“I don’t much care for flaccid food.”
He laughed, a proper belly laugh, and while he was regarding me with delight he nearly choked on his own apricot. “Christ, I have missed you.”
Before I could respond, he hauled me to my feet and yanked the bootlace free. “Let’s go have a look at that track,” he said, stuffing another apricot into my mouth with his filthy fingers. I followed him slowly, picking my way along until I reached his side.
He was crouched along the edge of the track, and as I knelt he pointed to a set of blurry prints in the sandy soil. “These were made by a small raiding party of Bedu.”
“How can you tell?”
“A caravan would be larger and have camels in train. These are all on horseback and riding fast. Luckily they’re southbound. We can follow the track north a little while and make better time than if we kept scrambling over the rough bits. Come on then.”
He set off at a quick jog and I fell into step behind him. As with our travels of the previous night, he never looked back. But I caught him stealing sidelong glances and realised he was checking the position of my shadow as we moved. We stopped occasionally for water and a handful of nuts and for Gabriel to gauge our position with nothing more than the angle of the sun to help him.
“Time to cut east again,” he told me, and we struck off the track for the wasteland somewhere between Damascus and Palmyra. We might have been anywhere in those hundreds of miles, and suddenly I felt quite small. I don’t know if I stiffened or made a noise, but Gabriel stopped abruptly. “What’s wrong?”
“It just occurred to me how vast it all is. It’s like flying. Just you—a tiny speck in an infinitely larger emptiness.”
He paused a moment. “And both can be deadly. Mind you keep up.” He set off again, this time at a punishing pace. We trotted, for hours it seemed, and much later, when my bones had begun to ache and my muscles were shrieking in protest, we came to an oasis, a very small one, with a well and a small fringe of palm trees. To my horror, Gabriel strode right past it.
“We aren’t stopping?”
“No. It’s a bir, the village well. Too busy.”
“Gabriel, there isn’t a soul around.”
“Now there isn’t. In another hour, there could be two dozen women there taking on water.”
“And we can’t stop, not even for a minute?”
He whirled on me, his expression wholly indifferent. “This was your idea. Either keep up or stay behind. But if you stay, I suggest shooting yourself with that absurd little toy you carry. It’s nicer than dying of thirst or snakebite or brigands.”
He turned sharply and walked on. I followed meekly. He was right, of course. He had warned me the trip would be hard, but I had insisted and I had only myself to blame. He moved quickly, but I kept up, grateful that flying demanded the highest level of fitness. I had worked hard to develop the stamina I needed to control the Jolly Roger, and as we trekked through the desert, I called on every bit of it. The day was hot and the sun was almost as merciless as Gabriel. We stopped more often for water, and I ate the dried fruit he handed me without complaint although it was unpleasantly warm and fleshy, with pulpy bits that stuck to my teeth as I chewed.
At last the sun began to sink below the horizon, leaving long bloodred streaks behind as if the sky itself had been lashed with a whip. A freshening breeze sprang up and with it came a low, mournful sound echoing over the desert.
“Jackals,” he told me, and I nodded, too tired to speak. The desert itself began to sing then, a long, low sound so mournful it made my heart rise in my throat. It creaked and sighed like the sea, empty but not silent, and as we walked, it seemed that the desert itself watched us.
Soon after, he stopped us to rest again. We were both too tired to talk, and after we had drunk our fill and each eaten a handful of nuts, he motioned for me to try to sleep. I hesitated, and he cursed, unbuckling his belt and lashing the end of it to my wrist. He tugged at the buckle to show me that it would not pass through the loops.
“I can’t get free without cutting the loops with a knife, and you’d be awake long before I could manage it. Happy? Now go to sleep. I’m not leaving you,” he said, his voice cold and distant. But I felt oddly comforted, and before I could reply, I slept.
