It was thin reassurance, but then Ali shook his head decisively. “Whoever this man is, he is far from stupid. He knows he would never escape a blast. I fear rather that he has circled ahead of us and will be out of the door. Leave me to check down here, and you go up and watch the entrance; the others will be here any moment, and we can then do this properly.” He laid his hand surreptitiously on the gun he wore under his abayya and I nodded and turned up the stairs. At the top I glanced to the right, and then whipped my head back left so fast my spectacles nearly flew off—but whatever I had glimpsed out of the corner of my eye was gone.
It had been something very like a sleek gleam of pale hair, ducking into yet another doorway.
A bare head was an unusual sight even in London; in this country, I did not think I had seen more than a handful of uncovered adult scalps the whole time I had been here. And most of those had been over breakfast in Allenby’s headquarters in—
No! In Haifa, yes, but not over breakfast, not that sleek head. Over a more intimate meal, in Allenby’s office. Over tea and crustless sandwiches. He was here, back in uniform, although he had been unable to conceal the bulky hat under his now-abandoned robes.
“Ali!” I called sharply. “Ssst!”
I could not wait for him. That pale head was a scarce thirty feet from me, racing up a set of stairs that led God knew where. I heard movement from behind me as Ali hurriedly abandoned the depths, but I was already launched. Just before I hit the stairs, Mahmoud strode around the corner coming towards me, with Holmes’ khaki hat going off in the other direction—the sight of them approaching must have been what drove our quarry back. I threw my hand up to attract Mahmoud’s eye, heard him shout to Holmes, and I raced up the stairs with them on my heels.
The ornate chapels at the top of the steps were perhaps fifteen feet above the floor level of the rest of the church, overlooking the entrance vestibule where the guards sat. I thought he intended to risk the drop and the guards for the entrance and the crowds of the bazaar just beyond, but when I burst in, I found him instead with a massive silver candlestick in one hand, a knife in the other, and a cluster of furiously protesting monks standing sensibly just beyond range of the blade. He raised the candlestick and drove it, not onto a tonsured skull, but through a screen, on the other side of which could be glimpsed a richly coloured little room. That he was not using a door could only mean one thing: The chapel on the other side of the screen had its entrance on the outside world. One more blow like that and he would be through it. I took my inadequate little knife from my boot and started hauling monks out of my way. The candlestick went up again, and I shouted his name.
“Plumbury!”
He did not stop, but it startled him enough to spoil his aim. The candlestick went up for the third and no doubt decisive blow, and I had to move or I would find myself staring again at his fast-retreating back with the blue sky above him. There were too many monks in the way to risk throwing the knife, or using the gun; instead, I dived forward, shoving my way between some very solid monastic bodies, and stabbed blindly downward into whatever portion of Plumbury’s anatomy I could reach.
It was his foot, and the heavy leather of his military boot trapped my knife. I tugged once and let it go, but before I could pull away his own blade flicked down and sliced open the back of my wrist. The press of monks that had held me from him was still there, blocking my escape, and as I scrabbled and pulled desperately at their robes, I felt more than saw the knife draw up into the air and slash down again towards my unprotected back.
A single shot rang through the sanctified expanses of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Its echoes called and faded and died off into the shocked and unprecedented silence, and then the heavy candlestick clattered to the ground, followed by the knife, and finally Plumbury himself.
Had I not been so occupied with reassuring the monks that I was not bleeding to death, I would have embraced Mahmoud with all the passion in my young, rescued body, embarrassing us both forever.
The significance of the children of Israel’s sojourn in the desert is that forty years brought about the disappearance of the first generation and the growth of the next, that had not known humiliation in Egypt.
—THE Muqaddimah OF IBN KHALDÛN
For Dorothy Nicholl,
and in memory of Donald,
with love and with gratitude
Read on for an excerpt of
PIRATE
KING
A novel of suspense featuring
Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes
by LAURIE R. KING
Published by Bantam Books
CHAPTER ONE
RUTH: I did not catch the word aright, through being hard of hearing … I took and bound this promising boy apprentice to a pirate.
