Doctor Who and the Crusaders (19 page)

Despite the high pile of furniture the double doors were beginning to move slightly now, the men outside battering it in with something heavy.

The girls began to retreat, looking at Ian for guidance. Ian waved them to the window and grinned at Haroun.

‘I don’t know who you are,’ said Ian, ‘but you’ve made a friend. The girls can help each other down, while we give them as much of a chance as possible.’

Haroun nodded, an answering smile on his face. He urged Barbara, Maimuna and the girls to make their way down the tree and out of the gates, as fast as they could.

‘The guards who aren’t in the passage are busy fighting the fire I started in the hay-barn,’ he stated as the last girl disappeared.

Ian threw down his sword and ran over and collected up three of the small oil-lamps nearest to him. Their flames fluttered as he hurried to the double doors, splintering now as the men outside put all their strength into breaking through. Haroun saw what Ian was doing and fetched some more lamps and together they threw them at the pile of furniture. The lamps spilled out their oil and ignited, and soon a blaze was roaring. Ian ran back and picked up his sword, sheathed it and gestured to Haroun to precede him out of the window. Haroun replied with a push.

‘You go first, or I’ll throw you out,’ he growled.

‘I’d rather climb, thanks,’ grinned Ian and scrambled out and on to the bough. Beneath him, he could just see the running shapes of the harem girls, rushing towards the gates.

He and Haroun clambered down the tree and followed them. As soon as they were outside, Ibrahim appeared and urged Ian to help him swing the great doors to a close. Then the Arab produced a thick bar of wood and he wedged it between the outer handles.

‘You see, I am here, My Lord, just as I promised,’ he beamed. Ian put a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him. Then Haroun hurried to them.

‘Don’t stand here dreaming!’ He turned to the Arab. ‘The soldiers will be all around us, you half-wit!’

‘This half-wit has stolen all their horses, master.’

‘They can still use their legs then.’

‘But they cannot come through these doors. This half-wit has seen to that as well.’

‘And is there no other way out of the palace?’

The Arab looked suitably disturbed.

‘This half-wit hadn’t thought of that!’

He led them quickly to where he had tethered the horses,
some twenty in number and more than they’d need. They heard the sound of a mass of running feet.

‘The rest of the guard,’ gasped the Arab. ‘They are returning from the Old Quarter.’

The three men helped all the girls to mount and with Ibrahim leading and Ian and Haroun bringing up the rear the party of seven girls and three men made their way out of Lydda.

A half-hour’s ride without pursuit of any kind and Haroun took over the lead, directing the party to where he had left Safiya in a little orange orchard. Maimuna and her sister fell into each other’s arms tenderly. Ian decided they could risk a five-minute rest, but no longer he warned Haroun.

‘Probably we are out of danger,’ observed Haroun, ‘although you are wise to be cautious. It is my opinion that the guards will be quarrelling amongst themselves now that El Akir is dead.’

The party rode onward, making a longer journey of three hours this time. The night was clear with a strong moon and the stars were strung out like fairy lights. There was absolutely no movement in the air, not even a puff of wind, but the temperature had dropped and all the girls were half frozen in the flimsy costumes they wore.

The route Haroun took was a circuitous one, deliberately taking the longest and the most difficult paths to confuse any possible pursuers. Once he led them down a stream for fully a mile, twisting and turning with the course of it, keeping the party firmly in the water so that no tell-tale hoof-marks were left on either of the shallow muddy banks. Finally, where the stream began to broaden out, obviously becoming a tributary, he ordered them to guide their horses over a patch of shingle and towards a cleft in some rocks overlooking the water.

Satisfied now that everything had been done to disguise
their escape, he set them all galloping forward. There was no talk for each one was concentrating on resisting the cold in his or her own way, quite apart from the eye-straining business of the constant searching of the ground ahead. Some of the girls bore the journey better than others, the Negress best of all, sitting hunched over her animal, her head bent steadily on the ground just ahead of her and following directly behind Haroun, echoing his warnings to be careful of this loose rock or that sudden depression in the ground. Maimuna and Safiya rode just ahead of Ibrahim, the elder girl’s left hand firmly clasped in her sister’s right, occasionally turning their heads towards each other as if to reassure themselves they were together again.

