Night of a Thousand Stars

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  I nodded. “That will do very nicely. Two days. Shall we say midmorning? I must be getting on now before the colonel has an apoplexy.”

  I went to give her the guidebook, but she waved me off. “Keep it, miss. Study the maps. You might find it useful to know your way around a strange city.”

  I smiled. “Little you know. I’ve spent most of the voyage reading that very guidebook as well as half a dozen others. I’ll wager I know more about getting around Damascus than any casual traveller has a right to.”

  “Good,” she said, tucking the bag away with crisp efficiency. “You never know when such knowledge will come in handy.”

  We parted then, and I hurried to the colonel, full of apologies. He harrumphed a little and I trotted off after him. I glanced back only once to see Masterman emerging from the ladies’ retiring room, her hat once more pinned securely atop her head, her capacious handbag in hand. And it gave me some comfort to know that I had a friend in the city. I hoped wherever he was, Sebastian knew he did, as well.

  Seven

  I trotted obediently behind as the colonel forced his way through the crowds and towards the waiting taxis. The languor of old age seemed to have fallen away from him. His steps were brisk and even his cane was used more often to prod people out of the way than to keep him from falling. I exchanged quick smiles with Talbot.

  “He always gets like this when he travels,” he told me, pitching his voice low for my ears only. “In England he seems to waste away, but when he gets abroad, he comes alive again.”

  “I can see why,” I breathed. I had travelled before, rather frequently. But nothing about our trips to fashionable resorts had prepared me for the East. The station was teeming with people in all forms of native dress. There were Frenchmen neatly attired and Englishmen whose London tailoring put them to shame. There were Damascenes dressed in their native robes, and here and there a Bedouin with the customary headdress and long boots, eyes rimmed in kohl to prevent the desert sun from burning their eyelids. I could even see a Turk or two with their fezzes, remnants of an empire that had crumbled to dust in the last war, gambling on a German victory. The colonel had explained that now the Turks had only themselves to rule, their vilayets broken up and handed to the victors. Damascus had been the ripest plum of all. Since time immemorial it had been the great city of jasmine, the pearl of the desert, revered by Julian the Apostate as the “eye of the East” the jewel of many a conqueror’s crown. This time it had been given to the French, but now the native Syrians were intent upon wrestling it back, and a sense of expectancy hummed in the air.

  “Let’s not linger,” Talbot prodded. “I won’t be easy until we get a feel for what’s really happening here.”

  I turned to him in mingled alarm and excitement. “Surely you don’t think they would turn on the English?”

  His expression was grim. “I don’t think anything yet. It’s early days, and things could get ugly. I mean to be ready if they do.”

  With that he tucked a firm hand under my elbow and guided me out, into the waning sunlight and the city beyond. The taxis were assembled haphazardly, but with a good deal of arm waving and shouting the colonel finally managed to make himself understood. His Arabic was nonexistent and his French execrable, but he resorted to the time-honoured tactic of waving bits of money around and suddenly things began to happen. We were bundled into a taxi with the baggage slung onto the back, held with ropes and dumb good luck. The driver was free with his horn and freer with his hands, gesturing wildly as he shouted abuse at pedestrians and donkeys and other drivers.

  In spite of the chaos, it somehow worked, and within a remarkably short period of time we had arrived at our hotel. Once the palace of a Turkish pasha, it had been taken in hand by a Frenchman with exquisite taste and piles of money. He had retained all that was best of the East and added sufficient comforts that even the most exacting westerners would find nothing to complain of. Only the plumbing was a bit temperamental, but I certainly didn’t have the heart to fuss—not when my view was of the old city, minarets and tiled roofs and gardens thick with oleander and bougainvillea, shimmering under the setting sun. As I stood in the open window, I could hear the call of the muezzin, summoning the faithful to prayer. Allah was good, Allah was merciful. And I was in the heart of it all.

