A River in the Sky

Chapter Three

Pacing up and down the drawing room, waving the telegram, Emerson ranted and cursed until I interrupted his tirade with a timely reminder.

“Why should the War Office inform you of Morley’s departure? They would have no excuse for detaining him, and you had already informed them that he was not a German agent.”

“I had also informed them that I was prepared to follow the bastard to Palestine, sacrificing my own plans-”

“What plans? You didn’t have any.”

Emerson’s response was to snatch up his coat and dash out of the room, leaving the door ajar. Seconds later I heard the front door slam.

I knew where he was going-straight up to London by the first train-and why he had departed so precipitately-in order to prevent me from accompanying him. I could only hope that by the time he arrived he would have calmed down enough to be sensible.

I would not have wished to go in any case. Shouting at General Spencer would be a waste of time and breath, and I had too many other things to think about.

We hadn’t heard a word from Ramses, though I had sent a series of letters to him and Reisner, each more emphatic than the last. I tried to tell myself that my son’s dilatory habits and the uncertain state of postal delivery in the region were probably responsible for his silence, but in my heart of hearts, doubt lingered. I knew my son only too well.

The reverend was an additional source of concern. What were we to do with him? He appeared to be quite happy to remain with us; when I asked, in my tactful fashion, if his family and friends might not be worrying about him, he had replied he had no family, few friends, and no plans whatsoever. I felt about him as I might feel about a friendly, dimwitted stray dog that had decided to move in with us. He could not be cast out onto the street, but he was shedding all over the furniture. (I speak metaphorically.) I found an ally in Nefret, who had taken him under her wing, as she might have done with any other stray.

We had been unable to settle on final plans for our forthcoming expedition (forthcoming, that is, unless Emerson infuriated the War Office into canceling its support altogether). I wanted to arrange for our men to meet us in Jaffa instead of “stopping off in Egypt to pick them up,” as Emerson had nonchalantly suggested. I had managed to persuade him that going out of our way to remove Ramses in person from the dig at Samaria would be an additional waste of time. He too could meet us in Jaffa. Emerson put up a stiff fight about that, since he had been looking forward to inspecting Reisner’s excavations and telling him what he had done wrong, but eventually I prevailed-as I generally do. I had taken the precaution of writing to Reisner myself, putting the matter as a request instead of an order, as Emerson would have done. I felt sure Reisner would oblige me, especially since the alternative would have been to have Emerson descend upon him.

Another little matter Emerson had blandly refused to discuss was the question of additional staff. What we lacked, in my opinion, was an individual acquainted with pottery. To an untrained eye there is nothing more boring than undecorated, broken pieces of pottery. I am inclined to share this view, since I have seen too many of the cursed things. Unlike most of his predecessors, who were primarily interested in impressive architectural features and attractive grave goods, Emerson considered that every scrap of material from a site had potential value and must be noted and preserved. When inscriptional material was lacking, the comparative development of pottery types was sometimes the only way a tomb or occupation level could be dated. I could not argue with this principle, but since I was generally the one in charge of sifting the debris and finding such fragments, my feelings about them were less than enthusiastic. I did not look forward to continuing that labor in an area where the pottery was likely to be even less interesting than in Egypt. However, my inquiries (made without Emerson’s knowledge) failed to locate a suitable person. Our staff, therefore, consisted of Nefret, David, and Ramses in addition to our two selves.

Well, we had managed with as few persons before, particularly since our primary purpose was not excavation but preventing Morley from doing the same. The site we had fixed on was on a rocky slope south of the Old City of Jerusalem. The modern name of the village there was Silwan, and there was general agreement that it derived from the biblical Siloam. According to Second Chronicles, King Hezekiah, anticipating an attack by the Assyrians, had dug a tunnel from a spring outside the walls in order to bring its waters directly into the city. The actual tunnel had been found in 1838, thereby confirming the accuracy of the biblical account, and thirty years later a British engineer named Robinson had traversed its entire length, despite the silt that had accumulated over the years. I hoped we would have an opportunity to explore the tunnel, since Robinson’s description of crawling on his stomach through its dark, dank, constricted length was quite intriguing. When I mentioned this possibility to Emerson, his response was so profane that I decided not to pursue the matter…For the present.

Emerson returned in time for tea, his arrival heralded by his usual slam of the front door and his hearty halloo: “Peabody, where are you? I am back. Peabody!” I was reading in the drawing room, but I had no difficulty in hearing him.

“Well!” I said, returning his friendly embrace. “You are in a much better frame of mind than you were when you left. I take it all went well at the War Office?”

“I cannot imagine why you should assume otherwise.” Emerson removed his coat and tossed it in Gargery’s general direction. “Why isn’t tea ready, Gargery? I am famished.”

“I suppose you didn’t take time to eat lunch,” I said, after Gargery had stalked off and Emerson and I had returned to the drawing room.

“Lunch? Oh.” Emerson pondered. “No, I can’t recall having done so. That bastard Spencer kept me cooling my heels for a good half hour, and then persisted in arguing with me.”

“What about?”

“It was more or less along the lines you had suggested,” Emerson admitted. He took a seat next to me on the sofa and put his arm round my shoulders. “The bloody idiot said that since we had already agreed we would follow Morley to Jerusalem, he couldn’t see that it made any difference when we went, so long as we were there in good time. So I told him-”

“That he was a bloody idiot?”

“More or less. He took it quite well,” Emerson said in mild surprise.

“He was trying to get you out of his office, I expect. Did you ask about the firman?”

“It hasn’t arrived yet, but he promised we would have it by the time we reach Jaffa. Ah, there you are, Nefret. And-er-Papadalopous. He follows her about like a puppy,” he added, in what he probably believed to be a whisper.

“He has been telling me about the fall of Jericho,” Nefret said, giving Emerson a reproachful look.

“Ah,” said Emerson, perking up. “He was Joshua?”

