The Serpent's Daughter (13 page)

“Just go,” Jade hissed. She locked her fingers together and when her mother stepped into them, hoisted the smaller woman as far as possible. Inez grabbed the lower step and tried to pull herself up. Part of the worn plaster broke away in her hands and clattered to the floor.

“I can’t do it, Jade.”

Jade took hold of her mother’s legs and lowered her to the ground. She rubbed her shoulders to ease the pain from her exertion. Inez did the same.
Think
, Jade told herself.
There must be another way
. Her mind raced through everything she’d seen so far.
The orange tree in the courtyard. It should reach the second-floor court
. “This way, and hurry.”

Jade peered around the doorway into the courtyard, looking for the guard.
Empty
. Grabbing her mother’s wrist, she towed her along to the large tree growing near the fountain. “Climb,” she ordered as she shoved her mother from behind and up into the lowest branches.

Her mother glanced down at her, her blue eyes questioning.

Jade gave an encouraging nod and flashed a confident smile. “I’ll catch up to you after I have a look around,” she mouthed, not daring to speak. She handed up the flashlight, then made a shooing motion, flapping her hands forward. Inez turned and clambered up the tree as quickly as her straight skirts would allow. Once she was safely in the upper floor, Jade decided it was time to finish her reconnaissance, find some way to identify these people, and leave.

A quick scan of the unswept floor around the court revealed the three rooms most frequently visited. One was her mother’s former prison. Of the other two, Jade decided to try the one farthest back. She listened at the door and heard the guard snoring within. So far so good. She opened the next door a few inches, ready to bolt for the tree at a moment’s notice. No one challenged her from the black space within, and Jade opened the door wider, wishing she still had her flashlight. Then she remembered that the battery had drained itself.
Mother won’t be happy about that
.

She wished she’d picked up her mother’s candle. It was like peering into a pitch-black cave.
My matches
. Jade patted her pockets and located the match tin. She removed one, shoved the tin back into the pocket, and felt the lid slip off, spilling the rest.
I’ll deal with it later
. Jade struck the match on the rough plaster. It flared instantly and Jade caught the flash of something shiny within the room, glinting like autumn sunlight, just before someone struck her from behind.

CHAPTER 10

The more palatial of these homes are called
riads
. They are adorned inside
with rich geometric mosaics, stained glass clerestories, rippling fountains, and, in some,
interior gardens. The more extravagant might even boast its own bathing room
so that the occupants have no need of the public bath, or
hammam
.

—The Traveler

INEZ STUMBLED IN THE DARK, always working towards the front door and freedom. Jade’s flashlight did not work.
So why give it to me?
She’d left her candle back in the first house by the broken stairs. Now she wished she had it with her. That and some matches. And maybe some water. Her right foot collided with a chunk of plaster the size of a mountain beaver, and she grabbed for her toes, rubbing them through her thin leather shoes.

“Millard Fillmore dulce en una bicicleta,”
she swore, unconsciously using her daughter’s favorite oath.

There was a time, she thought, when she would have been prepared for an adventure like this. A time back in Andalusia when she rode her horse across the land when and where she willed. After all, she recalled, her nanny-turned-lady’s maid doted on her and the tutor was so easy to elude. And her mother? Inez frowned. She didn’t remember what her mother was doing then. Probably supervising maids or entertaining the other landowners. Was that how it had been between her and Jade? she wondered. No. She had kept a closer eye on Jade, which is why she got caught when Inez hadn’t. Her thoughts returned to her own girlhood excursions. She always traveled ready for anything back then, her saddlebags holding an assortment of dried meats and fruit, flint and steel, a pistol, and something to trade with at the Gypsy camp. She couldn’t think of anything in her possession now worth trading for food or water. But surely her daughter had come prepared. Jade was good at that, she had to admit, and was surprised at her own feeling of maternal pride. Another toe stubbing brought back her annoyance with her daughter.

Patience
, she counseled herself. But patience was never one of her virtues, and she was fast losing what little she had.

