by Mary Stewart
‘What is it? Penny for them.’
‘Brotherly love.’
‘Meaning me?’
‘Well, you’re the only bro. I’ve got.’
‘“The near in blood the nearer bloody”,’ he quoted absently, peering ahead. ‘There’s your door, I think?’
‘Where?’
He pointed. ‘Under the luxuriant herb, whatever it is.’
‘You ignorant peasant, that’s jasmine. It’s terribly dark here, could we use the torch? That’s it … aha!’
‘What d’you mean, aha?’
‘Look,’ I said.
Charles looked. He could hardly avoid seeing what I had meant. There was certainly a door, and it was certainly decayed, but nothing – neither dogs nor man – had been through it for a very long time. The weeds grew a foot high in front of it, and the hinges looked like spindles of wool, so thickly were they cocooned with cobwebs.
‘Aha, indeed,’ said my cousin. ‘And a beautiful web right across it, too, just in case we thought it might have been opened the other way. But how corny, no clichés spared … but then things only become clichés because they’re the slickest way of saying something. No, this door hasn’t been opened since the last time the old Emir tottered along to the harem in 1875. Videlicet – if that’s the word I want, which seems doubtful – the spiders. So he didn’t come in this way, our John Lethman. Well, I hardly thought so. Come back, come back, Horatius.’
I said blankly: ‘But there can’t be a way in from the island!’
‘We can but look,’ said Charles reasonably. ‘Hullo!’ The beam of the torch, narrow and bright and concentrated, speared down through the weeds at the foot of the wall, to light a tombstone, a small flat slab let into the masonry, and carrying a name deeply tooled: JAZID.
‘A graveyard, no less,’ said Charles, and sent the torchlight skidding along a couple of feet. Another stone, another legend: OMAR.
‘For goodness’ sake, turn it up!’ I exclaimed. ‘D’you mean it really is a graveyard? In here? But why on earth …? And anyway, they’re men’s names. They can’t be—’
I stopped. The light had caught another one: ERNIE.
‘Charles—’
‘So that’s it. I remember Ernie quite well.’
I said, exasperated: ‘Be serious, for goodness’ sake! You know perfectly well that Great-Uncle Ernest—’
‘No, no, the dog. He was one of the King Charles spaniels she had when she first came out here. Don’t you remember Ernie? She always said he was called after Great-Uncle Ernest because he was absent over everything but meals.’ He sounded pretty absent himself, as if he was thinking hard, but not about what he was saying. The torchlight moved on. ‘It’s the pets’ graveyard, hadn’t you guessed? NELL, MINETTE, JAMIE, still the spaniels … HAYDEE, LALOUK, those sound more Eastern … Ah, here she is. DELILAH Alas, poor Delilah. That’s the lot.’
‘They can’t have got round to him yet.’
‘Who?’
‘Samson. John Lethman says he died last month. Look, must we spend the whole night in a dogs’ graveyard? What are you looking for?’
The torchlight drifted along the wall, met nothing but a tangle of creepers and the ghostly pale faces of flowers. ‘Nothing,’ said Charles.
‘Then let’s get out of here.’
‘I am coming, my own, my sweet.’ He snapped the light out, and swung back an armful of stems to let me through. ‘I suppose that’s a nightingale singing its ducky little heart out up there? Damn these roses, my sweater must look like a yak’s pelt by now.’
‘What does it take to make you romantic?’
‘I’ll tell you some day. Can you manage this?’
‘This’ was the bridge. The faint moonlight reflecting back from the water below made the broken gap clearly visible; it wasn’t as far as I had thought, perhaps five feet. Charles jumped it first, light-footed, and more or less caught me as I jumped after him. And soon, with a hand in his, I was treading carefully off the bridge on to the rocky shore of the island.
This was very small, being nothing more than an artistically placed tumble of rocks, planted with bushes and shrubs long gone wild, but designed to lead the eye up to the grove of shade-trees (of a kind I didn’t recognise) which overhung the kiosk. This, as I have said, was a small summer pavilion, a circular building with slender pillars supporting a gilded dome. The door was an open archway, and to the sides, between the pillars, fretted lattices of stone made fantastic patterns where the moonlight fell. Wide shallow steps led up from the shore, and a tumble of creepers hung half across the doorway, darkening the interior. My cousin let go my hand, pulled some of the tangle aside, and flashed his torch on. With a clap and flurry of wings two pigeons hurtled out over his head, making him duck and swear, then he led the way in.
