Elizabeth Peters - A River in the Sky

“All the comforts of home. Plenty of hiding places, wood for a fire…Those can’t be fig trees, surely.”

“They say olives and figs can grow out of solid rock,” Ramses said somewhat absently.

“Pity there isn’t a spring.”

He was making idle conversation in order to hide the fact that he needed to catch his breath, but the comment got Ramses’s attention.

“One would think there would be, wouldn’t one? A place like this wouldn’t be defensible for long without a source of water. I’ll have a look round later.”

Brambles tugged at their clothes as they went on. David kept stubbing his toes on chunks of stone hidden by the rampant weeds and leaning more heavily on Ramses’s arm. He was weakening fast, or perhaps the medication had begun to take effect. Ramses got him inside the keep and lowered him onto the ground. He was out of breath himself. David looked as if he had lost weight, but he didn’t feel as if he had.

“Cozy, isn’t it?” he wheezed.

“Forbidding” would have been a better word. The walls of the lower floor of the keep were intact except for the gap through which they had entered. There had never been a door on this level; invaders would have to climb a steep narrow flight of stairs, under constant fire from the defenders, in order to reach the entrance. The stairs had slumped into a steep uneven ramp. The stairs inside remained, though Ramses hoped they would not have to use them; they circled the inner wall, but after seven centuries, give or take a decade, he would not have wanted to trust his weight to them. There were no windows on this level either. The only light came from above, through sections of the ceiling that had fallen in. The floor was littered with scattered stones, possibly the remains of partition walls, with bird droppings and straggling weeds, and with a grisly collection of bones. The bones, those of small animals like hares, were dry and brittle; he could only hope this was an indication that the predator had taken up residence elsewhere.

He cleared away bones, weeds, and rocks from a space behind a pile of stones and persuaded David to lie down, with one of the galabeeyahs under his head for a pillow. “Can you eat something?” he asked.

David made a wry face. “I’m not hungry, but I suppose I had better. What have we got?”

The answer was, nothing to tempt an invalid’s appetite; the bread was hard, the cheese pungent, and the grapes were withering. David forced down some of the grapes and bread soaked in water to make a tasteless gruel. “What time is it?” he asked.

“I forgot to wind my watch,” Ramses admitted. “Getting on for midday, at a guess. My message has been on its way for several hours. With luck we could be out of this place to night.”

His attempt at encouragement was a dismal failure. “Not bloody likely,” David said. “Don’t treat me as if I were a child, Ramses. I may be sick, but I’m not stupid.”

“You must feel better,” Ramses said, smiling. “Or you wouldn’t talk back to me. You’re right, of course. At best the messengers will take at least a day to reach Jerusalem. They won’t risk the main road, because it’s being patrolled by Turkish soldiers. Then they’ll have to track down the parents, who are notoriously unpredictable; God only knows where they’ve got to by now. It may take even Mother a while to figure out exactly where we are, my directions were necessarily vague, and even if they receive the message tonight, they won’t be stupid enough to start out in the dark. That’s the truth of the matter. I hope you like it.”

“You only left out one uncomfortable fact. The messengers may not get through at all.”

“That’s a possibility.”

“Then we had better get ready to move on our own,” David said coolly.

Ramses gave David’s shoulder a quick, awkward squeeze. “Thanks.”

“What for?”

“For not suggesting I leave you here and go to get help.”

“It would have been a waste of breath. You never listen to sensible suggestions.” He yawned. “Is there any more of that vile medicine left? It makes me sleepy, but it does seem to have lowered the fever.”

“Just the dregs.” He had put the cup, with its contents, into his belt pouch along with all the other evidence of their presence. He took it out and inspected what remained of the herbs. “I’ll try adding some boiling water, let it steep awhile. Go back to sleep, there’s nothing else to do.”

“Wake me in a few hours. Take it in turn to keep watch…”

His voice faded out and his eyes closed.

Ramses went back to the entrance and began gathering twigs and dried leaves for a fire. The thin smoke dissipated in the breeze, but he was afraid to let it burn too long; as soon as the water began to steam he stamped out the fire, taking care that no sparks reached the patches of dried grass. The water was running low, and had a distinct taste of goat. He’d seen a gleam of running water farther down the slope, on the side of the villages, but he was afraid to risk a sortie in case he might fall and break a limb. That would leave David alone and helpless.

When the brew was steeping he sat down, his back against the trunk of a fig tree. Keeping watch was definitely a sensible idea. They were too close to the road for comfort and the man who had brought them here had said not all in the villages were trustworthy. Did that mean that some of the villagers were not members of the Sons of Abraham, whoever those ambiguous individuals might be? They had done well by him and David so far. But Mansur had the same identifying mark, and if he was a member of the group, they couldn’t all be as well-intentioned. Or were they? Had Mansur been playing a double game all along? Their escape had been a little too easy, some of the items left in their luggage a little too useful. The word of their escape had spread with remarkable speed. Thinking back on that morning, Ramses began to wonder if they hadn’t been driven like cattle, headed off into byways that would lead them eventually to a safe refuge.

He hadn’t felt so stupid and ineffectual since he was ten years old, when the girl he was trying desperately to impress had had to save him from the grasp of an abductor. He had fallen on his head and rolled into a ditch, a figure of shame and ridicule. And here he sat, waiting for her and his parents to rescue him again…

The sound of a voice jerked him awake. He had fallen into heavy slumber, sitting there. Hazy with sleepiness and berating himself for his failure as a lookout, he hurried in to see if it was David who had called him. David was sound asleep; he didn’t stir even when Ramses spoke his name.

He made his way back to the entrance and peered out. There was no one in sight, and no further sounds-except the faintest of noises that might have been bare feet picking a path over pebble-strewn ground. The sounds faded into silence as he listened, and then he realized something was there, just inside the gate, something that hadn’t been there before. The shadows were thickening; the object was an amorphous shape whose outlines were hard to make out.

He waited for another five minutes, counting off the seconds. The object didn’t stir, and the sounds of movement had stopped. It wasn’t curiosity that brought him out into the open, but need. Their water was running low and their food was gone. If this was, as he dared hope, another contribution of supplies from allies in the village, it would get them through the night and he wouldn’t have to risk looking for a spring or a well. Still, it was with a long breath of relief that he recognized the object as a water skin and, behind it, a smaller cloth bag.

When he got back to the entrance, David was there. He looked terrible-sunken eyes peering out of a tangle of beard and hair, and he was leaning against the wall as if he couldn’t stand without that support. He was holding a rock.