To Catch a Bride (5 page)

She snorted, then gave the big man a cheeky look. “Perhaps the great Zamil—or his most excellent right-hand man—will reward me for it, eh?”

The Greek stared a moment, then threw back his head in a roar of laughter. “I like thee, bantam,” he said and thumped Ayisha on the back.

He bashed a meaty fist on the door and the grill opened. The Greek said, “This cheeky monkey thinks he is old enough to gaze upon Zamil’s merchandise. Let him in to join his master.” As the door swung open, he said to Ayisha, “Take care of those big eyes, bantam.”

“My eyes?” She frowned.

“That they do not pop out of their sockets when they see Zamil’s women,” he said, and both men roared at the joke.

Ayisha managed a halfhearted grin and sauntered jauntily through the entrance as if her heart were not thudding like a drum. The door shut with heavy finality behind her, and she stood in another world, a world far removed from the dusty, crumbling city.

She stood in a courtyard, paved with honey-colored stone, framed by carved arches and fluted columns. A fountain tinkled into a pond on which water lilies floated. Jasmine coiled up an elegant wrought-iron screen.

A dozen richly dressed men waited in the courtyard, each with servants in attendance. They talked among themselves, the sort of talking strangers did while waiting for something to happen. In a shadowed doorway a tall Turk stood, giving orders to unseen people within.

She knew what they were waiting for. Her stomach clenched. She wanted to flee, to be on the other side of that big ironbound door. The safe side.

Servants brought refreshments to the waiting men: tea, sherbet, small exquisite dishes of food. She could smell the food, fragrant and delicious. She was hungry; she hadn’t eaten all day, but even if they offered her anything—which they would not—she couldn’t swallow a morsel. Not in this place.

She spotted the Englishman on the far side of the courtyard. His foreign clothing drew curious and faintly hostile glances, but he stood, apparently unconcerned, looking about him with a cool, unreadable expression.

Keeping her head down, she wandered over, taking care to remain inconspicuous, and took up position behind him, squatting humbly against the wall as the lowliest servant would, waiting for his master.

The Englishman said something to his interpreter who moved toward a man sitting on a raised stand in the other corner of the courtyard, a plump man in flowing silken robes. Zamil.

He was intercepted after three paces by Zamil’s men, but after a short conversation, was escorted to Zamil by his minions. A few moments later Zamil waved the Englishman forward.

Ayisha slipped through the crowd to get closer.

He pulled out the folder and showed Zamil the picture. Zamil looked at it and shrugged. The Englishman said something else—Ayisha could not catch it.

She edged nearer, in time to hear Zamil say, “No, a young white virgin fetches a fine price and six years ago . . .” He shrugged. “Who knows where this one is now? One thing is certain, she will be a virgin no more.”

He looked at the Englishman’s impassive face and chuckled. “But fresh fish is tastier than old fish, no?” He jerked his chin toward the auction stand. “The auctions will start soon if you want to buy.”

But the Englishman didn’t even glance that way. With a curt farewell he turned and left, striding through the crowd of buyers as if they weren’t there. Like the folk in the marketplace, they drew back to let him pass. It was those blazing silver-blue eyes, she thought as she made to follow him out. They were enough to freeze your marrow.

She followed him, but she was slow; nobody made way for a scruffy young boy. The Englishman had already stepped out into the streets when Ayisha heard the crowd behind her stir.

She pressed toward the gate, not wanting to look.

But she could hear.

It was a female slave. Ayisha heard the stir of anticipation, heard the announcement, “A young Circassian woman, a certified virgin . . . , ” heard the ripple of appreciation.

Ayisha’s stomach jerked in reaction. She stumbled to the exit, wishing she’d got out when the Englishman had.

The man at the door laughed at her ashen face. “So much naked female beauty is too much for a boy, I see. The Greek did warn you. Still, that little Circassian beauty will sweeten our dreams, eh, boy?” He chuckled as he unbolted the door. “And now, every time you look at a woman in a yashmak, you will know exactly what that yashmak is hiding, yes?”

Ayisha pushed past him and ran. She ran and ran until her ribs were aching and her breath came in great sobbing gasps.

S
he ran until she reached the Nile, that endless, flowing source of life. And of death. Being near the river always brought her some measure of comfort. And a reminder never to let her guard down, because there were always crocodiles . . .

In and out of the water.

She sat on the banks and hugged her knees to her chin, staring out over the water and remembered . . .

Remembered wood splitting under rough blows, locks being wrenched apart. Rough, deep voices. The robbers had come. They always knew when to strike.

The servants had all fled at the first sign of plague.

There was nobody here to stop them. Only Ayisha. With a dead father and a dying mother.

Mama had clutched Ayisha’s hand with feeble insistence. “Hide.” She pointed under the bed.

Ayisha slid under the bed in one quick movement. She lay as still as a mouse, hardly daring to breathe. Above her Mama breathed slowly in . . . out . . . in . . . out . . .

A pair of large, bare, dirty feet approached her mother’s bed cautiously. They halted a few feet away.

Ayisha held her breath. The nails of the man’s feet were twisted and horny and ingrained with filth.

“Dead,” the owner of the feet said after a moment.

Not Mama, she thought. Not yet. Mama was hiding, too.

“Any sign of the child?” another man asked.

“No, but she’ll be here.”

Here? She braced herself, sure that any moment he would haul her from her hiding place.

“Keep looking. A white child-virgin will bring us a fine sum in the slave market. More than all of this put together.” He shook a fistful of her mother’s jewelry so that it jangled.

And Mama had opened her eyes and cursed him . . . with her dying breath . . .

