Water lapped at my shoes. I ignored it. I was tired, and the water was more tepid than cold. A short time later, it ran over my shoes again, all the way to my ankles. I opened my eyes as everything came back to me: abductions, leaving Thebes, Turkish raiders, and an escape we shouldn’t have been able to manage. A murky glow lit part of the cave. Then water cleared away, and daylight met my eyes. A moment later, daylight disappeared again as a wave washed over the front of the cave.
“Cecilia!” I should have called her Signorina Bertaldo, but this was an emergency. She groaned, but it seemed she was not quick to wake, at least not after the type of things we’d been through. I shook her shoulder. “The tide’s coming in.” If it kept coming in, we might be trapped without any air until it went down again.
She sat upright as another wave covered the mouth of the cave. “What hour is it?”
I couldn’t tell how long we had slept or how high the sun was—it might be as early as the second hour or as late as the eighth. “I don’t know.”
“It will only get harder to leave, the longer we wait.” She paused as another wave crashed into the cave, thundering into our ears. “We had better try to get out now.”
I strapped on the things I’d taken from the Turks and pulled at the portion of the chain that had once been fastened to Cornario. I grabbed the links between Cecilia and me too, so it wouldn’t catch on the rocks. “Take my arm if you need help balancing.”
Another wave crashed. I wouldn’t have slept through noise like that, not normally, but the volume would have increased gradually, and the thrumming in my head reminded me of the Turkish blade that had pummeled me the day before. I’d needed sleep—still needed more of it.
We stepped forward into the dark, swirling water. It felt more powerful than it had when we’d escaped the rowboat. Here the sides of the cave channeled it into a surge. We stepped down, over jagged rocks hidden beneath the churning waves. Two steps and the water rushed up to our thighs. Two more and it engulfed our waists.
A wave crashed through with so much force that it knocked me against the side of the cave. Cecilia gasped, and I felt the chain between us pull from my grip as the surge dragged her back and under. I grabbed her hand and helped her surface. She gripped mine in return.
I pressed forward, and the swell of the waves rolled over the top of my head, trying to lift me only to pull me down into the rocks when the current ebbed. I held the long length of chain in my left hand and let the shorter bit, the part connecting me to Cecilia, hang. It caught on a rock, and I kicked it free. Another wave pulled at Cecilia, trying to break us apart, but this time, I kept hold of her. When the force of one wave died and before the next could hit us, I pulled her closer. “Wrap your arms around my shoulders.” It would make it harder for us to be separated, and it would keep her head above water longer. “Pull the chain between us so there’s no slack that can catch on the rocks.”
I felt the chain pull, then loosen enough for me to walk without the chain interfering. She put her arms around my shoulders, as instructed. She weighed almost nothing in the water. But I felt a different sort of weight. I should have realized the tide would come in. I should have found a safer place or stayed awake to keep watch. I was responsible for her.
More than responsibility and the waves pulled at me. I knew better than to admire a woman who was promised to someone else. Sixteen years of regret and sorrow over what had happened with Zubiya should have kept me from so much as noticing beauty in a woman who was betrothed. But within a day of hearing about Zubiya’s death, I’d felt an unmistakable tug toward the woman currently clinging to my back.
Another wave pummeled into us, and I almost lost my footing on the slippery rocks. “Can you take this chain too?” I handed her the longer strand so I’d have both hands free. She grabbed it and managed to keep holding on to me too.
We were nearly to the mouth of the cave, but there was hardly any space between the water and the rocky ceiling. “We might be under for a while.” We’d had to duck to enter the night before. We’d have to duck again, and I’d need to go low enough to keep Cecilia’s head from hitting rock.
“All right.” Her mouth was not far from my ear, so I heard her soft voice even over the waves.
I waited until a wave crashed, then began to pull back toward the sea. I sucked in a breath and waded to the entrance. Another wave covered my face and pushed me back into the cave, but I grabbed the edge of a rock and held on until the force subsided. Then I stumbled through the opening.
Cecilia relaxed her grip on my shoulders, but we were still in water deep enough to cover our heads when the waves crested. The current pulled us away from the cave, then seemed to suck us back toward it. We made almost no headway as we fought against the tow for a few more waves, but the force lessened as we gained distance. Gradually, we were able to wade away from the cave without being sucked back toward it.
She switched her hold from around my shoulders to just one of her hands on my upper arm. “I’ve been dealing with tides my entire life. I should have known better than to fall asleep in a cave like that. I’m sorry.”
“I also should have known better. But we’re safe now.” Safe, and I felt better for the sleep, even if I’d been foolish to take it in a cave like that. I scanned the area as the waves pulled at us with a force that was now gentle instead of overwhelming. The sun showed it was midmorning, and the sea before us was clear. “I don’t see the Turks.”
We shuffled the rest of the way onto the beach. I still limped, and now she did too.
“What’s wrong with your leg?” I asked.
