He recovered as well as he could, untangling his arm. Then he plucked one of the flowers from the vine and offered it to Shira with an extravagant bow. ‘Your beauty grows with every passing day.’
His badly tied sheema flopped open, falling off his face so I could see him clearly. He wasn’t a whole lot older than we were, and a light constellation of freckles over his pale nose made him look even younger. He was northern but not Gallan; his words sounded wrong, and I’d seen enough of the Gallan to know he wasn’t one of them. He straightened and flung the sheema over his shoulder like the sweep of a cloak. Shira took the flower and pressed it to her nose.
So this was how Shira smuggled things into the harem. And, judging by the look he was giving her, this was how she’d managed to get herself pregnant, too.
Finally the foreign man seemed to notice me.
‘This is—’ Shira started, but he didn’t let her finish.
‘Allow me to introduce myself.’ He snatched up my right hand without asking. I resisted the urge to yank it out of his grip. Shazad would call that undiplomatic. ‘Especially to such a beautiful young woman.’ He raised my hand to his lips, in some strange foreign gesture, and kissed it. ‘I,’ he declared, straightening dramatically, ‘am the Blue-Eyed Bandit.’
I choked on a snort that got stuck in my throat and turned into an uncontrollable cough. Shira patted me awkwardly on the back as I doubled over, bracing my free hand against my knees.
‘Yes, I know, my reputation precedes me.’ My reputation precedes you. But I still couldn’t talk through my coughing. ‘Don’t let it intimidate you. I didn’t really defeat a thousand soldiers in Fahali.’ He leaned forward conspiratorially, still clutching my hand, now twining his fingers through mine. ‘It was merely hundreds.’
‘Is that right?’ I’d finally managed to catch my breath. I remembered Fahali like a blur. Gunpowder and blood and sand, and myself in the middle of it. ‘So tell me, how did you flood the prayer house at Malal?’
‘Well.’ There was a glint in his eyes. He talked from the top of his mouth, unlike the Gallan, who talked from the back. ‘I could tell you, but I’d rather not give you any dangerous ideas.’
I probably ought to stop enjoying this. But I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had something to laugh about in this damn rebellion. Definitely not since we’d fled the Dev’s Valley. ‘And how about the fight at Iliaz? Is it true what they say? That the Blue-Eyed Bandit was outgunned and outnumbered and surrounded by enemies on all sides?’
He didn’t miss a beat, his chest swelling as he drew me towards him. ‘Oh, well, you know, what others call outnumbered, I call a challenge.’
‘I heard the Blue-Eyed Bandit got shot in the hip.’ I’d let him pull me close enough that we were almost chest to chest now. ‘Can I see the scar?’
‘My lady is very forward.’ He grinned widely at me. ‘Where I come from, you have to know a girl more than a few minutes before she’ll try to get your clothes off.’ He tilted his head forward, winking at me.
‘Well, how about I take my clothes off, then.’ Before I could think better of it, I stepped back and tugged up the side of my shirt. The huge ugly scar was hard to miss, even in the dark. ‘Because I heard the scar looked something like this.’ I was pretty sure nothing he’d ever brought into the harem for Shira was as priceless as the look on his face just then. It was almost worth the risk of giving him my identity. It might not have been a smart thing to do, now I thought about it, but it sure was satisfying. He dropped my hand as I let my shirt fall back, pulling away from him. ‘And, see, I was in Fahali, and I don’t remember you being there.’
He scratched the back of his head sheepishly as I went on. ‘I remember fighting the Gallan soldiers in the sand and I remember men burning alive on both sides, but I don’t remember you.’ The act was gone now – he was watching me with real interest. ‘But I gather you’re the reason everyone thinks I can be in two different places at once. And why I keep hearing rumours about the Blue-Eyed Bandit seducing so many women.’ That part made sense now. He was as handsome as anything, even when he looked ridiculous at the same time. And he knew it, too.
‘What can I say, I walk into their homes to take their jewels and they give me their hearts.’ He winked at Shira, who smiled enigmatically into the flower he’d given her. No, Shira was too clever to give anything away to a man she couldn’t truly have. She’d taken from him. She’d used him for her child and she was still using him.
‘So this is your way to the outside world?’ I asked my cousin.
Shira was twirling the flower he’d given her between her fingers, looking pleased with herself. ‘Sam was sneaking in and … wooing one of the Sultan’s more gullible daughters, Miassa. I noticed she kept disappearing and coming back with her hair and clothes all mussed. It didn’t take long to catch her – very silly of her to start running around with other men when she was already engaged to be married to the Emir of Bashib. I promised not to turn them both in to her father if Sam helped me.’
‘It all worked out for the best.’ The foreigner, Sam, shrugged again, as if to say it wasn’t her brains he was interested in anyway. ‘The Emir of Bashib leaves his wife alone a great deal; it’s not hard for the Blue-Eyed Bandit to visit her still now and again.’
There he went, using my name again. My temper flared. ‘Believe me when I tell you, I know the Blue-Eyed Bandit, and you’re not me. So who are you really?’
‘Well.’ He leaned his shoulder back against the wall. ‘You can’t blame a fellow for cashing in on a very good story. Nobody told me the real Blue-Eyed Bandit was so much more …’ He looked me up and down, eyes seeming to linger on the places I’d fleshed out recently. Half a year of decent meals with the Rebellion meant I wouldn’t be able to pass for a boy any more. I raised an eyebrow at him in a challenge. He coughed. ‘So much more. And I am a bandit. Well, more of a thief, I suppose. When all these stories started spreading, it was only sensible that I take advantage of my God-given looks.’ He winked one of those mocking blue eyes at me. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much easier it is to strike a good deal when you’re practically a living legend. They say you’re very good. Though you’re obviously not that good if you wound up locked in here.’
I wished I could punch him.
‘How did you get in here?’ I asked instead.
‘I’m Albish.’ He said it like it explained everything. When he was met with my blank expression, he continued. ‘Our country is crawling with magic. My mother is a quarter Faye and my father half.’ Faye. That was the northern word for their Djinn. Only they were creatures of water and soft earth. ‘If it’s stone, I can walk through it. See?’ He’d allowed himself to sink back while he was talking to me and was now elbow deep in the stone wall of the palace.
It was as impressive as anything I could do; I’d give him that. ‘What’s an Albish thief doing in Izman?’
‘My talents were wasted in Albis.’ He righted himself and the stone shifted just a little bit back into place. ‘Thought I’d bring them to your desert, where people wouldn’t expect a man of my talents to come after their jewels. The habit of locking valuables in an iron box doesn’t seem to have made it here yet.’ He wasn’t lying. I could tell that much. But he was hiding something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. There were easier places to go than Izman if it was just money he was after. Countries that weren’t in the middle of a war, for one. But he was what I’d been waiting for, someone who could get in and out of the palace at will. And I’d been raised in Dustwalk, where we didn’t look gift horses in the mouth.