The interior was empty except for a small hexagonal basin in the centre of the floor where there must once have been a fountain playing. A green fish, solid verdigris, gaped dry-mouthed over dead water which hardly reflected back the torchlight. On two sides the floor was bracketed with wide semicircular couches, cushionless and filthy with twigs and birds’ dropping. The wall opposite the doorway was solid, and painted all over. Charles shone the torch on this.
The painting was done in the Persian, rather than the Arab style, for I could see trees with fruit and flowers, and figures seated under them clad in rich blue and green robes, and something that might have been a hunting leopard leaping after a gazelle on a golden ground. I supposed that in daylight, like everything else in the place, it would be faded and dirty, but in the fleeting rich yellow of the torchlight it looked enchantingly pretty.
The scene was in three panels, a triptych divided by painted tree-trunks, stiff and formal, following the line of the pillars that framed the section of wall. At one edge of the centre panel, all down the side of the trunk, a dark line showed.
‘Here we go,’ said Charles, approaching it.
‘You mean it’s a door?’
He made no reply. He was playing the light slowly over the picture his hand following the probing beam, sliding and patting over the surface of the wall. Then he gave a grunt of satisfaction. From the middle of a painted orange tree a section of the leaves seemed to detach themselves into his hand; the ringbolt of a door. He turned it and pulled. The painted panel opened on quiet, accustomed hinges, showing a gap of blackness behind.
I found my heart beating faster. A secret door can’t fail to be exciting, and in this setting … ‘Where can it possibly go?’ Then, as he made a gesture of quiet, and jerked a thumb downwards, I said on a whisper that threatened to choke itself with sudden excitement: ‘You can’t mean an underground passage?’
‘What else? You notice this wall’s flat, but if we looked round the back of this place, in the grove, we’d find the outer wall followed the curve of the rest, and the building was circular. There’s room in the segment for the head of the shaft.’ He laughed at my expression. ‘Not so very surprising; these old palaces had as many doors and passages and secret exits as they had wormholes – all the go in the good old days when you slept with armed guards round the bed and ate with a couple of slaves tasting for poison.’ He added: ‘This is the harem. The Emir would have his private stairway, one would think.’
‘My God, it’s all it needed! Now all we want’s a magic carpet or a genie in a bottle.’
He grinned. ‘Hope on, hope ever, we may get one yet.’ The light played over the door. ‘This must be how he got in, and the dogs. In that case it probably pushes open quite easily from the inside, but I don’t trust it, and I don’t want to be locked down there for ever like the Mistletoe Bough. Let’s find something to wedge it open with, shall we?’
‘Down there?’ I asked in alarm. ‘You’re not going down?’
‘Why not? Can you resist it?’
‘Easily … No, actually, Charles dear, this is all very exciting, but we shouldn’t. It feels all wrong.’
‘That’s just the settin
g. If this was the back stairs at home you’d think nothing of it. It’s all this Arabian Nights’ stuff that’s getting you.’
‘I suppose that’s true. Can you see?’ This as he shone the torchbeam into the gap and stepped over the sill.
‘Perfectly. There’s a steep flight of steps here, in good repair, and even reasonably clean.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ I said, as I took his outstretched hand, and stepped carefully over the sill after him.
But it was true. From just inside the painted door the steps went steeply downwards, spiralling round a central column. This seemed to be richly carved, and on the curved outer wall there were more paintings, similar to the one on the door. Dimly I could see the trunks of trees, and green interlacing boughs, and a pale flower-dotted ground where a racing camel, curiously elongated by the curve of the wall, carried a mustachioed warrior waving a sabre, and a lady unconcernedly playing a zither. Fastened to this wall was a handrail of some blackened metal that could have been brass, held at intervals by elaborate lizards or small dragons which clung riveted to the stones. Certainly an important staircase, a royal staircase, the Prince’s own way to the women’s quarters. It would be his regular and by no means secret way; merely his private stair, as richly decorated and attractive as his own apartments. The pavilion was in fact the top storey of a circular tower or stone shaft which was let down through the centre of the lake into the solid rock on which the garden had been built.
