Sullah smiled. “Yes, but I believe I know now. I, too, listened when you were talking to Lord Edgewater, Elizabeth. I have always thought him a fool, but you thought so and told him so, and he was too stupid to understand it.” He laughed, one of his great shouts of laughter. “So much for the lord who is in trade. When you are next in a bad temper, I shall tiptoe around you. I hope you never mistake me for an enemy.”
The reference was a reminder of Al-Sahib square, for Sullah had been informed of Elizabeth’s mistaken identification. Although he had not openly admitted it, Sullah had vaguely indicated he had been on possibly illicit business of his own and the Arabs had somehow marked him as easy prey and acted accordingly.
Holmes had formed his own theory on Sullah’s allusions. “There is a fairly heavy tariff for goods taken over the Imperial borders,” he told Elizabeth. “Sullah is carting caravans of goods every year or so. It would profit him to find a way of selling his wares without paying the duties.”
“Smuggling,” Elizabeth concluded, with a smile.
Holmes shrugged. “I shall be careful not to inquire too closely.”
The dinner party had been the last in a round of engagements with Sullah’s western business associates. Normally he packed up and moved out within a week of their departure. The palace that he rented for the season he was in the city was a concession to the western fallacy that all men in Persia were princes that lived in silk-lined tents and kept well stocked harems of beautiful women.
Some of the more obscure corners of the palace were very nearly in ruins and Sullah rented it chiefly for its ornate throne room, which was an excellent show room for his beautiful carpets.
“They like it if they think they have bought carpets from the son of Ali Baba,” Sullah told them frankly. “And the more silk and swags and slave girls I show them, the more money they give me. It is a pleasurable business in some ways.”
On the third day after the party, Sullah invited them to coffee, a Muslim way of opening a business discussion.
Holmes and Elizabeth had learnt a few lessons about Muslim customs by that time, so they dressed according to the customs acceptable to Sullah. Holmes wore the burnoose and a closely shrouded head cloth, which was a sign of respect. Elizabeth wore a head veil and kept well back behind Holmes as was expected of women.
But even as she began to make her obeisance, Sullah caught her joined hands in his and lifted her back to her feet. “No, I will not have it,” he said. “You have proved your right to stand at the same height as I.” He deftly unhooked her face veil. “Sit, sit. I have business to discuss with both of you.” He pointed to Holmes’ head wear. “I would much rather see your face than your respect,” he told him.
They joined Sullah at the low table and waited politely until he had poured the first cup of very strong Turkish coffee for each of them.
“I am leaving in a week,” he told them gravely. “I will be heading back for my home beneath the Elburz Mountains.” He passed a cup to Holmes, then Elizabeth. “I do not like to leave this city without all my debts and credits balanced nicely, for it is a year and sometimes two, before I return. These modern times have speeded up, for often when I return the faces are not the same.”
They politely agreed with him.
“However, with you, Elizabeth, I owe the life debt and that is a heavy debt to pay.”
Elizabeth hesitated. It had been her first intention to pass over it lightly but she realized that to do so would be to cheapen the quality of Sullah’s life. Instead she nodded politely. “Indeed it was a happy day for me when I did save your life for now I have a friend.”
Sullah looked pleased at her response. “Exactly. Exactly. So I have been thinking carefully about what I can do to repay this debt, but nothing appropriate comes to mind. It is a little difficult, because I have never had to concern myself with what a woman considers important before now.”
“Is it that you wish to ask me what I desire?” Elizabeth asked, maintaining a neutral face despite Sullah’s candid admission.
“I believe I have a solution that will distract you until I do arrive at the answer.” Sullah sipped at his coffee and they realized that the dramatic pause meant he was arriving at the purpose behind his invitation to coffee.
“It has come to my attention that you wish to travel east. Yes?”
Holmes nodded. “Yes.”
Neither of them wondered how their needs had ‘come to his attention’. They had been surrounded by slaves, family, guards and others in Sullah’s retinue for two days and had spoken extensively with Sullah and his business associates, as well as every other member of his household that spoke either English or Arabic. Somewhere during those conversations and through observation, report and deduction, Sullah had learned this information.
“I wondered why you have not followed the typical English custom of travelling by boat or steam ship or train to Bombay and thence to China, to do all the things that typical English do. But then, you are not typical English. You do not think like typical English. You went to Al-Sahib square dressed as natives so you could blend in and learn the truth. I invite you to coffee and you do me the honor of following my customs. You are extraordinary people.”
Even in three days, they had learnt that this expression was Sullah’s highest form of praise. But he had not finished.
“I feel to pay off the debt I owe, I should put much thought into it. How long have we known each other? Three days? It is not long enough to discover the inner workings of another. But then I learn…you want to travel further east. Perfect! I am leaving for Persia in a week. I could use two people as handy with their knives as these. I will ask them to travel with me and my horses and protect us from harm, and that will give me so much more time to discover what it is a woman could want in return for my life.”
Elizabeth caught Holmes’ eyes over the coffee cup. It was a perfect solution. They could travel at ease with a large group of people that knew the route intimately. It also gave them a direction, which they had been searching for. Persia. Mashhad.
