In the Eye of the Storm

25. Hot and Sweaty

'What do you mean, we'll let ourselves be ambushed?'

It was the seventy-third time I had asked that question since we had set out from the ship – or maybe the seventy-fourth? I hadn't kept an exact count. I was too busy being furious at not getting an answer.

He shrugged. 'I mean exactly what I said. We'll let ourselves be ambushed.'

'But... but you can't mean for us to simply run into the bandit's trap!'

'Can't I?'

'You have to have some kind of plan!'

'I do, do I?'

'Yes! You're going to let them come close enough so they can't escape and then launch your attack first, aren't you?'

'Actually, no. The bandits will completely surround and disarm us. Then they will proceed to emptying our saddlebags and cutting our camels' throats.'

'And ours next, if I'm not mistaken!'

He shrugged again. 'If they're not prevented from doing so by some miraculous intervention... Yes.'

I stared at him suspiciously. His face was just a tiny little bit too calm, too stony, too unemotional. There was something going on in that cold, calculating brain of his, gears ticking away at lightning speed.

'You have a plan!' I accused him again.

'Interesting. How do you know that? I cannot remember mentioning it to you.'

'Gah! The devil take you!' Hastening my stride, I marched forward to walk beside Youssef instead of the insufferable man behind me.

We crossed the city quickly. Soon we reached the edge of Alexandria, and in front of us stretched a seemingly endless landscape of green-brown grain and reed, interspersed here and there with the sparkle of lake water.

'A surprisingly green sort of desert,' I commented.

Youssef shook his head. 'We're nowhere near the desert yet. We have to traverse the whole of the Nile Delta first.'

'Why did we land in Alexandria then, and not somewhere farther east?'

'Because Alexandria is the largest port in Egypt, the only one large enough for the kind of ship Ambrose Effendi uses for trade. Any spies of the bandits could only have been found here. And now that this first plan has failed, we have to use the same route as his traders, if we want to be taken for a merchant caravan.'

I threw Mr Ambrose a dark look. 'And of course we want that, don't we? I mean, who doesn't want to have their throats cut?'

'Have faith, baaša.'

'Ha! In whom? God, or Mr Ambrose?'

He considered that for a moment. 'Both?' he finally suggested.

'Ha!'

'Time to mount up!' I heard Mr Ambrose's cold voice from behind me. 'We ride east!'

Youssef bowed. 'You'll have to excuse me, baaša. I have to fetch my saddle.'

I nodded. Luckily, some considerate soul had already wrestled the saddle onto the back of the sweet little camel I was supposed to ride from now on. But that still left the actual riding to be done. Cautiously, I eyed the hunch-backed ungulate beside me. It was busily chewing on its reins, covering them with slobber.

Very well... I could do this. It couldn't be that difficult, could it?

'Hello there,' I said.

The camel very courteously stopped chewing, and spat at me in reply.