Night of a Thousand Stars

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  “Two days after Lawrence and the Bedouin routed the Turks at Aqaba,” he reminded me. “Things were chaotic in Syria just then, with Turks redoubling their efforts to keep all the Bedouin in line. There were raids against tribes, atrocities you can’t even imagine. Whole families thrown into pits and set alight, entire clans killed by thirst,” he told me, his expression grim. “It was a bleak time to be here.”

  He peered over my shoulder at the rest of the scrap. There was nothing more in print, just a few scribbled words.

  TAKEN IT. SB.

  “Taken what? And what is SB?” I asked.

  He was white-lipped and when he spoke, his words were stiff. “The ‘what’ is obviously the map to the Ashkelon hoard. And SB is Stephen Baleister.”

  “Who is that?”

  “A ghost,” he told me, and in spite of the warmth of the sun pouring through the broken walls, I felt a shiver.

  “Ghosts don’t write, at least not the ones I’ve read about,” I said with an effort. “Now, let’s be practical about this. Who was Stephen Baleister?”

  Sebastian had busied himself with activity, stoking up the fire and setting out the flatbreads to soften. He fed the donkey and drew fresh water, and when he finished, he paced the court, moving methodically from one end to the other, striding slowly as he worked it out. “Stephen was one of us.”

  “A member of the Vespiary?”

  “Specifically, one of the Lost Boys.”

  “How many of you were there altogether?”

  “Seven including Gabriel and me. And I’d have given my life for any of them. Funny thing, I would have sworn they’d have done the same.”

  “But it doesn’t make sense,” I protested. “Why would this Stephen Baleister take the map to the gold and then leave a note saying he’d done it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said simply. “Stephen was—” He broke off, a small smile playing about his lips. “Stephen was a prankster. He was always thinking up a scheme or two to pass the time when we were holed up somewhere. It would have been just like him to take the map and think it was a great joke.”

  “So he might not have betrayed the rest of you and stolen the gold for himself,” I said reasonably. “For that matter he might not have even found it at all. Perhaps he merely removed the map for safekeeping.”

  “He might have done,” Sebastian conceded.

  “Then all that remains is to find him,” I stated.

  Sebastian’s smile was thin. “A neat trick if you can manage it. I’ve already told you, Stephen’s a ghost. Worse than that, in fact.”

  “What’s worse than being dead?” I demanded.

  “Stephen Baleister walked into the Badiyat ash-Sham one day and never came out again. The desert swallowed him up. And once the desert decides to keep you, you belong to her.”

  I shivered again. “I’ve never heard you talk like that, Sebastian.”

  He shrugged. “It’s this place. When you’re back in England with its snug little ways and tidy hedgerows it’s hard to believe a place like this even exists. But I’ve seen things here I cannot explain, and even if I could I’m not certain I’d want to. This land is old, Poppy, older than you can imagine. Men have been fighting and bleeding into this earth for thousands of years, long before there was an England. Look at this monastery. It started as a temple of Venus, hewn out of the living rock. Men worshipped here for centuries before Christ was even a child. This whole land is sacred space, marked by death itself. It’s almost as if the constant wars have left scars upon it that can never be healed. Men come face-to-face with their own mortality here, and no one leaves the same as they were when they came.”

  He fell silent, and I let him brood a long moment before I spoke. “What if we could find what happened to Stephen? He must have family somewhere. What were they told?’

  He recalled himself as if he had been far away, and his eyes settled on mine. He looked a thousand years older suddenly. Facing the ghosts of his past was a cruel thing to ask of him, and for an instant I regretted insisting we come to Ashkelon.

  “Stephen was from Africa, British East Africa, to be precise. He left a wife named Jude.”

  I shook my head. “That poor woman. Never knowing what happened to her husband.”