Elizabeth nodded her head very slightly at Holmes’ questioning look. Gently he replaced his coffee cup, pushed it aside and settled down to discuss terms.
•ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï•
“He employed you?” I asked of Elizabeth.
“Yes. We had our first assignment as mercenaries.” She laughed at the appalled look on my face. “We were out of contact with England. Mycroft wouldn’t have dared send us money even if he knew where we would be from one day to the next. We were on our own.”
Sullah’s contract was the standard terms offered to anyone who wished to work their way along the trade routes. They would travel with his caravan and give him any assistance he needed or requested. In return he would give them food and shelter and the protection afforded by travelling with a large group.
His caravan consisted of one hundred horses and thirty-six men, women and children, eight long heavy carts to be hauled by the work horses and a retinue of soldiers to guard them all. The caravan moved slowly. To travel fifteen miles in a day was considered good progress, especially through the mountainous country they would be travelling over toward the north end of the Euphrates valley. Sullah generally allowed himself three months for the entire journey and was anxious to get under way.
The caravan assembled outside of the city and began its first leg of the journey to Ankara barely seven days after Sullah’s proposal to Holmes and Elizabeth. By the time they had reached Ankara, they were well settled into the slow, easy routine of the caravan. Travel was only during daylight hours, so they would not miss any of the subtle navigation signposts. Camp was set up for the night in the last hour of daylight, and the precious horses corralled. The men set up shelter for the least hardy travelers, and the women cooked the only hot meal of the day on open fires while the children ran and played and watched the activities of the men.
Holmes and Elizabeth, as guards, had no onerous
duties at all. They were privileged members of the caravan and were treated with respect. At first, they believed their assigned duties were little more than a name and a status symbol for Sullah. But they were barely south of Ankara when they were disabused of the notion.
They had bent further toward the south, to pick up the very beginnings of the Euphrates, which they would follow into Mesopotamia before branching off to Baghdad, where Sullah would trade some of his horses. On the second day out from Ankara, the caravan was set upon by a mottled, ragbag group of bandits whose main interest was in the riches Sullah carried on the heavily-burdened carts. The bandits were most likely desperate beggars from the decrepit fringes that made up nearly two-thirds of Ankara’s city profile. They were unskilled and after first blood, unenthusiastic and Sullah’s soldiers chased them off very quickly. Neither Holmes nor Elizabeth fired a shot and their knives remained sheathed throughout, but it served to prove to them that their positions were anything but honorary.
All the guards rode on horseback, to give them the extra speed necessary to protect the long tail of the caravan. Sullah lent Holmes and Elizabeth a horse each. Both horses were the pick of his purchases that summer and were beautiful.
Elizabeth liked to race ahead of the slow moving caravan, her stallion’s smooth ground-swallowing gallop soothing and exhilarating at once. Sometimes Holmes accompanied her. More often she forged ahead alone. This was a personal and mental freedom far greater than any of her strolls about the moors and she would only ever achieve a vague semblance of it once she had left the Persian mountains behind her. Holmes, with the growing intuitive understanding he would forever after share with her, allowed her to roam as she pleased. The deadly skills he was training up in her were his gift toward her freedom. Some people would be appalled by Elizabeth’s combat abilities, but these skills clothed her like an invisible shield potential enemies could sense and trouble rarely came her way.
She roamed the mountains and valleys as she pleased, wearing the tight coat, and gaily-colored cummerbund of the Kurds and her hair was left loose, her soul concession to womanhood. Sullah outfitted them both with warm fleece-lined riding boots and she also adopted the trousers, finding them the most comfortable attire when she was astride a horse nearly all day.
She would move along the length of the caravan, talking to whoever she pleased, improving both her Arabic and Farsi, the Persian tongue, her bright red locks shining in the strong summer sun, making her stand out conspicuously. She would walk Merlin, her horse, alongside a cart, talking to the driver, then perhaps race at full speed to the top of the caravan and exchange a few words with the guide.
Holmes frequently traveled alongside Sullah, talking quietly to him in Persian. He had mastered the fundamentals and a basic vocabulary at an astonishing rate. He also often sought out the elders of the family and spoke to them at length.
Sometimes he rode at the head of the caravan with the guide, discussing their route and the mountain passes and what lay further east, beyond Sullah’s land.
Sullah found him there one afternoon and pulled his own wide-chested stallion in alongside.
Holmes was watching the distant but unmistakable figure of Elizabeth, far down toward the end of the valley they were traversing. She was astride Merlin and galloping back to the caravan, her burnished locks flying out behind her.
Sullah examined his English friend. “She is like a colt, is Elizabeth,” he said. “Discovering the world and freedom before she is introduced to the bridle and bit.”
Holmes nodded. “She knows it will come, though, but not for a while.”
“Must you return, my friend?” Sullah asked softly. “It would be an unkindness to Elizabeth…and I would lose two remarkable friends.”
Holmes looked down at his intricately carved saddle. “London is another world away. I could not imagine anything more unlikely than returning to its grimness, yet we both belong there and one day it will be time to return. Even Elizabeth will want to return.”
