by Joan Aiken
The aged, brittle bone snapped like a dry twig in Cal’s grasp, and he let out a shout of astonishment.
“It’s all filled with gold! Why, those old priests did a better job, even, than Wharton, the traveling dentist!”
The Pir smiled benignly. “Take what you need, my friends. But leave some for other needy travelers.”
“Oh yes, indeed, sir; we shan’t need a fiftieth of what’s here.”
“Under the bones, as I recall, there should be a black basalt box. It is full of rubies.”
The box was there, carved—probably to deter intending thieves—in the form of a cobra with raised head and hood. The head lifted off, and Cal, cautiously tipping the casket, released a flow of little red nodules, some of them cut, polished, and sparkling vermilion, others still in their rough state. “Take what you need,” said the Pir again.
After some discussion among the males, they took a dozen bones and a handful of rubies.
“Wait one moment,” said the Pir then, as they were about to recover the hoard. “Give me the box.”
Cal passed it to him and he delved carefully among its contents.
“There is one particular stone that I remember,” he murmured. “I should like to see it again.” For a few minutes it appeared that he was going to be disappointed, then he exclaimed in satisfaction:
“Ah, here it is!”
He pulled out a remarkably large, square ruby, cut and polished to a lustrous perfection. It must have weighed at least two hundred carats and was carved in the shape of a tiny altar. There were letters and characters deeply incised on all four sides.
“What a gem!” breathed Cal. “But surely, sir, that is too good for us. We have taken only a few of the smaller ones, to provide for our journey—”
The Pir smiled at him, and he fell silent, abashed. “No, my son,” the Pir agreed kindly. “This is not a stone for needy travelers to barter in exchange for camel hire or millet porridge. This is a stone for one friend to give to another, and”—he stretched out his hand—“as former abbot of this monastery, I choose to give it to my friend Miss Musson. I give it in token of our friendships in former lives and our continuing friendship.”
Cal and Scylla politely concealed gasps of amazement, but Miss Musson took the magnificent ruby composedly.
“Thank you, Your Holiness,” she replied. “Whenever I look at it—which will be many, many times every day—I shall remember your kindness and this remarkable place. I am not, as you are, able to recall our previous acquaintance, but your statement comes as no surprise to me. I feel in my heart that you may be right.”
“Perhaps they were lovers in a previous incarnation!” hopefully whispered Scylla to Cal, who replied loftily, “Psha! Perhaps our guardian was a man in a previous life. Sex may change from one incarnation to another; the Pir told me so.”
The object of their excursion having been achieved, when the revolving slab had been carefully replaced over the treasure Miss Musson declared that she, for one, was ready to eat a nuncheon. This she had foresightedly packed in the saddlebags of the ass. Accordingly the party sat on fallen pillars and consumed cold roast goat, excepting the Holy Pir, who would eat nothing but a handful of pulse.
On the journey home, nobody was inclined for conversation. So much unwonted exposure to other people, their chatter and questions, had, it was plain, tired the Holy Pir more than he cared to admit; he rode silently, in meditation, with his head bowed. Miss Musson, too, seemed full of thought. Cameron had been moodily silent all day, and remained so; the Therbah seldom spoke unless it was needful; and Cal, his sister saw, had been much moved and impressed by the atmosphere of the ruined temple and the legend of the stone horse, the Asp-i-Dheha—as indeed she had herself; she suspected that his creative demon had seized him and would not leave him again until the legend had been transformed into poetry.
They were all tired out by the time, close on sunset, that they reached the Holy Pir’s mountain. Buyantu was waiting to stable the ass and led it away, with grunts of disapproval and censorious glances at the travelers for having kept his holy master out so long. The Pir retired wearily to his cave, Cal retreated hastily to a distant cell-like cranny which he had adopted for work and reflection, the Therbah hurried off to tend the camels. Cameron was left with Scylla in the open entrance cavern, which Buyantu kept piled high with firewood and stores of grain, salt, dried snow mushrooms, and strings of edible herbs.