‘Coming?’ said Charles.
‘No – no, wait—’ I hung back against his hand. ‘Haven’t you realised – if this is the Seraglio stair from the Prince’s rooms, that means Great-Aunt Harriet’s, and she’ll be wide awake, probably with John Lethman reading aloud to her out of the twenty-seventh Sura of the Koran.’
He stopped. ‘You’ve got a point there. But it must go somewhere else as well.’
‘Must it?’
‘The dogs came this way. I doubt if they’re allowed to roam the old lady’s bedroom at night, so they must have got through from elsewhere. And what’s more, doesn’t it occur to you that this might be a way to the postern?’
‘Of course! It was on a lower level But oughtn’t we wait a bit? If we met someone …’
‘I must admit I’d sooner not,’ said Charles. ‘You’re right, we’d better leave it for a bit.’ He followed me back into the pavilion, and behind him the painted door shut silently on a cushion of dead air. Back in the latticed moonlight it was comparatively easy to see the way. He switched off the torch. ‘What time does she settle down?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ I said, ‘but John Lethman’ll probably be around for a bit yet. Are you going to try and see her when he’s gone?’
‘I don’t think so. Unless it were urgent, I wouldn’t do it this way. It’d be enough to frighten an elderly person into fits, bursting in on her in the middle of the night. No, if I see her at all it’ll be the legit, way, daylight and front gate and one clear call for me. But you know, on what’s happened up to now I’m damned if I’ll clear quietly out without taking a good look around. Would you?’
‘Probably not. Anyway, if I’ve got to spend the rest of the night here I’d rather you spent it with me than not.’
‘Such passion,’ said my cousin tranquilly. We were at the bridge now, and he paused and cocked his head to listen. Stillness held the place. No shadow moved. He started softly across the bridge, and I followed him.
‘You’re not going out of this court?’ I whispered quickly. ‘The dogs’ll make an awful row—’
‘No. I’m not interested in the part of the palace they let you loose in, only the part they didn’t. The gap looks wider from this side, doesn’t it? Think you can jump it if I catch you?’
‘I can try. Charles, you said “they”? Are you making a bit of mystery out of all this? There’s really no reason to suppose—’
‘Probably not. I’m probably wrong anyway, Tell you later, alligator. Now jump.’ I jumped, slipped on landing, and was caught and held. Ridiculous that I hadn’t realised until this minute how strong he was. We climbed down off the bridge and pushed our way through the rustling bushes.
He said over his shoulder: ‘Just in case we don’t find the postern down there, we’ll go now and take a look at my other line of retreat, shall we? I saw a rope in that room full of junk along here – at least I think I did. It would make life easier on the downward trail.’
‘I thought there might be one there. I was just on my way to look when the dogs caught me. Do you suppose John Lethman got in via the island last night, too?’
‘You can bet your boots he did,’ said Charles shortly.
‘But why not say so? Why lie? Did it matter?’
‘Only if he wanted to stop you knowing there was a way under the lake.’
‘You mean he was afraid I’d by-pass him and go straight to Aunt H on my own?’
‘Possibly. But it seems a lot of trouble to go to for something that wouldn’t have mattered very much, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I suppose so. And after all, I might have found it by myself. He didn’t stop me wandering around exploring in here.’
We had gained the flagged pathway. After the darkness of the pavilion and the overhanging bushes, it seemed light here. Something shuffled rustling into the undergrowth, clucking to itself. I saw Charles slant a look at me. ‘Why didn’t you go over to the island before? I’d have thought that’d be the first thing. It’s dead romantic’
‘I meant to, but when I got to the bridge …’ I paused. ‘Yes, I see, you mean that’s what he counted on? I probably could have got across the broken bridge by myself, but it didn’t seem worth the bother.’
