to his throat Penrod pinned him to the wall behind him. He recognized him as one of Osman Atalan’s aggagiers. “Where are they?” Penrod demanded. “Where are al-Jamal and Nazeera?” Clutching his wrist, the blood from his severed artery pumping sullenly, the Arab spat at him.
“Effendi.” Yakub spoke from behind Penrod’s shoulder. “Leave this one to me. He will speak to me.”
Penrod nodded. “I will wait with the camels. Do not be long.”
“The remorseless Yakub will waste little time.”
Twice Penrod heard the captured Arab scream, the second time weaker than the first, but at last Yakub came out. “The oasis of Gedda,” he said, and wiped the blade of his dagger on his camel’s neck.
The oasis of Gedda lay in a basin of chalk hills. There was no surface water, only a single deep well with a coping of limestone. It was surrounded by a grove of date palms. The dome of the saint’s tomb was separated from the taller dome of the mosque and the flat-roofed quarters of the mullahs.
As Penrod’s troop rode in from the desert they saw a group of children playing among the palm trees, small, barefooted boys and girls in long, grubby robes. A copper-haired boy pursued the others, and they squealed with laughter and scattered before him. As soon as they saw the camel troop approaching they froze into silence and stared with huge dark eyes. Then the eldest boy turned and ran back towards the mosque. The others followed him. After they had disappeared the oasis seemed silent and deserted.
Penrod rode forward, and heard a horse whinny. The animal was standing behind the angle of the side wall. It was knee-haltered and had been feeding on a pile of cut fodder. It was a dark-coloured stallion. “Al-Buq!”
He reined in well short of the front doors of the mosque, jumped down and threw the reins to Yakub. Then he unsheathed his sabre and walked forward slowly. The doors were wide open and the interior of the mosque was impenetrably dark in contrast to the bright sunlight without.
“Osman Atalan!” Penrod shouted, and the echoes from the hills mocked him. The silence persisted.
Then he saw dim movement in the gloom of the building’s interior. Osman Atalan stepped out into the sunlight. His fierce and cruel features were inscrutable. He carried the long blade in his right hand, but he had no shield. “I have come for you,” Penrod said.
“Yes,” Osman answered. Penrod saw the glint of silver threads in his beard. But his gaze was dark and unwavering. “I expected you. I knew that you would come.”
“Nine years,” said Penrod.
“Too long,” Osman replied, ‘but now it is time.” He came down the steps, and Penrod retreated ten paces to give him space to fight. They circled each other, a graceful minuet. Lightly they touched blades and the steel rang like fine crystal.
They circled again, watching each other’s eyes, looking for any weakness that might have developed in the years since they had last fought. They found none. Osman moved like a cobra, tensed and poised for the strike. Penrod was his mongoose, quick and fluid.
They crossed and turned, and then as if at a signal, leapt at each other. Their blades slithered together. They broke apart, circled and came together again. The silver blades blurred, glittered and clattered against each other. Penrod drove in hard, forcing Osman on to his back foot, keeping the pressure on him, the blades dancing. Osman stepped back, and then counter-attacked, just as furiously. Penrod gave ground to him, leading him on, making him buy each inch.
Penrod watched him carefully, then cut hard at his head. Osman blocked. Their blades were locked together. Now they both stood solidly and all their weight was on their sword wrists. Tiny beads of sweat popped out on their foreheads. They stared into each other’s eyes and pushed. Penrod felt the sponginess in Osman’s grip. To test him he broke the lock and jumped back.
As their blades disengaged Osman had a fleeting opening and tried for it, thrusting at Penrod’s right elbow to disable his sword arm, but it was one of his old tricks and Penrod was ready for it. It seemed to him that Osman was slow. He hit the long blade and pirouetted clear.
Not slow. He changed his mind as they circled again. Just not as fast as he used to be. But, then, am I?
He feinted at Osman’s face, then leant back, not making it obvious that he was inviting the riposte. Osman almost caught him. His counter-stroke came like thunder. Penrod just managed to turn it. Osman was at full extension, and there was the lag again, his old bad habit, slow on the recovery. Penrod hit him.