Some time later he shook me awake, his hand bruising on my shoulder. He made me drink again then pushed me to my feet. We walked on, and I saw the stars were out, glittering overhead with a cold and distant light. He navigated swiftly by them, quickening the pace as we drew near. At last we reached an oasis—or at least the remains of one. The pool of water that must have once nourished the earth had dried, and without it, the palms had withered and died. The bricks at the edge of the abandoned well were crumbling to dust. The cover had long since blown away, and from the depths of the well I could smell the rotting stink of some animal that had wandered too close and fallen in.
I could not imagine where in this nasty little wasteland Gabriel could have found to hide the Cross, but before I could ask, he dropped his goatskin and began to strip off his shirt and boots.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Preparing to climb into the well, child, what does it look like?”
I glanced around. “Where is your rope?”
“I do not require a rope,” he said with a scornful glance. Off came his socks then, and he was bare save for his trousers, which he rolled to the knee. Even though it had been five years, I was interested to see he was fit as ever, sleek muscles stretching from his wide shoulders to a pair of hips as narrow as a girl’s. But when I looked closer I could see a few fresh scars acquired on his travels.
He drew a sizeable knife from his pocket and clamped it between his teeth, looking for all the world like a pirate prince. He swung himself onto the crumbling course of bricks on the top of the well. Several wobbled and fell as he touched them and I swallowed hard. He motioned for me to shine the torch down into the well and I took it, grateful for something to do. The shadows around the oasis moved and shifted in the darkness, and more than once I fancied I heard sounds like the rustling of old ghosts. I had heard of the djinns that were supposed to haunt such places, demons and malevolent spirits that stalked the unwary traveller. Such tales were easy to laugh away in the city, but there, as the darkness pressed against us from every direction, it was not difficult to believe.
I shivered a little as I held the torch high for Gabriel.
He took the knife out of his teeth long enough to bark at me, “Don’t shine that bloody thing in my eyes, woman,” then put it back in and began to clamber down into the well. He wedged his fingers and toes into the cracks between the bricks, the mortar long since worn away. It was dangerous, bloody work, and more than once he slipped when a brick crumbled under him and he had to catch himself one-handed. He grumbled and complained all the while, sending up a steady stream of irritation muffled by the knife in his mouth, but all directed at me, I had no doubt.
At last, when he was halfway down the well, he stopped. Hanging by one arm, his legs braced far apart by thigh muscles that had gone rigid with the effort, he plunged the knife into the remaining mortar and began to scrape. In a few minutes it was over. He was climbing back up with a bundle hanging over his back. He reached the top in a lather of sweat and bloody hands and feet and took the goatskin I handed him. He tipped his head back and swallowed for whole minutes, taking in the last of his water. When he’d finished, he used his knife to slice open the empty goatskin then put it aside. He took the bundle off his back carefully, reverently even, and unwrapped all but the last layer of cloth. It had been tied into lengths of soft leather, now covered in mould and dirt, but he left these behind, keeping only a single wrapping of decaying velvet as he pushed it into the goatskin that had held his water. He fished in his pockets for the little medical kit he’d retrieved from Mother Mary, and b
y the light of the torch stitched it closed with a large needle and a length of catgut. When he’d finished, it looked like any other goatskin carried by a desert traveller.
“I can’t believe you didn’t let me see it,” I told him as he packed up his medical supplies. It was typical of him that he attended to the Cross with such care and entirely neglected his own scrapes and bruises.
“You’ll have the rest of your life to stare at it.” He pulled his shirt and boots back on and hefted the goatskin with the cross. “Now, we’re going to find someplace to rest, and hopefully get clean because I am forty days beyond filthy and I can’t bear the stench of myself, and then we’re getting you back to Damascus, inshallah.”
Suddenly, the shadows at the edge of the oasis shifted again, materialising into a group of people. They flicked on their torches, shining them directly into our eyes.
“Mr. and Mrs. Starke, you will please oblige us by turning over what you have just retrieved from that well,” said a cultured voice.
