“Not at all. I should like to get out of the house for a while.”
So much for her need for rest. “I shall be happy to escort you. Well, I’m off.” He kissed her cheek and stood up, smiling at her startled expression. “I’m your loving husband, remember,” he said and strode off with a jaunty spring in his step.
Cordelia put her hand to her cheek, where the impression of his lips seemed to linger, burning. It reminded her all too clearly of her disgraceful behaviour in Hamid’s tent. His disgraceful behaviour, she corrected herself quickly. She did not want to think about it but she had no occupation to distract her, not even a book. Perhaps she could persuade Eleni to help her improve her Greek.
Eleni could not be described as a willing teacher. Once coaxed into agreeing, she went about the business with a grim thoroughness which taught Cordelia as much in a few hours as she had learned from Ioanna and Mrs. Miltiades in several days. Those two amiable ladies had been so delighted when she mastered a new word that they had never attempted to correct her grammar. Eleni, having taken on the task, never let an error slip by. Uneducated as she was, nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives meant nothing to her, but she knew when what she heard was wrong.
Cordelia’s head was a-buzz with pronouns and prepositions by the time James returned.
“No luck,” he said ruefully as Cordelia went out to join him in the courtyard.
“No one would buy the diamond? You did not try to drive too hard a bargain, did you?”
“I didn’t bargain at all. As a matter of fact, I’m no hand at haggling—the fault of a gent...an Englishman’s upbringing, I expect.”
“No doubt,” said Cordelia defensively. “Mama was always ready to pay the first price named, which is why I took over the marketing at an early age whenever she was between...whenever we had no servants. Haggling may be unladylike, ungentlemanly, but it is expected in a marketplace.”
“And a way of life here in the Levant,” James agreed with suspicious meekness. “I’m at a severe disadvantage, I admit. Let me hasten to explain that in this case I did not bargain because no one was interested in my wares.”
“I suppose they are too poor.”
“Oh, they live well enough, but as I feared, there is very little cash used in the village, and what there is goes about equally to the taverna, taxes and the church. They sell a little excess olive oil and wine—our friendly carter takes it to the nearest town along with the produce of the next village up the valley. Mostly they grow just what they need for themselves. A diamond is a useless bauble.”
“Yes.” Cordelia sighed. “When Aaron suggested diamonds, he assumed I should be travelling from city to city, not village to village.”
“Cheer up. Eleni is generally reputed to sleep on a mattress stuffed with gold, which sounds deuced uncomfortable but may turn our trick. Father Stephanos is on his way.”
However, whether the bed of gold was a myth or Eleni was just too crossgrained to help, the young priest’s intervention failed. As she pointed out, she could not use the diamond to pay the wages of the men who tilled her vineyard or the women who picked her olives. Nor, as James had found, could she sell it to anyone else.
With an apologetic shrug, Father Stephanos went off, and Eleni withdrew into her citadel.
“Ah well,” James said philosophically, “one cannot blame her. You had best let me have some cash. Already several people have brought goods to the taverna in hopes of selling to us.”
“Then I shall just have to come as I am,” said Cordelia, standing up. “We cannot afford to buy without haggling!”
He looked her up and down and laughed. “Gad, no! I cannot permit my wife to be seen in public looking like a perambulating marquee.”
“I’m not your wife,” she snapped. “And if I was, we are far enough from England for your credit not to suffer. If you have any credit.”
“Which you most reasonably take leave to doubt. I beg your pardon, I ought not to have laughed, but it was at that garment not at you, I assure you. You look singularly pretty this morning.”
Mollified in spite of herself, Cordelia grumbled, “Spanish coin will get you nowhere.”
“On the contrary, any coin will serve as well to get us where we wish to go. I doubt they care whether our money is Greek or Turkish or Spanish, so it be gold. If you want to come with me, and I own your bargaining skill is needed, at least let us check whether your laundry is still damp.”
He crossed to the line and felt her chemise, as though he could not just as well have tested a less intimate garment, she fumed. Sometimes he seemed quite determined to irk and embarrass her.
