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There is nothing quite like riding in the back of a cart drawn by a donkey to make one feel like an old man. In the first place, the jolting bumps of the road (a term of extreme generosity in this case) serve to accentuate every ache, strain, and poorly-healed injury from a lifetime of adventure. In the second, my companion was the one driving the cart, which made me feel like a piece of baggage that had been safely stowed out of the way until needed. And in the third place, although I protested that surely we could have walked faster than this sluggish pace, I knew in my heart that I needed to save my energy for what would eventually follow. Its wells were no longer so deep as once they were, and once drained, would take much longer to replenish at the age of sixty than they had when I was thirty.
We had taken the train as far as we were able to do so, from the comparative comfort of the Orient Express as far as Constantinople, then onto a far less glamorous branch line as far as Ankara. After that, we were forced to make our own way into the rugged landscape of Cappadocia, a challenge since neither of us were skilled in the Turkish tongue. Some of the locals spoke a dialect of Greek, and between what I half-remembered from a long-distant formal education and Rupert's more colloquial knowledge gleaned from the several months he'd spent in Athens on a particular job, we were able to make ourselves understood, albeit with some difficulty. The exchange of some silver coins facilitated the communication, however, and we were able to secure the aforementioned cart and donkey for a sum that was exorbitant here, but modest by our usual standards.
The letter from Sandy had been short on details, but had told us that he was being held prisoner near a town called Avanos. This at least gave us somewhere to ask for directions towards. We struggled our way along the rocky path for several days, Rupert guiding the cart and me sitting in the back with increasing annoyance. But while his dark hair, only beginning to silver at the temples, could pass for a local's, my fair complexion and fine grey strands were unmistakably those of a foreigner, and it made more sense for me to keep out of sight as much as I could. A hat helped with my disguise, as well as to keep the beating sun off my (by now rather balding) head.
"For God's sake, I know he was pretty, but is anything worth this much trouble?" I complained as the donkey stopped in the middle of the road, refusing to go any further.
"This beast is nearly as cantankerous as you are right now," Rupert replied, as he tried to urge it onward. The donkey, perhaps resenting the comparison, brayed and sat down. With a heavy sigh, Rupert came around to join me in the back of the cart and wait for the beast to decide it was ready to move again. "He was very pretty," he said, taking my hand, and I could sense the worry in his voice.
I grumbled my reluctant agreement. It was not, you must understand, that I truly felt like abandoning our mission to rescue Sandy Arbuthnot from whatever predicament he had tumbled into in his wanderings. But neither Rupert nor I were quite what we had once been in our prime, and the inevitable difficulties one encounters as soldiers of fortune were wearing heavily on me. "Let's hope he's still alive," I said, gazing up at the blinding blue sky with its scattering of wispy clouds.
Rupert took Sandy's letter out of his breast pocket and read it over again, as though he hadn't memorized it by now. It was written in a hasty scribble, and some words were smudged, as though its writer had been obliged to fold it before the ink had fully dried. It indicated that he was being held captive in the fortress of Kara Kazim, a local strongman, a brigand with the support of some thugs rather than any kind of legitimate Ottoman military or government figure. As Sandy was the son of a Scottish nobleman, perhaps they had expected his family to pay a ransom in order to get him back. However, a desire for a dramatic rescue was more Sandy's style, and it appeared that the letter he had feigned to write to his father was instead directed to us. In all likelihood he had relied on the fact that none of his captors could read English. He had given us the general location, an estimate of the number of guards being no more than twenty, and requested that we come quickly. This part, I fear, we had some difficulty with - it had been the better part of two weeks since we received the note, via a convoluted series of messengers, at one of our drop-points in Munich. Still, we were close to our destination now, and twenty guards was probably not too many for us to handle. Probably.