The worst to suffer was Barbara. Although the cloak Ian had thrown around her kept out the cold well enough, it rubbed against the wounds on her back. The movement of her body itself was bad enough, but the two together were an almost unbearable agony.

Finally, Haroun called the party to a halt and dismounted at the edge of a wood, telling them all to wait for him. They huddled together, making a ring of the horses, keeping themselves as warm as they could.

Haroun reappeared after a few minutes and led them all through the trees, Ibrahim bringing up the rear with the horses. Eventually, they came to a ramshackle old wooden building.

‘It looks far worse than it is,’ he announced, ‘but the walls and the roof are good enough to keep out the cold, and we shall soon have a fire blazing.’

Ian led Barbara in and cleared away a space in one corner which was covered in dead leaves and some musty old hay. Ibrahim appeared with the horses’ blankets and together they made a bed for Barbara to lie face down on. She collapsed
on to it with a shuddering sigh of relief and fell into an immediate sleep.

Haroun, who had been out foraging in the wood, returned with an armful of dead branches and twigs and started a fire.

‘I used to use this place, with other caravan leaders, sometimes,’ he told Ian, as he fed some bigger pieces of wood into the flames. Safiya appeared beside him, undoing a saddlebag filled with dried meat and fruit and she started to apportion it out as carefully and as fairly as she could.

‘I see you came well prepared,’ said Ian with a smile.

‘Either I meant to bring back my daughter and your friend Barbara – or die!’ Haroun answered briefly. ‘Fortunately I allowed provision for a long journey, thinking we would need to travel for many days if we were pursued.’

‘There will still only be just enough to go round, Father,’ said Safiya. She began to distribute the food, a piece of meat, some bread and some dates for each person, and soon they were all eating hungrily, except Barbara, who slept deeply now, and peacefully.

Haroun moved over to Maimuna and sat himself on the rough floor. The other girls were settling down as comfortably as they could and gradually one after another fell asleep. Ibrahim lay against one of the walls, his head dropping over his chest, resting his forehead on his bent knees, snoring slightly. Ian lay by the door, the scimitar close to his hand, determined not to leave anything to chance now that they had achieved so much.

Maimuna stared at her father, tears rushing to her eyes; then he put his arm around her, soothing away her sobbing until her head cradled on his massive chest and she, too, fell asleep. Haroun laid her down to the ground, gently, so as not to wake her, and moved over to Ian at the door, settling himself so that they could talk together quietly without disturbing the
others. ‘a motley collection, Ian, my friend,’ he said, gazing about the room.

‘What can be done for the girls from the harem?’

‘Fortunately, I am a rich man. My wealth lies with friends in Damascus, held for me until I made my settlement with El Akir. Oh, I shall not set up a harem of my own,’ he went on, giving Ian a sudden smile. ‘I shall become their patron and either see them married well or return them to their own homes and families.’

‘I have one favour to ask you,’ said Ian. He pointed across at Ibrahim. Haroun nodded,

‘I know the man. He is a disgraceful thief and a scoundrel but I will see he is well rewarded for helping us. I cannot tempt you into coming to Damascus, you and your lady Barbara? I have a thriving business of which you could become a part.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘There would be no son to rival you.’

There was a pause, for Ian felt he couldn’t turn down the man’s generous offer too rapidly. He let the silence pretend he was considering the matter.

‘I can’t see how we could do that,’ he said at last, ‘much as we’d want to. I have two other friends to look after. Your search is over, Haroun, but mine still has some way to go.’

‘What will you do?’

‘Give Barbara all the rest she needs and then ride for Jaffa. There’s a little wood outside the town we shall visit first, in case my friends are there waiting for us.’

In the morning, Barbara found her sleep had completely refreshed her, and the salve Maimuna had spread on her back had done so much to ease the pain she found she could move quite well, suffering no more than a dull ache.