  “I know. The Vespiary made inquiries after his disappearance, but no trace of him was ever discovered. Of course, they couldn’t spare much in the way of manpower. He was a casualty of war, they decided. No doubt come across by some Turks and thrown into a hole somewhere in the desert. Not a very nice end for him.”

  “But you don’t know that,” I argued.

  A small, humourless smile touched his lips. “You sound like his wife. The Vespiary never told her what assignment he’d been given—not even that he was in Syria. She thinks he was doing reconnaissance for British pilots in North Africa, for the bureau in Cairo. That was the cover the Vespiary had concocted for him, and they never corrected it, not even when they told her he was missing.”

  “That’s horrifying,” I said, my voice catching. “What if she went looking for him?”

  “Then she’d be looking in the wrong place by a few hundred miles,” he said savagely. “She wrote back to the Vespiary, begging them for details, but they couldn’t give her any, could they? So they kept lying to her and she kept writing back. It seemed to be driving her mad, never knowing what became of him.”

  “Where is she now?” I asked gently.

  He shrugged. “Still in Africa. They had a farm there, breeding horses. She married again this year, but from what I gather, she’s not entirely happy.”

  “I’m not surprised she’s unhappy. She still doesn’t know,” I said. “Do you think it would help her to move on, if she knew for certain what happened to him?”

  “It could help all of us,” he replied. “Or it could give us nightmares to last the rest of our lives.”

  “You don’t know that,” I repeated.

  “And you don’t know what happens to prisoners of the Turks,” he said flatly. I thought again of what Gabriel had told me about Sebastian’s experiences during the war, the quick reference to imprisonment and worse, and I opened my mouth.

  “Don’t,” he said simply, and I said nothing.

  He stopped pacing and went to stand at one of the ruined window embrasures, bracing his hands on either side. The sun was high over the valley below, and far in the distance I could just see the thin blue glittering line of the sea.

  “I’m sorry,” I told him. “For what it’s worth, I’m truly sorry.”

  “Thank you,” he said simply. He gave a great sigh and something seemed to go out of him as he watched the sun dip below the nearest peak. “That’s close enough,” he murmured.

  “Close enough to what?”

  “Cocktail hour,” he said with a sudden grin. “While you were poking around amongst the cobwebs today looking for buried treasure, I found something far more valuable.”

  I caught my breath. “Sebastian!”

  He strode to the edge of the court and wrenched open a wooden packing case. He reached in and lifted out a dusty, cobwebbed bottle. “Vintage champagne,” he announced with a smile. “Let’s get roaring drunk.”

  * * *

  I had my fears that the stuff might have turned to vinegar, but as soon as I took my first deep swig from the bottle, I smiled. The bubbles tickled my nose, sharp and beguiling, and when I looked at the label, I gave a squawk.

  “Gerald ordered this for our engagement party, but even he wouldn’t spring for this vintage,” I told Sebastian. “My God, it must be worth a fortune.”

  “A thousand pounds a bottle,” he said cheerfully, taking a hefty swig from his own bottle. “Fitting that we’re drinking it in a monastery, really, given poor old Dom Pérignon. Do you know what he said the first time he
tasted the stuff?”

  “‘I am drinking the stars!’” I quoted, affecting a thick French accent.

  Sebastian laughed, a rich, baritone laugh that echoed against the night sky. We’d been drinking for the better part of two hours as the twilight lengthened across the valley, wrapping the peak in violet shadows that deepened to black velvet.

  He nodded towards the ruined garden. “There used to be myrtle there. And roses—flowers sacred to the Great Mother, Astarte, Venus, Mother Mary. Whatever they choose to call her.”

  I lifted my bottle and peered at him through the thick green glass. “You know, you’re quite irreligious for a clergyman.”

  “I am a citizen of the world,” he announced. “I believe in all religions and none.”

  I hooted with laughter. “Don’t let the Archbishop of Canterbury hear you say that,” I said severely. “You’ll be derobed, disrobed, what’s the word?”

  “Defrocked,” he supplied.

