even so, she was suddenly shamefully aware of his intimate closeness. A fiery spark quivered to life deep within her.
I’m dead,
she reminded herself.
He’s dead. We have to convince the soldiers we are dead or we really will be.

“You radiate tension,” he said, silently laughing at her, at a moment like this!

All the same, when he took her hand in a warm, strong clasp, she held on tight.

It seemed like forever they lay there. Cordelia developed an itch between her shoulderblades, another on the back of one knee, whether from fleabites or sheer fancy. Just when she was sure she had to scratch or scream, the thud of booted feet came from the outer cave, then Hamid’s raised voice.

“Those who checked this cave before must have just glanced in from the entrance,” he said loudly. “Sheer carelessness!”

James flipped the edge of the blanket over their faces and quickly pulled his arm back beneath it. This time Cordelia reached for his hand.

The Janissaries tramped in, exclaiming over the vast cavern and the brigands’ hoard. A hush fell when Captain Hamid pointed out the supposed corpses of the couple they had been seeking.

“Allahu aalam,” they murmured. “God is all-wise.”

No footsteps approached. No one questioned the captain’s assertion, nor suggested removing the bodies, for burial or to show to their superiors.

“Take only the valuables,” Hamid ordered. “We have no use for old clothes and bedding and filthy carpets. Sergeant Abdullah, you have the keys taken from their leader? Let’s get those chests out into daylight and see what’s inside. Maybe we can transfer the contents into sacks, which will be easier to carry with us.”

Listening to the thumps and rattles and clinks as the Janissaries carried off the spoils, Cordelia now itched to turn her head and observe. At least it took her mind off those other itches. In fact she found they had vanished, which she hoped meant she had not been attacked by fleas or bedbugs.

A muffled snort came from James and he let go of her hand. She held her breath. If that was a swallowed sneeze, he was now desperately pinching his nose, but a sneeze suppressed had a way of escaping with an even greater explosion. Her fists clenched and she realized her toes were pointing straight up again in a thoroughly uncorpselike fashion. Should she keep still or let them flop?

Who would have believed it was so difficult to play dead?

James gasped and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She was sure she must have jerked like a hooked fish, but if so, no one was looking.

Or no one but Captain Hamid. Cordelia was excessively glad to hear him say, “That looks like the last. I’ll just check around and make sure there is nothing else worth taking. Start loading the goods, but remember, I don’t want to take more ponies than absolutely necessary. It’s just more to be fed and watered.” The footsteps of several men receded, then one set approached. “All right, you can come out now.”

James flung back the blanket, sat up, and sneezed hugely. The echo ricocheted round the invisible walls of the cavern, mingling with the sound of running feet. James hurriedly lay down again and pulled up the blanket.

“Captain?”

“All’s well, sergeant.” Hamid spoke from the far side of the pool of light, where he was bending over a pile of clothes. A fast and silent mover, Captain Hamid. “I was just checking these sheepskins and the smell made me sneeze.”

“Filthy bastards, these Greeks, sir.”

“The first thing I’ll do when we’ve delivered the loot and the prisoners is visit the hammam. Go and get on with the packing. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“Yes, sir.” Once more the sergeant’s footsteps receded.

“Are you going to do that again, Mr. Preston?” the captain enquired.

“I don’t think so.” James sat up more slowly this time and gave Cordelia a hand. “Anyway, they’d just think it was you again.”

“It sounded like a barrel of gunpowder exploding,” said Cordelia. “They must have thought Captain Hamid had been blown up.”

Hamid grinned. “God is merciful. But I have no time to waste. Meess Courtenay, I must ask a favour. The four who stayed in the cave are all dead and unable to deny having murdered you. But be so good as to give me a little of your hair to show Mehmed Pasha as ‘proof’ of your demise, or at least of your identity.”

“You can cut it all off!” James declared. “From now on Cordelia will travel as a boy, as my younger brother.”

“Certainly not!”

