A River in the Sky (24 page)

“Not hungry. Tell me where—”

“Lie still and rest while I talk. Nothing new about that, is there?”

He brought David up-to-date, starting from the moment when he had collapsed. “So you see,” he concluded, “things are looking up. My note is on its way to the parents and we have friends hereabouts.”

“That’s nice.” David’s eyes were half closed. “So damn sleepy…Sorry, can’t…”

His voice trailed off into a snore. The medicine must be a soporific as well as a febrifuge. Ramses wished he had kept a sample of the herb. Nefret would want to test it.

It was the first time he had dared think about her for several days. David had told him he had had a hard time talking her out of coming with him. Only his assurance that he alone could carry out the plan had won her over.

He put out the fire and went to the gate. It was a beautiful morning. A few white clouds moved overhead, like sheep in a blue pasture. High above, a hawk balanced on a current of air, and from the ruined heights of the keep a chorus of birdsong arose. In the valley below he saw neat little patches of green and gold, vineyards and fields of ripened grain. This was a peaceful land, fertile enough to support a small industrious population. It was hard to imagine the crops ablaze and the hillside strewn with the bodies of the dead; yet it must have happened many times, not only during the Crusades but for centuries before and centuries after.

This was the first time he had had a chance to find out exactly where they were. He had been too preoccupied with getting David up the hillside and then with exploring the inside of the castle before night fell. He was higher up than he had expected. The hill was almost a miniature mountain, its slopes steep and rocky. If there were people working the fields below, they were surely too far distant to see him, but he moved cautiously, close to the base of the wall. The view was spectacular from that height; the city they had left was hidden by the hills, but to the east he could see as far as the coastal plain. He moved on, picking his way around spiny shrubs and gnarled trees that had struck their roots down into the subsoil, till he reached the south side of the castle. The slope wasn’t as steep there; goats grazed on the coarse patches of weeds, and several groups of small
flat-roofed houses were visible below, some marked by the minaret of a mosque.

Shadows hid him from anyone who might look in that direction, but he decided he had better get back to David. Another truncated tower stood at the southeast corner. The sun was directly in his eyes when he got round it. What he saw when his vision adjusted made him draw back into the angle between tower and wall: a stretch of road hugging the curve of the hill below. It could only be the main road to Jerusalem, and it was less than half a mile from the castle height—close enough for him to make out the shapes of moving vehicles and the forms of animals and people. One group was distinguishable by their vivid red headgear—the fezzes worn by Turkish soldiers.

He went back the way he had come as fast as he dared. David was awake and trying to sit up. “Thank God,” he said weakly. “I didn’t see you. I thought…”

“Sorry.” Ramses braced his shoulders and reached for the water skin. “I went out to reconnoiter.”

“Anything new?”

“No.” He helped himself to a drink after David had finished. “But I think we had better move farther inside. We’re too exposed here. Do you feel up to it?”

“I’ll crawl if I have to. I was just thinking that I was in plain view to anyone who walked through that gate and past the tower.”

“You won’t have to crawl.” Ramses began gathering their scanty supplies together. “Here, finish the medicine. I’ll go ahead and find a good spot, and come back for you.”

Ramses felt a little easier after he had got David through the gate in the inner wall. David managed to stay on his feet but he didn’t argue when Ramses suggested they rest awhile before going on. If Ramses hadn’t known it was impossible, he would have thought David had lost a stone or more in the past twenty-four hours. His
cheeks were hollow and his eyes sunken. He hadn’t lost his nerve, though. Looking round at the wilderness of tumbled stone and stunted trees and brambly shrubs, with the dark mass of the keep rising in its midst, he let out a low whistle.

“All the comforts of home. Plenty of hiding places, wood for a fire…Those can’t be fig trees, surely.”

“They say olives and figs can grow out of solid rock,” Ramses said somewhat absently.

“Pity there isn’t a spring.”

He was making idle conversation in order to hide the fact that he needed to catch his breath, but the comment got Ramses’s attention.