Sullah watched Elizabeth’s breakneck speed down the valley. “It seems unlikely. It is a very great gift you give her.” He laughed shortly. “She is the most admired woman in the camp. Every man lusts after her yet none will dare approach her, so fierce is her reputation and the reputation of the man who watches her so carefully.” He glanced at Holmes covertly. “Is it not uncharacteristic of Sherlock Holmes to be so intimate with a woman?”
Holmes’ head jerked around at Sullah’s use of his name, then he relaxed, for there were only a scant handful in the camp that spoke English and none were within hearing range. He eyed Sullah warily. “You read too much into Watson’s chronicles, Sullah. I am surprised The Strand reaches this far.”
“Ah, yes, you relax despite my revelation. Then you know you can trust me.”
Holmes nodded. “Implicitly.”
“I am very pleased to meet the great Sherlock Holmes…and very puzzled.”
“One day you will understand. For now it is enough that I tell you the world believes Sherlock Holmes is dead and my life depends upon that misrepresentation remaining uncovered. Elizabeth’s life, too. She is deeply involved in the machinations that bring us here.”
Sullah held up his hand. “Peace. My lips are silent.”
Elizabeth reined in her horse beside them, her eyes shining and her cheeks glowing. “You two are looking grim. Stop discussing politics and enjoy this beautiful air and sunshine.”
Sullah laughed.
•ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï•
They reached Sullah’s home on the slopes of the Elburz Mountains north of Mashhad just as winter began to set in. Their caravan had diminished by that time, for parties had left the group as they reached their own destination. It had been a long, indirect trip for across Persia there are only two trade and travel routes, which follow the mountain chains. Only a fool would attempt to travel other than along their well-established paths.
The most populous route and the one Sullah’s caravan used, begins in Baghdad, and travels even further south to skirt the western barrier range before turning north-east and heading directly for Teheran. Another route runs from Teheran across to Mashhad, following the long line of mountains that end almost at Mashhad.
Their arrival caused excitement among the people who had remained in Sullah’s home, for there would be many gifts and goods to inspect before the day was through. The travelers dispersed among their relatives and friends and Sullah arranged for rooms for Elizabeth and Holmes, where they gratefully relaxed on western style beds.
They stayed in Sullah’s home for the remainder of that winter, a bitterly cold period of exceptional snowfalls. Travel would have been impossible, even if they had wanted to move on, but they were content for the meantime to rest and regain some strength.
It was a time of waiting for Elizabeth, for she sensed that Holmes was still searching for their goal.
She spent much of her time making repairs to clothes and possessions and learning some of the herb lore of Persian cooking and medicine. This knowledge became invaluable. The Persians had spent generations of nomadic existence. It was only in recent history that permanent homes had become the norm outside of cities. Their skills in living off the land as they traveled and conserving food and water were honed from that era of constant travel.
Later, Holmes and Elizabeth would find themselves healthy and well-fed in apparently barren country because of the nomadic skills they had absorbed during their journey with Sullah, and later at Mashhad.
As they fell into the domestic routines of Sullah’s home, Elizabeth noticed Holmes was spending more and more time with the strange little man that came from over the mountains. She had never bothered to learn more about him, for he was a solitary creature who spoke Persian badly and Arabic not at all. He tended the goats that traveled with the caravan—the walking larder—with a deft hand and a keen instinct. At night he would wrap himself in skins and sleep on the ground by his animals. The routine never cha
nged.
Now that Holmes was showing such a deep interest in him, Elizabeth’s curiosity was piqued. She asked Sullah about the man.
“He is from Tibet.” Sullah looked over to where the man was tending the hooves of some of the young kids. “He came out of the mountains one day, badly cut about by bandits and with nothing to his name. We took him in and cared for him, for the frostbite had got him. We saved all but his toes—they were beyond help. In return he tends the goats.”
“Doesn’t he have any greater ambition than that? Has he ever expressed a desire to return to Tibet? To his home?”
Sullah shrugged. “If you ask him, he will say his home is here. I do not believe he has any relatives and now he considers us his family. It is hard to get details from him, for he has never really bothered to improve his Persian. He is a wonderful man to talk to if you are looking for peace of mind. He understands the secret of life, I am sure. There is a placidness, a forgiveness in him that hints of higher wisdom. I am not surprised Holmes seeks him out.”
Elizabeth returned to her small affairs about the homestead, pondering this new puzzle. Sometime later, as the sun was flattening on the horizon, she found Holmes still near his rock, watching a spectacular display of colors playing over the face of the eastern mountains. His absent frown had disappeared and his entire attention was involved in the enjoyment of the display.
She sat on the rock, appreciating its warmth now the small heat of the day had evaporated and studied him overtly. Holmes eventually acknowledged her presence, sitting beside her. He pulled the long skirts of his coat aside and lifted one knee to rest his chin upon.
“You want to travel to Tibet, don’t you?” Elizabeth asked.
Holmes lit a cigarette before answering. “The old man, Ch’ang T’i…he has a placid wisdom that appeals to something in me. He tells me I can find it there. In Tibet.”
Chronicles of the Lost Years (The Sherlock Holmes Series) Page 11
