Assassination in Al Qahira

by James Boschert

  “Where have you come from? Where are you going?” the man who spoke their language asked. He was burnt a golden brown from the sun, his wild, knotted hair was light brown, and he had disturbingly intense green eyes. He spoke the language hesitantly but well, with a slight accent as though he had not used it for a while and was just getting used to its flavor again.

  “We…we are with a caravan. We are going to Al Iskandrȋyah,” Dhakiy said shakily. He was terrified, but the men did not behave threateningly, even though they did look wild and unkempt. Burned by the sun and with rags as clothing, they nevertheless smiled reassuringly at the two frightened boys.

  “Our master is Haidara Abdul 'Ikrimah. He is a great warrior and will come and cut off your heads if you do not let us go!” ‘Utbah squeaked. His teeth were chattering.

  “I am sure he is a great warrior and we are much afraid,” the one with the green eyes and a scar on his jaw said. He smiled, but neither boy was reassured.

  “How many men does he have, this great warrior chief of yours?” he asked them quietly.

  “We are two hundred men and all warriors. You will not stand a chance against us.”

  “I counted nearly thirty camels, so perhaps you are lying?” he replied in a soft voice, but his eyes became cold. Then he said with a menacing tone, “If you do not stop saying stupid things to us I will throw you into the sea and you can swim to Al Iskandrȋyah. And you know very well the sea monsters will eat you before you get anywhere.”

  “There are twenty of us all together,” ‘Utbah muttered. He shivered at the prospect of encountering sea monsters.

  “How far is Iskandrȋyah? Tell me the truth, because if you do not, you will be cut into little pieces and we will eat you. We have not eaten meat for a very long time,” the green-eyed man told them, making big eyes at them; they believed him.

  “We are maybe three days, maybe a week from the city, perhaps a little more,” Dhakiy whimpered.

  The man turned to his two companions and spoke in a low voice. They nodded, whereupon they picked up the boys and carried them towards the ramshackle shelter they had first seen.

  The sun had set by now, leaving only a strip of red glowing on the distant horizon, and darkness was sweeping in from the east. Dhakiy gave a whimper of fear as they were dumped on the sand inside the shelter. ‘Utbah muttered scornfully at him. “Why are you so afraid of them? We shall escape, and then they will be in trouble.”

  “Insha’Allah. You should just be patient, my young warrior. We will come back for you later. Now be quiet and do not upset this man,” the man who spoke their language said, pointing to the hairy one in front of them. “He likes to eat children, especially boys, and he has not eaten one for a long time, so he is very hungry.”

  “We are not children!” spat ‘Utbah. “We are men.”

  “Ah, I forgot. Pardon me, little warrior.”

  The man’s teeth flashed in the gathering dusk and he was gone; the big man who was squatting in front of them was looking them over balefully. Dhakiy shivered and wriggled closer to ‘Utbah, who was trembling himself. They were silent.

  * * * * *

  Now that the sun had gone down, Haidara felt at ease. There was fresh water and no one to share it with, so he could spread out and enjoy the cool side of the oasis when morning came. Had there been others, he would have found himself and his caravan on the outside perimeter of the place for later arrivals, and the early comers would have had the benefit of the shade of the date trees the next day and not him.

  The group of men had enjoyed a leisurely, if meager, dinner; and then, having posted two guards, the rest had sat around a fire to enjoy the precious dark coffee beans brewed over the embers of the fire in small, slim brass containers with long handles. The aroma of the brewing black liquid permeated the small oasis. Haidara intended to buy another sack of coffee while in Iskandrȋyah; his present hoard was almost finished.

  Haidara noticed that the boys were missing, but assumed they were still down by the water and would be back soon. In any case, he knew this area and there was unlikely to be any danger from other people this far into the desert, especially since it had been cleaned out of pirates. Any threat would be in the form of another caravan, and he was quite sure they were alone.

  So he relaxed with his men, and the murmured conversation continued until the sky was ablaze with stars from one end to the other. There was no moon, but the light from the stars, which seemed to be almost within reach, was enough to throw the distant ridge of mountains to the south and west into dark relief, while the sand and rocks in the middle distance became large black shapes on the pale desert floor.

  Nearer at hand, the palms rustled under the light cool breeze wafting from the sea that caressed their fronds. It brightened the glow of the embers of the dying fire, causing the flickering flames to throw up men’s shadows that danced among the tree trunks, creating a crowd of dark phantoms which shared the camp with the living.

  Long before midnight, everyone was wrapped in his cloak and asleep on the ground or among the baggage piles, except for Haidara, asleep in his tent, and the two sentries. These two men were leaning against trees at opposite ends of the camp, staring outwards, one to the dark eastern horizon and the other one back along the track from the west where they had come from. They were barely awake themselves.

  The first hint either had that there was danger about was when a knife slid around the first man’s throat, and a vice-like grip came down on his right wrist. A voice whispered,“Do not move. Do not shout, or you will be sent on your way to account for your sins to Allah. Nod if you understand.”

  The sentry gingerly nodded against the blade of the knife that dug into his trembling throat. He was forced down onto his knees and then bound. His head covering was conveniently used to blindfold him, and then he was gagged. The rough hands sat him down and propped his back against the tree trunk. He was admonished not to move or he would die.

