Her focus had changed.
It had all happened so fast, these changes to her life. Just three months earlier, Eve had been standing on the arid plains of her homeland, surrounded by the beautiful colors that would always live in her dreams. The wind howled that day. It blocked everything else out and let her mind work. As she tended the goats in the pasture, she knew she was at a crossroads in her life. There was nothing better than the cold of dawn and the screaming wind to help her focus her energy.
The last of her brothers, Yul, had announced his engagement, and the tribe celebrated this wonderful union. She had felt nothing but happiness at the pairing, but it meant, once again, eyes were on her. Who would Eve marry? She was twenty-five. Most women her age were married, already mothers. Eve had refused every suitor she had ever been offered. She just had no interest.
It wasn’t that marriage was distasteful to her, but she wanted to ensure her own union would give her a chance to continue to grow. Her father had always allowed her to participate in strategizing for the tribes, but he was unique in his ways. Eve knew she would not be satisfied if a marriage took away her voice, and it was very likely this would be the case. An ability to influence, a desire to help her people prosper, lived inside her. A wrong decision about her future would silence her. She always thought about France in such moments, wondering how her life would have been different if Grandfather had stayed with Cecile in France instead of the other way around.
Those were her thoughts as she had gazed out across the hills that were her home, among the noisy bleating from the goats, the soothing cries of the wind, the dancing grey-green grasses, when she had heard a noise that didn’t match. She turned to see three men on horses, not far from her. She ran immediately, knowing she would never get away in time, hoping someone would help her. She sprinted, heart pumping, legs darting. For a second, the wind at her back made her think she would get away.
Then a hand had gone over her mouth, and she was swept onto the back of a horse.
From that moment, nothing had been the same. Somehow, months later, she had found herself a world away, sitting in a cozy little hovel, next to a man who had saved her from being stolen once more. But in doing so, she feared, this very man was on the verge of stealing her heart.
ChapterSixteen
Ganbold. Warrior. Hunter.
Ganbold had traveled to Samarkand. He did not find her.
He found a few people who could speak his words or read his parchment. He had learned to sayFrenchmanandwomanin common Mongolian. It helped, but no one had seen them.
The man who told him to come to Samarkand had lied to him. Or maybe Ganbold had just not understood. He felt anger in his fists as he sat in the square, deciding where to go next.
The ancestors did not make the path to find this woman easy. He did this to honor them. To honor the old ways. The true ways.
Travel was more difficult than Ganbold had expected. No language made it hard to negotiate a ride, to understand routes. He had spent his life with his tribe. The only times he had come in contact with westerners, he had been with others, with the il-khan and the elders who could speak more than their tribal language. Alone, he had little money, no horse, and almost no communication. But he was a good nomad and could live easily from the land. He could not make any more errors. Others would be searching for her by now. His next route had to be correct, or he would surely lose the chance to be the one to bring the woman home. He looked to the sky, begging for guidance.
The afternoon sun beat down as he sat in a busy square at the edge of Samarkand, a place of large buildings with rounded roofs, very different from the cities closer to his home. Ganbold, with distaste in his mouth about going further West, decided he would backtrack. There were hundreds of routes in this area, going through outposts, towns, and villages. The woman and the Frenchman could have gone over the hills, across the mountain ranges. Ganbold felt fury that the people in this city could not talk to him. He would already have the woman by the hair if they had not mingled with the westerners and lost their ancient language.
He thought of the pride he would feel in his chest when he brought the woman to his tribe. He thought of the relief he would feel when he was allowed back around his tribal hearth. He thought of the pleasure he would feel when he took the woman he wanted for his wife. Ganbold had not been permitted to marry her before, because they were of the same tribe and were in danger of having close relations. The last time he had gone to her yurt, her father was waiting. The girl had rushed between Ganbold and his father, and she had been struck.
That was the last time Ganbold saw her. He escaped through the window because there was so much screaming. The Il-khan shamed him for the attack and sent him out of the tribe.
Sadness at the loss of his tribe and his woman was brewing inside him when, suddenly, he heard the throaty language of a Frenchman there in the square. Ganbold’s eyes snapped to the source: a tall man with a shorter blond companion.
The woman! The ancestors had blessed him.
The figure was cloaked, but the light hair betrayed her. Relief and excitement surged. Ganbold hunched and stalked the pair through the crowd. They moved through the square, past a tavern, on the road that led out of town. He would like to attack now, but the people would not allow an open war with a Westerner, and they might even protest the woman being taken. No, he had to catch them on the roads, away from others. So, he prowled, letting the pair get further down the road that led into the rustling trees of the plains.
Hunter.
As they reached the outer limits of the town, away from the crowds, the man and his companion came into better view. Ganbold saw that the blond companion was not a woman, but a boy, tall but thin, just on the verge of becoming a man. Ganbold felt frustration in his shoulders, across his back, and tightening up his neck. He wanted something in his hands to squeeze.
Then Ganbold got a very good idea. Since he could not find the correct Frenchman to kill, he would start to kill all the Frenchmen he found. All the travelers and all the merchants. There were rules from his clan that controlled how his people acted with the Westerners, but Ganbold didn’t want to mind them. As long as he could do it away from the eyes of the townspeople, no one would know. The ancestors did not give him the woman yet, but they gave him this idea. He would use them to find the Frenchman, to find the murderer woman, so he could bring his trophy home.
Warrior.
Moments later, the pair stopped for a drink. The trees along this stretch were sparse, but Ganbold stayed hidden in the high grasses off the road. When they paused, Ganbold approached.
He heard the blistering gibberish as he came near. The pair jumped when they finally noticed Ganbold.
“Hello,” the man said, a word Ganbold knew, before trailing off into words Ganbold didn’t know.
“I seek a woman,” Ganbold said in his own language.
The man stared. He did not understand.
Ganbold grunted. He moved closer with his hands out to terrify, a tactic used by those of his lineage.
