“I ate it,” I told him. “You slept through dinner.”
He swore and got to his feet slowly. He moved like an old man, but when he stood, he didn’t sway.
“That shirt is going to have to be burned when you find another,” I said.
“At least I can move without wanting to scream or heave my stomach out,” he said, his tone deceptively light. The skin around his eyes had tightened, and I knew that just moving at all was still excruciating for him.
“I’ll go and wake Herr Doktor. He knows who you are, by the way. It’s a long story, but for now all you need know is that he’s on our side. He spent the night in Mother Mary to keep watch over us. Wasn’t that sweet?”
Gabriel slanted me an odd look. “You and I have entirely different notions of sweetness, my dear.”
I didn’t bother to reply. I made my way through the narrow corridor and into the pink of the dawn. I paused a moment on the threshold to stretch and take in one long breath of clean desert air. If it weren’t for being chased and shot at and nearly perishing of thirst and listening to Gabriel get thrashed within an inch of his life, I might have quite liked the place. There was an austere beauty to it, like an elderly woman whose youthful beauty still lingers in the bones of her face.
I took another deep breath and felt the promise in the air. It was going to be a very good day, I decided. We had an ally and we had transportation. The worst of our journey was behind us, and we had come out the other side, although Gabriel might well bear a few souvenirs on his back for a long while to come.
I stepped out of the doorway and turned to where we had left the car. I stood a long moment, making sense of what I saw, or rather, what I didn’t. Then I swung around on my heel and went back to Gabriel.
“I’m afraid Herr Doktor is gone.”
He flicked me a sour glance. “And I suppose he’s taken the vehicle?”
I nodded.
What followed was a string of profanity so elaborate and original I couldn’t even be offended. I folded my arms over my chest and waited for the storm to pass.
“Full marks for a towering display of rage,” I told him. “Now what do we do?”
“I still can’t believe the little bastard left us.”
I shrugged. “I’m sure he had a good reason, but without the extra stores of food and water, we can’t stay here. Do you know where we are?”
He rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t precisely paying attention on the journey, Evie. You might have noticed but I had a spot of bother with our friend Daoud and I was a trifle preoccupied by the after-effects of that.”
“There’s no need to be nasty. And I know exactly the extent of your injuries since I’m the one who cleaned you up.”
He paused. “Thank you for that. I don’t suppose it was very nice.”
“It was thoroughly disgusting, if you must know. There was a very good reason I nursed at a convalescent hospital instead of the front lines, you know. I don’t much care for gore.”
“I remember,” he said, a sudden smile touching his lips. “You made me stitch my own leg after I collided with that rickshaw in Shanghai.”
“Served you right for coming back to the hotel in the middle of the night and drunk as a lord. Besides, your skill with a needle always was better than mine.”
“I got more practise. I think there wasn’t a porter in China I didn’t sew up at some point.”
He was still smiling, but I was in no mood to reminisce. “Back to the problem at hand, Gabriel. The good doctor is out there wandering the desert for God only knows what reason and we’re on very low rations. What do you suggest we do?”
“What do you suggest?” he countered.
I stared at him. “You’re actually asking my opinion.”
He shrugged, wincing as the gesture tugged at his ravaged skin. “I have been reliably informed that I am a very poor criminal mastermind. So, ‘unrip your plan, Captain,’” he quoted cheerfully.
I thought a moment. “We should wait a little while, perhaps until sundown. If he hasn’t come by then, we should leave and try to find water and friendly Bedouin. We crossed a wide track yesterday. I think it might have been a road. It couldn’t be more than a mile or two back.”
He gave a short nod. “Good enough.”
I blinked. “That’s it? You’re agreeing? No fighting? No swearing?”
“Child, I am exhausted. I am thirsty. I have a back that has only just begun to heal from the sort of thrashing I wouldn’t give a donkey. If you don’t mind, I’ll take a pass on scrapping with you. Let’s save it for a day when I am feeling more myself, shall we?” He eased himself back down onto his pallet and lay on his belly. I stared at him uncertainly, but he turned his head, his expression taunting. “Don’t worry. I’ll feel much more like abusing you when I wake up. If there’s something vicious you’d like to call me, I’m sure it will keep.”