“I must have bruised it on some of the rocks. It’s nothing serious, and the pain is not great. I shall do my best to ignore it.”
I helped her sit on the sand well above the waterline. We were in a cove. I wanted a better view of the sea to make sure the Turkish corsair wasn’t beyond the cliffs, just out of sight and still in pursuit, but Cecilia was chained to me, so I couldn’t run off to scout ahead, not unless I took her with me. I gestured to her injured leg. “May I see it?” Had she been a man, I wouldn’t have hesitated, but removing part of a woman’s clothing was something altogether different.
She tried to smooth the cloth of her gown, but the wetness made it cling to each of her curves. The affect had probably been similar the night before, but then it had been dark. She seemed to notice what the water had done to her clothes at the same time I did, and she blushed. I wished she wouldn’t have. The added color made her even more attractive, and I was trying very hard to see her as an injured comrade instead of as a beautiful woman.
I unfastened my cloak and laid it across her soaked clothing. I had planned to fasten it on backward, with the long side covering her front, but a glance at the slant of her neck told me it was best to keep my fingers away. If I fastened the cloak, I’d want to smooth the wet strands of hair that clung to her skin, and if I ran my fingers along her neck, I’d wonder what it tasted like. I stared at the sand and let out a slow breath. Attraction to Cecilia was not helpful. I did my best to shove it away. “Signorina Bertaldo, I need to see your injury.”
She nodded her approval, but her face tightened with worry.
I lifted the hem of her gown enough to reveal a long cut that still bled. I followed the red line up to her knee before it stopped. Swelling had started around the ankle, and drips of water mingled with the flowing blood. The packs with our horses had strips of cloths for bandages, but I had nothing extra now. I wouldn’t ask her to sacrifice her shift to become a bandage. Getting to it would pose a problem, even if I promised to turn my back on her while she removed it. The other clothes, she would need, especially if we didn’t find help before the sun set. The cloaks were the most obvious candidates for being made into bandages, but we might need the warmth, and her modesty suggested taking one now would be a mistake. That left my clothes.
“Just a moment,” I told her. I walked as far away as the chain would allow. We needed to find the others, but the cut was on the inside of Cecilia’s leg. She was likely to bump into it while we walked, making it bleed over and over again. It wouldn’t be dangerous, just painful and irritating and easier for the Turks to track, if they picked up our trail. I turned my back to Cecilia and removed my belt, then stripped off my wet pourpoint. Next, I took off the linen shirt I wore against my skin, leaving me naked other than my hosa and my stolen Turkish shoes.
“Messer ibn Musa?”
I glanced back over my shoulder. Cecilia watched me. “Yes?”
“What are you doing?”
I wrung out my pourpoint and slipped it back on. “Getting something to use as a bandage. And ibn Musa means ‘son of Musa.’ My father disowned me, so the name’s not really accurate anymore. I’m just Rasheed.”
“Rasheed, I do not wish to take your cloak and your shirt from you.”
I fastened on my belt and turned back toward her. “I’ve a spare in a saddlebag, and I don’t think my horse was among those taken by the Turks.” I wrung the linen shirt out as best as I could. Even damp, it was better than no bandage at all. I knelt next to her and used my dagger to shred the shirt into strips. Then I began wrapping her wound.
“Thank you for saving me again,” she said. “I wasn’t strong enough to fight the current once it channeled through the caves. I would have been stuck, no matter how high the water came.”
“Seems the least I could do was help you out once I led you in.”
“That’s as much my fault as yours.” A soft smile creased her face. “You should know . . .” My finger ran across her calf, and her words halted for a moment. “You should know that I think what you did for the woman who kissed you was noble. I recognize that it was a large sacrifice, but I admire you for it.”
My hands slowed on the bandages. “I think the other choice would have been harder to live with.” It was a difficult world to navigate alone, and it was even more difficult for a woman. Zubiya wouldn’t have been able to escape with a caravan.
“I’m sure she would thank you for it if she could.”
The breeze picked up, flowing through my wet clothes and along my face. But now, as I felt the wind, I wasn’t reminded of Zubiya. Now thoughts of Cecilia filled my mind: her warm leg in my hand, the way the draft blew strands of hair across her neck, the stiffness in her mouth that came from pretending she wasn’t in pain.
I finished tying off the bandage and pulled her skirt down. Cecilia had lovely legs. Signor Querini was a lucky man.
“Do you think of her often?” she asked.
My throat felt dry. Zubiya had been a common thought for years, but in truth, I’d spoken more with Cecilia in the past day than I’d spoken with Zubiya in the three years before our kiss. Once we were no longer children, all our conversations had been in stolen snatches, heartfelt, perhaps, but short. We could have been happy together, I was sure of it, but that possibility had disappeared a long time ago, even if it had taken my heart years to realize that hope was no more. I fiddled with the stolen water bladder slung across my chest. “I used to. But I think now it is time for me to move on.”