  After wrestling a bit with the uncooperative taps, I finished my toilette and descended to the lobby. In the corner I saw Masterman, hair tucked neatly under her hideous brown hat, reading a newspaper. She did not look up as I passed, and I breathed a little easier knowing all was well with her as I went to meet the colonel. Talbot had done him proud, dressing him in his evening best without a speck of dust or stray hair of Peeky’s to ruin his grandeur. Masterman had insisted upon packing two evening gowns for me, and I had reached for the more stylish of the two—a straight-sided frock of peacock silk embroidered with a feather motif. A fringe of feathers floated about my knees, tickling my legs. It was a dress for making mischief, and the colonel saluted me smartly when he saw it.

  “Very pretty indeed,” he assured me. “Now, I know you’re bound to feel a mite out of your depth with the comtesse, but don’t let that put you off. You look quite fetching, my dear, and it wouldn’t be suitable for you to try to ape a lady of her sophistication.”

  I smiled, wondering what the colonel would say if he knew the dress I was wearing had cost twenty guineas or that my youth had been spent reconciling the various demands of Debrett’s and the New York Social Register for arranging seating at Mother’s dinner parties. Clearly Cubby had given him a highly edited account of my past if he thought dinner with a mere comtesse would put me off my game.

  The comtesse had sent her own car and driver for us, and if they were any indication, we were in for a treat. Both were luxurious and highly polished, and I wondered if the driver’s few minutes of tardiness could be put down to having stopped to wipe it clean. I scraped my shoes carefully as I stepped into the pristine interior.

  “I am Faruq,” the driver told us. “I am at your disposal while you are in our city.”

  The colonel gave a nod of satisfaction. “That’s Sabine for you,” he told me with a finger to the side of his nose. “Madame la Comtesse de Courtempierre. She’s half-Damascene—her mother was a rare beauty, a rare beauty indeed,” he said with a touch of wistfulness. “And her father was French, a member of the Castries family. Sabine married another Frenchman, but he’s been dead twenty years. She came back here to her mother’s people, but she lives as a European. For the most part,” he added.

  I was eager to meet our hostess, and as the car wended its way through the teeming streets, it occurred to me that a quiet private home might come as a welcome change. Damascus was not the easiest city to navigate, but Faruq did an admirable job of it. We passed through the merchant quarter and into a more peaceful residential area in the suburbs. This was where wealthy Damascenes had built their homes for generations, away from the din of the souks. The streets were lined with thick walls pierced here and there with ornamental gates and laden with tangled vines of jasmine. The walls gave away no secrets, and it was not until one of the gates opened and the car glided inside that I realised just how remarkable the houses were.

  We drove into a large court paved with stone and surrounded on three sides by buildings. One of these was clearly an old stable, now refitted to house the motorcar, although I could just see the top of an ornate old carriage tucked away inside. The other two buildings were wings of the house: one for servants, the other, taller and more lavishly decorated, for the family. The colonel clearly knew his way, for he went directly to a wide double door that stood open, spilling warm golden lamplight over the paving stones. We passed through an arch and into another court, but this one was not plain and serviceable like the entry court. It was grand and imposing, with galleries on four sides whose tall arches overlooked a fountain that shimmered and danced in the
light of dozens of glass lamps. Endless pots of flowers and herbs filled the courtyard, perfuming the air thickly, and here and there long stone divans had been fitted with silken cushions to make comfortable places to rest. Gilded birdcages hung from the arcades and tall stands of beautifully wrought iron, and each was filled with an assortment of songbirds, twittering amongst the leaves.

  “Rather nice, what?” said the colonel.

  “It’s magnificent,” I told him truthfully.

  “I am so glad you like it,” said a woman’s voice, low and musical. A figure that had been sitting in the shadows of one of the jasmine vines rose and came towards us. “Cyril, how good to see you again,” she said, holding out her hands.

  The colonel took them in his, clearly delighted to be in her company, and I could well see why. I don’t know what I had expected, but when the colonel told me his friend was a widow of twenty years, I could have been forgiven for thinking she would be white-haired and stooped.

