by Mike Ashley
“But you did.”
His silver eyes blinked at the knife, then closed like darkness. “I saw. Stinking filth.”
“What did you see?” A knock on the door. I kept pushing. “Peter, I think I know what you saw. Take the weight off your soul.”
He groaned, then his eyes flashed open. “They were both guilty that night! Father and son, God help me, both!”
I spoke to him for a few moments while the knocking on the door grew louder. Silence fell. Leyla’s voice called through, “Roger, what ails you, are you safe?”
I gripped Peter’s shoulder. He nodded. He was ready.
I opened the door and pulled him through. Salah had not moved. “Who’s that?” he frowned.
“No one.” I held out the knife by the blade, still slippery with chicken flesh. “This is the knife that killed Haran.”
Salah forgot the steward. He examined the knife curiously. “I’ve never seen such a thing. It’s no dagger.”
“It’s not a weapon,” I said. “It’s a knife used in a kitchen. You’ve never been in one, I’ll wager, any more than I.”
He put it down with revulsion. Leyla said, “My father is distressed that Belmondo butchered Haran with a common tool.”
“Your father?” I rounded on her. “Be quiet, liar.”
“My father –”
“Quiet!” I shouted. I continued in a low, fast murmur, “He isn’t your father. Salah wouldn’t risk his real daughter –”
“I swear, I swear to you he is my father.” She was a good actress.
Salah watched us with a small mocking smile.
“I don’t know who you are, Leyla,” I murmured, wanting her alone to hear, seeing the wide-open stricken look of denial growing in her black-brown, gold-brown eyes, but I couldn’t stop. “Leyla probably isn’t even your name. You’re a dancing girl, a clever mimic, one of his servants, no one.”
With one hand she covered her eyes and turned away from me.
Salah cleared his throat. “Please,” I said harshly.
He gave the small sideways shrug. “Very well, Sir Roger,” he said. “Illuminate us with your truth. Pray continue.”
I gathered my thoughts. “Belmondo’s guilty, but not of the crime of which he is accused. Reuben-William is innocent of murder, but guilty of a worse crime. His mother and sisters are guilty because they knew, but said nothing. They are guilty of silence.” I touched Peter’s shoulder. “As for this man, we shall see.”
I turned to Salah. “Anyone could have killed Haran. The reason could have been simple theft: the priceless Rose of the Nile. In fact the jewel was trivial to the crime.”
“Not trivial to me,” Salah growled. “Yes, the jewel is mine. I am not a wealthy man, I care nothing for money. In my youth, when I ruled Egypt in all but name, the ground opened under me and my horse fell into an underground chamber, a place of ancient kings. Among the tombs shattered long ago by looters my eye found a glow in the darkness, dropped, forgotten for a thousand years. That moment is my heart. The Rose of the Nile will pay for my funeral; thus, naturally, it was in Haran’s care.”
“Why did you not tell me?” I asked Leyla.
She shook her head without turning, weeping. “I would not speak to you of my father’s death.”
I tried to ignore her weeping. “You see, I couldn’t believe the murderer walked around three sides of the balcony and back again covered in blood. Haran’s door had a bolt on the inside, no doubt locked so that Haran’s pleasure was undisturbed, that stayed locked while he was murdered, because the tip of the tongue was clean of blood. So the murderer didn’t come that way. He came through the kitchen or from the street.”
“Then we’ll never know who it was!” Salah exploded.
“We know he watched and waited. He knew Haran’s body-servant was out, or he’d have to have killed him too.”
“The body-servant who procured the boys from the streets,” Leyla nodded.
“No, he didn’t. There were no boys, but only one young man.” I stared Reuben-William in the face. “And he came from inside the house. Didn’t you?”
Belmondo and his wife exchanged looks. “No,” the mother whispered. She tried to limp to her son but Belmondo held her. His face was tragic, as though again watching events worse than his own death unfold.
“Haran, cousin of the great Salah ad-Din Yussuf,” I continued. “Powerful. Well connected. Not to be resisted. A man whose word was almost literally law. Whose every whim demanded satisfaction.”