  “Yes, that. I’d like to be defrocked. This dress is murderous,” I said, tugging at the sharply carved horn sewn to the bodice.

  “I’d like to defrock you,” he said seriously. “But it would be against the rules.”

  I laughed again, looking up to see the sky reeling in response. The very stars seemed to be laughing back and I pointed them out to Sebastian. He was just draining his second bottle, and as I showed him the stars, he threw his head back and began to speak.

  Do what thy manhood bids thee do,

  from none but self expect applause;

  He noblest lives and noblest died

  who makes and keeps his self-made laws.

  All other life is living Death,

  a world where none by Phantoms dwell,

  A breath, a wind, a sound, a voice,

  a tinkling of a camel-bell.

  I gasped. “Oh, Sebastian, that’s lovely! Did you write it?”

  He gave me an indulgent look. “No, it’s The Kahsida, Richard Burton’s translation. Surely you’ve heard of Sir Richard Burton?”

  “Of course,” I said repressively. “The famous explorer and orientalist. He lived in this part of the world for a time with his wife, Isabel. I read her letters on the voyage out. She was devoted to him. She followed him in his travels, sometimes dressing as a boy. You ought to have let me dress as a boy,” I protested, tugging at my gown again.

  “It would never have done,” he told me. “You’re far too, well, you’re just awfully—”

  “Yes?” I asked eagerly. “I’m too what?”

  “Too much a female,” he said finally.

  “That’s a bit of a letdown,” I said. I peered again through the bottom of my bottle. “I’d like some poetry about me.”

  “You shan’t have any. I’m not wooing you,” he said severely. “So stop trying.”

  “I’m not trying,” I told him with considerable indignation. “If I were trying, I should just kiss you to shut you up. You’re a very taxing individual, you know, although I must say you do have a rather handsome mouth when it isn’t all covered in whiskers.”

  “I shall think of them as my chastity belt,” he advised me solemnly.

  “Oh, you are maddening,” I said. “But I will forgive you because I think I am going to need your help very soon.”

  “What sort of help?” he demanded.

  “I think,” I said slowly and with as much dignity as I could muster, “I am going to be very sick indeed.”

  And I was.

  * * *

  The next morning I apologised profusely about the state of his boots, but he merely waved me aside. “Unless you can conjure a cup of coffee and a bacon sandwich, I don’t want to hear it,” he told me. There were purple shadows under his eyes, and I suspected I looked no better. I remembered nothing after being lavishly sick on his boots except a fleeting sensation of being tucked tenderly into a robe.

  But Sebastian had taken it back, wrapping himself against the morning chill as he went to the window embrasure to survey the landscape below.

  “How does the river look? Will we be able to cross today?”

  He narrowed his eyes, looking sharply down the hillside.

  I went to stand beside him. “Really, Sebastian, you’re more difficult to travel with than Mother and her thirty trunks. At least Mother speaks in the morning. You hardly say two words and even then—”

  He swung around, his eyes cold. “Be quiet, Poppy. You can abuse me later. For now, we’re not alone.”

  I looked past him to the goat track below, and for the first time I spotted him, a solitary figure on a white horse, winding his way upwards, ever upwards to where we waited.

  I gave an involuntary gasp and Sebastian’s jaw hardened.

  “Don’t fret, child. Death rides a camel in this part of the world. He doesn’t come on a pale horse.”

  But, of course, Sebastian was wrong.

  Nineteen

  I argued for fleeing immediately, but Sebastian pointed out there was nowhere to go but straight down the same track as our visitor. The monastery was cradled in the saddle between the two peaks, with sheer walls on two sides and a deep drop on the back. Only the narrow track by which we had come provided any means of escape, and if we attempted it there was nowhere in the barren, scrubby landscape to hide from our visitor.

  “Besides, he’s clearly after us,” Sebastian pointed out. “Why not let him find us?”

