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frowned. “How? Where? What happened?”
    “Our guide was killed and a man from the Arab Legion arrested Gideon. They’re holding him at the fortress at Rum.”
    “Your guide was a Howeitat. They are the traditional enemies of the Beni Sakhr,” the Emir said, as if that explained everything. “I shall send word to the guard at Rum, tell him to release my friend.”
    He stroked the tumble of curls on his grandson’s head and leaned back. A soft smile played on his lips when Hussein looked up at him. “Once we were more powerful than the British,” he said to the child in a soft voice. “We have a long and proud history.”
    He sighed, stood up, strolled to the window and gazed at the play of water in the fountain. “We have everyone here. Moslems, Christians, Armenian artisans, Druze from the mountains, Circassian warriors, gentlemanly Bahai, fellahin in the towns and villages, merchants in the cities.” He spoke to Lily now. “And Bedouin. We are all Bedouin. The others come and go, Romans, Crusaders, Mamelukes, Turks, Palestinians, British.” He turned around to face her. “But we will be here forever.”
    He returned to the dais. “And we own the land.” He seated himself again in the ebony chair. “The land belongs to the Bedouin.”
    He leaned back against the cushion and said to Lily, “I will assign a guide to you from the Beni Sakhr who is fit for the task ahead of you.”
    “And what is the task ahead?” Lily asked.
    “Someone who knows Rum, who knows the routes, who knows the eastern desert.”
    So we’re going to the eastern desert, that much she could gather. Secrets, secrets, she was surrounded by secrets. Well, there’s a war on. What did that poster say? A slip of the lip can sink a ship? There were no slips, no ships here in Amman. A cat can look at a king, but it can’t make him purr, she thought. Abdullah knows more about the survey for the OSS than I do.
    With a wave of his hand, a smile, and a slight bow of his head, the Emir dismissed her. “ Mashallah ,” he said. “May Allah preserve you. Ma’a es salaam . Go in safety.”
    Colonel Glubb accompanied her on her way out along the long corridor.
    “The Hashemites are a Bedouin tribe?” Lily asked him.
    “The most prestigious of them all. Far more important than the Saudis. The Saudis stole Mecca from the Hashemites. Mecca is the birthright of the Hashemites. Abdullah’s father was ruler of Mecca, King of Hejaz.” He stopped walking and turned to Lily. “The Prophet himself was a Hashemite, did you know that?”
    She noticed that the colonel referred to Mohammed as the Prophet and thought he’s been living among Moslems for a long time.
    “You don’t think much of the Saudis, do you?” she asked.
    “They’re satiated with plunder. Drunk on greed and religion.”
    “That’s pretty harsh.”
    “They base their power on Wahhabism. Recent sect, eighteenth century. Ultra conservative, militaristic. As far as I can see, it’s a distortion of Islam, will set them back a thousand years.”
    “But the British support the Saudis.”
    “For the oil. It seems we’re running short of coals in Newcastle.”
    They continued down the corridor and Glubb turned to her again.
    “When you get to the eastern desert,” he said, “watch out for Gerta Kuntze. She’s a troublemaker. She lives among the Rashidi, the Bedu on the Iraqi border, moving from tent to tent, stirring up problems. We don’t need her. We have enough worries.”
    So, we are going to the eastern desert.
    Glubb looked out the window for a moment, where petals from overblown roses caught in the breeze and wafted to the ground. “Kuntze thinks of herself as the modern-day Gertrude Bell. Calls herself the Empress of Mesopotamia. But she’s no Gertrude Bell. For one thing, Kuntze is German, not British.”
    “Gertrude Bell, the woman who was called the Queen of Iraq? Lawrence’s friend?”
    “The very same. I met Gertrude Bell once in Cairo. She was a silly