“Our son could not refuse,” the mother whispered. “We begged him not to go.”
“I wanted to!” Reuben-William’s face set. The beads dug into his hands. “You already knew. You all knew about me.” He turned to me earnestly. “But, Sir Roger, I did not kill him.”
“I know,” I said. “If you, a young gentleman, meant to kill Haran, you’d use a proper weapon not snatch a kitchen knife. The murderer’s attack was furious, with many inexpert blows around the heart, none immediately fatal. Yet I know you have military training, and your father was a soldier. The murderer was inexperienced at killing.”
“The ancient Greeks had a word that we translate as Logic,” Salah murmured. “It seems that you have studied some of the so-called infernal works on Logic seized from us by your Order, Sir Roger.”
I didn’t meet his eye, continuing instead: “It is well known that sodomy is the worst sin, worse even than murder, because a murdered soul flies straight to God in Heaven, whereas the souls of sodomites reek among us on the earth until their eventual certain descent to Hell –”
“Everyone knows this!” croaked Belmondo. “God save my son. What else could he do but give in to Haran? The contracts – everything I stood to lose –” He fell silent, ashamed.
“Someone observed Reuben-William sneak through the kitchens.” I touched Peter’s shoulder. “Whose job is it to know everything in a household? A servant. What finer servant than this, made steward for his decades of loyal service, servant above all other servants. Yet you know nothing of him but his name.”
“Peter?” Belmondo said dully. “Peter killed him?”
“Stinking filth!” Peter burst out. “I remember when your sweet babe was born, master! I remember the lad running about, growing up, apple-cheeked, cheerful as a cricket. Me who never had children of my own, who knew nothing but service to you. You was my family. Your boy was like a boy of my own. I loved you all.” His face crinkled. “Stinking filth!”
“Peter was in the kitchen,” I said quietly. “He saw the body-servant sent away. He saw Reuben-William sneak upstairs. Peter knew what sort of man Haran was, knew what they were doing. While they were upstairs the servant struggled with his conscience, with all his years of love and service no one cared about. He hid when his master’s son, whom he’d treasured like his own son, crept back through the kitchen. Peter couldn’t hide his feelings any longer. He snatched the kitchen knife, ran upstairs, and stabbed Haran to death for his monstrous crime.”
“And stole the jewel,” Salah said dangerously.
“Stinking filth,” Peter cried. “Filthy with blood. I hated its touch. I dragged it from his neck, I ran. I ran downstairs. I threw the foul thing in one of the pails, and washed myself clean.”
“A pail?” Salah leapt to his feet. “You dropped the jewel in one of the buckets of slops left over from the feast, put out for the poor?” He clutched his head, imagining the multitude that must have eaten at Belmondo’s gate.
“Aye.” Peter, doomed though he was, managed a smile. “Well, one of ’em’s not so poor now.”
The great gates of Jerusalem were thrown open at dawn. I rode away from the sun. The City of God fell into shadow behind me.
I turned one last time. In the gateway I saw Salah, hand raised in farewell, white stallion prancing. At his side, even now, I made out Leyla on her dark mare.
Her figure was veiled, motionless, fixed. I knew she still stared after me, just as she had when I rode past her witho
ut a word. Unmoving.
Justice was done. Belmondo had committed no crime that men could punish. He, his wife, his daughters, and his son returned to their house, and I supposed would pick up their old way of life. I’d seen Reuben-William standing at the window above the kitchens, his handsome face white, haunting as a ghost.
Who was Leyla? Was she Salah’s daughter, his dancing-girl, his calculating emissary, his whore?
Would I ever know?
Somewhere in the dungeons beneath Salah’s palace, Peter the loyal servant screamed his way to eventual, certain execution and the good God’s side.
I reached under my tabard and touched the precious stone swinging there. They’d searched the family but forgot the one who really mattered: the servant. The jewel lay in Peter’s pocket all along, and in the dark narrow room, in our last moments alone, he’d slipped it into my hand. Great Saladin would die without enough for a hole in the ground.
