The Meq (44 page)

I dragged her out of the brush roughly. There was no other way. I pulled back her robe and looked at her shoulder. It was still bleeding, but I knew it would stop. The bullet had not lodged and the wound was clean. I bound it tightly with her veil and mine, then stood up and looked for Jisil’s horse. There was no chance of getting out to the south because of Mulai’s camp. The east and west only promised more desert. The only way of getting out was to the north and that would take a good horse.

I found him near Jisil’s body, still skittish and watching me as I approached. The wind tore at Jisil’s turban and stung my face and eyes with sand and grit. The animal was a chief’s horse and ignored the wind. To him, the wind had never been an enemy, only an ally, and that gave me an idea. I tore off the part of Jisil’s turban that was loose and blowing. I started walking toward the horse, deliberately, and wrapping the cloth around my own head at the same time, slowly. I stopped within five feet and waited. After a cautious snort and whiff of me, he lowered his head and shook his reins. I turned and walked back toward Star, not looking once over my shoulder. When I had almost reached her, I heard his hooves crossing the trail of crushed stones behind me. It was a gamble and I had been lucky, but Jisil’s horse, one of the finest Arabs I had ever seen, never questioned it.

I loaded and strapped my things on first, then with great difficulty, I managed to get Star on the horse and in the saddle behind me. I literally tied her to my back, even though she was taller and heavier. It was not her weight that gave me problems or concern. It was what I discovered when I first picked her up. It changed the way I touched her, moved her, and it had probably changed everything for Jisil.

Star was pregnant, very pregnant.

We traveled at a steady pace along the trail to Ghadames and the oldest of the caravan routes. Jisil’s horse knew the way when I didn’t. Star remained in a semiconscious state and only took water with the aid of my fingers.

Somewhere outside Ghadames, we rested near a grove of palms. It was midday. There were mounted and motorized patrols in the distance. What army for which country, I couldn’t tell. I found water and traded for biscuits, helped Star to a place in the shade, then sat by her and took out what I’d caught in the wind from Jisil, what I hoped was a map.

It was a map and a little more. Jisil had outlined the north coast of Africa from Tripoli to Tunis. He had marked two places on the coast by name and symbol. The one to the east was named Sabratha and marked with an X. I had never heard of this place. He also had a trail of arrows that headed west, avoiding Sabratha and ending in the other place, which he had marked with a circle. The name was Carthage. In the margins he had scribbled notes and several names, all in Arabic, except one—“Cheng.”

I looked over at Star and it came to me. I remembered Jisil’s two midnight rides a few days before. He had been making a deal. The new pieces fitted into the old puzzle. Jisil had fallen in love with a slave—Star—and was trying to save her and the baby from a deal that had been sealed long ago, a deal that Mulai would not break, a deal with the Fleur-du-Mal. I figured Cheng would be working for the Fleur-du-Mal or against him. Either way, he could lead me to him.

I had heard of Carthage and I definitely knew of Cheng. There was no choice but to take Star there. She needed to be free and safe to have her baby. Her shoulder I knew would heal. I could end the madness there, in Carthage, because Cheng would be expecting Jisil, not me.

I followed the map generally and asked directions occasionally. Sometimes I spoke in my rough Berber, sometimes in French, and once in English. I no longer cared about any pretense or disguise. Star continued to drift in and out of consciousness. I tried to stay behind her when she woke, so my presence wouldn’t startle her. She drank more water, but she was weak from the loss of blood. Without being aware of it, she often held her belly when she slept.

South of Gàbes, a day and a half later, we came out of the desert and the mountains. Birds circled overhead, and even though we couldn’t see it yet, we could smell the salt and the sea air of the Mediterranean.

We camped that night near a rocky outcrop on the high plain between Gàbes and Sousse. Star was pale and drawn and I couldn’t seem to make her comfortable. Her sleep was more delusional. I tried to think of what Emme would do. Sirius was as bright as a streetlight in the sky. Star opened her eyes once and stared at it, then mumbled something in the old Berber dialect and fell back into her restless sleep.

