Night of a Thousand Stars (10 page)

He made a beckoning motion with his hand, asking for alms, and I thrust a hand into my pocket to find him a coin.

“For God’s sake, don’t,” Hugh said, gripping my elbow tighter. “You’ll only encourage him.”

“He’s lame, Hugh. What greater encouragement does he need to beg in this part of the world?” I pressed a coin into the beggar’s hand, and he began to recite some sort of verse or prayer of thanksgiving. I gave him a quick nod and made to step around him, but he reached out with one wretched hand and closed it about my wrist.

I gasped, but he stared into my palm and pressed a dirty fingernail to one of the lines there. He said another word, a word I did not understand, and repeated it urgently.

Hugh raised a hand in warning and the fellow cowered, cringing away. His one sandal flapped against the stones as he left us, his walking stick scraping slowly. Hugh turned to me.

“Are you all right? The villain didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Don’t be silly. He only touched my hand.”

Hugh took out his handkerchief and scrubbed at my palm. When he was finished, he bent and pressed a swift kiss to it, his lips brushing so lightly over the skin I almost could have imagined it. He straightened with a smile. “All better now.”

“Thank you.”

Hugh had wiped my palm clean, but for a long time after I could feel the beggar’s fingers on mine.

Eight

We returned to the hotel to find matters in a bit of an uproar. The colonel’s leg had given out as he had been coming down the stairs for luncheon, and he had taken a tumble. Nothing serious, he insisted, but he would keep to his bed for the next few days with the leg wrapped and propped on a pillow.

“A good chance to work on the memoir,” I said brightly, cursing the bad luck that had laid him low. I was meant to meet Masterman the following day, and it seemed I should be stuck in the hotel instead, shackled to the typewriter or playing games of chess to amuse the colonel.

But he waved me off. “Can’t possibly concentrate with this leg wrapped up. Itches like hellfire, pardon the expression. No, you go out and amuse yourself tomorrow. See more of the city.”

I tried to hide my elation, but I was turning cartwheels in my head. “That’s very kind of you, Colonel.”

He waved me off. “Talbot will stay here and look after me. But mind you take Faruq. Talbot told me there was a bit of trouble in the
souk
today. You’ll need someone sturdy to look after you.”

I suppressed a sigh. Of course Hugh had told him.

“That really isn’t necessary,” I began. I was not entirely pleased at the idea of a bodyguard.

There was a flutter of silk in the doorway and the
comtesse
entered the room, apparently having heard the tail end of our conversation. I hadn’t realised she was hanging about, but I supposed it made sense that she should call upon the colonel since he was too indisposed to visit her.

“But how unfortunate that you should have such an experience in my city. I feel responsible,” she said, her eyes wide with outrage. “No, the dear colonel is quite right. You must take Faruq with you. I am only bereft that Armand cannot accompany you. Unfortunately, his business will detain him further, I am sorry to say.”

She didn’t look sorry in the least. In fact, she looked extremely satisfied with the situation, like a sleek cat with a plump fish to eat. She took a seat as a little maid brought in a tray with a pot and two cups.

“White coffee,” she murmured to the colonel. “I ordered it special from the hotel kitchen. Made from cardamom and very soothing.” She poured out the two cups and looked pointedly from the pair of them to me.

I didn’t miss the hint. “I’ll just be going then, Colonel.”

He waved me off and I left. It was late afternoon, almost evening, and I decided to go and read for a little while in the lobby. I found the stack of newspapers the colonel had been reading and helped myself. I settled down on a bench near the fountain, listening to the pleasant music of the water as I read.

Much of it was old news, for the situation in Damascus seemed to change almost daily. But one story caught my eye.

Famed Aviatrix Found Alive. Aviatrix Evangeline Merryweather Starke, who had disappeared into the Syrian desert a few weeks before, had been recovered. She had returned to Damascus after her exotic adventure, and refused to comment on her experience except to say that she had got herself lost when she wandered away from an archaeological site she was visiting and had been cared for by the Bedouin.

A photograph accompanied the article, a publicity picture of Mrs. Starke. She was not, strictly speaking, beautiful. She had strongly marked brows and a mouth that was too wide to be a fashionable little Cupid’s bow. But her eyes were strikingly beautiful, and she looked as if she knew how to wring the most out of life. I felt a frisson when I looked at the picture, the same as I had felt when I had disembarked at Beirut, and then I realised why.

I had been reading the story of her disappearance the morning after I had run away. I had dropped the newspaper when Sebastian came in, and it was when he spotted the headline that his face had gone white. He had covered it smoothly, but it was that moment that he began to excuse himself and explain he must return to London.