Gabriel sighed loudly. “You made good time, Thurzó. Better than I would have expected.”
Squinting, I swung my own torch around and was just able to make out the Thurzós and a small band of native fellows draped in the usual striped robes and headdresses. Countess Thurzó looked a trifle less tidy than usual and her brother’s hair was wildly askew, but it was the pistol in his hand that caught my attention.
He smiled at Gabriel. “We were lucky enough to find a cordial group of desert gentlemen willing to rent us their horses,” he said, and I could just hear the jingle of harnesses from some distance off. They’d been lucky. We had been walking upwind of them, which had kept the sound and smell of the horses at bay.
He gestured to the pouch with his pistol. “I must repeat my request, Mr. Starke. I will have the Cross, please.”
“The Cross!” I whipped my head around to Gabriel. “I thought you hadn’t told anyone.”
“I hadn’t,” he said with an unpleasant smile. “But I would lay a fiver I know who did.”
At that moment one of the native fellows moved into the light a little and I saw it was Daoud, Miss Green’s simple manservant.
I looked at Gabriel and he shrugged. “I suspected I was followed one day, but I never caught sight of who it was.” He flicked a cold glance at Daoud. “I gather you followed me and decided to see what was in the well after I left?”
Daoud merely gave a blank grin and shrugged, but Countess Thurzó stepped forward. “He is not so stupid as you think. He saw a good business opportunity when it presented itself.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Why the devil didn’t he just take it then and save us all a great deal of bother?”
She shrugged. “It takes time to arrange for a buyer for such an object, as you yourself no doubt discovered.”
He gave another bored sigh. “All right, then. You’ve bested us. Nothing to do but take our medicine and swallow it.” He hefted the goatskin bag carefully and tossed it with a light underhanded throw to Count Thurzó. The fellow caught it neatly and felt the shape of the Cross through the bag. He gave a nod to his sister and she turned back to us, peering at Gabriel with her torch trained closely on his face as she scrutinised the differences in his face without his lenses and various pads and mouthpieces.
“Your disguise was most effective, Mr. Starke. It was only when I searched Mrs. Starke’s things and yours that I began to suspect who you really were. It seems obvious now that you concealed your identity all the while in order to keep this find for yourself.”
Gabriel shrugged indifferently. “A fellow has to earn a living, you know. And digging in these bloody rocks gets old after a few decades. Thought I’d make a few bob when I found that, but you’ve found me out. Nothing for it but to take my punishment and let you haul us back to Damascus to the authorities.”
Countess Thurzó started to speak but her brother stepped forward and murmured something in Hungarian. They quarrelled briefly, and Countess Thurzó gestured emphatically. But whatever the trouble, her brother clearly carried the day. The countess turned on her heel without another word and strode into the darkness in the direction of their horses.
Count Thurzó sighed and turned to us. Gabriel’s expression did not falter. He was playing the hail-fellow-well-met, but the count was having none of it. “It is very nice that you are gracious in defeat, Mr. Starke, but that does not alter the fact that you cannot be allowed to live.”
My heart lurched against my ribs and I heard an odd ringing in my ears from far away. Gabriel’s perfect imitation of the outraged, overly civilised Englishman never slipped.
“I say, that’s unsporting. Just unsporting is what I call it. And to think we didn’t bother to shoot you when we could have—” He broke off with a sudden startled glance towards me, his expression panicked, but Count Thurzó seized upon what he had almost said and smiled. He came to me and patted my pockets, giving a little sound of satisfaction when he emerged with my tiny pistol.
Gabriel spoke up, his voice rising almost hysterically. “You can’t force her to use that on me. You mustn’t.” Count Thurzó looked at Gabriel’s pleading face, then to me, his eyes strangely bright as he held out the pistol. His expression was apologetic but his gaze was implacable.