  This woman was a vision. Straight as an oak and very nearly six feet tall, she carried herself with the posture of a queen. But her exquisite carriage was the least of her attractions. She was, quite simply, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and even that word does not do justice. Beauty suggests mere perfection of face and form, but the comtesse had something more—an indefinable elegance and purposefulness to her gestures that made me feel positively bovine in comparison. She was dressed in flowing Eastern robes of dark emerald silk figured in gold, no doubt of local origin. The Damascene looms were some of the finest in the world, and she had made good use of them. Her arms were loaded with slender gold bangles, and a tangle of chains and pendants lay on her breast. She wore a light veil of sheer gold gauze, and even that was held in place with two dainty pins of gold. In spite of her height, she gave the impression of delicacy and grace, and she was the most marvelous creature I had ever seen.

  I hated her on sight.

  It wasn’t mere feminine vanity at work. The beauty, I could see, was only skin-deep. The eyes that looked into mine were fathomless and cold, and the hands that reached for me gripped me so hard the bones ached.

  “This must be the charming Miss March of whom I have heard so much,” she said, smiling. But the smile did not reach her eyes, and I wondered how I could possibly have made an enemy of her so quickly.

  Just then, a passing breeze lifted her veil and I could see the first suggestion of softness at her jaw and a faint webbing of lines at her eyes. The goddess was aging, then, and I understood exactly why she disliked me. She was obviously fond of the colonel, and if she had any designs on him at all, it must rankle for him to turn up with a companion in tow—a companion young enough to be his granddaughter.

  I smiled widely to put her at ease. “Comtesse. You have such a beautiful home.”

  She spread her arms. “And you must consider it open to you for the duration of your stay in Damascus. All that I have I share with my guests. It is the way of the East. And now you must meet my son.”

  She turned and beckoned with a graceful gesture. A shadow detached itself from the leafy corner of one of the galleries and glided forward. As he came into the light, I gulped audibly. If I had thought Talbot was handsome, he was nothing compared to this beautiful boy. But he wasn’t a boy, I realised as he came near. He was a man, fully grown, but with the slender grace of David walking out to meet Goliath. There was an air of beautiful tragedy about him, and I saw his mother’s eyes linger on him with unmistakable pride. She had a right to be proud, I thought. Any woman would have been happy to claim him.

  He inclined his head to greet the colonel, but when he came to me, he reached for my hand, bowing low from the waist and letting a single lock of black hair tumble over his smooth brow. I don’t remember giving my hand to him, but when he rose, he held it between both of his as if it were a trapped bird—lightly, gently, just a whisper of his lips against my fingers before he brushed his thumb across my pulse and released it.

  He was smiling. He had felt the rush of my blood under his thumb and he knew exactly what it meant. “Miss March. We have heard so much about you. Welcome to our home. I am the Comte de Courtempierre, but you will please call me Armand.”

  I nodded. It was the most I could manage, and he smiled again as he turned away.

  We settled into one of the alcove divans for a drink before dinner. The comtesse might have been half-Damascene, but she was clearly not a devoted Muslim. She served a spectacularly good wine, sweet and golden, and I held it up to the lamplight in admiration.

  “It is from Syrian grapes,” the comtesse told me loftily. “From our country estate. If you like it, you must permit me to make you a gift of a case.”

  “That’s too kind of you,” I demurred.

  “Nonsense,” she said, dismissing my objection with a wave of her hand. She had a way of brushing my conversation aside as if I were a tolerable nuisance, and as the evening progressed, it amused me to see how easily she combined graciousness with superiority.

  The comte was a different matter altogether. “This is your first time in Damascus, Miss March?” he asked. “You must have a long list of sights you wish to see.”

  “Indeed,” I said promptly. I had made a list of such places during the voyage as I pored over the maps and tour books.

  “In that case,” he said, his tone suddenly silky, “you must permit me to guide you.”

