The Desert Castle

by Isobel Chace

  ‘Ahlan bekum!’ Lucasta roared back at him.

  Flustered, Marion stood back from them both, her eyes wide with indignation. ‘I don’t think we’re on these kind of terms—’ she began angrily.

  Gregory Randall put out a hand and pushed her hair back out of her face the better to see her furious expression.

  ‘No? Didn’t your mother tell you we have adopted one another? We can hardly go on pretending to be strangers after that, can we?’

  Very easily, Marion mentally assured him. She raised her chin and glared at him, bitterly aware that her lack of inches made it all the easier for him to dismiss her protest.’

  ‘That is between my mother and you,’ she said in frozen tones.

  ‘Miss Shirley, he was only being friendly,’ Lucasta put in, her eyes as mocking as her uncle’s.

  ‘Strangers don’t kiss one another,’ Marion said primly.

  Gregory Randall threw back his head and laughed.

  ‘You’re far too pretty to believe any such thing,’ he chided her. ‘Come on, Marion, forget it! Your objection to my taking liberties has been duly noted and I’ll do my best to comply.’

  ‘Then you can start by not calling me Marion!’ she flashed back at him, and was immediately sorry that she should have sounded so petty. ‘Oh, call me what you like, but I’d be glad if you’d remember that my mother makes her friends and I make mine!’

  Gregory gave her cheek a warning tap. ‘Your mother would be ashamed of you,’ he told her. ‘I fancy you’re more like your father, Marion Shirley. He was apt to make mountains out of molehills too. I expect you’re tired after the flight or you wouldn’t be making such a fuss about nothing.’ He smiled slowly. ‘It’s all right, I’m not expecting an apology—’

  ‘I’ve got nothing to apologise for!’ Marion declared, stung. ‘It was you who kissed me, if you remember!’

  His eyes travelled over her face in open amusement. ‘Since you mention it, I don’t remember it quite like that,’ he told her. He took a long, last look at her mouth and then turned away, obviously dismissing her from his mind. He barked out a command in Arabic to the porter and followed him out of the building to oversee the luggage being put in the back of the car, leaving the two girls to follow in their own time.

  ‘You’ll never get the better of Gregory,’ Lucasta said in a loud stage whisper. ‘Not even Mother gets the last word with him!’

  Marion set her mouth in a firm line and forbore to answer. She preferred not to think of that moment of delicious panic when he had lifted her high against him and had kissed her with firm, warm lips that had set her blood on fire and had deprived her of breath. It was outrageous that he should sweep her off her feet—Sweep her off her feet? He had done nothing of the kind. Oh, literally, he might have lifted her clear of the floor, but she refused to admit that her heart was only now settling down to a normal rhythm, or that he had had any lasting effect in undermining her hard-won naturalness of manner in his presence. He was flattering himself if he thought his kiss had been anything more than a temporary annoyance to her.

  He put the two girls in the back of the car, getting in himself beside the driver. Marion was surprised to see that it was already dark except for a rim of red over the untidy, dusty desert capital of the Hashemite Kingdom. She stared out of the window taking in as much of the scene as possible while the light lasted and they had been moving for some time when she realised that Gregory had turned in his seat and was studying her as hard as she was the scenery.

  ‘Do you—do you live far from here?’ she asked him politely.

  ‘Too far to go tonight. I’ve booked rooms for us at an hotel for the night. It would be a pity to miss your first sight of the desert by driving through it in the dark.’

  ‘Then you really do live in a castle?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Did you doubt it?’

  A note of excitement entered her voice. ‘A Crusader castle?’

  ‘No, but I expect you’ll see one or two of those too while you’re here. Mine is more like a hunting lodge. It’s not really a castle at all. It dates back to the eighth century A.D., when the Umayyad Caliphs had their capital in Damascus. They liked the luxury and comfort of city dwelling, but every now and then they remembered they were Bedu straight from Hijaz, Mecca and Medina, and they’d retreat for a while back into the desert, and fly their birds and race their horses. Some of them are famous enough to be a tourist attraction, but mine is a small one, away from the beaten track, and the Jordanian Government allows me to live there for the moment, provided I do what I can to restore it to its former glory. I think you’ll like it,’ he added with a faint smile.