Starlight over the courtyard helped her a little now as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she found her way to the first turn of the entryway. Feeling along the walls, she maneuvered the
chicanes
and located the door. She put her ear to the panel and listened for sounds of pursuit outside. Hearing none, she opened the door into the street.

A small man of her height met her, dressed in a calf-length white robe and the striped outer garb of the mountain people. He held up Jade’s ring and motioned for her to follow him. She did, at least until they’d turned a corner and were out of sight of her house of imprisonment.

“Stop,” she said. The man turned around.

“We wait for Jade,” she said. The man shook his head and again motioned for her to follow. “Where are you taking me?” she demanded, not moving an inch from her spot.

The man first cocked his head to the side and then shook it to indicate he didn’t understand her. She tried again in Spanish. This time he added a shrug to the gesture. Finally, when she seemed adamant, he handed the ring to her, repeated “Jade,” and motioned forward. He added something in Arabic, then what sounded like French. Inez didn’t know what he said, but judging by the tone of his voice, it wasn’t “So happy to see you alive and well.” More likely he said something akin to “Follow me, woman, and quit asking questions.”

Frustrated that she couldn’t communicate, Inez decided she needed to trust her daughter’s choice of protectors and followed the man through the maze of lamplit streets.

“Oooh.” Jade woke to a throbbing headache. She tried to rub her head and discovered that her hands were tied behind her back.
What the hell happened?
When she attempted to shift her legs she realized her booted ankles were also bound. She took a deep breath and tried to sort through the pain and accompanying nausea to remember something.
Mother
. She’d found her and gotten her out of the house, she hoped, and to Bachir and safety. But how much time had gone by? Did they know she was captured? Were they still waiting at the French Church of the Holy Martyrs, or had they come back to find her?

Jade squirmed into a sitting position and nearly passed out from the stabbing pain in her head. She put her head between her knees until her nausea and light-headedness faded, then slowly rose and looked around. The bare room was dimly lit with one smoking lamp set on a stone shelf built into the wall. No furniture, no windows, no grillwork in the heavy wooden door. Judging by the dankness of the floor, she had been thrown into a lower level of the building, a dungeon. A pair of glittering eyes flashed in the lamplight before a fat rat waddled off to join several of its companions.

Think. Someone hit me from behind. Why? Because I freed
Mother? Because I saw something?
The last thought triggered a mental image, something shining in the last room, something that glinted yellow.
Gold?
Maybe. Was it stolen? What if it was? Why, she wondered, would
any
smugglers in Marrakech kidnap her mother and frame her for a murder in Tangier?

It hurt to think. It hurt to hold her head up, but Jade didn’t want to give in to the overwhelming desire to lie down. For one, the stone floor was disgusting, and she hated to think what had already crawled onto her. She tried to sort through the recent events as an exercise in clearing her mind.
Mother got a note to meet me. Mother is kidnapped. I find the note. I go to Azilah.

She stopped in midthought. Her mother didn’t get a note asking her to go to Azilah. Instead she got a message purporting to be from Jade that took her to the Tangier souks. That crumpled note in their room was left there as bait for Jade, not for her mother. Then whoever left the note also left a man dead in those tombs. What would have happened if she’d gone into the right-hand tunnel as the dead man directed? Would she have been kidnapped, too? Killed? What was the point of all this?

If someone wanted ransom, they were going about it all wrong. True, her mother had inherited a sizable fortune, but Jade had no access to it. Her income amounted to a salary from
The Traveler,
provided she turned in copy to them four times a year, and her share of the sale of foals from her five mares on their family’s ranch.

On the other hand, if someone was looking for a scapegoat to take the blame for their illegal activities, two lone women might not be a bad choice. Especially if the thieves smuggled contraband into Spain and knew of her mother’s plans in Andalusia. But who, in the name of St. Peter’s tailor, would know that?

Someone on the ship with Mother?
Right now Jade’s bets were on Tremaine. Who else in Tangier had a red mustache? Well, maybe a lot of people, but not many who knew her mother. The silly Yale graduate act was probably just a ploy to win over Inez.
Mother!
Jade could just imagine what she was thinking now as she waited impatiently for her delinquent daughter to join her.
She’ll probably try to pack me off to a convent this time.

