Chapter XXI
We lingered by the Jordan until late in the afternoon, enjoying the cool breeze that blew off the water, but at last Charles rose to his feet.
"Let's go," he ordered, walking over to where his horse was cropping at the brown grass that grew down here.
We rose up also and the pilgrims followed our example; men picked up their staves, women gathered the food they had spread out and collected their children together. Soon we were ready for the road and Charles swung into his saddle and shook his reins. The old woman had taken up her position beside him and as soon as his horse moved she began to shuffle along behind him. Even though she was only a woman, one had to admire her spirit of determination. She reminded me of an old woman I had once seen passing with a caravan of pilgrims bound for Mecca.
The sun was lower in the sky and the day perceptibly cooler when we arrived at Jericho. The merchants and shop-keepers of that town were ready for us, calling out their wares and offering all sorts of food and drink. Charles took the main body of pilgrims to a food shop where he had an arrangement with the proprietor but Hamed and I went in search of the grain merchant, Abd al-Wahid. He greeted us courteously and offered us food and drink. As we had not prayed all that day, Hamed and I asked first to be allowed to pray. Abd al-Wahid took us out into the street and turned left. After only a short distance we arrived at a house which looked much like all the others, but which was, in fact, the mosque for the Muslims of Jericho.
We washed at a pool in the courtyard of the house and then went into a room at the back where the floor was spread with prayer mats and a niche in one wall showed us the direction of Mecca. We began to pray but whereas Hamed remained kneeling and bowing for some time, I recited the shortest sura I could think of and hurried out of the room to where Abd al-Wahid waited. There, in a low voice, I gave him my report of all that I had seen in al-Quds, excepting only the house of Guy. I told of the training I was receiving and such other pieces of information as I thought might interest him, but all in a hurried voice so that when Hamed finished his prayers and came out, we should be talking of other things.
The sun was very low in the sky indeed when we marshalled the pilgrims for the return journey. Charles made a short speech to them as they all stood in the market place.
"You all saw how far it was to come down here from Jerusalem and how steep the road was. Apart from those who are mounted, I don't think any of you would wish to climb all that way back up again in the heat of the day, so we have delayed until it is nearly night. Of course this means that we will be travelling in the dark, which brings its own dangers: dangers from robbers and the danger of getting lost. For this reason I must urge you all to keep very close to one another, for there is safety in numbers. Everyone must try to keep up, but if the double journey is too much for you, you may stay overnight at Mar Girgis and make your own way back in the morning."
We set out, with the old woman shuffling along close behind Charles' horse. At first the road was smooth as we crossed the plain and started up the wadi towards Mar Girgis, but even so the old woman was well back in the line of pilgrims when the gorge closed in around us. The gloom of those high walls, shutting out the last rays of the sun, was like an early night and we were all glad to see the lights of the monastery gleaming in the darkness ahead of us. We climbed to the stream and threw ourselves down to rest while both man and beast drank deep and filled their bottles to the brim in preparation for the waterless wastes that lay ahead.
It was fully dark when we left Mar Girgis, with the stars shining brightly overhead and a glow in the east where the moon was about to come up. Hamed held his horse back as the long line of pilgrims trudged past us.
"Now comes the difficult bit," he said to me. "We must keep eyes and ears open to make sure that no-one strays off the path."
"Is it likely that anyone would be so foolish?" I asked.
Hamed laughed. "Anything can happen, my dear Fuad. Only last year we had a man go wandering off at the top of the slope here. We shouted at him but he continued on his way, heading straight for a precipice. At last I rode after him and, by Allah, he was fast asleep but still walking!"
The last pilgrim, a man with a club foot who went along briskly with his crippled leg wrapped around a crutch, passed us and we shook our reins and followed behind. The road began to climb steeply almost at once, zig-zagging up out of the wadi and it wasn't long before we came to the first of the stragglers, a mother with a babe in one arm and leading another small child by the hand. The child was trudging along rubbing its eyes sleepily and sobbing softly and going so slowly that even the man with the club foot was able to overtake them without difficulty. We slowed our horses to match their pace and the woman looked up at us and said something in a foreign tongue and a pleading voice.
"What does she want?" I asked Hamed.
"She asks if we could take up the child and let it ride for a while," he replied.
"Why not?" I shook my reins to urge my horse forward. I could remember trudging along behind my parents in a similar state of weariness many a time.
Hamed put out his hand to restrain me. "No, Fuad. It is not permitted."
"Why not?" I demanded.
"For two reasons. If we allow one child to ride, we must allow all - and where do we stop? When our horses are so festooned with crying children that they can hardly move? At what age or what size do we call them adults and not children? Do we take up the weak, the aged and the sick? The second reason comes from the first: our duty is to guard the pilgrims against any danger. How if someone goes straying off and our horses are too tired for us to pursue them? How if we are attacked by bandits and our horses are too tired to bear us in a fight?"
Reluctantly I fell back again and watched the weary trio trudge and stumble along ahead of us. Soon, however, they were joined by an old man who lagged even slower but managed to keep pace with them at the tail end of the procession, and after him there was another mother who had her arm around the waist of a teenage lad who grumbled and complained and drooled from thick, slobbering lips, so that I knew that the hand of Allah had touched him and he was not right in his head. After this there were no more at the tail for quite a while and we had almost reached the top of the steep climb out of the Wadi Qelt when Hamed nudged me.
"Trouble ahead."
The moon had just risen and by its light I could make out the old woman, hobbling along so slowly that even our stragglers were overtaking her.
"How goes it, Mother?" Hamed sang out as we caught up with her and the first of our group passed her.
