Jerusalem Poker (The Jerusalem Quartet Book 2)

by Edward Whittemore

  But not so that June night in 1914. On that cool evening his father had stared into his mug without a word, gloomily stared at the floor without a word, until finally toward midnight he began to relate.

  All right, said his father, all right now. If you want to know the shape of things I’ll tell you what I see. I see a great war coming in two months time. And seventeen of my sons are going to fight in that war and die in that war, one in every army that makes up that bloody war. But that’s not what eats at this old heart. They’re men now and can decide for themselves. What eats at this old heart is that not one of them is going to die fighting for Ireland. And that’s our people for you, everyone’s cause but our own.

  Terrible, whispered the neighbors.

  Terrible it is, said his father. But wait now, there’s more. I also see a rising of the Irish nation in two years time, and then at last I’m going to have one son fighting for his country, a mere lad it’s true but he’ll be there all the same, that small dark boy you see standing perfectly straight in the corner behind you, his destiny now foretold.

  And then, added his father, the lad having done his duty here, he’s going to go on and become the King of Jerusalem for some reason.

  Don’t blaspheme, warned the shocked neighbors.

  And none intended, said his father at once in embarrassment. I have no idea why I said that.

  Nor did Joe. But in 1916 the Easter Uprising came as predicted and Joe was there helping to hold the Dublin post office before it fell, escaping then to the south and fighting alone in the hills of Cork for four long years before the Black and Tans tracked him down and he had to flee the country in the only way he could, disguised as a Poor Clare nun among a dozen Poor Clares sailing on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

  To Jerusalem. Where he lay in a gutter outside the Franciscan enclave in the Old City, penniless and knowing no one, whispering into the dirt in Gaelic the name of the Irish revolutionary party, We ourselves, praying one of the priests who passed would be Irish and take pity on him.

  As one did. The former MacMael n mBo, a whimsical man far advanced in years who in the folly of his youth had served as an officer of light cavalry in a British brigade in the Crimea. Who had survived a famous suicidal charge there when his mount fell, and as a result been awarded the first Victoria Cross ever given. Who now for the last six decades had been the priest in charge of the Franciscan bakery in Jerusalem.

  Who are you really, lad? the elderly priest had asked Joe as he lay in that Jerusalem gutter, starving and exhausted. And to identify himself with the little breath he had left, Joe had whispered the legend of the O’Sullivan Beare clan.

  Love, the forgiving hand to victory.

  The baking priest had rescued Joe from that Jerusalem gutter and given him his old army uniform and his army papers so that Joe could move into the Home for Crimean War Heroes, a charity in the Old City. The baking priest, eighty-five years old at least and dancing and singing in front of his oven as he baked his loaves of bread in four shapes, the four concerns of his life, the Cross for God and Ireland for home, the Crimea where he had given up war and Jerusalem where he had found peace.

  Singing and dancing in front of his oven and telling Joe not to worry about the date of birth on his army papers. Not to worry about apparent age here because nothing was as it seemed in the Holy City, everybody’s Holy City.

  Bread for brains? Joe had wondered. Simply gone the other way after six decades of sweating and dancing and singing in front of an oven in Jerusalem?

  But he discovered the baking priest had been right about Jerusalem when he made his second friend there, a wizened old man who wore a faded yellow cloak and a rusty Crusader’s helmet tied under his chin with two green ribbons, who appeared half-starved and tottered on spindly legs that seemed too weak to support him, a gentle knight named Haj Harun who roamed through the ages recalling the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor and other heroes of old, who remembered the building of Solomon’s temple in his youth, and who for the last three thousand years had been hopelessly defending his Holy City against all enemies, always on the losing side.

  On that day when they’d met in front of Haj Harun’s shop, the old man had taken one look at Joe’s Victoria Cross and decided that he was Prester John, the legendary priest-king of an ancient lost Christian kingdom somewhere in Asia.

  Come right in, Haj Harun had said happily. I’ve been expecting you, Prester John. I knew you’d turn up in Jerusalem sooner or later in search of your lost kingdom. Everyone does.

