Assassination in Al Qahira

by James Boschert

  Assassination in Al-Qahira

  The Third Book of Talon

  By

  James Boschert

  Penmore Press

  www.penmorepress.com

  Assassination in Al-Qahirah -By James Boschert

  Copyright © 2011 by James Boschert

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Edition 2 - 2013

  ISBN: 978-1-942756-163 Paperback

  ISBN: 978-1-942756-17-0 Ebook

  BISAC Subject Headings:

  FICTION / Action & Adventure

  FICTION / Historical

  FICTION / Thrillers

  Address all correspondence to:

  M James

  Penmore Press

  920 N Javalina PL

  Tucson AZ 85748. USA

  1.0

  Table of Contents

  Glossary

  Chapter 1 The Storm

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3 Al Iskandriyah

  Chapter 4 Prison

  Chapter 5 Highwaymen

  Chapter 6 The Fayoum

  Chapter 7 Abbas

  Chapter 8 Homecoming

  Chapter 9 Arrest

  Chapter 10 Slaves

  Chapter 11 Al Qahira

  Chapter 12 Beggars

  Chapter 13 Chogan

  Chapter 14 A Visit

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16 Return

  Chapter 17 Tunnels

  Chapter 18 Deep Sanctuary

  Chapter 19 Ruin

  Chapter 20 A Promise Kept

  Chapter 21 A Sultan’s Army

  Chapter 22 Assassins

  Chapter 23 Flight

  Chapter 24 Galley Slaves

  Chapter 25 Al Muntaqim

  Chapter 26 Aswan

  Chapter 27 Sultan’s Command

  Chapter 28 Battle on the Nile

  Chapter 29 Farewell

  Chapter 30 Towers of Danietta

  Chapter 31 Acre

  About the Author

  If You Enjoyed This Book

  Other books by James Boschert

  Glossary

  Al Andalucia: Arab Spain

  Al Qahirah: Cairo city

  Al Iskandrȋyah: Alexandria city

  Annessa: Miss

  Batinis: One of many names for the Hashashini Ismaili

  Berber: Tribal people of North Africa. Fanatical Islamists

  Bezat: Byzantine Gold coin (devalued)

  Bir: Water well

  Dinar: Gold coin of the Egyptian and Arab world

  Dirham: Small copper coin

  Dronan: One- or two-masted war galley with either one or two rows of oars. Originally designed by the Byzantines, it was copied by the Arabs for their navies.

  Emir: Prince

  Baklava: Light pastry

  Hadith: Statements regarded by traditional Islamic schools as important tools for understanding the Quran.

  Hashashini: Ismaili followers of Hassan E Sabah in Persia and Sinan Rashid in Lebanon

  Kafeya: Linen or cotton cloth wound around the head and lower face to protect from the sun and sand

  Kharagi: Foreigner

  Mamelukes: Slave warrior, mostly recruited from Turkish tribes but also from Northern peoples and other slave boys.

  Nubian: People from the south of Egypt (Nubia); their land started at the first cataract of the Nile river and extended south.

  Oustez: Mister

  Ramadan: Month of fasting

  Syce: Horse groom

  So blow, ye tempests, blow,

  And my spirit shall not quail;

  I have fought with many a foe,

  I have weathered many a gale;

  And in this hour of death,

  Ere I yield my fleeting breath,

  —Charles Mackay

  Chapter 1

  The Storm

  Talon woke with an uneasy feeling that all was not well. It was their fourteenth day at sea and he had become used to the rise and fall of the ship as it ploughed its way eastward. Now there was an ominous feel to the vessel, and its timbers were groaning and creaking in a manner that was distinctly different from their customary noises.

  He sat up in the dark on his pallet of old straw and canvas and tried to understand the meaning of the distant shouts and the harsh rattle of tackle being moved down to the waist of the ship. The rolling and pitching became such that the equipment stacked in the corners now slid noisily across the long cabin where he lay, and things were falling about with every pitch and roll. Men began to wake up cursing. Saddles and other hardware were falling off their pegs onto them.

  There was a distant outcry, and the ship seemed to slow, but then the rhythm of rolling and pitching began again, followed by more shouting. By this time, others of the group of men who had been sleeping in the cramped quarters of the cabin were rousing themselves and calling out in the darkness.

  “What is happening?” It sounded like Max.

  “God’s mercy! The ship is filling with water!” someone else shouted.

  Indeed, water was sloshing about the floor, dripping down from the seams of the deck above and washing in through the open ports on the side. Men got to their feet in a hurry.

  “Is there a candle? Light a lamp, someone. I cannot see in this infernal darkness!”

  “God have mercy on our souls, this ship is in trouble!” another voice cried in the darkness.

  Someone began retching, and the crowded cabin grew more unpleasant from the stink of vomit mingled with the other fetid smells of unwashed bodies and cordage.