Cameron gave Scylla an irresolute glance, moved, as if to walk off to the cave that he used as his sleeping quarters, then turned back again.
“Miss Paget—” he began abruptly. “I have been thinking about what happened at the Bai’s castle—”
Scylla was exceedingly tired. The day’s expedition had been a long one, in hot mountain sun and biting wind. She had found the sight of the burned fortress across the valley inexpressibly saddening, and the legend of the giant’s horse had done nothing to pick up her spirits. She interrupted hurriedly:
“Pray do not allude to that, Colonel Cameron. I am sure there were faults on both sides—no useful purpose would be achieved in discussing it. Indeed, it might well be disastrous.”
“But I—”
“Excuse me, if you please. It is bad enough to realize that, if we had only known then about the Holy Pir’s treasure and his obliging nature, we need never have visited your friend the Bai—about whom I would prefer to hear no more.”
“Very well,” he replied haughtily but with evident deep mortification, and Scylla made all speed off to her own cave before he could find some other means of reintroducing the topic. The last thing she wanted just then was another quarrel with Colonel Cameron! Indeed even this passage between them, brief though it was, had power to sink her into such dejection that she cast herself on her feather couch and, to her own shame, indulged in a shower of tears. Little Chet, roused from a daylong nap in a box of sweet-smelling grass, gazed at her wonderingly until she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his hay-scented draperies. She did not know what had overset her, she told herself. Her irritation of the spirits could be nothing but fatigue and stupidity! But she was glad that Miss Musson was not there at that moment to catechize her. Miss Musson had lately taken to long periods of meditation, sitting cross-legged in a high, airy cavern that faced north; sometimes she spent the whole night there.
The evening meal, when the travelers met again, was a very silent one. Nobody had much appetite for the broth which Miss Musson had made earlier, and which the Therbah now heated up. Cal, it was worryingly plain to his sister, had succumbed to such a severe bout of creative fever that he was hardly aware of anything passing about him. His hands shook, his eyes were glazed and bloodshot, he constantly made notes on dried leaves and scraps of parchment. Scylla could only hope that this preoccupation did not bring on another of his seizures. She must be glad of anything that distracted his attention from his lost love, but this theme, perhaps, was rather too close to his own grief to be a true distraction. After swallowing a few mouthfuls of broth, he made his excuses and returned to his study-cave. Scylla, shortly following his example, bade good night to her guardian and Cameron, giving as pretext that she was weary and wished to sleep. In reality her mind was far too active for slumber, and she sat restlessly with her chin on her fists, or paced to and fro, watching the northern stars while they glitteringly wheeled across the window cranny of her cave. She would have liked to talk to Cal—but he would be busy writing, or asleep. It was unfair! He poured out his heart to her, whenever he chose.
At last, restless beyond endurance, she wrapped a black shawl around her and started out in the direction of Cal’s eyrie. The way to it led past the communal chamber where they had the fire (when Cameron judged it safe to light one). To Scylla’s considerable surprise, a dim glow of light still emanated from this chamber, and she heard the voice of her guardian, whom she had thought to be long ret
ired, in sleep or meditation.
“No, no, my dear Rob! You are all consideration, as always—kindness itself! But my mind is made up on this head. As I told His Holiness—I have other reasons, other commitments. One cannot always do as one chooses.”
Cameron’s voice came with unwonted diffidence—in a tone he had never used to Scylla.
“Miss Amanda—you may not immediately approve of what I am about to suggest now—but I must ask you not to come to any hasty conclusion until you have heard me out.”