“HONESTLY, HOLMES? PIRATES?”
“That is what I said.”
“You want me to go and work for pirates.”
O’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free …
“My dear Russell, someone your age should not be having trouble with her hearing.” Sherlock Holmes solicitous was Sherlock Holmes sarcastic.
“My dear Holmes, someone your age should not be overlooking incipient dementia. Why do you wish me to go and work for pirates?”
“Think of it as an adventure, Russell.”
“May I point out that this past year has been nothing but adventure? Ten back-to-back cases between us in the past fifteen months, stretched over, what, eight countries? Ten, if one acknowledges the independence of Scotland and Wales. What I need is a few weeks with nothing more demanding than my books.”
“You should, of course, feel welcome to remain here.”
The words seemed to contain a weight beyond their surface meaning. A dark and inauspicious weight. A Mariner’s albatross sort of a weight. I replied with caution. “This being my home, I generally do feel welcome.”
“Ah. Did I not mention that Mycroft is coming to stay?”
“Mycroft? Why on earth would Mycroft come here? In all the years I’ve lived in Sussex, he’s visited only once.”
“Twice, although the other occasion was while you were away. However, he’s about to have the builders in, and he needs a quiet retreat.”
“He can afford an hotel room.”
“This is my brother, Russell,” he chided.
Yes, exactly: my husband’s brother, Mycroft Holmes. Whom I had thwarted—blatantly, with malice aforethought, and with what promised to be heavy consequences—scant weeks earlier. Whose history, I now knew, held events that soured my attitude towards him. Who wielded enormous if invisible power within the British government. And who was capable of making life uncomfortable for me until he had tamped me back down into my position of sister-in-law.
“How long?” I asked.
“He thought two weeks.”
Fourteen days: 336 hours: 20,160 minutes, of first-hand opportunity to revenge himself on me verbally, psychologically, or (surely not?) physically. Mycroft was a master of the subtlest of poisons—I speak metaphorically, of course—and fourteen days would be plenty to work his vengeance and drive me to the edge of madness.
And only the previous afternoon, I had learnt that my alternate lodgings in Oxford had been flooded by a broken pipe. Information that now crept forward in my mind, bringing a note of dour suspicion.
No, Holmes was right: best to be away if I could.
Which circled the discussion around to its beginnings.
“Why should I wish to go work with pirates?” I repeated.
“You would, of course, be undercover.”
“Naturally. With a cutlass between my teeth.”
“I should think you would be more likely to wear a night-dress.”
“A night-dress.” Oh, this was getting better and better.
“As I remember, there are few parts for females among the pirates. Although they may decide to place you among the support staff.”
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“Pirates have support staff?” I set my tea-cup back into its saucer, that I might lean forward and examine my husband’s face. I could see no overt indications of lunacy. No more than usual.
He ignored me, turning over a page of the letter he had been reading, keeping it on his knee beneath the level of the table. I could not see the writing—which was, I thought, no accident.
“I should imagine they have a considerable number of personnel behind the scenes,” he replied.
“Are we talking about pirates-on-the-high-seas, or piracy-as-violation-of-copyright-law?”
“Definitely the cutlass rather than the pen. Although Gilbert might have argued for the literary element.”
“Gilbert?” Two seconds later, the awful light of revelation flashed through my brain; at the same instant, Holmes tossed the letter onto the table so I could see its heading.
Headings, plural, for the missive contained two separate letters folded together. The first was from Scotland Yard. The second was emblazoned with the words D’Oyly Carte Opera.
I reared back, far more alarmed by the stationery than by the thought of climbing storm-tossed rigging in the company of cut-throats.
“Gilbert and Sullivan?” I exclaimed. “Pirates as in Penzance? Light opera and heavy humour? No. Absolutely not. Whatever Inspector Lestrade has in mind, I refuse.”
