Even as Addax was facing the reality of the night with his father, Essien was watching it all carefully. His mother was worried, his father was being brave, Addax was focused on the blade in his hand, but Essien was simply drawing it all in. He still felt fear, but there was trust there, also. He trusted his father and his mother. Trust in the servants who were dressing him insmelly, unfamiliar clothing. The idea that this was a permanent situation had never occurred to him because he’d never known anything other than the Lankara Palace. To Essien, this was just some big adventure. He never thought he wouldn’t return. As the servants began dressing Addax, Essien went to his father.
“Will you come?” he asked.
Amare smiled at his youngest boy who so favored his mother. “Soon,” he said. “I will come soon.”
“When?”
There was no time for a child’s questions. Amare kissed his boy on the forehead. “Jab tak ham dubarah nihen malin ge,” he whispered. “Until we meet again.”
And that was the last Essien saw of his father.
On that dark, terrible night, Essien, his mother, brother, and sister, along with several loyal servants, fled, out to sea.
But all did not go well.
A storm on the second night at sea pushed their convoy of three ships off course and into a gulf, where they were forced to dock at the city of Abu Samra. That was when the captain, who had been loyal to Amare for years and had established trade routes for him, decided to demand favors from Kiya. He’d never had a queen before, he’d said, something that confused Addax and Essien, but they knew instinctively that it wasn’t good. When Kiya refused, he struck her. That was when Addax rammed the dragon-headed dagger into the man’s kidney.Protect your mother,his father had said. So, he did.
After that, it was chaos.
Kiya and her children fled with her servants onto the streets of Abu Samra, but they became separated in the chaos. Dust and wind and terror swirled about them, and the group fractured further. The two old women, Bobo and Rami, fell afoul of a man they’d run into, and he threw them both into the sea. After hiding out for a day and a night, Addax and Essien searched fortheir mother and sister for days and days, until they found an old fisherman who said he’d seen a screaming woman and her infant daughter taken aboard another ship.
Distraught, the hungry and exhausted boys had no idea what to do when they came across one of the male servants who had accompanied them, only the man had been in a fight and left to die in an alley. He told Addax and Essien that, indeed, their mother and sister had been captured by the crew of the murdered captain and taken back aboard the ship. Now, the ship was gone.
So were their last links to their family.
Two very small boys found themselves alone in a strange land, their mother and sister vanished. There were no more servants out of the several who came with them, except for the dying old man. Therefore, Addax and Essien took up vigil next to the old servant, through heat and cold, night and day, learning to beg for food and receiving a pittance from the mosque in town. But it was enough to sustain them until the old servant finally passed away six days after they had found him.
After that, they were on their own.
But not for long.
Abu Samra was a crossroads for trade caravans throughout the region, and one day, when Addax and Essien went to the mosque to beg for more food, the holy man introduced them to a merchant who was bringing an enormous caravan from Abu Dhabi and heading for Damascus. The merchant needed small boys to run errands or complete little tasks, and the holy man made it seem as if it would be a great, fruitful adventure for Addax and Essien. It was better than begging in the streets, he said, and God would smile upon those who helped themselves.
So, they went.
Unfortunately, the merchant was not their savior. He enslaved them both, starving them and beating them, forcingthem to tend camels and horses and load and unload merchandise. Addax was a little older and a little stronger than Essien, who was hardly more than a toddler. But he was a three-year-old who was forced to grow up very quickly as the hardships of life settled around them. It was either that or he would die, and neither of them wanted that. They had a strong will to survive, even in the worst of circumstances.
This went on for two very long years.
Two years of being beaten and abused, of hoping the next day would bring relief or even someone with some kindness for them. At one point, the merchant, a man by the name of Abiram, was given a slave girl in Basrah in exchange for goods. She was young, but pretty and strong, and Abiram used her for labor. She worked alongside Addax and Essien, her nature kind and joyful in spite of her circumstances. Finally, the two young boys had someone to show them a measure of kindness and compassion, things they craved at their young age.
Amala was her name.
But Amala’s presence wasn’t to last forever.
Abiram had reached the Levant with his caravan of goods, and he found ready customers in the men protecting Acre, and other cities, from the onslaught of Christian armies. One night, Abiram sold Amala to a lord for his harem, and Addax would never forget her soft weeping as she was taken away. Somehow, Addax knew that he and Essien would not survive much longer. Abiram was growing crueler, and they were growing weaker. Once they hit the outskirts of Jerusalem, a vast and populous city, it was Addax who made the decision to run.
It was either run or die.
When Abiram brought the caravan to a halt and ordered the boys to go into town with a message for a friend of his, they willingly went into the citadel of Jerusalem and lost themselves on the dusty, ancient streets. Instead of searching for Abiram’sfriend on the Street of the Merchants, they escaped the city walls to the north, running through scrub and rocks, avoiding scorpions and snakes, rushing toward another village.
It took all night.
Once they arrived, there were very few people on the streets. Everyone seemed to be inside, even on what should have been a busy morning. Addax and Essien did what they’d learned to do best—hide in the shadows, trying to remain unseen, being as unobtrusive as possible. They’d learned that from Abiram, but more so now that they had fled the man. They didn’t want to be brought back to him. But they were only small boys, after all, and by midmorning, they collapsed in a grove of olive trees from sheer exhaustion, and Essien fell asleep on his older brother.
But Addax couldn’t sleep.
He had to remain vigilant.
