The Wild Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  “Twenty guineas,” he said, looking Aziz in the eye. “It’s yours. If you tell me where she is.”

  Aziz laughed. He let out a cry, sudden and piercing, like that of a falcon, and suddenly two dozen men came out of the houses, each one armed with a rifle.

  “Mine if I tell you,” he said, nodding at the sack and smiling. “And also if I don’t.”

  Chapter Seventy

  A minute? An hour? A day? A week?

  Willa Alden had no idea how long she had slept. When she woke, she saw a man sitting in the chair near her bed. He was tall and handsome, with silvery blond hair, and Willa wondered, again, if she was seeing things. She closed her eyes, waited for a few seconds, then opened them again. The man was still there.

  “Max?” she said. “Max von Brandt?”

  The man smiled and nodded. “We meet in the desert this time, instead of in London, or in the Himalayas.” He leaned forward in his chair and touched the back of his hand to her cheek. “You feel much cooler,” he said. “You look better, too. Then again, you should. You slept for four days straight.”

  “Max, I must tell you, this is a bit of a surprise,” Willa said. She tried to sit up and gasped with pain.

  “Be careful, Willa. Your ribs are still healing.”

  “What are you doing here? What am I doing here? What is this place?” she said, pulling herself upright with the help of her bed-rail. The pain was intense. Tiny beads of sweat broke out on her upper lip.

  “To answer your last question first—this place is a hospital. For Turkish and German troops. In Damascus. You are here, in Damascus, because you are a spy. I am here for the very same reason.”

  “You … you’re a spy?” Willa said.

  “Yes, for the German secret service. I was stationed in London for quite some time, then Paris. Now Damascus. The situation here is critical, as I’m sure you know.”

  “You’re sure I know? Know what, Max?” Willa said, putting a note of irritation in her voice.

  She had quickly assessed the situation. She was quite certain now that her Turkish jailers had kept her alive on Max’s orders—though he didn’t know exactly who he was keeping alive until he’d seen her in the interrogation room. The Turks, simply following commands, hadn’t particularly cared if she lived or died, but Max was a different story. He’d had feelings for her once. Now he believed she was a spy, but if she could convince him otherwise, he might let her go.

  Max didn’t answer her question right away. He looked at her for a bit, frowning slightly, then he said, “I’m being completely truthful with you, Willa. In return, I want you to be truthful with me. … Where is Lawrence and when is he planning to attack Damascus?”

  Willa laughed. “Max,” she said, “you’ve got it all wrong. I’m not a spy. I’m a photographer, as you know. I needed money so I talked Pathé into footing the bill for me to come out here, and then I badgered General Allenby—I’m sure you know who he is—into letting me follow Lawrence around. I’ve been taking stills and shooting some film, too. It all goes back to London, gets cleared, and then goes into the newsreels shown at every movie theater in England and America. Hardly top secret spy stuff, is it?”

  Willa had shifted in her bed as she spoke, waking up the pain in her ribs again. It was getting worse. She wanted some morphine to dull it.

  “Hello?” she said loudly, leaning forward in her bed. “Is anybody there? Hello? Crumbs! Where’s that nurse?”

  “She’ll come in a minute,” Max said.

  His smile was gone. There was a slight hint of menace in his voice. And Willa, sweating, was suddenly chilled by the knowledge that Max had sent the nurse out and that he would bring her back only when he felt like it.

  “Listen to me, Willa. Listen very carefully,” he said now. “You are in a great deal of trouble. I saved you from being very badly beaten the other day. And probably raped, too. But I cannot save you forever. I have only so much influence. A motion picture camera was found in the wreckage of your plane. The film inside it was of a Turkish camp in the Jabal ad Duruz hills.”

  Willa’s heart sank at that. She’d hoped that the film had been ruined in the crash.

  “You and the pilot were very brave,” Max continued. “You flew low and got some rather comprehensive footage.”

  Willa did not answer him. Max stood. He put his hands on her bed rail and leaned in close to her.

