The Sleeping Sands (11 page)

‘Very well, Effendi,’ he chirped, ‘I will find some chores to do to help Signor Shimoth’s family.’

If Layard noticed Antonio’s eagerness, he showed no evidence of it. Lost deep in his own thoughts and his anxiety about the delay, he strode off towards the ruins of Safed’s synagogue with his head bowed and a deeply furrowed brow.

In the courtyard, Antonio was helping Shimoth’s youngest daughter draw water from the well and fill large earthenware jars. He shyly let her interrogate him as he enthusiastically hauled on a rope and pulley that operated a chain of ingenious shallow buckets, each tilting as it left the well to fill the jars. Against the reedy songs of a grasshopper and the creaking of the pulley she happily bombarded him with questions and delighted to see him blush deeply with each tongue-tied attempt to answer.

‘Is Signor Layard a good master?’ she asked, leaning forward slightly in a vain attempt to make eye contact with the bashful dragoman.

‘Ah, he is, I think,’ stammered Antonio, acutely conscious of the sweat that was running down his face and neck as he hauled on the pulley.

‘That is to say, I am sure he is – but I don’t really know any other master apart from the friars who raised me. I,’ his voice dropped to little more than a whisper, ‘I don’t know much of the world.’

‘I think he is very handsome,’ she observed casually, ‘don’t you?’

‘No, no, I don’t think so – I mean,’ he cast about for the correct answer, ‘I don’t know whether he is handsome.’

‘Well, he is,’ she asserted, ‘although I think he is very serious. He seemed to have a very grim face when he passed through the courtyard earlier.’

‘Oh, he is not always so serious,’ said Antonio, remembering Layard’s impulsive gaiety in the ruins of Jerash, ‘but he has been through so many trials in the desert that I think his heart is very heavy.’

‘Why – has your journey been dangerous?’ she asked, suddenly serious in her concern.

Her concern and the memory of the past weeks had the effect of opening up an uncharacteristic torrent of words from Antonio.

‘Miss, you could not possibly imagine the dangers that we have been through in the desert!’ he affirmed, his eyes saucer-wide with conviction and the recollection of his ordeals.

‘We have been set upon by bandits and wild tribes who were all disposed to cut our throats and rob us of every penny. We have travelled through lands where there isn’t a drop of water; where the sun burns us every second of the day and where the night freezes us to the bone. We have been alone in wildernesses full of savage wild beasts as well as djinns and demons and God alone knows what else. We have been shot at, stoned, beset by angry mobs, chased across half the countryside,’ with a slight catch in his throat, Antonio’s voice continued to rise in excitement. ‘We have been lost among graveyards full of serpents and ghosts. We have travelled through a plague-infested, cursed countryside. We have faced killers and cutthroats at every turn and have had to rely for our safety and guidance on the biggest collection of thieves and brigands you have ever met. It has been a long nightmare of terror – and everywhere we have travelled, every single person that we have met has tried to steal my red cap!’

Antonio snatched his tarbush from his head and stood, wringing it in his hands. Tears welled into his eyes and he looked nervously around the courtyard, as if expecting a renewed attempt upon his cap from some hidden quarter.

The girl put her hand to her mouth to mask a soft giggle at the comical sight of the dragoman. A little ashamed at laughing at his genuine fear, she touched his hand, still clenched in a tight grip on his cap, and asked him gently, ‘Why do you still travel with Signor Layard, Antonio? The road is bound to be full of yet more perils. My father has a caravan leaving for Jerusalem next week. I am sure that he could find a place for you with it. In the meantime,’ she added coyly, ‘you would be welcome to stay here.’

Antonio stood, dumbstruck for a moment, looking at the deep brown eyes of the girl. His heart burst with an ache of longing for another week in the company of Shimoth’s lovely daughters; for friendship, safety and the chance to return to Jerusalem and the friary that once had been his whole world, until Layard had dragged him into the insane chaos of the realms beyond its walls. The girl’s casual offer was more than he could have ever dared to wish for. It was salvation. Momentarily forgetting his shyness, he gazed at his angel with intense gratitude.

Then, he sighed deeply, placed his tarbush squarely on his head and looked back down at his feet.

‘Thank you, Miss,’ he stammered. ‘Your offer is too kind, but I must stay with Signor Layard. He hired me to be his dragoman and he would be alone without me.’

