Elizabeth Peters - A River in the Sky

But when he reached the spot, the camp was gone. Only the blackened scars of campfires and a stretch of trampled earth littered with animal droppings and miscellaneous trash showed where it had been.

He walked slowly across the area where Frau von Eine’s tent had stood, on the unlikely chance that something of interest had been overlooked among the scraps of packing material and other debris. He picked up a crumpled paper and smoothed it out. It seemed to be a page torn from a diary or notebook, bearing only a few words in German-the beginning of a letter to Mein lieber Freund. A disfiguring blot on the last word showed why it had been discarded. The only other unusual item was a scrap of baked clay, so close in color to the earth on which it lay that he almost missed it. Roughly triangular, it bore a few marks that might have been the wedge-shaped cuneiform script that had been used in the Middle East for international correspondence and diplomatic documents during the second millennium B.C. Could this have been broken off one of the clay tablets employed for such letters? If so, it would explain why Madame had reacted to his casual statement about tablets missing from Boghazkoy, and why she had been so wary of admitting where else her travels had taken her.

All this, inspection and theorizing, was only postponing the discovery he hoped he wouldn’t make. He put the scrap in his pocket and moved on. The ashes of the fires were cold. They must have left before dawn, not lingering to cook breakfast or make coffee. It would have taken a long time to break camp, pack the lady’s furniture and belongings, and load the carts, so they must have started not long after…The sky was clear and the sun was bright, but a shiver ran through him.

He searched the area, walking in widening circles, his eyes on the ground. He didn’t know what he was looking for until he found it-a rectangle of recently disturbed soil, on the edge of the encampment. The dirt had been trampled down, but it was still loose. He dug with his bare hands. He’d only got down a few feet when his fingers touched something hard. Hard and cold. He scraped away enough of the soil to expose a pair of bare feet.

It was all he needed for identification. Some of the brown dye had worn off and the soles, though calloused, lacked the thick integument acquired by years of going without shoes or sandals. He sat back on his heels, swallowing strenuously. He should have made Macomber come back with him, by force if necessary. He should have realized that the faint sounds he had attributed to birds or wind meant that they were being watched.

Squatting there in a blue funk, struggling with guilt, wasn’t doing any good. He tried to remember what his mother had said about rigor mortis. The bare feet were ice-cold but flexible. Did that mean rigor had set in and was starting to pass, beginning with the extremities? If so, Macomber had been dead for approximately twelve hours, give or take an hour. He had been killed shortly after he had left Ramses.

He didn’t want to do it, but he forced himself to dig at the other end of the rectangle. There was no doubt in his mind that Macomber had been murdered, but there were other things he needed to know.

He had dealt with a number of dead bodies, not all of them mummified. His parents had a way of attracting “fresh-dead people,” as their reis Abdullah had called them. He had thought himself fairly hardened, but when he drew aside the dirty cloth that covered the face and saw Macomber’s empty brown eyes looking up at him, he had to draw several long breaths before he could go on.

The cause of death was only too obvious. Macomber’s throat had been cut. His tattered robe was drenched with blood. Ramses wondered why they had bothered to pull a fold of cloth up over his face before they dumped the dirt on him. Perhaps even a murderer preferred not to look at the eyes of the man he had killed.

He forced himself to dig out the torso, looking for other injuries. He found nothing that would indicate Macomber had been tortured before he was killed. That didn’t necessarily mean they hadn’t questioned him. Some methods of causing pain left few marks.

He drew the cloth back over the dead face, replaced the dirt and stamped it down. Removing the body to a more seemly place would necessitate explanations he couldn’t give, and delay he could no longer afford. The only thing he could do for Macomber was get to Jaffa as quickly as possible and pass on the information he had been given-information whose importance and accuracy had been verified in the worst possible way.

If he could get to Jaffa.

THE CONVEYANCE WAS the fastest the village had to offer, a once-elegant carriage drawn by horses instead of donkeys. The proud owner also hired out riding horses and operated a delivery service of sorts between Sebaste and Nablus, the capital of the district. A hazy sunrise lit the clouds to the east as Ramses finished loading his gear into the carriage. Abdul Hamid had turned up before dawn, but anxious as he was to be off, Ramses preferred not to be on the road during the hours of darkness. A firm handshake and a clap on the back from Reisner, a hearty “Have a good trip” from Fisher; he swung himself up onto the seat beside Abdul Hamid.

The road descended and climbed again; the carriage rattled alarmingly as the horses broke into a trot. Ramses had forbidden the use of the whip, to the openmouthed astonishment of Abdul Hamid. “You told me we must be in Jaffa before nightfall,” he protested. “We can go faster, much faster.”

“Not on this road.” Ramses caught hold of the seat as the carriage swung wildly around a flock of goats. Traffic wasn’t heavy, but there were enough pedestrians, donkey riders, and varied animal life to bring out the best-or worst-in his driver. Abdul Hamid stopped for neither man nor beast, and the carriage had long since lost any springs it might once have possessed.

The carriage rounded a curve. Straight ahead Ramses saw the houses of a small village and the minaret of a mosque. He saw something else-a line of uniformed men drawn up across the road where it narrowed to enter the village.

Abdul Hamid let out a strangled bleat and yanked on the reins. Ramses had approximately thirty seconds to decide what to do. Luckily the options were too limited to require prolonged thought. The country on either side was open and the soldiers carried rifles. They were stopping every vehicle. Flight and concealment were both impractical.

Abdul Hamid had stopped ten yards from the roadblock. He looked wildly from side to side. Turkish soldiers meant trouble, even for the innocent.

His hands tightened on the reins, and as the soldiers approached them, Ramses said softly, “Don’t try it. Let me do the talking.”

He sat still, looking down his nose at the officer in charge. “Why are you stopping us?” he asked in his best Turkish.

“You are the one we are looking for. Get down and come with me.”

He could have tried bluster: “I am a British citizen and you have no right to detain me.” That would almost certainly be the wrong tack. He had recognized two of the men. They were Turkish army, all right, but they were also part of Frau von Eine’s personal guard.

He reached in his pocket and pulled out a handful of the miscellaneous currencies used in the area. “Perhaps we can come to an agreement.”

The initial effect was encouraging-an exchange of interested glances and a moment of hesitation by the officer. Only a moment, though.

“You will come with me,” he repeated, and reached for Ramses’s arm. Ramses pushed his hand away and descended with dignity, taking his time. He was several inches taller than the officer, including that worthy’s fancy fez, and he took full advantage, looming as best he could, his lip curling.