O Jerusalem

our profligate way.

“Yes,” I said. “Please.”

“No,” said Ali. “It will look suspicious, three tents with so few people.”

“Either a third tent,” I said flatly, “or Holmes moves in with you.” A woman’s determination was not a thing with which any of these males (other than Holmes) had much experience. One by one their eyes dropped, and again Joshua shrugged.

“Very well. Another tent. It’ll be a small one.”

“So much the better.”

SIX

?

Desert dwellers do not possess luxuries. They use tents of hair, or houses of wood or clay, unfurnished. They have shade and shelter, nothing else. Their food is either raw or little prepared, save that it may have been touched by fire.

—

THE

Muqaddimah

OF IBN KHALDUN

The road back to Beersheva seemed even rougher than the outward journey, and was definitely colder. We were let out on the south end of town, below the ancient wells, and in five minutes we were at the inn. Although it was nearly midnight, Ali called out for coffee as we passed the kitchen. I went off to the latrines behind the inn, in no pleasant mood.

I had left the mud-brick building in the hills stewing to myself over Joshua’s patronising words and attitude, and the long, jostling trip back had not dissipated any of my profound annoyance. I arrived back in the room on the heels of the coffee bearers, and waited impatiently while the thick brew was poured out. The instant the door was fixed into place, I gave vent to my irritation.

“ ‘Some use in holding a rifle,’ ” I grumbled furiously. “ ‘Running messages.’ Who does he think he is?”

Holmes did not answer, but Ali did. “He is Joshua.”

“And I’m supposed to be impressed by the name? For God’s sake, he’s got a resource he won’t even consider using. ” I gestured to where Holmes sat on his heels, sipping from the delicate cup pinched between thumb and forefinger, his long mouth twitching in amusement. “Holmes, speaking objectively, would you not agree that it is a foolish commander who neglects to make full use of the strengths of his men?”

He inclined his head to show agreement, but Ali gave out a guttural laugh.

“Strengths? What strengths are those? An old man and a girl.” He added an eloquent mock-spitting gesture of hand and lips, and that, on top of a solid week of disdain and the dismissive attitude of the spymaster, was simply too much. I leapt to my feet and stormed over to thrust my face into his.

“Hit me,” I ordered. Behind me, Holmes put down his cup with alacrity and moved out of the way.

“By Allah, it is a great tempta—” Ali began. So I slapped him. Hard. His face went purple and he surged up, reaching out to grab me by the shoulders, but before he had his balance I performed a manoeuvre that I knew would only work once on a man of his size and strength, when he was both unprepared and off balance. As he came at me, I seized the front of his robes and then hurled myself over backwards, kicking out hard to send him flying over my head and tumbling through the open doorway into the next room. Before he could find his breath or his feet, I was standing over him with one of my two throwing knives in my left hand. His eyes widened, his hand flew to his belt, and I half turned and threw the knife back into the main room, sinking it with satisfaction into the nose of a bearded face on a fly-specked 1913 calendar that decorated the back of the door. Then I turned my back on him and walked away, retrieving my knife and returning to my now-cool coffee.

Holmes dropped back into his place, working hard not to laugh aloud, and murmured, “Do you feel better now, Russell?”

I did, of course, although I was also beginning to regret the insult I had dealt Ali even before he stumbled back into the room with his wicked knife in his hand and his jaws clenched in fury under his beard.

Mahmoud, though, was looking at me with more interest than he had yet shown.

“Can you do that with the knife every time?” he asked me, speaking in Arabic, but slowly.

“Every time.”

Of course, I then had to prove it by dispatching three large spiders, two pencil marks, and a flying apple core. Mahmoud seemed inordinately pleased at this unexpected talent of mine. Ali, predictably, sulked. After the halved apple core had fallen to the floor, he stirred.

“A clever circus trick,” he said dismissively. “Have you ever used a knife? Drawn blood? Killed?”

Holmes cleared his throat. “My dear man, she’s lived in England all her life. Give her time.”

It was, I think, the first time Ali Hazr and I had been in agreement, under the effect of Holmes’ amusement. He was mocking us both, and had a knock at the door not interrupted, Mahmoud might well have been pulling the two of us from Holmes throat.

The interruption proved to be a wary soldier holding two canvas-wrapped parcels and an envelope. The envelope he handed to Mahmoud, one parcel went to Ali, and the other he put into my arms before scurrying away from the fray. While Mahmoud settled down to extract note from envelope, I glanced at my bundle, and was pleased to find canvas: It was small, and it was worn, but it was a tent. I had shared close quarters with Holmes before, but not by choice.

The brief note eventually reached me. I took it and read, in handwriting so perfect I would instantly have mistrusted its author even if I had not met him:

I have just received word that your self-styled

mullah

was shot dead in Nablus yesterday.

“Ah,” I said to Holmes. “One of those letters you removed from his safe came from a man in Nablus, did it not?”

“It is not uncommon for a blackmailer to push a victim too far,” he agreed distractedly. “Mahmoud, when you first opened the mullah’s safe, did it look at all disturbed, as if you were not the only man to rifle his papers?”

Eventually, Mahmoud gave a shrug. “It was untidy, but without knowing the man’s habits…”

“One thinks of a blackmailer as being that alone, but in truth, if a petty criminal were to perform an illegal service for another, and if that other was in a more delicate or precarious position were the crime to be brought to light, well, it would make a solid basis for a steady income.”

“That is,” I clarified, “a blackmailer may not also be a criminal-for-hire, but the criminal may easily turn his hand to blackmail.”

“A man may pretend to be a mullah in order to stir up dissent, but when his safe later reveals him to be a blackmailer, he reveals himself as a man of many parts,” Holmes elaborated.

“This is pure speculation,” Mahmoud objected disapprovingly, his English gone suddenly pure.

Holmes sighed. “True. Let us see what Mikhail’s bag has to tell us.”

We dropped to our heels to examine the possessions of Mikhail the Druse, primarily a bag of striped cloth containing the bare necessities for survival in the hills: flour, water, and dried lentils, tea and roasted coffee, part of