“All I’m saying is that someone knew we were going to the bazaar.” Rowan and Marvel sat on the terrace of the Shepheard’s Hotel. Marvel was wearing a beautiful hand-tatted blouse buttoned up to her chin.
“Who would know we were going?” she asked. “My maid, I guess. The doorman …my driver. But who would care?”
“Well, that asshole Digby would care. He knows I’m trying to find Ella and when I do I’ll find out what happened to his wife too. If he did kill her—or set things up so she got lost in the dessert—the last thing he’d want is for me to find out the truth.”
“You really think he had something to do with Lady Digby’s death?”
Rowan frowned at her. “You mean because he’s an opportunistic fortune hunter and his bride disappeared in the desert under mysterious circumstances?”
“So you think he hired those men to kill you?”
“It was definitely an ambush. With you as bait.”
“But Rowan, if Digby did hire those men, we’ll never know. And it still doesn’t tell us how they knew we were going there. I hate thinking there’s someone working for me I can’t trust.”
“Yeah, well, short of firing everyone and hiring new people who would be just as susceptible to being bribed, you probably can’t do anything.”
Marvel sipped her lemonade and squinted at the perimeter of the garden where Ra waited patiently for Rowan to join him. “I don’t like your boy,” she said.
“Who? Ra? He’s okay.”
“He’s shifty looking.”
“Did I ever tell you how he sold me out for a handful of coins at Carter’s?”
“Well, then I can see why you keep him.”
Rowan laughed. He enjoyed Marvel’s sarcasm—her very American-ness. He would tell her how much she reminded him of Ella but he knew she wouldn’t be flattered. He knew she wanted something more between them—and had gone to considerable lengths to make that happen. He was grateful that the close call in the bazaar had cooled her jets somewhat. She knew very well that it was her silly behavior that had nearly gotten them both killed. If he hadn’t seen her dropped bag seconds before he was about to turn that corner, he would’ve walked right into the trap.
“Ra has practically killed himself to make it up to me. There’s nothing like guilt and the desire to please to turn a job into a calling.”
Marvel raised an eyebrow at him.
“Don’t read anything into that,” Rowan said, shaking a finger at her and grinning.
“God forbid. Did you see Digby at breakfast this morning?”
“You know I did.”
“Well? Were you not astounded that he’s openly courting Lady Bowerman? And his wife not cold in her grave five months?”
“We don’t know for sure that she is in her grave,” Rowan reminded her.
“That’s even worse, of course. But in any case, it’s a scandal. If I were Lady Bowerman,” Marvel said, “I wouldn’t be feeling too sure of myself.”
“Don’t forget that her husband also died under mysterious circumstances.”
“You’re right. Now that I think of it, it’s a match made in heaven. Maybe they’ll kill each other.”
Not for the first time, Rowan was struck by how twenty-first century Marvel was. She seemed so ahead of her time. He decided she was an original in any age. He had to admit he had developed strong feelings for her. He hoped very much that they could continue to be good friends if and when he found Ella.
If he found Ella.
That was the first time he had faltered in his conviction that Ella was just out of reach, just out of sight. He hadn’t had any more dreams about her since arriving in Cairo. He didn’t know if that meant she was safe. Or not alive.
He had been tempted to visit Olna again to see if he had waited long enough and could put his search into hyperdrive somehow. But the two times he had gone looking for her, she was nowhere to be found. How could he search without clues? How could he pick up Ella’s trail when he had no idea where in history the trail was? If she were really pregnant, wouldn’t she go back to 2013?
“Penny for your thoughts, handsome?” Marvel wiped the condensation from her lemonade glass and tossed down her napkin.
It occurred to Rowan that Marvel was bored. She had left the States to come to Luxor to be a part of Carter’s big discovery. It dawned on him that, thanks to his need to be in Cairo waiting for word on Ella, Marvel was missing all the fun.
“Why don’t we take the dahabiya to Luxor?” he asked. “Get you out of town for a change of scenery.”
“What’s the point? Carter won’t let me anywhere near his precious dig site. And you’ve seen all the American journalists lining up to get first crack at him. We’d never get near enough to see a royal toenail being discovered.”
“Carter owes me.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I’m listening,” she said, the coquettish smile back once more.
* * * *
“I’m told it’s all in the breathing,” Ella said, shifting uncomfortably in her cross-legged position in front of Halima. “That and, of course, timing the epidural.”
