Читать книгу Releasing Henry - Sarah Hegger - Страница 14

Henry needed some air. When Alya was near him the air felt too thick to breathe. His entire infatuation with her careened into ridiculous. Soon they would track down her family and he would leave for home. Then she would be a distant, jasmine-scented memory.

“Everything good?” Newt leaned his back on the railing beside him.

“Aye.” Henry kept his gaze on the port. Newt saw too much most of the time, and he’d already caught Newt’s sharp gaze assessing the situation. “She looks well.”

“Well?” Draping an arm about his shoulders, Newt chuckled. “Harry, Harry, Harry. A girl like the lovely Alya always looks more than well. Beautiful. Sensuous. A lovely exotic bloom. As you well know.”

Irked by Newt’s description of Alya, Henry shrugged his arm off. The idea of Newt lusting after Alya galled him more than it should.

“Indeed.” Newt stretched his arms wide. “If you have no further use for me, I intend to make a trip along the waterfront. Make some new friends.”

Henry did not bother to hide his distaste. “You will catch something nasty tupping whores on the dock.”

“I do not tup.” Newt looked affronted. “I take a woman to new levels of pleasure.”

“They only say that because you pay them.” Henry lost his battle not to smile. The man he used to be had spent months trying to bend Newt’s moral character back into shape. Unsuccessfully. Now Newt amused him.

“How about you, big man?” Newt called out to Bahir who had stepped onto the deck. “Fancy a little carnal adventure? Want to get your leg over?”

“Um, Newt.” Henry nearly laughed aloud.

Bahir merely folded his arms. “I think not.”

“Nay.” Newt grimaced. “I suppose you are like Harry over here, too good for the fine ladies who walk these docks.”

“Newt.” Henry should have tried harder to stop Newt, but he derived a certain evil enjoyment from the situation. “Bahir does not enjoy the pleasures of the flesh.”

Newt gave Bahir a sharp look. “Why?”

Henry pitched his voice low. “Bahir is a eunuch.”

“A what?” Frowning, Newt stared at Bahir.

“A eunuch.” Bahir closed the distance and loomed over Newt. “They cut off my balls.”

“Dear God.” Newt paled and caught the deck rail for support. “Nay. Who? Why?”

“Due to my size I was deemed suitable to guard the harem,” Bahir said.

Having never seen such an occurrence, Henry could not be certain, but he thought Bahir might have actually been approaching a smile.

With both hands, Newt cupped his crotch, and grimaced. “That is monstrous.”

“I can assure you it was not by choice.” Bahir leaned beside them against the railing. “Go and enjoy your whores, young Newt.”

Newt stepped closer to Bahir and lowered his voice. “You mean you have never…” He waggled his eyebrows.

“I have never.” Bahir waggled his eyebrows. “But let me tell you a secret. The loss of balls does not entirely remove the desire, and there are many ways to pleasure a bored and lonely concubine.”

“What?” Newt reared back. “You mean the non-roosters found a way to raid the henhouse?”

“Indeed.” Bahir actually smiled.

Henry knew he stared but couldn’t stop. When he smiled Bahir almost appeared human.

“Bahir.” Newt clapped Bahir on the shoulder. “I shall mount an extra whore on your behalf.”

“I am much obliged, Newt.”

As Newt trotted down the gangplank Henry stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Bahir.

“He amuses me,” Bahir said.

“He has a certain charm.” Henry still found it hard to believe that he and Newt had drifted into a friendship. “He will also discover where Alya’s family are to be found.”

“Ah.” Bahir nodded.

Henry was not sure why he asked, but he wanted to know. “What will you do when she is safely amongst them?”

“I will stay in Genoa for a while.” Bahir kept his gaze on the busy dock. “I vowed to make sure she is safe, and I will not leave before I am certain. And then…” Bahir shrugged. “I have been a slave since I was barely a man. For the first time in my life, I will go where it suits me to go.”

After Bahir strolled away, it occurred to Henry that their conversation had been civil.

* * * *

Alya placed her hand upon Henry’s arm. Hewn muscle flexed beneath her fingers as he led her through the port. He and Bahir had come up with the idea that she may as well practice being amongst her father’s kind while they waited for Newt to return.

Tired of being stuck belowdecks, she readily agreed.

“Raise your chin,” Henry murmured.

All very well for him to say. He did not walk with yards of fabric tangled in his feet. “I will fall if I do not watch my skirts.”

“Then I will catch you.” Henry touched her hand. “You are a lady born and will be expected to carry yourself as such.”

Behind them, Bahir lurked like a large moving pillar.

Without her veil, she felt ridiculously exposed. Men looked at her, unabashed in showing their appreciation. Some even went so far as to smile and wink. A permanent flush heated her cheeks, but at the same time she enjoyed it.

“Some girls are told to keep their eyes downcast,” Henry said. “It is believed to be modest, but my mother never held with that.”

