Chapter 28 #2
But the bedouin woman stood and walked to the door. Fortunately Jebal only glanced at Murad before going to Alex and covering her hands with his. He knelt beside her and began to pray softly.
Murad turned to look at Alex. Oddly enough, her color seemed better, a little bit pink now, less waxen. She has a very strong destiny.
The bracelets on the old woman’s wrists and ankles jingled softly, causing Murad to turn. She had paused, and again she gazed only at Murad, steadily. “Her journey has only just begun,” she said.
Murad remained still, a dozen questions flashing through his mind, his eyes wide. Jebal’s softly murmured praying filled the room. Murad could not move.
“Stay with her, aid her, protect her,” the bedouin said. Then, her gaze very black, she added softly, “He will return.”
And she was gone. Murad stared after her, breathless and shaken. He had no doubt about the bedouin’s meaning. Blackwell would return.
Alex woke up slowly, in stages.
She did not want to wake up. Because she was dreaming, and in her dream she was with Blackwell.
They stood together on the bow of the Pearl as it cut through the swells of the sea.
His arm was around her. The wind and the water sprayed their faces.
Xavier turned and pulled her close. His mouth sought hers.
The kiss was not violent or devouring. It was very, very tender.
Alex clung to his hard, broad shoulders, half-aware that she was dreaming—even though it felt so real.
Her temples were pounding. Alex moaned. She had a splitting headache, a hammer pounding inside of the front of her head so forcefully that she could barely stand it. The fog engendered by sleep lifted.
She was dreaming. Blackwell was gone. He had been sent to the mines, where he had vanished, while she remained a captive in Tripoli. A captive and Jebal’s wife.
Her headache somehow increasing, Alex blinked and focused on her surroundings. Her bedchamber was dark and shadowed and filled with an orange-scented incense. Her back ached. Her legs felt numb. How long had she been sleeping?
And did it matter? Farouk and everyone else thought that Blackwell was dead—murdered. Alex waited for the terrible pain to swarm up from deep inside her chest and overwhelm her. But it did not come.
“Alex? Are you awake?” A strong, callused hand stroked her brow.
“Murad,” she gasped, her eyes fluttering open. Blackwell was not dead. The voice was there suddenly, inside of her head. Blackwell was not dead! Alex didn’t know how she knew it, but she did, with her entire heart and soul, with every fiber of her being. “Murad!” She smiled tremulously at him.
He caressed her cheek. “Praise Allah that you live, Alex, for you almost died.”
Instantly her mind blazed to life. “I have been sick.”
“Very. You willed yourself to die, Alex.” Murad’s eyes filled with tears. “How could you do such a thing?”
She reached for and found his hand. “I’m sorry. So sorry. Don’t cry. Murad.”
He brushed his bare forearm over his eyes and smiled somewhat shakily at her. “You frightened me—us—very badly, Alex.”
“Us?”
“Jebal has been here night and day.”
Alex didn’t want to remember, but she did. Their relationship hardly remained amicable. She was afraid of what the future might now hold. “Is he still angry with me? I would have thought he would be glad to be rid of me.”
“I believe that, in spite of your behavior, he does love you.”
She inhaled. She could not cope with that concept now. “I am very weak.”
“You will be well in a few more days.” He smiled reassuringly at her.
“And Blackwell? Has there been any word?” Alex asked eagerly.
Murad’s smile faded. “There has been no word, Alex.”
Alex stared, her smile gone. “He isn’t dead, Murad. He still lives. I know it.”
Murad hesitated. “I don’t want to raise your hopes falsely, Alex.”
“What!” she cried.
“A seer told me that he would return.”
A few days later, Alex rummaged through her things, all of which were stored in the bottom of a small chest inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
She turned her Coach backpack upside down, emptying out the contents.
A strange feeling, almost nostalgic, perhaps even homesickness, swept over her as she stared at the items that had fallen out.
A Lanc?me lipstick and compact, a few sticks of Trident gum, her comb, some pens, her Filofax, Guess sunglasses, and her Gucci watch.
None of these items interested her—she hadn’t looked at them in more than a year.
But now she thought about Beth, who must be worried to death by her disappearance, and by now would assume that she was dead or kidnapped into white slavery.
Alex suddenly had a vision of the State Department contacting the Libyan government and demanding an investigation into her disappearance. She inhaled.
She slowly reached for her wallet, opening it.
She stared at her credit cards and driver’s license, at her traveler’s checks and the hundred dollars in cash she had been carrying.
Then she tossed the black leather wallet aside.
She ignored the forged French passport. But she gazed solemnly at her United States passport. Would she ever need it again?
Not if Xavier Blackwell returned for her, as she now hoped daily—and firmly believed—that he would.
Finally she swallowed and looked past the pile of her possessions to what she had avoided looking at all along. The small blue oil lamp lay on its side in the center of the blue and gold bed. Alex did not touch it. She did not dare.
But could it return her to the twentieth century?
Her heart hammered. She had no idea. Hopefully she would never even attempt to answer that question. For Blackwell had to return. Even the clairvoyant had said as much to Murad, and Murad believed her to be a genuine psychic.
Alex was acutely aware of the date, though. It was May 15, 1804. According to the history books she had read, Blackwell was executed at the end of July of this year. Just before Preble’s attack on Tripoli.
Executed for his affair with the Moslem wife of the bashaw’s son.
And that was her.
Alex trembled. So far nothing had happened the way it should. She did not have a lot of cause to believe that Blackwell would return only to be executed by the bashaw. Yet the timing of his return was worrying her. Vastly. She could not ignore what she had learned in the future about the past.