“He explained that it didn’t happen quite as the Bible describes it,” Nefret said.

“It didn’t happen at all,” said Emerson, his mood improving even more at the prospect of argumentation, and the sound of the tea cart rattling along the hall. “The excavators of 1907 concluded that the latest remains dated from 1800 B.C., a thousand years, give or take a century, before your apocryphal Joshua.”

The reverend paid no attention to any of this. His attention was fixed on the tea cakes which Gargery placed on the table.

“I wouldn’t mind taking a crack at Jericho myself,” Emerson went on. “But the Germans still hold the concession, and we must be nearer Jerusalem.”

Panagopolous looked up. “When shall we depart?”

BY DINT OF HERCULEAN efforts on my part we were ready to depart in less than a week. I was busy from morning till night telegraphing Selim, sending final orders to Ramses, purchasing supplies, packing, and of course making lists. Emerson offered to make our travel arrangements, which I accepted because I didn’t suppose he could locate a disreputable old friend in London who happened to own a steamer. He had perpetrated that indignity several times before, but that was in Egypt and the Sudan, where Emerson had only too many disreputable old friends. I took comfort in the fact that he could not have many old friends in Palestine.

The reverend had come to us with only the contents of a single valise, so another of my chores was to outfit him for a prolonged stay in the Middle East. My inquiries as to where he had left the rest of his luggage were met with a blank stare and a murmured reference to the House of David. Sometimes I got quite impatient with him, but Nefret always leaped to his defense. Amnesia was unpredictable. An individual’s memory might return, or it might not. Certain parts of it might be lost forever.

Emerson’s continual mispronunciation of his surname didn’t seem to bother Panagopolous, but Nefret began to find it unacceptable. “It suggests you don’t care enough about him to remember his name,” she complained to Emerson.

“I don’t,” said Emerson, surprised that she should have thought otherwise.

“Call him ‘Reverend,’” I suggested.

“If he is a reverend of any recognized church, I am Attila the Hun,” said Emerson. “I refuse to give him a title to which he is not-er-entitled.”

“Use his first name, then,” said Nefret, losing patience. “He wouldn’t mind.”

Emerson shook his head. “How can I contemplate that vacant countenance and address it by the name of one of the greatest of the Greeks? Impossible.”

“It strikes me as an excellent solution,” I said.

Emerson, of course, dismissed this solution with a few ill-chosen words and from then on tried to avoid addressing Mr. Plato directly. However, he accepted Plato’s accompanying us with more grace than I had expected. He had managed to have a talk with him, and found him “uncharacteristically coherent,” to quote Emerson himself. “He claims to have memorized the information on the notorious scroll,” Emerson explained. “Not that I believe for a moment that it has any value, but the fellow does seem to be familiar with the former excavations near the Temple Mount, including those of Warren and Bliss.”

“Doesn’t that indicate that there is some basis for his claims?”

“Are you determined to provoke me, Peabody?” Emerson inquired with perfect good humor. “It indicates that he took the trouble to read up on the subject, as any clever charlatan would do. However, I don’t see that we have any choice in the matter. We can’t expect Gargery and Rose to be responsible for him, and if we abandoned him on a street corner in London, he would only find his way back here.”

So Mr. Plato was at the rail with us the day we set sail from London. Our family had come to see us off, as they always did. The weather was fine, and the sun, only slightly dimmed by the perpetual haze of smoke, illumined the beloved faces: Emerson’s brother Walter and his wife, my dear friend Evelyn; their eldest son Raddie; and their daughter, my namesake. Lia’s pretty face was set in a forced smile as she blew kisses to David, who stood next to me at the rail of the steamer. His expression was scarcely more cheerful, though he strove as valiantly to smile.

They had been engaged for two years. Her parents had been opposed to the match initially. Their objections were based solely on prejudice of a nature that is unfortunately only too common in our society, for David was the grandson of our late and greatly lamented foreman Abdullah. He was also a fine young man and a talented artist. I had pointed out the illogic and injustice of their position to Walter and Evelyn, and naturally my arguments had prevailed. The young people had several more years to wait, since Lia was only just nineteen and David was determined to establish himself in his career before marrying. This brief interruption of that career, as Emerson insisted, would not be a serious impediment, since archaeological copying was one of David’s specialties, and we were certain-said Emerson-to make important discoveries. I had serious doubts about this. We weren’t likely to discover exquisitely painted tombs like those in Egypt, or monumental temples covered with carved reliefs. Nothing of the sort had ever been found in Palestine.

There had been no letter from Ramses. I could only hope that he had received ours, and that he would act upon our instructions.

FROM MANUSCRIPT H

Ramses wasn’t surprised that Reisner wanted to be rid of him as quickly as possible. Not only did he face the dire alternative of Emerson’s critical presence, but the rock-throwing incidents had never been explained. There had been no further attacks, but that might be accounted for by the fact that Ramses had obeyed orders and avoided nocturnal strolls. Mme von Eine’s visit might be regarded as another untoward occurrence. Reisner didn’t like untoward occurrences interrupting his work, and Ramses really couldn’t blame him for suspecting his assistant was somehow responsible for all of them.

However, he was damned if he was going to sneak away before he had tried to find explanations for certain questions, or at least made an attempt to do so. He knew better than to mention this to Reisner; instead he pointed out that he could reach Jaffa in a day and that he would feel less guilty if he could finish his work.

A few furtive forays over the following twenty-four hours told him that Madame was still encamped, with no signs of imminent departure. She kept to her tent, at least during the times when he was watching. On his third trip he narrowly escaped discovery by one of the Turkish guards, who had taken to prowling the perimeter armed with rifles.

Though he was increasingly curious as to what the lady found so fascinating about Samaria, he was just as curious about the nocturnal attacks. They made no sense. He hadn’t responded to the languishing glances of certain village maidens, or failed to respect the hours of prayer. As for old enemies, anyone who was really after his blood would have been more persistent.