In due course the donkey, moved by whatever mysterious forces motivate such creatures, stood, stretched, and resumed its plodding pace. Rupert scrambled up to the seat to make sure it didn't proceed to lead us off the edge of a cliff. This entire area was full of steep drop-offs and pillars of stone that rose vertically from the ground, a stark, broken landscape like none I had seen before. It had a strange beauty, but the presence of caves in the cliffs and rockfaces around us was worrying from a practical standpoint - they would make excellent sites for an ambush, so I kept myself from getting too distracted with the scenery and maintained a steady watch. I could at least be good for something, I thought.
It was as I squinted at the rock above us that I caught a glint of something shining bright, the sun glancing off some piece of metal. I put my hand to Rupert's thigh, giving one of our subtle signals that there could be danger ahead. Rupert nodded imperceptibly and rested his hand on his pistol, ready to draw it if there was any actual threat. We kept moving, hoping that from a distance we would look like any peasants on our way to town. From beneath the wide brim of my hat, I peered up again at the area where I thought I had seen the flash of light, but I did not see it any longer, and soon we moved around a curve in the road and it was out of my sight.
From ahead, there came the distant sound of hooves and bleating, and we saw, approaching us from the opposite direction, a herd of goats. It was led by a young woman wrapped in a cloak that covered her head, and as they drew closer she guided them skilfully to one side of the path so that we could pass. She stared curiously at us, no doubt unused to seeing strangers, and Rupert nodded at her in a friendly fashion. He still had his charm with the ladies, no matter that by now he was old enough to be this young lady's father. "Excuse me," he said in his best attempt at Greek, "is this the road to Avanos?"
She nodded, frowning slightly, either in suspicion or perhaps simply bemusement at his accent. "That way," she said, pointing in the direction we were headed.
"Thank you," Rupert said, and withdrew a coin from his pocket, holding it up so she could see it glinting in the sunlight. It reminded me uneasily of the gleam I'd seen from the rocky outcropping above us. "Do you know if the stronghold of Kara Kazim is near here?"
The woman hesitated, looking around in nervous alarm. "I cannot say, sir." Presumably it would not do her any good to give away the bandit's location for a small sum of money, for the cost to her and her family if it became known that she had betrayed them would be considerable.
Rupert smiled, tucking the coin into his palm with a gesture of apology. "I understand," he said. "A loyal woman is beyond price." I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes at his transparent flirtation once his attempt at bribery had failed. "We also journey out of loyalty - loyalty to a friend who has been captured and tortured by these thieves." Tortured was a slight exaggeration, or at least I hoped that it might be. Sandy hadn't mentioned such ordeals in his letter, but it had been brief.
The woman's face softened and she gave a little gesture with her hand to the cliffs above us, a faint wave that might have passed unnoticed to a less attentive audience. "The caves," she whispered. "They hide there."
Rupert nodded his thanks to her, and then, casually and carelessly, dropped the coin where she could see it, so that if anyone was watching us, they might not see him handing her a reward. We made our way onward, and now I looked up at the stones that rose up above the path with renewed wariness, sensing that we could be under surveillance at any point. "Find a place out of view," I said under my breath, and Rupert did as he was told, for once. He managed to guide the donkey to a halt under an outcropping that provided shade as well as hiding us from the line of sight of anyone who might be above us.
"Caves are a problem," he said quietly.
"I agree." It wasn't as straightforward as assaulting a fortress or a house - you couldn't know what the layout of the place might be before you entered. Caves could be carved into the stone in any direction, maze-like tunnels might split, turn, and come to dead ends, and there would be no convenient windows to jump out of as a last resort. As well, it might be too narrow to use swords and too risky to use guns. All in all it was a very unsatisfactory situation to be in. Still, what choice did we have?
"Let's wait until dark and then make our approach," Rupert suggested, as he took the donkey out of its harness and tied it where it could graze. "Take out any guards we find, head inwards until we find Sandy, and then back out the way we came."
"I don't like it," I said, acutely aware that I didn't have a better suggestion. Still, if I was going to have to fight my way through narrow passageways full of bandits, there was no one I would rather have at my side than Rupert of Hentzau.