He stood a little straighter and explained, with a shy pride, ‘It is my duty.’

Spots of rain began to fall. A breeze blew up and Antonio shivered involuntarily in the sudden chill. The girl gazed at the boy with a mixture of respect and sadness.

‘The weather’s changing,’ she said quietly. ‘Let’s get these jars inside.

The rain fell for the rest of the day. By evening, Layard and Antonio, with their young guide, found themselves trudging heavily through thick mud as they wound down the hill from Safed towards the little village of Zeytun. Saleh’s son had brought one mule, which carried their packs, but the party was now on foot. The donkeys that had bravely carried the travellers from Kerak had been too tired and starved to make the journey. On the insistence of his youngest daughter, who felt that, if she could not prevent Antonio from the folly and discomfort of the road, she could at least do something for the beasts; Shimoth had offered to take care of the animals until they were strong enough to be returned to Kerak. Layard had expressed the firm opinion that the donkeys would be in better hands if they were to remain with the Jew and his family and thanked Shimoth for his kindness. Despite his impatience, he had departed the warmth and hospitality of Shimoth’s house with a feeling of regret. For Antonio, that regret was magnified a hundredfold and he dragged his feet as they left the town, turning his head at every few paces until the last house vanished from view in the fading light.

When they reached the village, two hours after sunset, they found the little place a buzzing hive of excitement. A troop of Egyptian soldiers had arrived a little before them, bearing news of the road ahead and demanding food and quarters. Every house in the village had been given its allocation of men to billet and the narrow streets were a hubbub of gossip, laughter and shouting. The soldiers had brought with them worrying news and unwelcome empty bellies to fill and the mood between the villagers and soldiers was tense. Ignoring the questioning looks of the small groups of soldiers and villagers clustered on street corners, Layard strode through the village until he reached the house that his guide indicated belonged to Ahmed Saleh.

Inside the house, the situation was little different from outside. In the modest two-room dwelling, he found one room to be full of a group of soldiers who had been quartered with his host. The other contained Saleh, his other children and his wife, who gave the travellers a kindly, unaffected welcome. While Saleh went out to tend to his mules, his wife spread mats for Layard and Antonio and went about making a simple meal. As she worked, Layard watched, struck by her appearance. She was tall and handsome, without any sense of arrogance or haughtiness. She wore a long, flowing shirt of blue silk, over woollen twist leggings of many bright colours. Her features, unobscured by a veil, were warm and open and she had a pair of large black eyes with which she fixed the travellers in a direct and un-self conscious manner. Her thick black hair cascaded in ringlets around her finely proportioned face, on each side of which hung long strands of silver coins. She supervised the preparation of their supper in a soft yet gently firm voice and insisted on serving both travellers personally.

‘I am sorry for the simplicity of our food,’ she explained to Layard. ‘We have nothing but bourghoul and bread’

She handed each a plate upon which was a generous portion of bourghoul – dried wheat mixed with melted butter – and placed a third plate, piled with loaves of unleavened bread between them.

While Layard and Antonio ate, she excused herself and took a large wooden tray, piled with bread and bourghoul into the neighbouring room.

Within a moment, a scream rang out, followed immediately by a chorus of rough shouts and curses. Layard, put aside his plate and began to rise to his feet but not before Saleh, who had that moment returned from tending to his mules, rushed into the room his wife had entered. There were more angry shouts another scream and a series of cries of distress that sounded to Layard to be those of the muleteer. He ran to the doorway and pushed aside a thick curtain to reveal a scene of chaos. Cloying lumps of bourghoul and bread were scattered across the room amidst shards of broken pottery. The muleteer and his wife were sprawled together on the floor, clinging to each other and crying out piteously, their faces red from tears and blows. Standing over them were three Egyptian soldiers, shouting and cursing and belabouring the pair with their long courbashes. Spurred by outrage at seeing his gentle hosts so treated, Layard grabbed the courbash held by the nearest soldier and pushed him hard in the chest. The soldier staggered back and tripped over a scuffed mat, instinctively grabbing one of his comrades as he fell. Caught by surprise, his comrade lost his balance and fell in a heap on top of the first soldier in a tangle of arms, legs, sashes and bandoliers. At his shoulder, the third soldier was only now turning away from his victims, grasping his whip with both hands like a broadsword, ready to strike down the interloper. Layard whirled round to face him and lashed out wildly with the courbash, catching the man across both wrists with a vicious crack. The man howled in pain, dropping his own courbash while pressing his crossed wrists to his chest and backing away from Layard with a look of hurt fear.