There was one obvious way of proceeding, and it was something his father would have done long before: Confront someone in authority, and demand an explanation. Sebaste boasted a mayor, of sorts; he was Turkish, and when he wasn’t lounging around his ramshackle villa he was extorting extra taxes from the locals. A more likely source was the imam. Ramses had encountered him a number of times but had never spoken at length with him.

The following day was Friday, the weekly day of rest for the men. After lunch, while his superiors were at work on the incessant record keeping, he announced his intention of visiting the bazaar to buy a present for his mother, and got out of the house before Reisner could think of a good reason why he shouldn’t. Ramses had learned that the mere mention of his mother had an unnerving effect on his superior.

As he made his way through the narrow streets he wished he had taken the time to look for ancient building materials. His father would certainly quiz him about them. In Egypt it wasn’t unusual to find Fourth Dynasty column drums used as steps and limestone blocks from three-thousand-year-old temples forming parts of the foundations of houses. Such was the case here, but the visible remains were scanty enough: columns and Corinthian capitals built into the walls, none of them earlier than the first century. The only structure of interest was the former Crusader Church, now the mosque; thanks to his visits there with pilgrim groups he knew the place well enough to satisfy any inquiries Emerson might make. His father’s interest in the twelfth century of the Christian era could only be described as indifferent.

At first glance the open court of the mosque was deserted. Then the sound of snoring led him to a quiet corner, where the imam lay curled up like a cat, enjoying his afternoon nap.

It was the first time he had got a really good look at the man. He was younger than Ramses had realized, now that the cleric’s face was relaxed in sleep. His cheeks were pockmarked above his neatly trimmed black beard. Ramses hesitated, reluctant to disturb him, and then reminded himself that he was supposed to be acting as his father would have. He nudged the recumbent form gently with his toe.

The imam opened drowsy eyes. They widened in alarm when he saw who had waked him. He pulled himself to a sitting position and wriggled back until he was pressed against the wall. Ramses begged pardon for disturbing him in his most formal Arabic. “I am leaving Sebaste soon, reverend sir, and wanted to speak with you before that.”

“Ah, so it is true.” The imam scratched his side and gave Ramses a wary look. Ramses squatted next to the imam, so that their heads were on the same level.

“Yes, it is true. You had heard?”

Ramses wasn’t surprised, although his imminent departure had not been officially announced. He knew how quickly news spreads in rural villages. Gossip was one of the chief sources of entertainment and eavesdropping was considered a perfectly legitimate activity.

The imam nodded dumbly. He looked terrified. Since it was obvious that he wasn’t going to be invited in for a glass of tea or a cup of coffee, Ramses decided to go straight to the point.

“A few days ago I was walking through the olive grove when someone threw a large stone at me. It had happened once before. Have I been guilty of some unwitting offense?”

His conciliatory tone was beginning to have an effect. The young man relaxed a little, and pondered the question briefly before replying.

“It was a mistake. It will not happen again.”

“A mistake? So you know who was responsible?”

Wrong question, Ramses thought, seeing the fellow’s eyes shift. “I do not ask in order to take revenge or demand punishment,” he said. “I only want to know the reason. If I have committed an offense, I want to correct it.”

“It was a mistake.” The bearded lips set stubbornly.

“You say it will not happen again? Why not?”

“I must prepare for evening prayers.”

The imam started to get to his feet, still avoiding Ramses’s eyes. Ramses put a hand on his shoulder and held him down.

“It is too early for evening prayers. I will not leave until I have an answer, reverend sir.”

“Because…” The imam moistened his lips. The words came out in a rush. “It will not happen again because you are the Brother of Demons, the son of the Father of Curses. We have been told of him. Why should we risk his displeasure, when soon you will all…”

He didn’t bother to finish the sentence. The mention of his father’s name-the last thing he had expected-made Ramses’s grip relax. The imam squirmed out from under his hand and fled into the mosque.

Pursuit would have been useless and possibly counterproductive. He had got all he was going to get from that source, and the conversation had given him a new perspective and a potential lead.

That last uncompleted sentence had been illuminating. It wasn’t difficult to guess how it would have ended: “…when soon you will all…” Be gone? Be dead? One or the other, surely. The attacks had not been personal. He was part of a group, “you” plural.

He went out of the mosque and walked aimlessly along the street, pondering. “They” had been told about his father, no doubt by one of the Egyptian foremen. Egyptians reveled in tall tales about Emerson; his fame encompassed the entire country, from Cairo to Aswan and out into the Nubian deserts. Stories about Emerson’s feats of strength and his imposing presence were accurate enough to require no exaggeration, and many Egyptians regarded him as possessing supernatural powers. It was a reputation Emerson took some pains to encourage. No one who had watched him perform one of his famous exorcisms would ever forget it, for Emerson threw himself heart and soul into his performances. When he cursed an enemy, that enemy was likely to meet an unpleasant end. If fate didn’t see to that, Emerson did.

It was a tenuous lead, but the only one he had.

He didn’t know where Mitab lived, but everybody in Sebaste knew everybody else, and his description of the man he wanted eventually led him to a house on the outskirts of town. It was a little larger and in better condition than the majority of dwellings; Reisner paid good wages. In many cases the money supported an extended family, which appeared to be the case here. The door opened as he approached, and a mob of children spilled out into the street, yelling and laughing and shoving at one another. The boy leading the group, a bright-eyed ragged urchin of about ten, came to a sudden stop when he saw Ramses. Ramses recognized him as one of the basket boys on the dig.

The other children fell silent, staring. Ramses fished in his pocket and brought out a handful of coins-an irresistible offering in this impoverished part of the world. Jingling them in his hand, he said, “I have come to see Mitab. Please tell him I am here.”

