When the sun rose a few degrees above the horizon Woodgerd led them into a grove of poplar trees along a shallow creek and let them rest. Groaning and limping, they unloaded their horses of gear and saddles, then collapsed. The troopers first pulled jellabas, the flowing robes of the Berber and Arab, over their uniforms, then flopped down prone and formed a loose perimeter. Woodgerd put on a jellaba and leaned against a tree, taking a deep breath, briefing the others as they donned their robes.
“The reason we left the column is so we can move fast. The column is going to continue to the northeast toward the Rif Mountains, where the northern Berbers are. Many people think the Berbers are behind the disappearance of the missionaries. They are wrong. But we want everyone to believe that we suspect them and are headed that way.”
Faber, who’d been staring off in the distance, swung around. “I was told the most likely perpetrators of this crime were the Berber bandits of the Rif. And now you say no? Was that a deception? Against me! Do you have proof of something else, Colonel?”
“Yes, it was a deception and I hope like hell it worked. I want everyone from here to the Rif to think that you and I are still with the column and headed that way. Meanwhile we are going to Volubilis, the ancient Roman city, where we’ll be obtaining some information on where to go next.”
Wake asked, “How far off is this Roman place, Colonel?”
“Another thirty miles, up into the lower mountains on the western side of the Middle Atlas. We lay low here during today and we leave at sunset. We should be there a few hours after midnight.”
Faber stood, angrily kicking up a dust cloud with a boot. “Why not keep going now? We must spare no effort, no time, to find Catherine and the others! There is no time to lose and too much has been lost already!”
Woodgerd wasn’t cowed. “Because we need to find them alive, Mr. Faber. And that means getting them by surprise. And that means sneaking into the area.”
“What is ‘sneaking?’ I do not know this word!”
“It means to use stealth, Mr. Ambassador,” answered Wake. “I think it’s the best way.”
Faber glared at him. “Yes, of course. You would.”
Wake tried to defuse the man. “We’re all trying to save them, sir.”
“Stop the whining,” Woodgerd growled. “From now on we all wear jellabas. Guard watches will be set for all day. Everyone takes a turn. No one leaves the trees. Anybody approaches, Sohkoor or the troopers will talk to them. We are a group of clansmen heading for a wedding feast.”
Woodgerd waited but no one had questions. “All right, get some sleep—you’ll need it later. Wake and Sohkoor are first on watch, then in two hours, Faber and Rork.”
***
The watches passed excruciatingly slowly. Faber didn’t speak with anyone and Sohkoor was in a quiet, almost mystical mood. The five daily prayers of the Muslims were done silently and quickly, and everyone waited and watched the shadows tell the time as the sun slid toward the distant hills behind them.
The little line of men were mounted and ready as the last of the molten sun fell into the hills and Woodgerd uttered, “Yamshee” in a hoarse voice, starting them away from the dusk toward a ridge in the distance.
Following no road they crossed a dry creek, which Woodgerd called a wadi, and in the growing starlight began to climb the steepening slopes, their gear muffled against noise, the only sounds the labored breathing of man and horse, with an occasional oath when a horse stumbled.
Climbing and climbing, never finding level ground but always pushing higher into the Middle Atlas, they went on. The pace was slow but steady, Wake estimating they were moving at about three knots and wondering how they would cover the thirty miles in the time predicted.
He found out how just after eleven p.m. Skirting an open copper mine, they circled to the north and then east again to the top of a ridge, then gazed across a broad valley. By this time the moon illuminated the gray rocky surface pretty well, and Wake could make out a village in the distance, darkened huts looking like black dots.
Now moving faster on level ground, Woodgerd and Sohkoor led them north along the ridge, taking care to keep below the crest and not be silhouetted. Two more ridgelines and three hours later they stopped for the last rest before their destination, which they saw spread out in the plain a mile away. As they sat their horses, stretching their backs and legs, Sohkoor reined up between Wake and Faber. He waved a hand across the ruins and whispered.
“That is the ghost city of Volubilis. First founded by Carthage four thousand years ago, it was expanded into a major city of twenty thousand persons by the Romans at the time of Jesus, blessed be his name. It was abandoned by the Romans two hundred years later, a generation before Constantine became a Christian and changed that empire forever, when the Berber people rose up in revolt. For the next four hundred years the people of this city still spoke Latin, until the word of Islam came to this land.”
“Who lives there now?” asked Wake.
“Only the ghosts of the dead, who come from a dozen cultures over four millennia. After the earthquake of seventeen
