Barbara Cleverly - The Damascened Blade

She handed the child to one of Halima’s attendants and spoke to another who promptly ran off. ‘I’ve asked for your things to be returned to you, Lily,’ said Grace. ‘No time to change; I want to leave at once. Let me look at you… yes, you can ride in those trousers. And have you got a veil somewhere? Good. Put it on. The Malik has agreed to lend us an escort to see us and the Scouts off his territory. It’s generally believed that I was brought here by miracle. The Imam and the strength of his prayers is the talk of the village apparently. I’m not telling them otherwise!’

‘There is no “otherwise”,’ said Lily fervently. ‘Me and Ramazad – that’s just about the only thing we’d agree on! You’re a miracle, Grace!’

‘Well, our thanks are largely due to Halima’s little boy,’ said Grace. ‘He’s our ticket out of here! But I’m not hanging about. In the excitement of the new arrival it may be forgotten that you shouldn’t be here. You may be safe enough for the moment at least. But all hell is about to break loose! The news of the birth – the birth of an heir – is running like wildfire already. Soon every man with a rifle in his hand and a horse between his knees will ride in and – there! – listen! Can you hear? Drums! This is only a beginning and thank God for it! We can sneak out in the racket. I don’t usually go out by the back door but the circumstances are unusual, I do believe. This’ll go on for days! Just what I wouldn’t prescribe for my patient. Nothing we can do about it though,’ she added as the drums grew louder and, in a fusillade of shots, one party after another galloped into the fort, bending their horses through the crowd, barely visible through the thickening dust.

By the time Lily had slipped in to whisper an unheard goodbye and drop a kiss on the cheek of the heavily sedated Halima, a little party had formed up in the square. Their horses had been cared for and seemed ready for the return ride. Two of the Afghan stallions had been brought round, one for Lily and one for Rathmore. Rathmore! In the excitement of the birth his fate had completely slipped her mind. He was looking annoyingly jaunty and totally pleased with himself, and she tried to avoid his eye.

‘Ah, Miss Coblenz, good to see you again and I… ’

‘You will remain silent until we get out of here,’ Grace said curtly. ‘Aslam will ride ahead with our two escorts, Lily will ride next to me and I want you, Rathmore, to bring up the rear with the other two Scouts.’ She spoke in Pushtu and the two grinning Scouts fell in, one on each side of Rathmore.

‘Well, he won’t get up to any nonsense with those two villains watching him,’ Lily thought with satisfaction, ‘and the rest of us won’t have to listen to his braying voice telling us how he impressed the Malik.’

She leaned over and spoke to Grace urgently. ‘Something missing, Grace? I mean your Afghani escort. Somewhere about this place there’s thirty fellers who must be wondering just where they’re meant to be headed. Surely the Malik isn’t holding them hostage?’

‘He’s planning a phased release. They’re being allowed to leave tomorrow so we’ve a chance to get back to the fort and warn James not to blow them to perdition when they arrive and ring the bell.’

Lily scanned the mêlée of men and horses in the courtyard one last time as their small procession picked its way carefully around the edge and made for the great gate but still there was no sign of Iskander. Was this good or bad? He didn’t even know about his sister’s child. But in these parts it seemed everybody heard everything before it happened so he would surely be told.

Aslam set off at a good pace and soon they were saying a friendly goodbye to the two Afridi escorts who handed over their guns and went back on sentry duty in the rocks. Lily saw Grace’s back stiffen as they rode on as though she could sense rifle barrels trained on her spine and she did not appear to relax until they had rounded one or two bends and begun to descend to a broad valley. After an hour’s riding Grace called a halt in the shade of a clump of twisted apricot trees near an ancient bridge over the Bazar river. Apprehension at last seemed to melt away. They were no longer playing mouse to the Malik’s cat. Lily was glad nevertheless to be back under the watchful eye of the Scouts and comforted to mark their continued state of readiness. Eyes were always moving, surveying the land ahead as well as behind them, hands were never far from rifles.

Two of them tethered the horses and melted silently away – scouting ahead, Lily supposed. To them the whole expedition was a gasht with its usual precautions being taken. This was no picnic by the river. But this thought was instantly belied by the third Scout, who began to take tea-making equipment from his saddle bag. Idly Lily’s mind drifted away to the memory of so many lake-shore picnics with starched table cloths and cascades of napkins. Attendant and obliging young men in blue blazers and straw boaters standing by: ‘Let me pass you an anchovy sandwich, Miss Coblenz.’ Lily supposed it was all still going on on the other side of the world.

She looked about her – pitiless sun in a pitiless landscape. ‘Pitiless people too. Still, he looks peaceful enough,’ she thought, her eye on the third Scout. She watched as he lit a fire and admired his deft and economical movements as he picked an old bird’s nest from a cleft in a tree, made a little teepee of broken rushes, added some driftwood from the river bed and applied a match. No straw boater here, just a mud-coloured cloth twisted carelessly into a loose turban.

Lily looked at Grace expectantly, waiting to hear her story. Negligently Rathmore accepted a tin mug of tea from the Scout and sat down a little apart from the women.

‘Wouldn’t it be great if someone emerged from those rocks and shot him – just shot him!’ Lily thought viciously.

‘We can’t stay here long if we’re to be back at the fort before sunset,’ said Grace with an anxious glance at the sky. ‘Sunset! What a day! It seems to be an eternity since I set off at dawn.’

‘Won’t they be thrilled to see us back again, all in one piece!’ said Lily with satisfaction.

‘Especially Joe?’ said Grace, slyly.

‘Joe! Fat lot of use he was!’ said Lily. ‘Funny – all along it was Joe I was expecting to come to my rescue. For a while back there I really thought he cared about me! But when it came to the point, well! – where was he? Probably playing squash!’ Pink with indignation, Lily looked from one to another. As she spoke the third Scout, the silent, enigmatic third Scout looked up.

‘Jor ye?’ he said. ‘Jor ye, missy baba?’

Grace began to laugh. ‘Very good,’ she said. ‘Very good, Joe! And speaking Pushtu, it seems?’

‘Can’t spend a day in the exclusive company of these boys without picking up a bit. Anyway – I enjoyed the “hallagullah”! I think I’ve got that right – it seems to mean “uproar”. Useful word.’

Lily stared and stared again. She reached out a hand to touch Joe’s shoulder to make sure he was real. ‘Why!’ she sputtered. ‘You old devil! There you were all along! You fooled them all!’ And more soberly, ‘You darned well fooled me! You did come for me! And,’ she added seriously, ‘I’m not going to forget that. And when I’m a little old lady in mittens in a rocking-chair I’ll tell my grandchildren about you and all the hairy bandits who didn’t spot you! But Joe! That was a dangerous thing to do! Those men would have killed you if they’d known!’

‘Well, I’m damned,’ drawled Rathmore, not pleased by this turn of events. ‘So the forces of law and order make a belated appearance!’

‘I don’t know what you mean by “belated”!’ Suddenly angry, Grace turned on him. ‘It was Joe who worked out where you were being held and it was Joe who risked his skin coming into enemy territory to get you out of the spot you’d blundered into, smug, self-satisfied and supremely unaware. I think a little more gratitude wouldn’t come amiss.’