The Boy In White Linen

by Jon Jacks

  Slipping the chain from about her neck, she raised it so that the jewelled pendant came clear of where it had been nestled against her bosom.

  It sparkled red in the light from the windows, as red as the walls of Jerusalem.

  Mary gasped at its beauty.

  ‘Miss! No, please. I can’t accept something like that! It must have cost a fortune, Miss! It’s more than my life’s worth, to accept something like that!’

  Even though Mary was insisting that she couldn’t accept such a fabulously expensive gift, she couldn’t take her eyes off the glowing, heart shaped ruby that twinkled like captured fire before her.

  ‘You can accept it, and you will,’ Lil insisted, stepping forward and, as part of the same graceful movement, slipping the necklace’s chain about Mary’s neck and clasping it shut, the ruby pendant falling softly against the maid’s chest.

  Mary cupped the glowing heart in her hand. Still warm with Lil’s body heat, it seemed to beat as if alive, until, with a thrilled giggle, Mary realised it was just her own trembling excitement.

  ‘Miss, I can’t, I can’t–’

  ‘Mary, you can, and you will. I don’t need it anymore; not if, as I hope, I’ll soon be replacing it with a real heart – a heart I don’t think I could now live without.’

  She glanced apprehensively out of the window once more.

  ‘I’m sure he’ll be safe, Miss,’ Mary said reassuringly, instantly recognising the cause of Lil’s anxiety.

  Turning back to face Mary, Lil smiled thankfully.

  ‘What kind of danger do you think he’ll be in, Mary?’

  ‘Honestly, Miss? You want an honest answer?’ Mary blinked nervously.

  ‘I think you’ve already given me your answer, Mary.’ Lil sighed miserably. ‘That was more or less what I’d assumed anyway. And it’s all my silly fault that he’s caught up in it. If only we hadn’t been there when it all started up then–’

  ‘Please Miss, sorry to interrupt Miss; but that’s not your fault, Miss. He would have been called back to duty, and ordered to go in there. You can’t blame yourself.’

  ‘But how could it get to this point, Mary? Where a whole city is rioting, with different groups of people who lived alongside each other now attacking each other? Why didn’t anybody see this coming?’

  ‘Oh, but they did, Miss. That’s what I picked up from the talks the master would have with his friends when I was serving them drinks; that they knew it would all explode in their faces one day – that’s what the master said – but they were dammed if they knew how to prevent it – that’s what one of his friends said, Miss. I used to walk away from those meetings humming an old children’s tune, Miss; a German tune Miss, something about mending a hole in bucket – no, a jug. I think the German translates as jug, Miss.’

  ‘A hole in a jug? Oh, yes, yes; Heinrich and Liese. When they try and mend the jug, they can’t because they need the jug to fetch the water in. Is that the one?’

  Mary nodded, grinned in embarrassment.

  ‘I know it’s silly, Miss; saying the problems we’ve got here are like a children’s song. But at the time, Miss, I didn’t realise it was going to end up so badly.

  They both jumped as a shot rang out from the city.

  ‘You weren’t to know,’ Lil said consolingly, anxiously staring out of the window yet again. ‘I doubt even Harry suspected that it would end up like this.’

  *

  Chapter 16

  O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.

  Song of Songs 2; 14

  Harry was covered in sweat streaked dust and splattered with blood, both his own and that of others.

  He was exhausted, frustrated, furious, disheartened, dismayed. He was no longer fearful, as he had been at an earlier point in the riots, when he still possessed a sense that he had to somehow ensure he survived the mayhem erupting and growing around him. As the violence had increased, his fear had, ironically, diminished, as his aim changed to providing safety for the innocent people he saw around him being mercilessly clubbed, raped, knifed, killed.

  It had all started off badly enough, with the stalls, shops and the houses of the Jewish quarter being overturned or looted. Next came the hurling of stones at people caught out in the streets, mainly old men, women and children. Stones were replaced with clubs, then knives. Then people who had locked their stores or taken shelter in their homes were dragged out onto the streets, were they could be beaten and kicked by furious groups of men.

