Doctor Who and the Crusaders (15 page)

‘I go out into the streets, my lady. I shall find a way the soldiers have not discovered, return and conduct you and Safiya through their lines. But take this knife. If you are careful, no one will discover you. But should the soldiers search too diligently, Safiya must not fall into their hands.’

Barbara stared at the knife in her hands, a feeling of horror invading her.

‘Kill her?’ she whispered. Haroun nodded grimly.

‘Yes, and then yourself.’

‘No!’

‘You must,’ he insisted, closing her hand around the hilt. ‘Maimuna lives, in degradation and misery. Safiya must not know that sort of future.’

‘I couldn’t do it, Haroun, I couldn’t!’ she whispered helplessly.

‘You would not let them take Safiya?’

‘No.’

‘You know what El Akir is like?’

She gazed up at him, a mute appeal in her eyes, finding no remorse in his for what he was asking of her, no single indication he would ever change his mind. He laid a hand on top of her head, gazing at her steadily, as if to transmit his
purpose to her both mentally and physically. Then he turned on his heel and left her.

Safiya crept out of the opening and ran to Barbara, pulling at her sleeve urgently.

‘Come, Barbara, I beg of you. We must hide. See, we have the hiding-place, and Father has left a knife to defend ourselves with.’

Barbara let herself be led across the room and through the opening in the wall. Safiya pulled on a handle and closed the door, pushing a piece of wood through the handle so that the door couldn’t be opened from the outside. The two girls then sank down on the cushions which covered the floor – placed there for just such an emergency – the older one putting her arms around the younger, while the sounds in the streets below, although fainter to them because of their enclosure, actually began to get closer.

Haroun ed Diin slipped out of his front door and ran silently down the worn steps towards the shouts and the cries. He had abandoned his shoes and left them in the little hall, needing every possible protection silence could afford. But he was unfortunate. He ran straight into a body of soldiers at the bottom of the stairs and, before he could stop himself, they saw him. He tried desperately to turn and go back the way he had come, but it was too late. One of the soldiers crashed the hilt of his sword on the unlucky man’s head and Haroun staggered to one side and fell through a window, smashing the rickety shutters and plunging into the room beyond. The soldiers peered in after him, ready to put down any resistance, but when they saw his still body lying amidst the debris of the shutters, they moved away laughing, walking up the stairway, hammering on any doors they came across and breaking them down if they weren’t immediately opened. The same thing was happening throughout the Old Quarter. Sometimes a man
would join up with one or two friends and wage a running battle but the soldiers were too many and too well armed.

The two girls suddenly froze into absolute stillness as they heard a thunder of fists on the outer door, then a splintering of wood as it was kicked in violently. Then there was a rustle and clicking as the bead curtain was disturbed and two voices started talking very close to the hiding-place.

‘You take the others and search higher up. I will make sure no one is concealed in the rest of this place.’

‘Very well,’ said the other voice, ‘but if you find the woman, remember we have agreed to share the Emir’s reward.’

Once again the bead curtain was disturbed. Barbara listened as footsteps moved across the room into the kitchen. She gripped hold of the knife in her hands, hoping against hope that the men would not be too careful and start examining the walls. She knew if they did that they would be bound to discover the cracks made by the secret door. A piece of crockery smashed to the ground in the kitchen, and Safiya clutched hold of Barbara, snuggling up against her in fright.

For the third time, Barbara heard the movement of the bead curtains, as the other man returned.

‘There is nothing above,’ the voice announced.

‘Nothing here, either. You know, whoever lives here has a rich taste. Look at this carpet.’

‘Stolen, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Then let’s light a torch and burn the place. No reason why the villain should enjoy his crimes.’

The two men laughed.

Barbara put her lips close to Safiya’s head.

‘Crouch up against the corner,’ she whispered.

‘What are you going to do, Barbara?’