“Yes, breathing is very important,” Halima said, massaging Ella’s back. “When the pains come, it will be important to breathe through them so that the child’s spirit can be born.”
“He kicks so much I think the world can do with a little less of his spirit and a little more pain relief for his mama. Whoa! Hold on there, Tater! Did you see that? I actually saw his foot that time!”
“You have named your baby?”
“Not really. Rowan called him Tater Tot in one of my dreams. Now that I know it’s a boy, I like it. Makes me feel that Rowan is close.”
“Of course. And I am sure you are missing your mother at a time like this.”
“I never knew my mother. She died when I was young.”
“I am so sorry, Ella.”
“You know, sooner or later we are gonna have to talk about what I need to do.”
“What can you do?”
“Okay, see, right there shows the difference between us, Halima. I know it looks bad but there is no way I’m giving my baby away.”
“I understand how you feel, Ella, but just as birth is a natural act for all women, bowing to what must be is your only recourse.”
“Excuse me, but that is total bull crap. Personally, I think the more you bow to what must be, the more angry and messed up you get inside.”
“But what can you do? You are guarded every moment. Horus would like nothing more than for you to attempt to escape. I do not know his physical capabilities but I am sure he will try to mount you if he catches you outside the palace. Look at yourself, my friend! You can barely waddle to the bath unaided! How are you to avoid your fate?”
It was true. Ella did not know how she could prevent the terrible future that awaited her once she was delivered of her child. She did know she couldn’t let it get that far. She hadn’t told Halima yet, but she knew she must escape before the baby was born.
Sometimes, when Halima left Ella alone, she would sit in her bed, one hand on her swollen belly and stare at the beautiful tattoo of symbols Halima had inked on the inside of her arm. She could make out a lamb and what looked like a crèche. She would trace the cryptic drawings with her finger and wonder if they really held magic. She wondered if they could help her find Rowan.
Rowan.
When she thought of him she was filled with both hope and despair. The mere thought of his dear face, laughing, confident, and sexy, lifted her spirits only to have them crash down on top of her when she realized how far away he must be.
Would she ever see him again?
What she loved to do the most during these quiet times was place both hands on her stomach to feel little Tater kick and squirm and think of Rowan at the same time. For just a moment, it made her feel like they were all together. A family. And when she focused on her love for the two of them and her intense desire to be with them, she felt a strength of purpose that made her believe she could really make it happen.
Whatever it took.
* * *
Julia sat in her tent—the one she had shared with Ella—and, for the first time since coming to live with the Bedouins, she smelled a sour mustiness in the canvas. She tossed down the piece of goatskin she had been attempting to mend with a long, thick needle and moved to stand in the flap opening of the tent. Standing there she could see the other women standing around the center cook fire, gossiping, cooking and tending to the children. The little band had moved continually since Ella’s escape, never staying longer than two days in one spot. She lifted a hand to her hair and wondered when the last time was that she had seen her reflection. Her ran her tongue over her chapped lips.
The men had gone out. After the first few times of bringing her with him, Ammon seemed to have tired of the novelty. Or maybe he was concerned about the attention she inevitably drew to their raids when she accompanied him. She hated being left behind. The other women wouldn’t speak to her unless it was absolutely necessary. Even the children had picked up on her role as outsider and stayed away.
Now that Ella was gone, she only had Ammon.
Julia returned to the interior of her tent and found herself looking at it as if seeing it for the first time. It took her breath away to think that she had been living like this for so many weeks. Was it really months? She didn’t know how long she had been with the desert people. Her bed was a collection of not very clean rags that sat directly on the sand. Regardless of whether the wind blew or not, she always woke up with sand in her hair, on her lashes, and a light dusting in her nostrils.
She no longer felt like Ammon’s prisoner, she realized. But neither did she feel like his wife. If he lost interest in her, what would become of her? She would not be able to join the sisterhood by the cook fire. They wouldn’t have her. Would he return her to her own people?
Her own people. Who were they? she wondered, as she looked down at her worn and tanned hands. If he lost interest in her, she would have nowhere to go. Just imagining her father welcoming her back after her failed marriage to Digby and two months of living with a desert tribe was laughable. She would be disowned. And if the truth ever came out that she hadn’t been forced to submit to the desert renegade chief? She shivered to think of it although she knew that, willing or not, she was ruined in the eyes of her family—indeed her whole stratum of society.
