THE JADE'S SECRET GARDEN

Chapter 4

The heat was intense. As the gharry rattled along the streets of the city, Aliyah drew a handkerchief from her purse and began to fan herself with it. Claire was thankful for the broad-brimmed straw hat she'd brought along to shade her from the wicked sun, which was now at its zenith.

Galle was a very cold city, Jackson explained to them as they drove on. Because of its convenient location at the southern tip of the island, it had been a traders' port since ancient times. Portugal had ruled here once, though scarcely any signs of Portuguese influence remained. It was the Dutch who had left their mark upon the city in the sober battlements lining the shore, the comfortable looking houses, typically Dutch with steps and wide doorways, and the sturdy churches and government buildings, which now housed the British administrators who presently ruled Ceylon.

Claire was struck most by the lush gardens that could be seen on every hand, with fragrant jasmine and crimson hibiscus and lilies and tulip trees with bright yellow flowers.

The  marketplace itself was more representative of the native lifestyle, a collection of ramshackle shops lining several narrow, crooked streets, shaded by brightly coloured awnings overhead, and all of this awash in humanity. There were brown skinned women draped in saris and carrying baskets, fine boned native men wearing wide cotton trousers and loose jackets, Arabs in striped robes and head cloths all doing business in a Babel of foreign tongues.

Once they had alighted from their cab, Claire kept close to her companions to avoid being lost in the crowd. They found an amazing variety of goods to be had, sweetmeats and fruit, Persian shawls and Syrian embroideries, Chinese carvings of ebony and ivory, decorative boxes made out of the beautifully grained Calamander wood, tortoiseshell combs, and rolls of silks and satins in a rainbow of colours.

The Holcombs, of course, spent a good deal of time in examining the fabrics, but as Claire did not share their interest, her eyes soon began to wander elsewhere. Her own curiosity was piqued by the shop of a gem polisher she saw nearby, and so she informed Aliyah that she was going to explore and assured her that she would not stray far.

The interior of the tiny jeweler's shop was hot and still. The room was dark with shadow's, but a hole in the centre of the roof above let in a narrow beam of light, which illuminated an elderly man bent over a grinding wheel in a far corner.

Standing behind a makeshift counter was a young girl wearing a peach coloured skin, and she flashed a smile when Claire entered. The girl's silver bracelets jangled as she waved a hand to indicate the selection set on the table before her. On display were trays of gold filigree rings, several delicately wrought chains with pendants, and too, a box filled with unset coloured stones.

"My Grandfather can make a necklace, if Missy likes, or a ring, perhaps," the girl said in a pleasantly accented English as Claire did not have names. She drew a sharp breath in astonishment.

From behind her in the shadows a deep voice intoned, "Legend has it that when King Solomon needed jewels and to present to the Queen of Sheba, he sent to Galle for them."

She was startled to realise that someone else had come into the shop. "Is that so?" she replied, turning to face the man who had spoken.

The accent was definitely American. His hair was dark, worn long at the collar, and as he stepped into the light, Claire noticed that he was lean and long legged. He wore light coloured trousers and a linen shirt, with sleeves rolled to the elbow to reveal forearms that were suntanned. His face was tanned, too, but for a deep line of scar tissue that paralleled the angle of the cheekbone just beneath his right eye. That eye, she could see now, was covered with a black leather patch that lent to his Handsome face a rakish look.