We waited until the sun dipped behind the hills to begin our ascent. We were armed with pistols, but had agreed not to use them except as a last resort, since the sound would no doubt bring every brigand in the area running. We would make our initial assault with swords, which had the advantage of being quiet, and we each had a knife in the event that quarters became too close for swordplay. Wrapped in dark cloaks, we made our way up to the cave entrance I had spotted earlier, crouching behind jutting columns of stone. Eventually, we saw what we had hoped to see - a glow of light, as a man carrying a small lantern emerged from the cave entrance. Rupert nodded to me, and we moved with a grace born of many years of working together, dispatching him with a blade through his throat before he had a chance to yell. Rupert even managed to seize the lantern before it could clatter to the stones, helpfully giving us a meagre light source. With haste and not a little trepidation, we began our descent into the bandit caves.
It was clear that these tunnels had been expanded, if not entirely created, by human hands, though I had the sense that they were very ancient, with paths worn smooth by the passage of many generations of feet. We moved as quietly and quickly as we could, and eliminated two more bandits without rousing the alarm. Eventually, though, our luck was bound to run out. We turned a corner and almost ran into a pair of brigands who appeared as if materializing out of the shadows. Rupert took one down with a swift blow, but the one behind him was too fast - neither of us could reach him before he turned and ran, yelling for his fellows.
"Shit," Rupert said, annoyed.
"Press on, or try to hide and hope they run outside seeking us?" I said, pausing to catch my breath as we considered our options. Neither choice was especially promising.
"Press on," said Rupert, and I nodded my agreement. Taking refuge in a side passage or chamber was a greater risk when we didn't know the terrain - we could wind up being cornered with no possibility of retreat or escape. We began to run, increasing our pace, even as we heard the commotion of the bandits realizing they were under attack and beginning to swarm towards us.
The fighting was brutal for a while, each step forward seeming to reveal another enemy. We moved almost at random, taking whichever junction had fewer attackers before us. As we proceeded thus, I heard rapid footfalls behind me and spun around to see that we were now being pinned in from both sides, a man rushing towards me with a wickedly curved blade that flashed in the faint light. I braced my back against Rupert's, a familiar position from many battles of our younger days, and waited until my attacker was close enough before knocking his sword aside with a sharp twist that ended with my sword through his arm. He screamed and dropped the weapon, and I finished him off with one final blow. It was only after he was dead that I realized he had nicked my shoulder, and my shirt was quickly becoming stained with blood. It looked worse than it was, the pain more annoying than anything, but it would likely get worse the more I used that arm.
Rupert noticed, of course, as we pressed onwards. "Losing your edge, old man?" he teased, but I could hear a note of concern in his voice that belied the mockery.
"It's fine," I told him. "I've had worse blows from you."
"My blows," Rupert said haughtily, before pausing to dispatch another bandit, "are exquisite. You've told me so often enough." Still, he hurried forward, keeping a wary eye out for other attackers. It had grown quieter now - perhaps we had killed enough of the bandits to give them pause, and they were regrouping to change tactics. Suddenly, in the brief silence, we heard a voice yelling - but not the indecipherable shouts of the bandits to one another, a man's voice calling out in English!
"For god's sake, I'm here, this way!"
Sandy's voice gave us something to go on, and we did our best to discern the direction it was coming from. In the winding stone passageways, echoes resounded from one wall to another, making it difficult to judge whether to go left or right. Rupert gestured to his left, and so we made our way down a sloping corridor, descending further into the depths of the caves.
I was growing winded now, the cut in my arm stinging, and a dip in the uneven passage caused my foot to slip so that I bumped into Rupert, sending both of us sliding down the dusty last few yards to land in a small anteroom with very little dignity. A guardsman seemed startled by our entrance, and his momentary pause gave me just enough time to raise my gun from where I lay sprawled on the floor and shoot him. It was a deafening sound in the close quarters, and brought an uncomfortable number of pebbles raining down from above, so I resolved not to do that again unless it was quite necessary.