“What is she like, your mother?” Alya wanted to know more about Henry. He seemed to hold so many secrets.

“Beautiful.” His voice warmed and he gazed at something only he could see. “Gracious and serene, but with a backbone of steel. My sister Faye is much like her.”

“Faye.” Alya tried the strange name out.

Two young girls, dressed much as she was, walked toward them. One of them looked at Henry and whispered to her friend. They both blushed and giggled, peeking at him from beneath lowered lashes.

Alya wanted to bang their heads together. Henry escorted her and not them.

Henry did not appear to notice, but looked about them constantly, alert for any danger.

Henry and Bahir had talked about the danger before undertaking this outing. They spoke with the crew to establish if there had been any whispers to suggest the men from Alexandria had followed. Thus far nothing. Their ship was one in amongst many others moored in the port.

Tall stone buildings rose on either side of the narrow streets, almost blocking out the clear, blue sky. The heat in Genoa lay over her in a humid blanket. It felt thicker than the dry desert air of Cairo. The smells, too, reminded her how far from home she had traveled. Genoa smelled of horse, leather, and human waste. Occasionally the delicate floral scents from the brightly colored window boxes would provide a reprieve, but otherwise the city stank.

Like tangled thread, the streets wound up from the port and into the hills beyond. Up there, grand stone edifices peered down their noses at the braying, brawling city below them.

The greenery amazed her. Growing over walls, trailing down from window boxes, choking up small gardens and squares. The tall, spindle-like trees Henry called cypress trees abounded, wafting their woodsy-herbal scent throughout the city as Henry led her up toward the elegant villas.

The streets grew quieter the higher they went. The flood of people slowed to a trickle of elegantly dressed men and women strolling in clusters of two or three. Liveried, another new word, servants bowed their heads in passing and carried on about their business. Henry told her they wore the colors of their masters.

In his new tunic, Henry looked very fine this morning. Fine, but different and as much as she admired his broad shoulders and trim waist, his new clothes marked him as separate from her. Not the man who used to stare up at her in the courtyard at twilight. She did not think he knew she had seen him there in the shadows, always watching her with stark hunger on his face. A sharp pang shot through her middle. She missed that man and their secret connection. Now he spoke a different tongue, dressed as another, and even carried himself like another man.

“In your tongue, how would I greet you?”

He smiled at her, his golden hair framing his head. “You would say, ‘good morrow’ if it was morning. Or you could say ‘good day.’ If we were particular friends, you could say ‘hello.’”

Her breath caught when he smiled at her. Like a stray beam of sunlight wandered into her day. “Are we particular friends?”

He laughed. “Hello, Lady Alya.”

Shyness beset her but she tried anyway. “Hello, Henry.”

“Perfect.” He tightened his grip about her fingers. Bahir did not like that Henry touched her to lead her through the city, but this was how they did it here. Even Bahir must see she was not the only lady walking about with her hand resting atop her escort’s.

She looked over her shoulder at Bahir. “Hello, Bahir.”

Bahir tried to frown, but ended up grinning instead. “Hello, Alya.”

“Lady Alya,” Henry said. “Only her family or her husband may address her simply as Alya.”

Bahir tensed and glared at Henry.

Henry sneered back.

These two would come to blows any moment and today they irked her. She did not want their constant enmity to ruin her day. “Bahir is my family,” she said. “So, he may call me Alya. He is all that I have.”

Clearing his throat, Bahir stared above her head. “We should walk.”

“How do you say that in English?” She turned back to Henry.

English turned out to be a funny language, full of new sounds and ways to contort her mouth. For the first time since leaving Cairo, Alya felt light and happy. The weight of her father and her journey lifted long enough for the girl she used to be to come out and play.

Bells pealed the hour as noon, and the heat drove them back to their boat. Voices rising and falling in prayer, a solemn procession of monks crossed their path. Alya stood beside Henry and waited for the men to pass. Sunlight bounced off the gleaming pates of their tonsures, the heavy incense lingered in their path. She had followed her father’s faith since birth, and this was the first time Alya had heard the mass sung. She wanted to follow the monks to the tall, forbidding church at the end of the square, but Bahir shifted beside her. Soon she would not have to conceal her faith from those about her.

The activity on the docks receded as the devout went to prayer. Their ship bobbed at anchor in its place amongst all the other tall masts.

Newt lounged on the deck looking rumpled and smug. As they climbed aboard he rose. “Did you have a good walk?”

“We did.” Alya answered before Henry or Bahir. Her head buzzed with all the things she had seen. Later, when the heat of the day drove her to rest, she would unpack all the sights in her head and examine them.

Henry approached Newt, his shoulders tense. “Did you find what we were looking for?”

“Aye.” Newt straightened his tunic. “Alya’s family has a villa in the city. They are at home.”