The boy had heard the stories too. His eyes widened until the whites showed all round the pupils, and for a moment Ramses thought he would bolt. Ramses spoke gently, as he would have done to a nervous animal. “I only want to talk to him. I mean him no harm. I will wait for him here. Take this, as a gift.”

The word was “baksheesh.” It was regarded, not as payment for services actual or potential, but as a present from one equal to another. The dignity of the recipient demanded a return present, though in a good many cases the present consisted solely of thanks or freedom from harassment.

It took additional reassurance and the handing over of several more coins before the boy nodded. He went back into the house. Ramses prepared himself for a long wait, but it was only a few minutes later when the boy reappeared and held the door open. Ramses dropped a few more coins into his outstretched hand as he entered.

Cooking smells and the reek of charcoal fires mingled with the stench of too many bodies, animal and human, occupying too small a space. Ramses thought he caught a whiff of hashish too. At first glance he believed the room was unoccupied. Then the curtains covering a door at the back of the room stirred. A worried face peered out.

“I came to ask you a question,” Ramses said. “One question only, one truthful answer, and then I will go.”

The curtain parted and Mitab edged into the room.

“Only one?”

“Yes. The answer will be locked in my heart, no one else will hear it.”

“You swear?”

“By God and the Prophet, may his name be blessed, I swear.”

“I meant no harm. It was a warning.”

“It was you who threw the stones, then?”

“I meant no harm.”

“Did someone tell you to throw them?”

“They said you must all go. All the unbelievers. Yusuf and I meant you no harm. It was a warning, that you must go before greater harm came to you.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

Mitab gave him a blank stare. Ramses took out his tin of cigarettes and offered it. “Take it,” he said. “Smoke, be at ease. Who are they?”

Mitab accepted the offering with a childish smile of pleasure. “They are the Those Who Come Before,” he said simply. “One of them spoke to us in the mosque and told us of the time when we must rise up against the infidels who want to steal our land.”

“When was that?”

Mitab counted on his fingers. Notions of exact time were too difficult; he said simply, “Two…three times-and again…I do not know.” He accepted the box of matches Ramses handed him, lit up, and drew the smoke into his lungs. A blue fog of expelled smoke veiled his face. “But he was angry when he heard what Yusuf and I had done, and we had heard of the great and powerful magician who is your father, and Yusuf and I did not want his wrath to fall on our heads.”

You were in trouble enough already, poor devil, Ramses thought.

Aloud he said, “I promise you I will appease his wrath. You meant no harm, you will take no harm from him or from me. I will tell the one in the mosque the same, if you-”

“Will you? Will you?” In his excitement Mitab dropped the cigarette. “I saw that you spoke with him that day on the tell, when he was there with the lady. You know him, you have power over him. I will pray for you at the mosque today, Brother of Demons.”

He picked up the stub of the cigarette from the filthy floor before he vanished behind the curtain.

Ramses hurried back to the dig house. He’d been gone longer than he had anticipated. For once, Reisner wasn’t working. Pipe clenched in his teeth, feet on a packing case, he was reading a book whose lurid cover depicted a body with a knife protruding from its chest, lying in a pool of blood-one of his favorite mystery novels. He had decided to take part of the day off too. Looking up, he asked, “Did you find a suitable gift?”

Wrapped in thought, Ramses had forgotten his purported errand. “No,” he said.

“The local bazaar doesn’t have much of interest. But there’s one fellow, a wood-carver, who does some excellent work.”

“I didn’t see him there today.” His mother would have approved the statement; it was the literal truth.

“I understand our visitor hasn’t left yet,” Reisner said.

“Yes. I mean, no, she hasn’t.” He had been trying to think of an excuse to leave the house so that he could visit the camp. Now it occurred to him that it might be prudent to inform someone of his destination, if not his purpose. As his mother had once been heard to remark, “If a good lie won’t serve, try telling the truth.” He was wearing the same coat he had worn the day before. After some fishing about he extracted von Eine’s handkerchief. “She dropped this the other day. It would be only courteous to return it, don’t you think?”

Reisner inspected the now grubby item and burst out laughing. “She dropped her handkerchief? I thought women quit doing that fifty years ago. Fisher, what do you think of this? The lady dropped her handkerchief. Didn’t I tell you she had her eye on Ramses?”

Fisher had emerged from his room, yawning. He found the handkerchief as amusing as Reisner had; the two of them teased Ramses until he left.

As he made his way toward the camp, Ramses began to have second thoughts about carrying out his plan. Even supposing he was admitted to the lady’s quarters, the tactics he had employed with innocent Mitab and the imam, a combination of intimidation and persuasion, were unlikely to succeed with the lady and her enigmatic companion. He pictured himself demanding answers to his questions, and imagined their reactions: a contemptuous smile from the lady, a dismissive shrug from the other.

On the other hand, what did he have to lose? Humiliation was a small price to pay for the chance of satisfying his curiosity.

He came close to paying a higher price when he stepped into view from among the trees and found himself face-to-face with a guard who was pointing a gun at him. Ramses raised his hands and said quickly, “Is this how you greet visitors? I have come to see the lady. Take me to her.”

He had spoken Turkish. That, as much as the self-confident words, had the effect he had hoped for. The guard lowered the gun. It was only a slight improvement, since his finger was still on the trigger and the gun was now pointing at Ramses’s knees. He resisted the impulse to step back out of the line of fire, folded his arms, and fixed the guard with a stern stare.

“Take me to her,” he repeated.

The fellow raised a hand to caress his luxuriant mustache. “She said to keep everyone away…Wait here. I will ask.”

Ramses stood waiting, loftily ignoring the dozens of pairs of eyes focused on him. He didn’t have to wait long. The guard was back almost at once.

“The lady is seeing no one. Leave now.”