No, she must ensure that Ammon continued to want her. She reseated herself and picked up the torn piece of goatskin. When she did, her eyes fell upon the one item from her old life that she still carried with her, her wedding ring. Suddenly, she realized exactly how she might ensure her place with Ammon. It was a desperate, criminal idea and many people might die as a result of it.
But at least he would continue to love her.
The Nile River
Was she somewhere out there? Underneath that same Egyptian moon, below those hundreds of dazzling stars? Was she looking up as he was right now, having her breath taken away by their beauty, their timelessness? Was someone keeping her warm tonight? Holding her? Feeling her soft skin beneath his caressing fingertips…
“The night is beautiful, isn’t it?”
Rowan was startled out of his reverie by Marvel’s silent appearance at his side at the boat railing. They had been sailing for only a few hours but the light had left the sky and the dark banks of the river slid relentlessly by.
“It is,” he said gruffly, annoyed that her perfume which wafted so delicately around her was so pleasantly familiar to him now. Annoyed too that he had found himself hoping she would come to him.
“I’m glad we decided to do this, Rowan,” she said, leaning over the railing and affording him a luscious view of her breasts as she did.
He couldn’t help but grin ruefully. Marvel would never quit. He kind of liked that about her. “Yeah, it was time to break free of the city,” he said, forcing his eyes back to the starry sky.
She turned to face him, her back at the railing and when he looked down at her he couldn’t help but notice how the moonlight made her skin look like flawless ivory. Her lips were full and stained pink, and her hair was caught up in a ceramic clasp that left her neck bare and vulnerable. It would only take the barest minimum of efforts to lean over and taste those lips. He felt the front of his khaki trousers shift as he hardened at the thought.
“You were quiet at dinner tonight,” she said, her voice throaty and low.
Rowan felt his pulse quicken and dragged his gaze from the tops of her perfect breasts, pushed up by her dress as if on a platter for him. If he knew Marvel, that’s exactly what they were. He cleared his throat and looked away. “You tell me I’m always quiet,” he said.
“That’s true. Sometimes I notice it more.”
Rowan clenched the boat railing in both hands to prevent himself from gathering her to his chest and kissing her for all she was worth. Good God! How much must a man take?
“Oh!” Marvel said and her hands flew to her eye.
Rowan frowned at her. “What is it?” The sailors and dragomen had a small fire burning in a shallow can on the deck where they were smoking some fish they had caught earlier. Rowan noted a few cinders floating in the air.
“Something in my eye,” Marvel said, turning away as she tried to hide her tearing eyes.
It was the fact that she turned from him that made him reach for her. Believing it couldn’t be a feminine wile but actual distress that made her try to hide from him gave him a rush of needing to care for her that he had been slowly and methodically developing for weeks. To cup those perfect breasts—his in every sense of the word if her messages of the last two months could be believed—to feel that full bottom in his hands, and lifting her to him. He took her by the shoulders and pulled her close and tilted her head back, enjoying the small gasp she gave when he did. The cinder was posed on the bottom of her lashes. He leant over her face and flicked it away with the tip of his tongue and felt her relax in his arms when it was gone.
His mouth was covering hers before he even knew he was doing it. Hungrily, exploring her mouth with his tongue. And she wanted him. Her arms laced behind his neck and she pressed her breasts against his chest.
“Take me,” she gasped between kisses. “Rowan, yes. Take me now.”
* * * *
The morning Ella awakened with her plan fully formed in her mind was a hot cloudless day under a startlingly blue sky. As Halima helped her into the bath and then dressed her, Ella couldn’t help think that the most desperate moments in life often began with something ordinary. The smell of coffee percolating, the sight of a butterfly on a bush, a lilac-scented bath.
Her plan was desperate. And vile. If it weren’t for the fact that her life and the life of her unborn child depended on it, she could never bring herself to attempt what she knew she must. As foul as the details of her plan were, Ella was surprised that she felt no weakening revulsion in reviewing them.
Only single-minded determination.
After she was dressed, she drew Halima to her side and took her hand. Sensing what Ella was about to say, Halima shook her head and tried to pull away. “No,” she said. “You mustn’t even think of it.”