I stared at the pistol glittering on his palm. “I don’t—”
“Take it, madame. And shoot him. Or I will.” His voice shook with excitement, and I realised then he was new to violence. If he and his sister had been hardened criminals they would have plotted this out in advance, but they hadn’t—the argument bore testimony to that. And now that Gabriel had blurted out his idiotic fear that they would make me shoot him, the count had seized upon this as an extremely elegant solution to the problem of what to do with him. If they shot Gabriel, they might be held for murder. But if I did it, their hands were clean. If the authorities ever became involved, it would be their word against mine, and they could always devise a plausible motive for me to have shot Gabriel. They could claim he had abducted and insulted me, that we had been conspirators to take the Cross and had quarrelled, that I had simply gone mad. The possibilities were legion.
The count’s eyes were searching as he looked at me. I glanced at Gabriel and he said nothing. His only gesture was an almost imperceptible flicker of one eyelid. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I would have missed it altogether. I looked up to see the count was looking grimly determined and behind him his henchmen stood, immovable as the hills themselves, while Daoud smiled his meaningless smile.
I reached out and took the pistol.
“You are a resourceful man, Count Thurzó,” I told him.
“One learns survival of necessity when one has lost a war,” he reminded me as he relieved me of my torch. “Now, please get on with it.” He stepped back sharply and kept his pistol raised, protecting himself in case I should change my mind.
“I have a fully loaded weapon and I am an excellent shot,” he told me. “You might wound me, if you are very lucky, but you will not kill me, and I promise you my revenge would not be pleasant.”
I shuddered and turned back to Gabriel. I lifted the pistol and looked into his eyes. He dropped his eyes, and I was grateful. It would be easier without him staring at me. I lowered my gaze to the pocket of his shirt, a small square of khaki directly over his heart. I stared at it until everything else swam out of focus and there was nothing but that patch of fabric and nothing else in the world.
And then I pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER NINE
Gabriel collapsed facedown onto the ground. He gave a single shudder and lay still, so perfectly, impossibly still that the count’s relief was palpable. “Congratulations, Mrs. Starke,” he said. “You have the nerve of a Hungarian. It takes real courage to shoot a man when you can see his face.”
“Go to hell,” I told him.
&
nbsp; He clucked his tongue at me. “That is not nice. Now, I would offer to bring you with us, but I see no need to burden myself with witnesses. You can make your way out of the desert as best as you can. Without water and horses, I think you will not get far. In fact, I would put your chances at no better than one in a thousand. But you might surprise me. You already have.”
He started to go then turned back. “I leave you your torch and the pistol in case you find it necessary to take matters into your own hands when the thirst gets to be too much to bear. My friends are heavily armed, so I would not suggest you try to delay us on our departure. Goodbye, Mrs. Starke.”
He turned on his heel and left with his companions.
I waited until I heard the jingle of their horses’ harnesses fade into the distance before I turned to where Gabriel lay in the dirt. I knelt beside him and rolled him over, not an easy task as he was entirely dead weight. His eyes were rolled back into his head, and for the second time in a week I pulled back my arm and slapped him hard.
He came to, coughing as if he would bring up a lung, and when he could speak, he pointed a shaking finger at me and called me a vile name.
“Yes, well I just bloody well saved your life, so I think you might be more inclined to thank me than insult me.”
He wheezed and coughed for several minutes more while I hunted through his pockets. In the past he had always carried a flask of whisky and I was relieved to see old habits died hard with him. I waved it under his nose and he sat up, cursing, to take a long pull. When he finished, he looked marginally better.
He reached into his pocket, the very pocket where I had shot him, and pulled out the small tobacco tin. Embedded in the lid was the flattened slug from the pistol.
“Well, at least you understood the signal I gave you when I looked down at my shirt. Thank Christ you don’t own a proper gun or I would have been dead for sure.”
“You silly ass. You took a terrible chance letting me do that,” I told him. My hands were shaking as I took the flask from him and drank deeply.
City of Jasmine Series, Book 2 Page 13