  “I can help you. I want to help you,” he said. “But you have to help me, too. I saved you from those animals in the interrogation room, and I can do more, but only if you give me something. I must have information on Lawrence.”

  “I have none,” Willa said stubbornly. “Yes, you are right. I was on a recon mission, but it failed. As you know. As for Lawrence, he does not share his plans with me. Only with Auda and Faisal.”

  Max straightened. He nodded. “Perhaps you would like a little more time to think about my request,” he said.

  He walked out into the hallway and signaled for two orderlies to come into the room. They did. One was pushing a wheelchair.

  “Where am I going?” Willa asked Max warily.

  “Sightseeing,” he replied.

  Wordlessly, the two men lifted Willa out of her bed. They were not particularly gentle and they jostled her. Though she tried not to, Willa cried out in pain.

  Max dismissed the men, then wheeled Willa out of her room, down the corridor, and out of the hospital. The hot, dusty streets of Damascus sprawled out before her. She had never been to the city before, and she took mental notes now of which way they were heading and what buildings she passed. They traveled for five minutes or so, made two left turns, and then arrived at their destination—the prison.

  Willa panicked when she saw it, and tried to climb out of the wheelchair, but a firm hand on her shoulder pressed her back down.

  “Don’t worry,” Max said. “I’m not taking you back to your cell.”

  He pushed her through the arched entryway, through which camels and horses and vehicles passed, over a cobbled court, past various buildings, to a dirt yard behind the prison. It was enclosed by a high stone wall and it was empty.

  “What is this?” Willa asked. “What are we doing here?”

  Before Max could answer her, a group of about eight soldiers marched past them. In their midst, shackled, was a Bedouin man.

  “Howeitat,” Max said. “One of Auda’s and a spy.”

  As Willa watched, the soldiers marched the Bedouin to the far wall. They tied his hands behind him, then blindfolded him.

  “No,” Willa said, realizing what they were about to do. “Please, Max. No.”

  “I think you should see this,” he said.

  The soldiers raised their rifles. Their commander raised his sword. When he lowered it, they fired. The Bedouin arched backward into the wall, then slumped to the ground, twitching. Red stains blossomed across his white robes.

  Wordlessly, Max wheeled Willa back to her hospital room, then helped her get back into her bed. She was shaking with pain and sick with shock. Max summoned the nurse and told her to give Willa a pill. She swallowed it immediately, wanting the pain to stop, wanting the images of the slaughtered man to go away, wanting to escape this misery with a deep, narcotic sleep.

  When the nurse left, Max fluffed Willa’s pillow for her. Then he said, “What you just saw will become your fate. I cannot stop it. Not unless you help me. Not unless you tell me what I need to know.”

  Max pulled the crisp white sheet over her legs. “I care for you, Willa,” he said. “I have since the first day I met you, and I do not want to see you standing in front of a firing squad.”

  He kissed her cheek, told her he would see her tomorrow, and took his leave. He stopped inside the doorway, turned back to her, and said, “Think about my request, but not for too much longer.”

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Seamie raised his canteen to his lips and took a swig of water. His body swayed slightly as he drank, rising and dipping in the s
addle with every plodding step his camel took. He looked ahead of himself, through the shimmering waves of heat rising off the sand, at what looked like an infinite expanse of desert. He’d been traveling across it for three weeks now.

  “Do you trust him?” he asked Khalaf al Mor, who was riding next to him.

  “No,” Khalaf replied, “but I don’t have to trust him. I know he will do as we’ve asked. There’s too much gold in it for him not to.”

  Aziz rode about twenty yards ahead of them, flanked by two of his own men. They were riding north, to Damascus, but would stop at Lawrence’s camp first to rest and water their animals. No one knew where Lawrence made his camp—he changed locations frequently to ensure that—but Aziz claimed that he knew where Lawrence was now, and that it was on the way to Damascus. He said there was shade there, and a well that gave plenty of fresh, sweet water.

  Seamie hoped Khalaf was right about Aziz. He had been right about many things so far. That they were here, heading to Damascus—that they were here at all, actually—was due entirely to him. Khalaf was the one who’d persuaded Aziz and his village full of armed bandits not to kill them.

