O Jerusalem

tip of his little finger. He leant forward and put it into Holmes’ mouth, put the box away and was wiping his finger on his robe when we heard the heavy outer door open in the room behind us.

Many things seemed to happen simultaneously: hurried footsteps and a large angry stranger with his mouth open standing in the inner doorway; my hand, of its own accord and with no pause for thought, going down to the top of my boot, plucking out the throwing knife that lived there, and sending it in one smooth movement through the air straight at the intruder’s throat just as Ali’s moving fist, wrapped around the butt of his own heavy knife, materialised behind the man’s head; another dull thump and the man jerked to one side and collapsed to the floor at the same moment my knife clattered and sang down the stones of the opposite wall. Time shuddered and began to move in a linear fashion once more.

With a look of wonder Ali peered down at his right arm, separating the neatly slit sleeve with the fingers of his left hand and dabbing curiously at the blood welling up in the long, shallow incision that ran from his wrist to his elbow. For a terrible instant I had a vision of Ali on the floor with my knife protruding from his throat: had he been just inches over… He stared at me, and then back at his arm, and an expression of sheer joy came over him. I thought he would burst into laughter. My apologies died in my throat.

From behind me came a noise, a curious, high-pitched cough that contained both gasp and groan, cut off instantly. I whirled to see Mahmoud, his knife still in his hand, easing Holmes’ arms out of the cut ropes. Holmes took one stiff step forward and collapsed, but Mahmoud, in a motion so smooth it looked rehearsed, shifted along with him, so that Holmes half fell across the Arab’s shoulders with another grunt of pain. Mahmoud straightened, and then he was carrying Holmes, all the lanky length of the man with the bloody back draped across those broad shoulders.

Mahmoud put his head down, aimed at the door, and went through it fast, scuttling sideways like a crab to thread himself through. Ali stood up from tying the gag on the second man, snatched up a heavy robe from the first guard’s chair, and threw it across Holmes’ back as Mahmoud passed, then followed them out into the corridor. I paused inside the door to retrieve my knife and a heap of clothing that I thought looked like Holmes’; and again outside to catch up my own turban and abayya from the corner where Mahmoud had thrown them. Then I ran, pulling on clothes as I went. Ali locked the door behind us with the guard’s ring of keys, which he slid noiselessly under the opposite door, and then we were all three running, as silently as we could, down the stone corridors, up the stairs, and out, out into the cool, crisp, wet-smelling air of dawn. I would not have hesitated to kill were we stopped, I knew that now. In fact, I could taste the desire for battle and murder and revenge between my teeth; but no-one raised an alarm, and we slipped out of there with the ease of mice leaving a pantry.

It was not until we reached the perimeter wall that trouble came, and when it did, it happened so quickly that again, it was over almost before it began, certainly before I could involve myself.

Ali pulled open the gate and stepped back for us to pass. Mahmoud, still carrying Holmes and showing no sign of flagging, went through first. I followed perhaps three paces behind him, and had just cleared the wall when to my instant and complete terror a loud voice spoke at my shoulder, demanding that we stop and identify ourselves.

Or rather, he began his demand. He never finished it. Our eruption through the gate on top of him had apparently startled him as much as he did us; he was fumbling with his rifle as he spoke, and made the fatal mistake of assuming Mahmoud and I were alone. I have never known a human being to move more swiftly than Ali. Before I had rounded on our attacker, Ali’s vicious blade had done its work, and when Ali’s hand came off the man’s mouth, there was only surprise there, no pain or fear. Just surprise, and then nothing at all.

I had seen men die before, but only men in hospital beds, when death released them from the terrible suffering of gassed lungs or torn bodies. This was a very different matter, this transformation of bone and muscle into a limp, empty thing that landed on the ground with the meaty slap of a dropped water-skin. A noise welled in me, pressing hard against my closed lips, but whether it was a scream or gales of laughter I will never know, because Ali saw it coming and cuffed me so hard my teeth rattled.

“Do not be stupid,” he hissed at me. “Run.”

I ran.

The sun was nearly on the horizon, the sky dangerously close to full light, and Mahmoud with his flopping burden was all too clear a quarter of a mile down the road. It was quite a ridiculous picture, I thought with that portion of my mind not taken up by the sensation of cross-hairs between my shoulder-blades, rather like a long- legged man mounted on a small donkey, but it was also very impressive, the strength of the man sprinting down the road with thirteen-plus stone across his shoulders. He had, I thought inconsequentially, not even paused when the last guard had appeared, merely trusted Ali to take care of the problem.

The bizarre tangle of robes and limbs ahead of me stepped to the side of the road and vanished. I slowed when I reached the place, only to be passed by Ali, who crashed into the narrow path between the bushes without slowing and dived down the precipitous path that lay there, moving at a dead run. Still, I saw to my astonishment, barefoot: his red boots were in one hand, the dead guard’s rifle in the other. I slid and scrambled down the hill in his wake, and though I pushed hard, when I reached the horses, the only one there was our nameless guide, mounted, holding the reins of my mount, and looking nervous. No sooner did the reins hit my palm than he drove his heels into his horse’s ribs, and I had a battle to persuade my own mount to wait until I was on his back before he followed his fellows down the narrow, dusty, stone-strewn track.

FIFTEEN

?

When ambitious men overcome a dynasty and seize power, they inevitably adopt most of the ways of their predecessors.

—

THE

Muqaddimah

OF IBN KHALDUN

It was perhaps three miles before I caught the others up, despite my horse’s turn for speed, and then only because they had stopped. The spare horse was still riderless, but the mare Mahmoud had ridden was standing with her head down and her sides heaving, sweat dripping from her flanks, while Ali reached up to help Mahmoud manoeuvre a completely limp Holmes down from her back. I was off my horse and standing next to the men without being aware of dismounting. Holmes looked every bit as lifeless as the dead guard, but when I helped Ali catch him, his eyes were open, the pupils huge, and the cry that had burst from me changed to one of relief: he was drugged, not dead.

They had clothed him in an unfamiliar pair of baggy trousers and Ali’s sheepskin coat, and now laid him on the ground, arranging him on his side so as not to cause further damage to his back.

“How much opium did you give him, for God’s sake?” I demanded.

“Enough to keep him quiet,” Mahmoud replied. His left arm, which had held the full weight of his passenger, must have been numb, for he was kneading it with his right hand and working his hand vigorously to restore circulation.

“Almost permanently, by the looks of it. He’s completely unconscious.”

“He will recover,” he said, and added less belligerently, “He is mostly bone, little flesh. Perhaps I ought to have lowered the dose.”

“How long before it wears off?”

“Hours. Five, eight.”