A murmur from Miss Musson appeared to accede to this request; he went on: “That girl—that child must be a constant anxiety to you—to both of us—until she is delivered to her friends in England. With her appearance—her very considerable degree of charm—and her hasty, headstrong, willful disposition—occurrences such as the recent one must, I fear, be all too frequent between here and the Levant. Indeed, I do not scruple to say that, if we manage to get her safe as far as the shores of the Mediterranean, it will be nothing short of a miracle. Hitherto we have been traveling in the wilds—but we shall be passing through towns, Kabul, Girishk, Herat—”
“Oh, come now, my dear Rob—”
“I am not joking, Miss Amanda. I saw the looks that Mir Murad was giving her. If we had not left the Bai’s castle when we did—”
“In that case, you have been rather unfairly hard on her,” dryly remarked Miss Musson.
“Hard on her! If the wretched girl had any notion how I have worried about her—what a desperate anxiety I have been in as to her welfare—”
Here Scylla, listening in a kind of paralysis, almost interrupted to beg the colonel icily not to concern himself about her to such a degree, but he then took her breath away by continuing:
“Ma’am, I have thought it all over very carefully—many, many times—and I can only urge you to allow me to bed her now—here!—because it is almost impossible that she should escape capture and seduction somewhere along the way and—and by this means we may ensure that at least the child she bears will be white—of European blood—and that she will be somewhat prepared for what she—will understand a little better what constitutes provocative behavior—will know how to go on, in short! Also, I myself would then be in a—in a better-defined position with regard to her!”
There was a considerable pause here, while Scylla gazed ahead of her motionless, trembling, in the darkness; then Miss Musson spoke again.
“I consider that you rate the risks much too highly, Rob. I see no need for the somewhat drastic remedy you propose. Besides—only consider the consequences—suppose the poor girl were to fall in love with you?”
“Well,” he said very slowly, “then I suppose I could marry her!”
The dryness of his voice matched that of Miss Musson’s. She said quickly:
“No, no—that would be frantic folly! You are far too disparate—in age, in nature, habit—everything! No, no, you have windmills in your brain, my dear Rob! No such desperate remedy is called for. We must trust in Providence. She is a good child—and, in time, will be a sensible one; if she is overtaken by some such misfortune as you suggest, she will know how to bear it with philosophy.”
“Oh—you have been imbibing too many of the Pir’s doctrines!” he exclaimed in an exasperated tone. “Take no action! Do nothing! Raise no finger to avert disaster! Well, I have made my offer, and, since it is rejected, I will take myself off to bed.”
“Good night, Rob. Believe me, I am obliged to you for your practical consideration!” Scylla could hear the smile in Miss Musson’s voice. “I daresay you may be glad enough that I did not take you at your word and put it to the test!”
Scylla waited no longer. Silent as night itself, she turned and fled back at top speed to the chamber she had just quitted. Once there, safe from discovery, she allowed her outrage to boil over.
Striding to and fro, folding and unfolding her arms, clenching her fists, she silently fulminated against him. The presumption! The callous, arrogant self-satisfaction!
“I suppose I could marry her!” “Could you, indeed, my dearest Colonel!” she muttered between her teeth. “How very self-sacrificingly kind! What an obliging thought! And you could even overcome your repugnance so much as to bed me, so that my child might be Anglo-Saxon. Very considerate indeed! Shows such a distinguishing regard, to be sure! How exceedingly thoughtful of you it was to save me from the Bai’s horrid embraces—at the cost of a slight misunderstanding or two! You need not have troubled yourself, I assure you! I had rather be embraced by the Bai!”
And then, giving up all pretenses, even to herself, she sank down on her rumpled couch in a despairing agony of tears. Oh, it’s not true, it’s not true! I love him, I love him! It’s burning my heart out! And all I am to him is a hideous anxiety, an encumbrance that he had better take to bed so—so that I shall know how to go on when some amir carries me off!
Love is a fever, Cal had said. I feel as if I were being stretched on a rack. Sister, you have no idea! But I have, my dear Cal, his sister had silently assured him. I know what you mean only too well.—In fact it was his description of his plight that had sharpened her perceptions of her own. When had it begun? She could not say. How could it end? There was no hope of Cameron returning her feelings—no hope whatsoever. “You are too disparate in everything,” Miss Musson had said, and she had spoken nothing but the truth. He would never entertain such a notion. He thought of her as an irksome responsibility. He had loved once and would not be caught twice in that agonizing snare—and who could blame him? He was a rover, besides—would probably never settle again anywhere. His end would be like that of his wife and child—bare bones scattered on some mountainside.