"Good lord, Detchard--" Rupert began, but his complaint was silenced as it dawned on us that, without realizing it, we must have reached our goal. A door banded with thick metal bars stood at the other side of the chamber, and we could hear someone pounding on it from the other side, yelling as if his lungs were about to give out. It was Sandy, and we struggled to our feet in our haste to reach him. I began to examine the barred door, but Rupert had the good sense to check the dead guard, found a ring with several heavy iron keys hanging from it, and then we had the lock open in a matter of seconds, hauling Sandy out of his cell.
He looked thinner than when we had last seen him, and he had always been a slender lad, but he seemed unharmed other than that. His brown hair was lank and dusty with grime, and he had a couple of weeks' growth of beard that made him look older than his youthful years. His clothing was likewise dirty, though only with the typical residue of having been worn steadily for several weeks rather than with signs of injury or illness. With a sob of relief he fell into our arms, and Rupert patted him on the back in a more or less comforting gesture for a moment before we reassessed our position. True, we had reached our intended target, but this was only half of the challenge - now we had to make our way back out of the winding cave system and get away, and the tunnels would surely by now be swarming with the surviving bandits, who would now have had more time to prepare for our assault. It was not an opportune situation to be in.
"Can you fight?" Rupert asked Sandy, who nodded, though he seemed a little uncertain. Rupert pressed a gun and a knife into his hands, leaving himself armed only with his sword - it was the weapon he was always most comfortable with, after all. Sandy tucked the gun into the back of his belt, keeping the knife at the ready.
While we paused, I took a moment to examine my shoulder more thoroughly. The wound wasn't deep, but it was long, a slice that stretched up from my bicep to shoulder, and was bleeding copiously, although it was reaching the tacky stage where it would slow down until I had to do any vigorous exercise, which would reopen the cut. "That doesn't look wonderful," Rupert said, but I gave him a roll of my eyes to show I was still hanging in there. "Well, one more scar for your collection," he said with a wink. He was irrepressible as always, despite the situation.
"I think I know another way out of here," Sandy piped up. "There's another exit, that way, further down, that comes out near the bottom of the hills." He hesitated, then added, "I can speak Turkish, I've heard them talking about it. I've had... plenty of time to listen," he finished ruefully.
"Let's give it a try, Detchard," Rupert said, seeing the doubt on my face. At least the way we came in, we knew more or less which way we were going, while this route would be untested, and might have unknown obstacles. However, if it meant a shorter path, and not walking back up the steep passage, I could allow myself to be persuaded. My legs were burning with aches and pains, and no doubt bruises where we'd fallen, and I wanted to be done with this godforsaken underground maze. Give me a tower or a castle any day of the week, with a predictable floor plan and an occasional glimpse of the world outside.
With the light flickering ahead of us, casting wavering shadows on the stone walls, we took the passage that Sandy pointed us toward. Rupert led the way, Sandy was in the middle, and I was bringing up the rear. It was narrower, forcing us to move single file, and it was clear from the cooling temperature and the drops of condensation on the walls that it was taking us gradually deeper into the tunnel system. The sound of our breathing was loud, almost as loud as our footsteps seemed in this eerily silent catacomb.
Then, to our horror, the lamp that had been faithfully lighting our way since we entered the caves flickered, dimmed, and finally died, having expended its oil. We were obliged to each put a hand on the shoulder of the man in front of us, and Rupert led the way by feel. Our progress slowed considerably, as none of us wanted to risk becoming separated, falling, or perhaps even dropping into a sudden pit that might appear ahead of us. "Steady," Rupert murmured, "that's it, steady," as if he was talking to the donkey again, trying to soothe its misgivings. I found it less comforting than might have been desired, but perhaps Sandy was reassured, not knowing Rupert as well as I did.
There was an odd scraping sound, and we came to an abrupt halt, bumping into each other. "What is it?" I asked testily, from the back of the group.
"A dead end, I think," Rupert replied. "Maybe we made a wrong turn somewhere."