Arguing with an underling would lower his prestige. Retreating with as much dignity as he could command, he found a spot among the trees where he could see without being seen, and sat down to consider what to do. Didn’t she ever leave the tent? Behind him the sun was setting, casting long lingering fingers of light across the shaded landscape. As the shadows deepened the canvas walls of Madame’s tent glowed yellow with lamplight; he saw indistinct silhouettes move about inside, too vague to be identifiable. The tent flap opened, and two women came out carrying an object Ramses couldn’t identify at first. They tipped it up and water poured out; watching in fascination, he decided it must be a portable bathtub, made of canvas and collapsible. Porters and guards gathered round newly lighted campfires. The smell of food reached his nostrils and reminded him he was getting hungry.

So far his investigations had only raised more questions. Mitab wasn’t the most reliable of informants, but Ramses believed he had told the truth-as he saw it. He had identified Frau von Eine’s “fellow traveler” as one of Those Who Come Before-not once, but a number of times-and if poor Mitab’s interpretation of their purpose was accurate, they were stirring up antagonism toward infidels and foreigners. From what he had observed so far, it appeared to be a fairly ineffectual operation, but he would like to have found out more about the plan and what part, if any, the lady played in it.

It was now so dark that venturing closer might get him shot, and there were too many people about. He started to get to his feet.

There was no warning, not even the snap of a twig or an indrawn breath. He fell flat under the impact of a heavy body. A hand clamped over his mouth and a voice hissed in his ear.

“For God’s sake don’t make a noise or you’ll get us both scragged!”

The voice had spoken English. Unaccented, idiomatic English.

Ramses forced his taut muscles to relax. After a few seconds the hand over his mouth lifted.

“Who-”

“Ssssh! Let’s get farther away. Someone may have heard you fall.”

It struck Ramses as excellent advice. He followed the crawling figure as it made its way rapidly but silently through the grove. When they were some fifty yards away from the camp the other man stood up. Ramses couldn’t make out his features, only the general outline of someone wearing a loose dark garment and headcloth. The large leaves of the fig tree against which his back was pressed provided deep shade.

“Well done,” said the unknown, in the same barely audible murmur. “We should be all right now. But keep your voice down.”

“Who the devil are you?”

After a moment of hesitation the other man said resignedly, “I’ll have to come clean, I suppose, although it’s against regulations. Name’s Macomber. We met at Oxford two years ago. Hogarth’s rooms at Magdalen.”

Macomber’s name meant nothing to Ramses, but Hogarth’s did. Distinguished scholar, experienced archaeologist, rabid imperialist, Hogarth despised “men in the lump” and believed in the God-given superiority of the white “races”-particularly the British. He gathered round him young men whom he inspired to share his vision, who asked nothing more than to serve their country in the great game of empire, without recognition or reward. Ramses had been invited to join the select circle because of his long years of experience in the Middle East, but he had only attended one of the meetings: he had found Hogarth’s beliefs and air of certitude thoroughly offensive. He remembered Macomber now-a pale young man with a shock of yellow hair and eyes that glowed with adolescent fervor as he listened to his mentor hold forth. Officially Hogarth had no connection with any of the intelligence organizations, but Ramses wasn’t the only one who suspected he recommended worthy acolytes for recruitment.

“Regulations,” he repeated. “Which lot are you working for?”

“Never mind that, just listen. I spotted you when you came here with her the first time, been trying to speak with you ever since, but you were always with someone, and I wasn’t allowed to leave camp except once or twice to go to the mosque, and-” A rustle of leaves nearby brought him up sharp. He wasn’t as cool as he had tried to appear. Ramses was getting uneasy too. If they were found together they would both be in trouble.

“Get to the point,” he said. “Why is MO2 interested in Mme von Eine?”

“She’s high up with the German government. They are trying to move into the Middle East, preparing for war eventually-”

“I know. Be specific. Why her, why here, why now?”

“She’s after something. Some talisman, some document, some…I don’t know what, but she and that fellow Mansur consider it vital in their plot to unify Islam against us. I overheard them talk about other places to look-Jericho, Jerusalem-” He glanced over his shoulder. “I’ve got to get back before I’m missed. I’m telling you this so you can pass the word on if something happens to me.”

“Why do you think it might? Has something gone wrong?”

Macomber swallowed noisily. “Mansur caught me listening outside her tent the other night. He’s been watching me ever since. Tell them they were right about von Eine, she’s a major player; tell them about the talisman and about Mansur-I don’t know who he is or what his particular game is, but they can-”

“Tell them yourself,” Ramses said. The sixth sense his mother often spoke of, the feeling of being watched, was raising the hairs on the back of his neck. He put his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Come with me now. I can supply you with clothes, you’ll be a friend from university on a walking tour.”

“I have to finish the job.” The muscles under his hand stiffened.

Ramses bit back a blistering expletive. “You’ve done the job. The chance of your finding out anything more is negligible, especially since you are now under suspicion.”

“One more thing. I overheard them mention the Sons of Abraham. I don’t know what it means, but it sounded important.”

To Ramses’s heightened senses the night seemed to be alive with movement and sound. “Don’t go back there,” he said urgently.

“I’ll be all right.” Ramses’s face was so close to Macomber’s he saw his teeth flash in a smile. “I was getting a little…Well, you know. It’s helped, talking to you.”

He moved quickly, slipping out from under Ramses’s restraining hand, and was gone into the night before Ramses could stop him.

Ramses stood listening for several minutes before he dared hope Macomber had slipped back without being spotted. There had been no outcry, no gunfire. His skin was still prickling, though, and he concentrated on moving with exaggerated caution, slipping from shadow to shadow and tree to tree, making use of every bit of cover. It wasn’t until he had reached the outskirts of the village that he was able to relax a bit and consider the implications of that extraordinary encounter.

