City of Jasmine

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  “Herr Doktor, please, I’m sure he didn’t realise what he was saying. The pain from his jaw, and he hasn’t eaten properly in days, and hasn’t slept much, and of course, he’s still terribly upset from when I shot him—”

  Schickfuss stopped midrant and stared at me. “You shot him?” He peered at Gabriel then nodded. “This I can understand. But what was it that tempted you to shoot him?”

  “Well, it’s rather a long story and I’m afraid I’d rather not go into it just now. Why don’t we all sit down and have a nice dinner? You can tell me more about your plans for the Cross and the museum, and he will keep his mouth shut. If he doesn’t, perhaps we’ll shoot him again.”

  At length, Herr Doktor permitted me to coax him into sitting down and finishing his meal.

  Daoud, who had continued to eat without the least concern, nodded at the German. “I told you Madame Starke would try her charms on you. She talks too much, but you will get used to it.”

  “No, you won’t,” Gabriel interjected.

  Daoud laughed, and by the time we were finished eating, the atmosphere had grown positively chummy. I learned that Daoud had a wife and two sons, and that Herr Doktor hailed from Silesia.

  “Such beautiful country, Frau Starke!” he told me. “Have you never been? Ach, you must go and fly over it in your aeroplane. Such beauty must be seen best from above, I think. So lovely a land as God accounted himself pleased when he made it. Of course, what will become of it now...?” He trailed off unhappily. “Always the rest of Europe fights over us. We have been Polish and Prussian and Bohemian. But really, we are Germans.” His face was woebegone, and I felt a pang of sympathy for him, but Daoud made an unpleasant noise.

  “How do you think we feel? At least it’s your own kind fighting over you. Our land doesn’t even belong to us, so I think we will speak no more about who is to be pitied.”

  Of course, there was no reply to make. Daoud was entirely correct. It was tiresome enough that Europeans quarrelled among themselves for bits of their own continent; it seemed pure bad manners they insisted on doing it elsewhere.

  Herr Doktor looked uncomfortable, and Daoud did not attempt to soothe the moment. He rose, beckoning his fellows to come and clear away the food and bind me up again.

  Gabriel quirked a brow inquiringly. “Not me? Let me guess, I’m the after-dinner entertainment.”

  Schickfuss chuckled while Daoud gave a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “As a matter of fact,” he said, reaching a hand under Gabriel’s arm and hauling him to his feet, “you are.”

  I started to rise, as well, but one of the guards shoved me back onto my heels and motioned for me to stay. The men moved out of the tent then, and only Daoud had a backwards glance for me. “Do not fear, Madame Starke. I will leave him in one piece. Mostly.”

  He dropped the flap of the tent and I was left alone, although I had little doubt guards were posted outside, and probably far more diligent than the first lot. I had seen only one of them since we’d been returned to the camp and he had been sporting a blackened eye and a sour expression, doubtless the result of Daoud’s disappointment at the fellow letting us escape.

  The next few hours were not pleasant ones. I couldn’t tell if they’d taken Gabriel into another tent or left him outside, but I could hear raised male voices from time to time and other sounds I didn’t like to think about. At one point I heard Gabriel’s quick, taunting laugh, and what followed turned my stomach to water. I crawled far away from the tent flap and curled up as best I could with my hands bound behind me. I must have slept, for the sky was just beginning to grey when the flap was lifted and Gabriel was chucked inside. He landed limply on the Turkish rug and did not move.

  Daoud came in behind him followed by Herr Doktor. Daoud looked oddly satisfied as he regarded his handiwork, and I noticed his hands were marked with blood. He came to me and took a knife from his belt. One quick slash and I was free, chafing my wrists as he stepped back.

  “I will not bother to bind him. He’ll be no trouble to me now.”

  He gave me a broad smile and turned on his heel and left. Herr Doktor lingered a moment, his eyes inscrutable. “I will send water and food.”

  I dared not look at Gabriel. “Is he—”

  “No.” He hesitated as if he wanted to say more, but instead he left me quickly and without another glance at Gabriel.

