Secret of the Sands (36 page)
‘Leave me alone,’ the slaver snarls, dodging the doctor’s hand. ‘I am ready to die.’
‘Grief,’ Jessop explains, ‘and illness. Sometimes the fever goes but the erratic behaviours linger. He is shocked. You might have to help me hold him down.’
Mickey nods, making it clear that he will help, Wellsted is best kept away. He takes charge, bending over the wounded man and speaking low, as if in confidence.
‘It is time to be calm, my friend. No one need know of this. The girl is blameless. She ran to her master, not away from him and by all accounts, you gifted her to the emir without the lieutenant’s consent. Ibn Mohammed was an exceptional man – but your duty to your friend is to live. It is always so. You must direct yourself away from this, brother. You must have a long life.’
Wellsted, brooding, stands like a menacing shadow. He will never forgive Kasim.
‘Pass me a cushion, old man,’ Jessop interjects.
He has bound the wound with some cloth from a side table and is now engaged in making his patient comfortable. Kasim will have none of it. No words in the world can help him. No doctor can ease his pain. He is a desert creature – unforgiving of any weakness.
Wellsted turns. As he does so Kasim rises like a cobra. He has the lieutenant’s knife in his hand, unsheathed before any of them realise. For an instant it hangs in the air and it is not clear what he intends to do with the blade. Wellsted draws his sword once more, but before he can use it Kasim turns the
khandjar
on himself and, above the doctor’s carefully bandaged wound, without hesitation, he plunges it deep into his heart.
Farida bathes the cut on Zena’s shoulder with saltwater and orders some yoghurt with honey to be brought from the kitchen.
‘It is the most comforting food, don’t you think?’ she says.
Zena nods silently.
‘Well,’ she adds, ‘some of these Arabian fellows, they are straight from the madhouse!’
Zena sniffs as Farida considers the fate of her friend, Edward, who died so long ago in Bath, fighting a pointless duel entirely of his own volition. She quickly realises it is not only Arabian fellows with hot tempers who resort to swordplay, but simply fellows in general. She does not pass on this information. As the smooth, creamy yoghurt arrives with a drizzle of amber honey on top she takes the spoon in her hand. It has been a long while since Farida has cared for anyone, except Mickey, and after all, he is her husband. Aware of Wellsted’s orders and the fact that, for a while at least, the lieutenant must return to London, she has a proposal for this intriguing girl. She takes a scoop and lifts the spoon to Zena’s lips.
‘If you would like to stay here, my dear,’ she says, ‘I am very glad to have you. You can remain in this house as long as you like.’
‘Thank you. I do not know what the lieutenant means by giving me my freedom,’ Zena sniffs. ‘There is nothing I can do with it.’ Kasim’s display has demonstrated that amply. She is still trembling.
‘Hush. Let’s not think of that now.’
When the bowl is empty, Farida settles the girl to sleep. The lamps are dimmed and she is made comfortable on the cushions. Then Farida retreats. Mickey will visit the
harim
later and it has been a troublesome day, all in all. Farida finds that she is very much looking forward to holding her husband in her arms tonight. She wants to feel the warmth of his skin.
When the news arrives of what has happened downstairs, Farida decides not to wake the girl. By all accounts it has been mayhem, but the child is asleep and the tidings can wait. The guard has been called and the
imam
is reciting prayers for a lost soul. Servants are sent across the city to bear the news. From her window, Farida can see them, fanning out down the streets, little lamplights, receding in the darkness. One is dispatched to Kasim’s household, which he himself has not yet visited since his return, another to the
mosque
where the last of Ibn Mohammed’s mourners are no doubt still straggling, still more to the
soultan’s
men who must always be informed.
Kasim,
she thinks,
stole both Zena and me. He brought us both here. Perhaps we will find some comfort together for a while.
This news means that Mickey will be late to bed, no doubt, and Farida will have to care for him – rub his shoulders and soothe his mind. In the meantime she sits and stares at the huge moon low over the rooftops and thinks how lucky she has been. She had felt jealous, slightly, of Zena’s adventures, but tonight has brought home to her the danger of the world outside.
‘I am more one for the story, I think, than the action,’ she murmurs to herself, and with that in mind she retires for the night.
In the hour after midnight there is a palpable sense of relief in the corridors. Everyone has gone to bed, the house is all but silent and the lieutenant can hear the slapping of his bare feet against the tiles as he creeps along the hallway in his breeches and shirt, from his quarters in the other wing. The sands, he thinks, are more forgiving to a midnight lover and it is easier to move around unseen. The guard stands to attention as he approaches the door of the women’s rooms.
‘Will you fetch her, please?’
The man shuffles from foot to foot. However unorthodox the goings-on in the compound this evening, he cannot enter his master’s
harim
, certainly not in the middle of the night.
