Night of a Thousand Stars (24 page)

“Don’t fret, child. Death rides a camel in this part of the world. He doesn’t come on a pale horse.”

But, of course, Sebastian was wrong.

Nineteen

I argued for fleeing immediately, but Sebastian pointed out there was nowhere to go but straight down the same track as our visitor. The monastery was cradled in the saddle between the two peaks, with sheer walls on two sides and a deep drop on the back. Only the narrow track by which we had come provided any means of escape, and if we attempted it there was nowhere in the barren, scrubby landscape to hide from our visitor.

“Besides, he’s clearly after us,” Sebastian pointed out. “Why not let him find us?”

I stared at him in horror. “Because he might be armed. Because he could be dangerous. Because we have nothing for our defense but a pile of rocks and a donkey,” I said, somewhat hysterically.

Sebastian merely shrugged. “Who said anything about defense? We ought to just give ourselves up if he is armed.”

I felt a rush of cold rage unlike anything I had ever felt before. “I had my doubts about you, Sebastian Fox. And now you don’t even have the nerve to stand up for us? You are the most contemptible, loathsome, cowardly,” I kept on in that vein, pouring out scorn as he watched the visitor’s approach, seeming not to hear me.

“Aren’t you finished yet?” he asked at one point.

“I am not,” I assured him, launching into a fresh attack on his character.

He bore it remarkably well—largely by not listening at all. He simply marked the visitor’s progress up the hill, timing it perfectly so that as soon as the caller rode within the monastery walls, Sebastian emerged from the chapel to greet him politely.

“Assalam aleikum,”
he said, sketching a courteous gesture.

Faruq grinned and leaned forward in his saddle. “You are a courteous fellow,” he said, eyeing Sebastian with assessment. “I did not expect so gracious a greeting.”

Sebastian shrugged. “I see no reason for violence. Far better to be reasonable with each other, don’t you think?”

Faruq dismounted, holding the reins of his horse lightly in his fingers. Sebastian jerked his head towards the stable where the donkey was tethered. “You’ll find bedding in there for your horse as well as fodder and water.”

Faruq inclined his head. “You are all that is hospitable, sir, but, alas, I cannot stay. I have come for the map.”

Sebastian’s expression was rueful. “In that case, I’m sorry, old man. I haven’t got it.”

Faruq bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. “You will forgive me if I do not believe you.”

“It’s really immaterial whether you believe me or not,” Sebastian pointed out. “I haven’t got it.”

Faruq’s gaze fell on me. “Perhaps you do not, sir, but—”

“Touch her and there will be violence,” Sebastian said in the same friendly tone. The calm, pleasant voice was at such odds with the words that it took Faruq a moment to realise he had just been threatened. He grinned, with marginally more warmth than before.

“So it is like that? This is good to know. It helps if one’s enemy has a weakness,” he said in the same polite tone Sebastian had used.

Sebastian did not stir a step, but somehow he seemed larger than a moment before, more solidly imposing as he stood between Faruq and me.

“Would it help at all if I swore an oath that the map was removed before I arrived and that I don’t know where it is now?”

Faruq merely made a guffawing sound and Sebastian nodded. “I expected as much. Pity. It happens to be the truth.”

“Sometimes the truth is painful,” Faruq answered.

“Tell me,” Sebastian said in his maddeningly conversational tone, “how did you find out about the map? Were you working with Talbot?”

Faruq’s complexion darkened with rage. He cleared his throat and spat heavily onto the stones. “He was a son of a devil, that one.” He nodded to me. “He said very disrespectful things about you, miss. But he thought you could lead him to the map. And as it happens,” he added with a smile, “he was correct.”

“If you weren’t working with Talbot, how did you know he was looking for the map?” I ventured.

His expression was opaque. “My sources are my own, miss. And the gold you seek is Syrian gold. It belongs to my people.”

“It bloody well does not,” I answered roundly. “It’s French. If anything, it ought to go back to France.”

His face reddened again. “The French have no claim to anything that is ours. The gold will go to support our efforts to establish our own kingdom.”

“One sympathises,” Sebastian said, sounding for all the world like he meant it, “but I’m afraid the point is entirely moot. I told you truth, old boy. I haven’t got the map.”

“But you have seen the map,” Faruq said, his gaze sharp.