The old woman did not pause to reply, just continued to walk at the same slow pace, but I could hear her laboured breathing and marked how she leaned heavily upon her stick at every pace. I watched in dismay as the stragglers overtook her and disappeared into the dark distance as we slowed our horses behind the old woman.
"Now may the curse of Allah rest upon all old women who think that they can walk from al-Quds to Jericho and back in a single day," Hamed swore softly under his breath. "Fuad, you stay here with the old woman. There is such a distance between the stragglers and the others that I fear they will take the wrong path at the top. I'll be back soon."
He clucked to his horse and trotted forward after the others and soon the old woman and I were alone in the night. As soon as we emerged at the top of the climb the old woman more or less collapsed by the roadside and sat there panting and grumbling to herself while my horse stretched down his neck and snuffed at her enquiringly.
I don't know how long we remained like that, but eventually I tired of doing nothing and got down from my horse.
"Come, Mother. We must go on."
I stooped and lifted her up and without a word she turned and began to shuffle away towards al-Quds. I mounted my horse again and rode slowly after her, step by arduous step.
Now, for the first time, I began to be alarmed for our safety and to look about me in all directions, my senses alert to any movement in the shadows or any suspicious sound. For myself I was not afraid. I was well mounted and in any case I expected that my Arab tongue and my name would be sufficient protection, for was I not in my own territory? For the old woman, however, I felt less confidence. She could barely walk, let alone run if danger should threaten. Although it was unlikely that any bandit would try to plunder her poverty, the weak and vulnerable were always tempting to those who robbed first and thought afterwards.
I heard hoofbeats ahead and called out to know if it was Hamed, at the same time loosening my sword in its scabbard - for the light was not good enough to sling by.
"Salaam, Fuad," Hamed called. "Were you afraid?"
"Of course," I shouted back. "You have been so long I feared that you had wandered off the path and got lost."
"Never fear!" By now Hamed was close enough to drop his voice to normal speech. "I know this road so well I could travel it blindfold. How is the old woman?"
"Slow, by the Prophet."
"You're going to have to leave her," Hamed said. "The others are far ahead and you are yourself in danger if there are robbers abroad."
"Leave her?" I was astonished. "But we are the guides and the guards."
"Better that one old woman perish than that the whole caravan suffer because one of the guards is too far back to come to their aid."
As if to add point to his words, at this moment the old woman sat down so suddenly that I thought she must have fainted.
"I'm sorry, my sons," she said, raising her head to look at us, "I must rest. This journey is longer than I thought. You go on ahead."
"What did she say?" I asked Hamed, just to be sure I had heard correctly.
"She says that she must rest and that we are to go on. Come on."
I shook my head. "No. Never let it be said that the son of Hassan abandoned a fellow traveller on his first caravan."
"But you may be attacked!" Hamed protested. "I cannot stay with you."
"Bismillah," I retorted. "I take refuge in God."
"Then may God keep you," Hamed retorted, pulling his horse round. "I hope you come safe to al-Quds in the morning."
I waited until he was well on his way and then I got down from my horse.
"Now, Mother," I said to the old woman. "You ride, I walk."
I had to repeat the words several times before she understood and then I had to repeat them several more times before she would consent to be lifted up onto my horse, for she protested that she had never ridden a horse before. As soon as she was in place, with her feet in the stirrups, I took the reins and led my horse onwards as fast as I could walk - and after a long, stiff day in the saddle, it was a joy to walk briskly.
I could hear the other pilgrims ahead long before I came within sight of them in the moonlight and I contented myself with coming close enough to answer any call for help, but not close enough to overtake them and cause trouble because of my action in placing the old woman on my horse. A long time afterwards we reached the top of the Red Ascent and came in sight of the dark houses of Bethany, their white plaster standing out against the blackness of the hillside.
"Be careful, Mother," I said as I quickened my pace. I would have liked to tell her to hold on but I didn't know the Frankish words.
"Wallah!" Hamed exclaimed as I came nearer. "Is that you, Fuad?"
"Al-hamdu-lillah," I called back.
"Have you left the old woman or did you put a burr under her tail?" Hamed yelled, referring to the manner by which some quickened the pace of an ailing horse.
"Neither," I called. "In the name of Allah the Compassionate, I put her on my horse while I have walked."
"And how if we had been attacked?" Hamed enquired, reining back to wait for me.
"Then I would have thrown her from the horse and come to your aid," I told him. I think my horse would have been fresher because she is lighter than I."
"Possibly," Hamed sounded doubtful. He shook the reins and followed after us as we caught up with the other stragglers.
"Where is the mother and her children?" I asked, noting that they were not in the group.
"Al-hamdu-lillah," Hamed exclaimed. "One of the pilgrims who hired a donkey took both children. They are up ahead somewhere."
We passed through Bethany and only the dogs came out against us. I ached to use my sling against the curs but contented myself with hurling clods of earth and curses. Hamed spurred after one particularly persistent mongrel and cut at it with his sheathed sword, but it eluded him and disappeared among the houses and he came back and slowed his horse to a walk again.
"Laudate dominum," the old woman muttered behind me as we came round the curve of Jebal Zeitun and saw the walls of al-Quds rising above us. "Laudate dominum."
"What's she saying?" I asked Hamed.
"It is the language of the Latins," he told me. "It means 'praise to God' and the Nasranis say it on every occasion, or else they make the sign of the cross on their heads or their chests. Look, she's doing it now."
I glanced back at the old woman. Her white hand fluttered in the dim light as she made the mysterious sign on her chest again and again.
"Maashallah," I said softly, holding out my fingers in the sign against the Evil Eye. Who can tell what evil may come from associating with these idolators?
