Elizabeth Peters - A River in the Sky

“I’ll write the letter,” he said. “Have you paper and pen?”

“No. But I expect you have, in your luggage if not on your person. Shall I have your suitcases brought in?”

“No need.” Ramses reached in his pocket, where he carried a small notepad and pen. He’d never got over the habit of cramming his pockets with various objects picked up during his daily activities. After removing a fragment of stone with a carved leaf-which he had forgotten to leave at the dig-a handful of figs, a coiled length of string, and the clay fragment he had found, he located the notepad. When he took it out, something else came with it-a crumpled piece of white linen.

“You may as well return this to Frau von Eine,” he said, handing it over. “She dropped it the other day. Or will I have the opportunity to do so myself?”

Mansur stared at the motley objects on the table. After a moment Ramses rephrased his question. “Will I be encountering Frau von Eine in the near future?”

“I cannot say.”

“You mean you will not say, or that her future activities are not known to you?”

“Write,” Mansur said. He picked up the handkerchief and slipped it into the breast of his robe.

Ramses wrote as Mansur dictated, almost word for word, the same message he had suggested earlier, tore the page from the notepad, and handed it over.

“Now what?” he asked.

“You accompany us to…where we are going.”

“What about Abdul Hamid?”

“Who? Oh, your driver. He will return to Sebaste tomorrow, having left you, at your request, with a group of pilgrims whom you encountered in Nablus and who were planning to travel to Jaffa next day.”

“That should muddy the trail nicely,” Ramses said with grudging admiration. “I presume Abdul Hamid will be well bribed.”

“A combination of greed and fear will convince him to stick to his story.” He rose to his full impressive height. “We must be on our way.”

In the enclosed courtyard behind the house were a wooden cart, into which his suitcases had already been loaded, and a yaila, one of the traveling conveyances more common in Syria than here. Drawn by a pair of horses, it was shaped like a tube, in which the passenger lay at full length on his bedding. At the back was a platform for a servant, who supplied the traveler with food and drink. Substitute guard for servant, and the enclosed conveyance was admirably suited for transporting a prisoner. There were plenty of guards available-at least a dozen muscular men in local garb, as well as the three soldiers.

Ramses looked inquiringly at his companion. The yailas had room enough for two, if they were very friendly, but he didn’t suppose Mansur would be careless enough to let him travel without restraints of some kind. So far he had proved himself a thorough sort of fellow.

“I apologize for the blindfold,” Mansur said, beckoning one of the guards. “If you will give me your word as an Englishman that you will not attempt to remove it or try to escape…”

He left the sentence incomplete.

“That wouldn’t be playing the game, would it?” Ramses inquired.

From Mansur’s expression, or lack thereof, he realized Mansur hadn’t understood he was being ironic. That was one of the problems with humor. Sometimes it didn’t translate well.

He submitted to being blindfolded and having his hands tied behind him. Mansur himself helped him stretch out on the mattress that had been provided.

“I can give you something to make you sleep,” he said, for all the world like a conscientious physician to a patient. “The time will pass more quickly.”

“No, thank you.” There was always a chance he would overhear something that would give him a clue as to their destination or their real purpose.

And the possibility of getting back at Mansur for his infuriating condescension.

I had landed at Port Said and at Alexandria and thought myself prepared for the mingling of races and the general lack of organization that characterizes ports in that part of the world; but I had never seen anything quite so disorganized as the port of Jaffa. It is the great pilgrim port for the Holy Land. Earnest American Protestants, Bibles in hand, mingle with turbaned Moslems, Orthodox Jews, bearded Greek Orthodox priests robed in black. The city, ringed in by crumbling walls, clings to the slopes of the hill rising from the harbor. On the brow of the hill, a hundred feet above the harbor, stands the oldest part of the ancient city. An ancient city indeed, for it was already flourishing when Thutmose III conquered it in the fourteenth century before Christ. It has had a rich and bloodstained history. (Alas, the two are often the same.) Phoenicians and Philistines were followed in turn by the Assyrians, the Greeks, and the Romans; it was a Christian bishopric until conquered by the Arabs in the eighth century. Crusaders succeeded the followers of Mohammed, and Saracens succeeded Crusaders; eventually the Ottoman sultans reduced the city to ashes and, as was their normal habit, put the inhabitants to the sword.

The harbor was not deep enough to allow large steamers to dock, so we were taken ashore in little boats-a somewhat unnerving procedure, since the boats bobbed up and down and the crewmen thereof lowered passengers and luggage alike with more haste than care. As our boat approached the shore I beheld a familiar face towering above the crowd.

“There is Daoud,” I cried, waving. “And yes-Selim too.”

“You sound surprised,” said Emerson, sounding surprised. “You told them to be here, didn’t you?”

Daoud was something of a dandy, but I had never seen him so magnificently dressed as now, his elegant robes of the finest saffron wool, his sash of striped silk with a fringe a foot long. His intricately wound turban sported an ornament six inches across that sparkled with crimson gems.

“Goodness gracious, Daoud,” I exclaimed somewhat breathlessly, as he lifted me clean off my feet in a hearty embrace. “How splendid did you look!”

“It is in your honor,” Daoud explained proudly, embracing the rest of us in turn. Emerson submitted with a resigned roll of his eyes; he had learned it was useless to resist Daoud’s demonstrations of affection. Having greeted Nefret and David, Daoud inspected Mr. Plato with amiable curiosity. Nefret introduced them, adding that the reverend was a friend and a member of our group, whereupon Daoud embraced him as well, to Mr. Plato’s obvious alarm.

“Where has Selim got to?” I asked, straightening my hat.

“He is coming. With the porters.”

The sight of Selim wrung a mild expletive from Emerson. If Daoud had dazzled our eyes, Selim blinded them. His turban pin was larger and more sparkly than Daoud’s, his robes consisted of several layers of silk, each finer and more colorful than the next. Through his sash had been thrust an ornately decorated sword, the hilt ablaze with gems. The gems were-at least I hoped they were-glass, but they made an impressive show.

Another round of embraces followed. “What the devil is this?” Emerson demanded, indicating the silk, the gems, and the sword.

Selim grinned. He was a handsome fellow, closely resembling his nephew David except for the beard he had grown so that his men would respect him more. “You will see, Father of Curses. Will you come now? Daoud!”

“Yes, yes,” said Daoud, beaming. He raised his voice in a shout. “Make way for the Father of Curses and his wife the Sitt Hakim and for Nur Misur, the Light of Egypt!”

He made sure everyone would make way by preceding us, moving with the ponderous inevitability of an avalanche and gently but firmly moving aside anyone in his path.

One face I had hoped to see was conspicuous by its absence. Turning to Selim, I said, “Where is Ramses? I ordered him to meet us here and gave him our date of arrival.”