“That’s dry,” he said cheerfully. “With it next your skin, the rest will soon dry on you. Go and change quickly, there’s a good girl.”
Not deigning to reply, Cordelia gathered her clothes and swept past him into the house. The dignity of her exit was somewhat marred when she tripped over a bit of hem she had not tucked high enough and had to reach for the doorpost to regain her balance. Fortunately, when she sneaked a peek backwards, James had his back turned and was gazing at the sky. Bother the man!
Even with Cordelia’s skill at bargaining, three days later her purse was alarmingly light although they had not contrived to obtain all they needed.
“That poor little donkey will never carry everything!” she said gloomily as she and James checked their food supplies, a goodly stock since the less they had to speak to people on the way, the less trail they would leave for the Turks to follow.
James sounded not much more cheerful. “There’s not another donkey to be spared for love nor money, and they have no mules or horses. He’ll do it, and carry you as well according to his old master.”
“I shouldn’t dare ride. It would be too dreadful if he was injured.”
“True. We’d have to carry everything ourselves.”
“Oh dear, yes. I was thinking of him, not us. The one thing I should wish to add to his burden is a tent.”
“Most of the villagers have only the vaguest notion of what a tent is. The trouble is, no one ever goes farther than to the next village, and that only for weddings and funerals, except for the carter.”
“And at least one partisan,” she reminded him, “the man who told everyone we were foreigners when we had scarce arrived and not yet opened our mouths. But it does not help, since he has not offered to sell us his pony, and if he did I daresay I could not afford it.”
“Perhaps we should go first to the nearest town, though it’s considerably out of our way. We might find someone to buy a diamond and sell a horse or two and a tent.”
“Or two. But we might not. It is very likely only a larger village at best.”
“We can decide later. There is only one road out of the village and we don’t have to make up our minds until we come to the first fork in the road, which is a good few miles, I gather. By then we shall have some idea of how well you go on on foot. We leave at daybreak, agreed?”
“Yes,” she said, wondering miserably whether she would make it as far as the crossroad. She had to.
“All right, let us pack the baskets with food and the bundles with blankets and clothes. We must hang roughly equal weight on each side of the pack-saddle.”
When the baskets were full of food and water, Cordelia could not shift them a single inch. James picked up one in each hand, to make sure they were evenly balanced. He was much stronger than he looked, she thought, reluctantly admiring. She could only hope the donkey was twice as strong.
At cockcrow next morning, James knocked on the shutter of her window. Already dressed, she slipped out to open the courtyard gate. He led in the donkey and she took the halter, stroking the skinny little beast’s nose apologetically while James began to tie their mountains of baggage to the pack-saddle.
Reaching down for a basket, he groaned.
“What is the matter?” Cordelia whispered. She did not want to wake Eleni, having made her farewells the night before.
“My head. Some of the fellows spent a good part of what we paid them to give me a farewell party at the taverna.”
“You should not have drunk so much.”
“Don’t be sanctimonious,” he growled. “If it had been a good claret, the amount I drank would not have had the least effect. I just didn’t make allowance for the local rot-gut.”
In offended silence he finished loading the patient donkey, and they set out through the still somnolent village.
In spite of James’s megrims, Cordelia enjoyed tramping along. Overhead, a brisk breeze blew puffs of white cloud across the sky, but down in the valley the air was still, though chilly. The road meandered between olive groves, leafless orchards, and neatly pruned vineyards, sometimes running along the stream for a while. Flocks of small birds twittered as they searched for seeds and insects, and from a distance came the bleating of sheep and goats, the tinkle of their bells.
As the sun rose higher, the day grew warm. Cordelia took off her head-kerchief, then her shawl. Without stopping, she tucked them through one of the ropes holding the donkey’s load.
Her feet were tiring and her hurried breakfast began to seem a long time ago, but she refused to ask James to pause for a rest. He plodded on, lost in taciturn gloom, taking frequent swigs from a leather bottle which she hoped contained only water. The donkey plodded stolidly behind.
The valley narrowed and the orchards fell behind. The road curved around the base of a bluff, then crossed the stream by an old stone bridge. James stopped on the bridge and looked up at the sky, and Cordelia seized her chance to sit down on the low parapet.
