"Damn you-are you here?" he muttered.

"Yes," she whispered.

"Then bloody well give me some help!"

"Beside the fountain," she said, in a voice that shivered with her breath. "Under the vines."

He made a soft English curse. "Nothing closer?"

"No, my lord."

"Lead the way."

She sat against the wall, shuddering.

"Coming?" he demanded softly. "These aren't respectable fellows, my cub. They're deserters."

Deserters! She grabbed her broken musket and stood up, quaking in all her limbs. She could hear the others coming. The light suddenly increased as they broke into the court outside.

She saw the gleam on metal again, as he aimed from behind the doorpost. The explosion made her body jump, a yellow flash that lit his face and the room, burning it on her eyelids, then suddenly all was blackness and angry shouts.

"Go!" Lord Winter snapped, and Zenia moved, stumbling over boxes toward the door. From the dark he groped and grabbed her arm, shoving her out into the court.

Someone ran into her. She bit back a cry and cringed against Lord Winter. She felt him move as hard hands closed on her-there was an ugly whack, a grunt, and the clutching fingers dropped away. The gunstock hit her as Lord Winter recovered his balance, a hard jolt on her collarbone and a tangling of their gun barrels together, but she threw herself pell-mell toward the courtyard wall.

Lord Winter came with her, close at her back. Her toes dug into the dirt as she flung around a corner, making her way by memory and feel, for she could see nothing. Lord Winter's hand gripped her shoulder.

A shot blasted from behind them, echoing around the walls. Zenia tripped, her foot thrust under a root. Her ankle twisted. She fell hard, with cold pain flashing up her leg and thorns ripping into her hands and face as she smashed facedown amid a rose bush.

Lord Winter dragged her up, but another body intervened, a chaos of shoving and struggle. She could not tell if it was a knife or thorns that tore across her. She rolled over and staggered to her knees, leaning on her musket, as another report exploded in her ear. She saw the moment like a traceried still life: Lord Winter rising on one knee with his rifle at elbow level, the bright fireball of light from its muzzle thrust point-blank against the chest of a bearded man. The dazzling afterimage hid any more, but she heard the heavy crash of his body into the roses.

She tried to run, pitching onto her knee again as her ankle failed her. Lord Winter hauled her up. She used her broken musket as a crutch, limping heavily, groping ahead with her free hand.

She collided suddenly with the fountain, encountering the marble edge with a gasp and a splash. Feeling her way to the side, she scrabbled through a mass of honeysuckle to find the concealed door.

Light cast a shadow on the wall. "Down!" Lord Winter ordered sharply, and she dropped. She ran her fingers over the wall, searching, afraid that he must be out of rounds. He could not have reloaded-the rifle while they ran, and she hadn't seen that he carried pistols.

Even as she thought it, he fired-twice in rapid succession. The light vanished.

Her fingers found the wooden latch. She pushed the trap door open.

"Here!" she whispered.

He came after her, rustling the vines, climbing down into the slanting hole. Zenia slid down on her belly with her musket beside her. At the lower entrance, she pushed the concealing brush away with her good foot, skidding into the open air outside the walls. In the starlight, the valley and the limestone mountains lay white and silent, the cliff falling away from the base of the wall in a shadowed jumble of rock.

Her ankle throbbed, a sickening pain that seemed to take her breath. Lord Winter stole past her, the Arab head scarf flowing back over his shoulders, his face lost in shadow.

Zenia tried to stand up and made a faint whimper. But long ago she had learned that in the desert those who fell behind were easily forgotten. She limped desperately after, trying to stay in his footsteps on the rough ground. They circled away from the main gate and the village, taking a barely visible goat track. Zenia used her hands and toes and fingernails to drag herself between the boulders.

For as long as she could she pursued his swift pace, losing ground with every excruciating step, until finally she was so far behind that she lost the pale shade of his outline.