  Only minutes after Seamie and Khalaf had ridden to the village to ask about Willa, Aziz and his men had taken the bag of gold Seamie offered him for information on Willa, and were about to take everything else from Seamie, Khalaf, and Khalaf’s men—including their lives—until Khalaf told Aziz there would be more gold for him if he did not.

  “Spare our lives, take us to the girl, and I will give you twice as much gold again upon our safe return,” he said.

  Instantly the guns were lowered. Warm greetings and apologies for the misunderstanding were offered, and the visitors were invited into Aziz’s house for a meal. He told them how he had seen the British plane go down, had ridden to the wreck in search of plunder, found Willa, and taken her to Damascus.

  “I almost did not,” Aziz explained. “She was badly injured. There was every chance she would die on the way, and then the whole trip, the time, the wear and tear on my camels—all of it would have been for nothing. But she survived. And I got two thousand dinars. So it was a profitable trip after all, thanks be to Allah.”

  Seamie, enraged by the man’s callous cruelty, had nearly lashed out at Aziz. Khalaf’s hand on his arm stopped him.

  “Do not allow your anger to lead you,” he said under his breath. “You can do nothing for Willa if you are dead.”

  “Why?” Seamie asked Aziz, barely able to keep his voice even. “Why did you sell her to the Turks?”

  Aziz looked at him as if he were a simpleton. “Because they pay more than the British,” he said.

  The following day, Seamie and Khalaf set off again, joined by Aziz and two of his men. They had been traveling for three days now and were still another three days from where Aziz said Lawrence’s camp was. Seamie was weary. His wound was oozing and hurting him. He changed the dressings daily, but the strenuousness and constant motion of desert travel aggravated his stitches and slowed his healing. And getting to Damascus was only part of the battle.

  “What will you do once you reach the city, eh?” Aziz had asked him, laughing. “Make an assault on it yourself? You are a fool, Seamus Finnegan, but I like fools. Fools and their money are soon parted.”

  “He will get us to Damascus,” Khalaf al Mor said now, pulling Seamie out of his thoughts. “What we do once we get there, that is the question.”

  “It’s a question I ask myself all the time,” Seamie said. “I never get an answer.”

  “Then do not ask yourself. Ask Allah. With Allah, all things are possible,” Khalaf said serenely.

  Right, Seamie thought. I’ll just ask God. I’ll ask Him to help me find the woman I love, the one who isn’t my wife. The woman with whom I’ve caused my wife and my best friend nothing but grief. The one I still dream about and long for, even though I know I shouldn’t. I’m sure He’ll understand. And oh, by the way, God, it’s me and Khalaf and a few of his men against an entire Turkish garrison. Will you see what you can do, old boy?

  “Have faith, my friend,” Khalaf said. “Have faith.”

  All right, then, Seamie decided. He’d do it. He’d have faith.

  It was better than having nothing.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Willa, drowsing, heard a soft knocking sound. She opened her eyes and saw Max standing in her doorway, smiling, his hands behind his back.

  “May I come in?” he asked.

  “This is your hospital, Max. I am your prisoner. I should think you can do whatever you like,” she replied.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked her, ignoring the barb. “Are you still in pain?”

  “I am,” she said nodding. “You wouldn’t happen to have a pill on you, would you? The ribs are still kicking up and I haven’t seen the nurse for hours.”

  “This might help,” he said, pulling a bottle of wine out from behind his back. It was a 1907 Château Lafite. In his other hand, he had two wineglasses. He filled both glasses, then handed her one. “I snuck it out of the officers’ mess. I hope you like it,” he said, sitting on the bed.

  Willa’s hands shook as she took the glass. Eyeing him warily, she sniffed it, which made him laugh.

  “If I wanted to kill you, there are quicker ways. Slower ones, too. Drink up. There’s nothing in your glass but wine, I swear it,” he said.

  Willa took a sip of the rich Bordeaux. She hadn’t had anything like it in years. It tasted impossibly good. Like civilization and happiness. Like all the beautiful, peaceful nights she’d squandered. Like life before the war.

