O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [102]
For a moment I thought the man knew me, such was the look of delight that dawned on his rotund features, but when I looked more closely at the face under the incongruous bowler hat, I realised that he was merely filled with the bonhomie of drink. He started around the high piles of his goods (hats and shawls) with both hands out to greet me and protestations of undying servitude on his tongue. I backed away but could not avoid him entirely without being undeservedly rude, so I allowed him to grasp my hands and rant on while I smiled and nodded and tried to keep my distance. This went on for some time, and I began to feel more than a little ridiculous. Finally, I decided I had expressed enough politeness, so I brought my hands together, raised them in a tight circle to break his hold, and then took a step back—directly into two more sets of hands with two more friendly mouths breathing alcohol at me.
God, I berated myself as I tried to pluck six hands from their grasp on my person, leave it to me to find the only drunks in the Moslem Quarter. They were not intoxicated enough to be clumsy, only free from restraint, and they had me well and truly cornered— in a friendly manner, I admit. An entirely too friendly manner.
All good things must end, however, and reason was obviously no weapon against these three: flight would have to do. Bending over sharply, I scooted backwards under the arms of two of the men— and my concealing turban was plucked neatly from my head.
The three men blinked like owls at the mussed blonde waist-length plaits that were revealed in the lamplight. One of them hooted in amazement, and they came for me again. I moved back away from their reach, my head feeling peculiarly light in the cold night air, but I did not relish having to walk across half the city and into the inn without my turban. I backed, and backed some more, watching for a means of distracting them or a wide enough place to enable me to dash past them, snatch the length of cloth from the ground, and run.
As I danced backwards out of the grasp of those hands, my foot trod on some bit of slippery rubbish and flew out from under me. I hit the paving stones and rolled, coming up filthy and bruised and finally angry. The merchants did not appear to be armed, and I was just beginning to contemplate the pleasure I should have in trouncing the three sots when I heard a voice.
Those ringing tones would have been instantly recognisable no matter the circumstances or the language: Arabic or Rumanian or the King’s own English, an alley in Jerusalem or a tunnel beneath London, cursing or wheedling, there it was, sardonic, superior, infuriating, and at that moment immensely welcome.
“Is it allowed for others to join in this game?” it said.
The merchants stopped their laughing advance and began to crane their necks to find the voice. I straightened. “Holmes, thank—” I caught myself and blurted out in no doubt ungrammatical Arabic, “I need your help.”
“Yes?” he drawled. “You seem to be doing well enough.”
I had him now: in a dark niche above a stone arch that kept two walls from collapsing into each other. The distraction his words had worked was all I needed: I jabbed a knee into one man’s groin, brought an elbow up smartly into the second man’s nose, and put a shoulder in passing into the third man’s belly, catching up the rag of my turban and scrambling upwards over wares and awnings to gain the heights. Holmes hauled me the last couple of feet, and before the merchants had caught their breath to raise an alarm we were off across the rooftops and away.
We paused atop a piece of twelfth-century stone-work while I restored the covering to my hair. “I won’t even ask how you found me, Holmes,” I said. “But you might at least have lent a hand.”
“What, and rob you of the satisfaction of dealing with three large men single-handedly?”
He was right. I was aware