The Third Day

The Bedouin held back as the more experienced fighter came at me with his sword low, preparing to run me through the gut, Roman-style. I spun around to face my new adversary and barely managed to deflect his attack.

Our swords clashed several more times before I perceived an opening and lunged for his arm. If I could cut that, I could at least slow him down.

Regrettably, I missed.

Not only did I fail to inflict the slightest damage, but my clumsy attempt to do so threw me off balance.

I jumped back as fast as I could, and in desperation, I grabbed a handful of dirt and tossed it toward his face, which forced him to swing his free hand to swat it away.

I used this brief respite to square myself into a proper fighting stance, but the ill-mannered brute merely laughed.

It was only then that it dawned on me, to my manifest horror, that a lack of skill had not prevented him from killing me immediately. Instead, the warrior was enjoying this, like a cat playing with a doomed mouse.

Finally, I suppose he had enough. He swung his blade in a practiced rhythm, and I had to strain harder and harder to dodge each blow.

Moments later, my luck ran out. He pressed his sword forward with a well-timed thrust. I managed to swing my own gladius hard enough to the left to parry the blow, but in doing so, I slipped on a wet stone and fell backwards, which left me sprawled on the rocks with my weapon lying uselessly about five feet to my right.

I can’t say that my life flashed before me — though I suspect this was only because my mind had not yet come to grips with the absurd way in which I was to meet my end.

My opponent edged slowly forward, savoring every moment. The Bedouin, too, had come up to watch the fun.

I took a deep breath and tried put the thought of pain out of my mind as the black-helmeted executioner moved in for the final strike.

It never came.

I just laid there for a moment, frozen in place, as my brain slowly registered the sight of a steel point, dripping with blood, protruding from the base of the man’s neck.

Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one shocked by this image.

I realized what had happened a mere fraction of a second before the Bedouin did, but that was enough.

Before he could react, I wheeled my body around and caught the side of his knee with my shin. I heard a sickening crack — or what would have been sickening under different circumstances — as he gave out a sharp cry of pain and spun to the ground.

Sharon yanked her weapon free and fell on him in an instant.

I hadn’t noticed, but while our tormentors focused on me, she had slipped quietly through the underbrush to retrieve the sword belonging to the first man I had killed.

She drove her weapon into the tracker’s chest with all her might, stabbing him blindly, again and again. Finally, after about the tenth blow, she ran out of steam. With the blade still sunk in the Bedouin’s heart, she leaned forward on it and sobbed.

For a moment, I didn’t move — mostly because I was still bewildered at how I had managed to stay alive.

Then, Naomi came scampering through the scrub, followed by Lavon and Markowitz. Each man held the gladius he had taken from their attackers.

“Damn,” said Markowitz as he surveyed the scene. “I didn’t realize you were so handy with a sword.”

I wasn’t. I had just proven that.

“I didn’t do it,” I said.

“She killed him?” he said incredulously.

“Them,” I corrected. “She killed them. Plural.”

Chapter 58

We left Sharon alone for a moment; but when the time seemed right, I reached down and helped her to her feet.

“Yousaved my life,” I said. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

And I was truly grateful; though at that instant, I was more concerned about diverting her attention from the full realization of what she had done.

I needn’t have worried. Sharon proved resilient, and none of the others displayed the slightest unease over the fate of our adversaries.

For her part, Naomi viewed the spectacle with wholesale approval; and to my surprise, Markowitz appeared almost giddy — a complete reversal of his reaction after the contest in the Antonia.

Lavon reminded us that we still had a few loose ends to tidy up as well.

“We need to get these bodies hidden,” he said. “If we don’t, the vultures will start circling and somebody will wander over to check out why.”

After a brief search, I located a crevice where we could stuff the corpses before we sealed the entrance with rocks. With luck, the wild dogs wouldn’t dig them out for a couple of days, although passers-by would most likely notice the smell before then.

Naomi helped me manhandle the first three into the gap while Lavon and Markowitz ambled back down the hill, returning a few minutes later with their respective victims in tow.

As we wedged them into the fissure, Lavon explained that Naomi’s plan had worked to perfection. Just as she had done with the guards in the palace, this ostensibly demure, timid creature had led these men to their doom.

This time, she had “panicked” and set off on a dead run. Lavon and Markowitz had hidden to one side and bludgeoned their targets with stout olive branches as they rushed by in hot pursuit. Ray then crushed what was left of his opponent’s skull to ensure he would remain silent, which accounted for the third thump I had heard.

Topping off her Academy Award-winning performance, Naomi had then fallen to her knees, begging and whimpering for her life so that the soldiers chasing Sharon and me would not become alarmed.

“Remind me to stay on her good side,” I said to Lavon.

He laughed. “Yeah, I think we all should.”

It was only as we completed our macabre task that I realized we had one additional problem.

“Where’s Bryson?” I asked.

Lavon hadn’t noticed until then, either.

He shot Naomi a dirty look. She and the Professor were supposed to stand watch together, while the archaeologist and I rested.

“I couldn’t stop him,” she said. “I couldn’t understand him. You know that. He started going north.”

Lavon rolled his eyes, as did I. The damned fool.

She began to babble more urgently, “You told me to stay in one spot. You told me — ”

Lavon sighed and held his finger up to her lips. “Don’t worry about it. You did the right thing.”

Naomi, though, wasn’t yet convinced of that.

“I should have woken you,” she repeated, “but you said to stand and watch. You said not to disturb you unless we saw soldiers. You said …”

We both realized that the poor girl had probably been beaten for less.

Lavon let her ramble on for a moment; then reiterated what he had said before. He emphasized once again that we did not blame her for Bryson’s disappearance, and finally the message began to sink in.

As she recovered her composure, she also recognized that we didn’t consider the event a complete surprise.

“Do you know where he’s going?” she asked.