but I think whoever made those paintings did so sitting as you are now.” He set her down. “I want you to know about us, where we come from.”
She sat next to him against the cavern’s side and listened to a saga that began three thousand years ago, when a people known as Nubians had a mighty kingdom called Kush that was in time conquered by the Egyptians. The pharaohs ruled it for centuries, until a great king named Kashta arose to conquer the conquerors and establish a dynasty that reigned for a thousand years from its capital, a city called Meroe. It was, he said, the most powerful kingdom in black Africa, trading with the Roman Empire, exporting copper and gold and sandalwood. The Nubians of Meroe were conquered again, this time by Ethiopians from the Kingdom of Axium, who converted them to Christianity. So they remained for another millennium, some worshipping Christ, some following their ancestral faith, until the armies of the Prophet Muhammad swept out of Arabia and Muslim Egypt to win the peoples of Sudan for Islam. Then as now, the Arabs captured blacks for slaves, but some Nubians escaped the slave caravans bound for the Red Sea coast and fled into the safety of these remote hills, to which they’d given their name, its i lost over time.
“And those were the ones who made the paintings?” she whispered. It was a place that compelled whispers.
“Possibly. Or they could have been made long before. This has been a sacred place for centuries.” He stood and drew her to her feet. “We were once a great people. We conquered and were conquered in turn, but we always endured, and this war today is only a chapter in a very long story.”
They went outside, blinking against the sunlight. “We’re leaving on another operation,” he announced suddenly. “You can say we’ll be adding another sentence to the chapter.”
“And you told me all this so I’ll be strong and brave and not worry?”
“I told you about our history because I want you to be part of it.”
“You’re being awfully mysterious,” she said.
“Mysterious? No. I am being awkward because this is awkward, what I have to say.” He paused, squeezing the handle of his walking stick. “In so much of that history, we have fought with Arabs but we have also mingled our blood with them. You can see their blood in our faces, ours in theirs, but I have never heard of us mingling with white people.” His expression had become almost mournful. “I want to believe your pretty thought that God forgives us, but I can’t. I know now what we have to do.”
She drew in a breath and held it for a moment. “Michael, if you think we should . . . if you think we have to end it, I’ll be . . . You can guess what I’ll be, but I suppose it’s better to end it now, before—”
His somber look brightened a little, and he gave a faint smile. “Why do you think I said I want you to be part of our history if I wish to end it?”
“What does that mean, ‘part of our history’?” she asked with quick irritation. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means a great deal. It means I want us to be married.”
Wartime. Emotions accelerated, everything accelerated. It was all going too fast for her. She was mute.
Beads of sweat trickled over the marks on Michael’s forehead. “Can you give me an answer?”
Her heart was the organ she always listened to, but it wasn’t telling her anything now.
“You don’t have to answer immediately. It would be a very great step for both of us, but I think a greater one for you. You need to think about it.”
Step? she thought. It would be a leap, of a magnitude she could not yet imagine. “Think, yes, think,” was all she managed to say.
IF QUINETTE’S THOUGHTS and feelings had been erratic before, they were now thrown into anarchy. On the return flight to Loki, she didn’t speak to anyone, she was almost catatonic, the reverse of a cyclone—still on the outside, turbulent inside. As the team got out of the plane, Ken took her by the arm and asked what the matter was. She said, “Nothing.”
“C’mon, I know you well enough by now.”
She looked at his spare, stern face and noticed the mole on his jaw, just beneath his left ear. She must have seen it before, yet its ugliness had escaped