‘Wait,’ he says and disappears down the corridor, returning a moment or two later with a heavy-eyed female slave who has been sleeping in a box room within calling distance.
‘
Al habshi,’
he orders the girl, who disappears through the hallowed doors. When they heave open again Zena is there. She is no longer in the bloodstained
jilbab
and is simply arrayed in white cotton. Her feet are bare.
‘
Salaam,’
she says quietly.
The relief shows on Wellsted’s face. ‘Come,’ he takes her hand. ‘Follow me.’
He leads her along the hallway and into the room he has been assigned. It is a large chamber with a seating area and he has opened the windows to allow a view of the hilltop, for this room faces away from the sea. The moon is on the ocean side of the sky, but it casts an eerie light over the trees, gardens and courtyards that stretch up the hillside without showing its face.
‘We did not finish talking.’
Zena drops onto the cushions. It feels to her as if Kasim might be here somewhere, and she is uneasy. ‘Is he gone?’ she asks.
‘They did not tell you? He died. He killed himself.’
Hard-eyed, she takes this in. ‘He stole me,’ she says. ‘He killed my uncle.’
‘I did not know that’
She nods. ‘I never told you.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I had thought of killing him,’ Zena admits. ‘It was the first thing I thought when he gave me the
khandjar.
After today I think I would never have felt safe. I’m glad he’s gone.’
‘I’m glad you are safe,’ Wellsted replies. Her bravery is astonishing and however much he has come to admire Kasim and Ibn Mohammed he’d have done what he had to do.
Wellsted sits next to Zena and runs his hand along her cheek and down her neck. She feels herself relax. Her skin prickles with excitement once more and it is as if she is melting. She bites her lip. When his fingertips come to the scar on her shoulder, he stops abruptly.
‘Does it hurt?’
Zena nods.
‘I am very sorry. Kasim’s behaviour was . . .’
‘Worthy of the madhouse?’ Zena suggests. ‘That is what Farida says.’
Wellsted laughs. ‘Yes. Yes he was. Mad of grief, I think. He had no right to come like that.’
‘You would have killed him?’
Wellsted pauses a moment. ‘Yes. I love you,’ he says steadily, without taking his eyes off her. ‘I absolutely love you and I would not let him harm you, no matter what it took.’
Zena smiles. She leans over and kisses his cheek. She smoothes her skin against the stubble and breathes in deeply. In European clothes he smells different, but she likes it.
‘Will you wait for me?’ he whispers.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I am recalled to London, Zena. But I will return. Will you wait for me? I have it settled with Mickey – he will look after you here, but I thought when I return, perhaps we could find a place. In Bombay. Naval officers always return to Bombay. I think you will like it there and I will look after you.’
Zena leans forward. ‘Won’t you take me with you? To London? I would like to see it. The House of Commons and the Great River Thames. The costermongers and the fairgrounds.’
Wellsted shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says gently. ‘We can’t. The only use of London is that there I must make my fortune for both of us. There are things I have not told you about London. Reasons you cannot go. But I will not be long. I swear it. I will return to you. To this. Zena, will you? Do you care?’
She regards him plainly. There are no choices here, with her feelings so strong. ‘I’ve thought of nothing else,’ she says. ‘I never felt like this before. Never in my life. If Kasim had hurt you, I’d have killed him too.’
Wellsted laughs. This woman is extraordinary. Nothing seems to be out of the question for her. He likes that. He leans in and kisses her steadily, his passion mounting as he pushes her onto the cushion and runs his hands under her
jilbab
. Then he sits up suddenly. Zena wraps her arms around him.
‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Come with me.’
Back along the cool corridor he finds the stairs and takes her hand to pull her upwards. Along the upper floors there are storerooms and a large nursery. He passes these and eventually finds the second set of stairs.
‘Here,’ he insists, and they climb once more and emerge outside, under the stars.
‘The roof! Again!’ Zena laughs.
‘I’d choose a roof with you over a room at the finest hotel in Paris!’ He swings her around. ‘Please say you will wait, Zena.’
There is not a question in her mind. ‘Yes. Yes,’ she promises, kissing him warmly. She has a notion to try out something she has seen in one of Farida’s books. ‘How long do we have?’
Wellsted gestures at the vista. ‘Not long enough to both swap our news
and
enjoy each other. There is a sloop due that will take me as far as Cape Town. I am recalled at once, you see. It arrived after sunset. Mickey hopes it will sail tomorrow. I must leave early.’
‘One night?’ It seems ungrateful, but she can’t help but want longer.
‘But we won’t sleep. Not a wink,’ he promises. ‘And I’ll be back, Zena, I’ll be back before you know it.’
She pulls the
jilbab
over her head and shifts a little, turning so he can see her in the darkness. ‘I want to hear your adventures, of course,’ she says.