  When Harry’s Jewish officers and soldiers tried to make arrests, they were frequently attacked too, until Harry fired his gun into the air, warning everyone that his men would shoot unless the baying crowd backed off. Only then would his men be allowed to drag their prisoners clear. The crowd would stand off, glaring furiously at Harry, the odd wrathful cry ringing out from them, curses that he didn’t know what he was doing, that he was a traitor

  Eventually, so many of his men had been either so badly injured or had had to return to the gate with their prisoners that Harry had been left with no choice but to enlist the aid of the Arab policemen, even though he constantly remained unsure as to where their loyalties truly lay. Worse, whenever they obeyed his orders to make an arrest, the surrounding men spat at them, accusing them of treachery. As such, they were kicked and clubbed even more savagely than his Jewish officers had been, and Harry feared that they wouldn’t put up with it for much longer.

  ‘Harry, Harry!’

  While keeping an eye on the crowding men threatening his officers for dragging away two men caught attacking a Jewish family, Harry glanced about him, trying to find out who was calling him.

  It was another British officer, Jim Knight, like him a man in his very early twenties, and like him commanding a handful of men who were struggling to contain a much larger group advancing through the narrow streets.

  ‘Orders have come through Harry; we have to enforce a curfew,’ Jim yelled out. ‘Once we get things calmed down, of course,’ he added with ironic joviality.

  One of Jim’s policemen fired a warning shot into the air, two of his comrades running backwards away from the crowd, trailing a captured man between them on the ground.

  A responsive shot cracked out from the angry crowd. One of Harry’s men spun wildly on his feet, clutching at his throat. He crumpled to the floor, blood bubbling from his mouth, spurting through a hole in his neck.

  ‘Get him back to the gate, get him back to the gate!’ Harry screamed urgently, kneeling down beside the injured man as he scanned the crowd in the vain hope of seeing who had fired the shot.

  ‘Take the prisoners too!’ Harry ordered, keeping his eyes on the crowd as he backed away from them, covering his men as they fell back carrying their injured friend, or dragging along their stubbornly reluctant captives.

  It was a retreat, Harry had to admit to himself, but, he hoped, only a temporary one. He had no choice but to withdraw. He had officers holding prisoners, prisoners he could hardly let go. His men were also exhausted, their tempers frayed, their fear of being injured or killed increasing with every violent encounter.

  What fear would the crowds have of the law, of later retribution, if the police either collapsed as a coherent force or ceased to exist through too many injuries and fatalities?

  He glanced down at the injured officer being carried between a group of his urgently running men.

  The man’s face was white, pained, his eyes rolling back beneath his upper lids.

  Was he going to die?

  It seemed likely.

  It might just be a coincidence, of course, but it was the man who had seen the unicorn.

  Suddenly, his heart felt as if it had been brutally stabbed.

  Lil.

  Lil had also seen the unicorn.

  *

  Chapter 17

  As the hart pantet
h after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

  Psalm 42; 1

  Feeling hot, Lil had cast off most of her bed sheets, leaving nothing but a single, white linen sheet that draped around her, clinging to her contours like a sheen of milk.

  She rose from her bed, leaving the comforting sheet swathed around her, her body white in the moonlight streaming in through her still opened window. Her legs felt powerful, strong, giving her steps a grace she had never experienced before.

  She ran towards the window, her eyes focused on the silver orb of the moon. She leapt, her elegantly muscled legs propelling her up and forward, her body instinctively slipping into an athletic diving pose that she knew would help her effortlessly clear the window frame without the slightest scrape. The linen sheet fell from her, creating soft waves across the carpet, yet her skin remained as white as freshly fallen snow.