“I have to think of it. And so do you. Look at me, Halima. Today I need three things from you.” Ella squeezed her friend’s hand to give her courage. “First, I need you to understand why I am doing this.” Halima looked away as if refusing to even listen.
“Second,” Ella said, unperturbed, “I need you to help me. And lastly, I need you to leave the palace. For good.”
“I will not leave you.”
“If you don’t, Zimmerman will have you killed when he discovers I’m gone. I can’t do this knowing the cost of my freedom was your life. I’ll risk everything but not that.”
“I do not fear death.”
“I’m not surprised. But I fear a world without you in it, even if I never see you again. Promise me, Halima, you will leave and go far away so they won’t find you.”
Halima wrapped her arms around Ella and the two women clung to each other. “If I leave, they will bring Horus to take my place.”
“I’m counting on it.”
Halima pulled back to look into Ella’s eyes. “He will torture you, Ella. No one cares what happens to your baby. As long as you are unmarked, they won’t care what he does to you.”
“It doesn’t matter, Halima. Nothing matters except the future and I won’t have one if I don’t go through Horus first. Promise me you’ll leave.”
Halima looked down at her hands; tears streaked down her cheeks. “I promise,” she whispered.
“I need the drug you were giving me when I first came.”
Halima shook her head. “If your plan is to poison him, it will not work. Horus takes no food save from his own hand.”
“Leave that to me,” Ella said grimly. “How far along am I?” She placed her hand on her abdomen.
“The doctor expects you to deliver by the next moon,” Halima said. “But it could happen any time. Are you feeling pains?”
“Not really. I’m agitated and I’m sure Tater feels that. It’s probably nothing.”
Halima placed her hand on Ella’s stomach for a moment as if to calm the baby. Ella felt herself relaxing under her gentle touch. “I know, Ella, that there is no happy ending for your family except the one you make for yourself.” She wiped her tears away. “I will get you the drug.”
“Thank you, Halima.”
The following morning, Ella walked with Halima in the garden. It was a fine day and the sun was not too hot. She tired sooner these days but so enjoyed the walks, she wouldn’t give them up. This morning, she could tell Halima had news for her. Halima matched her gait, her hand under Ella’s elbow to support and catch her should she take a misstep. Her face was tense and drawn. Twice Ella saw her look over her shoulder at Horus who walked twenty yards behind them. His skin glistened in the sunlight as if he’d oiled himself. At the belt of his breechcloth, a long sword hung between his legs. He walked bowlegged to accommodate it. To Ella, rather than looking comical and ungainly, he looked insane.
“The Shah is coming in three days’ time,” Halima said in a low voice. Ella felt her fingers tighten on her arm.
“To see the merchandise,” Ella said, nodding, trying to keep her head down so that Horus would not suspect she wasn’t drugged.
“No,” Halima said, “he comes to take you with him.”
Ella felt her stomach tighten. She put a hand on her abdomen to soothe away the flutters. Things were happening too fast.
“Before I’ve given birth?” she said. “So you won’t be with me when the time comes?”
Halima said nothing for a moment and they walked in silence.
“There’s more,” she said finally. “It’s about Horus.”
“You found out he can perform?”
“It appears so. He raped the kitchen maid yesterday.”
“Dear God! And he’s still free?”
Halima ignored Ella’s question. “The girl lived to tell,” she said, “but she was badly injured.”
Ella tried to continue to walk but she felt a desperate need to sit down. “Injured how?”
“Horus wrote on her.”
“Wrote on her?”
“With his knife.”
“Halima, I have to sit down.”
Halima led Ella to a small stone bench. “Do you feel faint?” Ella saw Halima glance at Horus who stopped walking and stood watching them.
“More like throwing up,” Ella said. She directed her focus to the ground at her feet. “Is there more?”
“The rumor is that he has done this before in his village.”
“Raped and carved up his victims?” Ella felt the heat rise up her throat into her cheeks.
“The others he cut their throats.”
“I’m…he can’t mark me, can he? I mean, didn’t you say I had to be unharmed for the Shah?”
Halima pulled out a small cloth and pressed it to Ella’s forehead. “All of what I know is gossip,” she said.
“But?”
“But the gossip is that the Shah grows impatient waiting for the babe to be born.”
Ella instinctively covered her stomach with her hand. She was rewarded by a gentle kick into her palm. Hey, there, Tater, she thought as she rubbed the little round head or bottom. Everything’s going to be fine.