We turned, and began taking a few tentative steps back in the way we'd come. I was cursing internally, holding my hands out ahead of me so that I wouldn't walk into a wall. These tunnels were darker than the pits of hell, and I had no wish to bloody my nose like a fool. My hands met stone, and I frowned, moving slightly to the left, then the right, trying to find the opening that I knew had to be there. It was nowhere to be found - as if the tunnel had changed behind us, blocking our path. For all I knew, perhaps it had.
"Gentlemen," came a voice, accented in the local style but speaking, unexpectedly, in English. It sounded as though it was coming from above us, somehow. "You have caused me so many problems tonight. But soon, this problem will be over." A chuckle echoed unpleasantly off the cavern walls.
"Kara Kazim," Sandy whispered. The leader of the bandit group had evidently been forced to take matters into his own hands following the death or injury of perhaps half of his men, and, despite his laughter, he did not sound happy about it.
Something itched at the back of my neck, and I moved my hand to brush it aside, distracted. Only then did I realize what it was. Sand. Sand, falling from above, running in thin streams that stuck to the sweat of our skin and filled our eyes with dust and grit. "They're trying to bury us alive," Rupert sputtered. "We have to get out of here!"
Without needing to be told, we each began to feel our way around the dead end we were caught in, seeking some kind of escape. Around our feet, the sand began to pile up, covering the floor of the cave first in small pyramids, then gradually spreading out until we were wading through it up to our ankles as we moved clumsily along the circumference of the small chamber.
"My boots are going to be ruined," Rupert complained, as if that was the most important matter before us right now. It felt as if every inch of my body was covered in sand, grit in my eyes and coating my lips and running down my chest, sticking unpleasantly to the half-dry blood that had drenched my shirt. This would be, I reflected, a very nasty way to die.
"Up," Sandy said suddenly. "If we can get up, maybe we can block the sand, or ... or even get out that way, I don't know."
"Get on my shoulders," Rupert told him, and they began to clamber around, trying to put this ridiculous plan into action.
Meanwhile I continued my careful search of the walls - I was in no condition to lift anyone onto my shoulder in any case. Let the younger men handle that, I thought, devoting my attention to my work. The sand was by now up to mid-calf, and wading through it was becoming an increasing difficulty. "There has to be a way out," I said, with increasing frustration no doubt audible in my voice. "We got in here somehow..." The scraping sound we had heard just before becoming trapped had surely been something moving, blocking us in. The easiest possibility, I thought, would surely have been a panel of some sort that could slide down from the ceiling and trap us...
Meanwhile, Rupert and Sandy were evidently engaged in some kind of complicated acrobatic act. "It's getting in my mouth," Sandy sputtered, choking. "Take a step to the left, can you?" Rupert muttered something in return that sounded quite uncharitable, but I heard him shift his position, and felt the sand begin to spill over the top of my boots as he did so.
My fingers came into contact with what felt like a gap in the stone, a narrow crack that could have been nothing but a natural formation. Nevertheless, lacking any better options, I traced its shape, following it down, plunging my hands through the sand when I reached that level, pushing through the dry, shifting grains until I found the hard surface of the floor. The crack continued, and I could feel a gap, just big enough to squeeze my hand into. "Here," I gasped, spitting out sand with each breath, "I think I found the way out."
Sandy jumped down, slipping in the sand as he did so, and he and Rupert made their way over to me. "Can you lift it?" he asked.
"Not with my arm like this," I said. "You'll have to give it a try. Here, let me guide your hands..." Working together, Rupert and Sandy found the bottom edge of the panel, their hands sliding as they tried to grip it beneath the sand. With a strength born of desperation, they pushed and pulled at it, until at last there was a crunching sound of stone against stone and I felt the sand shift and slide away, lowering just a little bit - but enough to give us hope. "Keep going," I urged them, "almost there, that's it!"
With considerable struggle, they managed to raise the stone slab perhaps a foot off the ground, but no further. "Crawl under," Rupert told me, through gritted teeth. "At least you can get out, even if I can't."