Macomber had not answered him when he asked who had sent him on his mission. Some section of MO2, probably; the Ottoman Empire was under its jurisdiction. Whoever they were, they had no business sending a novice like Macomber out into the field. He could get in deep trouble just for being what he was: a lone Englishman trying to pass as a native of the area, for purposes unknown and therefore threatening. It was a miracle he had pulled it off as long as he had. The knowledge necessary to pass as a member of a completely different culture couldn’t be drilled into someone, like cramming for an examination. It took years of living the life, learning the language fluently and idiomatically, and a thousand little things that could mean the difference between success and failure-or life and death.

He could only hope that Macomber had got carried away by the thrill of a secret mission and let his imagination run away with him. What had he actually learned, after all, that could put him in danger? Germany’s aspirations in the Middle East were a matter of public knowledge. Vague references to conspiracies and amulets, mysterious phrases…It sounded like the plot of a spy novel, and there hadn’t been a single hard fact in that rambling narrative. As for the Sons of Abraham, it was the sort of romantic name that might have been selected by a religious cult or one of those strange American fraternal organizations.

He had to put up with more teasing when he returned. “You’ve been gone quite a long time,” Fisher said, with a sidelong glance at Reisner. “Enjoy yourself?”

“I wasn’t admitted to the presence,” Ramses said. “They kept me waiting awhile. I’ll just go finish copying the ostraca now.”

“That’s right, you’re leaving tomorrow,” Reisner said.

Don’t you wish, Ramses thought. “Day after tomorrow,” he corrected. “If that’s all right with you.”

“If you think that gives you enough time. You wouldn’t want to be late meeting them.”

“Plenty of time.” Enough, not only to finish tracing the ostraca but to give Macomber a chance to reconsider his offer.

The others set off for the dig early next morning, leaving Ramses bent industriously over his work. As soon as they were out of sight, Ramses headed for the camp.

But when he reached the spot, the camp was gone. Only the blackened scars of campfires and a stretch of trampled earth littered with animal droppings and miscellaneous trash showed where it had been.

He walked slowly across the area where Frau von Eine’s tent had stood, on the unlikely chance that something of interest had been overlooked among the scraps of packing material and other debris. He picked up a crumpled paper and smoothed it out. It seemed to be a page torn from a diary or notebook, bearing only a few words in German-the beginning of a letter to Mein lieber Freund. A disfiguring blot on the last word showed why it had been discarded. The only other unusual item was a scrap of baked clay, so close in color to the earth on which it lay that he almost missed it. Roughly triangular, it bore a few marks that might have been the wedge-shaped cuneiform script that had been used in the Middle East for international correspondence and diplomatic documents during the second millennium B.C. Could this have been broken off one of the clay tablets employed for such letters? If so, it would explain why Madame had reacted to his casual statement about tablets missing from Boghazkoy, and why she had been so wary of admitting where else her travels had taken her.

All this, inspection and theorizing, was only postponing the discovery he hoped he wouldn’t make. He put the scrap in his pocket and moved on. The ashes of the fires were cold. They must have left before dawn, not lingering to cook breakfast or make coffee. It would have taken a long time to break camp, pack the lady’s furniture and belongings, and load the carts, so they must have started not long after…The sky was clear and the sun was bright, but a shiver ran through him.

He searched the area, walking in widening circles, his eyes on the ground. He didn’t know what he was looking for until he found it-a rectangle of recently disturbed soil, on the edge of the encampment. The dirt had been trampled down, but it was still loose. He dug with his bare hands. He’d only got down a few feet when his fingers touched something hard. Hard and cold. He scraped away enough of the soil to expose a pair of bare feet.

It was all he needed for identification. Some of the brown dye had worn off and the soles, though calloused, lacked the thick integument acquired by years of going without shoes or sandals. He sat back on his heels, swallowing strenuously. He should have made Macomber come back with him, by force if necessary. He should have realized that the faint sounds he had attributed to birds or wind meant that they were being watched.

Squatting there in a blue funk, struggling with guilt, wasn’t doing any good. He tried to remember what his mother had said about rigor mortis. The bare feet were ice-cold but flexible. Did that mean rigor had set in and was starting to pass, beginning with the extremities? If so, Macomber had been dead for approximately twelve hours, give or take an hour. He had been killed shortly after he had left Ramses.

He didn’t want to do it, but he forced himself to dig at the other end of the rectangle. There was no doubt in his mind that Macomber had been murdered, but there were other things he needed to know.

He had dealt with a number of dead bodies, not all of them mummified. His parents had a way of attracting “fresh-dead people,” as their reis Abdullah had called them. He had thought himself fairly hardened, but when he drew aside the dirty cloth that covered the face and saw Macomber’s empty brown eyes looking up at him, he had to draw several long breaths before he could go on.

The cause of death was only too obvious. Macomber’s throat had been cut. His tattered robe was drenched with blood. Ramses wondered why they had bothered to pull a fold of cloth up over his face before they dumped the dirt on him. Perhaps even a murderer preferred not to look at the eyes of the man he had killed.

He forced himself to dig out the torso, looking for other injuries. He found nothing that would indicate Macomber had been tortured before he was killed. That didn’t necessarily mean they hadn’t questioned him. Some methods of causing pain left few marks.

He drew the cloth back over the dead face, replaced the dirt and stamped it down. Removing the body to a more seemly place would necessitate explanations he couldn’t give, and delay he could no longer afford. The only thing he could do for Macomber was get to Jaffa as quickly as possible and pass on the information he had been given-information whose importance and accuracy had been verified in the worst possible way.

If he could get to Jaffa.

THE CONVEYANCE WAS the fastest the village had to offer, a once-elegant carriage drawn by horses instead of donkeys. The proud owner also hired out riding horses and operated a delivery service of sorts between Sebaste and Nablus, the capital of the district. A hazy sunrise lit the clouds to the east as Ramses finished loading his gear into the carriage. Abdul Hamid had turned up before dawn, but anxious as he was to be off, Ramses preferred not to be on the road during the hours of darkness. A firm handshake and a clap on the back from Reisner, a hearty “Have a good trip” from Fisher; he swung himself up onto the seat beside Abdul Hamid.

