Free The Scorpion’s Bite by Aileen G. Baron

clean, then you are innocent.”
    “May Allah help us do justice.” The elder called to all assembled to witness the test of fire, and reached for the red-hot pan. He shook off the ash lightly from the bottom with his fingers and held it straight up before Gideon. The crowd waited, sat silent, watched.
    Three times Gideon licked the pan without moving his head to the right or the left; and three times he rinsed his mouth with water from the ibrit, holding the water from last rinse in his mouth for a longer time.
    “Show me your tongue.” The elder inspected Gideon’s mouth, grasped Gideon’s chin and moved his jaw from side to side.
    He showed no expression of the outcome, neither a smile nor a frown, nor the flicker of an eye.
    “Show the judges.”
    The elder sat silently, clasped his hands, bowed his head. Gideon went around the fire and showed his tongue to each of the judges.
    Lily continued to hold her breath.
    “We are all witnesses,” the elder called out, raising both arms above his head. “The man is innocent.”
    Khaled ibn Achmad jumped up, his face red and hard as a sandstone wall, and shook his fist. “How can that be? Do it again.”
    “He is telling the truth.” The elder said, his look rigid. “There is no other way. The bisha’a is final.”
    “Ignore him,” Jalil told Gideon. “He is so ignorant, he can’t sort the wheat from the lentils.”
    But Khaled’s nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath and fixed Gideon with the rancorous eyes of a snake whose split tongue spit fire.

Chapter Twelve
    Jalil and Gideon thanked the elders and said goodbye with florid waving of arms and elaborate bows, and Klaus’ hand caught in the neck of Hamud’s shirt as they rose to leave.
    The bisha’a was over. The decision was final. Gideon was officially cleared of killing Qasim.
    But Lily still wondered who would want Qasim dead? And why? The man with the brown turban? Lily had spotted him watching them in the Wadi Rum before he turned up here at the trial. Did Qasim’s death have something to do with the Rashidi? Something to do with the message that Qasim had tried to give Gideon as the wind carried it away?
    Someone had killed him with a knife, but every Bedouin in the desert carries a knife. Even Qasim. Qasim’s knife was distinctive, with a tooled leather handle and sheath. Klaus had a folding knife with a long blade and a stag handle.
    Jalil led the way down the slope as they trudged toward the cars. All but Klaus, who had disappeared again, this time into the mourners’ tent.
    “I see you met Gerta Kuntze,” Jalil said to Lily.
    “The Empress of Mesopotamia?”
    “She’s no el Khatan. She doesn’t travel like Gertrude Bell with servants and bathtubs and silver service and Paris gowns.”
    “What does she travel with?”
    “She travels with cases of Mausers, German rifles. Passes them out like candy.”
    “And that’s how she goes from camp to camp as a welcome guest in Bedouin tents?”
    “It works for her.”
    Laughing, Jalil continued down the slope. He told them that they had to go to Azraq, the oasis in the eastern desert. “ Azraq means blue,” he said. “And the oasis is blue with water.” He said they had to meet with Colonel Glubb. He called him Abu Huniak.
    “There are rumors,” Jalil said, “of infiltration from Syria.”
    On the gradient, Lily’s foot glanced off a rock. She skidded along the incline, almost lost her footing, threw out her arms to gain her balance and collided with Hamud.
    He cried out, screaming “Scorpion,” and began tearing at his cloak, trying to pull it off.
    Lily stood back, astonished, wondering what she had done.
    Hamud fell to the ground, rolled onto his back, and writhed on the rocky slope, still screaming. He roared in Arabic, his voice heavy with pain as Jalil ran back to him, shouting for help. Screaming, Hamud gripped Jalil’s leg and pulled him closer, beseeching Jalil in a coarse whisper as he struggled.
    Jalil bent down, to