“Asalaam aleikum,” he said, thrusting out his feathery neck.
“Aleikum asalaam,” I returned, feeling perfectly idiotic.
“Long live the Saqr al-Sahra,” he murmured—or something that sounded very like it.
I turned to Rashid. “I’m afraid I don’t know what that phrase means.”
He grinned. “It is not a phrase, sitt. It is a name. Like Lawrence of Arabia.”
I blinked. “You know Colonel Lawrence?”
He shrugged. “Not I. My uncle, the sheikh of our tribe, met him. He says Colonel Lawrence is nothing compared to the Saqr al-Sahra.”
“Who is the…” I hesitated then attempted the phrase, mangling it so badly Rashid went off in fits of laughter.
He wiped his eyes and said the phrase again, slowly, until I could repeat it perfectly.
“Why do you keep saying sahra,” I demanded. “We’re a thousand miles from the Sahara. It isn’t even on this continent.”
Rashid sighed. “It is merely the Arabic word for desert. And the phrase I have taught you, it means falcon of the desert, sitt. The Saqr is a legend, a warrior who unites his people to fight against the Turk. This is why he is better than Lawrence. The Saqr is one of us, a true Bedouin. Perhaps you will meet the Bedu when you are in the Badiyat ash-Sham and they will tell you of his deeds. Perhaps you will even meet with my Bedu, and I will introduce you to the sheikh, my uncle.”
“Meet your Bedu? You mean you are leaving Damascus?”
He shrugged. “It is time for me to go into the desert again, sitt.”
I gave an impatient sigh. “Rashid, I had hoped you would keep an eye on my aunt while I was gone,” I said softly.
He shrugged again, taking refuge in silence. I sighed again and he turned back to the bird to teach him another choice word or two. I went to Aunt Dove.
“I’ve had a wire from Wally. He ought to turn up with the Jolly Roger in a day or so. You can show him around Damascus, and by the time he’s properly settled, I will be back. That ought to be fun for you. You will be all right in the meantime?” I asked her.
“Oh, don’t fret about me, child. I daresay I’ll come up with some way to amuse myself, although Halliday will be downcast, I’ve no doubt,” she said, giving me a disapproving look. “Perhaps I’ll see about entertaining him while you’re gone,” she said brightly. “I could put in a few good words for you.”
I thought of warning him, but there seemed little point. I packed a single small holdall for the trip, kissed Aunt Dove, blew a raspberry at Arthur on my way out the door and skipped down the stairs to find Miss Green just entering the court.
“Morning, Mrs. Starke! Ready to go, I see. And you’ve packed lightly,” she said, eyeing my single small bag. “Good girl. Wouldn’t do to bring too much. We’ll be lucky if Mother Mary gets us to the site, never mind our luggage.”
“Mother Mary?”
“That’s our nickname for the motorcar. Come and see.”
Outside idling in the street was one of the most curious vehicles I have ever seen. It was an old Ford van but scarcely recognisable. It had been painted in violent shades of yellow and blue with an enormous image of the Virgin Mary emblazoned on the bonnet. Through the cracked glass of the windscreen I could see a statue of the lady perched on the dash. Various bits and pieces of the vehicle were lashed together with baling wire and from within came the most astonishing smell of unwashed human and chicken droppings.
“We’ve little money for things like automobiles,” she said with the barest trace of apology. She leaned into the car and roused the driver, who was sleeping peacefully. “Daoud, get up at once. Shove the chickens into the backseat. You will ride with them and Mrs. Starke will sit up front with me.”
The driver, a native fellow wearing a filthy striped robe and a vacant grin, did as he was told, touching his forehead as he bowed to me. “Greetings, sitt.”
“Hello.”
Miss Green did not bother to lower her voice. “That’s Daoud. He’s an imbecile, poor fellow, but a useful enough worker so long as you tell him precisely what to do. I told him to collect the chickens I’m taking to the dig site. Only trouble was, I neglected to tell him to bring the coop,” she said, scowling at Daoud. He was lazily flapping his robe at the chickens that paid no attention to him whatsoever. “Oh, give it up, Daoud!” Miss Green instructed. With characteristic efficiency she hoisted each squawking chicken up by the feet and tossed it neatly into the back. She brushed a quick hand over the front seat, scattering feathers and other unspeakable things.