  I rolled my wrists and flexed my fingers. I stretched my sore back and when I couldn’t find any other reason to delay the inevitable, I went to Gabriel. It wasn’t as bad as I feared, although I had no doubt if he were conscious he would have informed me otherwise with a few choice words.

  He was sporting a few fresh bruises on his face and on his arms there were odd little cuts that had bled freely. I opened his shirt and the bruise he’d gotten from being shot was blooming magnificently, but there seemed little else wrong with him. His legs were not bleeding at all from the looks of his trousers, and I poked at his ribs to see if anything else ailed him except the minor contusions on his face.

  “You enormous faker,” I said. “They didn’t do a thing except poke you once or twice in the face and make a few nicks on your arms. I’ve done worse in crash landings.” He stirred as I spoke, reaching out a hand to me. As he stretched his arm, he gave a deep groan and dropped it again, his face contorted in pain.

  “Gabriel,” I said, a trifle uncertainly. He didn’t respond, and I felt a horrible suspicion dawning. I tugged as gently as I could at his shirt and he gave another deep groan, this one of protest as well as pain, but I didn’t stop until I had rolled him onto his stomach. His shirt was soaked in blood, great stripes of it, some freshly red, some dark and clotted. I crawled to the corner and heaved quietly for a moment. When I was done, I wiped my mouth and went back to him. I gritted my back teeth together and seized the edge of his shirt, curling my fingers so tightly I thought the bones would break.

  “Not all at once, Madame Starke,” said Daoud from the flap of the tent. He was followed by one of his men with a basin of hot water and a few other oddments. “I have brought useful things,” he told me.

  He watched as his man set down the water and an old robe along with a battered tin of some dried-up salve with Turkish writing on the label.

  “How did you do this?” I asked evenly.

  He gave me a thin smile. “I am skilled with a riding crop.”

  “Bastard.”

  Daoud shrugged. “He was stubborn.”

  “Yes, well, that I can believe. I hope you got what you want.”

  The smile deepened. “Indeed, madame. I am leaving you now. Herr Doktor will remain behind with a few of my men to guard you.” He nodded towards Gabriel. “The information he gave me may not be entirely accurate. I might have a few more questions for him.”

  He strode out and left me with Gabriel. He hadn’t given me a knife, so I had to use my teeth to tear the robe into strips. I soaked one of them in the water and used it to saturate the remains of his shirt. It took a long time to coax it free, but eventually I managed and only a little fresh blood flowed when I pulled it off. I washed him as best I could and saw that the wounds were long but very thin and rather shallower than I had expected. Daoud had used a small whip with a slender lash. I pried open the tin, breaking a few fingernails in the process. The salve inside smelled evil, but it was better than nothing. I softened it with some of the hot water and larded the rank stuff into his wounds. He stirred and protested, but I told him to shut up and finished the job. I bound up the worst of his wounds, and wished we’d saved a little of the whisky, as much for me as him.

  As if I’d spoken aloud, Herr Doktor entered with a small flask. “How is he? A little schnapps would not go amiss, I think,” he said. He opened the flask and handed it to me. “But first for the lady. I think this is not an easy thing for you.”

  “Oh, I do
n’t know. I like my men bloody and unconscious,” I said brightly.

  But my hand trembled as I took the flask and the shrewd old eyes missed nothing. The schnapps burned straight to my belly and I gasped, choking a little as I handed the flask back.

  “An old family recipe.” He eased an arm under Gabriel’s chest, and with surprising economy of movement, shifted him onto his side. Gabriel stirred and Herr Doktor gave him a sip of schnapps. Gabriel swallowed it down, followed quickly by two more gulps, then dropped his head. Schickfuss arranged him comfortably then gave me another long pull on the flask. He nodded approvingly as I didn’t choke that time.

  “You like the schnapps, Frau Starke,” he said with a smile of delight. “It is good to take what is fine about the old country, no? Some things we must not forget—including how to take care of our friends.”