Was Evangeline Starke the reason he had come to the Holy Land? Was he somehow mixed up in her disappearance? I scoured the article for clues, but there was nothing else of importance. I learned that she was a widow, her husband having been the famed explorer and archaeologist Gabriel Starke, lost in the
Lusitania
disaster just a few months after their marriage. The article mentioned her war work and how she had learned to fly from the pilots she nursed in a convalescent home in England. After the war, she had embarked upon a Seven Seas tour, flying her aeroplane across the seven seas of antiquity. During the tour, she had taken the opportunity to visit Damascus and expressed an interest in seeing a proper archaeological expedition—no doubt a relic of her husband’s influence. It was rather sweet, really, the fact that she was still interested in archaeology five years after her husband’s death.

But there was nothing else. No hint of scandal or intrigue or anything else that might bring Sebastian dashing down to Syria upon learning of her disappearance. And it was ridiculous to think her story could have provoked him to come, I reasoned. Evangeline Starke was famous and there had been people out searching for her. Surely, even if they were friends, Sebastian’s best course was to remain in London, where he would be easily accessible by wire or telephone to hear the latest news. Haring off to Damascus himself was something only a lover would do....

I sat back in the chair, feeling suddenly quite bloodless. Her lover. That would explain everything. If he were in love with the dashing Mrs. Starke, it made perfect sense that he would throw all else aside and rush to find her.

“Oh, Poppy, you utter fool,” I muttered. Why hadn’t I considered before the possibility that Sebastian might be in love with someone? “He just can’t be,” I said firmly. “I won’t believe it until I hear it from his own lips.” I was determined to find him, but for the first time in the course of my adventure it began to occur to me that Sebastian Fox might not want to be found.

* * *

By the next morning my usual high spirits had returned, and I couldn’t wait to tell Masterman what I’d discovered. I dashed through breakfast to be on my way and found Faruq waiting for me by the motorcar.

I gave him a broad smile. “Hello, Faruq. Lovely day, isn’t it?”

He gave me a slow blink in return and opened the door. “Where shall I take you, miss?”

“The Umayyad mosque, please,” I said, brandishing my Baedeker at him. “I wish to pay my respects to Saladin. Sal¯ah al-Di¯n,” I corrected quickly. He gave a nod, content that I should think so highly of his countryman, and without another word he delivered me to the mosque. I scurried inside and took up a heavy black robe. It was expected of all women to go veiled into the holiest places of the mosque, and I draped myself in the rusty black head covering. There was ritual handwashing and footwashing to be done as well, and by the time I reached the ladies’ corner, it was quite late in the morning, and I was desperately afraid I had missed Masterman.

I sat for a long moment in quiet contemplation of the mosque. It was peaceful here, with the sound of trickling water from the fountains and the low voices of women in private conversation. I found it all quite tranquil and was just dozing off when I felt a sharp poke.

“Wake up, miss,” Masterman hissed.

I rubbed my arm. “I wasn’t asleep. And how on earth did you know it was me through all this?” I asked, nodding towards the encompassing black. If I hadn’t heard her voice, I certainly should not have known the creature next to me as Masterman. She had adopted a far more conservative costume than I had, with a veil and robe that concealed everything except the smallest portion of her face, two round greenish-brown eyes made darker with the heavy application of kohl. She had even darkened her eyebrows.

“That’s quite impressive. I think under the right circumstances, you might be mistaken for a native,” I told her.

“I endeavoured to blend in,” she told me with an air of satisfaction. “Tell me what you’ve discovered.” I plunged into my story, telling her at once of what I had discovered in the old newspaper I had found.

“She’s alive?” she asked sharply. “Well, that’s unexpected.”

“You know who she is?”

“Of course,” she returned promptly. “I have followed her career with a great deal of interest. A great deal of interest indeed. I shouldn’t have thought there was a connection with Sebastian Fox, though.”

“But why not?” I reasoned. “They’re both English, after all. And she worked in a convalescent home for pilots during the war. We don’t know what Sebastian did in the war. He might have been a flyer. Or they could have met any one of a hundred other ways,” I finished.

“I suppose they could,” she said slowly. “And you think she might know something of his whereabouts now?”

“I certainly think she is connected to his coming here. It stands to reason he has made some effort to get in touch with her. Goodness, he might even be staying with her! For all we know, they’re lovers.”

She gave a short, sharp laugh, smothered by her veil. “I cannot see it.”

I shrugged. “Neither can I. Evangeline Starke is so daring, so glamorous, and Sebastian is attractive enough, I suppose, but he’s—” I broke off, not entirely certain of how to describe him.