  ‘If it doesn’t rain,’ Lucasta put in. ‘Mother says it leaks like a sieve. Does it?’

  Gregory turned his head. ‘I never argue with your mother,’ he answered.

  ‘Why not?’ Lucasta asked. ‘She isn’t always right.’

  ‘Hardly ever,’ he agreed in steely tones.

  Lucasta caught her lower lip between her teeth, looking very young and vulnerable. ‘I’m sorry you had to have me again,’ she blurted out, ‘but Marion and I will do our best to stay out of your way.’

  His head shot round to look at his niece. ‘Marion? How come you’re so highly favoured?’

  Lucasta managed a tired smile. ‘The impertinence of youth,’ she said. ‘I didn’t bother to ask her, but she can hardly go on being Miss Shirley if we’re to have any fun together.’

  ‘Brat,’ her uncle said with real affection. ‘What makes you think I didn’t ask to have you?’

  Lucasta’s eyes shone. ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes, I did. I thought you’d be better off roughing it in the desert with me than sitting in that house in London waiting for your eighteenth birthday. Besides, you’re old enough now to keep out of my way when I’m working. I won’t have my routine disturbed—even for you!’

  ‘Tell that to Marion,’ Lucasta laughed at him. ‘Isn’t that what she’s here for? That’s what Mother told her, along with her usual lecture not to get ideas about snaring her defenceless little brother.’

  ‘And how did you take that?’ Gregory asked Marion drily, drumming on the back of the front seat with his fingers.

  Marion sat up very straight. ‘I wondered that your sister should think it necessary under the circumstances.’

  ‘What circumstances?’ he asked blandly.

  Lucasta said calmly, ‘She means Judith!’

  ‘Oh, that!’ Her uncle sounded more than a little amused. ‘You ought to know, Miss Shirley, that Judith Cameron is a friend of my sister’s. I see her sometimes when I’m in London, but any plans for our marriage remain strictly in the fertile imagination of my sister Felicity.’

  ‘But, Gregory, you have to admit you said Judith is the most luscious piece Mother has found you yet. She dotes on you, you know she does!’ Lucasta challenged him.

  ‘She’s charming,’ Gregory smiled.

  ‘Don’t you love her at all?’ Lucasta pressed him, disappointed.

  ‘I enjoyed her company—in London. Hothouse flowers should never be transplanted from their own environment, though. Their brilliant colours fade and even their perfume is apt to disappoint.’

  Lucasta chuckled. ‘Poor Judith. I hope you let her down lightly?’

  ‘That, infant, is something you’ll never know. I fancy we understand one another.’

  I’ll bet! Marion thought. She forgot that she hadn’t liked the sound of Judith Cameron when she had been told about her in London, and burned with indignation on her behalf. Apparently Gregory Randall didn’t care whom he hurt as long as he got what he wanted. Well, he needn’t look at her! In fact he’d better not come anywhere near her, or she’d teach him a lesson he wouldn’t forget in a hurry!

  ‘Are you getting out, Miss Shirley?’

  Marion started and leaped to her feet, hitting her head on top of the door. ‘I didn’t mean for you to call me Miss Shirley all the time,’ she mumbled, confus
ed by the inelegance of her arrival.

  ‘I can wait until you ask me to be less formal,’ he taunted her. ‘Have you your passport? They’ll need it at the desk for tonight. You’ll get it back tomorrow before we leave.’

  She surrendered it without a murmur, hardly aware that she had done so, for there, directly opposite the entrance to the hotel, was a complete Roman theatre, looking magnificent in the floodlighting.

  ‘Is that real?’ she asked dreamily.