The pair of soldiers on the ground began to disentangle themselves but a couple of short, insistent switches from Layard’s whip discouraged them from any attempt to stand. The third soldier looked in terror at the apparition that had burst upon them – a tall, wild-haired European, dressed in rags yet with eyes that flashed such noble rage that the soldier felt half paralyzed.

‘Who - who are you?’ he stammered, nursing his bleeding wrists.

‘I am Henry Layard,’ spat Layard, ‘travelling with the authority of Ibrahim Pasha himself; and you three wretches will tell me your names so that I can ride back to Safed this instant and report you to the Muteselim.’

‘Please Effendi, I beg you, don’t report us,’ cried out one of the prostrate soldiers, ‘we will be tortured and imprisoned for certain!’

‘Yes, Effendi,’ cried out the other, ‘the officers here are under strict orders – no mercy for any poor soldier accused of misconduct. They might even shoot us.’

‘Do you deserve any less?’ demanded Layard, scowling at the sight of Saleh and his beautiful wife, getting to their feet and trying to arrange their dishevelled clothes.

‘But you don’t know what it’s like,’ pleaded the third soldier. ‘Every day and night we are fighting Bedouins or rebels or hunting down our own comrades as deserters. There is plague all around us and every moment we live with the fear of death. It is terrible out there,’ he gestured to the darkness beyond the narrow outer doorway. ‘There are things worse than the plague – things that stalk our dreams. There are voices in the wind. Some nights we can’t sleep for them.

‘It drives us mad with fear. I have seen brothers in arms turn on their dearest companions and slide knives in each other’s ribs. I have seen men turn and run into a volley of bullets rather than face another day under the Pasha’s command. All we wanted here was a little rest and a little food. Just some rice and perhaps a little bit of chicken. When we asked for it and the woman brought us nothing but bourghoul,’ his face twisted in distaste, ‘we lost our minds with pent up rage. We did not mean to act so – please show us some mercy, Effendi.’

‘Yes, please Effendi!’ chorused the two prone soldiers.

‘Your actions were unforgivable,’ said Layard, coldly. ‘Your fairy stories can’t justify the way you treated this good woman and her husband. I have no choice but to report you. If service here is such an ordeal that you deserve mercy for it, then who better to judge that than your own officers?’

The muleteer’s wife walked up to Layard and spoke softly.

‘Please, Effendi,’ she said, looking earnestly into Layard’s eyes, ‘show them mercy. If you report them, they or their comrades may look to take revenge and you won’t be here to protect us. It was as they said – a madness. Now it is past. Let there be no more suffering on its account.’

Struck by both her beauty and the nobility of her sentiment, Layard’s ire subsided. He tossed the courbash to the soldiers on the floor.

‘Here,’ he said, ‘you can begin to tidy up this room. Make a good job of it and, if there is no more bad behaviour, I might consider refraining from making a report. But know this – you owe your continued liberty not to me, but to the mercy and good nature of this fine woman. If I hear one more word of complaint from her about you, then it will be the bastinado for you. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, oh yes, Effendi,’ cried the soldiers and set themselves to clearing up the room. Layard retired to the neighbouring room with Saleh and his wife, to find Antonio comforting the muleteer’s children, frightened for their parents. The muleteer’s wife foraged sour milk and honey from a hidden store and mixed the precious ingredients with Layard and Antonio’s remaining bourghoul into a sweet paste.

‘Here, Effendi,’ she said, handing a bowl of the mixture to Layard, ‘we can’t have you eating the same as those animals.’

The news brought by the soldiers was on every villager’s lips the next morning and it was not good. Bands of Bedouin raiders had been seen along the road to Damascus. Saleh was of a mind to withdraw his offer to guide Layard through the quarantine. It was only on the strongest protestations of his wife and Layard’s assurances that he would do everything in his power to protect the muleteer and prevent the man and his animals being seized as conscripts for the Egyptian Army that he at last relented.