He turned his head and went back to sleep, leaving me with four or five choice things I’d like to call him. How he could sleep when we were stranded in the far reaches of the Badiyat ash-Sham was beyond me. And the fact that he showed no worry at all for what had become of Herr Doktor was a little disloyal, I thought. The old fellow had gone to great lengths to rescue us, and I hated to think of him on the loose out there, possibly at the mercy of Daoud, whom I suspected would not have taken his defection at all well.
I busied myself by organising our small store of supplies and then passed the next several hours by working out a game of pitching stones into the tin of bully beef. It was useless playing against myself, but at least it passed the time. I had grown superstitious with it. When I put a stone directly into the empty tin I told myself everything was going to be just fine. But when I missed...
After I’d missed three stones in a row, I gathered the supplies and woke Gabriel. It took him a little longer to come to this time, and when he stood, he didn’t seem terribly steady on his feet.
“I’m afraid you’re starting a fever again,” I told him.
“Have you a thermometer, nursie? I can drop my trousers and you can take my temperature if you like. I’m not shy,” he said, moving the hand I had put out to touch his brow to someplace far less appropriate.
I snatched my hand back and led the way out of the castle without speaking. When we were outside he glanced up at the crumbling keep. “You know, it’s a bloody miracle the thing didn’t crash down on us in our sleep. It’s a decrepit menace.”
“It was perfectly good shelter,” I reminded him. “And if you’re going to criticise every little thing anyone does for you—” I carried on in that vein for the next two miles with Gabriel occasionally rolling his eyes or whistling a bit of one of his pan-pipe melodies to tune me out. By the time we’d exhausted ourselves quarrelling, we had come to the wide track. Gabriel leaned as far as he could comfortably and scrutinised the ground.
“The old fellow’s been through here today. The tyre marks are quite fresh. He took the track southwest towards Damascus,” he told me.
“He must be going for help,” I said, determined not to think too badly of the little man for abandoning us. Gabriel bent a little further, wincing as he stared at the older marks on the track.
“What is it? What do you see?”
“It isn’t what I see,” he said slowly. “It’s what I hear.” He had his head cocked and he was listening intently. A long moment passed before he murmured a single word. “Camels.”
He straightened and turned the other way, towards the northeast leg of the track. I saw nothing, but I put my hand up and stared into the distance until my eyes watered. Suddenly, a great cloud of dust and sand appeared and before it, a group of camels. They were coming fast in the peculiar loping run they had that covered ground swiftly as a horse. As they neared, I heard the jingle of bells from their elaborate harnesses, and I
could see the men were draped in robes of black-and-white with distinctive scarlet cords upon their headdresses.
Next to me, Gabriel’s posture had stiffened and he stepped forward, putting himself ahead of me on the road, but at the sight of them, he turned back.
“Evie,” he said casually, “whatever happens, mind you don’t flinch.”
“Flinch? Why would I—” But then I saw. The Bedouin were not stopping. They rode straight for us, lances at shoulder height and pointed straight ahead. The warriors made an astonishing racket as they charged, racing their camels as if they would run directly over the top of us and never stop.
It took every last bit of control to steel my screaming nerves as one of them bore down on me. It was enormous, far larger than I realised camels could be, and it was a peculiar shade of creamy white, with a long neck and a lip that seemed to curl back in scorn. Just as I could see the pupil of its eye, wide and malevolent, the warrior mounted on the camel flung his spear to the ground at my feet, the length of the shaft wobbling as it struck home. Long streamers fluttered in the breeze, and he stood in his stirrups, shouting his war cries to his friends. The rest of them did the same, flinging their lances at my feet until an entire forest of them quivered in front of me. Not one had been thrown at Gabriel, and I turned to him for an explanation.