“Well, yes, but only once and long ago,” Sebastian admitted.

“Must you tell him everything?” I demanded.

Sebastian shrugged. “Occasionally one can head off unpleasantness by being forthright.”

“Not this time,” Faruq assured him. “You have seen the map. You must remember it.”

“Not a bit,” Sebastian said cheerfully. “You see, I only had a quick squint by candlelight. I know the hoard was stashed somewhere in the vicinity of Ashkelon, but these hills are full of hidey holes. Couldn’t tell you anything more if my life depended upon it.”

Faruq laughed. “It does not,” he assured Sebastian. From the folds of his robes, he produced a pistol and pointed it straight at my heart. “Hers does.”

My entire world seemed to narrow to a single point—the black hole at the end of Faruq’s pistol. I was aware of Sebastian near me, unmoving and his voice still maddeningly calm.

“Oh, do stop waving that thing around,” he told Faruq.

“Sebastian,” I croaked.

His expression was one of acute boredom. “Well, honestly. It’s just bad manners, and damned silly to boot. To begin with, if you kill her, do you really think I’d tell you anything? I’d turn the bloody gun on myself just to spite you.”

Faruq considered this. “Very well.” Without another word, he levelled the gun at Sebastian. “I must persuade you.”

Without another word, he pulled the trigger. The explosion was deafening in the still air, and for an instant I thought he had merely meant to frighten us. Then I saw the spreading crimson stain on Sebastian’s robes as he slid to the ground.

I shrieked his name and flung myself on top of him, but his eyes were closed, and I whirled to Faruq. I cursed him then, hurling every insult I could think of, most of them highly profane, thanks to my younger brothers’ vocabulary. I rose, my hands curled into fists and he waved the gun.

“But I did not kill him,” he protested. He brandished the pistol at me, warning me to keep back. “Look,” he urged. “I only grazed his arm.”

I turned back to where Sebastian was lying flat on his back. I saw then that the stain was confined to his sleeve, and I fell on him again, my face close to his.

“Sebastian, can you hear me?”

A sound seemed to roll up from his chest, a deep rattling groan, and I gave a choked sob. “Oh, Sebastian, you mustn’t die. Can you hear me?”

“A dead man could hear you,” he muttered. His eyes fluttered open, and he gave a sigh.

I gripped his face in my hands. “Are you really all right?”

“Not at the moment,” he told me in a strangled voice. “You are sitting on my stomach.”

I climbed off and he sat up, brushing the dust off his clean sleeve. The other one was torn and he was still bleeding, but slowly now. I peeled back the cloth to see a slender mark, the barest furrow in his flesh.

“The bullet barely touched you,” I told him coldly.

He gave me a sulky look. “It still hurt.”

I stood up and faced Faruq. “He’s fine.”

Faruq nodded. “Just as I told you. I am a very good shot. I meant only to persuade him to give me the information he remembers from the map.”

“Why not ask her?” Sebastian demanded with a jerk of his head towards me. “She saw it longer than I did.”

“I did not—” I turned to gape at him, and he looked at me, his face in profile to Faruq. Carefully, he winked with the eye closest to me, and I covered my surprise. “That is, I did not see it for long, but I daresay I remember more of it than you do,” I said.

Faruq looked pleased. “Excellent. Between the two of you, I will have the directions to the gold.” He drew a piece of paper from inside his robes and a stub of pencil. “You will draw what you remember.”

Sebastian touched his bleeding arm. “I’m afraid you shot me in my writing arm, old man. And the lady might remember the landmarks, but she’s got utterly no sense of scale,” he said quickly. “We’ll have to lead you there.”

Faruq didn’t like it but he had no choice. Sebastian waited calmly for him to reason it out, and apparently Faruq didn’t like the option of firing his weapon again. He nodded finally, and I felt rather than saw the tension in Sebastian’s arm ease.

Faruq tossed us ropes from his saddlebag. “You will bind each other. There will be no trickery, for I will look at the knots when you are finished.”

We did as he told us, and I tried hard not to jar Sebastian’s arm too badly when I tied him up. He merely gave me a casual look and clucked his tongue at the stain on his sleeve.

“Pity. I quite liked this robe. It was very expensive,” he told Faruq with a touch of asperity.

Faruq ignored him and, after inspecting the knots, lashed the two of us loosely together by a long rope. He gave a nod. “And now we will go. You will direct us,” he told me.

