City of Jasmine by Deanna Raybourn

Author:Deanna Raybourn [Raybourn, Deanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Mira
Published: 2013-01-17T16:00:00+00:00

Twelve

He left me the rest of the food and water and the candle, stuck in a puddle of its own grease and burning slowly down. I blew it out and waited a moment for my eyes to grow accustomed to the dim scattering of starlight beaming through the narrow embrasure. When I could make out the shape of the pallet on the floor, I crept onto the edge of it, careful to keep away from Gabriel. He slept on, heavily, and I tumbled into sleep almost as soon as I lay my exhausted body next to his. Sometime later, deep in the darkest hours of the night, I woke as I felt strong fingers covering mine. He was shivering and muttering in his sleep, and when I touched his skin, it was scorching hot. I found the candle and lit it, half-afraid of what I would see when I looked at him. He was still on his belly, but his head was turned to the side, his face in profile. His cheek and eye were sunken and hollow-looking, and his brow was puckered. Somehow he had thrown off the blanket I draped over him, but I found it again and pulled it over both of us. I slipped close to him, careful not to touch him where he’d been wounded.

“I’m here, now hush and go back to sleep,” I told him, hoping it would settle him down. But he stayed restless, his hands plucking under his body at the pocket of his ruined shirt. I sighed and reached into the pocket, tugging out the little tin box. “I know I promised to bury you with this, but you’re not dying yet, if that’s what you think.” I pushed the box into his hands and he calmed instantly. The muscles of his face relaxed, and although he still shivered and shuddered with fever, he stopped mumbling.

After a few minutes he slipped deeper into sleep and his hands relaxed. I eased the box out of his fingers, but he was too far gone to protest. I opened it slowly, mystified as to what he could possibly carry in there that would be so important to him.

There was a wad of banknotes—a few very large bills and several smaller ones, tied with a bit of grimy twine—and a few newspaper cuttings, worn smooth from too much handling. They were cuttings about me, stories of my journey with the Jolly Roger and Aunt Dove, some with photographs, and one featuring a particularly warm embrace between Wally and me. I folded them back and put them aside. His signet ring was there, the gold ring he had always worn on his smallest finger. I could just make out the inscription under the shield, the same as on the knight’s tomb at the dig site. Nec Aspera Terrant. There were cigarettes in the tin and a match or two, and there was a tiny rabbit’s foot, the same one he had carried since boyhood on all his adventures.

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