“Horus brags that he will cut the child from your womb.” Halima said the sentence in a rush, as if speaking it quickly, like ripping a bandage from a wound would make it hurt less.
It took every ounce of strength for Ella not to look at the monster who calmly stood at a distance, watching them.
“That would kill us both,” Ella said, her voice coming in a rasping breath.
“But if it doesn’t,” Halima said, “he will be generously rewarded.”
“And if it kills us?”
“He will pay with his life. A man like Horus would welcome such a trial. To succeed would erase his shame. His arrogance will not entertain failure.”
“Take me back, Halima,” Ella said, her knees shaking. She reached for Halima’ arm and her friend pulled her to her feet.
“I didn’t want to tell you,” Halima said.
“You must leave tonight, Halima.”
“Ella, no…”
“You promised. I can’t do what I must do if I know you will be punished for my actions. I am begging you to go tonight.”
Halima put her arm around Ella. Her hand brushed the tattoo on the inside of Ella’s arm reminding Ella that it was there. “I will go,” she said, her voice full of emotion. “But I will be with you, too.”
The plan was simple. If she had learned anything from Rowan while they were fighting for their lives in Heidelberg it was to keep the plan as uncomplicated as possible. The fewer pieces to manage were fewer pieces to fail or go wrong. Ella had watched Horus long enough to know his one great weakness was his vanity. She knew she would have to emotionally disarm him—even if just for a moment—in order to get the best of him and that wouldn’t be done by showing him fear as all his other victims had done. No, Horus saw himself as an attractive man, a man irresistible to women—even though he usually forced himself on them. Ella ground up the pills that Halima had given her and made a thin paste with them. She didn’t need to kill him. She just needed to make sure that he fell solidly to sleep and stayed that way for several hours. That evening, when Halima brought her dinner to her, Ella liberally coated the roast chicken and the chickpeas with the thick paste.
“He won’t eat it,” Halima said, frowning as Ella prepared the dish.
“Yes, he will,” Ella said. “Because I am going to seduce him into it.”
“Seduce him?”
“I’ve seen it before, Halima,” Ella said. “Men like Horus become malleable when you flatter them. No one flatters Horus because they fear him.”
“With good reason.”
“Yes, of course, but it means he is vulnerable to a woman’s praise. He’s a man, Halima. Trust me, if he has balls, he will fall for this. There is nothing more alluring for a man than a woman who wants him. I’m thinking even more than rape. And since he’s done the one many times and likely the other never, he is primed.”
“I pray you are right.”
When Ella sprinkled a healthy dose of the crushed pills into a goblet of wine, Halima shook her head. “Horus is Muslim,” she said. “He will not drink the wine.”
“Horus is nothing, Halima,” Ella said. “He’ll drink it.” Then Ella turned to Halima and took her hands in her own. “It’s time,” she said.
“I know.”
“I will never forget you. I want you to know that.”
“Nor me you, dearest one.”
They embraced. “I love you, Halima,” Ella said, biting back her tears. She pulled back. “Go, now,” she said.
With one tearful look over her shoulder, Halima ran from the room and slipped out the door. Ella watched her go, her heart heavy in her breast knowing she would never see her again, but she was relieved, too, because Horus and Zimmerman could not reach Halima now.
Ella knew exactly how long she would have to wait. Typically, after Halima delivered the evening meal, she would leave and then return to take the tray and ready Ella for bed. Ella gauged that would be in another hour. Ella would wait and then go out into the hall as if looking for Halima. She hated to cut any time off her friend’s head start but leaving the room was the single thing that would trigger Horus to come to her. She couldn’t wait for him to pick the time. That much she knew. She would force his hand and it would be on her time line.
Suddenly, there was a light knock on her door. Frowning, Ella went to the door and stood in front of it, listening. She thought she could hear breathing. Was it Horus? He wasn’t really the door knocking type. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door. Harald Zimmerman stood waiting, a smile on his thin lips.
“Gute Nacht, mein Liebling,” the doctor said, gently pushing past Ella and entering the room.
Surprised and unsure, Ella followed him to the table where her uneaten dinner sat next to her wine goblet.
“I see you have not eaten your dinner tonight,” he said easily, leaning back in the chair and lighting a cigarette. “I also see that you have your wits about you. I must have a word with Halima about that.”
