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golden wash spreading like gilt across the waves. Stepping out of the narrow corridor running the length of the cabins, Gareth drew the salty air deep, slowly exhaled. The barge was angling northwest, following others into the narrowing mouth of the Red Sea, still some way ahead.
    Seeing Watson leaning on the railing, eyes on the distant shore, Gareth ambled over. Watson glanced at him, then straightened.
    Gareth smiled. “Go in and get some sleep—I’ll take over until Mooktu appears.”
    Stifling a yawn, Watson nodded. “Thank you, sir. It’s been quiet all night.” He looked over the water. “Lovely morning, but I’m going to find my bed. I’ll leave you to it.”
    With a half salute, Gareth settled, still smiling, against the rails. He heard Watson stump off into the cabins. The slap of waves against the hull was soothing, the faint mumble of voices from the stern—the crew chatting—punctuated by the call of a wheeling gull.
    Over the last days, while avoiding their mistress, he’d made an effort to get to know her people. If they were to travel on together, he needed to know what manner of troops he had under his command.
    Both Watson and Mullins were unreservedly grateful for his rescue of their charge. Mullins had been an infantryman until after Waterloo. He’d returned to his home village in Northamptonshire, looking for employment, and had runinto Watson, who, with Bonaparte defeated and the Continent safe again, had been setting up as a travel guide to take young gentlemen on the modern equivalent of the old Grand Tour. Watson was the courier-guide, Mullins the guard. Jimmy, Watson’s sister’s son, had been brought on this trip to learn the ropes.
    Over the years, Watson and Mullins had worked frequently for the Ensworth family, who they consequently knew well. The family was large; they’d conducted three male Ensworths around the Continent, as well as escorting the elder Ensworths on various trips. The family were valued and well-liked clients; just the thought of losing Emily—one of the younger of the brood—was enough to make both Watson and Mullins, experienced though they were, literally blanch.
    They also liked Emily herself; seen through their eyes, she was a sensible, calm, and even-tempered young lady they had no qualms over conducting halfway around the world.
    Both Watson and Mullins were in their middle years, and shared a tendency to corpulence. Although still hale, able, and active, as Gareth had earlier intimated to Emily, neither rode well, and it sounded as if Jimmy’s equestrian abilities owed more to enthusiasm than skill. It was a point he would have to bear in mind in arranging their transport onward.
    Mullins took his duties seriously; in Aden he’d asked Mooktu to help sharpen his sword skills. Meanwhile Bister had, unasked, taken Jimmy under his wing; Gareth had seen the pair practicing knife throwing, Bister’s specialty. In terms of protecting the women in the party, they weren’t without resources.
    Not that Gareth thought Arnia needed protecting. Like Mooktu, she hailed from the northwestern frontier, and like all the females of those tribes, was as lethal with blades as her menfolk, yet the cultists would be unlikely to recognize the danger Arnia posed, not until it was too late.
    Learning about Dorcas, Emily’s very English maid, a tall, bustling and competent female somewhere in her late thirties, had required the application of a certain amount ofself-effacing charm, but she’d eventually thawed enough to admit that she rode very poorly, and that she’d been with Emily and her family for most of Emily’s life.
    Dorcas, too, was grateful for his rescue and subsequent protection of her mistress, yet she continued to view him with an underlying suspicion she did nothing to hide. As he’d been careful to suppress, and if not that then conceal all evidence of his unhelpful attraction to her charge, he wasn’t sure what lay behind Dorcas’s watchful,