place he used to watch his girl on the wall. Not for much longer.
Newt crowded into the shadows beside him. Now at least as tall as he, their shoulders brushed and fought for space.
The enormity of it hit Henry and he hauled Newt into a rough embrace.
Newt stiffened. It was not his way, but then relaxed into his hold. Fastening an arm around his back, Newt pounded his shoulder blades. “Sweet Jesu, it is good to see you, Harry.”
Henry scrunched his eyes closed. He would not disgrace himself with tears, but they built anyway and he held on to Newt as much to hide his disgrace as to assure himself he had not imagined the man.
After a while Newt disengaged. He stepped back, cleared his throat and straightened his filthy tunic. “I have come to take you home.”
“Home?” He did not even know what home meant. After he heard the news that Frederick’s army had withdrawn, leaving him here, cut off from his home, he had forced that word away. “You have come to take me home?”
“By the rood, Henry. You are addled for certain.” Newt shook his head. “Why else would I be here?”
“I know not.” He might go home. Swift on the heels of the hope came the fear, washing away the hope. He had learned not to hope. Hope brought with it only the pain of being dashed and trampled beneath uncaring feet. “I will never go home.”
Newt gaped at him. “Aye, you will.”
“Nay.”
“Aye.” Newt’s face grew taut. He stepped forward. “You will go home because I am here to fetch you.”
“I cannot.” He could not risk it. This long he had survived on the ruthless annihilation of hope.
“Aye, you will.” Newt shoved him. Hard enough to send him crashing into the wall. “You will go home because I promised Roger I would find you and bring you home.” Another shove sent him back against the wall. “You will go home because Sweet Bea will still be crying for you or I do not know your sister. And you will go home, or I will die getting you there, because we both know I failed you.”
English pressed his bruised back to the wall. He would like to explain but he had not the words. In this land, he had lost himself. In this place of a new god, strange food and customs he had learned at the end of the whip, Henry had become English. He had no more god, no more hope. He was nothing more than a slave. So, he shrugged and said again, “I cannot.”
“By God’s aching blisters, you will go home, Harry.” Newt hawked and spat. “You cower against the wall if you wish, but Newt has a plan. And if Newt must drag your ass all the way across that perishing desert to do it. You. Will. Go. Home.”
Chapter 3
Henry followed Bahir into the main hall, the one they kept for formal occasions. He couldn’t say he was overly surprised to see Newt there. Polished up and clean, Newt looked older than his years as he faced the master.
“Is this the man?” The master gestured to Henry.
“Aye, that’s him.” Neither did it surprise him that Newt had learned to speak Arabic. The boy had an uncanny knack for languages.
“Come closer.” The master turned his gaze on Henry.
Bahir shoved him forward. “Move, English.”
Henry. He was a man and his name was Henry. Just once, Henry would like to match the sod with steel and pay Bahir back in kind. Keeping any emotion from his face, he bowed his head before the master.
“This man…er…Newt is here to purchase your freedom.” Master hefted a clinking bag in his palm. “He tells me you are of noble blood.”
So softly only Henry heard it, Bahir snorted.
“I am.” Henry straightened his shoulders. Yester eve Newt had ripped open the wound and now the memories refused to be suppressed. Henry rose up from within English and demanded his rightful place.
“He offers quite a tidy sum for your freedom.”
“Which according to the holy Qur’an, you are obliged to accept.” Newt oozed affability. “For by freeing the slave, you become a companion of the Right.”
The master’s eye flashed. “Do you presume to quote the holy law to me?”
“Nay.” Newt bowed. “Forgive my eagerness, but Sir Henry has a family who long for him. I am under a sacred blood vow to return him to them.”
The master rested his chin on his palm. “Tell me of this family, this Anglesea.”
“Sir Arthur, Sir Henry’s father, is the greatest knight in all the kingdom. Nay.” Newt struck a pose, chin angled up, one leg before the other. “The greatest warrior in the Christian world.”
Spreading it a trifle thick there and Henry threw him a sardonic glance.
As if he drew his words from the sky, Newt raised his hand. “He has amassed for his family great wealth. He holds the ear of King Henry.”
Henry stifled a snort. Held the king’s ear, his ass. A king hadn’t set foot in Anglesea Castle since Father had joined the Army of God against King John. Had matters changed? Undoubtedly. When he left, Father had been whoring William out to the highest bidder. William could be married by now, perhaps even with a babe or two. The weight of his longing hit him broadside, and it was all he could do to stay standing. Damn Newt for opening the hidden chest within him, because now all the faces flooded out. William, Roger, Faye, Bea, Mathew, even bloody Garrett. His father, and his beautiful mother. Nurse. So close he could almost believe he would see them again they hovered before him.
The master rubbed his mouth. “Yet, all this time he said nothing?”
Bahir poked him in the back. He half turned to punch the piss out of the bastard before he collected himself.
Eyes glittering a challenge, Bahir smirked.
“The army had retreated.” Henry found his voice. “I was felled in battle, an old couple found me and nursed me back to health. I hit my head and it took me a while to recollect who I was. They kept me to work off my debt to them, and then sold me when they needed the money. By the time I reached the market in Cairo, my people were gone.”
The master nodded, a look in his eyes that told Henry he understood something of being alone in a land not your own. He straightened and turned to Newt. “Your visit is rather timely, as I have a delicate problem of my own.”
“If it is within my power to help you.” Newt laid a hand over his heart. “Perhaps we can help each other to a mutually agreeable outcome.”
“Indeed.” The master’s lips quirked into a smile. He tossed the bag of gold back at Newt. “What I require of you is not money. I will take my payment in kind.”
Newt snatched the bag out of the air and tucked it away. “Indeed?”
“My daughter needs to travel back to Genoa, to my family.” Behind Henry, Bahir shifted. “I am sending