  Then Maud. An American and the first woman he had ever really known. Maud and love in the spring.

  They met in Jerusalem in the spring and went down into the desert to be alone together. To a tiny oasis on the shores of the Sinai, and to Joe that month on the Gulf of Aqaba was the happiest he had ever known in life. But Maud was different after they returned to Jerusalem. And she refused to marry him, even though she was going to have his child.

  When the weather on the heights turned cool in the autumn he found a house for them in the warm Jordan valley, a little house with flowers and lemon trees near Jericho, another oasis it seemed to Joe, where their child would be born toward the end of winter.

  But no, he hadn’t found another oasis as it turned out. In Jericho he couldn’t seem to do anything right, anything that pleased her. No matter what he did Maud seemed angry, often even refusing to speak to him.

  Joe couldn’t understand any of it. It was true he was away much of the time smuggling arms, had to be away, as a fugitive it was the only way he could find to make a living for them. And his absences especially seemed to infuriate Maud. That and his dream of finding the Sinai Bible, the original Bible with its treasure maps of the riches buried beneath the Old City, which he’d heard about soon after coming to Jerusalem.

  The original Bible? Discovered in the Sinai in the nineteenth century? Just knowing it existed had been a curse and a hope for Joe, a dream as it had been for so many others before him.

  So it became worse and worse in Jericho. Joe totally bewildered, only twenty years old, and Maud more distant than ever, afraid of something perhaps but unable to talk to him about it, ignoring him as he sat up alone late at night in the garden behind the little house, drinking until he fell asleep. Drinking until it was time to leave once more to smuggle arms into Palestine.

  And then toward the end of winter Maud left him. Abandoned the little house in Jericho without even leaving a note behind, not even that. Taking with her the son he had never seen. Born while Joe was away running guns to make money.

  Money. That’s what he needed, he knew that then. Money had kept him away from Jericho. If only there’d been money it wouldn’t have turned out the way it had, or so he thought. And he wouldn’t have lost the only woman he’d ever loved, or so he thought.

  Money. The treasure maps of the Sinai Bible, the original Bible that was now buried somewhere in the Old City. To find it he needed secret control of Jerusalem, and since Maud had left him, the clues to the past that it contained had become his sole interest in life, or so he thought.

  Years ago his father had prophesied that he would become the King of Jerusalem. His father had said it unintentionally, not knowing why he said it. But his father’s prophecies were never wrong, so Joe knew he could become the secret king. He knew he could win the Great Jerusalem Poker Game and go on to recover the Sinai Bible. He only had to want it enough.

  And he did want it enough, he wanted nothing else. Money and power and the Sinai Bible, they were everything to him.

  Or so he thought.

  A black day, thundered Haj Harun, suddenly bursting into the room and angrily stamping his bare feet on the floor.

  Black and blacker and blackest, he shouted. As black as the bowels of the devil. Black. Black.

  Joe stirred and looked up in surprise. He’d never known the gentle old knight to speak so vehemently.

  Listen man, why do you keep saying that in all this heat?

&nbs
p; Gloomily Haj Harun stared at a wall and retied the two green ribbons under his chin.

  Because I can’t forget it, he said. I’ll never forget it and it happened on a July day just like this one.

  When was that?

  Haj Harun frowned.

  About eight hundred years ago? Is that right?

  It could be. Which event are we referring to?

  Haj Harun groaned. Joe could see he didn’t want to say it, even the words seemed detestable to him. And when the old man finally did say it, cringing as he did so, he spat out the words as if they were the most abominable curse in the world.

  The Crusaders taking Jerusalem.

  Joe paused, feeling sorry for the old man. He nodded grimly.

  Ah, that occasion. And to think a moment ago I was imagining I had troubles. Just nothing compared to the unholy carnage you’re talking about.

  Haj Harun scowled at the wall.

  I wonder if they still have the arrogance to celebrate their conquest.

  Where?

  In the caverns.

  Joe raised his head. He smiled.