  I stared at him in horror. “Because he might be armed. Because he could be dangerous. Because we have nothing for our defense but a pile of rocks and a donkey,” I said, somewhat hysterically.

  Sebastian merely shrugged. “Who said anything about defense? We ought to just give ourselves up if he is armed.”

  I felt a rush of cold rage unlike anything I had ever felt before. “I had my doubts about you, Sebastian Fox. And now you don’t even have the nerve to stand up for us? You are the most contemptible, loathsome, cowardly,” I kept on in that vein, pouring out scorn as he watched the visitor’s approach, seeming not to hear me.

  “Aren’t you finished yet?” he asked at one point.

  “I am not,” I assured him, launching into a fresh attack on his character.

  He bore it remarkably well—largely by not listening at all. He simply marked the visitor’s progress up the hill, timing it perfectly so that as soon as the caller rode within the monastery walls, Sebastian emerged from the chapel to greet him politely.

  “Assalam aleikum,” he said, sketching a courteous gesture.

  Faruq grinned and leaned forward in his saddle. “You are a courteous fellow,” he said, eyeing Sebastian with assessment. “I did not expect so gracious a greeting.”

  Sebastian shrugged. “I see no reason for violence. Far better to be reasonable with each other, don’t you think?”

  Faruq dismounted, holding the reins of his horse lightly in his fingers. Sebastian jerked his head towards the stable where the donkey was tethered. “You’ll find bedding in there for your horse as well as fodder and water.”

  Faruq inclined his head. “You are all that is hospitable, sir, but, alas, I cannot stay. I have come for the map.”

  Sebastian’s expression was rueful. “In that case, I’m sorry, old man. I haven’t got it.”

  Faruq bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. “You will forgive me if I do not believe you.”

  “It’s really immaterial whether you believe me or not,” Sebastian pointed out. “I haven’t got it.”

  Faruq’s gaze fell on me. “Perhaps you do not, sir, but—”

  “Touch her and there will be violence,” Sebastian said in the same friendly tone. The calm, pleasant voice was at such odds with the words that it took Faruq a moment to realise he had just been threatened. He grinned, with marginally more warmth than be
fore.

  “So it is like that? This is good to know. It helps if one’s enemy has a weakness,” he said in the same polite tone Sebastian had used.

  Sebastian did not stir a step, but somehow he seemed larger than a moment before, more solidly imposing as he stood between Faruq and me.

  “Would it help at all if I swore an oath that the map was removed before I arrived and that I don’t know where it is now?”

  Faruq merely made a guffawing sound and Sebastian nodded. “I expected as much. Pity. It happens to be the truth.”

  “Sometimes the truth is painful,” Faruq answered.

  “Tell me,” Sebastian said in his maddeningly conversational tone, “how did you find out about the map? Were you working with Talbot?”

  Faruq’s complexion darkened with rage. He cleared his throat and spat heavily onto the stones. “He was a son of a devil, that one.” He nodded to me. “He said very disrespectful things about you, miss. But he thought you could lead him to the map. And as it happens,” he added with a smile, “he was correct.”

  “If you weren’t working with Talbot, how did you know he was looking for the map?” I ventured.

  His expression was opaque. “My sources are my own, miss. And the gold you seek is Syrian gold. It belongs to my people.”

  “It bloody well does not,” I answered roundly. “It’s French. If anything, it ought to go back to France.”

  His face reddened again. “The French have no claim to anything that is ours. The gold will go to support our efforts to establish our own kingdom.”

  “One sympathises,” Sebastian said, sounding for all the world like he meant it, “but I’m afraid the point is entirely moot. I told you truth, old boy. I haven’t got the map.”

  “But you have seen the map,” Faruq said, his gaze sharp.

  “Well, yes, but only once and long ago,” Sebastian admitted.

  “Must you tell him everything?” I demanded.

  Sebastian shrugged. “Occasionally one can head off unpleasantness by being forthright.”