She was alone in the dark. She kept hobbling quickly, even after she came to the valley floor, afraid of what she might see if she paused and looked behind her. There were eerie things abroad at night-this night, when her mother lay in her crypt. Lady Hester was angry: Zenia could feel it. She knew Zenia meant to leave her. Her mother had chosen Dar Joon deliberately for its dreadful isolation, to prevent her servants running away any farther than the tiny village where they could easily be seized and hauled back. Between Zenia and the way to England lay a waterless mountain country haunted by jackals and wolves and civil war. She had nothing but the robes she wore, a broken musket without powder, and a horror of walking through the demon-plagued passes alone.

A wild cry came from somewhere on the ridges above her. She tripped, pitching to her knees and scrambling to rise again, trying to listen over the sound of her own panting. She could hear nothing at first, but as she sank down against the musket, a jackal laughed. She looked back in the direction of Dar Joon. The moon was just coming up, casting cold shadows that seemed alive. As she stared at them, they crept across the ground toward her until she had to close her eyes to keep from bursting into tears.

Then she heard the hooves. The sound came out of the dark, echoing from the rocks around her, so that she could not tell from what direction. She staggered to her feet just as the animal was upon her, a huge dark shape-a djinni, a hot-breathed devil materialized out of the night with her mother mounted upon it in flying pale robes. Its hooves nearly trampled her, spraying sand and rock as it halted. Zenia cried out and scrambled away, but her ankle crumpled, nauseating pain that stole her breath and rushed blackness up into her brain.

The next she knew, there was rocky ground against her aching cheek, her musket tangled awkwardly beneath her, and Lord Winter's cool voice telling her not to be a cocklehead.

"A djinni," she whimpered, clutching at his robe. "There was a djinni!"

"Nonsense." There was a firm arm beneath her shoulder. "On your feet."

Zenia was shaking, unable to let go of him. She struggled to stand, but her ankle kept failing beneath her weight. The pain made her vision hazy and wayward. "A demon -"

"You're all right, little wolf," he said tersely. "I'm here."

Looking up at his harsh face in the moonlight, his solid height and the breadth of his shoulders, Zenia experienced a conversion of mind as precipitate as it was complete. She no longer saw Viscount Winter of the acerbic remarks and black disdain. She did not see another of her mother's mysterious friends; she did not see a man whose dark temperament had always made her feel apprehensive even behind the screens.

She saw her savior.

Lord Winter had come to Dar Joon. And whatever else he might be, he was not afraid of demons.

CHAPTER 3.

"But we are in the mountains!" the thin youth cried, working to sit upright and clear of Lord Winter in the saddle. The viscount merely pulled him back, holding the slender, shivering body against his chest with little effort. The boy's slight frame was shaking like a leaf, so delicate that it had surprised Arden when he'd first taken the youth up before him in the dark.

"You are a wretched specimen," he remarked. "I shall have to see that you dine more regularly, or else lose you in a high wind."

"We are in the mountains!" the boy gasped again.

"So you have informed me." Lord Winter surveyed the looming peaks and ridges in the cold dawn light, having always an eye on the surroundings for more reason than the spectacular scenery. His mule was toiling up a narrow terrace beside the ruin of a burned-out farm, dragging an unwilling baggage donkey past sprigs of vegetation that swelled through the cinders. "Do you have some further disclosure to make on the topic?"

"We must turn back!" the boy exclaimed. "You cannot go this way!"

"This is the way I wish to go," he said calmly.

"Then you are a madman!" His passenger made a sudden and determined snatch at the reins. "We'll be killed here!"

The mule jibbed and swerved as Lord Winter yanked the boy's interfering hands back, holding them in a hard grip. The viscount steadied the confused animal while pebbles skittered down the steep terrace edge beside them.

"Turn around!" the boy cried, struggling against his imprisonment. "You can't know; you don't understand- this country is death!"

"You are cross this morning, aren't you?" Arden released his captive, halted the mule and swung down in a tiny patch of charred barley stems. "Hungry, I expect. And I suppose your ankle pains you, though you haven't taken much real hurt, by the look of it."

The Bedouin boy grabbed the reins. Wind blew his long tangled hair across his face as he kicked wildly at the mule's ribs, attempting to haul the animal about on the terrace ledge.

"There is an unfortunate circumstance-" Lord Winter stood back from the struggle. "If you are considering flight-I feel I should perhaps point out that you have a loaded donkey affixed in your rear."