She had forgotten to act muddled! And now he was watching her with a careful scrutiny. Was it too late to pretend to be drugged? She glanced around the room as if attempting to gather her thoughts.
“Perhaps it is just as well,” the Herr Doctor said, dragging heavily on his cigarette.
Ella seated herself at the table, cursing herself for being thrown by the change of events. Did he know that Halima was gone? Where is Horus? Why is he here?
“We have a little trouble, you and I,” he said, eyeing her critically. “I have, I think, a very good answer for how to resolve it but only tonight will reveal if that is true.”
Ella forced herself not to speak. Although he clearly thought she was no longer drugged, she needed to allow some room for doubt depending on what she might need to do.
“Your new master is coming for you,” he said. “He is very eager to meet you and to enjoy the, shall we say, fleshly pleasures of his new possession? As soon as possible. Can you guess what impedes him in his desire?”
Ella kept her face impassive.
“Now, I am not a surgeon,” he said, grinding out his cigarette in her dinner plate, putting an end to any thoughts Ella had about offering him a bite, “but I do know a few ways in which we might induce labor.” He waved to Ella’s stomach. “You are ready for an end to this, too, ja?”
Holy crap. He’s going to try to rape me, she thought. The good doctor is a disgusting perv after all.
“I’m going to try my way, liebling,” he said, standing and unbuttoning his vest. “I’m going to ride you hard and if, together, we are successful, there will be no need for Horus to try his methods. I assure you, my way will be much more pleasant. You understand me, I think?”
Ella nodded.
“Very good. Very good. Now, take your clothes off, my dear. That’s a good girl.”
Ella’s hands shook as she slowly unbuttoned her blouse.
Think, Ella. Think!
She carefully peeled down her long, thickly embroidered tunic to her waist. She knew he was watching her and she was very aware of how vulnerable she must look. Her breasts, large even when she wasn’t pregnant, were heavy and full. The chill of the evening air made her nipples stand up. As she began to push the tunic down over her large stomach and hips, she looked desperately around the room for some idea of how to foil the doctor’s plans. Heavy breathing from his direction made her glance at him and she saw that he was indeed watching her and massaging the front of his trousers in an attempt to ready himself for her. She felt a wave of nausea as she saw him standing there, his tongue flicking out of his mouth like a lizard fixated on its prey.
She was the prey.
Turning away, her eyes went to the poisoned plate of dinner with the cigarette stubbed out in it, and the goblet of wine next to it.
“Are you ready, my dear?” The doctor croaked, his voice agitated and thick as he rubbed himself.
Her gaze continued on to the bed, the curtains, and the ornately carved side table with the little pot of scented unguent that Halima had applied to Ella’s healing tattoo. It was a pretty china dish with hand-painted roses on the lid.
Full of deadly poison.
“Nearly,” she said as she walked naked to the bed. She could hear him moving toward her as she reached the pot. She flicked off the lid, and plunged a finger inside just as she felt his hand wrap around her arm and jerk her away from the bed. She stumbled against him as he lifted her off her feet. Surprised at his strength, she allowed him to settle her on his lap facing him, her legs on either side and her large belly between them.
“I am ready now, my sweet,” he said, bringing his face menacingly close to hers.
Pushing back, Ella grabbed both her breasts as if to offer them up to him. “How about a little appetizer, herr doctor?” she asked in her best coquettish affect. She was sure he would hear the tremor in her voice and see through her pathetic attempt to play the seductress.
But he didn’t.
Without a word, he bent his head and began to hungrily suckle her swollen breasts. His lips were large and flaccid and the pain of having her breasts sucked so roughly made her gasp.
Squeezing her eyes shut against the sensation of what he is doing to her, she tried to imagine it was an elbow or a kneecap his mouth was latched onto—not her overly-sensitive breasts. She looked over his shoulder at the sunset out the window and tried to separate herself from what he was doing, his tongue noisily lapping and sucking her aureoles.
And she prayed. She prayed to God and anyone else who would listen that she had gotten enough of the salve onto her breasts in the split second before the doctor had fallen upon her. She felt her lunch inch its way up her throat and prayed, too, that she wouldn’t vomit on him before the poison had a chance to work. And just when she was sure she had failed and was on the verge of gouging his eyes out with her bare fingers, without warning he dropped his hands from her hips and his head lolled heavily against her chest.