The road descended and climbed again; the carriage rattled alarmingly as the horses broke into a trot. Ramses had forbidden the use of the whip, to the openmouthed astonishment of Abdul Hamid. “You told me we must be in Jaffa before nightfall,” he protested. “We can go faster, much faster.”

“Not on this road.” Ramses caught hold of the seat as the carriage swung wildly around a flock of goats. Traffic wasn’t heavy, but there were enough pedestrians, donkey riders, and varied animal life to bring out the best-or worst-in his driver. Abdul Hamid stopped for neither man nor beast, and the carriage had long since lost any springs it might once have possessed.

The carriage rounded a curve. Straight ahead Ramses saw the houses of a small village and the minaret of a mosque. He saw something else-a line of uniformed men drawn up across the road where it narrowed to enter the village.

Abdul Hamid let out a strangled bleat and yanked on the reins. Ramses had approximately thirty seconds to decide what to do. Luckily the options were too limited to require prolonged thought. The country on either side was open and the soldiers carried rifles. They were stopping every vehicle. Flight and concealment were both impractical.

Abdul Hamid had stopped ten yards from the roadblock. He looked wildly from side to side. Turkish soldiers meant trouble, even for the innocent.

His hands tightened on the reins, and as the soldiers approached them, Ramses said softly, “Don’t try it. Let me do the talking.”

He sat still, looking down his nose at the officer in charge. “Why are you stopping us?” he asked in his best Turkish.

“You are the one we are looking for. Get down and come with me.”

He could have tried bluster: “I am a British citizen and you have no right to detain me.” That would almost certainly be the wrong tack. He had recognized two of the men. They were Turkish army, all right, but they were also part of Frau von Eine’s personal guard.

He reached in his pocket and pulled out a handful of the miscellaneous currencies used in the area. “Perhaps we can come to an agreement.”

The initial effect was encouraging-an exchange of interested glances and a moment of hesitation by the officer. Only a moment, though.

“You will come with me,” he repeated, and reached for Ramses’s arm. Ramses pushed his hand away and descended with dignity, taking his time. He was several inches taller than the officer, including that worthy’s fancy fez, and he took full advantage, looming as best he could, his lip curling.

“Take me to your superior,” he snapped. “At once.” To Abdul Hamid he said curtly, “Wait for me.”

“Oh, he will wait,” said the officer. “You may be sure of that.”

Three of them, including the officer, trotted along with him as he strode into the village. The other soldiers remained with the carriage. The street was typical of such villages, narrow and littered, walled in by the facades of the houses that lined it. It was a gloomy, tunnel-like stretch, made even gloomier by the clouds that were gathering. They passed one or two slitlike side passages and Ramses fought the urge to dart into one of them. Common sense told him it would be jumping from the frying pan into the fire-being trapped in a cul-de-sac or dead end. Anyhow, he couldn’t run out on Abdul Hamid. He’d brought the poor devil into this and in the unlikely event that he could get away Abdul Hamid would be in for it.

Their destination was a house next to the mosque. It was a trifle more pretentious than the others they had passed, with barred windows and a heavy ironbound door. The door opened as they approached. The man who had opened it was Frau von Eine’s companion.

Mansur stood back and gestured to Ramses to enter. The soldiers crowded in after him and took up positions on either side of the door. Another gesture to Ramses indicated the divan against one wall. There wasn’t much else in the room, only a few cushions, a low wooden table next to the divan, and a brazier that gave off an acrid-smelling smoke and just enough light to make out Mansur’s features.

Ramses didn’t even think of trying to make a break for it. Nor would bluster serve him here. He took the seat indicated and waited for the other man to speak first.

Mansur clapped his hands. A servant entered through a curtained doorway, carrying a tray which he put on the table. He was neatly dressed in a brightly embroidered vest over a brown galabeeyah, with red slippers on his feet. He gave Ramses a quick sidelong glance before salaaming profoundly to Mansur and backing out of the room.

“Would you care for tea?” Mansur asked, indicating the glasses on the tray.

It was the first time Ramses had heard him utter more than a muttered word or two. His voice was low and melodious, a deep baritone. Even more surprising was the fact that he spoke educated English, with only the faint trace of an accent.

“Oxford?” Ramses inquired, taking one of the glasses.

“Cambridge.”

“And before that?”

Mansur’s eyes narrowed, and Ramses explained disingenuously, “What I meant to say was that your English is excellent.”

“How kind of you to say so.”

“To speak a language so well, most people require years of study, starting at an early age.”

Mansur took a seat beside Ramses and helped himself to tea.

“We can go on fencing, if you like, but it would save time if we went straight to the point. What do you want to know?”

Ramses raised his eyebrows. “You want me to ask you questions? I expected it would be the other way round.”

The other man’s thin lips curved in a smile. With the turban low on his brow and his beard hiding the outline of chin and jaw, and those deep-set, hooded eyes, his face was to all intents and purposes masked, no feature that might have expressed his feelings exposed. “Still fencing. I don’t have to question you. Last night you met a man who was a British spy. He told you a number of things he was not supposed to know. Please don’t bother to equivocate. I let him leave the area so that I could follow him.”

“You couldn’t have overheard what he said to me,” Ramses said.

“I heard enough. He had only suspicions, no proof, but if those suspicions were passed on, an investigation might interfere with our work.”

“So you killed him. Was it you who cut his throat?”

“Why should you think that? These vagabonds one hires are a quarrelsome lot.”

And by the time someone went looking for the grave, the body would no longer be there.

Mansur finished his tea and put the glass onto the tray. “In any case,” he continued, “his disappearance won’t be discovered for some time. By then we will have finished our work and be…elsewhere.”