Then, as if someone had whispered it to me, I remembered something, something that had once been a pillow of dreams for this daughter of Carolina, something I still carried with me—my mama’s glove. I reached in my pack and pulled it out. Carolina had said she would never forget it. I unwrapped the old scarf with the drowning Chinamen and held it in my hand. I put my other hand inside the glove and pounded the pocket with my fist. Everything worked, everything felt good. I slipped my hand out of the glove and placed it under Star’s head. I put the scarf in her hands and covered her with a blanket. The rest would have to be magic. It was the only medicine I had. I had already decided that if she didn’t improve by morning, I was going to find a town and a doctor.

As soon as I awoke, I knew something had changed. Star was awake and staring at me. It was not hostile or even lively. It was as if she was searching for something underwater and couldn’t quite get the physics right, couldn’t quite reach it. But she was alert and conscious. I rose up and faced her, sitting cross-legged the way Carolina, Georgia, and I used to. Neither of us spoke. She saw Jisil’s horse not far away and, without taking her eyes from mine, nodded toward the horse. I slowly shook my head and she looked down once, but that was her only reaction. She reached one hand up from her belly and held it over her wounded shoulder, asking me with her eyes if I was the one who had attended to it. I nodded once. I showed her Jisil’s map and pointed to Carthage, asking her with my eyes if that’s where we should go. She nodded once. I smiled and she didn’t. She hadn’t decided yet if she trusted me, but she held on tight to Mama’s glove and the old scarf. I stayed silent and we traveled that way. The fact that I was still a child, still “physically” the same, was a blessing and a curse. It would help her remember her past, possibly, but never explain her present. I stayed silent and tried to let the present win her trust. The past would come later.

We rode overland and off the trail the last fifty miles approaching the ruins of Carthage. Only Jisil’s horse had drawn any real attention. Our skin color and appearance seemed to have little effect on the few people we saw. It was another world to the one in the deep desert. Star had to dismount twice along the way because of the pain, not in her shoulder but in her belly and back. We were walking with the horse between us when we stopped on a natural rise that opened up two views around us. It was twilight and the sun was setting in the west over what I assumed were the Atlas Mountains. To the north and east, in the long shadows, were the fields and pastures, roads and ghosts of roads leading to what had once been Carthage and the harbor beyond.

It was a good place to camp and let Star rest. I had no idea of the final arrangements in the deal Jisil had made. I knew I’d never seen Cheng work alone and I didn’t expect him to now.

The site was not inhabited nor was it deserted. There was evidence of excavations begun and abandoned. Some fields had been plowed and sowed around the broken stones of temples and markets. Robber trenches from centuries past crisscrossed the various sections of the old city. It was haphazard and ragged. The Romans hadn’t left much standing and time since had given it no dignity. The wind blew in from the north. The Mediterranean was a dark blue band in the distance. I smelled the faint scent of goat in the air and looked down the rise toward the remnants of a stone gate or tower. Foraging in and around the ancient foundations were a few goats and sitting on one of the stones with his back to me was a boy about my size, the goatherd. He seemed harmless, but I didn’t want any surprises. I was going to leave Star where we were and try to find Cheng somewhere among the ruins, before he found us. I decided to find out who the boy was. He might have heard or seen the movements of someone like Cheng. Another boy, another goatherd, would not intimidate him and any information he gave me would be more than I had at the moment.

I helped Star lie down on her side and covered her up, making sure she was out of the wind and had Mama’s glove under her head. She held her belly constantly and grimaced at times, but never made a sound. I knew she would need attention soon, the kind of attention I knew nothing about. I waited for the last rays of light, then walked slowly around and down the hill, toward the goatherd.

I had barely rounded the hill when I felt it, more acutely and more powerfully than I ever had before. The impact literally hit me like a blow to the chest and I changed my gait, slowing to a single measured step at a time. It was the presence of Meq, and more than one, I was sure of it.

I looked down at the goatherd. He hadn’t moved. He sat on the stones facing west, but his goats were nowhere in sight. I walked silently, listening with my “ability” and drawing closer. He wore the heavier cloth of the northern tribesmen, with no turban. There was a hood instead, attached to his robe and gathered at the back of his neck. He kept his head averted. I could not see his face. When I got to within ten feet, I stopped and waited.