The parting was a sad one, Maimuna and Safiya begging
them to change their minds. Surprisingly, Ibrahim was genuinely distressed at having to say good-bye to Ian, and not even the promise of a handsome reward from Haroun seemed to console him. The harem girls had come to regard Ian as the symbol of their release, a lucky charm without which they would all fall into evil hands again. But finally the tears and kisses came to an end and Haroun led them all away, deep into the heart of the forest, while Ian and Barbara sat on their horses watching until the last glimpse faded and the trees swallowed them up. The calls of good-bye and the accompanying clop of the horses’ hooves became fainter and fainter and were gradually replaced by the silence of the forest.

Barbara looked across at Ian, stretched out a hand and held his. A dozen unsaid words hung between them in the understanding of that moment. Modern people though they were, they had stepped into a world of chivalry and barbarism and Ian had not failed her. She had needed him and he had come for her. She knew, whatever the age, whatever the place, whatever the circumstances, he would measure up to her every expectation.

She leant across from her horse, put her arm around his neck and kissed him softly on the lips. She sat back again, her heart beating a little faster, a slight tinge of pink at her cheeks, holding his eyes with hers.

Then they rode towards Jaffa.

The Doctor lay quietly beneath the tangle of broken branches, his hand just touching Vicki’s. Ahead of him, about twenty yards away, a soldier was leaning against a tree, polishing his sword with a rough cloth.

The voices of other men intruded on the peace of the little wood, the rattle of armaments and the occasional snort of
a horse – sounds indicating the presence of a body of men. Beyond the solitary soldier who was working so industriously was the tall ring of bushes hiding the
Tardis
. Twenty yards from safety. It was worse than twenty miles, thought the Doctor gloomily.

He and Vicki had had such good luck, too, in their flight from Jaffa. They had dodged and manoeuvred through the town, just keeping out of reach of the Earl of Leicester’s men. And then the Doctor had remembered the shopkeeper, Ben Daheer. Slipping through the patrols, he had guided Vicki to the shop, told its owner that he and his ward wished to travel incognito and persuaded Ben Daheer to give them complete changes of clothes and some provisions for the journey. Receiving their expensive clothes in exchange for some clean but very well-worn monks’ habits and a little food made a good bargain and he even went so far as to show them a private route out of Jaffa, wishing them every success on their ‘pilgrimage’, for the Doctor had pretended that he had a burning desire to visit Mecca.

They made the journey to the little wood in good time, their spirits soaring, convinced they had eluded their enemies. Just as they reached the cover of the trees, a body of horsemen had galloped into sight with the Earl of Leicester at its head, and before the Doctor and Vicki could run to where the
Tardis
was hidden, the Earl’s men had set themselves down right in front of it, effectively barring them from reaching it.

They made no attempt to search the wood, although the Doctor knew that would be their next step. He assured Vicki that they didn’t know about the existence of the ship. He had already worked out what had happened. Leicester, convinced that the Doctor was an agent working for Saladin, had collected all the information he knew about the Doctor as soon as it was clear that he had slipped through his fingers.
The only clue he had was that the Doctor had first made himself known in the wood, and seizing upon that as a last hope had ridden there with some men. The Doctor confirmed his assumption by stealthily climbing a tree and eavesdropping on the Earl talking to some of his soldiers.

‘These two are spies undoubtedly; sent by Saladin to learn our secrets,’ he told them. ‘If I have judged correctly they will come this way again.’

‘They will not pass by,’ growled one of the soldiers, and the Earl nodded approvingly.

‘Well said! For they have had opportunity to study the numbers of our army in Jaffa and make details of our stores and equipment, all vitally important to the Saracens. Spread yourselves about and let your ears be sharp and alert.’

The Doctor had retired, raging inwardly, and he and Vicki had then found the safest spot they could and covered themselves with leaves and broken branches, lying as near the ship as possible in the hope that they might be able to evade Leicester’s men and slam the doors of the
Tardis
in their faces. Then all they would have to do would be to wait for Ian and Barbara to arrive (for both of them were quite convinced they would, in time) and worry about admitting them when the occasion demanded.

The strong aroma of roasting meat began to drift through the trees, and the soldier put away his sword, reminded of his hunger. He moved forward uncertainly, then strolled in the direction of the cooking. The Doctor’s fingers tapped on the girl’s hand. She crept out from beneath the branches carefully, spread the bushes aside and looked about her. The Doctor whispered to her and she raced across the opening and disappeared through the ring of bushes.