She blushed as the captain looked her up and down and raised sceptical eyebrows. “You think it wise...and possible?” he asked.

“If you had heard what those bandits planned, you would agree it’s essential, Captain.”

“W-what?” Cordelia faltered.

“I am too much the gentleman to tell you, but I promise you I never want to go through a moment like that again. Let the captain cut off your braid. It should convince the pasha.”

Biting her lips, Cordelia turned her back and bowed her head. A gentle tugging was all she felt as her one claim to beauty vanished.

“With your permission, Meess Courtenay, I shall keep a lock as a memento of a brave and charming woman.”

“Please do, Captain.” Blinking back tears, she turned to smile at him. “I shall never forget a generous and chivalrous soldier.”

“Nor I.” James shook his hand, then frowned as he regarded Cordelia. “I must say you still look rather female. I hope a change of clothes will help.”

“There are sheepskin coats and hats and warm cloaks over there,” said the captain. “They will help the disguise and you will need them in the north.”

“North!” James exclaimed. “We are going to Athens.”

Hamid tilted his head back in the Turkish gesture of negation. “I am sorry, this I cannot permit. Even if the hunt for you is called off, in the south patrols are frequent and foreigners are often asked to show their papers. You will be caught and I shall die with you. Even Meess Courtenay—when we last met I had not personally spoken to Mehmed Pasha. I now believe he pursues you more in anger than in passion. If you are caught, we shall all three die unpleasantly.”

Shuddering, Cordelia recalled stories of concubines sewn up in sacks and thrown into the Bosporus to drown. “James?” She touched his arm.

“Perhaps you’re right, Captain,” he acknowledged. “Better the furious winter’s rages than the furious pasha’s rages. I’ve heard death by freezing is not unpleasant. North to the mountains it is.”

Chapter 17

“Two ponies!” James stood among the bushes at the mouth of the cave, gazing down the slope in the dusk. “I must say, Captain Hamid has done us proud.”

“Is everyone gone?” Cordelia hovered inside the mouth of the cave, ridiculously self-conscious in male clothing though she told herself it was not so different from a Turkish woman’s. For the hundredth time she touched the ragged edges of hair at the nape of her neck. Her head felt strangely light.

“Not a soul in sight. We must be off first thing in the morning, though. The local people will probably come to see if anything worth having has been left behind. I’ll bring the animals in for the night.”

She ventured out as he started down the hillside. The steep, rocky drop beyond the meadow had discouraged the ponies and the donkey from wandering off. All three raised their heads as James approached. The donkey, its pack-saddle still on its back, gave a welcoming bray and trotted towards him as if delighted to find it had not been abandoned again.

Cordelia looked out over the wide valley as the last crimson sliver of sun set beyond the hills on the far side. High over her head an eagle soared—or a buzzard. She turned to the north. There the setting sun still blushed on mountain peaks, the mountains they must cross to reach Ragusa on the Adriatic coast, and a ship to Italy. Three hundred miles as the crow flies, Hamid said, but they were not crows and winter was coming. She shivered.

On the near edge of the valley, not far off, lamps began to shine in the little town. A Turkish bey resided there, the governor of the rich agricultural lands of the river basin. They had not needed the captain’s advice to avoid it and the highway leading to it. They’d find plenty of cart tracks running through the fields and groves and orchards.

James returned and handed her the donkey’s halter. “I can’t take all three at once through the inner entrance.”

“I’ll bring him.” She stroked the velvety nose and led him after the ponies. “You ought to have a name, faithful as you’ve been.”

“Call him Achates.”

“Oh yes, that’s the perfect name.”

Glancing over his shoulder, James said in surprise, “You know who Achates was?”

“Aeneas’s faithful companion, in the Aeneid.”

“You have read it?”

“Not in Latin,” she said defensively. “Only in Italian. I thought it was horridly bloody but
Zio
...the Conte di Arventino said it is a classic everyone should know.”

“Another count and another language! You still have not explained the Polish chap.”