  He was lounging subtly against the cushions, his pose relaxed, and I wondered if he always looked as if he had just stepped from a sculptor’s plinth.

  But he came by the theatricality honestly. His mother raised her arms just then to bid us to the table, lifting them with all the grace of a pagan priestess summoning her acolytes.

  It was only the four of us at dinner. The comtesse and her son seemed to live alone. I didn’t ask what happened to the previous count, and no one volunteered. The atmosphere was strangely charged, with odd undercurrents, unspoken conversations that seemed to eddy and swirl around me without ever settling.

  The comtesse looked often at her son, her eyes resting on him with great fondness. But her gaze sharpened each time she turned it on me, and I wondered then if she disliked all young women or only those to whom her son showed particular favour. Armand’s attentions were marked, and if it hadn’t been for the graceful combination of Eastern customs and French ways, I would have been embarrassed. He pressed each dish upon me, insisting I try everything, and even sent back the second bottle of wine, ordering a better one to be uncorked for my pleasure. He talked smoothly of anything he thought might interest me—fashion and music mostly—while the comtesse picked at her food and the colonel ploughed through several courses with diligence.

  At last the strange meal drew to a close. “Come,” said Armand, rising from his cushion with practised ease. “I wish to show you the fountain court by moonlight. I think you will find it very lovely.”

  I turned to the colonel, but he flapped a hand, his lids heavy. “Yes, yes. You young people ought to stick together. The comtesse and I will only be talking about old times and that’s never amusing for others.”

  The comtesse’s eyes narrowed and her son gave her a dazzling smile. “Just for a little while, maman.”

  His mouth twitched as he said the words, and in spite of herself, she returned the smile. “As you wish, chou.”

  “Cabbage,” I murmured as we made our way out to the court. “Your mother calls you cabbage.”

  Armand spread his hands in a particularly Gallic gesture. “She still thinks of me as a child. But what can a man do?”

  He asked the question lightly, and he expected no answer. He walked me to the center of the court where the fountain stood, the water trickling peacefully over the stones making a sort of music of its own. The birds were still twittering in their cages, but sleepily now. A long tendril of jasmine snaked overhead and the bl
ossoms were white and starry against the dark, glossy green of the leaves. I pinched one off and a cloud of perfume rose, sweet and sensual.

  “It’s an aphrodisiac, you know, the flower of the jasmine vine. My mother’s people are from Grasse, where the purest jasmine is grown for perfumes. And in those legendary flower fields where the most beautiful French perfumes are born, the farmers refuse to let their virgin daughters into the fields when the jasmine is ripe for fear they will be lost to sensuality.”

  Armand was looking at me intently, the beautiful mouth curved into his habitual half-smile. It was as much a part of him as the Eastern clothes he wore, but it suddenly occurred to me that it seemed affected. That the lips smiled, but something darker and more secret lay behind and unrevealed.

  Just then a bird called sharply and I realised I had crushed the blossom to bits in my palm. Armand turned my hand over and brushed the bruised petals from my skin. He lifted my hand, pressing his nose into my palm and inhaling deeply.

  “Ah, the perfume of jasmine mingled with the skin of a woman. What could be more intoxicating? Have you heard of the golden peaches of Samarkand? So luscious is this fruit that the Emperor of China sent men across all of Asia to fetch them. They are blushing and sweet and delicious,” he said.

  As he spoke, his finger stroked the back of my hand in tiny circles, almost unconsciously. I breathed in sharply and he grinned, baring his teeth in something that was almost but not entirely a smile. He flicked his eyes to the left. “Do you see that staircase, little flower? That leads to the harim. It was there that my ancestors kept the most beautiful, the most delectable women. It was there that they engaged in the most exquisite of pleasures. Would you like to see it?”

  I squared my shoulders and gave him a friendly smile as I stepped away. “I think not, but it’s darling of you to ask.”

  His jaw went slack in astonishment, and then he threw back his head and laughed, suddenly more natural than he had been all evening.