“That is a terrible plan,” Saoud said. He smiled in spite of the seriousness of the moment. “But your terrible plans have done well by us this far.”
“This is the worst of them, I think,” I said. “We will be at the mercy of whoever searches this part of the wadi.”
“Do you think they are really searching, or merely tracking?” Tariq asked.
“They are camped in such a way that I think they are truly searching,” I said. “They must have a general idea of where we are.”
“We haven’t been able to make good time,” Saoud said, though he did Zahrah the courtesy of not looking at her when he said it. “We haven’t laid false trails, or done much to obscure the real one.”
“That’s true.” I said. “And now we must make the best of it. Tariq, get everything that can hold water and put it near the front of the cave. Save a pot with a good lid.”
“I don’t think I’ll throw up,” said Zahrah. She sounded almost sure of it, rather than merely determined to hold it together.
“It’s not for that, Zahrah,” I said. “We won’t be able to leave the cave tomorrow for anything, and we might have to stay under cover for more than a day.”
“Oh,” she said, and understanding dawned. It was going to be an uncomfortable time.
Tariq got the vessels and selected the one to use as a privy. Arwa took it to the back of the cave and did her best to set it up so that it would be both useful and discreet. The rest of us fetched water, using the night to cover our walks back and forth to the pool. The wadi bed was rocky, not sandy, which was a mercy: we would not leave tracks. On the third trip, Saoud found a shallower cave, closer to the pool. He dug a fire pit there, though he did not light a fire, and then buried it again. Without ashes, it would not bear up under close scrutiny, but he also took the time to strew the ground with footprints, and impressions where five people might have sat around the fire. Finally, he left his whetstone and two of Tariq’s empty thread spools.
“You can come back for it,” I told him. “They probably won’t take it.”
The whetstone had been a gift from his father.
“It’s all right,” he said. “After all, you all left your spindles behind.”
At last, we had collected all the water we could, and we withdrew to the cave to wait for sunrise. The others slept, but Saoud and I were watchful, even though there was nothing to watch but the mouth of our hiding spot, and jumped at every noise. As the sky grew lighter, we heard the wadi toads begin to croak, and we knew that the prince’s men would soon be striking their own camp and taking up their hunt again. Zahrah stirred beside me but did not wake, and I put my arm around her shoulder. It was colder now, and I didn’t want her to wake up because she was chilled. Sleep was the only real defense against the terrible wait that would be our day.
She sighed but didn’t wake, and I rested my chin on the top of her head.
“Sleep if you can, Yashaa,” Saoud said, so quietly I could scarcely hear him over the chorus of toads outside. “I will watch for a bit.”
I thought I would be unable to drift off, but found instead that I was almost unspeakably weary. Zahrah was a comforting weight beside me, and I fell asleep between one worry and the next.
It was fully daylight when I woke, though I could not have said how much time had passed. Arwa and Tariq were both awake, and when I moved I knew that Zahrah was awake too, and had only been staying still to spare my rest. Saoud was nodding off, Tariq having taken over the watch, and once he saw that I was conscious, he let himself go.
My neck was stiff, but I couldn’t stretch it properly. I knew that my legs would probably cramp up soon enough. It didn’t really matter. If we were caught, it wasn’t as though we could run. I rolled my shoulders as best as I could, feeling every knot and every place where the cave wall dug into my back. Arwa was leaning over to whisper something to Zahrah, but the words were so quiet I couldn’t hear them. Whatever Arwa said, Zahrah nodded and turned a little more toward the younger girl. I pulled my arm back from where it had rested on her shoulder and ignored the creak my elbow made when I bent it after so many hours in the same position.
Arwa removed her veil and shook out her hair. She hadn’t been able to wash her hair in days, but it was protected from the dust of the road, so it was probably cleaner than mine. I had forgotten how long it was, because she had always been so careful to tie it up. It fell nearly to her waist, and I thought she might have been able to sit on it, had she tilted her head back a little bit. She unbraided it slowly, showing Zahrah how it went, even though the movements were reversed, and then slowly braided a smaller portion of it, so that Zahrah could see.