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‘That was different. I was different back then.’
‘Why don’t you take a dose of your own medicine and howl at the sky? It might do you more good than me.’
He let out a long breath and began walking again.
‘I used to. That was one benefit of living on a lonely stretch of shore with only fishermen around me. Whenever there was a storm that is precisely what I did the first year I was there. Then I didn’t feel like it any more.’
‘Do you feel like anything any more?’ She retorted, still angry and determined not to let the image of Edge raging at the storm soften her. She wanted to be angry at him. But he just shrugged again, as if shaking her off.
‘No, not really. It is quite pleasant this way. It suits me. But it doesn’t suit you.’
‘Go fall down a well, Edge.’
‘I dare say I will if I spend enough time with you. Or into the Nile like the time you took the felucca without Daoud’s permission.’
‘I would have been fine if you hadn’t insisted on coming aboard when I was pulling away from the jetty.’
‘Probably. I always did make bad worse, didn’t I? I deserved every one of your nicknames. It would have been far better if I’d listened to you instead of you to me. Then I might have...’
She heard the clean note of pain at the memory of his son and she took his hand again without thinking. It was warmer than hers and a little rough, his callouses rubbing against her palm as his hand wrapped around hers in turn. The sky felt like it was pulsing above them, a deep, steady throb. She watched the outline of his chest as he breathed, a slow rise and fall like the thick rolling waves of the Mediterranean. With strange panic she felt her own breathing fall into the rhythm, like a musician entering the orchestra late. Her heartbeat was completely on its own, though—hard and slapping at her insides as if trying to wake her from sinking into a dangerous sleep.
Into a dangerous dream.
She’d fallen into it once, but she wouldn’t again. It was the result of being back in Egypt with memories of everything that had happened... Edge standing below the ram’s statue, looking exasperated, but with that glimmer of rueful amusement she’d often missed or misunderstood. She’d seen only what he chose to show the world and not the conflicting currents that clashed beneath his wary surface.
Again she thought of al-Walid’s story.
‘I keep thinking of what they saw,’ she said and he turned to her.
‘Who?’
‘Those men who saw you on the temple with the sandstorm rising behind you. It must have been terrifying.’
‘I was certainly terrified. We thought that might be our final misdemeanour.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant and you know it. They must have thought you conjured the storm yourself.’
‘Which makes as much sense as believing you conjured the stars in the sky behind you... On second thoughts, I could well believe that right now, Najimat al-Layl. In fact, I’m surprised the wind has fallen. Shu is failing in his role.’
Edge truly had the most amazing voice, Sam thought as her heartbeat whipped up again, her mind groping to remember what al-Walid had said about Shu and Geb and Nuut.
And intercourse.
The desert turned cold at night, but Sam didn’t feel it in the least.
‘Come, we should return.’ He reached out his hand.
‘I’m not ready.’
‘Don’t be foolish, Sam. It is late. Come.’
‘But I want to do something foolish. It has been far too long.’
‘Too long? Today you refused to rest even though you were ready to fall off that camel and the day before that you were railing at the skies from the Howling Cliffs. I’m afraid to ask what you did the day before that.’
‘Well, at least I didn’t insist on walking alone from Zarqa.’
His laugh was a rusty rumble.
‘Touché. I think you are owed at least one more foolish act to measure up to mine. Go ahead, climb something. There’s another boulder over there.’
‘Very well.’ She walked past the boulder he indicated, heading for the darker shape beyond it.
‘Sam...that’s a hill!’
‘Wait for me here if you’re scared. You never did know how to enjoy yourself.’
She wasn’t surprised to hear the scrape of pebbles and muffled muttering behind her as she climbed. Like the honourable man he was, Edge was so easy to manipulate. He could no more leave her alone in the desert than he could take a hammer to a statue.
‘This is beyond foolish, Sam. You can’t even see where you are going. If you fall into another bat-infested tomb I’m going to leave you to it this time!’