‘Now stay here, Safiya. Do as I tell you! Lock the door after me, but as soon as I’ve gone, go out in the streets and
find your father, for they may set light to the house. If you stay here you’ll burn to death or suffocate.’

Barbara moved quietly to the piece of wood securing the door and withdrew it slowly. Then she pushed the door and stepped into the room. The two men, fortunately, had their backs to her, busily heaping cushions and some fabric they had found on the couch, intending to set light to it. Barbara moved quickly to the doorway then turned so that she stood with her back to the bead curtain. Then she disturbed it sharply. When the two men looked round, they saw, to all intents and purposes, a girl who had just entered the room. One of them sprang up and gripped her by the wrist.

‘Where did you come from?’ he grated.

‘I… I was on the roof.’

The other guard walked over and took hold of her other arm.

‘By the Prophet! I believe this is the woman for whom we are searching,’ he said, in delight. ‘But you were not on the roof, for I would have seen you.’

‘I was hanging by my hands, down the other side of the building,’ said Barbara contemptuously. ‘You were so quiet in here, I thought you’d gone.’

‘Well, we have you now,’ said the first guard.

‘What about this place? Shall we set fire to it?’

‘What for? This is our business, and there’s money here. But, Selim, let us be careful.’ He dropped his voice and looked at his companion conspiratorially. ‘The others may try to take her from us.’

‘Yes, that’s true,’ replied the other anxiously. ‘Let us get her down as secretively as we can, and hurry her to the palace.’

The two men bustled Barbara out of the room, out of the building and ran with her down the stone stairs outside, each one holding on to her arms tightly.

They passed the shattered window which the unfortunate Haroun had been knocked through, just as he was picking himself wearily to his feet. He was just in time to see the three figures disappearing down the steps and turning a corner at the bottom, identifying Barbara grimly. He wiped a trickle of blood that seeped down his face from a cut on his head. And then he shrugged wearily, clambered out of the window and made his way up to the room, a desperate fear in his heart for Safiya. As soon as she recognized his quiet voice, she flung open the secret door and embraced him, tears rolling down her cheeks in an agony of unhappiness, stammering out the story of how Barbara had deliberately sacrificed herself to stop the men setting the place on fire.

Haroun patted her head and comforted her as best he could, resolving now to force an issue which had lain too heavily on his heart for so long, the name of El Akir echoing
and re-echoing in his head like the steady beat of a drum, until the name became not just the title of his enemy but seemed to be the incarnation of every evil under the sun. Swiftly and silently, the two guards conveyed their captive through the Old Quarter of Lydda, stopping and hiding whenever they came across any other soldiers. Soon they moved into the better part of the town and it was all Barbara could do to keep up with them as they raced through the streets, each one gripping hold of an arm, pulling her forcefully along between them.

Then, gasping and panting for breath, they raced into the palace, through the great entrance gates, past startled guards and into the vast entrance hall of the palace itself. Up a curving flight of marble stairs and down a long corridor they rushed her, until her feet could respond no longer. So great was the pain in her lungs and so sharp the agony of her leg muscles that she sagged and allowed herself to be dragged along. Finally they burst into a room and El Akir jumped up to his feet, at first enraged at such an arrogant intrusion by common soldiery. Then, when he saw their captive, he put his hands on his hips and gave forth a huge burst of laughter, throwing back his head and filling the room with the sound of malevolent joy. The two eager and excited soldiers dragged her over to their master and dropped her. She rested painfully on her knees, breathing as deeply as she could to ease the stitches in her side.

El Akir bent down suddenly and grasped her face cruelly with his right hand. Barbara shook her head away from him, brought her hand up swiftly from the ground and slapped him across the face as hard as she could. He stepped back, stunned with the force of the blow, then a smile twisted his mouth.

‘This defiance promises well for me. It means it will take
a long time to make you scream for pity.’ His voice dropped quietly, a shudder of pleasure running through him and Barbara felt a quiver of fear.

