City of Jasmine (27 page)

His eyes gleamed in the dim light. Darkness was fast falling, and here and there his men were lighting torches and paraffin lamps. They had moved into the outpost itself and were searching for any survivors who might have taken cover inside. There were storerooms for supplies, various offices and a sort of dormitory for the men with a few small private rooms for the officers. In addition, there was a large open space that functioned as a mess hall. Yellowing notices in Turkish were still pinned to the walls, and the leaves of the calendar had been torn off until October 1918. It was here I found Gabriel, his white robes filthy but unbloodied. Sheikh Hamid’s men had broken open a barricaded door and brought out a woman. She moved slowly, as if underwater, and her clothes and face were caked with grime. They brought her to where Gabriel stood. He flicked his eyes to the door and they left us, but he did not look at me. I moved to the sideboard, where a pitcher of water stood. I poured her a glass and looked around for a napkin of some sort. There was nothing of the sort, so I took out my handkerchief and gave it to her with the water.

“Would you like to wash a little, Countess?”

She looked at me with tired eyes. “Yes, thank you. They fed me, but there was little in the way of polite conveniences in this god-forsaken place.” She gave a little wry smile.

She drank neatly and tidily from the glass then dipped a corner of the handkerchief in the rest of the water to wipe her brow and wrists. “That is better. One can face anything now.” She gave Gabriel a level look. “I had a good reason for wandering the desert, as I suspect you know.”

Delivered in another tone, the words might have been an accusation. But from the countess, they were stated calmly.

“Countess, you should sit down.”

Her smile was pitying. “I am Magyar and I will stand for the truth, thank you.”

“Very well,” Gabriel returned. “You need look no more. You will not find him.”

“Was he at least buried?” she asked, as evenly as if they had been discussing the weather.

“Under a fall of rock. On a ridge not far from the well where we found the Cross.”

She nodded slowly. “Thank you for that. I should hate to think the animals—” She faltered a little then, but recovered herself quickly, folding her shaking hands together firmly. “You must not think I blame you. I warned him, so many times did I warn him. I told him this was a dangerous game to play. But he was insistent, and the fault is mine.”

Gabriel remained silent, letting her talk.

“What András was, he was because of me. He was younger, half a dozen years, although I do not think it showed,” she said. In another woman it might have been an invitation to flattery, but in the countess it was a simple recognition of fact. They looked so close in age they might have been twins. “Our mother died when András was born. Our father married again and our stepmother had many children. They were very happy together, but always András and I were different, the only children of our mother. And so we clung to one another, and I looked after him. I taught him his letters and his sums. I schooled him in languages and showed him how to button his shoes. I became his mother in a sense. I could not bear to see him hurt, you understand. I could not bear to say no to him, to disappoint him.”

She took a deep breath and carried on. “As we grew older, our interests grew apart, but always we found a way to mingle them so we would always have the pleasure of one another’s company. When he studied archaeology, I learned to apply my skills as an artist to assist him. In this way we carried on together, happy. And then the war came. When the empire fell, we lost everything—home, money. We had only each other and our titles. We were determined to build a new life for ourselves, or rather, I was determined to build a life for us. You see, that was András’ fatal weakness. He could not take initiative. That was left to me, always. If it were not for me during the war, he would have starved. I arranged he should be kept from the army on the grounds of a medical condition. I scrounged for food and I secured our posts here. I thought in time he would meet a lovely girl and marry her. I could keep house for him, care for their children.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a life for you,” I blurted out. She turned as if seeing me for the first time.

“It was as much of a life as I wanted,” she told me. “So many young men of our class were killed during the war or ruined after the fall of the empire. I gave up on the idea of a life of my own,” she added with the first touch of bitterness I had seen in her. “But I think it would have been enough if András could have been happy. If only he could have contented himself with a nice girl and a family of his own, with work as an archaeologist. But he brooded after the war. Always he thought of what we had lost—the little castle in the woods, the hunting lodge, the city house. He wanted it all back. He believed it was owed to him,” she explained. “It became an obsession with him, and when Daoud approached him with the story of treasure, I overheard them talking. I realised that this is the dream that had been driving him all along. He hoped to find something beyond belief, a treasure so profound it would make up to him all that he had lost.”

