Daggers in the Dark (Book 3 of Hanthalah)

Interlude

The echoing of bells rang through the streets of the city. The capital city of Crete. A flock of birds took flight, voicing their cries of protest, disturbed from their place of shelter on the shores of the great sea by the deafening, foreboding chants of false belief.

Umaymah did not know how the Nazarenes could stand the raucous of church bells. Her short life had been a quiet one thus far. A life on the desert plains with only familiar faces in sight. Her entire world a stretch of flatland disturbed only by the occasional dune. The abode of her tribe would change every season as they packed up their belongings and wandered for a more favorable site, more convenient for water supply. Yet, the landscape had not changed.

She had never heard the like of this. She winced despite herself, restraining her hands from falling to her ears. She yearned for the sweet melody of the call to prayer.

Thank God for the blessing of Islam, she thought, as the sun's final beams retreated from the darkening sky. Umaymah silently sought forgiveness from Allah if she were unable to perform the night prayers.

Haitham, on the driver's seat, abruptly turned a corner, sending the passengers behind bouncing in upheaval before finally rumbling the cart to a stop. They'd halted in a dark street, broad and paved with cobbled stone.

There was no sound but the distant whistling of a grasshopper. The crackling of nearby flames. The panting of the mules. It was a bizarrely serene and enchanting moment. One would have never known they were in the jaws of the lion.

But then Mundhir spoke.

"Where are all the nuns?" he blurted out.

'Amr smacked him on the side of his head.

"Quiet now," he whispered, pointing down the street and straining as if struggling to listen.

Umaymah tensed as she heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Her fingers coiled around the hilt of her hidden dagger, preparing to bolt off the cart and into combat at any moment.

"Can I have a blessing, if it please you, sisters?" a high-pitched voice called out from behind Umaymah.

She cocked her head sideways from beneath her shawl to make out the figure of a sniffling child, shuffling from one foot to the other.

Blessing? Umaymah thought, arcing her eyebrows. What did this child want? Her mind raced as it never had before and her heart beat to the rhythm of war drums as she'd heard in the battle tales. She realized then how out of her depth she really was. Who was she and what reputation did she have to her name to come frolicking to the middle of nowhere demanding a mission out of a man such as Hanthalah ibn Ka'b?

She thought herself Umaymah the storied warrior, the victor of Islam. She thought she would take the Roman islands by storm, cutting down their soldiers and sacking their cities.

Instead, she was Umaymah the goatherd. Umaymah the freak, more boy than girl, the laughing stock of Banu Asad. The shame of her father, a failed daughter.

A failed guardian, she dropped her head in misery, remembering how she abandoned her own brother, 'Abdullah, in favor of chasing wild fantasies in far away lands among people who did not welcome her.

She was only good for fighting back highwaymen and bandits. She was no warrior. Perhaps she ought to heed her father's advice and abandon man's chainmail for a proper gown. Toss away her sword in favor of a swollen belly.

But it was far too late for that now. She would be discovered for the fraud she was now. By this child. And then the Romans would –

"Of course, child."