‘I shall sit here and devise some entertainment for you. Take her to the harem,’ he ordered the two guards, throwing them a purse from his belt. ‘She will learn a little of what to expect from the other women there.’ He turned his black, fathomless eyes to Barbara’s again. ‘But nothing will be so bad, so painful, so shaming, or so terrifying as what is to happen to you.’

For the first time in her life, Barbara fainted.

Ian left the small retinue which had accompanied him from Jaffa with strict instructions to sound out as much as they could about Saladin’s opinion of King Richard’s marriage proposals between his sister and the Sultan’s brother, urging them to remember every detail and make the return to Jaffa as speedily as possible. Ian had already discovered that Saladin would not exchange Sir William des Preaux at any price, a point about which the Saracen leader was totally adamant. However, he promised that the Knight would be well treated and that he would reconsider his decision at some future date, and with that Ian had to be content. Saladin did, however, lend a most favourable ear to Ian’s plea for permission to follow El Akir and rescue Barbara. Much as he might not wish to quarrel with a potential ally, Saladin had no objection to a third party intervening, though he confessed that Ian stood very little chance on his own. His acute sense of judgement told him that Ian would have to be forcibly restrained, so he ordered that a clearance be given to him to travel unmolested to Lydda, plus a declaration that Ian and ‘the lady, Barbara’, should have a safe journey back to Jaffa.

‘I give you these passes,’ he told Ian, ‘because I admire your bravery and courage, Sir Ian. Secondly, the lady Barbara had believed she was under my protection and I would have that belief honoured. Lastly, El Akir has presumed upon my situation in this war, and his value to me in it, and I would have that rectified. His main army, of four thousand men, it is true, is placed with the body of my fighting men in front
of Jerusalem, but he has a personal guard in Lydda of several hundred. One thing and one thing alone can bring success to your enterprise… the Will of Allah.’ He smiled at Ian wryly.

‘But of course, you are a Christian, and my words mean nothing to you.’

‘On the contrary, Your Highness, if you will forgive my contradicting you, the names and the phrases differ but the purpose is the same in all races of intellect and culture. You say “the Will of Allah” where we would say “the Hand of God”.’

‘I see you have made some study of the subject, young man,’ murmured Saladin approvingly, ‘but surely the conflict still remains? The gulf between our separate faiths is too wide to be bridged by such a simple explanation.’

‘I have a friend, a very wise, well-travelled man who spoke to me on the subject of religions once. In the West, three main streams dominate: Mohammedanism, Judaism and Christianity. In the East, the Hindu, the Buddhist and the Moslem rival Janism, Sikhism, Parsee and Shinto. But what is the sum total? That all people, everywhere, believe there is something mightier than themselves. Call it Brahma, Allah or God – only the name changes. The little Negro child will say his prayers and imagine his God to be in his colour. The French child hopes his prayers will be answered – in French. We are all children in this matter still, and will always be – until colours, languages, custom, rule and fashion find a meeting ground.’

‘Then why do we fight? Throw away life, mass great continents of men and struggle for opposing beliefs?’

Neither could provide an answer so Ian took his leave as decently as he could, although Saladin was now keen for him to stay and hear the arguments put forward by the many wise men and philosophers who filled his court. Ian’s only regret
was that he had had to speak for the Doctor and knew that his friend would eternally regret not meeting the great Sultan.

He rode hard out of Ramlah, following much the same route that El Akir and Barbara had taken, until the fierce heat of the sun warned him how unused he was to the climate. His horse’s head was weaving slightly from side to side, its body covered with lather, and finally he reined the animal on top of an incline and gazed round the countryside. Nothing stirred in the merciless heat which had by no means risen to its peak. The land was quarter desert, tracts of sand broken by hard-baked ground, occasional scrub grass and here and there little clumps of trees. It looked like a dead world. He urged his horse towards one of the nearest clumps of trees, where he knew he would find a water pool. For a moment he thought he saw a movement but then, when he searched the place with his eyes and saw no other signs of life, took it to be imagination.