  Before her, she brought her arms together, tucking her head safely down into the valley between them. She sailed out into the silvery air, briefly feeling weightless before, gravity taking its hold, she began to fall towards the garden a floor below.

  Her arms would have broken, rather than breaking the fall. Fortunately, by the time they touched the ground, they were lithe, muscular, and specifically created for absorbing the impact of such a magnificent leap.

  Her even more powerful hind legs were the next to touch the ground and, as soon as they did, a simple flexing of Lil’s flanks sent her off in another leap across the garden.

  It was more flying than running. Her legs seemed tireless, invulnerable to pain or strain. Her body flowed with each powerful surge of her legs, the muscles hidden beneath rippling like scudding clouds.

  The garden wall presented no problem to her. She passed over it as if it were nothing more than a row of pebbles. Then she was on a paved street, her hooves clacking on the stone rhythmically.

  The road rose up towards the city gate, but Lil flew up it as if it were downhill all the way. The gate should have been closed, but one of the policemen on guard thought he heard something, decided it was important enough to pull it open a little and take a look, just in case, just to be safe. With the slightest of swerves, a ducking of her horned head, Lil flowed through the gap, breaking into a full gallop as she finally entered the old city.

  Now the clatter of her hooves rang out through the walled streets, echoing, magnified, yet no one woke, no one – not even the policemen stalking the streets, maintaining a hard-fought for curfew – pointed her out or, it seemed, even noticed her. The clattering increased, the echoes clashing, disturbing the rhythm. Then the echoes, strangely, impossibly, became louder, harder than the clacking of her own striking hooves. This was a pounding, a thunderous roar of hammering hooves, beating against the ground like an army beats to war.

  Instinctively, sensing danger, she spun around a corner. It was just in time. Coming the other way down an adjacent alley, and at full tilt, the unicorn was charging towards her. It snorted, it breathed, as if it were an oncoming storm. Its heavy, muscular flanks thrashed with an irresistible power, an irrevocable purpose, its very nature making it unnatural, unknown and frightening.

  Now, at last, cries of warning went up from the odd policeman, shouts directing a chase, yells of confusion and frustration.

  But still the thrashing beast pursued the fleeing Lil, the drumming of its hooves, the snorting of its hot breath, possessing a dangerous, enveloping physicality in their own right.

  She couldn’t run much farther. Now she was tiring, her legs were screaming in pain.

  Why was it hunting her?

  What had she done to deserve this?

  Why couldn’t she be left alone?

  She whirled yet again around a sharp corner, vainly hoping to give the pursuing beast the slip. But it was like a pure white wraith, endlessly on her tail, unshakable, as if it would always foresee her every move, be conscious of her every thought, her every emotion.

  She skipped across a stream of rubble strewn across the street, the remains of fallen wall. She curled her body around a corner, prepared to power herself forward once more with a push of her hind legs; but it was a dead end, a small garden.

  She crashed through a curtain of low hanging braches, almost struck the olive tree’s trunk.

  She waited, her heart drumming uncontrollably, dangerously.

  Behind her, she felt a wall of approaching heat, the heat of striving flesh and muscle, of a breath that demands recompense, a heart that can’t be refused.

  The flesh touched hers, melding in the shared heat. The breath caressed, flowed about her. The heart beat thunderously with hers.

  She was no longer a hind.

  She was a young woman once more.

  An arm curled around her waist, another about her bosom.

  They pulled her close, longingly, tightly, as if they would never, ever let her go.

  She let herself go, fell back against him, sighed with relief, with love.

  ‘Lil,’ he breathed.

  ‘My love.’

  ‘My life.’

  *

  Chapter 18

  Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.

  Song of Songs 4; 16

  When Lil woke up, the linen sheet she lay under felt cool, silky smooth.

  She smiled happily, sensing a freedom, a sense of release, within herself that she had never felt before.

  The end of her nose tickled. Instinctively, still half asleep, she dragged a hand out from beneath the sheet to swipe a finger across her nose tip.