The lead rider, who had flung the first lance, dismounted his camel with a flourish. He was an extraordinarily handsome fellow, almost Gabriel’s height of six feet, with a beautifully cut hawklike profile and arresting dark eyes. A pair of Persian greyhounds, sleek and handsome as their master, trotted at his heels, and perched atop his shoulder was a falcon that stirred its wings in the wind. He walked directly to Gabriel, his arms wide.
In spite of his injuries, Gabriel returned his embrace. “Thank Allah you’re here, Hamid,” he said.
His friend kissed him once on each cheek in the Bedouin custom and said something in Arabic. The only word I recognised was akh. Brother. The salukis, trained to a trice, had stood, quivering at their master’s heel until he snapped his fingers. They sprang forward to Gabriel, rolling about in ecstasy as he gave them each a quick pat.
Gabriel and the Bedouin leader exchanged quick remarks, their expressions grim, but it was obvious they were very glad to see one another. Gabriel turned to me, almost as an afterthought.
“Sheikh Hamid ibn Hussein, this is Evangeline Starke. My wife. Evie, say hello to Hamid.”
Stupefied, I inclined my head, but the fellow bowed deeply and made a gesture of welcome or blessing. “You are the wife of my brother, Djibril. You are welcome as my little sister.” He turned and shouted a series of instructions to his men.
I flicked a glance at Gabriel. “Djibril?”
“It’s the Arabic form of Gabriel,” he told me. He grinned. “Relax, pet. Hamid is a sort of prince of his tribe. We’re in good hands now.”
“Then what was all that palaver with the lances?” I demanded.
“It’s called a ghazou,” he explained. “It’s a test of courage. He wanted to see what you were made of. Now he knows. Don’t scowl so, my dear. He’s responsible for the safety of his entire tribe. He has to be cautious. Besides, I think he was amusing himself a little.”
“He’s rather dashing,” I said faintly.
Gabriel gave me a cool glance. “And lucky for you he only has three wives. Play your cards right and you could be number four.”
“Not unless I have him kill you first,” I returned sweetly. “We are still married.”
If Sheikh Hamid noticed anything amiss in our exchange, he had the good manners not to show it. He and Gabriel had a swift discussion of our situation—at least I thought that was what they said since the conversation was entirely in Arabic—and before I knew it, one of the men was walking towards us leading a camel. He gave it to Hamid, who led his own white camel to us. Hamid tapped it lightly with a crop and it gave a great gusty sigh as it knelt down.
“My friends, I offer you my own mount, Zahar.” He crooned a moment to the camel then handed the reins to Gabriel and went to his new mount, a shaggier gold camel that stood looking bored as Hamid vaulted lightly into the saddle. Gabriel mounted gingerly but with an astonishing amount of expertise. He gestured impatiently to me.
“Hurry up, then.”
I stood my ground. “Must I?”
Gabriel leaned over as far as he could without falling from the saddle, his face inches from mine. When he spoke, his words were low enough for my ears only and clipped off with barely smothered rage.
“Get. On. The. Goddamned. Camel.”
“Why can’t I ride with the sheikh or one of the others?”
“Because a Bedouin man doesn’t touch a woman he isn’t related to if he can help it,” he explained swiftly.
“Daoud did.”
“Daoud was kidnapping us, you imbecile. Now stop making an ass of yourself and get on the camel or, so help me God—”
I moved forward. “You needn’t blaspheme, Gabriel. Heavens, you look mad enough to burst a vein. Now, how do I do this?”
“Put your boot on the ledge of the saddle and swing your leg forward over its head in one quick motion. There, just like that. Now grip the saddle with your knees and lean back,” he instructed. I did, acutely aware of Gabriel just behind me, his chest firm against my back.
He made a clucking sound to the camel and it surged forward as it lifted itself onto its front knees. “Now lean forward,”Gabriel said, shoving me against the saddle horn. We rocked back and forth again as the animal straightened its back legs and then the front.