  ‘Of course,’ Gregory said. ‘Amman is a very old city. It’s the Rabbath Ammon of the Bible, the capital of the Ammonites. It was when David sent Joab against the Ammonites that he arranged to have Uriah the Hittite killed in the heat of the battle so that he could seize his wife Bath-Sheba for himself. Then Alexander the Great came this way; and the Romans, and the city came to be known as Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. And then in modern times King Abdullah, the present King’s grandfather, made it his capital and called it Amman.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Marion, smiling, ‘I remember now. Moses went up against Bashan, and Og came out against him. “For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? Nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it—” ’

  ‘Highly exaggerated, no doubt,’ Gregory cut her off. He put his hand beneath her elbow and hurried her up the steps and into the hotel.

  ‘You would think so!’ she said crossly. ‘I don’t suppose you believe in giants—’

  He put his hand on the top of her head. ‘Nor in the power of the little people!’ he assured her. ‘Go and sit down over there with Lucasta and I’ll see about our rooms and order some drinks for us. What will you have?’

  She eyed him thoughtfully, about to protest at this overbearing behaviour. Instead, she shrugged. ‘I’ll have a fruit juice,’ she said.

  ‘Nothing stronger?’

  She shook her head. She walked across the reception area to where a number of tables were laid out, each one surrounded by its complement of chairs. Lucasta had already chosen a seat facing the entrance and Marion sat down opposite her, pushing her chair back into position after the rough handling it had received at Gregory’s hands.

  ‘Mother would be pleased with you,’ Lucasta told her with an impudent grin. ‘One would almost think you didn’t like him.’

  ‘You’ve all spoilt him,’ Marion repressed her. ‘It’s quite obvious no one has said no to him about anything all his life. No one should have their own way all the time.’

  The first indication she had that he might have overheard her was when he slapped her drink down in front of her and sat down negligently between the two girls. She turned her face away from the steely glint in his navy-blue eyes, hoping that he would ignore her.

  ‘I’ve booked you into adjoining rooms with a bathroom to yourselves. I’m just down the corridor if there’s anything either of you want.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Marion, still not looking at him.

  ‘What could we want?’ Lucasta demanded. ‘We’re not helpless!’

  ‘You might find a scorpion in the bath,’ he said casually.

  Marion looked at him then all right. A scorpion! That she could not face by herself. She couldn’t even face up to a tiny spider that she knew wouldn’t do her any harm, let alone a scorpion!

  ‘Do you get many scorpions in your castle?’ she asked him in a voice that trembled. ‘Or any other creepy-crawlies?’

  ‘I’ve learned to cope with them,’ he answered. ‘No doubt it’s been good for me to have to fend for myself. Insects are no respecters of persons.’

  ‘I don’t think I could,’ Marion confessed, swallowing hard. She suspected he was getting his own back, but she couldn’t be quite sure. He couldn’t have known that the mere sight of a spider was enough to reduce her to jelly.

  ‘Well, you only have to call and I’ll come,’ he said, and his mouth relaxed into a blinding smile that caught her well below the ribs and made her wonder if it was only the thought of scorpions and their like that could knock the stuffing out of her.

  Marion had to admit that Gregory Randall had looked after their comfort pretty well. She couldn’t fault the standard of their rooms, or the appetising dinner that was served to them in the dining-room downstairs. He had even waited patiently while she and Lucasta had exclaimed over the souvenirs that were on sale in the small boutique at the foot of the stairs. Lucasta had wanted to buy everything in sight, including an elaborate model of the Golden Mosque in Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock, where Abraham is believed to have made his sacrifice to the Lord, and the place from which the Prophet Mohammed made is nocturnal ascent into Paradise. Marion gently dissuaded her, turning her attention to the carved figures in olive wood made by the Christian Arabs of Bethlehem.

  ‘But I want something from Amman,’ Lucasta had protested. ‘I’ve quite made up my mind!’

  ‘Then you’d better think what it is going to be over dinner,’ Gregory had insisted. And it had been he, in the end, who had chosen a small piece of Bedouin jewellery for them both, and who had paid for them too.

  Indeed, Marion was quite sorry in the morning when Gregory brought his Toyota Landcruiser round to the front of the hotel, telling his niece to wipe the sleep out of her eyes as, while it did feel like six o’clock to her, in his book it was already gone eight and it was time for them to be away.