“Climb in, Mrs. Starke. Nothing in here that will hurt you.”
I did as she told me and she gunned the engine. “Here we go!” she declared, and we sailed majestically into traffic. “We are on our way.”
CHAPTER SIX
The drive was nothing like I imagined. I had pictured a long journey over rough terrain, with dust and grit filling my mouth and eyes and the sun beating hot overhead as my throat slowly parched and my skin tightened. It was a thousand times worse. Unlike the tall sandy dunes of popular imagination, this desert was simply an endless stretch of rocky nothingness. The road did not even deserve the dignity of the name; it was a track in the long scrubby wastes of desert, dotted here and there with low bushes and the occasional outcropping of rock. From time to time Miss Green would point out the crumbling tower of a ruined Crusader castle or a particularly noteworthy bit of rock wall surrounding a well from antiquity, long since run dry. The landmarks were few and difficult to see, and the further we travelled, the more I began to wonder what on earth I had got myself into. The track branched off in several places, and in some spots disappeared altogether. But Miss Green seemed to know precisely where she was headed, and she did not hesitate, plunging forward at each turning with confidence and as much speed as she dared. As she drove, she described the staff I would meet at the dig site.
“There are the labourers, locals, of course, and then there are the Hungarians, the Thurzós, to whom I am cordial but secretly despise. They despise me, as well, but are even more cordial than I am, so you needn’t fear we will draw knives over the dinner table,” she said with a little chuckle. “The Thurzós are brother and sister, and we have a little joke about them being spies although they claim to be linguists, and I must admit, they do know their stuff.”
“Spies!”
She shrugged. “Of course. The area is thick with them. That’s what we get for digging out here where half of Europe is involved in making nations.” She gave me a narrow look. “You do understand what the situation is, don’t you?”
I hesitated. I had spent the entire journey on the Orient Express refreshing my memory and Halliday had added a few choice details, most notably about the Arab Bureau in Cairo directing British regional interests as far as Baghdad. By the time Miss Green and I set off, I probably knew as much as any minor government functionary and possibly more. But it occurred to me there was nothing like the horse’s mouth. Listening to Miss Green’s take on things wouldn’t tell me any more than I already knew about Syria but it could tell me a hell of a lot about her.
I smiled girlishly and fluttered my lashes a little while I shrugged. It was revolting, but I had pegged Miss Green as the tweedy, academic type, and that sort always thought girls like me with our fluffy curls and red lipstick were about as intelligent as the average sofa cushion. With such women it is always best to let them explain things to you. They liked to feel superior and it freed up a lot of time to think about shoes or choosing the best route across the Caspian Sea.
Right on cue, Miss Green puffed out a long-suffering sigh. “You ought to know, Mrs. Starke. It’s important,” she said firmly. “The Turks were masters here for centuries, and they were complete bastards about it, to be perfectly blunt. I presume you know they sided with Germany in the war?” She slid me a glance and I bri
stled. Maybe I had overdone it a little if she were going to go quite so far back in her explanations.
“I did know that!” I assured her a trifle acidly.
She shrugged. “That’s more than Daoud knows and it’s his country. In any event, the Turks sided with the Germans, two empires walking out cosily together. In the meantime, England and France got together and realised this was a strategic area, a very strategic area. If the Turks could be kept busy here, they couldn’t aid the Germans on the Continent. And as a starting strategy it worked rather well. We agitated the locals and got them to kick up a fuss against Turkey.”
“If memory serves,” I said carefully, “we incited them to rebellion by promising to support them in establishing a homeland—a promise we have since broken. This interim government has no real power, does it?”