  “This is wonderful,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “It is good, isn’t it? I’m glad I’m drinking it here. With you. Not with some ghastly old major general in the mess, who’s reminiscing fondly—and endlessly—about the Franco-Prussian War.”

  Willa smiled. She swallowed another mouthful of wine, loving the feeling of it coursing through her body, warming her blood, bringing a flush to her cheeks. For a few seconds, it was as if they were back in Tibet again. They hadn’t any Lafite to drink there, but they’d had tea, which they’d often drunk together in the warmth of a campfire.

  Max refilled her glass. “Have you thought about my offer?” he asked.

  Willa took another drink. “Of course I have,” she said. “But what can I say about it, Max? What do you want me to do? Be a traitor to my own country? Could you do that?”

  Max smiled ruefully. He shook his head. Willa half expected him to call for the firing squad, but he didn’t.

  “It’s amazing how we both ended up here at the same time, isn’t it?” he said. “I’d be tempted to say it was fate, if I believed in fate.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “No. I believe life is what you make it,” he said, refilling his own glass. “I don’t want to be here, that’s for certain. I don’t want to be anywhere near this dreadful place, all heat and dust and soldiers.” He put the bottle on the floor and looked at her. “I want to be where I was happiest, Willa. Back at Everest. With you. I feel that that’s my true country—the Himalayas. It’s yours, too, and you know it. It’s where we both belong.”

  Willa didn’t say anything. She looked into her wineglass.

  “Let’s go back there. The two of us together,” he said softly.

  Willa laughed joylessly. “Just catch the next train east?” she said. “You make it sound so easy.”

  “I never married, you know,” he said, still looking at her. “You ruined me for any other woman.”

  “Max, I—” Willa began, not liking where the conversation was going. Wanting to stop it. Now. Before he said anything else.

  “No, hear me out. At least do that much for me,” he said. “I knew then, back in Tibet, that you had feelings for someone else. But Willa, where is he? All these years later, where is Seamus Finnegan? I shall tell you: not with you. He’s married to another woman and they have a little boy together.”

  Willa b
roke his gaze. She lowered her head. Tears smarted behind her eyes.

  “I don’t say these things to hurt you,” Max said. “Just to make you see the truth. You’re wasting your life longing for something that can never be.” Max reached for her hand. “You don’t belong with Seamus Finnegan. And you don’t belong here, in this desert hell. You don’t belong to this war. Neither of us does.”

  Max leaned in close to her. “For God’s sake, Willa, just tell me what I need to know so I can get this all over with sooner rather than later and get you out of here. I’ve done what I had to do—scare you. I’ve acted the official. Now I’ll protect you. I’ll take care of you. Germany is going to win the war. It won’t take too much longer before it’s all over. And when it is, I’ll marry you—if you’ll let me—and take you back where you belong, to Everest.”

  Willa, her head still down, said, “Do you mean that, Max? Or is it just another spy maneuver?”

  “I do mean it, Willa. I swear it. I give you my word.”

  Willa raised her head. Tears spilled from her eyes.

  “You’re right, Max,” she said. “I’m so tired of this damned war. I’m tired of the waste and the loss. Take me there. Promise me you will. Take me back to Everest.” She leaned her forehead against his, then raised her lips to his and kissed him fiercely.

  He kissed her back, passionately, then with a knowing smile, he pulled away from her.

  “Convince me you mean it, Willa,” he said. “Tell me where Lawrence is. We know the British want Damascus. How far north has he come?”

  “Nablus,” Willa said.

  “He’s that far west?” Max said. “Why?”

  “He’s moving amongst the tribes. Trying to recruit from them.”

  “How many man has he got with him?”

  “Not many. Only about a thousand or so and he’s having difficulty bringing more on board. The Bedouin don’t trust Faisal, and they fear the Turks.”

  Max nodded thoughtfully. “We can fend a thousand off easily. What about Dara?” he asked. “We have reports that say he wants to take that before he takes Damascus.”