I had seen men die before, but only men in hospital beds, when death released them from the terrible suffering of gassed lungs or torn bodies. This was a very different matter, this transformation of bone and muscle into a limp, empty thing that landed on the ground with the meaty slap of a dropped water-skin. A noise welled in me, pressing hard against my closed lips, but whether it was a scream or gales of laughter I will never know, because Ali saw it coming and cuffed me so hard my teeth rattled.
“Do not be stupid,” he hissed at me. “Run.”
I ran.
The sun was nearly on the horizon, the sky dangerously close to full light, and Mahmoud with his flopping burden was all too clear a quarter of a mile down the road. It was quite a ridiculous picture, I thought with that portion of my mind not taken up by the sensation of cross-hairs between my shoulder-blades, rather like a long-legged man mounted on a small donkey, but it was also very impressive, the strength of the man sprinting down the road with thirteen-plus stone across his shoulders. He had, I thought inconsequentially, not even paused when the last guard had appeared, merely trusted Ali to take care of the problem.
The bizarre tangle of robes and limbs ahead of me stepped to the side of the road and vanished. I slowed when I reached the place, only to be passed by Ali, who crashed into the narrow path between the bushes without slowing and dived down the precipitous path that lay there, moving at a dead run. Still, I saw to my astonishment, barefoot: his red boots were in one hand, the dead guard’s rifle in the other. I slid and scrambled down the hill in his wake, and though I pushed hard, when I reached the horses, the only one there was our nameless guide, mounted, holding the reins of my mount, and looking nervous. No sooner did the reins hit my palm than he drove his heels into his horse’s ribs, and I had a battle to persuade my own mount to wait until I was on his back before he followed his fellows down the narrow, dusty, stone-strewn track.
FIFTEEN
ض
When ambitious men overcome a dynasty and seize power, they inevitably adopt most of the ways of their predecessors.
—
THE
Muqaddimah
OF IBN KHALDÛN
It was perhaps three miles before I caught the others up, despite my horse’s turn for speed, and then only because they had stopped. The spare horse was still riderless, but the mare Mahmoud had ridden was standing with her head down and her sides heaving, sweat dripping from her flanks, while Ali reached up to help Mahmoud manoeuvre a completely limp Holmes down from her back. I was off my horse and standing next to the men without being aware of dismounting. Holmes looked every bit as lifeless as the dead guard, but when I helped Ali catch him, his eyes were open, the pupils huge, and the cry that had burst from me changed to one of relief: he was drugged, not dead.
They had clothed him in an unfamiliar pair of baggy trousers and Ali’s sheepskin coat, and now laid him on the ground, arranging him on his side so as not to cause further damage to his back.
“How much opium did you give him, for God’s sake?” I demanded.
“Enough to keep him quiet,” Mahmoud replied. His left arm, which had held the full weight of his passenger, must have been numb, for he was kneading it with his right hand and working his hand vigorously to restore circulation.
“Almost permanently, by the looks of it. He’s completely unconscious.”
“He will recover,” he said, and added less belligerently, “He is mostly bone, little flesh. Perhaps I ought to have lowered the dose.”
“How long before it wears off?”
“Hours. Five, eight.”
“He needs to be in a bed before that.”
“It has been arranged.”
“Where?”
“Two, three hours,” he said vaguely. He gave his left arm a final shake and, catching up the reins of the spare horse, vaulted onto its back. Ali bent to lift the dead weight that was Holmes, but I put a hand on his arm to stop him.
“Wait,” I said. “I’m the lightest one, by a considerable amount, and my horse easily the largest.” And the most contrary, I did not add. Ali and I waited for Mahmoud’s answer.
“How is your head?” he asked after a moment.
“It aches.” Actually, it throbbed horribly with every beat of my heart and I felt both queasy and shaky, but I did not feel there was any threat of passing out. Not without warning, at any rate. I held his gaze coolly. He gave one of his internal nods and slid back down to the ground, lifting his chin at my own horse as an order to mount it. I handed him the burden of Holmes’ possessions and mounted the horse, shifting back to the edge of the pad to leave room for Holmes. He and Ali lifted Holmes bodily up, threading one leg up and over the horse’s withers so Holmes’ back was resting against my chest. I could barely see over his shoulders, but I worried that I was hurting his back, and said so.
“He won’t feel it,” said Mahmoud.
Insh’allah, I thought.
It took fully three hours. At some point the guide left us, only to come pounding up behind again half an hour later with a parcel of Arab sandwiches, spiced meat and bits of raw onion wrapped in flat bread. We ate while riding, and afterwards I felt considerably less shaky and not in the least queasy. My head still ached, though.
After two hours of alternately picking our way over rocks and loping on the flat bits, Holmes began to come around. It was easier to hold him as he became less limp; on the other hand, the pain in his back was obviously getting through to him. We had to stop, and while Ali and Mahmoud between them held Holmes upright, I slipped off the horse and then climbed back on, awkwardly, in front of him. We rode the next few miles with him slumped forward against me, dreadfully uncomfortable for me but easier on him. However, when he began to jerk about behind me I was forced to relinquish the reins to Mahmoud and be led, riding half-doubled over and with both arms stretched behind me to keep Holmes from tumbling to the ground. At about this time our guide turned calmly into another road and, without acknowledgement from either side, rode away. A few minutes later Ali turned to check on us, then kicked his mare into a gallop and left us trotting along in a cloud of dust.
Twenty minutes later, I nearly tumbled to the ground myself when a voice spoke, strong in my ear.
“Russell?”
“Holmes! Thank God—are you all right? It won’t be much longer.” I waited. “Holmes?”
There was no answer. I tried to turn and look at him, but his head was limp against my neck; he had faded again. A few minutes later the same thing happened.
“Russell?”
“Yes, Holmes, we’re all here. You’re safe now.” I didn’t think he heard me. And again a few minutes later:
“Russell?”
“Holmes.”
We repeated this lunatic non-conversation any number of times before we finally emerged from the hills and made for a collection of raw-looking buildings set among fields, a manned guard-tower rising over all. Ali stood in a doorway beside a tiny apple doll of a woman with a kerchief over her grey hair. Mahmoud rode up to the small house and dismounted, then turned to the woman and with his right hand gave a gesture ridiculously like that of a man tipping his hat, which of course is quite impossible with a kujfiyah. The tiny woman smiled with delight, came forward, and actually kissed Mahmoud on his hairy cheek.
Before I could speculate on the hidden depths to the man, he and Ali were on either side of me, holding Holmes so I could slip out from under him. They let him fall gently forward, then slide face-down off the tall horse, but when they tried to lift him, one of them must have seized some tender part of his anatomy, because he stiffened and drew a sharp breath. His eyes flew open, and he looked straight at me with that wide-eyed, apparently alert but slightly unfocussed gaze of a drunk, or someone wakened from a heavy sleep.