The Book of the Seven Delights (32 page)

She spotted a knife in the top of one of their boots and knew it was her only chance. Going still, she began to make sobbing sounds and begged them to stop and not hurt her any more.

"Take it—you can have it!" she cried, turning her face from them and measuring the distance to the man's boot before slamming her eyes shut. "It has a special latch—let me get it off—"

They hung over her, panting, eyes fixed on the gold of the breastplate. They glanced at Gaston, fighting for his life, and turned back to her with heated faces. Gaston's hatred for the Englishman was no longer their concern. Here, it was every man for himself. They eased their weight from her legs and pulled her up to a sitting position.

She reached for her head and swayed as if she might be going faint, then lashed out and grabbed the knife. Before they could react, she slashed one's arm and sent the blade deep into the other's thigh.

Apollo heard the howl of pain and the roar of anger that followed, but couldn't see what was happening.

The sergeant's meaty hands were clamping tighter and tighter around his throat. Darkness was closing on the edges of his awareness; he could barely draw breath. Desperate, he tried one last move—bracing with his legs and heaving up, unsettling Gaston for a fraction of a second. That was long enough for him to get his chin against Gaston's wrist and bite down on it with everything in him.

Gaston howled and recoiled. In the heartbeat that followed, Apollo rocked to the side and threw Gaston off. He was dimly aware of Abigail struggling to crawl away from Gaston's men. He glimpsed them grabbing furiously at her, then jerking back when she turned and lashed out at them. An alarming blur of red was all he saw before he reached his feet and Gaston charged him like a wounded bull…

Abigail spotted Gaston's gun on the floor. Crawling frantically—stretching her fingers and gritting her teeth—she managed to reach the grip of the pistol and drag it toward her… just as the two men grabbed her feet and hauled her back to face their vengeance. She curled to one side, bringing her hands together on the handle and pulling back the hammer with both thumbs.

One saw the gun, the other didn't. When she squeezed the trigger, the older man jerked and headed over onto the floor…

The gunfire sent a bolt of electricity through Apollo. He was vaguely aware of a scuffling near the door, and then it seemed like everything else in the room went still. He and Gaston rolled on the floor, punching, gouging, and kicking… each determined to finish the other… until a form loomed above them and another shot rang out.

Gaston screamed and rolled back, grabbing his thigh. Above his groans and curses, Apollo managed to hear the double click of a cocking pistol.

"Don't move, you miserable bastard!"

It was Abigail's voice. And when he recovered enough to focus his eyes, he saw her standing over Gaston with her blouse ripped open, her hair a wild tangle, and her hands filled with a gun.

"You?" he managed to croak out. "You shot him?"

"Them," she said tautly. Her eyes were white hot with fury and her grip on the gun was rock steady. He looked over to find one of Gaston's men lying crumpled on the floor and the other gone.

It took a moment for the impact of it to sink in. She'd just shot two men. And probably saved his life. It was all he could do to get to his feet and stumble over to her.

"Are you all right?" she asked, glancing at him for only a second.

"I'll live." He sagged on her shoulder for support.

"That's good enough for me." She gave a strange little smile and after glancing up to reassure herself it was true, she focused again on Gaston. "What do we do with him?"

"If you kill me," Gaston snarled, his lips flecked with spittle and eyes glassy with pain, "it changes nothing. LaCroix will still have what he wants."

"And just what is that?" Apollo wrapped his free arm around his damaged ribs and tried not to breathe too deeply. "Why has he hounded and pursued me?"

"You don't know?" Gaston's laugh was chilling.

Angered beyond reason, Apollo sprang forward and dropped a knee onto Gaston's damaged thigh. The sergeant screamed.

"Tell me! What does he want?"

"Your birthright."

It was gritted out under such duress that it had to be the truth.

"That's almost funny," he said, beginning to feel a little delirious. "I don't have an inheritance. My father's business was sold to pay off credit—"

He halted and for a moment held his breath to keep the pain of breathing from clouding his thoughts.