“At this rate,” James said sourly, “we shall be a month or more on the road to Athens.”
“A month!” She jumped up. “Oh no! I shall try to walk faster.”
“It won’t help if you exhaust yourself. I’m sorry, we should have stopped for a brief rest sooner.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I was afraid if I sat down I’d never be able to force myself to get up again.”
“Is your head still aching?”
“Not much, and I actually feel I can face something to eat. You must be thirsty. Pray resume your seat, madam, and I’ll dig out another water-bottle.”
“Heehaw!” said the donkey.
“Oho, are you thirsty too? I’ll take you down to the stream when... What’s that?”
Around the curve behind galloped half a dozen ponies. Each rider had a cloth across the lower part of his face and waved a musket. Another three appeared from a clump of bushes on the hillside ahead and plunged down the slope, yelling.
“Oh hell!” said James. “Not again!”
Chapter 15
“Stop or we’ll shoot!” shouted one of the riders, as though a woman, an unarmed man, and a laden donkey neatly trapped on a bridge had anywhere to go.
James found Cordelia in his arms. He was unable to savour the moment properly.
“Bandits?” she whispered, shivering.
“I find it hard to believe they are soldiers or partisans. Chin up, little one.”
This advice proved impracticable as she was torn from him and flung face-down over a pony’s withers.
“James!”
It went against the grain to let them take her, but he could do her no good if he was shot or clubbed insensible. A moment later he met the same fate. As his stomach hit the pony’s bony shoulders, he was glad he had not eaten or he’d surely have cast up his accounts.
“What about the donkey?” someone cried.
“Bring it, you fool. Who can guess where they’ve hidden the diamonds?”
They knew about Cordelia’s diamonds! Someone in the village was passing information to the brigands—or was one of them. Very likely, James thought cynically, the same young fellows who fought as partisans to free Greece also sought excitement in robbing travellers.
The ground beneath him wheeled as the pony swung round. Giddy, nauseated, he shut his eyes. Hooves pounded into a gallop and the jolting became well nigh unbearable. James’s headache returned with redoubled force. The blood drummed in his head, echoing the pony’s hooves, but worse still was the knowledge that Cordelia was suffering the same torment.
Soon thought became impossible. With every last scrap of strength, James struggled to stay conscious. The ponies surely could not keep up this pace for long, and when they stopped he must be ready to seize the slightest chance to protect Cordelia.
“The cursed donkey can’t keep up!”
They slowed to a canter.
“Unload it and turn it loose. Don’t leave anything behind or by St. Spiridion I’ll slit your gizzards!”
Galloping again, on and on and on, just two sets of hooves now.
Yet when after an eternity they stopped and James was hauled off the pony’s back, dizzy as he was he noted the sun still high in the sky. He stood swaying on the hillside. The turf at his feet, beginning to green after the summer’s drought, sloped gently to a steeper, rocky drop. Beyond, a green plain crossed by a pale ribbon of road and a dark ribbon of river stretched into a blue-grey distance bounded by far-off hills. To the north, not far off, clustered the roofs of a small town.
One of the men lifted Cordelia down and set her on her feet. Her legs failed her. She sank to the ground, her face deathly white beneath a coat of dust. Her eyes fluttered open and her lips moved. No sound emerged.
A killing fury rose in James but the barrel of a musket swung to cover her and he gritted his teeth, his nails digging into the palms of his hands.
“Bring her,” the man with the gun grunted at him.
The other was already leading the two ponies away somewhere behind him. He turned and saw the mouth of a cave, half concealed by bushes.
Cordelia moaned as he raised her to her feet. Despite aching ribs and head, his strength was swiftly returning, but he was afraid he might drop her if he tried to pick her up and carry her. He slung her arm across his shoulders, gripping her limp hand in his, and put his other arm around her waist. Staggering and stumbling, they followed the ponies into the cave, the man with the musket close behind.
The roof of the small cave was not far above their heads. Reflected sunlight showed it to be empty, the uneven limestone floor trackless.