A more heroic man, or a more romantic one, might have told his lover to go first, or insisted he would not leave without him. However, I am not a more heroic man, and my romantic gestures are reserved for occasions when they are not likely to get me killed. I dropped to my belly, burrowing through the sand that spilled out of the narrow opening, and pushed my way through on aching knees. The sand seemed to try to burrow its way into my skin, clinging to the blood that stained my shirt and working its way into every possible crevice, including my open wound. It was a dreadful feeling, and I was acutely aware of not only the grit of the sand and the stone that scraped against my back, but the entire weight of the mountain above us, as though it was trying to crush us beneath its bulk. At last I scrambled out to something approaching freedom. Sandy swiftly followed, his skinny, youthful frame sliding swiftly under the gap, leaving Rupert supporting the door alone. He couldn't hold it much longer, I was sure, and I cast about urgently for something that might help. Sandy too tried, helplessly shoving his knife into the gap in a futile effort to prop it up. All I could find was a meagre hunk of stone, and I pushed it desperately into the narrowing space that was still flooding with sand, hoping it and the knife together would hold it up just a little longer. "Come on," I ordered, "hurry up, you bastard!"
There was a long, agonizing moment, and then I saw Rupert's hand emerge from the pile of sand. I grabbed it, uncaring of my own injury, and pulled him through, gasping and choking and blessedly alive. We had escaped from almost certain death, but we were not free yet. With our passage ahead blocked, there was no other option but to go back the way we'd come, fumbling our way slowly in the dark through the narrow passage.
We emerged into the room we'd rescued Sandy from, blinking in the sudden flare of a light that dazzled our eyes, so accustomed had they become to the pitch dark. A man stood there, tall, not young but still younger than either Rupert or myself, his hair dark and mustache neatly curled. He stood at the opposite end of the room, pointing a pistol at us, and my heart sank. "So," he said, and I recognized our tormentor's voice from earlier. "You escaped from the sand trap."
"Easily," Rupert bluffed, raising his sword as if that might help, but his confident demeanour was somewhat undermined by our wretched appearance, covered in sand and blood and sweat. "Step aside and we won't have to kill you."
He laughed again, that same unpleasant sound that bore no relation to genuine mirth. "I have you at gunpoint, gentlemen, and you are armed with swords - you will not reach me alive."
"You won't be able to kill both of us," I pointed out dryly. "You may shoot him, but if you do I will kill you before I hit the ground." I said this hoping to guide his thinking in certain directions - to focus his attention on me, make him perceive me as the greater threat, encourage him to shoot me first if it came to that. As an old man, it felt like the least I could do was to die for my companions, if there was no other option. Obviously I would have preferred that none of us die, but if one of us had to, I would rather it was myself than Rupert, or young Sandy, who still had so many years left ahead of him...
"Now, do you wish to surrender?" demanded Kara Kazim. "I will take my hostage back, and perhaps someone will even be willing to pay a ransom for you as well. Or do you wish to be a fool and sacrifice yourself for nothing?"
I opened my mouth to say something that would no doubt have been devastatingly witty when a sudden bang exploded near my ear, and our captor, with a look of surprise on his face, slumped back against the wall and slid slowly down it, leaving a trail of blood from the bullet wound that had passed neatly through his chest and out his back. He had been thoroughly distracted by our banter, and had paid the price for ignoring the third member of our little group. Sandy stood there with the gun in his hands, looking rather stunned, as though he couldn't believe he'd just shot a man. Perhaps it was his first time.
"Good boy," Rupert said, patting Sandy on the back. "But let's not wait around to see who comes running at that sound."
We hurried back up the steep passage that led back towards the front entrance. At least these sections of the cave complex were lit by occasional torches, so we weren't floundering in the dark again. My legs were screaming at me with weariness, though, and I knew that I would pay for this tomorrow. At one point we heard the sound of hurried footsteps approaching, but were able to duck into an empty chamber and avoid notice as a handful of men went running past. It was best now to avoid fighting if we could - we were all exhausted, and I didn't like our chances unless it was three of us against one or two of them. When we were sure they'd gone, we emerged from the room and resumed our retreat.