The boy looked over his shoulder, where the little ass stood with all four legs planted, browsing determinedly on the nearest bush.

"I fear you won't be galloping away at any great rate with that in tow," the viscount observed, giving the mule's rump an affectionate slap. "Provided this animal could be persuaded to gallop at all, which is an unsettled question. I've not been so far privileged to see her attain more than a competent trot."

Forced to the same conclusion, and worse, Zenia let the reins fall from fingers that were clumsy with terror and cold. She felt distraught, waking from an exhausted nightmare to discover herself high up on the steep paths into the Jabal Lebanon, the mountains proper, in rebellious Druze country where she would not dare to slide from the animal's back and set out alone even if she ventured to brave the consul and Dar Joon. Her sprained ankle throbbed. The mountains were infested with renegades from the Egyptian armies, the farms abandoned, pillaged and destroyed by marauding Druzes and Metouleys bent on vengeance against their own emir.

Lord Winter seemed entirely careless of their danger, though she found it improbable that he was as unaware of the peril as he affected to be. He was dressed as an Arab in a flowing white burnous, a kuffiyah bound upon his head by a simple gold cording. His eyes, of a clear deep blue, held an aspect of hardened competence that was no product of inexperience. On his shoulder he carried a rifle, a weapon such as Zenia had never seen, its satin wood beautifully chased with gold and silver, its firing mechanism strange and foreign: a gun that would rivet the attention of any Arab who beheld it. A pair of pistols, similarly fashioned, and a flintlock musket were holstered on the saddle, all finely made; all clean and wicked.

Plainly Lord Winter knew where he was going and what he intended to do. As she looked at him, the significance of his costume and gear struck Zenia with profound effect.

"Wellah!" she exclaimed in Arabic. "Why do you wear this clothing?"

"Ah-have I not made myself known?" he answered fluently, sweeping a bow. "You behold Abu Haj Hasan, the Moghreby of Seville, a Spanish Moor returned to the religion of his forefathers. I've made the pilgrimage to Mecca and now wander into the desert as Allah and my fancy take me." He smiled up at her with disarming mockery. "By God's grace my mother was a white princess of Andaluz. You may have noticed that I have her eyes."

"My lord!" Zenia wailed. "You will not!"

"I think I will, wolf cub."

"You're a Christian! They will slay you in an instant if you're discovered masquerading so!"

'That," he said imperturbably, "is of course a mishap I shall strive to avoid."

"My lord, I beg you, I plead with you to listen to me. It is madness. Any Moslemin will know you for a Nasrany the first time you must pray!"

"Come, do you take me for a fool?" he asked with sudden impatience. "I know the proper prayers as well as any Bedouin-better than you know them yourself, if the lack of pious observance I've seen from you so far is any sign. Have you even yet endured the muzayyin, boy?"

Zenia well knew of what he spoke. As the daughter of the Queen of the Englezys, Zenia had been considered lucky among the black tents, and often invited by an anxious mother to witness the circumcision rites. She felt herself flush hotly. "Of course!" she lied in haste. "Allah be praised."

He nodded, with a flicker of new respect in his eyes, and then grinned suddenly. "I'll admit I resorted to chloroform," he said in English.

She gave a faint moan, horrified at the idea of an adult man and a Christian willfully enduring such a thing. "You are a madman! None will believe it. You are Lord Winter."

"Ay billah, it saddens me to inform you that Lord Winter has been murdered," he answered. "Those villains we left behind last night are already arrested, if Moore has the enterprise to act speedily on the information I laid for him. One should not, however, put much faith in the promptness of consuls."

"But you are not murdered, my lord!" Distractedly, she held the windblown hair back from her face.

"Am I not?" Lord Winter glanced up, his mocking blue eyes full of amusement, but his expression altered as he regarded her. His brows rose. Zenia instantly lowered her hand, turning away in fear he might see that her skin also was pale beneath the sun's browning, like his; that her eyes were dark blue, not truly black; that she resembled her mother even though Lady Hester had always denied the likeness.

He caught her arm, pulling her back around toward him. She let him see her profile, her heart pounding, her mouth turned down sullenly.