Her cloak blew in the wind. Her mare stamped one hoof and for a moment I thought she’d ride after me, galloping, and we’d ride away just as we had on the curves and rises that had led us to Jerusalem, but this time away towards the sea, the wide sea.
She too was a jewel that I found; I will never find another.
Death in the Desert
Jean Davidson
From the Temple of Solomon we now travel back a further two thousand years to the time of Solomon and the legendary Queen of Sheba. The palace of Sheba was in the present country of the Yemen and is believed to be at the site now called Mahram Bilqis. She lived around the period 950 BC and is most famously associated with Solomon, to whose court she travelled. The following story is set on that amazing journey.
Jean Davidson is the wriring persona of literary agent and former paperback editor Dorothy Lumley, under which alias she has also written the Victorian romantic thriller A Bitter Legacy (1993) and the contemporary crime novel Guilt by Association (1997)
They came in the night, cowards made brave by the cover of darkness. One moment Daribul was settling himself to sleep, the next he was being roughly shaken awake.
“Master, master, quickly, we are being attacked!”
All around was confusion, bodies struggling together, yells from near and afar, screaming. Someone bellowing, “Light the torches, you fools!” another, “They’ve got the lead camels, stop them.”
More used to wielding a pen than a sword, Daribul reached for the weapons his servant Floran held out but, before he could speak, the young lad was knocked to the ground by a massive blow from behind. Daribul glimpsed wild eyes, mouth set in a savage grimace then the man was gone before he could retaliate. He knelt down and felt the boy’s neck. He was alive but unconscious. “Best place for you. Keep out of trouble,” he muttered, rolling the lad on his side then looking up to assess what was happening. Feet scrabbled on stony ground, boulders tripped the unwary, bodies clashed, struggled, swayed, fell, moaning, to the ground. Their camped caravan was being attacked but how was he to tell friend from foe until there was enough light?
Daribul absorbed these facts in a second, but his body was already on the move: the Queen. He must see that she was safe and protect her if needs be. He sprinted fast, crouching low, rebounding off bodies, man or beast he didn’t know or care, laying about him with the hilt of his sword, all the time forcing his way towards her tent by sheer strength of will. He was only slightly built and he was not a fighting man.
With relief he saw a mass of torches approaching, but the relief was short-lived. They were carried by the soldiers of the Queen’s general, Al-Hajar, who was in their midst on horseback. Daribul tried to turn away but too late as Al-Hajar jeered at him. “Hah, running the wrong way as usual – looking for the Queen’s protection. Stand and fight like a man –” He was fortunately swept on by. Daribul ignored him, as he ignored all Al-Hajar’s insults.
He was close to the Queen’s tent now, approaching it from the side. Miraculously it seemed to stand in a pool of quietness, the men who usually stood guard at the entrance were engaged in a fierce struggle some forty paces away. Relieved, he paused for a moment to catch his breath and then by the faint light of the stars, caught sight of a movement at the rear of the tent.
It was very slight, perhaps an animal of some kind. Instinct took over and without thought he crouched low and crept towards the movement he’d seen circling around behind. Barely allowing himself to breathe he stopped and raised his head. What he saw nearly stopped his heart from beating: two figures lying flat, quietly cutting a rent in the material of the tent wall. They were swathed in dark robes that blended with the rocky desert and hard to see. Then the first rose up on all fours, preparing to move inside.
He remembered little of what happened next. It was as if a spirit entered his body flooding him with superhuman strength, perhaps the god who inhabited this dirty little oasis in the middle of nowhere. He launched himself forward, sword arm raised, crying out: what happened next was a blank. When his vision cleared one man lay dead at his feet, the other was staggering away groaning, clutching his nearly severed arm to his body. Daribul, still possessed of incredible strength, bounded after him, leapt onto his back, and forced his sword into the man’s throat through the rough cloth. Gurgling blood, he collapsed.
