O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [12]
“I agree,” said Holmes. “It would raise an even worse uproar than this would. But given an hour or two, we could transform murder into an unfortunate accident. And if the two hired men might simply disappear for a while… ?”
Mahmoud reached up to rub at his beard, and his fingertips travelled briefly down the scar. He nodded thoughtfully. “ ‘Allah is the best of tricksters.’ Yes. Better for all. But quickly.”
“It might also be best to remove your possessions from the vicinity. It is one thing for unburdened men to slip into the groves, were a stranger to come upon the farm; quite another to make an escape encumbered with mules and household goods.”
I could see where this was going, but truth to tell, I had no wish to assist in the doctoring of the site. I did not even want to think about what they would have to do to disarm the effects of this death. Oh, I protested, of course, but in the end I gave in gracefully to the combined demands of the three men that I take the laden mules and get them out of the area. I do not think I fooled Holmes, but I protested.
We loaded the animals, tied them so I could control all three with one lead, and Ali gave me instructions that a child could have followed, on how to reach a hidden place where I might wait until they joined me. He repeated the directions three times, until I turned on my heel and walked away with all the Hazr worldly possessions trailing behind.
After my proud little gesture, I was greatly relieved when I succeeded in finding the place without mishap. I had envisioned dawn breaking with me still stumbling about the countryside, trying to explain myself in yet more stumbling Arabic, but I found it, the ruins of a burnt-out and long-abandoned caravanserai—roofless, overgrown, and no doubt infested with snakes, scorpions, and other happy creatures. I hobbled the mules, found a smooth boulder to perch on, drew my feet up under the hem of my skirts, and gave my soul over to patience.
And to thought. The shakiness that had overtaken me on seeing the dead man was beginning to fade, but I still felt queasy, and my mind skittered nervously away from speculations concerning what my companions were doing. I firmly directed my thoughts to the question of what threat might be felt both by a family of Jewish immigrants and by a pair of wandering Arabs, and meditated upon the possible relationship between two Palestinian Arabs and a family of Jewish settlers. What was I not seeing here?
And what, indeed, was I doing here?
It was not a long wait, as waits for Holmes tended to go, but it seemed considerably more than two hours before one of the drowsing mules twitched up its ears and a low whistle came out of the night. This was followed by the sound of three men moving quickly; in less time than it takes to describe, we had become four men (to all appearances) and three pack mules, still travelling quickly.
There are no true mountains in Palestine, not by European standards and certainly not within a days walk of Jaffa, but I could have sworn that our two guides had imported some for the occasion. We scrambled up and down precipitous if unseen hillsides, obliging me to cling to the pack ropes and let my surefooted animal lead me in the darkness, abandoning all pretence of my being in charge of it. At some hour well before dawn, we quit the hills and took to a dusty road for a few miles. Finally we stopped. Ali pressed cold food into our hands, we swallowed mouthfuls of musty water directly from a skin, and then we curled up on the hard ground and lay motionless as stones until the sun was well up in the sky.
I woke to the sound of argument, unmistakable if unintelligible. I started to sit up, and sank back immediately, wondering if I had been beaten while I slept. Not a part of me did not hurt. I then remembered Yitzak, and blood, and I redoubled my