  His gaze sharpened suddenly and I stared at him. He smiled as he realised I was beginning to understand. “Now, dear lady. Let us put our heads together and devise a way to escape with our companion.”

  * * *

  I gaped at him and he handed back the flask without a word. I took another hefty swallow and only stopped when the tent began to swim around me. I shook my head to clear it.

  “You’re not a friend. You’re in league with Daoud.”

  He spread his hands. “Sometimes one must do a little ill to effect a greater good.”

  I shook my head again, trying to fit the pieces together. “You mean you’re here to keep Daoud from doing him more harm?”

  His mouth turned down, his moustaches vibrating with disapproval. “Violence is distasteful, madame, particularly the violence of a brutal man. There are fine men in the desert, fine men of noble character. Regrettably, Daoud is not one of these. He is a little rough in his enthusiasms. He needed some persuading to consider the idea that our Mr. Starke might have some more useful information and it would be best to keep him alive.”

  “Mr. Starke? I suppose Daoud told you who he is?”

  He shrugged and said nothing.

  “So he has you to thank for his life at least. I’ll make sure he writes you a nice thank-you note,” I told him. He looked a trifle hurt, and I rolled my eyes. “What did you expect? A parade? You helped Daoud find us and bring us back here in the first place.”

  “Daoud was already well on his way to finding you when I joined him,” he said, his manner stiff. “I did all that I could to protect you. Both of you,” he said with a meaningful lift of the brows.

  I sighed. “I suppose I owe you a bit of thanks for that. But unless you happen to have a vehicle outside and a quantity of morphine, I don’t see how we’re going to move him more than twelve feet. He’s a dead weight, and between you and me, rather a considerable one.”

  “I am not fat,” Gabriel muttered from the rug. “It’s muscle.”

  With a guttural groan, he shoved himself up onto one arm. The arm shook but it held him as he opened one bloodshot eye to look at Herr Doktor. “Give me more of that rubbish you call liquor and I can walk anywhere. I’m not sticking around for Daoud to take another go at me, if it’s all the same to you,” he added with a quick glance at me.

  Herr Doktor obediently passed over the flask. Gabriel downed a significant amount, and the more he drank the sadder Schickfuss looked. “It came all the way from Breslau,” he said as Gabriel drained the last drops.

  “It went to a good cause,” Gabriel told him. He took a great breath, wincing as he did, then forced himself to his knees.

  “If you’re going to puke, don’t get it on my shoes,” I told him.

  He gave a single roar like a bull and forced himself upright onto his feet. He swayed but didn’t falter. “I need a shirt,” he said, his voice hoarse. I picked up the bloody rag he’d been wearing with my two fingers.

  “This will have to do. We’re fresh out of clean shirts.”

  He struggled into it with a great deal of swearing, but only a few of the wounds opened, and he was looking a little steadier. He turned to Herr Doktor. “How many are out there?”

  Herr Doktor counted on his fingers. “Three, I think. I have a plan.”

  Gabriel didn’t wait to hear it. He fisted his hands together and pushed past us, thrusting open the tent flap. As soon as he strode into the sunlight, two of Daoud’s men jumped up from the campfire in front of the tent, reaching for their weapons.

  Heaven only knows what Gabriel would have done then, but before either of them could cock their guns, two quick, muffled pops sounded and they slumped to the ground. The third and final guard emerged from an adjacent tent, but as he opened his mouth, a third pop sounded. He slid onto his stomach and lay perfectly still, bleeding urgently into the sand beneath him.

  Gabriel and I stared at Herr Doktor, who was looking regretfully at the elegant pistol in his hand. It had been fitted with a neat little silencer, and the pops made by the weapon were no louder than the slipping of a cork from a bottle of champagne. “I told you I had a plan.”

  He guided us around one of the tents and threw his arms open wide with a showman’s flourish.

  “But that’s—”

  “Mother Mary,” Gabriel said through gritted teeth. It was crouched there like a great hulking beast.

  “But I tore out a handful of her wiring!” I protested.

  Herr Doktor clucked his tongue at me. “Frau Starke, there are ways to manage such difficulties. Even in the Badiyat ash-Sham.”

