Chapter 9 #4
A man stood behind Raksh’s shoulder. When he had gotten there, I couldn’t imagine.
The tavern was busy and crowded, yes, but I’d been watching for new arrivals even while fighting with my husband and this man had materialized so suddenly, it was as though he’d stepped from a hidden seam of the world.
I knew someone else, someone very dear, who could do just that. And upon such a realization, I strongly suspected I now gazed upon none other than her sheikh.
Sheikh Sasan did not make a striking first impression.
Of slight build and a good decade my senior, he was entirely unremarkable, with a thin face and well-trimmed graying beard.
No jewelry, no finery, his cap was of plain flax and his rough black robe the same you might see a hundred such men wearing—the kind of clothes worn by working folks who pass unnoticed, unremembered in a hundred such places.
Gloves concealed his hands, an undershirt garbing his neck up to the chin.
He held a long, ebony staff with an eagle’s head carved into the end, but even that appeared old, an heirloom.
Next to Raksh, he was plain as a mouse, his features so forgettable it was nearly remarkable.
Intentional. For there was not a trace of fear upon his face as he studied me with open curiosity.
The barkeep rushed over. “Forgive me, lord! I did not see you enter.”
“No forgiveness needed,” Sasan replied, with all the kindliness of a grandfather. He handed his staff to the younger man. “Thank you for the message.”
The barkeep took the staff, his hands trembling. He still seemed to be avoiding my gaze, an oddity that made me gladder I had not drunk what he’d prepared. “Please make yourself comfortable. Is there anything I can—”
Sasan chuckled. “I am not accustomed to consuming the wares of others, but the offer is appreciated.”
Two pairs of similarly dressed men appeared at the doorway, and with their arrival, a few of the criminals began to glance around. The bickering forgers rose to their feet, visibly alarmed.
“Please!” the sheikh said, giving them a pleasant smile. “Stay. Go about your business.” His teeth gleamed. “I insist.”
The forgers glanced at the door once more but then dropped to their seats. The sheikh turned his attention back to me and Raksh.
“So this is the pirate.” His eyes danced with mirth.
“Apologies for the interruption. When my men saw your husband rush off, it made us concerned.” He nodded at the meteor dagger in a dismissive fashion.
“If you would please put that . . . thing away. We would not wish to upset the hospitality rules of such a special place.”
I would have rather kept the weapon at hand; indeed, if I had my way, it would already be sticking out of Sasan’s chest. But I obeyed the request. If this was the man who had trained Dalila, I doubt he would have put himself in any position for me to attack.
I glanced at Raksh, but my husband had gone curiously still and quiet, a cat feigning boredom while awaiting two scrabbling mice.
I refocused my attention on the supposed leader of the Banu Sasan. “I take it you are Sheikh Sasan?”
“A title more than a name, but one I wear proudly.” The sheikh settled down on the cushion opposite mine and I watched him carefully, ready to throw myself backward if Sasan so much as attempted to brush my cloak.
Dalila had put the fear of God in me when it came to her venoms; there were dozens of ways to poison someone that had nothing to do with ingestion and I knew just sitting here was a risk.
“I received your letter about our shared acquaintance.”
He tutted. “Shared nothing. We need not dance, al-Sirafi. Your adventures together are as infamous as I dare say my desire for vengeance is. I know she is your friend—you would not have risked coming if you didn’t care for her.
Besides, your husband has told me there is quite the sense of camaraderie among your crew. ”
Raksh rolled his eyes. “It’s ridiculous. Harm one of them and you’re an enemy for life, apparently.”
A hint of hunger churned in Sheikh Sasan’s voice. “A shame more of you did not come to shore, then. It would have been lovely to meet.”
“Where is she?” I asked warily.
“Close. And safe. The apparent curse your husband laid upon my people assured such,” Sasan replied.
Raksh smiled for the first time. “Your workshops are astonishingly prone to burning to the ground. What terrible luck.”
Sasan’s expression remained polite. “If I were twenty years younger, I would be so ever intrigued by that.” He glanced my way. “Is he the secret to your success? I do hear such entertaining tales. Did you truly steal the Sultan of Mysore’s pleasure barge?”