She paused and patted her face again with the damp handkerchief. “I saw at once that I should have to become involved. András tried to hide it from me.” She chuckled. “He was such a child, he wanted to surprise me when he discovered it, to present it to me as a king of ancient times would present a treasure to his queen.”

Gabriel flicked a quick glance my way and I lifted a brow. The countess might believe it, but I had my doubts. Perhaps András Thurzó had seen an opportunity to finally rid himself of the domineering older sister who had controlled his life since infancy.

She was still speaking, her voice clear and calm. “We talked for a long time, and we decided we would wait for Mr. Rowan,” she said with a nod towards Gabriel, “to return for his treasure. We were too afraid that Daoud would not be able to find the treasure again on his own, and it seemed much simpler just to take it once you had retrieved it. Daoud promised the help of his friends for a little money, and the arrangements were made. We argued several times over the amount of money, and at one point Daoud even said he had made the whole thing up and there was no treasure.”

“That must be when he decided to try his luck with Gethsemane,” I murmured to Gabriel.

The countess heard me. “Yes, this is so. He went to he, as well, but we did not discover this until much later. We did not realise the Cross was missing the most essential component, the heart of the relic,” she added with an accusatory look at Gabriel. “But perhaps we were foolish thieves. You must blame our inexperience. We ought to have looked at the Cross immediately, but I was so nervous. I wanted only to get away. I do not know what came over András,” she said, burying her face in her hands. She looked up a moment later, her eyes damp. “It was as if a stranger had taken the place of the brother I loved. When we left you after you were—” Her voice broke then and she could not say the word. “When we left, we quarrelled bitterly. I thought we would simply tie the pair of you up and leave you, but when I told András this, he laughed at me and said I had no spirit for this sort of thing. And when he discovered the heart had been taken from the Cross, he was so angry. I have never seen him in such a temper. When he left, I was in a state. I hardly knew myself. I understood, you see, that he would return to kill Madame Starke.”

She balled her little fists at her sides. “It was wrong, monstrously so. And I told him this, but he would not hear me. He was a man possessed. When he did not come back, I did not understand. I thought an accident perhaps. I could not imagine that Madame Starke could harm him. But when I saw you,” she said to Gabriel, “alive and unharmed, I understood. He would not have expected you.”

“No, he did not expect me,” Gabriel said quietly.

“I do not wish to know anything more except this—was it quick? I do not say you were unjust. But I think of that beautiful little boy whose curls I once stroked, and I think I will die if you tell me he suffered.”

“He never saw me,” Gabriel told her. “It was over in an instant.”

“How?” She barely mouthed the word.

To his credit, Gabriel gave her the truth. “I broke his neck.”

She considered the words a moment and then nodded. “I do not care if you have given me a lie. It is a lie I can live with.” She gave a deep sigh and all the life seemed to go out of her. “Now, will you be so kind as to tell me what will become of me? The French promised to escort me to Damascus, but there was not time.”

“There’s little point in going to Damascus,” Gabriel told her. “King Faisal has declared his country independent and the government is in the hands of its people.”

He went to the door and called out a few words of Arabic to a pair of Sheikh Hamid’s men. One of them asked a question, and Gabriel responded before turning to the countess.

“These men have agreed to see you safely to the Turkish border. What becomes of you then is your own affair.”

She stared at him, her eyes almost but not entirely blank. “I do not understand.”

“I’m letting you go,” he said coolly. “I suspect everything you’ve just told me about your upbringing is absolute rot. It’s a lovely story, designed to win you the greatest amount of sympathy, and I daresay on some, it might work a treat. For my part, I’ve always considered you the cleverer of the two, and possibly deadlier. But you at least understood the stupidity of killing me, and you tried to talk him out of having me shot. It wasn’t your fault he didn’t listen. A life for a life, Countess. You spared mine. I’m sparing yours.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off. “Don’t thank me yet. The ride will be hard. You’ve hundreds of miles to cover and these fellows will be eager to get home again, so they won’t be any too gentle with the pace. But if you can keep up, you have a chance.”