“He is?” she prompted.

I struggled. “Well, he’s quite good-looking really, didn’t you think? In the right clothes he’d be downright handsome. If he were a character in
Peter Pan and Wendy
, he would be John—all seriousness and rectitude. He’s jolly nice—I just think he’s frightfully conventional. I suppose a curate must be. He could hardly get on in the church if he went about flexing his muscles.”

“Hiding his light under a bushel,” Masterman pronounced.

“Precisely. And that’s hardly the sort of man to appeal to a daredevil like Evangeline Starke, particularly when you consider what her husband was. But I suppose the mysteries of the heart are entirely impenetrable,” I finished in a cryptic voice.

“Quite,” she said, clipping off the word. “Well, then I suppose I shall make inquiries on the whereabouts of Mrs. Starke. She shouldn’t be difficult to find. I should guess every newspaper in the city would want to interview her about her experiences in the desert. Was that all, miss?”

I hesitated. “Not entirely. It hardly seems worth mentioning, but I suppose it’s best if we share everything.” Hastily, I told her about my experience of the previous day, and as I related the tale, there was an almost imperceptible change in her face. All I could see were those eyes, but they grew chillier and more forbidding as she listened to my story of the beggar in the
souk
.

“The East is a cunning place,” she said slowly.

I sighed. “Masterman, it’s no worse than any place in England. Tell me you could walk down by the docks in London and not be accosted by beggars.”

“Yes, but I might at least understand what they are saying. Besides, there are no harems in London. You might have been stolen right off the street.”

I rolled my eyes. “
Harims
are a Turkish invention, and in case you hadn’t noticed, the Turks have been thrown out of here.” I thought it best not to mention Armand’s allusions to his ancestors’ proclivities. I hurried on. “Besides, there might not be harems in London, but there are certainly brothels, and you cannot tell me they are better.”

“A nice girl wouldn’t know such things,” she said darkly. “I wonder what that word was, the one the beggar said,” she mused.

I shrugged. “I can’t imagine.”

“What did it sound like?” she persisted.

I closed my eyes, conjuring in my memory the smell of the sun-warmed stone and the pungent scent of donkey and beggar. His hand had been firm but not painful on mine, and there was urgency in his voice.

“Al mawt,”
I said suddenly, opening my eyes. “Or something like that.”

Her eyes went very wide and she did not blink.

“What is it, Masterman? You look as if you’d seen a ghost.”

She shook her head. “There’s a little maid who cleans my room at the hotel. We’ve got friendly, and as her English is quite good, I have had her teach me a few words of the native lingo.”

“And did she teach you that one?”

She nodded slowly. “Yes, miss.” She paused. “It is the Arabic word for
death
.”

After a long moment I burst out laughing, then smothered it immediately, remembering I was in a holy place. “Oh, Masterman, you can’t seriously think it was a threat.”

“No, miss. I think it was a warning.”

“A warning of what? I know nothing about anything.”

Her eyes hardened. “I think it means you do know something. I think it’s about Mr. Fox.”

“Oh, do be serious. First of all, no one could possibly connect me with him. We have nothing whatsoever to tie us together except that he drove me down to Devon.”

“We’ve been asking questions in London,” she corrected.

I shrugged. “Then why weren’t you the one who received the frightful warning of Death? You’ve asked a far sight more questions than I have. No, Masterman. It was a beggar, a simpleton who wanted a bit of money.”

“But why try to frighten you after you’d already given it to him?” she demanded.

“Heavens, I don’t know. Why does anyone do anything? I already told you he seemed half-witted. He clearly wasn’t in his right mind, that’s all. There’s an end of it.”

“I don’t like it,” she said coolly. “Perhaps we should go home.”

“Go home!” I was aghast. “Masterman, I see that this has shaken you, and I’m sorry. But do be sensible. We have no real connection to Sebastian, and there’s no reason for anyone to be alarmed by the questions you’ve been asking. This was simply a poor beggar who amused himself at my expense. Now, get hold of yourself and let’s have no more nonsense about going home.”

She gave me an inscrutable look. “Very well.”

I gave her a miserable look. “Don’t be like that, Masterman.”

“Like what, miss?”

“All po-faced and perfect. We agreed that for the duration of this trip, we’re partners of a sort, not mistress and maid. Only now you’ve gone all distant and formal again, and it’s not a bit of fun.”

“Some things are more important than fun, miss,” she said, unbending a little. “Your safety is one of them. I wonder if I haven’t made a very grave mistake in letting you come on this lark.”