O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [73]
“Good.” She put the lamp back on the tea-chest. “Could you eat?”
“I don’t know. Tea would be a blessing.”
“I will send Sarah up with some, and bring your supper in a short time. My name is Rahel. I ought to warn you, do not make any noise if you can avoid it. Mahmoud thought you were best hidden away.”
My two hostesses left me. Further explorations revealed one large and tender lump behind my right ear, an abraded shoulder, a scraped elbow, and many amorphous aches. Whatever had hit us, I seemed to have been fortunate. Even my spectacles, which I picked up from the table, were relatively undamaged, aside from two parallel scratches on the side of the right lens and a certain wobbly feeling as I put them on.
I was considering the risks of being on my feet when Sarah came back and saved me from immediate action. The tea she poured with great concentration from the brass beaker was mint, and sweet, and although it was not what I had in mind, it continued the work the brandy had begun. By the time Rahel returned with a tray, I was positively ravenous.
A light soup, a piece of bread, a small glass of harsh red wine, and I felt considerably more real. The next goal was to be upright, and with Rahel’s assistance I achieved that, keeping a wary eye on the low rafters.
“Where am I?” I asked her as I hobbled up and down experimentally, her hand on my elbow.
“Ram Allah. About ten miles from Jerusalem, just off the Nablus road. You are in the attic of the inn. I am the innkeeper.”
“It is very generous of you to take me in,” I ventured. It was difficult to know precisely what arrangement Mahmoud had with this woman, and surely not wise to make assumptions.
“Mahmoud has helped me; I help him. He saved my life and the life of my daughter in the war. You have heard of the Nili?”
The name popped an immediate reaction into the front of my mind, loosed from some dim corner. “Netzach Israel lo Ishakar,” I said promptly. “ ‘God will not forsake Israel.’ The spy operation run by… the Aaronsons?”
“Yes. My husband and I had an inn in Nazareth until the spring of last year. Men talk in inns, and we sent a great deal of information to your government, until we were betrayed to the Turks. I was a dear friend of Aaronson’s sister, who… died after being tortured by the Turks. A week later, they killed my husband. Mahmoud rescued Sarah and me, and brought us here. He can ask a great deal more from me than hiding a friend in the attic.”
I moved free from her support and walked slowly down the length of the room. “I cannot stay here.”
“Where would you go?”
That was indeed a poser. Still, I could not simply sit. With every degree of returning energy came two notches of anxiety for Holmes. Who had taken him, and why? I found I was standing in front of Rahel.
“Did they tell you nothing?”
She put out her hand and took my shoulder. “Those two have more soldiers in the field than the British Army. They will find your friend, and they will come back for you.”
She was right, of course. It would be senseless, and no help to Holmes or myself, to go out into the night, in an unknown city, and lose myself as well. But it was very hard.
And I had no wish to stay in the confines of the attic.
“Do you have guests in the inn?”
“The last customers are just leaving.”
“Servants you don’t trust? Any reason to think there is someone out there looking specifically for me?”
“No,” she admitted.
She helped me dress and secure my turban over the lump on my skull. Leaning heavily on her arm, I lurched my decrepit way down two flights of narrow stairs, used the privy, and was given soap, water, and a stiff brush to scrub my hands. Sarah was sent to bed, I was settled on a bench in front of the fire with a rug wrapped around me, and Rahel, after throwing wood