O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [63]
“I am always serious.”
Any number of answers to that rose to mind, but I kept them to myself. “I have no bathing costume,” I objected, which I knew was ridiculous even as I said it.
“Russell, I shall stand guard and keep Ali and Mahmoud from ravishing your young body.”
The words hung in the air as heavy as the sarcasm in his voice, and made me uncomfortably aware of all the males in the world around me. I tried to stifle my discomfort by looking out at the sea, dark and flat. Portions of my skin had not felt the touch of water in days, and God alone knew how long it would be before I had the next opportunity. My scalp cried out to be free of its confining wrap. I stood up.
“May I have the soap, please?”
Holmes was as good as his word, turning his back while I scuttled through the pale moonlight between clothing and water. I scrubbed deliciously with soap and sand, rinsed everything and scrubbed again. The salt-heavy water stung ferociously at my myriad cuts and blisters, and I did not actually feel much cleaner, but when I judged the dirt gone and the dye threatened, I tossed the bar of hard soap up onto the dry sand and launched myself out into the sea.
Trying to rinse myself off by submerging had been a bit like pushing a cork into water, but floating was an extraordinary experience. The water was as warm and dense as a living thing against my naked flesh, and I found that if I remained perfectly still, my limbs stretched out limply and my hair in a great cloud along my arms and back, it was difficult to perceive where Mary Russell ended and the Salt Sea began. The air along my exposed front was slightly cool, but the sea’s temperature was mine, and the heartbeats that thudded slowly through my veins became the pulse of the sea. The moon and stars gazed down as I floated on my back atop the buoyant salt fluid, and the loudest thing in the universe was my breathing, travelling in and out of my nostrils like a great wind.
It was hypnotic, and then it was unsettling, and finally I became aware of another entity in my universe, sitting on the shore two hundred yards away, smoking a pipe while he guarded against intruders. I sat up in the water.
“Holmes, I hardly think you need stand guard against the hyrax and foxes. Come in and have a swim.”
For a minute there was stillness where he sat, and then I perceived movement. In the dark and without my spectacles there was no danger of my witnessing anything untoward; nonetheless I turned and struck out into the sea.
We were both strong swimmers, accustomed to the cold waves of the English Channel, and we were nearly at the shore of the peninsula two miles away before we slowed, and stopped. Holmes had maintained a scrupulous distance, close enough for companionship but not in the least improper. I could see him as a ghostly shape, near enough for conversation.
Sitting upright was awkward, like a cork trying to float on end. Eventually I settled on stretching out in the water with my hands behind my head, which kept my ears above the water without having to work at it.
The slight disturbance of our own movements died away; the sea went absolutely still. There was no current here; this was where all the water of the Jordan Valley came to be turned to vapour; it flowed no farther. I was intensely aware of my own skin, vulnerable and safe in the thin moonlight, cradled in the warm, thick, sensuous water. I was even more conscious of Holmes, fifty feet away and in the same condition, and on the distant western shore Ali and Mahmoud, reclining by the faint glow that was the low-burning fire. And no doubt listening to our every splash and bit of conversation.
With Mahmoud in my mind’s eye, and keeping my voice low lest it carry across the water, I spoke.
“Holmes?”
“Yes, Russell.”
“When Mahmoud says he was questioned by the Turks…” I stopped.
“Torture, yes,” Holmes confirmed.
“I thought so. It was stupid of me to ask. I should have…” Again the words drifted off.
“Guessed?” he asked sardonically.
“Known. I should have known. I did know—the scar had