“Oh, my,” I breathed.
Sheikh Hamid grinned. “You will like my Zahar. It is our word for flower and it suits her. Like all desert flowers, she is hardy and beautiful.”
She didn’t seem particularly beautiful—a camel is a distinctly unlovely creature to begin with—but I could see from the other animals that this one had a particularly fine head and a dainty way about her. She could move like the wind, and when Gabriel touched her lightly with the crop, she was off, nosing her way home. Gabriel kept her at a steady trot, and for such an ungainly animal she managed an even, almost silky ride with that gait. To my astonishment, I found myself relaxing, even humming a little tune under my breath as the miles rolled away.
“Do you mind?” Gabriel asked, his voice arctic. He pointedly brushed my hair out of his face and pushed me forward.
“What’s the trouble?”
“Your hair is in my eyes and that tune is particularly annoying.”
“It’s ‘Salut d’Amour,’” I said, my eyes fixed firmly on the track ahead of us.
“I recognised it,” he returned. “It’s still an appalling piece of treacle.”
“You liked it well enough at our wedding,” I reminded him.
“I had very poor taste in those days.”
I laughed and he poked pointedly at my back. “You’ve gone dead weight again, and if you will forgive the observation, you seem to have put on a few pounds since the last time I saw you.”
I jerked forward in the saddle. “I most certainly have not. If anything I weigh less now. A pilot has to be extremely conscious of such things. And of all the obnoxious and inappropriately personal remarks—” I carried on in that vein for the rest of the journey, but Gabriel didn’t bother to reply. He simply directed the camel with a faintly supercilious smile on his face, and I realised he wasn’t even listening. I finally huffed out a sigh and settled down, clutching at the saddle horn since I would have sooner walked the entire Badiyat ash-Sham on foot than touched Gabriel at that point.
But almost as soon as I’d stopped talking, the track veered off the straight course we’d been following and led us to a narrow gap between two steep walls of rock. The salukis ran ahead, tails held aloft like banners, and with a quick whistle, Sheikh Hamid
set the falcon to flight. It disappeared ahead of us between the rock walls. The path was so tight we had to ride single file, and the flat rocky ground of the desert proper gave way to scrubby hills, and as we twisted and turned, the vast blankness of the desert fell away quickly. A stony outcropping stretched overhead where two of the hills clung together, and just beyond these, the path widened into a small fertile valley. The hillsides were green—nothing like England in the spring, but they had a lushness all their own after the barren wasteland we had just passed through. The ground was carpeted with low green bushes starred with little white flowers. At the lowest edge of the valley stood a circle of trees and what passed for a small meadow in these parts. Ranged around this pretty pasture were a series of low black goats’-hair tents, the tents of the Bedouin. Surrounding them were herds of horses and camels, and beyond these restless groups of sheep and goats dotted the hillsides as they cropped for the small shoots of spring grasses. Between the tents, cooking fires were tended by veiled women while children scampered about underfoot, stopping as soon as they saw us to carry the news that visitors were coming.
Gabriel tugged the reins to halt Zahar and Sheikh Hamid rode up next to us. “This is our spring pasturage. My people welcome you to this place.” He turned to Gabriel, affection warming his dark eyes. “Welcome home, my brother.”
I started to turn in the saddle, but Gabriel abruptly made a sharp clicking noise at Zahar and we were rocked back and forth as she settled onto her belly like a great ship coming to berth. “Get off the same way you got on,” he told me.
I did, jumping free of the camel as Gabriel swung himself slowly off. He patted its neck and murmured something in Arabic while she made grunting noises and fluttered her eyelashes.
“You appear to have made a conquest,” I told Gabriel.
The returning men were greeted rapturously by their children and their veiled women as we stood by and watched. Sheikh Hamid gave me a wide grin. “We have been gone a few weeks. They will want news and goods,” he explained. A slender figure in a long black robe had come near to him. She waited patiently, and although her face was veiled, I could see a pair of bright eyes shining over the edge.
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