Writhing in misery, shame, and anguish, Scylla thought that she would never find forgetfulness in sleep. But, astonishingly, in the end she did. The day’s exhaustion suddenly took effect, and she sank into merciful blankness and lay totally inert, heavy as a sheepskin pegged out in the waters of a mountain brook.
For what period of time she had slept she could not tell; but suddenly she was roused, she could not say how, by the presence of somebody beside her. Sound there was none—but she had a perception of warmth, breathing, awareness—then a hand grasped hers in silence: two arms went around her, two lips met hers. Confused, languid, and dizzy after this abrupt awakening out of her brief and heavy slumber, she was inclined to think it was a dream; she had had such dreams before. But this seems real, she thought bewilderedly. These arms, these lips; the prickling of a beard. Could I have imagined that? Or the strength, the weight of this body accommodating itself to hers, the desperate urgency of the stroking, caressing touches, the demanding kisses, the wilder and wilder excitement? Could I have imagined this? He has come, she thought, in spite of what my guardian said, he has come—not because he thought it right or prudent but because he wanted to! He has longed for this, he wanted it just as much as I did—oh, my dearest, dearest Rob! But no wonder he is so silent—and so will I be too—she thinks it unnecessary—folly—better if she does not know, for the present, at least. Oh, but something as marvelous as this cannot be folly! Her whole body was vibrating like—like the great horse on the mountainside, the Asp-i-Dheha—and when he drove into her, with a great gasping shudder of joy and triumph, it was all she could do not to cry out too, in triumph and wonder, So it was of this that you wanted to warn me! But you need not have been so concerned for me. It could not have been like this with anybody else. I shall be safe, now, forever; defended by knowledge, protected by love.
He murmured something, yearning and tender, nuzzling his head in her neck. “Hush, love!” she whispered, but he murmured it again, and this time she heard.
“Sripana!”
Suddenly stone-cold with terror, Scylla raised herself on her elbow. Night had paled, infinitesimally; dawn was not here yet, but it was on the way; dimly, now, she was able to see.
And what
she saw was her brother Cal.
Thirteen
“Down the well?” Fanny repeated half incredulously. She could only breathe with difficulty; it was hard to speak. “My baby is down the well? How could he be?”
“Oh, ma’am! That’s what we none of us know!”
But Fanny had not waited to hear what Mrs. Strudwick had to say.
With a kind of awed respect—not unmixed with gloating curiosity—the crowd parted to let her through as she hurried across the grass to the wellhead.
Her little flower border had been much trampled by many feet. She knelt trembling in the mud, regardless of her best sprig muslin, and looked over into the narrow brick shaft, which seemed to go darkly down forever. A faint, a very faint cry came up from far below.
“Is he badly hurt?” she whispered. “How can he be reached? How did it happen?”
How, indeed, could it have happened? Little Thomas was unable to crawl yet. Suppose he had fallen from his cradle, twenty yards away under the weeping ash, it was wholly impossible that he should have managed to make his way as far as this, let alone clamber over the low stone wall. And why had the lid been open? The servants had strict orders to keep it closed at all times, save when drawing water.
The cry came again.
“He’s not in the water—he is not drowned?”
“No, ’ee bain’t in the water, missus,” a grizzled man said—vaguely, Fanny recognized him; he was Daintrey, one of the bricklayers working on Thomas’s addition to the house. “Lucky for ’ee the water in the owd quill be turble low, ’count o’ this drought we been having; that saved the nipper from drowning, reckon. ’E be stuck, like, on a spong o’ rock what juts out down thurr; ’countable okkerd it do be getting the bucket past it now an’ agen. ’E be just about resting on it, thanks be.”