A Wind from the Wilderness by Suzannah Rowntree

Author:Suzannah Rowntree [Rowntree, Suzannah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bocfodder Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XXII.

Ayla sat on the mound among the reeds where she came to speak to Armen each night, her arms laced around her knees. There was a great hollowness behind her breastbone.

He was late.

She knew she should leave, that she shouldn’t have sent for him in the first place.

You should be a lady. You should be a queen. Forsake them. The words still stung. She knew what they meant: You’re worthless. To everyone but me.

God be merciful, she’d thought he was different.

She dipped into her pouch and rolled a pebble between her fingers. Why she had sent for him? She should have left—melted into the streets of Nicaea and never spoken to Lukas Bessarion again.

No. That was the one thing she couldn’t do. She did not know whether she wanted to kiss him again or kill him, but it had to be one of the two. No half measures would do.

He was late. Maybe he wasn’t coming at all.

The thought had barely crossed her mind before feet crunched in the dry grass at the top of the slope. Ayla slipped the pebble into her sling and rose into a crouch. He might have come with a band of armed Franks to capture the Turkish spy.

But he was alone under the shadow of trees at the top of the bank.

She stood, letting the sling dangle by her side. “You’re late.”

“Forgive me.” He looked at her with eyes like a sick dog’s. “Not just for being late, I mean. I shouldn’t have said what I did last night. Of course you have to stick by your people. I don’t know why I was so stupid.”

Ayla tightened her fingers on the sling cord, but there was nothing she could do to move it. Already, the hollow in her heart seemed full again.

She huffed out a breath, tied the sling around her waist again, and stomped through the reeds onto the shore. “Me neither.”

Now she stood here on the shore, she didn’t know what else to say. Was this it, then? She could not kill him. She would not kiss him.

She would just take his apology and leave.

Lukas turned a palm up in a half-shrug. “If it’s any comfort to you, someone threw me in a latrine trench last night.”

“God is just,” she said tartly.

“I’m late because the bishop was finding me a change of clothes.”

He stepped toward her, and Ayla could barely keep from backing away. She could barely look at him. She had giggled like a fool when he kissed her last night. Was he thinking about that now? Did he think she kissed everyone like that?

“Your loyalty is with your own people. I understand that.” He took her hand. “But you can’t come back to the camp, Ayla.”

“I know,” she said huskily.

“What will you do?”

“Does it matter?”

He seemed to have difficulty answering that. “I don’t want you to feel alone.”

“Yeh, well, I can take care of myself.”

“Do you command the wind from the wilderness?” he asked with a wry smile. “Are you the mistress of fate, Kismet? No? Then don’t make any promises to me.

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