She flapped a hand. “It’s all very complicated,” she said vaguely. I was not surprised. Broken British promises made for awkward conversation in the Levant. Lip service to Arab independence had been paid by allowing Prince Faisal, son of the Sharif of Mecca, to call himself king, but by never giving him the merest scrap of power, the Europeans had made it clear precisely who was in charge. Gabriel had always been stern on the subject of Arab independence and I had agreed with him. Imperialism was an outdated philosophy and one that had no place in the twentieth century. But clearly Miss Green was a horse of a different colour, and I had no intention of insulting my hostess before we’d even arrived at the dig.
I prodded her to go on. “I do know that after the war we English kept charge of things here, but I understand we have now retreated to Palestine and Mesopotamia, leaving the French with their hands all over the interim government.”
“Just so. And it’s played hell with our excavations, I can tell you. The bloody French advisors are making all the same mistakes here they made in Egypt before we got there!” she said, throwing up her hands. The car veered sharply but she jerked the wheel and got it back on track. The chickens protested bitterly. Daoud took the loudest onto his lap and began to pet it.
“In any event,” she went on, “the French advisors have let us dig, but they keep an eye on us. And I have heard we have our own spies trotting about in the desert keeping an eye on them.”
“To what end?”
She shrugged. “Whoever knows? It’s all down to little grey men at Whitehall who know nothing and who don’t ever walk further than Downing Street. But it plays havoc with my dig because they keep the French agitated and that means the French keep coming round demanding to see paperwork. Rather handy to have the Thurzós on staff. Hungarians have a sort of glamour about them, I always think, even if they did side with Germany in the war. This pair speak a dozen languages and manage to smooth things over, especially Erzsébet. She’s got a way about her.”
Before I could ask about Erzsébet’s way, she carried on, ticking off members of the expedition. “Then there’s Herr Doktor Schickfuss. I told you about him already. The very best of chaps, but the French will kick up a fuss about us having a German around. Took me the better part of this week to persuade the French not to chuck him out.” She glanced back and spoke sharply. “Do not make a pet out of that creature, Daoud. It will be in the cookpot tomorrow morning.”
Daoud clutched at the chicken, which clucked in alarm. Miss Green turned back around. “Fool,” she said, but there was no heat to her words and I suspected she was fond of the fellow. “Where was I? Oh, excavation. We’ve a local foreman who is quite well-trained and an obliging chap. He puts up with all of Rowan’s bloody-mindedness.”
I studied my nails and adopted a casual tone. “Mr. Rowan is difficult to work with?”
“All geniuses are, and Rowan is more of a genius than most. He doesn’t usually do field work—terribly reclusive and made a name for himself writing scathing critiques of other people’s dig reports. Apparently he had a rough time of it in the war and doesn’t like to talk about his past, so don’t go upsetting him with questions,” she warned. “Quite a coup to get him here, but his pet subject is Crusader castles. Our caravansary formed part of the construction of one of the castles. The place is in ruins now, scarcely two stones stacked on top of each other, but he’s quite in heaven, prowling about the place at all hours. He’s the worst sort of archaeologist, completely driven. I don’t think the man sleeps three hours a night. But he is a stern taskmaster and expects as much out of the rest of the crew and somehow gets it. One doesn’t mind so much when one realises he drives himself just as hard.”
“Still, if he’s such a tyrant, I wonder why you don’t all look for a more accommodating staff member.”
“We are co-leaders,” she said proudly. “We were dashed lucky to get him.” Her manner was a little stiff then, and I wondered wickedly if she had formed a tendresse for him. She was an extremely pragmatic woman, not the sort one would expect to harbour romantic fantasies. But in my experience, those were the women who always fell the hardest—and often for entirely indifferent men like dance instructors and hairdressers.
“You must be tired,” she said. “Why don’t you try to sleep? It will be hours yet and the view won’t change at all, I promise you.”
I folded my coat into a sort of pillow and closed my eyes, as much to give myself a chance to think as time to rest. As I shut my eyes, I saw Miss Green look back at Daoud, and this time her expression was warm and when she smiled at him, she coloured a little. I closed my eyes firmly then, but I spent many miles thinking about Miss Green and her peculiar little companion and exactly what their relationship might be.