I closed my eyes as if trying to remember, or at least I pretended to. I peeped through the fringe of my lashes to see Sebastian give a quick flick of one finger. West. I made a show of opening my eyes widely and said with a decisive nod, “West.”

Faruq stepped back and let me go ahead. Sebastian trotted immediately after, and Faruq brought up the rear, keeping enough of a distance he could easily shoot us before we managed to unhorse him, but not so much we could lose him in the scrubby hills.

After we had walked a long way, dodging low bushes and winding our way through the hills and out onto a desert plain, I ventured to ask Sebastian a question that had been nagging at me. “Why did you tell him I had seen the map?”

I kept my voice very low and Sebastian’s reply was almost inaudible. “Because information is what will keep you alive. If he thinks you know, he won’t kill you. If you don’t know, he has no reason to spare you.”

I thought this over. “But if we both know, there’s no point in letting us both live. And you indicated to him that I remember more of the map than you do.”

“Exactly,” he said, his jaw rigid.

I tripped over a bush as I understood what he intended. “You want him to kill you instead of me if it comes to it,” I said, hardly managing to keep my voice down.

He shrugged. “It won’t come to that. I won’t let it,” he promised.

“But if it does,” I persisted, “you made the choice for him. He’ll kill you and spare me.”

“Only until he discovers you don’t have the faintest idea of where you’re going,” he warned. “So mind you make it look convincing. Now, hush before he decides we’re plotting against him and kills me for sport.”

I bit off my reply and stumbled ahead, hardly aware of putting one foot in front of the other. I wouldn’t have believed him capable of it, but not only had Sebastian thought with lightning speed on his feet, he had ensured with the lie that if one of us were killed, it wouldn’t be me. It was the most heroic act of sacrifice I had ever seen, and my eyes burned with unshed tears.

“God, don’t get sentimental,” he hissed.

“I can’t help it,” I whispered back. “It’s so brave, so—”

He swore at me then, and I lapsed back into silence, the tears drying up as fast as they had come. He was the most maddening creature I had ever met, I decided. He made what might prove to be the ultimate sacrifice for me with one breath and cursed at me with the next. I squared my shoulders and stomped on, leading the way with absolute conviction. It was only when I’d covered another half mile that I realised pricking my temper had been another of his clever tricks. If I was angry, I hadn’t the time to be frightened or overly emotional, either of which could be fatal in our current predicament. I thought of my Aunt Julia then, and her penchant for confronting murderers without adequately thinking things through, and I cursed my impetuous March blood.

We walked another few hours, stopping occasionally for water, and it was on one of these stops, while Faruq worked a stone out of his horse’s shoe that Sebastian caught my gaze and flicked a quick glance to the horizon. I looked to see that Faruq was still occupied, then peered into the distance. There was a slight smudging of the horizon, a blurring of the line between earth and sky that could mean only one thing. We were being followed.

I felt a rush of confidence then, and as soon as we had drunk our water, I set off again, but this time I held the pace as slow as I dared. Faruq fussed a little, but his horse seemed perfectly content to amble along, and Sebastian said nothing. I understood he didn’t dare add to the delay to give our pursuers time to catch up, but he was careful not to move faster than I did. He didn’t look back, but once he tripped over a bush and I saw him dart a quick glance under his arm as he righted himself. Faruq did not notice, but merely clucked his tongue in irritation, urging us forward.

“I say, it’s getting a bit warmish,” Sebastian said finally. “How about another drink?”

Faruq sighed, checking his horse. “You are worse than the woman,” he told Sebastian, but he was unwilling to let either of us collapse on the walk. That would have meant either shooting us on the spot or sharing his horse, and he didn’t seem keen to do either for the moment. Sebastian drank deeply from the goatskin then ignored Faruq’s outstretched hand and passed it to me. I drank my share, darting a quick glance to the horizon. At the last second, Faruq noticed the direction of my gaze, and Sebastian lifted his bound hands.

“There!” he proclaimed.

Faruq turned to look where he pointed, in the opposite direction of our pursuers.

“That is where the map leads,” Sebastian told him firmly. Ahead of us there was a ridge, and atop the ridge stood a square Crusader castle, crumbling to ruin.

“Isn’t there a single building in this bloody country still standing?” I muttered.