When we were drawing near the entrance of the cave, we slowed down, rather than rushing directly to the opening. If there were going to be more of the bandits, they'd likely be there, trying to block our escape. We took shelter in a small chamber that seemed to serve as a guardsman's break room, and Rupert risked a quick peek around the corner to see what lay between us and our exit. "There are about ten of them," he whispered, "armed and ready."
"Damn it," I muttered. It seemed like we were going to have to fight our way out and hope we got lucky. Given how things had gone so far, I didn't have great confidence in our luck.
"I think I can handle it," Sandy whispered back. Before we could ask him to explain, he shouted something in a loud, deep voice quite unlike his own, and in Turkish. The voice was a perfect imitation of Kara Kazim's, and whatever he said seemed to have an immediate effect on the bandits. Half a dozen of them went running past us, fortunately not pausing to look into the small chamber where we were hiding, and the silence once they had passed suggested that the room might now be empty. Indeed, when we risked peering out once more, nothing stood between us and the exit. The last few guards must have departed through the door, so we would still have to be on watch for them, but we didn't hesitate to run for the blessed outdoors.
"What did you say to them?" I asked, as we made our way down the precarious path.
"I told them that they were illegitimate sons of dogs who were allowing our prisoners to escape through the back door after they'd shot and wounded me, with some added threats for veracity," Sandy said, a bit bashful. "I thought it might have the desired effect."
"You're very good at impersonation," I told him, and could see his blush beneath the grime and dust that coated his skin. "You might make a respectable adventurer yet."
"But who wants to be a respectable adventurer?" Rupert asked, and on that front, I could hardly argue with my beloved scoundrel.
By some miracle, the first piece of good fortune we'd had all night, we found that the donkey had not managed to break its ties and run off to seek adventures of its own, but had instead fallen asleep waiting for us to return. Rupert woke it from its slumber and harnessed it quickly, and Sandy offered me a hand to help me into the back of the cart. I refused on the grounds that I still had some small amount of dignity left. As we made our escape at the modest pace the donkey would permit, I lay back in the cart and gazed up at the stars, bright and clear. Sandy sat next to me, and did not allow himself to begin to trust that we were safe until at least an hour had gone by without any signs that we were being pursued. "Thank you," he said then, and there was a tremor in his voice that betrayed his relief.
"You can thank us properly later," Rupert said brightly from the driver's seat.
"I could thank you now," he offered, leaning over suggestively, but I waved my hand.
"I'm too old to fuck in the back of a cart. Wait until we reach somewhere with a bed at least." My back ached and my muscles were throbbing with pain and I was altogether not in the mood for fooling around right now. "Besides, we're all filthy."
"You've become so prim in your old age," Rupert teased. "You never used to be so concerned about being filthy."
"Perhaps my standards have been raised, after so many years at your side," I said dryly. More than anything I wanted a drink, a bath, and a nap, in that order. All I could have for the moment was the nap, so I closed my eyes and tried to doze as we rolled onwards toward anywhere far away from this place.
When I woke, the sun was just beginning to come up, and the cart was drawing to a halt at what seemed to be an abandoned hut, perhaps one used sporadically by the local goatherds. It was nothing to write home about, but it would serve as a temporary shelter to keep us hidden during daylight hours and allow us all a chance to rest and, with any luck, clean up as well. Rupert stashed the cart out of sight from the road and went to the well to get some water for the donkey, while Sandy helped me down from the cart. I wanted to hop down carelessly but I was quite aware that it would only make me look foolish if I tried it and failed, so I accepted the young man's hand.
Inside the hut, we found signs of occasional habitation - a table and a bench, a pot, a few jars containing dried grains and a jug of oil, and a bed lined with sheepskins that looked temptingly comfortable. Rupert joined us after tending to the donkey, carrying in a bucket of water, and we all drank our fill, sharing the single cup that the cottage offered. After that was done, Rupert eyed us critically and said, "I'll get another bucket, everyone here needs a bath."
