ChapterOne
1655, Middle East, early spring
Michel du Chevalerie, first son of the Duke of Provence, France, leaned back against the outside wall of the whorehouse in the dusty city of Merv. The other men in his crew were inside, enjoying the activities, but Michel was impatient to get back on the road. Such stops had proven necessary to help the men keep their wits on this long journey across the old Silk Road. Michel preferred other ways to keep himself sharp. Instead of the indulgences inside, he took the time to make plans, organize his supplies, and just enjoy the moment of solitude and the peaceful clatter of the afternoon roads.
That is, until a woman fell through the canopy above him and right into his arms.
He’d heard the crack of wood just in time to look up and prepare himself to catch a bundle of flailing skirts, wild golden blonde hair, and silks from the canopy.
“What—?” he blurted as dust and debris pelted down, the peace and solitude dissolving. “How?—?”
The bundle was tossing and righting herself in his arms, wriggling like a caught fish as he continued to spit confused questions at her. “Are you alright? How did you get up there?”
The woman managed to untangle herself from the canopy and get herself upright. Her feet hit the ground, her head came up and?—
“Mon Dieu,” Michel said, halting completely when he got his first look at her. Everything around him blurred away into nothing: the noises of the street, the dusty buildings, his own questions and confusion. Never had he seen eyes quite like hers—mottled green and brown, sharp and insistent. Never had he seen someone with her golden coloring and such striking features.
Never had the sight of a woman caused his thoughts to stop long enough to notice each thunderous beat of his heart.
But the woman, not seeming to slow or be affected in the least, grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, her eyes urging, beseeching,commanding. He could see that she wanted something from him, but thewhatand thehowstill made no sense.
“What do you need?” he implored. He understood nothing, but he certainly was curious.
She brought her finger to her lips and shushed him.
“Did you—?” He quickly lowered his voice to a whisper, going from concern to disbelief. “Did you shush me?”
She threw her hands up as she tucked herself away into the shadows of the alcove behind him.
Just then, he heard a commotion on the street. Among the din of wagon bells and bleating animals came a man’s voice, shouting. Michel’s head snapped back to her.
“Are you hiding?” he hissed, following her deeper into the alcove, protective on instinct. “Is someone after you?” he insisted. He looked at the broken canopy above him, thinking she could have been hiding on the rooftops before crashing down. He turned back to her. She wore a ragged peasant dress, covered in dust from the fall, with a streak that could easily be blood on her sleeve. He moved tentatively closer, now concerned he would frighten her. “Can you...speak?”
The woman made an exasperated sound, put her hands on Michel’s shoulders, turned him around, and gave him a shove back out toward the street.
Michel was dumbfounded. So much for frightening her. He would have been amused by how casually this woman was ordering him around, but the thought that someonewascoming for her kept him tense. With no chance to think or plan, and despite knowing how much trouble skirmishes out in the open could cause him, he couldn’t ignore the situation.
His integrity would always win—if the woman needed help, he was going to help her.
The decision made to put himself between her and whatever she didn’t want to get her, he placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, in readiness, and sidled back out onto the street. He gave her another look, his own finger up to his lips. She nodded back at him, and he believed the understanding passed that he wouldn’t let anyone harm her.
Out on the street, chaos had stirred up the quiet afternoon. The lazy streams of farmers and merchants moving through the market had already been disrupted. Michel immediately saw the source of the commotion: a short, fat man with wiry hair and a bloody nose charging up the road. He was leading a donkey with a merchant cart, but abandoned it as he got closer to the whorehouse, huffing as he did.
Veronica, an elegant and shrewd woman in her fifties, and proprietress of the establishment, stood in the center of the busy street with her hand up for him to stop, her dark burgundy dress the only color of the otherwise sand-washed street.
“Do not come near me, Armin,” she called, her voice booming over the rest of the market. She spoke French, as she was one of the many French expats in this area. “I don’t want any of your stolen nonsense, and neither do my girls.”
“Veronica, you can’t believe what I discovered,” the man said in broken but passable French. “For your business!” He hunched down to cough and catch his breath.
“You are a pest and a thief,” she replied. She cocked an eyebrow and paused before lowering her voice. “What do you have?”
“She must be here somewhere,” Armin spat, desperate, scanning the road. “I just had her.”
“Her?” Veronica snapped. “You better be talking about a cow.”
“You must see her,” Armin said. He turned to Michel, looking past him. “There!” he bellowed, pointing past Michel and directly at the woman. “She’s there!”
Armin, still puffing, took a dash toward the alcove, but Michel caught him by the arm and hoisted him away. “Nope,” Michel said.