It was a glancing blow that skidded along Osman’s ribcage under his arm. The point sliced down to the bone, but did not find the gap between the ribs. They circled again. Osman was bleeding profusely. The blood loss must weaken him swiftly, and the damaged muscles would soon stiffen. He was running out of time and threw everything into the attack. He came with all his weight and skill. His blade turned to dancing light. It was cut and thrust high in the line of defence, then cross and go backhanded for the thigh, then at the head. He kept it up relentlessly, never breaking, never giving Penrod a chance to come on to his front foot, forcing him on to the defensive.
He cut Penrod high in the left shoulder. It was a light wound, and Osman was losing blood more heavily. Each fresh attack was less fiery, each recovery after the thrust just a little slower. Penrod let him expend himself, holding him off and waiting his moment. He watched Osman’s eyes.
During the entire bout Osman had not gone for Penrod’s hip. Penrod knew from experience that it was his favourite and most deadly stroke with which he had crippled innumerable enemies. At last Penrod offered it to him, turning his lower body into Osman’s natural line.
Osman went for the opening, and once he was committed Penrod turned back so the razor edge slit the cloth of his jodhpurs but did not break the skin. Osman was fully extended and could not recover quickly enough.
Penrod hit him. His thrust split the sternum at the base of Osman’s ribs and went on to transfix him cleanly as a fish on a skewer. Penrod felt his steel grate on his opponent’s spinal column.
Osman froze, and Penrod stepped in close. He seized his opponent’s sword wrist to prevent a last thrust. Their faces were only inches apart. Penrod’s eyes were hard and cold. Osman’s were dark with bitter rage, but slowly they became opaque as stones. The sword dropped from his hand. His legs buckled, but Penrod held his weight on the sabre. Osman opened his lips to speak, but a snake of dark blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and crawled down his chin.
Penrod relaxed his wrist and let him slide off the blade. He fell at Penrod’s feet, and lay still upon his back with his arms spread wide.
As Penrod stepped back a woman screamed. He looked up. He became aware for the first time of the small group of Arab women and children huddled in the doorway of the mosque. He recognized the little ones as those who had run to hide as he rode up. But he knew none of the women.
“Nazeera!” It was Yakub’s voice. He saw one of the women react, and then he recognized her. Nazeera held two children against her legs. One was the ugly copper-haired boy, and the other an exquisite little girl, a few years younger than the boy. Both children were weeping and trying to break out of Nazeera’s grip, but she held them fast.
Then an Arab women left the group and came slowly down the steps towards him. She moved like a sleep- walker, and her eyes were fastened on the dead man at his feet. There was something dreadfully familiar about her. Instinctively Penrod backed away, still staring at her in fascination. Then he exclaimed, “Rebecca!”
“No,” the stranger replied in English. “Rebecca died long ago.” Her face was a pitiful travesty of that of the lovely young woman he had once known. She knelt beside Osman and picked up his sword. Then she looked up into Penrod’s face. Her eyes were old and hopeless. “Look after my children,” she said. “You owe me that at least, Penrod Ballantyne.”
Before he understood what she intended and could move to prevent her, she reversed the sword. She placed the pommel on the hard ground and the point under her bottom ribs and fell forward upon it with all her weight. The length of the blade disappeared into her body, and she collapsed on top of Osman Atalan.
The children screamed, broke from Nazeera’s grip, rushed down the steps and threw themselves on to the bodies of their parents. They wailed and shrieked. It was a dreadful sound that cut to the core of Penrod’s being.
He sheathed his sabre, turned away and walked away towards the palm grove. As he passed Yakub he said, “Bury Osman Atalan. Do not mutilate his body or take his head. Bury al-Jamal beside him. Nazeera and the children will come with us. They will ride my camel. I will ride al-Buq. When all is ready call me.”
He went into the grove and found a fallen palm trunk on which to sit. He was very tired, and the cut on his shoulder throbbed. He opened his tunic and folded his handkerchief over the wound.
The two children, the boy and the girl, must be Rebecca’s, he realized. What will become of them? Then he