  The caverns, of course. Why didn’t I think of that before? It’d have to be a lot cooler down there. They used to celebrate, you say?

  They did. Just shamelessly gloating over their brutal victory.

  Well well, cooler at least. Why don’t we make a descent to that level and see what’s doing?

  At the bottom of the ladder that led down from inside the antique Turkish safe, Haj Harun’s wizened smile suddenly flared in the solid blackness. He had lit the torch. Joe jumped.

  My God man, don’t scare a poor soul like that in the underworld. Who’s to know whether you’re real or not? You could be a caveman’s painting or a ghost on the loose or just about anything.

  No task, murmured Haj Harun, affords more happiness than being a servant of light. This way now to the Crusades. Just please don’t make any noise, Prester John. We don’t want them to hear us.

  We do not, whispered Joe. And quiet I am in the tunnels of the past, reverent as well. Just please don’t get too far ahead of me with that torch. You know where we’re going but I don’t. And as hot as it is up there above, I don’t want to find myself left behind down here in some corner of history.

  They walked down tunnels and made innumerable turns. Joe was becoming nervous.

  Are you sure you remember the way?

  Yes. We’re close now.

  How can you tell?

  The smell.

  There was a strange smell in the air, Joe had noticed it. Something very sour and growing stronger every moment. Haj Harun’s faded yellow cloak floated around a corner and all at once they were in darkness. Joe bumped into a wall.

  Jaysus it’s all over now, he muttered. Blind in the underworld with a ghost for my guide.

  He groped his way around the corner and was struck by a blast of cool air.

  Jaysus again.

  Where’s Prester John?

  Here for God’s sake. Where’s the bloody torch?

  The wind blew it out. Just a minute.

  Joe heard a rustling sound. Somewhere nearby Haj Harun cleared his throat. Suddenly an enormous mournful wail shook the blackness. Joe could feel it vibrating against his skin.

  Jaysus Joseph and Mary, what’s that?

  The lighted torch reappeared. A few yards away stood Haj Harun smiling triumphantly, holding a ram’s horn.

  Did you like it? he asked.

  Like it, you say. Like it? No I did not. It almost scared me to death.

  That’s what it’s for. I keep it here to frighten the knights away just in case. They don’t seem to know about this cellar anymore but it’s best to be safe.

  Safe, said Joe and choked, overwhelmed by the stench he had forgotten in the excitement. Haj Harun was tying a handkerchief over his face and Joe did the same. They were standing in a large vaulted room lined with shelves cut into the rock, the shelves piled high with rows of dusty bottles. Haj Harun took down a bottle and showed Joe the label, a peculiar white cross on a black background, the arms of the cross in the shape of arrowheads, their points not quite touching at the center. Beneath the cross was a date in Latin, A.D. 1122.

  Recognize it?

  No. But I’d say it must have belonged to a medieval tippler with a Christian bias.

  Indeed it did, they all did. The Knights of St John, no less. Also known as the Knights of Jerusalem and the Knights of Rhodes and finally as the Knights of Malta, since that’s where they ended up, but their proper name was the Knights Hospitalers. They became the most powerful of all the warring orders, but originally they were founded here to run a charitable hospital for pilgrims.

  What’s in the bottles?

  Cognac.

  True?

  Yes, they brought it from France eight hundred years ago. They said it was for medicinal purposes. To ease the pains of pilgrims.

  Joe whistled softly.

  Ah yes, cognac brought to the Holy Land by the Crusaders to ease the pains of pilgrims. Well how’s it taste then? Gone off a bit in eight hundred years?

  I’m afraid it has, said Haj Harun. I know cognac is supposed to improve with age but that doesn’t seem to have happened here. But it was delicious once, as I well know.

  Had a nip or two, did you, over the eras?

  Well not regularly. I haven’t been able to do much real drinking since my liver gave out during Hellenistic times.

  What did it then?

  Bad shellfish. A Greek grocer said the mussels were fresh from Cyprus, which they might have been, they certainly made a delicious soup. But they were also polluted.