“Where have you been?” the voice asked.

Suddenly an arm and a hand reached out from the robe. The hand waved me over. There was a small ring on the first finger, a star sapphire mounted in silver. It was the same hand that had come out of the darkness of a carriage long ago in St. Louis and helped me in. It was Sailor.

I sat down on the stone next to him without a word. As he turned to face me, I noticed his high-laced boots under his Arab robe. His star sapphire sparked with color in the starlight. I looked at his face and in his eyes. The same. His “ghost eye” winked at me.

“I think it was Mencius, the Chinese philosopher, who said that a great man is he who does not lose his child’s heart,” Sailor said. He smiled faintly. I was staring at him, speechless.

“I think he meant to say ‘a great-looking man,’ ” he finished with a broad smile. “Do you not agree, Zianno?” He posed in profile, then laughed out loud.

I was still in a stunned silence.

“I felt your presence as soon as you came around the hill,” he said. “I was hoping you would come soon. I have been expecting you for some time and I could have used your help.”

That woke me up. “
You
could have used
my
help,” I said. “Do you know where I’ve been?”

“No, that was why I asked.”

He acted as if I’d seen him only yesterday. At first I was angry, then just as quickly I realized that time and its passage were different for Sailor and all the old ones. The desert had taught me something, but I still had much to learn from my own kind. Sailor was not alone, however, and I could feel the presence of another. It was strong and familiar. I finally smiled and Sailor and I embraced warmly. As we did, I whispered in his ear, “We’re not alone, are we?”

“No,” he whispered back. “There is another and she is the reason I knew you would return.”

I pulled back and stared at him again. What did he mean? Who did he mean?

“Why are you here, Sailor? I mean here, in this spot, now?”

He paused for only a moment and unconsciously turned the sapphire around his finger. “Because I have found Opari,” he said. “And she is here.”

“Opari?”

“Yes.”

“Why would she be here?”

“To buy a slave. She has done it for years. I have followed her since that night in the Forbidden City. Zeru-Meq discovered her escape and I began following her in Macao. She has always bought slaves, traded in them, but never personally made the transaction. This is a first. I have already seen her here with that baboon of a eunuch who usually buys them for her. They are waiting for the slave now. A girl, I believe, coming from the south with an Arab chief.”

I looked back toward the hill where Star was resting. I listened hard for anything out of the ordinary.

“They are waiting for me,” I told Sailor. “The Arab chief is dead and I have the girl.”

“Then we shall use the girl as a Trojan horse, so to speak, and confront Opari.”

“No,” I said. “This girl will be no slave for anyone any longer.”

Sailor gave me a studied look and his “ghost eye” clouded slightly. “Why?” he asked.

I told him who Star was and the condition she was in. I told him of her connection with Jisil, the Fleur-du-Mal, and the Prophecy. And I told him of the promise I had made to Carolina, a promise I would keep. I told him whoever was trying to buy Star and her unborn baby was either doing it behind the Fleur-du-Mal’s back or he was behind it all. He was obsessed with breeding his own assassin.

“The Fleur-du-Mal believes this?” Sailor asked.

“Yes.”

“I always thought his aberrance did not affect his intelligence. I was wrong.”

I didn’t respond. I was struggling to try to make sense of everything. One thing did not make sense at all and went against everything I felt in my heart. Opari. How could she be doing this? Even in that one moment we shared, I learned enough to know that she would never have had anything to do with someone like Cheng. Or would she? The heart is not a predictor of anything to come or a lie detector for what has been. Love can make mistakes. If Opari was doing this, then I would do what I had to do to keep Star free. Star was the truth. All I had to do was follow the lies.

“Where did you see them, Sailor . . . this eunuch and Opari?”

“Come with me. We must be cautious, but there is something odd.”

“What?”

“She seems not to be aware of my presence, and yet I can feel hers even now.”

I didn’t say so, but I felt it as well, strong and catlike, somewhere around the walls of everything else, on the move, watching.