"I see you're not still protesting that being filthy is fine," I noted, beginning the uncomfortable process of removing my shirt. The blood had dried and the cut in my shoulder was stuck to the shirt, so taking it off meant inevitably reopening the scabbed-over wound.
"That looks nasty," Sandy said.
"I'll be fine, but this shirt is ruined," I told him. "It might as well be turned into bandages." I handed it over to him, and he worked on tearing it into strips as best as he could. When Rupert came back with more water, I washed the wound, wincing slightly at the sting of the cold water. Sandy and Rupert took turns washing themselves as much as was possible under the circumstances, and then, with experience born from years of practice of tending to one another's injuries, Rupert helped me bandage myself up. It felt better, although I still longed for a hot bath that I could luxuriate in rather than a quick sponging off with well water.
Surveying the options, Sandy got a fire started in the hearth and then began to put together a pot of porridge from the dried lentils and rice, while Rupert retrieved a handful of greens from the field outside that I hoped weren't poisonous. It wouldn't be a gourmet meal, but it would be better than nothing. While it simmered over the fire, I lay down on the bed. The sheepskins smelled of, well, sheep, but it was soft and warm and easy for my eyes to drift shut. Rupert nudged me awake some time later for our meal, and we all ate our fill of the pottage, which tasted better than I had expected. "I found some spices," Sandy said with a smile, "and that always improves a dish."
Then there was little to do except wait again for nightfall, to complete the remainder of our journey - or at least, the remainder of our journey by cart and donkey. Barring misfortune, we would reach the train station in Ankara the following morning, and be on a train to Constantinople before noon. Where Sandy would go after that, I couldn't guess - he seemed to thrive in this place, despite his recent adversity. Rupert and I would continue from there back as far as Vienna, and then see what would await us there. It was a common rendezvous point for us, and no doubt there would be some missives waiting for one or both of us. Perhaps Lisl would have some new trouble for us to get her out of. Maybe there would even be a paying job, of all things. For now, if the look on Sandy's face was to be believed, his gratitude might be its own form of payment.
The bed creaked under the weight of the three of us, but it held. Sandy planted kisses along my uninjured shoulder, the scruff of his beard rough against my skin in a way that sent shivers up my spine. With a snarl of impatience, I rolled him over onto his back, knocking the breath out of him. "Nothing too strenuous, old man," Rupert cautioned me, but he smiled as he did so.
It was clear that in the time since we'd first met him, Sandy had learned quite a lot. He made good use of the remainder of the cooking oil, and I took my time appreciating his newfound skills. He twitched and writhed under me like a wild creature, and came at my command as I broke him to my mastery. When I was sated at last, Rupert took up my place, driving into his slick hole. I found myself thinking it was fortunate that Sandy was as energetic as he was, for Rupert set to him at a punishing speed, paying no mind to his prick even though it returned to its full size within only a few minutes, bobbing helplessly in time with Rupert's pace. I must have been feeling generous, for after a while I reached between their bodies and grasped his cock firmly, giving it two or three quick strokes to finish him off for a second time. Rupert merely grinned and, once Sandy had finished, gave a series of rapid thrusts that drew a pained whine from his lips. I put my fingers to his mouth, and Sandy lapped and sucked at them helplessly, his cock lying soft and spent against his belly while Rupert took everything he desired from him, finally coming inside him with a satisfied groan.
Afterwards, we sprawled together in companionable exhaustion. "I am sorry I dragged you all this way," Sandy mumbled into Rupert's chest. He sounded young and embarrassed and rather guilty.
"Well, no harm done," Rupert told him, patting his back. "After all, Jasper refuses to retire peacefully, so I need to keep finding ways of occupying his attention. We ought to thank you for keeping us busy - it's either this or sitting about getting rusty."
I grumbled, running my hands through my beloved's hair, seeing the threads of silver that gleamed there. He wasn't as young as he used to be either, drawing closer to fifty with each day, so he was hardly one to talk. "Rupert my dear, as long as you are by my side, a peaceful life would be quite impossible."