Mary Stewart - The Gabriel Hounds

Airs above the Ground

The Ivy Tree

Madam, Will You Talk?

The Moon-Spinners

My Brother Michael

Nine Coaches Waiting

This Rough Magic

Thunder on the Right

Wildfire at Midnight

This story is freely based on the accounts of the life of the Lady Hester Stanhope. I have tried to shorten my references as much as possible, but for those who are interested, the list of books on page 66 will act as a guide and also an acknowledgment of my main sources. My debt to Doughty's Travels in Arabia Deserta, and also to Robin Fedden's marvellous Syria and Lebanon (John Murray) will be more than obvious.

One other word may perhaps be necessary. In a story of this sort it is inevitable that officials are mentioned by office, if not by name. Any references to Government bodies, Cabinet Ministers, frontier officials, etc., are made purely for the purposes of this story, and do not refer to any actual holders of these offices, living or dead. Moreover, though the Adonis Valley certainly exists, the Nahr el-Sal'q--with the village and the palace of Dar Ibrahim--does not.

I should also like to thank all those friends, from Edinburgh to Damascus, who have given me so much generous help.

M. S.

FOR helen king

No vain discourse shall thou hear therein:

Therein shall be a gushing fountain;

Therein shall be raised couches,

And goblets ready placed,

And cushions laid in order,

And carpets spread forth.

--the koran: Swra Lxxxvn

I met him in the street called Straight.

I had come out of the dark shop doorway into the dazzle of the Damascus sun, my arms full of silks. I didn't see anything at first, because the sun was right in my eyes and he was in shadow, just where the Straight Street becomes a dim tunnel under its high corrugated iron roof.

The souk was crowded. Someone stopped in front of me to take a photograph. A crowd of youths went by, eyeing me and calling comments in Arabic, punctuated by "Miss" and "'Allo" and "Good-bye." A small grey donkey pattered past under a load of vegetables three times its own width. A taxi shaved me so near that I took a half step back into the shop doorway and the shopkeeper, at my elbow, put out a protective hand for his rolls of silk. The taxi swerved, horn blaring, past the donkey, parted a tight group of ragged children the way a ship parts water, and aimed without any slackening of speed at the bottleneck where the street narrowed sharply between jutting rows of stalls.

It was then that I saw him. He had been standing, head bent, in front of a jeweler's stall, turning over some small gilt trinket in his hand. At the blast of the taxi's horn he glanced up and stepped quickly out of the way. The step took him from black shadow full into the sun's glare, and, with a queer jerk of the heart, I saw who it was. I had known he was in this part of the world, and I suppose it was no odder to meet him in the middle of Damascus than anywhere else, but I stood there in the sunlight, gazing, I suppose rather blankly, at the averted profile, four years strange to me, yet so immediately familiar, and somehow so inevitably here.

The taxi vanished into the black tunnel of the main souk with a jarring of gears and another yell of its horn. Between us the dirty hot street was empty. One of the rolls of silk slipped from my hands, and I grabbed for it, to catch it in a cascade of crimson just before it reached the filthy ground.

The movement and the blinding colour must have caught his attention, for he turned, and our eyes met. I saw them widen, then he dropped the gilt object back on the jeweler's stall and, ignoring the stream of bad American which the man was shouting after him, crossed the street towards me. The years rolled back more swiftly even than the crimson silk as he said, with exactly the same intonation with which a small boy had daily greeted his even smaller worshipper: "Oh, hullo! It's you!"

I wasn't a small girl any more, I was twenty-two, and this was only my cousin Charles, whom of course I didn't worship any more. For some reason it seemed important to make this clear. I tried to echo his tone, but only managed to achieve a sort of idiotic deadpan calm. "Hullo. How nice to see you. How you've grown!"

"Haven't I just, and I shave nearly every week now." He grinned at me, and suddenly it wasn't the small boy any more. "Christy love, thank goodness I've found you! What in the world are you doing here?"

"Didn't you know I was in Damascus?"

"I knew you were coming, but I couldn't find out when. I meant, what are you doing on your own? I thought you were here with a package tour?"

"Oh, I am," I said, "I just got kind of detached. Did Mummy tell you about it?"

"She told my mother, who passed it on to me, but nobody seemed very clear what you were doing or just when you'd be here, or even where you'd be staying. You might have known I'd want to catch up with you. Don't you ever give anyone your address?"

"I thought I had."

"You did tell your mother a hotel, but it was the wrong one. When I rang them up they told me your group had gone the to Jerusalem, and when I telephoned there they referred me back to Damascus. You cover your tracks well, young Christy."

"I'm sorry," I said, "if I'd known there was a chance of meeting you before Beirut... Our itinerary was changed, that's all, something to do with the flight bookings, so we're doing the tour back to front, and they had to alter the Damascus hotel. Oh, blast, and we leave for Beirut tomorrow!

We've been here three days now. Have you been here all the time?"

"Only since yesterday. The man I have to see in Damascus isn't coming home till Saturday, but when I was told you'd be about due to arrive here, I came straight up. As you say, blast. Look, perhaps it's a good thing they've turned your tour arsy-versy--you needn't go tomorrow, surely? I've got to wait here till the weekend, myself, so why don't you cut loose from your group and we'll do Damascus together and then go on to Beirut? You're not bound to stay with them, are you?"

He looked down at me, raising his brows. "What on earth are you doing in a package tour, anyway? I wouldn't have thought it was exactly your thing."

"I suppose not, but I got a sudden yen to see this part of the world, and I didn't know a thing about it, and they make it so easy--they do everything about bookings and things, and there's a courier who speaks Arabic and knows the score.

I couldn't very well come on my own, could I?"

"I don't see why not. And don't look at me with those great big helpless eyes, either. If any female was ever entirely capable of looking after herself, it's you."

"Oh, sure, Black Belt of the nth degree, that's me." I regarded him with pleasure. "Oh, Charles, believe it or not, it's marvelous to see you! Thank goodness your mother caught up with you and told you I'd be here! It'd have been lovely to have some time here with you, but it can't be helped. I'd planned to wait around in Beirut after the rest of my group goes home on Saturday, so I'll stick to that, I think. Have you had a good trip? A sort of Grand Tour, wasn't it, with Robbie?"

"Sort of. Seeing the world and brushing up my Arabic before doing some real work in Beirut. Oh, it all went like a bomb... We drove down through France and shipped the car to Tangier and then ambled along through North Africa.