"But you are Adonis himself, child!" he murmured. "You weren't such a beauty when your face was sopped in tears." He gave her a shake, his jaw tightening. "Take care that you don't find yourself sold to the Turks, my cub. You're rash to wander alone."

"Oh, ma'alem!" she said, with a compulsive closing of her fingers, "it is my greatest fear."

She immediately wished she had not said so much, but he did not seem inclined to sneer at her. "Stay within earshot, then," he said shortly. "Don't wander off without me."

This brusque instruction threw Zenia into a welter of conflicting emotions. He was the first person who had ever offered her any protection at all, but he had stranded her here, nowhere, made it impossible to get to Beyrout and from there to England. In her alarm and despair, an agitated idea took possession of her mind.

She watched him as he cuffed the mule's nose away and stepped back to the donkey. She did not know how to use the strange pistols, but as soon as his attention and his hands were occupied with the baggage thongs, she dragged the musket from its saddle scabbard.

He turned. Zenia raised the gun, aiming point-blank at his head. She pulled back the cock.

Lord Winter looked steadily into her sights, unmoving. He made no shift to use his rifle or even let go of the baggage cord. She sought for words in her dry throat, words to force him to her will, but his complete lack of fear made it painfully obvious that the musket she held was not loaded and primed. They stared at one another over the dull gleam of steel. Her hands were shaking. Slowly, she let the barrel decline, pointing it at the ground.

"Uncock it, if you would be so kind," he said gently. "That is, if you have determined not to shoot me."

Zenia realized she had been wrong; it was loaded indeed. But she admitted with bitterness, "I will not shoot you."

"I rather hoped not." He nudged the muzzle aside with a brush of his hand and held it there. "In that case, let us aim this well to the outside, if you please."

She released the musket to half-cock. "I have not an ounce of spirit."

He laughed. "It's no matter-I have enough for both of us."

"I want none of yours," she said darkly. "You are mad."

'Too severe, wolf cub. My father merely holds that I'm a changeling. Or a malicious prank played upon him by Fate." As he took the musket from her and rested the stock on the ground, his grin faded to a smile, an expression of surprising sweetness on his sunburned face. "Reckon me as you like, but I'm a fair shot, and not the worst companion to have by you in a tight comer." He hefted the musket, cradling it in one arm as he looked down at the firing pin.

"Companion!" she exclaimed. "Do you know what is said of you here? You are driven from your home by an evil demon, who goads you into the most terrible deserts, so that you must suffer agonies for whatever dreadful sin you have committed. That is what they say of you!"

His hands stilled for a moment, his face hidden from her. Then he flipped the safety catch into place, running his thumb lightly over the hammer. "Now there's a useful premise. My own personal demon. Makes people rather nervous of crossing me, I expect. I wonder no one's ever mentioned it."

"They would not like to say so to your face."

"Ah, Turkish manners! But you are Bedu, and have no such scruples, I perceive." He lifted his head, handing up the gun to her. 'That's yours. I gave the antique an honorable retirement some way back, in a little contretemps with a djinni."

She held the excellent weapon, its metal bleeding the warmth of his body into her palm. "Why do you give it to me?" she asked suspiciously.

"It'll serve you better than a demon, where we're going."

"Where," she asked in a fading voice, "are you going?"

"Oh, the worst of deserts, naturally," he answered with outrageous cheerfulness. "Across the red sands to the Nejd."

Zenia instantly held the musket out. "You must take it back. I'm going to Beyrout."

"Are you?" He gave her a dark and charming smile. "I wonder how?"

She wet her lips. "Please, my lord," she said. "You cannot have meant to bring me with you."

"No. But neither do I mean to haul you to Beyrout, so put any hope of that from your mind. I'll leave you in the first place we come to, if you like. Mezarib, perhaps. Or Bozra, if we've come as far south as I intend that we have."

"Bozra!" She had heard of it, a caravan town some days out of Damascus, on the hajj road to Mecca. She would no longer be in the mountains there-she would be in worse case than here, farther than ever from Beyrout, abandoned on the edges of the desert itself where the Bedu raided most frequently; and a part of the desert where she knew neither friends nor allies.