Wellsted laughs. ‘Me too, my girl,’ he whispers as he lays her gently on the rooftop, and it does not take long until they have forgotten everything except each other, as they move together in the moonlight. Any tales of adventure will simply have to wait till he returns.
In London, the wives of gentlemen who are fellows of the Royal Society become accustomed to eating later than usual when there is an interesting meeting scheduled. However, the bleak February afternoon that Lieutenant James Raymond Wellsted speaks to the assembled throng, two dinner parties in the City do not commence until almost midnight and one is cancelled altogether. Admiral Rose has not attained his distinguished rank only for his formidable powers in the heat of battle. He is an accomplished lobbyist and the Society’s newly gas-lit rooms are packed to capacity to hear what the serious young man, his skin still pink from the desert, has to say. When Sir Joseph Hooker presents him to the party he speaks in the most glowing terms of Wellsted’s adventures and his burgeoning naval career. ‘The first white man to cross the Arabian Peninsula,’ he says, ‘and a hero.’
The Fellows are not disappointed. Wellsted is an excellent orator and he not only provides detailed information about the geographical features of the Peninsula and the political situation with the French, but brings to life the searing heat of the dunes, the smell of mint in the
souk,
the savagery of the plague towns and the mercurial spirit of the desert tribes. One or two of the younger members find themselves so inspired they consider setting out overnight for Portsmouth and taking passage to see this magical place for themselves.
‘Capital evening,’ Rose congratulates Wellsted as they take the steps down to the waiting carriage with Murray.
The boy has certainly done what they wanted him to do. All society is alight with talk of abominable French slavers and the need for the British to control the waters of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Wellsted will meet the Prime Minister and give evidence to a Parliamentary committee the following week. He has proved entirely reliable, if slightly eccentric. Once when Admiral Rose returned home, the lieutenant was standing in the garden soaked to the skin. Apparently he was contemplating the rain.
Wellsted has never been homesick for anywhere or anyone before, but now he is so thirsty for Zena, he fears he will never be able to slake it, and despite the social attentions of several eligible girls of good family (one an heiress) his heart remains under the low, full moon on a roof either in Riyadh or Muscat.
‘You not succumbing to the charms of any of those beauties whose mothers presented them so eagerly at the ball the other evening?’ Murray teases him in the carriage. ‘I am shocked you do not have an assignation of some kind! A single man of your age!’
There is hardly a mother in England who could want a more fashionable beau for her daughter. With one bestseller on his slate, Wellsted has completed his second manuscript. Murray is confident the new book will run to several editions. The account of Socotra sells out as fast as he can print it.
Wellsted shakes his head. ‘Women,’ he says, as if he is exasperated.
‘Passionate chap like you,’ the admiral comments.
‘When a chap is passionate, the readership can sense it.’ Murray offers Wellsted his hipflask. ‘All the better if he proves damnably readable. Shall we dine at Claridges?’ he suggests. ‘Or the club?’
The Royal Society’s business, of course, was fascinating, but it is getting rather late and Murray hates to go to bed on an empty stomach.
Wellsted stares out of the window as the carriage rocks along the muddy streets. London has been a shock. Cool, dank and grey, he feels an indescribable loneliness and oppression here. In Mayfair, Westminster and Whitehall he will never be able to be himself. When he visited Molyneux Street, it was not as he remembered – his father was an old man who did not know him, and his brothers were strangers.
‘The first white man to cross the desert.’ Wellsted Senior hugged his son. ‘We Wellsteds shall have cake!’
It was not unpleasant, James thinks, but so strange. He cannot tell anyone the thing that is of the most importance to him. The reason he must return.
And yet the prizes are glittering –
The Times
reported his meeting at the Geographical Society and there is a hint from Rose that a promotion is in the offing. He can’t wait to get back to Muscat. A captaincy will mean the prospect of a new life with Zena. The wages are far higher and he will be able to build her a home.
He glows at the very thought. His love for Zena has given him a life rather than what now feels like a series of achievements. He can’t wait to see her. There is talk of an expedition into the interior of Persia. She will come with him, he is sure. This time they can travel as husband and wife. They will be married, he has decided. As the carriage pulls up at Claridges, Wellsted steps out onto the glossy pavement.
‘What are you thinking of, old fellow?’ Rose asks.
‘The desert and all her charms,’ Wellsted says with an engaging smile.
‘Can’t wait to get back, eh? Our hero is missing the intrigue, I think,’ Rose comments.
Murray grins. ‘Well I don’t blame him’ he says. ‘It sounds damn marvellous out there.’ Murray has no intention of leaving London, of course. He prefers his adventures second-hand.
Wellsted heads smartly up the steps and into the foyer. He has an expression of nonchalance on his face. He is a man with a secret. A wonderful secret. A secret of the sands.