LaCroix wouldn't know or care about his father's business. He would only care about things that would come to Apollo's mother… his estranged sister. "But the LaCroix family has nothing of value. My mother was eager to wed my father because her family was penniless."

"Tell me! What does he think he'll gain by my death?" he demanded, grabbing Gaston by the hair of the head and shaking him.

"I don't know," Gaston finally admitted, his voice hoarse with pain. "But something worth more than
your
damnable life."

Apollo dragged himself from the injured sergeant and stumbled back to Abigail, who pulled his arm up over her shoulders to support him.

"I have to find out what LaCroix is after," he said, looking into her determined gaze. "I have to get back to Casablanca."

"He'll be gone before you get there," Gaston muttered, struggling to stay conscious. "He's selling everything. Fleeing Morocco. You'll never find him."

"I'll find him," Apollo said, "if I have to track him to hell and gone."

"When he learns you're alive, there won't be a safe corner for you in all of Morocco." Gaston ejected one last bit of venom: "When we meet in hell, Smith… we'll continue this."

His head dropped to the side and Apollo knelt to feel for a pulse.

"Is he…" She looked at the gun in her hands with dawning horror and dropped it. "Did I kill him?"

"No. He's still alive. But he's losing blood fast." He looked at the pool of blood beneath Gaston's leg. As much as he loathed the wretch, his conscience wouldn't allow him to do nothing. He unhooked Gaston's belt and pulled it from him to strap around his leg like a tourniquet. Then he rose and put his arms around Abigail.

"Let's get out of here," he said, turning her toward the door.

"What do we do with Gaston?" she asked.

Apollo halted to look back at him. "He's not going anywhere. We'll turn him over to the local police. If he's lucky, when he wakes up he'll be in a local prison. If not, the locals will save themselves trouble by saving just his severed head for the native
goumiers
who hunt deserters for the Legion."

As she nodded, her gaze caught on something.

"Wait—" She ducked from under his arm and hurried back to retrieve something from the floor. As she took her place under his arm again, he saw that it was the gun and stared at her in surprise.

"What?" She looked up at him with widened eyes. "I think the wretches used
my
gun. See? It's a Webley top-break .455."

"Mark Two," he added, his battered mouth quirking up on one side.

"Maude Cummings was right about something after all," she said. "It does pay to have a gun with good

'stopping power.'"

He laughed even though it hurt, and in moments they were stepping out into the gentle light of the breaking dawn.

Their arrival at Cousin Topsel's, looking battered and bloody, sent the whole household into a frenzy.

Haffe was frantic that Smith and Abigail had nearly been killed, and Topsel was outraged that the sanctity of his household had been invaded and his guests had been harmed. His personal pride and the family honor both had been assailed.

Haffe and his usually affable cousin charged out into the street to collect men from neighboring households to search for the man who got away—Schuller—and to see that Gaston was seized and punished according to their own uncompromising brand of justice.

Abigail and Apollo were taken immediately to a room on the main floor, beside the courtyard, where Topsel's wife and daughters bound Apollo's ribs, bathed their cuts, and treated their bruises with smelly herbs mixed in camel butter. The pair were made to drink a potent tea and shown to feather-filled beds augmented with soft pillows. Their pain subsided and they were soon asleep.

It was night before Abigail stirred again. Apollo was already awake, testing his ribs and trying to stand.

"Are you all right?" she said staggering to her feet to help him.

"As well as can be expected," he said, smiling with his half-swollen mouth as she wrapped her arms gingerly around him to hold him up. They stood for a minute, luxuriating in that closeness before she looked up at him with tear-rimmed eyes.

"I thought I'd lost you," she said, "and that I'd never have a chance to tell you how much I love you."

"Yeah? Well, watching you rip open your shirt in front of Gaston and his thugs took a few years off my life." He touched her bruised cheek. "I love you, too, Boston. And I'm sorry I've gotten you into all of this. I never meant—"

She stopped his apology with her fingers. "I'm not sorry. I'll never be sorry."

He held her for some time before taking a deep breath that signaled hard words ahead.

"You know, don't you, that I have to go. I have to get to LaCroix before he disappears."