  By daylight, Amman looked even more untidy than the night before. Small specialised shops lined the fantastically steep streets that climbed up and down the seven main hills of the city. In places there were breaks in the houses to reveal a sandy cliff which had not yet been built up, and everywhere there were television aerials; receiving not only Jordanian programmes, but from Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Saudi Arabia as well. Marion thought the disordered charm of the place was an elusive quality that she would never be able to describe to her mother when she wrote to her. What could one say? That here one could still look into the crowded shops and see tailors making bespoke suits, and shoemakers actually making shoes by hand in their doorways. It lent an old-fashioned note to streets that were as remote from the supermarkets and department stores of the West, as was the almost complete absence of women from the scene.

  It didn’t take them long to leave Amman and Zerqa, the only industrial town in the country, behind them. Ahead stretched the desert turned to gold in the early sunlight, though the soil was more pink than brown or yellow in colour, and this was intensified in the distant hills, Slashed by blue and purple shadows which gave away how far away they really were. It seemed one could see for miles in any direction. Mile upon endless mile of wilderness: no wonder the desert was supposed to be so satisfying to the spirit.

  ‘One day I’ll show you the more famous Desert castles,’ Gregory told them. ‘Qasr Amra, and Qasr el Azraq, where Lawrence of Arabia had his headquarters for a while, while he was waiting to go on to Damascus. But today I think we’ll go straight home to my Qasr el Biyara. Okay?’

  Even Lucasta agreed to this plan, though the sight of the desert had oppressed her spirits. Her mother had been right about one thing. The castle was certainly miles from anywhere and she couldn’t for the life of her think what they were going to do with themselves when they got there.

  ‘What does El Biyara mean?’ Marion asked, turning the title over in her mind.

  ‘The Castle of Cisterns. It was originally built by the Nabateans, who carved out the city of Petra. They were the masters of irrigation and invented terracing to get better use out of the land. Our water is still drawn from one of the cisterns at the castle. It’s as good now as it was then.’

  But when Marion first saw the castle all she was aware of was the bitter feeling of disappointment. It looked so insignificant. They came to a gate that was so neglected and rusty that she wondered it opened at all. A small boy heard the Landcruiser coming and ran ahead of them to drag the heavy iron doors apart, ca
tching the coin Gregory tossed to him with a flashing hand. There was no road after that, just a track that bounced from boulder to boulder as they progressed up a faint incline towards a building that had settled into the sand like a hen into her nest. Some of the walls had broken down into rubble, others were still surmounted by a series of little domes that surrounded the main part of the building, the roof of which was not peaked, but rounded, giving the appearance of sausages lying side by side in a frying pan.

  ‘It isn’t a castle at all!’ Lucasta exclaimed. ‘It hasn’t even got a garden.’ She didn’t try to hide her disappointment at the sight of her temporary home. She pointed at a tuft of green stuff that might have been some kind of grass. ‘Is that all you can grow?’

  Her uncle grinned at her. ‘What did you expect, an oasis like Lawrence’s castle at Azraq?’

  ‘No, but you said the Nabateans were gardeners—’

  ‘Wait until you see inside,’ he bade her. He turned his head towards Marion, his disapproving look falling into place as his eyes met hers. ‘Are you disappointed too?’ he demanded. She shook her head. ‘Why not?’ he jeered at her.

  ‘Why do you want me to be?’ she countered. ‘Is it very beautiful inside?’ she added on a sudden inspiration.

  ‘I think so,’ he admitted. ‘Come in and see for yourself.’

  Her legs were stiff after sitting for so long, first in the aeroplane the day before, and then in the Land-cruiser that morning. She wished that she could throw a leg over the edge of the vehicle in the same way that he did, but her legs were not nearly long enough and she was forced to jump down from what seemed to be a great height, knowing that he was waiting for her to fall and make a fool of herself. She cast him a childish look of triumph as she landed safely on both feet and felt annoyed at the answering flash of amusement in his eyes.