‘There you are. Unless you were wild keen, which you’d no particular reason to be, he could reckon you wouldn’t be likely to bother, and even if you had jumped over you’d probably never have realised the painted wall was a doorway.’
‘But if it was all that important that I shouldn’t find the staircase, why put me in this court at all? I know it’s probably the only reasonable bedroom, but if it mattered—’
‘Simply because it is the Seraglio, and was designed as a sort of five-star gaol. There’s probably a million ways in and out of every other corner of the palace, so he had to put you here and spin you the story about the savage dogs to keep you in. What’s more,’ he added, not sounding worried about it at all, ‘we’ll almost certainly find there’s another door at the foot of the spiral stairway – the one Jassim left open for the dogs – and it’ll equally certainly be locked now.’
I glanced at him, but he hadn’t got the torch on, and I couldn’t see his face. ‘And if we do?’
‘Well …’ said my cousin, and left it at that.
I asked sharply: ‘You don’t mean that you could pick the lock?’
He laughed. ‘That’s the first note of honest admiration I’ve heard from you since the time I blew the apple-loft door open with carbide. Christy, my sweet, you were born to be a banker’s moll. Take it from me, lock-picking is practically required study in Mansels.’
‘Well, naturally. But—’ I paused, then went on slowly: ‘What this amounts to is that there really is something wrong going on … I haven’t had time to tell you yet, but this afternoon I saw Halide wearing Great-Aunt Harriet’s ruby ring – you remember the one? – and she and John Lethman are certainly having an affair, and not paying very much attention to Aunt H, either, from the look of things – which seemed odd, after last night, when they were so attentive in front of me.’
I told him then, very quickly, about the little scene I had glimpsed this afternoon. He had stopped to listen, and against the moonlight I could see the attentive slant of his head, but when I had finished he made no comment, merely moving on along the arcade.
I followed. ‘And why did he lie to me?’ I persisted. ‘There must be some reason for the lies about the way he got in, and the hounds, too … Oh, he passed it off tonight, but he really did make a lot of it before, h
ow savage they were, and how unsafe it would be for me to wander about. He made rather a thing about their being loose at night.’
‘Probably wanted you contained in your own court while he carried on his affair with the girl.’
‘Come off it,’ I said curtly. ‘He was carrying that on with me wandering about the place all afternoon. Anyway, the palace is big enough, heaven knows. Charles, she really was wearing that ring, and if you ask me—’
‘Hush a minute, I want to put the light on. Can you hear anything?’
‘No.’
‘Then stay out here and keep your ears open while I go in and look for a rope.’
He vanished through the doorway of the junk-room.
I looked after him thoughtfully. I might not have seen him for four years, but I still knew every tone of his voice as well as I knew my own. For some reason he had suddenly clammed up on me. There was something he knew, or something he thought, that he didn’t propose to share with me. He had been stalling very well, but still he had been stalling.
‘Ah,’ he said, from inside the room.
‘Found one?’
‘Not so long as a cur’s tail, nor so strong as a cobweb, but ’twill serve. Hold the torch while I test it, will you …? Good grief, it’s filthy … Well, I wouldn’t exactly climb the west face of the Dru with it, but it should help me down the wall if we don’t find the back door.’
He emerged from the room, wiping the dirt off his hands. ‘And now a wash, and a wait. We’ll give it an hour, shall we? As long as I can get out of here and away by first light … It’s even possible the Nahr el-Sal’q may have gone down dramatically by morning, and I can save myself a lot of trouble by cutting straight across it and away before anyone sees me.’
‘Where’s your car this time?’
‘I left it about half a mile below the village. There’s a small quarry where I could get it off the road and pretty well out of sight. I did play with the idea of spending the rest of the night in the car and coming across for you myself in the morning, but there’s always the risk that someone might see it standing there in the small hours and Nasirulla bring the news over before you’re clear of the place. And if I ever do want to see Aunt H, I don’t fancy having to talk my way out of that one … So I left a message for Hamid to come up for you at half past nine tomorrow, and I’ll go down to Beirut and wait for you there. And now show me your bathroom, Christy mine, and we’ll listen to the nightingales while I get my picklocks sorted out.’