“One would think there would be, wouldn’t one? A place like this wouldn’t be defensible for long without a source of water. I’ll have a look round later.”

Brambles tugged at their clothes as they went on. David kept stubbing his toes on chunks of stone hidden by the rampant weeds and leaning more heavily on Ramses’s arm. He was weakening fast, or perhaps the medication had begun to take effect. Ramses got him inside the keep and lowered him onto the ground. He was out of breath himself. David looked as if he had lost weight, but he didn’t feel as if he had.

“Cozy, isn’t it?” he wheezed.

“Forbidding” would have been a better word. The walls of the lower floor of the keep were intact except for the gap through which they had entered. There had never been a door on this level; invaders would have to climb a steep narrow flight of stairs, under constant fire from the defenders, in order to reach the entrance. The stairs had slumped into a steep uneven ramp. The stairs inside remained, though Ramses hoped they would not have to use them; they circled the inner wall, but after seven centuries, give or take a decade, he would not have wanted to trust his weight to them. There were no windows on this level either. The only light came from above, through sec
tions of the ceiling that had fallen in. The floor was littered with scattered stones, possibly the remains of partition walls, with bird droppings and straggling weeds, and with a grisly collection of bones. The bones, those of small animals like hares, were dry and brittle; he could only hope this was an indication that the predator had taken up residence elsewhere.

He cleared away bones, weeds, and rocks from a space behind a pile of stones and persuaded David to lie down, with one of the galabeeyahs under his head for a pillow. “Can you eat something?” he asked.

David made a wry face. “I’m not hungry, but I suppose I had better. What have we got?”

The answer was, nothing to tempt an invalid’s appetite; the bread was hard, the cheese pungent, and the grapes were withering. David forced down some of the grapes and bread soaked in water to make a tasteless gruel. “What time is it?” he asked.

“I forgot to wind my watch,” Ramses admitted. “Getting on for midday, at a guess. My message has been on its way for several hours. With luck we could be out of this place to night.”

His attempt at encouragement was a dismal failure. “Not bloody likely,” David said. “Don’t treat me as if I were a child, Ramses. I may be sick, but I’m not stupid.”

“You must feel better,” Ramses said, smiling. “Or you wouldn’t talk back to me. You’re right, of course. At best the messengers will take at least a day to reach Jerusalem. They won’t risk the main road, because it’s being patrolled by Turkish soldiers. Then they’ll have to track down the parents, who are notoriously unpredictable; God only knows where they’ve got to by now. It may take even Mother a while to figure out exactly where we are, my directions were necessarily vague, and even if they receive the message tonight, they won’t be stupid enough to start out in the dark. That’s the truth of the matter. I hope you like it.”

“You only left out one uncomfortable fact. The messengers may not get through at all.”

“That’s a possibility.”

“Then we had better get ready to move on our own,” David said coolly.

Ramses gave David’s shoulder a quick, awkward squeeze. “Thanks.”

“What for?”

“For not suggesting I leave you here and go to get help.”

“It would have been a waste of breath. You never listen to sensible suggestions.” He yawned. “Is there any more of that vile medicine left? It makes me sleepy, but it does seem to have lowered the fever.”

“Just the dregs.” He had put the cup, with its contents, into his belt pouch along with all the other evidence of their presence. He took it out and inspected what remained of the herbs. “I’ll try adding some boiling water, let it steep awhile. Go back to sleep, there’s nothing else to do.”

“Wake me in a few hours. Take it in turn to keep watch…”

His voice faded out and his eyes closed.

Ramses went back to the entrance and began gathering twigs and dried leaves for a fire. The thin smoke dissipated in the breeze, but he was afraid to let it burn too long; as soon as the water began to steam he stamped out the fire, taking care that no sparks reached the patches of dried grass. The water was running low, and had a distinct taste of goat. He’d seen a gleam of running water farther down the slope, on the side of the villages, but he was afraid to risk a sortie in case he might fall and break a limb. That would leave David alone and helpless.