She moved slowly to the door. “I do not know what I will do with myself,” she said, her voice hollow.

“At least you will have a chance to find out,” I told her. She did not look at Gabriel as she left. Perhaps it was too much for her to acknowledge the man who had killed her beloved brother. Or perhaps it was too difficult to find the words to thank the man who has just spared one’s life. In any event, she passed out of the door and out of our lives.

I looked at Gabriel. “You told me he fell. Why did you lie?”

The arch manner and mocking expression were gone, perhaps forever. There was nothing in his eyes except a fathomless pain. “Because every death is a burden, Evie. I didn’t want you to have to carry this one.”

He turned on his heel and I followed him. There were few other rooms at the outpost and it took only a little time to search them. In the former commander’s office, cabinets had been broken open, but in the desk, a single drawer was still firmly locked.

Gabriel drew a small pair of picklocks and made quick work of it. He reached into the drawer and pulled out a familiar goatskin bundle.

I gasped. “She
was
lying. Daoud never robbed her.”

“And she wasn’t about to tell us the French deserters took it off her. I’m guessing the Turkish commander left his key to the desk behind and they locked it up for safekeeping. They wouldn’t have had time to retrieve it before haring off into the desert. No doubt the countess hoped to elude Hamid’s men and come back for it,” he mused. He slipped the bag onto his shoulder and gave a sharp nod. “Time to go, pet.”

I walked out into the clear purple night. The stars were just beginning to appear, and here and there the remaining Bedouin were working by lamplight to pack up the last of what they wanted to bring with them. The dead lay as they had fallen, and I looked around me, shaking my head.

He led me to the
Jolly Roger.
“Can you fly her in the dark? The moon is almost up.”

I nodded. “I’ve made arrangements. But, Gabriel, there was something—” Before I could finish the sentence, a figure loomed out from the shadows, a sword raised high as it swung the blade slashing down at Gabriel. I shrieked just loudly enough to warn him and he dodged as the sword went wide.

Gabriel dropped to his knees, flinging the Cross aside as he went. He rolled to the side, and in the rising moonlight, I saw Daoud’s face, twisted with rage as he bore down on him a second time.

Gabriel lifted his arm to deflect the next blow, and only his elaborate robes saved him. The blade tangled in a woolen sleeve, and Gabriel twisted free, landing two hideous thuds to Daoud’s midsection in quick succession. Daoud groaned and fell to his knees, but he did not drop the sword, and I understood then that this would be a fight to the death.

They fought for what seemed like hours, although I realised later it could only have been a matter of minutes. First Gabriel landed a series of blows that would have crippled a smaller man than Daoud. But Daoud was wiry and strong and he was fueled by the desire for revenge. He came at Gabriel again and again, slashing Gabriel’s robes to ribbons. Both of them were heaving, their faces pouring with sweat and blood when I saw Gabriel lose his footing and slip to his knee.

Daoud pressed his advantage then. I would have leaped on him, but I knew one false move, one distraction, could cost Gabriel his life. I did not even think he remembered I was there until I heard his voice, thick with pain and fury, call out a single word to me.
“Contact.”

My hands were busy before I even had a clear thought of what he wanted. Somehow my body understood, and within seconds I started her up. Gabriel had gathered up the shreds of his sleeves and was using the thick pads of wool to shield his arms as he rose, pushing himself at Daoud. With the last reserves of his strength, he came at him, swinging hard, moving him closer and closer until finally, with one last final thrust, he pushed him backwards into the propeller blades.

Daoud never saw what happened although it is a sight I will remember for the rest of my life. It was over in an instant. One moment he was there, his sword raised high, flashing in the moonlight as he prepared to bring it down in one final blow on Gabriel’s head. The next he was gone, his remains scattered on the sand.