She pushed against him in order to jump from his lap and he landed with a thud on his side, taking the heavy chair with him. She stood next to him, her knees quivering and threatening to give out altogether, and stared him. He groaned loudly from where he lay on the carpet. Carefully, with trembling fingers, she knelt by his twitching body and slipped his knife from his waist sheath, then rocked back on her heels, breathless at what she had done.
Had he ingested enough to disable him long enough for her to escape? She twisted around to look at the little china tub of poison and then back at her attacker, convulsing quietly on the floor.
As she sat there, trembling and trying to steady herself, she knew that she had to gamble on the side of certainty. She had to give him enough to kill him because she couldn’t take the chance that she would give him too little. She stood and walked to the bed where she pulled on her robe and reached for the salve. Forgive me, she thought as she walked back to where he lay on the carpet.
It’s you or Tater.
She scooped two fingers into the unguent, knelt by the doctor and spread the goo over his nose. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be fighting hard for breath. As she watched him die, she wiped her fingers on his shirt and then struggled to her feet. When she placed her hand on her abdomen, she felt the baby kick hard.
Time to go.
Because of the doctor’s visit, Ella knew that there was a good chance that Horus might not be loitering outside her door as he normally did. She prayed she was right. She pulled on her silk tunic and slippers and hid the doctor’s knife up her sleeve, her glance falling briefly on the tattoo on her arm as she did. The faint lines, spelling out the words for her phonetically by Halima, danced up her arm in a marching army of pictures and letters from her wrist to her elbow. Halima had made her promise never to read the words out loud unless it was a matter of life or death.
Ever.
Ella’s original plan had called for Halima to leave a horse for her by the eastern gate—but the plan had also called for Horus to be dead or disabled by this time, too. When Ella slipped into the hallway outside her room, she was relieved to see that the hallway was vacant. Candle sconces lit the hallway and cast eerie, moving shadows along her path. As heavy as she was, she moved silently and swiftly to the spiral stone stairs in the western tower that would lead her to the gardens and then beyond to the outer gate where the horse awaited her.
She didn’t know where Horus went when he wasn’t standing guard outside her room. She knew he never went far. When she reached the stairs, she stood for a moment, trying to hear over the pounding of her heart and her labored breathing. She heard a few voices of servants laughing and talking but they were coming from outside in the courtyard—opposite the garden. If she had any luck at all, they would all give her and the doctor enough privacy not to discover her gone until morning.
She raced down the steps and burst out into the garden without stopping to look to see if there might be someone there believing it unlikely that anyone would be strolling in the darkened garden at this time of night. Ella knew the narrow path through the garden well. It wound laboriously through the topiary and the hedges to the other side and to freedom. She started to run, one hand cradling her stomach to reduce the jostling caused by the pounding of her feet against the hard dirt pathway.
There was a crescent moon tonight. Enough light to see but still dark enough to cloak her. She hadn’t planned it this way and was grateful. The air was fragrant with the scent of orange blossoms from the many trees in the garden and the air was warm on her bare skin, unusual for this time of night. She hurried along the path, twisting and turning as it did through the flowers and hedges. The doctor had taken pains to create a European Eden in the desert. Until this moment, she had loved the little garden. When she reached the far gate, she slipped easily through the wide bars of the grate covering it, knowing it was more for ornamentation than security. As soon as she did, she saw the pony, saddled and waiting for her.
He stood quietly in the moonlight, his reins tied to the hinge of the gate. He shook his head at her approach and she heard the faint sound of the little bells that festooned his bridle. Her first thought when she saw him—even before she registered the relief that he represented to her—was of the love and care of Halima, who had stolen and led that little pony with so much hope in her heart that it might help Ella—when what she really believed was that it was all hopeless folly. As Ella reached the pony, she saw the saddlebag full of food and water. As always, Halima knew how to take care of her better than she did herself.
She tugged the reins free from the gate and looped them over the animal’s neck and positioned her toe in the stirrup hoping she had enough strength to haul both her and Tater up and into the saddle. Before she could, her eye caught a movement over the pony’s back. Like a bad movie with an inescapable ending, Ella watched the darkness move and shift to encompass the man standing in the shadows watching her. She knew it was him. Somehow in the back of her mind she had known all along it would be.
Horus emerged into the light cast by the moon. His broad face was glistening in the warm night. His teeth bared in a hungry grin.