Daribul looked down at him. He was beardless and his skin was strangely smooth. He was murmuring but no words that Daribul could recognise. Daribul stabbed him once through the heart to spare him further suffering, then went back to the other body and stabbed him again too, just to be sure. Then he ran to the front of the tent where he nearly tripped over the dead body of a guard. The others were still fighting nearby. He pushed his way inside.
There she stood, calm and unafraid, her female servants around her. She was holding her ceremonial dagger, raised ready, but lowered her arm when she saw it was Daribul. Her servants pulled her cloak around her to cover her nightwear, catching her long black hair half under it. Daribul had never seen her so informally dressed before, but she was unconcerned.
“What’s happening? I wanted to go outside but my guardians here held me back,” she spoke urgently but smiled at them too to soften her words.
“Desperate battles all around, but I believe we are beating them off,” he said, hastily making his obeisance.
“Good – and I see my scribe’s sword is red with blood too. Are you hurt?” Daribul shook his head, still filled with that strange heightened awareness, “Good, then accompany me outside so I may see for myself.”
She strode towards the tent entrance. Daribul opened his mouth to protest then closed it again. Not only was she his queen, but he also knew her too well. Her will was strong when her mind was made up – otherwise they would not be here in the wilderness, so far from home.
Outside, torches sent shadows tumbling and the smell of smoke mingled with the metallic stench of blood, and acrid human sweat. Several of the Queen’s personal bodyguard now fell back to surround her, breathing heavily from their exertions. And then, a trumpet sounded and an ululating cry of victory rose across their encampment and echoed from the mountains nearby. As suddenly as the attack had started, it was over.
Reaction set in. Daribul felt all his limbs trembling and his stomach began to heave. He was glad he had been possessed and could not recall the instant when his sword – he closed his eyes. He would not think of it.
When he opened them he realised there was still much more to be done. Orders were being given for the care of the wounded, a rider despatched to Wusuf, the local warlord who had given them permission to stay at this oasis and had also been handsomely paid to guarantee their safety.
He took the opportunity to return to the men he had killed, intending to drag them round to the front of the tent. But when he reached the spot the dead bodies were gone. Blankly he stared and then, in shock, searched the ground. There was a pool of blood where he had slit the second man’s throat, but no bodies. He knelt down and looked more carefully. It was difficult to tell, but regular lin
es in the dusty sand could have been the heels of dead men, scoring the ground as they were dragged away. All done in an instant. He looked up and all around, but could see no one. He had to return because he had left the Queen without permission. She did not ask where he had been, but asked, “Find La’ayam, bring him to me. Pray that he is alive, I think we will need his wise counsel.”
“And General Al-Hajar?”
“I think he is already on his way.” They exchanged looks and Daribul turned to leave but too late. He heard Al-Hajar’s voice well before he saw him, boasting of his and his men’s prowess in the battle, and then there the man was, his robes torn, his face and beard shiny with sweat, eyes still feverish with the fight.
“Hah, still hiding behind the women? Out of my way, stargazer,” he deliberately bumped into Daribul, making him stagger. “Men of letters have no value when it really counts.”
Daribul gave him a furious look. How he wanted to say, if you look behind the tent you’ll see the men I killed. But without the bodies he knew Al-Hajar would have another excuse to let the insults fly. One day, he vowed to himself, one day . . .
The Sheban encampment was vast. There were over two thousand camels in the caravan as well as horses, sheep and goats. Some men had brought their families too and tents and sleeping places stretched far out across the wadi floor. Fortunately, as well as the many torches and campfires, the sky was beginning to lighten, though the moon had long since set. Daribul first made his way quickly to his own sleeping area. Floran was sitting up.
“How are you, boy? Have you been able to drink some water?”
Floran nodded, then winced and placed his hand on the tender lump on his head. “I’m sorry, Master, I feel sick if I stand up.”
“Then don’t. I’ll seek out some herbs and ointments for you.”
“Are you hurt, Master? Your tunic needs mending.”