  There was a brief flash of light, followed by the crash of thunder almost overhead. Talon decided it was time to get onto the deck above and learn what was happening. He fumbled in the dark for his cloak, wrapped it round his shoulders, then brushed past his comrades and forced the door open. The wind was driving against it with such force that it resisted at first, but by leaning hard into it he finally managed to push it open. Staggering out onto the short balcony of the deck in front, he made a grab for the railing just as the sea swept across the lower main deck. The wind-driven spray from the crested waves struck his face, stinging and cold. It was a stormy, gray, early dawn and there was barely light to see by.

  Within minutes, despite his cloak, his clothing was soaked. Lightning flashed in a jagged line in the distance, followed by another crash of thunder as he peered out at the turbulent sea. He saw mountainous waves and the spume off their tops flying in the wind, mixing with the driving rain. His heart quailed. Each time a wave washed past, it left an ominous dark hollow that appeared to be about to suck the ship into it. He shivered, not only from the cold, but with fear.

  Water streamed from the side of the ship and she tried to right herself from being canted over to starboard. The crewmen down in the waist were trying to control the huge spar that held the sail, hauling on the halyards with all their might but to little avail. Despite their efforts and the shouts from the captain, they could not turn the spar to where he wanted it.

  Another wave swept over the deck and three men who were down in the waist were swept off their feet and into the scuppers of the other side. The straining ship groaned as she slowly righted herself and began to roll in the opposite direction, water now pouring off her sides with floating pieces of wood washing to and fro. One heavy wooden grating that was placed over the hold broke loose and followed the tide as it crossed to the port side. It crashed into one of the helpless men in the scuppers, crushing him to death. His scream of agony was cut off by the rushing waters that covered him.

  Talon glanced
up. There were dense clouds overhead and flashes of lightning that flickered across the sky, illuminating a scene from hell. The ship was turned into the sea now, with the wind on its port quarter. Waves smashed against its bows and sometimes carried right over the fore deck when the boat dipped into a hollow.

  The sail above them snapped with a loud retort and began to flap with wild abandon. It shredded within a minute, while one of the ropes holding its bottom corner broke, either because it was rotten or simply from the strain.

  Talon, watching the sail reduced to rags in front of him, felt a leaden feeling in his stomach. He realized that they were now at the mercy of the wind and sea, unless somehow they could salvage this sail or raise another and regain control of the ship. He looked up at the mast and saw that the huge lugsail that had originally been there was also gone, the remnants flapping like so many gray pendants, useless for sailing by.

  He was aware that Max had joined him on the short deck and he tried to speak to him, but the keening of the wind blew his words away. Instead, Talon pointed to the deck above and began to make his slow way up the steps to the quarterdeck. Max elected to stay where he was. The wind was even worse on the steps, for there was no shelter. It tore at Talon with a fury, as though trying to tear him from his hold and cast him into the foaming water. Below at least, he had been able to take some shelter from the rise of the deck and the mast.

  Talon had to crawl up the steep steps, hanging onto the ropes that led along either side, buffeted and shaken by the gusting winds and wondering if at any minute a wave would come and sweep him away. At the top he managed, despite the howling, tugging wind, to stand up and stagger over to the mast where he hung on grimly; from there he stared back at two steering men who were trying to control the bucking and swinging rudder bar. It was throwing them about like dolls. Even in this dim light he could see there was a look of exhaustion and terror on their bearded faces.

  The captain was nearby, leaning over the front rail which he gripped with white knuckles. “Get that God-smitten spar down and get the useless rags off it,” he bellowed. “Bend another sail onto it for your lives, or we are drowned.”

  His voice boomed above the storm, and the crew ran to comply despite the heaving and rolling deck. They knew their lives depended upon getting the sail replaced, or the ship might go sideways into the sea and roll over.

  Talon held onto the ropes around the mast at the front of the quarterdeck in an effort to get his bearings. He realized that the ship was now pointing south, as there was a glimmer of light showing through the clouds off the port bow that indicated the beginning of dawn.

  He could not tell if there were any other ships nearby, but they too would be concentrating on survival and could not come to their aid, even if they had so wanted. He looked back down into the waist of the ship and wondered how the horses were faring. The grating had been torn off one of the holds and he was sure the ship was taking seawater. That meant the horses would be knee deep in water and terrified for their lives. It would be pandemonium down below.

  His companions were either at the front of the ship, in which case they were completely water logged by now, or in the space reserved for knights below the quarterdeck cabins, which were beneath his feet.

  Other than Max, no one else had followed him out, and Talon caught a glimpse of Max being violently sick by the masthead. The top of the mast and spars moved in a huge arc from side to side that made him dizzy if he looked up. The ship’s motion took the hull over so hard that the sea was almost level with the top of its sides.

  He clung with all his strength to the ropes and began to pray.

  The men down in the waist of the ship were frantically trying to bend another sail to the spar that was lying across the ship’s sides, and they were making good progress despite being hampered by the wind and horizontal rain. Anyone could be swept overboard or smashed to death by some of the large objects that had broken loose. There was a shout from a steersman. Talon’s head whipped round and he saw one of the sodden men pointing ahead.