“Fetch me my friend and I shall tell you all about it. Until I see Dalila with my own eyes, I have nothing to discuss.”
“What admirable loyalty,” he said softly, making a beckoning motion to his men. “And to one so undeserving. I take it she never told you why she left us?”
I spread my hands. “No one who captains a pirate ship interrogates the reasons why their crew decides upon such a life. It would leave us bereft of enough men to even raise a sail.”
Sasan tented his fingers. “And yet, you understand my dilemma, no? You are a captain, the sheikh of your ship. What would you do, nakhudha, if one of your sailors betrayed you? If they led a mutiny or worse—engaged in an act of selfishness that resulted in the deaths of a dozen of their fellows?”
Surely he exaggerates. However, doubt crept in, because how would I know? Dalila had kept her past with the Banu Sasan wrapped so tightly that it had almost become more myth than fact, and I had not pressed.
Nor would I before her enemy. “You have not killed her. Instead, you were willing to work with my husband and await my arrival, leading me to believe you were open to negotiation.”
“I did. So here is my offer, al-Sirafi. Order your devil to lift his curse, then get on your ship and take him with you. I will give Dalila a quick death, the merciful one she does not deserve. We shall never meet again, and you shall live to see the next moon.” He raised a palm before I could protest. “Do not say no out of reflex. Out of love for a friend. Consider it, from one captain to another.”
No one rose to the top of the Banu Sasan by being anything less than a master of deception, but the truth of that offer rang out in every word. I cleared my throat. “I have nothing more to say on the matter until I see her.”
Sasan sighed and sat back, his gaze narrowing past my shoulder. “Bring her in.”
We waited in a tense silence, but it was not long before a pair of his men dragged a madly writhing and blindfolded Dalila through the door.
My heart crashed at the sight of my friend swearing and spitting like a wounded lion, gasping for breath between her vicious insults.
By the time she was shoved to her knees before Sheikh Sasan, she was spent, pale as parchment and barely capable of standing.
Her hands were bound roughly behind her back, and she was thin as a rail, yellow bruises covering her filthy skin, her uncovered hair matted with knots.
Fury roared through me. Twenty years ago, I would have been rash and vengeful, flipping the table and attempting to stab Sasan in the throat.
I could not afford such risks now, but oh, my hands shook.
My very blood seemed to be bubbling, my body urging me to fight.
To seize and relish my new strength. To rip through these men as dozens watched and raced to spread the story . . .
That is not me. And surely enough, from across the table, Raksh grinned. I glared back, determined not to let the fiend further mislead me.
Sheikh Sasan, however, had eyes only for Dalila.
“Ah, there she is, my most talented student.” But there was nothing affectionate in his tone, nor even a cold professionalism. Instead a vicious light twisted across his previously grandfatherly visage as he gestured for his men to remove her blindfold.
Dalila jerked back, her wild gaze darting around like that of an animal released from a trap. Her eyes were so bloodshot that I could scarcely make out her pupils. But, oh—her glare found mine.
“So this is your long-awaited vengeance,” she said scornfully. “Selling me back to the pirate? Surely you could have gotten a higher price elsewhere.”
“The pirate.” Sasan’s calculating eyes brightened with amusement, even if none of the cruelty left his expression.
“You’re attempting to sell disaffection to one who knows you too well, and trust me, there is no prize I desire more.
” He glanced at me. “I used to wonder if I would still be able to pick her out of a crowd or if the decades—and the skills I taught her—might have erased any once-familiar features.” He reached out to tousle her dirty hair, an act as audacious as it was dangerous.
“But there is no one quite like my sister.”
Dalila spat in his face. “I’m not your sister.”
There was an outraged hiss from Sasan’s men. One moved to smash a staff into the back of her neck, but the sheikh raised a hand, staying his action.
“No. I fear such a blow might kill her in her current state and that is not what I promised the nakhudha.” He wiped his face, turning his attention back to Dalila. “Though you could have been family, truly. My brother was sweet on you until you got him killed.”
That Dalila had gotten someone killed or—more likely—killed them herself in her long criminal career was not particularly surprising to me. But Sasan’s very brother?
Dalila was far less sympathetic. “Your brother’s feelings were neither returned nor my problem.”