His eyes, that she had so recently learned to read, let her know the decision came from a turbulence deep in his soul. This was no show of bravado or thick-headed attempt to redress a blow to his pride.

This was something he had to do. The peace of his heart, perhaps his very life itself was at stake.

"If you go, I go. I intend to be with you through every bit of it," she said drawing herself up at tall as possible. "Give me two days, Apollo. Rest and heal for two days, and then we'll find him if we have to go to the ends of the earth."

The party that set out from the village of Foum Zguid was larger by far than the one that had arrived five days before. Abigail, Apollo, and Haffe were joined by Topsel and two of his nearly grown sons, as well as several male servants, a dozen camels, and the eight Legionnaire mules and lone horse that had belonged to Gaston and his men.

Apparently Haffe had confided his desire for a brave mountain girl to Cousin Topsel, who—being something of a romantic—took Haffe's plight to a family council of other cousins in the town. The family agreed that an alliance with the wealthy chieftains of the Tizi-n-Tichka Pass would be an advantageous thing. After some initial reluctance and a promise that he would return a part of the bride price to them when he was paid for his service to the rich Westerners, they put together a number of camels and sundry other gifts that included silver coin, to help him win over the girl's family. Cousin Topsel agreed to accompany him to see to the negotiations.

Travel, while a bit slower, was certainly more comfortable than before. The extra hands made the tasks of raising tents for the night and cooking less burdensome, and the canvassling cots Topsel had provided made their sleep more restful. Apollo's injuries caused him to tire more quickly but in general he seemed to bear the pace well.

Despite the evidence of his improving health, Abigail worried about him. At least once a day, she caught him staring off toward the mountain peaks and what lay beyond them. Marrakech. Casablanca. LaCroix.

But when she approached him as he stood in the moon-light staring up at the mountains on their final night in the desert, he surprised her with his concern.

"LaCroix?" He gave a grim chuckle. "He's probably at least one or two deadly encounters away. I'm worried about the pass. Topsel will approach Barek first and smooth things over for Haffe with wedding talks. But as for you and me…" He wrapped an arm around her. "I'm wondering how you and I get through the pass without being spotted and seized. We didn't exactly leave the place on the best of terms." He hiked an eyebrow. "If only you didn't look so… American."

She punched him in the ribs.

But the next day as they rode along, she brought it up with Topsel and Haffe and after much discussion, they developed a plan that included Apollo and Abigail posing as servants in the party until, under cover of darkness, they could take their horses and the amphora containing the books and steal off down the road leading to Marrakech. Abigail would have to hide her face behind a veil and Apollo would have to crouch a bit to hide his height, but they agreed it was the only way to proceed until Barek and his people were preoccupied with preparations for a wedding.

The last morning on the trail before the steep trek up the mountainsides to the pass, Topsel and Haffe exited their tent wearing handsomely embroidered
jellabas
, burnooses trimmed with gold braid, and richly colored fringed sashes into which they inserted ivory-and-gold handled daggers. They could have passed for wealthy merchants… emirs… sultans.

Abigail and Apollo, on the other hand, were quickly divested of their English boots, had their faces rubbed with a smelly brown paste meant for treating horse injuries, and were covered with simple-looking cloaks infested with sand fleas. Worse still, Abigail's hood contained a veil made of thin cotton gauze that made it difficult to see where she was going. Then she learned she would have to ride one of the mules up the mountain track, since servants didn't rate horses.

"This plan had better work," she muttered, hanging on to the animal's neck and gripping the reins of the amphora-laden mule behind her as they reached the last switchback.

There was no turning back now; the track was too narrow to permit it. The camels began to balk and make a bleating sound to show their objections to the difficult conditions. Topsel's sons and servants scrambled from one to another, stroking and reassuring them and starting to sing a strange, lilting chant.

The camels apparently had an ear for such songs; they calmed visibly and continued plodding.

"I wonder if they know any numbers that might work on anxious librarians," Apollo called out and Abigail didn't bother to look back, vowing to postpone bashing him until they were on level ground once more.