  Oh I see, polluted mussels. Well I guess we all have to expect some toxins creeping in over time. As for me, if my liver had given out twenty-two hundred years ago, I think I’d be an unrecognizable wreck by now.

  But there was a period, mused Haj Harun, when this cognac saved my life. It was when I had tuberculosis.

  Dastardly, that. When was it?

  In the sixteenth century when the Turks arrived. Their breath was so appalling it weakened my lungs.

  Bad breath can do that?

  When it’s as bad as theirs was, yes. I can’t imagine the state of their stomachs in the sixteenth century. Excited, I suppose, over all their victories. Anyway, I was employed by the Turks as a distributor of hashish and goats, and as a result of my customers breathing in my face I developed a severe case of tuberculosis.

  Dreadful.

  So I consulted my local physician and he prescribed plenty of rest and liquids and no heavy lifting.

  Sound advice.

  So I came down here and spent a year resting and drinking cognac and smoking cigars, catching up on my reading and lifting nothing heavier than a book and a bottle, and by the end of the year I was totally cured.

  Does it every time.

  And I haven’t had a relapse since then. Not one.

  It’s true, you haven’t. You know, there must be thousands of bottles in this Crusader wine cellar.

  There are.

  Yes, thought Joe, and the baking priest knows his Latin so what’s to keep me from getting him to forge a letter from someone to someone, dated in A.D. 1122, proving the stuff is authentic Crusader cognac worth a fortune? There’s money in that for sure, and we’re talking about treasure even though I haven’t found the map to it yet.

  Who ran the Knights Hospitalers?

  They had a grand master.

  A letter from the grand master, thought Joe, that’s the job. A formal yet tasty document to the king of France offering warm thanks for his Christmas contribution to the good works being done by the boys in Jerusalem, in keeping with the spirit of charity ten thousand pleasing bottles of much appreciated rare cognac for thirsty pilgrims in the Holy City.

  Haj Harun slammed a bottle against the wall and broke off its neck.

  Care for a sip?

  The fumes rushed up at Joe. He gagged and doubled over, coughing at what might have been vinegar
five or six centuries ago but was now a noxious gas unique in the world. He pulled Haj Harun out of the room and the old man followed, still clasping his ram’s horn. After walking for another two or three minutes, Haj Harun stopped and whispered that it was just around the corner.

  What is? asked Joe.

  The great assembly hall of the Crusaders. And we have to be careful now, they carry all sorts of lances and swords and spiked maces. Just terrible to see, more frightening than the Babylonians.

  Joe looked down at his shabby patched uniform. He fingered his Victoria Cross uneasily.

  The VC was a cross all right and no mistaking it, which might help to establish his Christian piety. But the uniform? How could they know it belonged to an officer of light cavalry in the Crimean War? A hero who’d survived a famous suicidal charge launched on behalf of Christian righteousness? They wouldn’t even have heard of that charge.

  Are you ready? whispered Haj Harun.

  Unarmed, muttered Joe. But as ready as I’ll ever be against the combined might of the First Crusade.

  Haj Harun got down on his hands and knees and gestured for Joe to do the same. The torch was extinguished. Joe peered down the tunnel and saw a faint light at the end.

  The ceiling of the tunnel sloped down to meet them as they crawled quietly forward and squeezed through a hole, emerging on a smooth ledge flat on their stomachs. Joe noticed the rocks around them had been cut away in neat rectangular blocks. They peeked over the edge of the ledge.

  Joe’s eyes narrowed. They were facing a high square chamber, not a cave but man-made, carved out of the rock. Torches lined the walls and there no more than ten feet below them was an impressive crowd of several hundred men wearing brightly colored robes and a bewildering array of hats, most of them tall and peaked.

  Flags and pennants were everywhere. At one end of the subterranean hall an elevated wooden platform had been erected. On it sat a half-dozen potentates in particularly ornate robes, listening attentively as one of their number addressed the assembly.

  The new and enlarged College of Cardinals, thought Joe. Rome lost out after all. They’ve brought their business back here and that must be the new pope who’s just been elected. Jerusalem wins in the end.