Chapter Six“You are – safe! You are – safe!”
That evening Brucena said over and over again the same words that she had cried out when she had run towards Ian and, regardless of his appearance, flung her arms round his neck.
He looked into her eyes and she never noticed the dirt on his darkened skin or the ragged condition of his clothes,
“I am safe,” he told her quietly. “I told you to trust me.”
All she knew was that he had come back to her and nothing else in the whole world mattered.
“I was – frightened – so very frightened! But you have – brought the little boy back with you. How did you – manage it?”
She looked down at her small friend as she spoke and he had the same smile on his lips that he had given her the first time they had met.
“His name is ‘Azim’,” Ian informed her, “a