“One gathers,” Holmes reflected, reaching for another slice of toast, “that the title originally did hold a double entendre, Gilbert’s dig at the habit of American companies to flout the niceties of British copyright law.”
He was not about to divert me by historical titbits or an insult against my American heritage: This was one threat against which my homeland would have to mount its own defence.
“You’ve dragged your sleeve in the butter.” I got to my feet, picking up my half-emptied plate to underscore my refusal.
“It would not be a singing part,” he said.
I walked out of the room.
He raised his voice. “I would do it myself, but I need to be here for Mycroft, to help him tidy up after the Goodman case.”
Answer gave I none.
“It shouldn’t take you more than two weeks, three at the most. You’d probably find the solution before arriving in Lisbon.”
“Why—” I cut the question short; it did not matter in the least why the D’Oyly Carte company wished me to go to Lisbon. I poked my head back into the room. “Holmes: no. I have an entire academic year to catch up on. I have no interest whatsoever in the entertainment of hoi polloi. The entire thing sounds like a headache. I am not going to Lisbon, or even London. I’m not going anywhere. No.”
Mystery Novels by Laurie R. King
Mary Russell Novels
THE BEEKEEPER’S APPRENTICE
A MONSTROUS REGIMENT OF WOMEN
A LETTER OF MARY
THE MOOR
O JERUSALEM
Kate Martinelli Novels
A GRAVE TALENT
TO PLAY THE FOOL
WITH CHILD
NIGHT WORK
and
A DARKER PLACE
and coming soon in hardcover
FOLLY
he slice on my wrist was bloody but not serious, and as he bound it for me, Ali seemed to find the wound cause for pride, a mark of honour rather than the sign of clumsiness and near disaster. It gave me no problems and eventually left the thinnest curve of a scar, but to make Ali happy I displayed it openly, with studied nonchalance. Mahmoud approved.
Late that evening, though, I did cover it when, in clean skin and a dress borrowed from Helen Bentwich (which felt more like a disguise than anything I had worn since leaving England), I ran the gauntlet of beggars and stares to take my place before the Western Wall, leaving the scrap of paper with my prayer on it between the stones. War wounds, I thought, did not belong in that setting.
After I had paid my visit to the Wall, we left Jerusalem, to travel northwards towards Acre and the boat that would take Holmes and me out of this country, back to the equally troubling case that awaited us in England. I had seen very little of the Jerusalem known to pilgrims and tourists. I did not wade up Hezekiah’s Tunnel nor venture into St Anne’s magnificent simplicity, did not walk the perimeter walls or tour the Citadel or poke among the finds of the archaeologists. I did not even go to gaze upon the ethereal beauty of the Dome or upon the Rock itself that I had helped save—not that time, at any rate.
I left the city without seeing these things, because they would not have fit. They belonged to a different pilgrimage, and would have constituted a different set of memories, and one set was as much as I could assimilate just then. I also felt no urgency to “see” Jerusalem: I knew that there would be a “next year in Jerusalem.”
Besides which, I could imagine nothing that would top my memory of that Sunday afternoon when we trailed back to the Jaffa Gate and piled into a horse carriage to save us the uphill walk to Government House. We arrived there at sunset, and the spurious uniform Holmes wore was the only thing that kept us from being arrested on sight. We all reeked of sweat and sewage, bat droppings and paraffin smoke and burnt flesh, and other than Holmes’ khaki shell everything about us was battered, blood spattered, and filthy beyond belief. The appalled military guard took our weapons and escorted us, very nearly at gunpoint, through the layers of army officialdom until we were brought before Allenby himself, who sat among the empty teacups in front of a blazing fire in the elegant formal drawing room, surrounded by the notables who had accompanied him on the peaceful, and peace-building, afternoon at the Dome.
