Chapter 6
The Leper Messiah ~ continued from Chapter 5 | The Scorpion and the Poppy Seed Cakes
“I dream of the garden,” David whispered.
He was half-drunk with adventure and love as he staggered forward in a long line of camels and horses and dust.
Men had only their hopes and dreams to protect them as the sands called along the great eastern trade routes that led from Rome to Persia, India and China.
The dust rose far across the Persian desert as Bedouins disappeared into the distance, lost in water holes, sparse vegetation and a burnt orange knot that tied sand and sky together.
David and Shimea’s world was earth and sun. The days were filled with the heat and the long camel line that went up and down the great valleys. The sand hills rose and fell and the sun followed behind like a hammer that fell at each crossing and each path they followed.
David dared to look out over the valleys and hills in the brutal sun, if only to glimpse her for a moment, but she was not there. He saw visions of the girl he had met — a young princess — and her voice and her smell. He would see her in each camel footprint or the jagged and sharp edge of a dune that they crossed and then left behind. Then her voice became a cool oasis that calmed his mind and allowed him to move on slowly throughout the lonely caravan. He was so far away from the rocky and hard farmland of his family that often he would wonder if he could ever return. She took hold of his soul.
A lone rider stood high above on a jagged cliff top and watched the small caravan that seemed lost among the desert sands. He turned back and surveyed the white sand plains and the cloud of dust that rose into the angry morning sun.
“We shall sit and talk with them,” Arlemay said.
The slight man, his keffiyeh blown by the wind and concealing his face, guided his horse and two camels back toward the town of Aleppo to begin the grueling 12-day ride from there to Damascus.
He decided not to wait for the large caravans that traveled into the Euphrates Valley but rather take the long trip himself as he had done before.
Omar and Ali, his servants, packed two camels with a half load of supplies: 250 pounds.
“Count it out.” He handed his purse to Omar.
Omar counted out the 300 dinars that would be needed for safe passage from the Bedouins and tucked it in a purse under his long robe.
“Ta-aal,” he motioned to his companions as they started down to meet the caravan.
The slight man scratched his face and hands before wiping his nose.
David and Shimea came out to greet the strangers.
Omar tore a piece of pita bread and devoured it as he whipped the camel.
“Haga will make Mulahwajah for us when we are home,” he smiled longingly. “She will put in onion, leeks, fresh roux, lamb and ground coriander.”
“Brother, don’t forget cinnamon,” Ali licked his lips.
“Yes, yes, cinnamon.”
“And pepper.”
“You like Hasty?” Omar pushed a piece of flatbread in David’s face.
Arlemay laughed as he moved on towards the great sands spread before them.
“Stir in some honey and then sit in the courtyard and watch the Barada River flow by and be humbled that you live in Damascus, the greatest city on earth.”
The three men sat cross-legged under a tent where David and Shimea sat.
The three had come by this ritual on their travels, always long and difficult but made bearable by the thought of Haga’s cooking in Hussein al-Rashid’s house, where enigmatic, young, westerner Arlemay was a long-term boarder and treated like a son.
Hussein al-Rashid was a high-ranking education visar in the Caliph’s civil service, who looked after all matters of translation of ancient works throughout the region.
“But, Master, we have a problem.”
Blue eyes flashed as Arlemay turned to Omar.
“What?”
“There are five of us and we made Hasty only for two.” Omar shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands.
Shimea poured some mint tea and David served the three strange men.
Continue reading… Chapter 6 | I Am David
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