Where the Light Falls(120)

“You said your first name is André—is it not?”

“It is, sir. André Valière.”

Dumas leaned in the doorway. “My wife is pregnant. She thinks it’s a boy and she wants to name him Alexandre.”

“Alexandre Dumas,” André said, repeating the name aloud. “It’s a fine name.”

“I like André. Perhaps we’ll shorten it and call him André.”



André’s good luck continued when, the next day above deck, he heard a familiar voice. “They say that Allah is good, and yet he keeps putting you in my path.” André turned at the sound of this playful remark and stared into a wide, earnest smile.

“Ashar!” The two men embraced. “How are you, my friend?” André could not help but notice the man’s changed appearance compared to the last time he had seen him. He was dressed in a flowing saffron tunic that hung past his knees and wore a white hood coiled about his head. It was Ashar, free of his sailor’s garb and dressed in the clothes of his homeland, as if he had been restored to a former life.

“But how have I not seen you before?”

André couldn’t suppress a short, bitter laugh. “I’ve been belowdecks.”

Ashar gave a quizzical expression as the two men walked, side by side, toward the deck railing.

“I was locked away,” André added by way of explanation.

“Locked away?”

André nodded.

“But…why?”

André glanced over his shoulder, waiting as a pair of sailors passed before answering: “I seem to have made a very powerful enemy. One who has chased me here. All the way from Paris.”

Ashar’s eyes narrowed as he leaned toward André. “Who?”

André whispered the name: “General Murat.”

Ashar blinked his eyes, a grave expression settling on his handsome features. “How did you do a thing like that?”

“The true reason? I’m not sure.” André sighed, looking back out over the rolling horizon of azure blue Mediterranean. “But it could not have helped that I fell in love with his niece.”



The summer ripened into scorching heat and the late June sun poured down onto the men, turning their skin darker with each passing day. At night, a blinding moon shone, setting the water’s surface to a rolling shimmer, accented by the reflection of a thousand stars. All the while the French fleet, a traveling fortress of hundreds of ships, their sails fat with the salty Mediterranean wind, sped toward the unsuspecting kingdom of Egypt.

André, like many of the sailors and soldiers on board, was eager for information of that distant land, and no one seemed better able to provide it than the Egyptian within their ranks.

Was there really gold hidden away in the ancient tombs? they asked Ashar. Were the women truly the most beautiful in the world? Would the Mamelukes, Egypt’s legendary and mysterious warriors, choose to fight or flee to the desert when the French and their fearsome commander arrived?

Ashar enjoyed fielding these questions and did his best to stoke the imaginations of the bored Frenchmen. Yes, the tombs belonging to the dead pharaohs were stocked with riches enough to put even the Bourbon court to shame; and yet, they were guarded by ancient curses and magic that no Frenchman could possibly hope to understand. Yes, the women of Egypt would bring these foreign invaders to their knees.

But for the Mameluke warriors, Ashar showed only a mystifying respect, even a reluctance to speak of them. He assured André, and once or twice admitted frankly to the generals aboard, that they would not fear General Bonaparte’s reputation at all. The Mamelukes were brought up with fierce principles of courage and loyalty; fear was not part of their tradition.

Some of the officers scoffed at the Egyptian’s warnings, claiming that he was a mere Bedouin Arab, enamored by the power of his overlords, and that his fears were exaggerated. But André could not help but feel unease toward this arrogant way of thinking; what had become of his countrymen who had foolishly undervalued and dismissed the opinions of peasants? And what would become of a force that disregarded the ancient wisdom of the local forces it sought to conquer?

André’s main objective those days was to remain out of the path of General Murat. The general, though he had seen André several times since his sudden release, had refrained from acknowledging him in any way. And yet André, as well acquainted as he was with the general’s loathing, knew it was only a matter of time before his senior’s gray-eyed gaze alighted on him once more; Murat was not one to forget a grievance.