O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [106]
“And treachery being what it is, it is always the person closest to one’s heart who can wield a dagger with impunity.”
“I’d have said, however, that Mahmoud would be among the hardest to deceive, and he says he trusts this man Ellison.”
“True.” He drew a last lungful from his cigarette and before I could stop his hand, sent the burning end out into the pond where it hissed sharply and died.
“May we go now?” he asked.
I pushed myself away from the railing and took a last look at the pitch-black hole at the top end of the pool. “It is said to be dangerous to go through the tunnel. The water in the Gihon tends to rise suddenly, and wash down the tunnel.”
“I regret that we lack the leisure to mount an expedition, Russell. Attractive as it may be to risk drowning several hundred feet underground.” This time he did not ask but set off up the steep road to the Dung Gate.
Once inside the city walls we turned left, through the jungle of cactuses and builders’ rubbish and away from the Haram and the Western Wall, towards the city quarter traditionally claimed by the Armenian community, swollen now with refugees fleeing the Turkish massacres of four years earlier that had left more than a million dead. The lights here were sparse and the streets tortuous, but Holmes’ sense of direction was as efficient as ever and in a few minutes we were, to put a cap on the evening’s events, inside of a church.
It was a little jewel box of a church, strung with a thousand gleaming lamps on chains overhead and fragrant with the incense of ages. We were apparently between services, because there were only a handful of people in the building, all of whom turned to stare disapprovingly at our persons. One of them went through a door in the back, returning after a minute with a formidable priest, a bear of a man with black cassock, black beard, black eyes, and greying black hair, who bore down on us and herded us out onto the street again. To my surprise, however, he did not leave us there. Rather, he followed us out, then took Holmes’ elbow and drew us around the corner of the church and through a small gate into a private garden, at which point he turned and threw his arms around Holmes, clapping my partner to his breast with an enthusiasm that must have been excruciating to Holmes’ half-healed back. The priest’s greeting on being introduced to me was less effusive, which was just as well, but then he and Holmes were obviously old acquaintances.
“My old friend,” he cried. “I was so pleased to have your message. It has been half a lifetime! Come, we will drink tea. But first you may like to wash your hands.” He did not even look at my clothes when he said this, and perhaps I imagined the twitch of his nostrils.
“This is my companion and student, Amir. Amir, Father Demetrius. Amir is a clumsy lad; he fell down in the bazaar,” Holmes told the priest. His half-truth and the use of my false identity warned me that there were limits to their camaraderie.
I was grateful even for the icy water and rock-like bar of soap, but nothing was to be done about my garments, except hope that they were dry enough not to leave deposits on our host’s furniture.
We drank tea in his tiny, crowded study, and ate Armenian pastries until I thought I should burst, while the two talked about men and events of the past. In the midst of all this catching up on old news it dawned on me that the reason Holmes could find his way around the city so readily was not that he had committed the map in his bosom instantly to memory, but because he had been here before. Somehow, it had never occurred to me.
“So,” said the priest finally with an air of slapping his knees, ”what brings you to my door again after all these years? Something to do with the object beneath your chair, perhaps?”
Holmes kicked at the frayed basket that he had dropped under his seat. “This? No, this is another matter.”
“And if it were the same thing you would not tell me, I think.” I raised a mental eyebrow: This priest did indeed