Alex hoped that this would not be a race to the wire. If only Blackwell would return now, two full months before the supposed execution. That would give them plenty of time to escape.
But with every passing day, she grew more anxious and frightened. Where was he? Was he all right?
Without knocking, Zoe opened her door. “Hello. Zohara. I have come to see for myself that you are better.”
Alex gasped, automatically shifting her body to hide all of her twentieth-century possessions. And the blue oil lamp rolled off of the bed. It landed on the floor with a thump.
“What is that?” Zoe cried.
“I want to go shopping with you,” Alex said.
Murad sighed. They were standing on the galleria. “Alex, a week ago you were unconscious and at Death’s gates. I will get everything you have asked me for.”
“I was unconscious two weeks ago, Murad, not one, and I am fine now, and you know it,” Alex shot back, but she was smiling. She took his hand. “I am bored. Remember, I am a twentieth-century woman, used to living my life my way.”
Murad yanked his hand from hers, alarmed. “Don’t speak that way! Someone will hear you! Wasn’t it bad enough that you took all of your strange belongings out of the chest and that funny bag and Zoe almost saw them?”
Alex sobered. “Yes, that was a bad moment, Murad. And what might have happened if Zoe had time-traveled when she picked up the lamp? Ohmygod! I shudder to think of it.” She could not imagine the Moslem woman wandering down Broadway in 1996.
Assuming that was where she would have gone. “Let me don my disguise and we can go.”
“Alex, Zoe is suspicious of you—of us. She has had me followed several times since you regained your health. I think she is actively spying on us—again.”
“Perhaps. But you took all my things and hid them so there is no evidence of the truth. She may wish to expose and destroy me, but she cannot.”
Murad sighed.
Alex ignored him and walked back to her room. It felt good to have her health restored. Now she felt vitally alive again, strong and eager to act. If only Blackwell would return!
A short while later, Alex and Murad sauntered down a narrow dirt street leading to the souk where Alex wanted to browse, for lack of something better to do.
They were disguised as bedouins. It was a beautiful summer day, but with Blackwell missing, Alex could not fully appreciate it.
But as they left the palace behind, Alex began to feel differently.
Disturbed, uneasy. She finally realized what her mood shift consisted of: An odd sense of dread-filled anticipation was creeping over her.
And she had the uncanny feeling that Blackwell was close by.
Alex froze, trembling.
The street they were standing on split, one fork bearing right, the other left.
Murad grabbed her arm. “The souk is to the left, Alex.”
Alex shook herself free of her notion, telling herself that she was being fanciful. But she was shaking. She was breathless. “You’re right. The bedestan is ahead.”
“You don’t want to go there,” Murad said.
But Alex did not move. She recalled, as clear as day, ten months ago when she had first seen Blackwell in the bedestan when he had been a captive on parade. Alex swallowed, very disturbed—very intent.
“Alex? What is wrong?”
“I want to go to the bedestan.” She began hurrying down the street.
Murad rushed after her. “You are not making any sense. Do you wish to purchase a slave?” His tone was slightly injured.
“No.” Alex’s voice was unnatural, both high and hard. Her strides lengthened. Her pulse seemed to ring in her ears. He was there. She was certain, she could feel it.
Murad was silent now, shooting glances at her set face.
The bedestan was hardly full. Several slave dealers marched a few groups of slaves back and forth across the open market, but the passersby were mostly disinterested pedestrians, the women with children carrying baskets of wares and fruits.
Alex halted abruptly, her gaze scanning the slaves and their owners.
Disappointment swept her with stunning force. Blackwell was not present.
Yet she had been so certain that she would find him there.
“Let’s go, Alex,” Murad said quietly.
Alex was about to agree, but instead she blurted, “Are these all of the slaves? Or are there more?”
“You really want to buy a slave?” Murad was incredulous.
But one of the dealers had heard her. A small Sicilian, he came up to Alex, his dark eyes gleaming. “I have five more slaves with me, out back. They come cheap. You want to look?”
Alex ignored Murad, who was about to protest. She nodded, praying desperately.
The Italian strode behind the platform where the auctions were held, Alex on his heels.
He pointed ahead. Alex felt disappointment washing over her again as she viewed the five black men who sat sleeping in the shade of a lone date tree, chained to one another.
They were all skin and bones, clad in tatters and rags, and more dead than alive.
“I don’t think so,” Alex said forlornly.
She had to look away. It hurt her to look at them.
“Let’s get out of here, Alex,” Murad said tersely.
One of the slaves moaned.
Alex jerked. She turned to stare at the group of abused men again.
One of the slaves sagged against the back of another.
His body was folded up, his knees beneath him, his arms bent in funny angles, but she could see that he was a tall, broad-shouldered man.
His hair was dark, streaked liberally with gray, flowing to the middle of his back.
His beard covered the lower half of his face.
He was not Negro, merely blackened by the sun and dirt.
“Alex,” Murad said sharply.
The tall slave moaned.
Alex’s heart lurched. Staring, she shook off Murad, the sounds and sight of the slave market fading until nothing existed except herself and the gaunt slave in chains. Oh God. Disbelieving, horrified, she began to run.
“Xavier,” she wept. Alex knelt beside the slave, gripping his face in both her hands.
His eyes fluttered open—their gazes met.
Hers tear-filled, his soulless.
“Oh my God!” Alex cried.
Xavier stared vacantly at her for one long moment, and then his head lolled and he slumped forward into her arms.
Murad knelt beside her. Alex looked up at him, tears streaking her face. Horror and outrage coursed through her body. “Pay the dealer whatever he asks,” she said. “Pay him now!”