  “Laaand! Dear Lord save us, it’s land!” he screamed, but it was not with relief. Talon could clearly hear the panic in his shout.

  He strained his eyes against the gloom and the hissing rain to make out what the man was pointing at.

  Another flash of lightning helped to illuminate a dark, ominous mass looming low out of the gray horizon. Sure enough it was land, and his heart sank. His eyes swiveled wildly down into the waist again, to the crew. The captain was leaning over the rail screaming at the men to hurry or they were wrecked.

  The ship now wallowed so deep in the water that it was rolling less. Talon heard the screams of the panicked horses below. His blood went cold when he knew he could do absolutely nothing for them, including Jabbar, his old friend. Even if he could release his Jabbar he could not get him out of the hold. Despite the wind tearing at his face, Talon felt tears flowing and the horizon ahead of him blurred.

  But he was quickly made to realize that his own life was going to be in question and very soon.

  A shriek of alarm from the front of the ship; there was no mistaking the terror of the scarecrow figure pointing forward. Talon crossed himself.

  “Rocks ahead, only half a mile!” The wind carried the rest of the words away.

  The steersmen fell to the deck and began to cry and pray. The captain, however, was a doughty man who was not ready to give up. He left the rail, kicked the two men to their feet and forced them back to the tiller, screaming abuse at them as he did so. Then he returned to encourage the crew, who had now bent the sail onto a spar and were rushing in two lines to haul the sail aloft.

  Talon felt a flicker of hope as the sail bellied almost immediately, making it difficult to hoist; with a last, desperate effort the men managed to haul it up and into place, and the ship took on a life of its own again. From being nothing more than a wallowing log in the water she gained direction, whereupon the captain rushed to the tiller and with his two men began to haul and push against the long bar to turn the ship out to sea.

  The men in the waist were still making the lines fast and there were now people coming out of the cabins to cluster on the short decks at the back of the ship and in the poop. He saw Montague and Jeffrey come to join Max.

  The knights and their sergeant were utterly dependent upon the skill of the crew, unable to help but not willing to go below and feel trapped. So instead they watched in fearful fascination as the crew and the ship battled for all their lives against the storm and the sea.

  But the sail had gone up too late. The ship lurched and there was a rending crash from below. The mast whipped forward and then back, the shocking blow dislodging the spar. The sail began to fall.

  The cries of fear from the sailors as they realized what had happened were carried to the knights and Max. The ship had not been able to avoid the rocks and had cut herself open on their razor-sharp points. As the stricken ship reared up, its bow torn apart by the rocks just below the surface of the sea, the men on the poop deck were tossed in all directions like rag dolls. Many went straight into the sea and disappeared from sight in the raging waters. Others managed to hang onto something, and Talon could hear their cries over the howling of the wind and rain.

  He himself was nearly shaken off his hold, and he watched in horror as the main mast now split and tipped forward to fall in a tangle of canvas and rigging onto the front of the boat.

  Talon called, “Max, where are you?”

  “I’m here, Talon!”

  “The ship is doomed, and so are we if we stay here. It will sink quickly!” Talon called out as he dove for the stairs leading down to where Max was clinging to railings. He glanced around, looking for something to hold onto, and his eye landed on the grating that had only a short while earlier killed a seaman. He wondered what had happened to the ship’s boat but realized it had probably been torn free of its lashings and washed overboard as matchwood long ago.

  As he landed on the deck where
Max, Montague, and Jeffrey were gathered with the others, he saw men on their knees praying, while others gripped onto some handhold for a feeling of safety; but other than Max and his two companions, no one seemed to know what to do, and they looked to Talon for some form of leadership.

  The ship groaned and tipped at a steeper angle as water flooded into the bows. The kicking and screaming of horses trapped below was a cruel sound and Talon wished he could block it from his ears, as he knew that they were to soon die.

  There was no sign of the captain or the two steersmen. Most of the men were frozen with fear because they could not swim. Others were crawling about in a wild panic.

  “Quickly! We must take that grating or we are lost!” Talon shouted. Indeed, as he spoke the grating broke loose and began to drift away.

  Talon grabbed Max by the arm and dragged him to the steps leading down to the sloshing water on the deck; reaching it, he pulled Max in with him. Although he was already soaked, the cold of the water still made him gasp. He saw a rope that hung off the grating and grabbed it.

  “Max, Montague, Jeffrey, get on the grating, unless you want to drown with the others!” he shouted.

  They did not need further persuasion. They dove for the grating and pulled themselves onto it. Just as they did so another wave curled over the waist and tore the grating away from Talon, ripping the rope from his grasp. He made a desperate lunge for their outstretched arms but fell into the water and was carried off the ship. He went under for a moment but then struggled to the surface, gasping and choking, in time to see the grating flipped over by yet another huge wave that tossed two of his companions into the sea.