“And how do you propose to prevent me from reporting his death? If you kill me-”

“My dear chap!” Another fleeting, sardonic smile. “I wouldn’t do anything so foolish, even if my civilized instincts did not forbid it. Your disappearance would be known immediately, and your devoted family would move heaven and earth to find out what had become of you. I spent some time in Egypt and I know your father’s reputation-and that of your mother. They would learn that you had had encounters with our group, and that we don’t want. No, my young friend, you will have to accept our hospitality for a brief period.”

Ramses sipped his tea. His mouth was dry, but he was beginning to entertain a faint, cowardly hope that he might survive a little longer. He didn’t believe in Mansur’s “civilized instincts,” but his reasoning made sense. There was one large flaw in his plans, though. Ramses debated with himself as to whether he should point it out.

He might have known his wily adversary had anticipated that too. “The same problem will arise if you don’t turn up in Jaffa at the appointed time. Oh, yes, we know all about that. We have allies in the village. They listen to your conversations, they read your letters. Therefore you must write to your parents and make some excuse for not meeting them. We will see it is delivered.”

“What excuse? I can’t think of one they would accept.”

“A secret mission?” Mansur suggested, eyebrows elevated. “You have a reputation, I believe, for independent action. The less specific your excuse, the better. Perhaps the best thing would be for you to say something like, ‘Have been delayed. Will explain when I see you. Go on to Jerusalem.’”

So even the contents of his parents’ letters were known. How many villagers could read English that well? Maybe the letters had been “borrowed” and shown to Mansur or Madame. Their temporary absence might not have been noticed.

“They won’t buy that,” Ramses said, knowing that they probably would. For some reason his parents had a low opinion of his common sense.

“Are you trying to persuade me to kill you?” Mansur inquired. “I won’t do that, for the reasons I have explained. But I can make life very unpleasant for you while you are in my custody if you refuse to cooperate.”

“Civilized men don’t torture prisoners,” Ramses pointed out.

“I don’t believe in torture. It is ineffective. A man in pain will say whatever he believes his questioner wants to hear. Come now, be sensible.” He leaned forward, his deep-set eyes intent. “As I said, you have no proof of wrongdoing on our part. Our mission is secret, but it poses no threat to anyone. In fact, if our plans succeed, many people will be helped. One day soon I will be able to tell you about it and it may well be that you will find yourself in sympathy with our aims.”

“Then why not tell me now?”

“I have taken a vow of silence.”

Can’t argue with that, Ramses thought. Nor with any of the other vague hints Mansur had dropped. He remained silent, and Mansur went on, “You will not be harmed and you will have the usual comforts. And-” This time the smile was broader. “Who knows, you may find a means of escape.”

“There is that,” Ramses agreed. Against all his inclinations he was inclined to believe the other man’s assurance that he would not be harmed. Anyhow, what choice had he? Assuming he could overpower Mansur and three men carrying rifles, which was not so much unlikely as impossible, where would he go?

“I’ll write the letter,” he said. “Have you paper and pen?”

“No. But I expect you have, in your luggage if not on your person. Shall I have your suitcases brought in?”

“No need.” Ramses reached in his pocket, where he carried a small notepad and pen. He’d never got over the habit of cramming his pockets with various objects picked up during his daily activities. After removing a fragment of stone with a carved leaf-which he had forgotten to leave at the dig-a handful of figs, a coiled length of string, and the clay fragment he had found, he located the notepad. When he took it out, something else came with it-a crumpled piece of white linen.

“You may as well return this to Frau von Eine,” he said, handing it over. “She dropped it the other day. Or will I have the opportunity to do so myself?”

Mansur stared at the motley objects on the table. After a moment Ramses rephrased his question. “Will I be encountering Frau von Eine in the near future?”

“I cannot say.”

“You mean you will not say, or that her future activities are not known to you?”

“Write,” Mansur said. He picked up the handkerchief and slipped it into the breast of his robe.

Ramses wrote as Mansur dictated, almost word for word, the same message he had suggested earlier, tore the page from the notepad, and handed it over.

“Now what?” he asked.

“You accompany us to…where we are going.”

“What about Abdul Hamid?”

“Who? Oh, your driver. He will return to Sebaste tomorrow, having left you, at your request, with a group of pilgrims whom you encountered in Nablus and who were planning to travel to Jaffa next day.”

“That should muddy the trail nicely,” Ramses said with grudging admiration. “I presume Abdul Hamid will be well bribed.”

“A combination of greed and fear will convince him to stick to his story.” He rose to his full impressive height. “We must be on our way.”

In the enclosed courtyard behind the house were a wooden cart, into which his suitcases had already been loaded, and a yaila, one of the traveling conveyances more common in Syria than here. Drawn by a pair of horses, it was shaped like a tube, in which the passenger lay at full length on his bedding. At the back was a platform for a servant, who supplied the traveler with food and drink. Substitute guard for servant, and the enclosed conveyance was admirably suited for transporting a prisoner. There were plenty of guards available-at least a dozen muscular men in local garb, as well as the three soldiers.

Ramses looked inquiringly at his companion. The yailas had room enough for two, if they were very friendly, but he didn’t suppose Mansur would be careless enough to let him travel without restraints of some kind. So far he had proved himself a thorough sort of fellow.

“I apologize for the blindfold,” Mansur said, beckoning one of the guards. “If you will give me your word as an Englishman that you will not attempt to remove it or try to escape…”

He left the sentence incomplete.

“That wouldn’t be playing the game, would it?” Ramses inquired.

From Mansur’s expression, or lack thereof, he realized Mansur hadn’t understood he was being ironic. That was one of the problems with humor. Sometimes it didn’t translate well.

He submitted to being blindfolded and having his hands tied behind him. Mansur himself helped him stretch out on the mattress that had been provided.

“I can give you something to make you sleep,” he said, for all the world like a conscientious physician to a patient. “The time will pass more quickly.”

“No, thank you.” There was always a chance he would overhear something that would give him a clue as to their destination or their real purpose.

And the possibility of getting back at Mansur for his infuriating condescension.