Within minutes we had come to another stream bed, this one ankle-deep in water. We crossed it, again, again, and again. Then we doubled back and crossed a very treacherous expanse of sheer stone. Within half an hour I would have defied even a hawk to follow us.
For Murad and his party, I’m sure it must have seemed as if we’d vanished from the face of the earth.
XLIV
By evening, we had ridden far up on the plateau in an area where the gray-white rock folded with the ruggedness of gathers in sackcloth. Tucked into one of these folds, approached only by the narrowest of defiles, was the brigands’ hold. Like a needle lost by a careless seamstress, it could there prick the wearer repeatedly, but finding and extracting the thing would prove no easy business.
I also noticed that these folds of rocks, like folds in a garment, held dampness even when all around them was bone dry. By the time we arrived at our destination, we’d been rained on more than once with enough respite between only to catch a chill in our damp clothes. Dank wet odored the horses and spiked their hair in places like that of a hedgehog.
Yet another foggy drizzle was obscuring all but the horses immediately in front and in back when I realized we would finally be allowed to halt. I’d tried to judge direction by the sun when I could see it, but clouds and then an early sunset brought on by high peaks left me now at a total loss. Distance was a factor, too. Many things could make me misjudge, but every jarring ache in my body as I eased off the horse convinced me. We’d covered more terrain since our capture than the sedan chairs had allowed us in the past four days.
The milling of the horses set loose a soup of mud that dragged at my feet. No food or rest since midmorning: my head reeled. If I’d been relieved that my mutilation hadn’t hurt at first, that was no consolation now. my hips and knees would not unbend and between them pulsed a pain that caused periodic spasms I could not control.
But when I was no longer there for her to cling to, Esmikhan tumbled with exhaustion from the horse. At the last moment, I managed to open my arms to catch her. Dragging my breath in between my teeth with a hiss, I broke the barrier of my own pain and straightened up. Then I carried my lady gently over the muddy yard and into the shelter offered by a small hut before our captors could order me to do so.
The hut was actually quite a bit bigger than it appeared from the outside, else there would hardly have been room for us and all the brigands, too. The miserable heap of human-laid stone surrounding the low doorway served only as a front room to further rooms let naturally into the mountainside as caves.
Two people waited by the fire in the main room for the brigand’s return. The first was the leader’s wife. A very thin woman, she fearlessly faced all those men without a veil and struck even the largest of them away from her soup pot with her spoon. This fierce manner caused Esmikhan to shrink even closer into her veils and my arms. To my lady, such a woman was as unnatural an apparition as a eunuch is to the Occidental.
The second occupant disquieted me more. He wore the plain brimless woolen cap of a mendicant holy man and rags that left his hairy arms bare. He did seem a little too-well fleshed for the role, but what disconcerted me most was the way he looked at me—as if he recognized me, and I should recognize him in return. Mystics always unnerved me. They seemed the same among Muslims as among Christians: their every look and stance threatened my soul with similar entrapment.
I had enough to worry about at that moment with the entrapment of my body. I was almost glad when the brigands commanded me and my burden out of their cramped common room. I trudged through the low doorway where they pointed me and into one of the back rooms. Even though it was away from the fire and populated already by half a dozen goats, it was as close to escape as I could hope for under the circumstances.
Safiye was likewise ordered into the room with us, but she was not so ready to make it her home. Her first priority toward comfort was to stretch all the kinks of the ride out of her long limbs. She did so with the grace and movements of a dancer at a feast, but restlessly.
Esmikhan could not have stood if she had to. One particularly inquisitive nanny made my charge whimper with fear by coming up for a trial nibble of lady’s veils. Esmikhan had only seen goats roasted whole and docile on beds of saffron rice before, and the sharp odor of their life was enough to send her into shivers.
I shooed the creature off and then did my best to make my lady comfortable on a heap of dried grass—which is what I suppose the goats thought she was in my arms. Fortunately, my lady was exhausted enough that once she’d gotten used to the burn of goat in her nostrils, she fell sound asleep within moments. I gently opened her wrapper and veils somewhat and was pleased to find that they had kept her other garments from getting too damp to sleep in.
Sounds of someone entering the room made me hastily draw the veils again, but it was only the brigand’s wife bearing soup—green and fragrant with mint—flat bread, and cheese. She returned moments later with a pair of musty but warm blankets, and only sniffed skeptically when I thanked her as if she wanted to say, “Yes, well, you can thank me if we come out