Ayisha shivered, hugged her knees, and stared at the river, the endless, eternal flow. The river had seen everything. Nothing shocked it, nothing worried it . . . Everything passed.

Her pounding heart slowed. The sick feeling passed.

It was pointless to dwell on things she could not change. Her goal was survival. It had been foolish to go to Zamil’s. So it made her sick with fear and revulsion. What did she expect?

She stood. It was late, and she’d wasted most of the day following the Englishman instead of earning her keep.

She’d earned only a few coins today. The least she could do was gather fuel for Laila’s ever-hungry oven.

She collected dried reeds, twigs and grasses, and dried camel dung. The familiar task soothed her. The first time she’d met Laila, Laila had fed her and Ayisha had paid for her supper with fuel. It had formed a bond between them.

How far she’d come since then, she thought. She was no longer that desperately hungry, frightened child. She was a woman, and she had choices. She just had to make them.

 

 

 

 

T
he sun was low in the sky as she trudged home with the fuel. She still paid for her supper with work, but Laila was like family now, like a mother. She’d taken first Ayisha under her wing, and later Ali. She would have taken them into her house if she could, but for Omar.

The two-room hovel and everything in it—including Laila—belonged to Omar, Laila’s brother.

Ayisha entered by the rear gate into the tiny backyard and placed the fuel in a neat pile beside the oven, ready for the morning.

Mmrrrow?
Her cat, Tom, greeted her as he always did from the high wall that surrounded the yard. Tom liked to observe the world from on high.

Ayisha smiled as he stretched, then jumped down and wound himself lovingly around her ankles. Ayisha picked him up and cuddled him. He purred loudly and butted her head.

She glanced at the pallet under the bench where Ali slept. It was empty. “Where’s Ali?” she asked the cat. “He should be home by now.”

She knocked lightly on the back door. She and Ali rarely went inside the house. Omar didn’t allow it. If Laila wanted to take in dirty street beggars, it was her foolishness, but they would not come inside his house and he would not pay a penny to feed or clothe them.

So Ayisha and Ali slept at the back, under a bench on a pallet. It was not so bad. In winter when it got chilly, they slept next to the oven, which retained some warmth long after the fire had burned out, and Tom slept at Ayisha’s feet, keeping them warm. And in summer, it was cooler outside than in. It was infinitely better than sleeping in the streets.

Laila opened the door. Her lip was split and crusted with dried blood.

“What happened?” Ayisha asked. As if she didn’t know.

After fifteen years of marriage Laila’s husband had returned her to her brother Omar like an unwanted parcel. Divorced for barrenness. It was the end of all Laila’s dreams, for no one wanted a barren woman. Now she had to live with Omar, who was stupid and lazy and selfish.

Ayisha despised him. He treated Laila like the lowest servant, as if her barrenness made her less than human.

Laila shook her head. “It’s nothing. But . . . he took all the money for today. It was a good day’s takings, too.”

Ayisha glanced at the house. “Has he gone?”

“Oh yes, we won’t see him again until he’s spent it all in the brothels.” She gave Ayisha a hopeless look. “We will never get away, never.”

“Yes, we will,” Ayisha said briskly and began to work free the loose brick at the far corner of the oven. “He doesn’t know about this, does he? And even if he has stolen your money, I still have something to add.” She pulled the brick free and from the hollow inside pulled out a small leather bag. She added a small fistful of coins to the hoard and replaced it in the hollow. “So we are still better off than yesterday. One step closer to Alexandria.”

It was their dream to get enough money together to leave Cairo, telling no one. They would start afresh in Alexandria, and Omar would never find Laila, and no one would come searching for Ayisha. They would be free. They would rent a house and build an oven, as they had before. People in Alexandria would enjoy Laila’s pies just as much as in Cairo.

And without Omar to steal the profits, who knew what they could achieve? There might even be enough money to buy Ali an apprenticeship. Keep him off the streets and out of trouble.

“Laila, Laila, are you there?” a woman’s voice called. It was the neighbor.

They opened the door in the wall.

“Did you hear? Ali—he is taken! My son told me just now,” the neighbor said.

Beside her Laila made a small distressed sound.

“Taken by who? What happened?” Ayisha asked quickly. The neighbor had a tendency to dramatize everything.

“Ali tried to rob a foreigner,” the woman explained. “But the man caught him and took him away.”

“Oh God!” She knew at once which foreigner and what Ali had been trying to steal. “The little fool.”

“They will cut off his hand,” Laila whispered, ashen-faced. “He will become a cripple, a beggar.”

“If the pasha’s men caught him, his fate would be sealed,” the neighbor agreed. “But the foreigner took him. Who knows what foreigners do with thieves?”

“It is good news,” Ayisha said, sounding more certain than she felt. “He might get a beating, but his hand will be safe. English people don’t cut off children’s hands,” she said, hoping it was true. She turned to the neighbor. “Where did the foreigner take Ali?”

“To the pink villa on the far side of the river. The one with the big sycamore tree.”

Ayisha’s old home. She hadn’t been there since . . . “I know the place,” she said. “I will go there and get Ali back.”

“But how?” Laila asked. “We have no money to pay and Omar will not—”

“I can get inside without the Englishman knowing. I will find Ali and steal him back.”

“But—” Laila cast a glance at the neighbor.

“It will be all right,” Ayisha told her. “There is still time before the gates are shut.”

Under the pasha’s rule, as a simultaneous measure against plague and crime, every quarter in Cairo was closed off by gates at each end of the street at the fall of night. People could move about the city at night only by asking the guards to unlock each gate. An additional law required anyone outside at night to carry a source of light—a torch or a lantern. The measures had cut crime, at least, dramatically. Plague was another matter.