Jade tugged at her bindings. The leather wasn’t very thick, but she didn’t have the muscle to snap it. Next she tried reaching for the knot, but someone had been careful to tuck in the loose ends. Maybe if she scooted back against a wall and rubbed them over a rough rock? She peered at the visible walls in the little room and sadly saw that they were all plastered.

The sound of heavy feet stomped down a flight of steps outside the door, a key rattled in the lock, and the door groaned open. Several rats scurried off to their respective holes. A man of medium height and build, made larger by a thick turban and robes, loomed in the doorway. His most notable facial feature was a crooked nose, hooked to his right where it had been broken once. He put his fists on his waist, just above his broad red sash, and planted his booted feet far apart.

“Good, you are alive,” said the guard in Arabic. “Allah be praised.” He opened one fist and tossed a handful of dates onto the floor. “There,” he said with a laugh, “root for your food in the dirt like an infidel pig.” He slammed the door behind him, his laughter mingling with the jingling of keys.

Jade eyed the half-dozen dates with a mixture of disgust and extreme need. She wasn’t the only creature coveting sustenance. One of the bolder rats trundled out of hiding towards them. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she yelled, and pivoted around on her rear to face it. The rat squeaked and ran, but not far. Jade scooted around the floor, herding the dates into a pile using her feet, and was about to actually try to reach one with her mouth when an idea came to her.

Using her bottom as a pivot point, she raised her legs and spun halfway around so that her back was to the dates. Then she slowly scooched back until she could easily reach the pile. Two of the rats watched her from a few feet away. “You’ll get your supper. Just wait.”

Jade’s slender fingers selected a date and wriggled it about, shoving the soft fruit into the tiny space between the overlapping leather strips. She did this to the next four dates until her fingers began to cramp. The last one she simply smashed into the knot by leaning into it. “Okay, guys, come and get it.”

It didn’t take long for the rodents to overcome what little fear they had of her. Within minutes, first one, then another started eating the mashed dates. Once they finished with the exposed fruit, they started chewing on the date-encrusted leather. Jade felt their bristling whiskers brush her wrists, heard the rapid gnawing of sharp yellow incisors scraping against leather and lower teeth.

She steeled herself to remain motionless as a twitching nose sniffed her bare skin. The touch both tickled and revolted her. Jade closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on her next move. Tying someone to a rat seemed like a promising start, but hardly practical.

One of the rats grazed her fingers with its teeth, and Jade jerked. “There’s plenty on the blasted leather,” she scolded. “You don’t need to chew my fingers.” But the movement gave her a fresh stirring of hope. The bindings were weakening. She was able to move her wrists more. When the same rodent tried for her fingers again, Jade decided enough was enough. They must be running out of smashed dates on her bonds and trying for the bits on her hand.

She strained her wrists and heard the leather rip. Another twist and pull and the bindings snapped.
Free!
Jade quickly set to work on the knot around her ankles, swatting one of the more persistent rats away with her right hand. “Go find something dead to gnaw on.”

Once her feet were free, Jade stood up slowly, careful to avoid another bout of dizziness. First she walked across the cell a few times till she felt steady on her feet. Then she rolled her shoulders and flexed her arms to regain circulation. When she felt competent to take on her guard, she gathered up the leather strips, tossed them into the darkest corner, and resumed her original position on the floor, hands behind her. Her captors had taken her hunting knife from her boot sheath, but with any luck, she’d soon have a replacement.

“Help me,” she called out in English in what she hoped was a piteous voice. “Water.” She called for water again in Arabic.
“Lma.”
She repeated her plea for water in both languages until the guard stationed somewhere outside opened the door.

“I need water, please,” Jade said. She let her head droop. “
Afak,
please, water.” Through the limp black hair hanging across her eyes, she studied the man, evaluating his center of gravity. He didn’t appear to be too broad shouldered. A good shot to the gut ought to do the trick.