  I threw open the bonnet and peered in. The tangled nest of wires had been put back into perfect order and the fuel tank Gabriel had smashed open had been neatly patched.

  Herr Doktor gave me a sheepish smile. “I like to tinker with engines. I was not a linguist during the war, you know.”

  “What exactly did you do?”

  He preened himself a little. “I am a man of many talents.”

  Herr Doktor opened the doors and waved us in. I took the front passenger seat and didn’t bother to look back at Gabriel. He would manage under his own power—no doubt with a great deal of swearing and gritted teeth—and he wouldn’t thank me for interfering.

  The old gentleman reached down and sparked two wires together. Mother Mary shuddered to life and we started off. “I must be cautious here. We do not wish to be bogged in the sand,” he explained. “I think none of us would like to be apprehended by Daoud after he has seen my little mess.”

  He negotiated the terrain expertly and pointed us east, not towards Palmyra, but not Damascus, either. I glanced back to see Gabriel had crawled into the vehicle on his belly and was lying facedown on the rear seat.

  Herr Doktor fell silent then, and his features sagged a little. The exhilaration of effecting our escape had run its course, and he seemed tired. “This is a young man’s game,” he told me.

  “I think you must be a mind reader, Herr Doktor,” I replied.

  “Pah. I have lived a long time, and always I like the pretty girls. It is not difficult to know what they think. You study something the whole of your life, it’s no strange thing to become something of an expert.”

  I laughed aloud and he gave me one of his twinkling smiles. “I don’t suppose you are going to tell us why you came to our rescue? Or what you hope to gain from this?”

  He nodded. “All in good time, dear lady. Now, if the snores coming from behind us are any indication, the good gentleman has fallen asleep. I think you should rest, as well. We have a long drive, and I know the way. You are safe, liebchen.”

  After the war, I wouldn’t have thought a German endearment would move me at all, but something about his tone warmed me.

  I did as Herr Doktor told me, and almost as soon as I curled up, I fell dead asleep. When I woke, the long afternoon shadows were falling across the desert and looming ahead of us were the crumbling remains of a tall stone tower.

 
“Heavens, what is that?” I asked him.

  “That, dear lady, is the Crusader castle, Castel La Soie. It was built by a Provençal knight who came to fight with Count Raymond of Toulouse during the First Crusade. Raymond wanted to extend the territory of the Outremer, so he permitted his knight to build a castle out here. The fellow thought he would grow rich on the silk trade between Baghdad and Damascus. Unfortunately for him, his sense of geography was not as good as his skills as an architect,” he added with a wheezing laugh. “He built it fifty miles off the Silk Road!” He paused to laugh again, and I smiled politely. There didn’t seem much that was funny in undertaking such a mammoth project and getting it wrong.

  “Raymond of Toulouse was enraged, of course, but before he could punish his man, the count died. His successor did not trouble himself, and so the Provençal knight lived here, out of the way and alone with only a few servants to attend him. When he died, the castle was abandoned, although pilgrims and travellers have used it when they have wandered astray. Gradually, all has fallen to ruin except a few small rooms.” He drew close to the base of the tower then applied the brake. “I have some supplies and I think we can be comfortable here for the night. Then we will make our plans, shall we not?”

  Gabriel had slept heavily the entire trip with the result that he was so hideously stiff he almost couldn’t move at all. Herr Doktor helped him from Mother Mary, gingerly lifting one of Gabriel’s arms to put about his shoulders. Gabriel didn’t swear for once, but he went white to the lips and for one horrible moment I thought he would faint.

  Instead, he ground his teeth together and walked under his own power into the wrecked castle. Schickfuss led us through a half-roofed corridor and into a tiny suite of rooms that were in better shape than I’d expected.

  Herr Doktor settled Gabriel and turned to me. “I will go and hide Mother Mary. There is a bit of rubble behind the place, and I think I can just manage to squeeze her in there. I will come back with food and water and another bottle of schnapps,” he added with a guarded look at Gabriel.