  The finger touched something, knocking it off her nose and onto her cheek, where its light touch continued to tickle her.

  Drowsily, she picked it clear of her face, curiously held it closer to a half opened eye so that she could see what this strange thing was that had fallen onto her face.

  It was a small, dark green leaf. An olive leaf.

  She opened her eyes wider. Then wider still when she saw the weeping branches of an olive tree draping over her like a green awning.

  She wasn’t in her room.

  She was outside.

  She wasn’t in her bed.

  She wasn’t lying on anything particularly soft, she realised.

  She was in a garden. Azar’s garden. She recognised it for sure when she turned her head to the left.

  She turned to her right.

  Harry; Harry was with her, sleeping beneath the linen sheet.

  She gasped; No!

  She glanced beneath the sheet, urgently looking down at herself.

  NO!

  *

  Chapter 19

  Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice: cause me to hear it. Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.

  Song of Songs 8; 13-14

  Tucking the sheet more tightly about herself, Lil sat up, began to rise to her feet; then stopped in a half crouch, realising that if she continued to stand, she would end up dragging the other half of the sheet off Harry, revealing his nakedness.

  ‘Harry!’ she wailed desperately, trying to wake him while keeping her voice as low as possible, in case anybody heard her, in case anybody caught them together in such an embarrassing, dishonourable situation.

  ‘Lil?’

  Lil anxiously spun around, looking towards where she had heard her name spoken. Azar was standing in the doorway leading into the house, beaming brightly.

  ‘Azar!’

  Lil shamefully pulled the sheet more tightly around her, finally waking Harry, who looked around in what could have been a bewildered, drunken stupor.

  ‘You’re awake,’ Azar observed calmly, still smiling amusedly.

  ‘What am I doing here?’ Lil moaned miserably. ‘What are we doing here?’

  Harry had now grabbed at what little of the sheet still covered h
im, almost pulling it off Lil, who tugged back on it irritably. He looked every bit as confused and ashamed as Lil.

  ‘What, what’s going on Azar, Lil?’

  ‘Stop pulling the sheet Harry!’

  ‘There are clothes for you there,’ Azar said, pointing to a small, neat pile of traditional clothes just by where Harry’s head had been while he was asleep. ‘And for you Lil,’ he added, indicating what looked like Martha or Mary’s robes hanging from a branch of the olive tree.

  ‘They’re not my clothes!’ Lil protested ungratefully.

  ‘True,’ Azar agreed nonchalantly. ‘But when Martha found you both asleep in our garden, you didn’t have any clothes.’

  ‘Martha saw us?’ both Harry and Lil wailed despondently together.

  ‘We were under the sheet, yes?’ Lil added hopefully.

  Azar shook his head.

  ‘She brought out the sheet; she thought you both needed covering up while you slept.’

  ‘No!’ Lil groaned.

  ‘Why didn’t you wake us up, Azar?’ Harry irately demanded, struggling to slip on an undergarment while remaining beneath the sparse covering of the sheet.

  ‘Hurry up Harry!’ Lil complained. ‘I can’t stay like this!’

  ‘You seemed so content, so peaceful,’ Azar said in reply to Harry’s question. ‘It seemed a shame to wake you.’

  As Harry at last threw his side of the sheet aside, now decently if not completely clothed, Azar offered a hand to Lil.

  ‘You can change inside, Lil,’ he said, reaching for and taking down the hanging robes with his other hand. Lil grateful accepted the clothes from him as, wrapping the sheet tightly about her, she tripped past him towards the house.

  ‘How are Mary and Martha?’ Quickly slipping on the rest of the clothes supplied by Martha, Harry now felt ashamed that he had not thought to ask earlier if Azar’s sisters had suffered any injury or hurt in the previous night’s riots. ‘I checked your house as often as I could; but I never saw that happen.’

  With a nod of his head, he indicated the collapsed wall at the end of the garden.