Page 16 of To Tame a Viking Warlord

"You fight well, for an ajnabi, but I did not need you."

"No," Torstein agreed. "But you were in danger, and I did not care to watch."

She glanced toward the end of the lane where they had gone. Whatever had eased in her face closed again.

"Who were they?" he asked.

"Men who ask me for something I do not have." Her jaw set. "They have asked twice now. They will ask a third time."

"Then let me walk with you."

"La." It came immediately, and it was final. No.

Then she seemed to hear how it had sounded. She looked at him again, properly this time, and for a moment the wariness left her expression altogether.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Yours," he replied.

The silence stretched between them.

Samira frowned slightly, confused at his answer.

Torstein realized what he'd said and cleared his throat. "My name is Torstein."

"Shukran, Torstein." She thanked him. "I will not forget what you did."

She had only offered her thanks but not her name. Then she stepped back, recovered her face, slid her blade back into the sheath in her forearm, shortened her telek then placed it beneath the fold of her tunic where it vanished as though it had never been drawn. She nodded once then sprinted away and did not look back. At the far end she turned into the crowd of the wider street, and the crowd closed behind.

"Wait!" Torstein chased after her. Panic rose within him; he needed more time with her. But she was already gone.

He lost her within twenty paces in the press of the souk and spotted her again in the distance only by chance, a dark braid disappearing up a narrow stairway wedged between two houses. By the time he reached the open ground below the terraces, she was already on the rooftops.

Somewhere above, the call to prayer began, unhurried, indifferent, as though nothing earth-shattering had happened here at all.

Torstein stopped and stood and watched.

The woman ran along the roofs of Fez the way other people walked a level road, crossing gaps between terraces, her stride never once breaking for any of them. She cleared a low parapet without putting a hand to it. Then a taller wall took her from sight, and she disappeared.

Torstein was attempting to follow when he was stopped by a strong arm on his shoulder.

"There ye are." Njal's voice, behind him.

Mathias came around the corner a moment later, still clutching some length of leather he had clearly been swindled into buying.

"Ye walked off," Njal said. "In a city we dinnae ken, down streets that all look the same, without a word to any of us. Another turn or two and we'd have been asking strangers to help find your huge arse."

"There was trouble. Three men set upon a woman in an alley."

"And is she well?" Mathias asked.

"She is." Torstein was still watching the empty terraces. "But I need to find her."

Njal followed his gaze up to the rooftops, then brought it back to Torstein's face. "Torstein."

"Aye."

"We've yet to locate where the merchant lives. Ye cannae go chasing a woman across the roofs of Fez. We'd never find ye again. Remember we are here with a task to complete."