We arrived just as night began to fall, having stopped only twice for food and water and to stretch our legs, and twice more to dig out the car when it bogged in a soft spot. The workers were filing away from the site, a long line of weary men in striped and plain robes, barefoot or sandalled and singing lowly as they walked. The others were preparing the evening meal and closing down the site for the day, although they all left what they were doing when Mother Mary chugged into view. I looked around to get my bearings, surprised to find the site was so large. Miss Green had exaggerated the decrepitude of the castle only slightly. Most of it had fallen into great heaps of stone, but a few courses of the keep still stood atop one another enclosing shadowy rooms, and somehow, silhouetted against the setting sun, it seemed grim and forbidding with its thick tower and heavy crenellations. The caravansary had been laid out at its foot, a series of warehouses and storerooms and lodgings opening off one another. A little distance away, a sort of camp had been established, with a long low building to serve as the storehouse for artefacts. Another small building, scarcely more than a shack, had been set aside for a common room where they ate and sat together in the evenings. A small room opened off the back for Mr. Rowan’s lodgings, and the rest were scattered about in tents. “You’ll have to share my tent, I’m afraid,” Miss Green told me. “It’s quite comfortable, as tents go, and I’m a sound sleeper.”
She flapped her hands to get the chickens out of the car and scolded Daoud into finding a cage to put them in. Just then a man and woman approached, the woman as smartly turned out as if she’d stepped out of a Parisian bandbox. Her desert costume was beautifully tailored, and I did not need Miss Green to tell me this was the Hungarian aristocrat. She introduced herself as Countess Thurzó and pointed to her companion. “My brother, Count András Thurzó.”
He bowed low, and I was astonished at the resemblance between them. They were two peas from a very handsome pod, slender and short, and both of them blessed with enormous black eyes and chocolate-box complexions.
“Mrs. Starke is on a world tour. She’s a famous aviatrix, you know,” Miss Green told them. “She’s a keen interest in archaeology. Her late husband used to dig.”
“My condolences, madame,” Count Thurzó murmured as he bent over my hand.
“Good God, Green, did you let Daoud drive? I’ve been waiting
two days on the post.” I turned to see Gabriel approaching in his disguise as Mr. Rowan. He looked like Zeus on a bad day, all thunderous expression and angry scowl behind his wretched beard. He wore coloured spectacles that darkly shadowed his eyes and turned the colour to mud. He blinked nearsightedly at me as he came close.
“Mr. Rowan, how nice to see you again,” I said lightly. I put out my hand. “It is so kind of you to welcome me to your site.”
He took my hand, but with a show of reluctance, and dropped it instantly, as if he’d been scorched. “It’s nothing to me, although I don’t much care to have amateurs about. Too much of a bloody nuisance, frankly. But I daresay if you can remember to shake out your shoes to free the scorpions and check your cot for snakes before you bed down, you’ll manage,” he said, his tone decidedly bland. He played the benign curmudgeon with a mildness that would have been entirely convincing to anyone who didn’t know him as well as I did. A tiny muscle at the corner of his eye twitched and I knew he was enraged with me and doing his level best to hide it.
“I won’t get in the way,” I added with my most winsome smile. “And I promise I won’t inconvenience you.”
He scowled then gave me a dismissive shrug. “I shan’t even notice you’re here, I assure you, Mrs. Spark.”
“Starke,” I corrected coldly.
He shrugged again and turned to Miss Green to issue a series of orders. Countess Thurzó put her arm through mine. “Do not pay him attention,” she advised softly as she drew me away. “He is always cranky. I think he is dyspeptic,” she said with a faint smile. “Now come this way and I will show you to Miss Green’s tent. You will want to make yourself tidy for dinner.”
* * *
I had a quick wash and changed into clean clothes just in time for the evening meal. At dinner I was introduced to Herr Doktor Schickfuss, a kindly, ruddy-cheeked fellow who was vastly more welcoming than Mr. Rowan had been and inclined to flirt in that harmlessly charming way elderly men have.
City of Jasmine Series, Book 2 Page 9