Nothing, no memory of tourist beauties or pilgrim satisfaction, no royal commendation or scrap of ribbon with a medal on it, could supersede the prize I hold to this day, the image I retain of the facial expressions of the bare-headed men in gold-braided uniforms and the head-covered men in gold-trimmed Arab robes, of Governor and Mrs Storrs, the Bentwiches, the Mufti and the Kadi, several members of the American Colony, the head of the Red Cross, two rabbis, Father Demetrius, and sundry other Important Persons (including, to my incredulity, the small, shy, awe-inspiring figure of T. E. Lawrence himself, flown in secretly overnight from the Paris talks for the meeting), when they saw General Edmund Al-lenby, majestically clothed in his most immaculate formal dress uniform, ribbons and medals in obedient line and every thinning hair in place, leap out of his chair to clap the shoulders and pump the hands of two frightful specimens of adult Bedouin Arabs (one in garish flowered kuffiyah and stained red boots, the other scarred and scowling, both men dirty and dangerous and probably not housebroken) and their accompanying army officer (himself no prize, being badly in need of a shave, a bath, some sticking-plaster, and a lorry-load of discipline) before he waved those three unsavoury individuals over to silk-covered chairs among the fastidious dignitaries. But that was not the end of the adventure, for then (and here the expressions of astonishment and dismay turned to sheer, slack-jawed disbelief) “Bull” Allenby—last of the Paladins, conqueror of Jerusalem, hero of the Middle East, and Commander in Chief of all the Holy Land—turned to the fourth noisome intruder, grasped that young Bedouin lad’s black, bloodied, and bandaged hand gently in his own, raised it to his lips, and kissed it.
LAURIE R. KING has received numerous nominations and awards for her two series of mystery novels, including an Edgar nomination and both the Edgar and John Creasey Awards. O Jerusalem is the fifth in the series featuring Mary Russell, the onetime apprentice of Sherlock Holmes and now partner. King’s other series, which features San Francisco police detective Kate Martinelli, is set in the present day, as is her latest novel, A Darker Place.
King lives with her family in the hills above Monterey Bay in northern California. Her background includes such diverse interests as Old Testament theology and construction work, and she has been writing crime fiction since 1987. She is currently at work on Folly, a stand-alone thriller. Mary Russell fans can visit the fan-run website at: http://www.golden.net/~rebeccaj/ beekeep
r.html#russl.
“Rousing … riveting … suspenseful.”
—Chicago Tribune on The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
“Prickling with excitement.”
—Booklist on A Grave Talent
“A lively adventure in the very best of
intellectual company.”
—The New York Times Book Review on
A Letter of Mary
Enter the spellbinding world of
LAURIE R. KING
The thrill of the chase … literate, harrowing
suspense … There’s nothing elementary about the
mysteries of Laurie R. King!
Since 1993, Laurie R. King has been tantalizing
readers with her award-winning, internationally
acclaimed novels of mystery and suspense. Turn the
page for a special look at Laurie R. King’s books,
along with excerpts from the more recent novels. Each
is available now wherever Bantam Books are sold.
A GRAVE TALENT
A Kate Martinelli Mystery
WINNER OF THE EDGAR AND JOHN CREASEY AWARDS FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL
The unthinkable has happened in a small community outside of San Francisco. A series of shocking murders has occurred, each victim a child. For Detective Kate Martinelli, just promoted to Homicide and paired with a seasoned cop who’s less than thrilled to be handed a green partner, it’s a difficult case that just keeps getting harder.
The second child was found six weeks later, fifteen miles away as the crow flies, and in considerably fresher condition. The couple who found her had nothing in common with Tommy Chesler other than the profound wish afterwards that they had done something else on that particular day. It had been a gorgeous morning, a brilliant day following a week of rain, and they had awakened to an impulsive decision to call in sick from their jobs, throw some Brie, sourdough, and Riesling into the insulated bag, and drive down the coast. Impulse had again called to them from the beach where Tyler’s Creek met the ocean, and following their picnic they decided to look for some privacy up the creekside trail. Instead, they found Amanda Bloom.
O Jerusalem Page 33