When the brew was steeping he sat down, his back against the trunk of a fig tree. Keeping watch was definitely a sensible idea. They were too close to the road for comfort and the man who had brought them here had said not all in the villages were trustworthy. Did that
mean that some of the villagers were not members of the Sons of Abraham, whoever those ambiguous individuals might be? They had done well by him and David so far. But Mansur had the same identifying mark, and if he was a member of the group, they couldn’t all be as well-intentioned. Or were they? Had Mansur been playing a double game all along? Their escape had been a little too easy, some of the items left in their luggage a little too useful. The word of their escape had spread with remarkable speed. Thinking back on that morning, Ramses began to wonder if they hadn’t been driven like cattle, headed off into byways that would lead them eventually to a safe refuge.

He hadn’t felt so stupid and ineffectual since he was ten years old, when the girl he was trying desperately to impress had had to save him from the grasp of an abductor. He had fallen on his head and rolled into a ditch, a figure of shame and ridicule. And here he sat, waiting for her and his parents to rescue him again…

The sound of a voice jerked him awake. He had fallen into heavy slumber, sitting there. Hazy with sleepiness and berating himself for his failure as a lookout, he hurried in to see if it was David who had called him. David was sound asleep; he didn’t stir even when Ramses spoke his name.

He made his way back to the entrance and peered out. There was no one in sight, and no further sounds—except the faintest of noises that might have been bare feet picking a path over pebble-strewn ground. The sounds faded into silence as he listened, and then he realized something was there, just inside the gate, something that hadn’t been there before. The shadows were thickening; the object was an amorphous shape whose outlines were hard to make out.

He waited for another five minutes, counting off the seconds. The object didn’t stir, and the sounds of movement had stopped. It wasn’t curiosity that brought him out into the open, but need. Their
water was running low and their food was gone. If this was, as he dared hope, another contribution of supplies from allies in the village, it would get them through the night and he wouldn’t have to risk looking for a spring or a well. Still, it was with a long breath of relief that he recognized the object as a water skin and, behind it, a smaller cloth bag.

When he got back to the entrance, David was there. He looked terrible—sunken eyes peering out of a tangle of beard and hair, and he was leaning against the wall as if he couldn’t stand without that support. He was holding a rock.

“Why didn’t you wake me before you went gamboling out into the open?” he demanded. “There might be a whole damned troop of Turkish soldiers lying in wait for you to show yourself.”

“You’d have been a great help with that pathetic rock,” Ramses said. He lowered his burden to the ground and reached out a supportive arm. “Sit down before you fall down and let’s open our presents. One of the Sons of Abraham has paid us a visit.”

“Just like Christmas, isn’t it?” David said, after a long drink of fresh water. He passed the skin to Ramses and rummaged around in the bag. “Cheese, bread, grapes…What’s this?”

“It looks like more of the herbal medicine. I’ll brew up a fresh batch. You look better, but a few more doses wouldn’t do you any harm.”

“It makes me too sleepy.”

He was eating grapes with more relish than he had yet shown for food. Ramses watched him with an affection he would never have displayed in words or actions. It was amazing what a difference that humble gesture of goodwill had made; the mellow evening light seemed rich and comforting, the hoary old walls protective rather than forbidding. The small fire he had started burned clean and bright.

“I think we can sleep without worry tonight,” he said gently. “People are looking after us.”

A
S WE MADE OUR WAY
toward the dining salon I pondered an idea that had only recently occurred to me. We had been contacted by the War office a day or two after we arrived in Jaffa, yet there had been no communication from them here. For all I knew, Jerusalem could be swarming with spies of all nations, including our own; certainly one would expect that MO2 would be on the trail of Frau von Eine and would notify us of her presence in the city. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that a message had gone astray, so when I saw Mr. Fazah behind the desk I told Emerson to go on ahead and I approached the assistant manager.

I was tempted to wriggle my nose at him again, in case he had had some reason for ignoring the first signal, but he was watching me so warily I decided it might alarm him. If my newfound theory was correct, he was not the contact I wanted. When I asked to speak to the manager he stiffened. Underlings always expect the worst when one asks for the manager.