Page 17 of Her Dark Priests

“Isn’t that a bit early?” Jack enquired. “The flight doesn’t leave for another four hours.”

“Can we...” I began hesitantly.

“Can we what?” West prompted darkly.

“Can we stop at the souq on the way?” I asked, looking up at him in what I hoped was an innocent and endearing way.

“You saw the souq yesterday.”

“I know, but I was planning to go back on my way home. I saw this beautiful, carved wooden and mother-of-pearl chess set that I wanted to buy for my father for his birthday next month. Please? It won’t take long, I promise.”

“It’s on the way,” Jack added. I thanked him silently in my head, but there was a definite twinge of guilt.

“Fine,” West conceded. “We’ll stop off. One stall, one purchase, and then I am getting you to that airport and the first-class lounge, and you are not leaving my sight until you’re back home, even if I have to come into the ladies’ restroom with you. Understand?”

I nodded, beaming up at him. To add to the show, I wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him tightly. He froze as my body pressed up against his, and I rolled my eyes. This guy really didn’t like physical affection. He reached down and detangled me.

“Any funny business, and we are out of there like a shot.”

“No funny business, got it.” Define funny, I thought to myself, smiling up at him.

The souq was just as busy as it had been the day before. Crowds of tourists, locals, street entertainers, and sellers weaved their way through the narrow city streets and alleyways. West and Davenport stayed close to my side as we made our way through the throng of people. The noise was deafening. I noticed Jack looked rather pale and turned around to shout at him.

“You okay?”

He nodded. “I’ll be fine. I—” The rest of his sentence was drowned out by a surge of noise around us, and he winced.

“What did you say?” I yelled. West turned to look at me, but I ignored him. Jack glanced down at me and shrugged.

“I don’t like crowds,” he shouted back. “Or small spaces.”

“Oh, Jack, I’m sorry.”

He smiled and shook his head, not trying to yell above the racket.

West looked at him, then down at me. “He’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

I nodded, the guilt surging inside again, but I was still determined to go ahead with my idea. I gestured towards one of the bigger stalls that sold the wood and pearl chess board, and we slowly made our way towards it, sliding between people. The stall stood on the corner between one of the main streets and a crowded alleyway that held smaller stalls crammed together. The nearby ones sold lanterns and carpets, while others had huge bolts of incredibly coloured fabrics. I moved forward and picked up one of the chess boards, waving at the seller to indicate I wanted to buy it. He came over immediately.

“English?” I asked, raising my voice so I was nearly shouting in order to be heard.

“A little. You want buy?”

I nodded. “How much?”

“For you, pretty lady, only three hundred aljunayh almisriu.”

“Oh, okay...” I reached for my pocket, but West grabbed the board from me and began inspecting it. “What are you doing?”

“You’re being conned, my lady. Let me handle this.” He turned back to the seller and began to haggle in fluent Arabic.

They began to go back and forth, and to me, it sounded almost as though they were arguing quite aggressively, though I’d seen enough in the souq yesterday to know that this was how the locals did it. I stood there for a moment, just watching West. I hadn’t realised he spoke the language so well, and to be honest, I was impressed. Jack seemed pretty interested in the set as well, and as more people pushed to the front, he didn’t notice as I gradually drew backwards away from the stall. A couple of metres back and to the side, West glanced around at me, and I smiled and nodded at him. Satisfied I was still there, he turned back to the seller. They seemed to be coming closer to an arrangement, so I knew I had to act fast.

Slipping my rucksack off my shoulders, I hugged it to my chest and dropped into a crouch in the crowd. It would have been an extremely dangerous position, except I was only a few feet away from a long strip of stalls, each covered with woven tablecloths that reached the ground. I felt my way along until I found one where the seller hadn’t stored extra boxes of wares underneath. Pulling back the edge, I rolled underneath it and sat holding my bag, hardly daring to breathe.

At first I couldn’t hear anything above the normal din of the souq, but after several minutes, I heard West’s raised voice shouting my name. I swallowed as I heard him approaching, only relaxing a little when he made his way past the stall I was hidden under. Jack’s voice took over, shouting my name, and I took a chance to glance out through a tiny gap in the cloth to see West farther down the street, talking to a couple of sellers. They were shaking their heads as he showed them his phone—a picture of me, probably. Unzipping my bag, I reached in and pulled out a headscarf. As awkward as it was sitting under a table on some painfully hard cobbles, I managed to twist it into some semblance of what was worn by many local women. I had no hair pins to keep it in place, but I just hoped it would last long enough to let me get away. It wasn’t quite my costume change in the airport, but it might just work in a marketplace full of women with my colouring.

Risking another look out, I saw West and Jack had headed back up the main street. They seemed to be arguing with each other as they rounded the corner out of sight. It was now or never, I told myself as I squeezed out from under the table and struggled to reach a standing position. I couldn’t get my bag back on my back in the crowd, so I had to carry it in front of me as I headed in the opposite direction. In my explorations yesterday, I had remembered that at the end of this alleyway, an arched passage opened out onto a main road that had been full of people, donkeys, and most importantly, taxis. I fought my way through the throng as quickly as I could, constantly looking over my shoulder and expecting to see West at any moment. I wasn’t particularly bothered by crowds, but it was starting to feel slightly oppressive, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I finally spilled out onto the pavement along the main road and the crowd thinned out a little. I stepped out, holding up my hand to flag down a taxi.

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