The sea got rough again before we reached Vitrinitsa, and we were all glad when the tarida pulled into the relatively calm harbor. I half expected Aban to kiss the ground when we docked, but he helped unload the horses before he left the ship.
“Give me a few more voyages, and I might turn you into a sailor.” Gil winked at Aban as he led one of the horses off the ship, a bay mare.
Aban laughed. I hadn’t seen that from him much since he’d arrived. Maybe things would work out for us after all. We could have different beliefs about the best way to worship God and still be brothers, still work together and laugh together—and chase down Venetian spies together.
Captain Ignatios found me before we left. “Thank you. If you hadn’t been on the ship with us, we wouldn’t have won. I don’t have your full fare still, but I’ll return what the tax collector didn’t already take.”
We had several days of travel ahead of us, so I accepted the money back. The sale of the Turkish corsair and its surviving crew would allow Ignatios to still make a profit on the voyage.
After leaving the docks, we bought supplies in the local market: food, blankets, a change of clothing since we’d lost most of our spares to either the Turks, the Venetians, or the Catalans. Then we rode north.
Already the sun was sinking in the sky. We could have stayed the night in Vitrinitsa, but we didn’t want to waste the daylight. Nor did we feel safe staying at an inn. Querini had agents everywhere. He might not be looking for information about us, but soft beds and warm food weren’t worth the risk of losing our surprise or running into armed enemies.
We rode until darkness shaded the road, making it hard to follow. Then we dismounted and led the horses into a grove of olive trees.
“Shall I light a fire?” Aban asked.
Helpfulness from him was welcome, but I shook my head. “Someone might see the flames, and we don’t want anyone to know we’re here.”
We had a cold supper of dried fish, dried figs, and flatbread without any oil to dip it in. We’d brought oats for the horses, but they seemed content to graze on the grasses among the olive trees. We gave them a generous tether before laying out our bedrolls.
I took the first watch. The night was calm, with no one traveling along the road and nothing out of the ordinary as far as the weather. Olive branches blocked most of my view of the sky and the surrounding grove, so I walked closer to the road to get a better view, to let the starlight settle all the jumbled emotions of fear and heartache. It didn’t matter how tired I was or how much my leg hurt—every time I gazed at the stars, I felt a sense of awe.
When Gil and I had stood watch together outside Durazzo, he had pointed at the spray of stars and told me how they had guided his whaling and fishing ships through the Basque Sea and into the cold waters of the north. They’d given him hope when he’d been shipwrecked and stranded on a scrap of the fishing boat, and they’d given us hope in Durazzo. Because of the injuries to his eyes, Gil could no longer see the stars, but he had Eudocia—she gave him hope; she was his home.
I’d long wanted a relationship like that. I’d thought I might find it with Cecilia—the promise of a love that could grow and endure—but how could we share the loyalty and trust I’d seen in my friends when she’d hidden so much from me? She’d made the Sea Maiden sound like a merchant vessel, and perhaps that wasn’t entirely false. But she’d made no mention of the ship’s primary purpose.
The stars shifted slowly, marking the passage of the first watch of the night and moving into the second. I woke Aban for his turn to stand as sentry.
He stretched and stood. “Anything unusual happen during your watch?”
“No. I hope yours is the same.”
He seemed to hesitate. He pressed his lips together, then spoke. “Rasheed?”
“Yes?”
“Do you ever regret becoming Christian?”
“No.” As I stood there under the stars, I felt the same conviction I’d felt all those years ago, camping with the caravan as we sat around the fire and Rodrigo the cloth merchant told stories about Jesus. “For a while, I regretted kissing Zubiya. The moment was beautiful, but the consequences were harsh for both of us. I wish it wouldn’t have torn apart our family, but things between Father and I were already strained. That mistake with Zubiya led me to a better understanding of God and His Son. I can’t regret the process that led me to Them, no matter how painful it was in the short term.”
Aban kicked at a loose pebble. “Islam is more than Father’s severity and judgment.”
“I know. And Christianity is more than the corrupt Valencian officials Father paid taxes to, more than the kings who pushed our people back until Granada was the only Moorish kingdom on Iberia. It offers hope and peace and a Savior. I need hope. I need peace. And I need a Savior. He asks for sacrifices sometimes: obedience, humility. But He offers His love regardless. Our father demanded obedience first, seemed willing to give affection only after we became what he wanted us to be.”
“Father wanted what was best for you.”
Aban had been too young to remember what it had been like between our father and me. “No. He wanted me to be what was best for him. Maybe he changed and raised you differently.” I hoped that was the case, because I wanted to believe that people, even people like my father, could change for the better. But even if he had changed, it wouldn’t erase the past. “With me, he couldn’t abide any differences in how we saw the world. Anything less than complete compliance was treason.”
“Is that why you became a Christian, to punish him?”
Had my father thought my conversion was about revenge rather than about faith? “No. I became a Christian because I felt it was true and because I believe in a loving God.”
Aban folded his arms. “If Allah—God, as you call Him—is so loving and if Christianity is so right, then why hasn’t He rewarded you for choosing to follow Him? You lost the woman you loved. Then you lost your family. You have a scar across your face. You’ve been in pain more often than not the last eleven years. Then when you fell in love a second time, the woman turned out to be a spy, and her uncle sold you to your enemies. You haven’t been blessed since becoming Christian.”
Aban’s words were spoken without harshness, but they stung because for a few moments, they felt true. But there had been blessings too. I gained satisfaction from putting effort into the bathhouse and seeing it prosper. I often felt like an outsider in the Duchy, but that didn’t mean I was unhappy here. I had work that I enjoyed, a home that met my needs. I hadn’t gone hungry since Durazzo. I’d been injured in battle eleven years ago, but God had let me walk again—sometimes even without pain. I had the love of my Savior and the love of my friends. I might even have the love of my long-lost brother—it seemed I at least had his concern over my soul. If I never had anything more, if I never had Cecilia’s love, would what remained be enough?
I leaned against one of the olive trees and chose my words carefully. “God led me to a new family. Though I am scarred, I am still alive. Though I am in pain, I can still work and support myself. And I know what it feels like to love. I know the power of loyalty and the value of friendship. I would rather have felt those things, even if it hurts, than have them pass me by. I don’t know why everything happens, why life sometimes feels hard or unfair, but I trust God. I don’t have to understand now. He does. That’s enough for me.” And that meant I would have to trust Him when it came to the woman from Venice who had worked her way so thoroughly into my heart.
Aban was quiet for a while. The night was calm, with moonlight reflecting off the olive leaves and the occasional sound of cicadas. “It’s just that you’re my brother. I don’t want you to endure hellfire in the afterlife because you fell away from Islam. You’ve already suffered enough in this life.”
I chuckled—probably not the response he’d expected. “I’m glad you think enough of me to care about my salvation or damnation. I believe God is pleased with the choice I made to become Christian.”
His hands moved with frustration. “Then why has your life been so hard?”
“It hasn’t, not any more than it’s hard for everyone else.” I thought back to what Rodrigo had told me. “Living a life of faith doesn’t mean everything will be easy. It just means you have better perspective when the hard things come.” If everything went well in Neopatras and Aban came to live in Thebes, I had a feeling the differences in our beliefs would come up time and time again. But if we shared and questioned out of love rather than out of judgment and anger, I didn’t think it would do us any harm.
I pointed to the southeast. “I believe that when we pray, God is concerned with the direction of our hearts, not the direction of our bodies, but that is the way to Mecca, if you wish to know. I’m going to get some sleep. Peace be upon you, Aban. But not so much peace that you fall asleep while on watch.”