  The trembling man did exactly that: he sat as still as a log.

  * * * * *

  The next morning, Haidara was awoken just before dawn by an agitated drover who pleaded with him to wake up and come outside. The camp had woken up to find that many things had happened during the night.

  He roused himself, and, rubbing his eyes, he followed his man out of the tent. The top of the sun was appearing in the east and he knew that by noon it would be a large white orb that threatened to bake the desert to a cinder. There, before his tent, he found that most of the men had already gathered, and as soon as they saw him they all began to shout at once. He hushed them and asked one man to speak.

  During the night they had been visited by someone or something from the desert. The sentries were missing, as were the two boys who had not been seen all night. Worse than that, four camels were missing. They had disappeared, as though taken by magical Djins. Haidara raised his hands to calm the men, who babbled with fear at the word ‘Djins’. Another man said that, to make matters worse, many of the men’s weapons were gone: swords, bows and spears. They had had few enough weapons to start with, but now they had almost nothing. A plump man added that food had been taken, as well as some of the leather water sacks. They all voiced their concerns and their fears in a noisy tumult.

  Haidara was astounded by what his men told him. He tried to collect his wits, but the shouting distracted his thinking. “By the ears of the Prophet, will you bunch of chattering jackals shut up and let me think!” Haidara yelled back at them.

  He composed himself, but he was frightened all the same. How could men, if they were indeed men, come and take what they wanted without making a noise, or disturbing a single person? How could it be that no one heard the camels, which always made a noise when getting to their feet?

  No one was hurt or dead, other than maybe the sentries. He shivered involuntarily.

  “First we must find the men who are missing and then the boys. Perhaps they are already dead,” he said, trying to appear calm. “Have you
looked everywhere?”

  They chorused that they had. He told them to look again. After wasting an hour tracking around the trees and further out into the desert, someone mentioned that the boys had taken the road to the beach the previous evening and might still be there. Insha’Allah!

  With dread in his heart, Haidara led the way towards the sound of the distant surf. The booming of the surf grew louder as he puffed his way through the soft sand of the dunes and stared about him at the sea. He saw something strange erected on the beach; it looked like a makeshift shelter of some kind.

  Nervously drawing his sword and ordering the men with some kind of weapons to be alert and to stay with him, he walked slowly down the slope towards the jumble of drift wood, followed by his men in a tight group behind him. The sight that greeted him when he arrived at the opening to the shelter left him speechless. There on the sand, side by side, where the two boys and the two sentries. They were bound hand and foot and gagged.

  It took a moment for Haidara to regain his composure, upon which he shouted to his men to come and release the prisoners. The boys and sentries spluttered their indignation as their gags were removed, and all four began to talk loudly at the same time.

  Haidara felt that he was getting a headache from the din, and shouted at them to shut up and tell him, one at a time, what in the Prophet’s good name had happened.

  “They were Djins!”

  “They were wild looking men from the sea!”

  “One had huge blue eyes…like a fish from the sea!” Dhakiy stammered.

  “They had hair down to their waists and wanted to eat us!” ‘Utbah blubbered.

  “How did you get captured?” Haidara yelled at one of the sentries, his patience finally running out.

  “I did not hear anything! Nothing at all, Master. Before Allah, I heard nothing, but then there was a knife at my throat and next thing I knew I was bound and gagged and blindfolded. There were many, many of them. They carried me here!” Gam stammered. He was one of Haidara’s least reliable drovers.

  “That happened to me as well! On my soul before Allah, I did not hear a thing before I was overcome and brought here with the others,” Hazim said.

  Haidara stared skeptically at Hazim.

  “How many were there, Hazim? I want to know the truth, not the babbling of a couple of idiots who cannot be trusted to stay awake on guard.”

  He whirled upon the boys. “Did you see how many?” He demanded. In his agitation he didn’t realize that he was mining his nose with his little finger.

  “I think there were three of them,” ‘Ubah squeaked nervously.

  “Three! How in the name of the Prophet could three men do this?” Haidara shouted, anger replacing his fear.

  He considered this for a moment, and then realized that he had lost precious time looking for the boys and men while the perpetrators of this crime were gone.

  “Get up and come with me! We have to find which way they went,” he shouted and led the way, his voluminous garments billowing in the light breeze from the sea as he went. He didn’t wait to see if the other men had freed the prisoners.

  Haidara arrived back in the encampment to find that nothing had happened since he left. No one had thought to break camp and load the camels. An awful thought occurred to him. He rushed off to his own baggage where he kept his coins. To his horror, two of the small bags of silver were missing. He raised his arms in the air, his fists clenched, and screamed his rage and frustration.

  “As God is my witness, what did I do to deserve this outrage? May pestilence and disease strike these people who have pillaged my caravan and slay them slowly! May they burn in Hell, forever!”

  His rage increased to the point where he grew apoplectic. He laid about him with a stick at any of his men and camels that got in his way as he ran about distractedly screaming at them to get ready to leave.

  Then another unpleasant discovery was made. Most, but not all of the bindings of the packs had been cut, as were most of the water skins. They had to make repairs before they could leave the oasis. The ropes could be knotted together, but they could not depart without water.

  At this point, Haidara became ill and was forced to retire to his tent to rest and let the men concentrate upon the necessary repairs. It would take hours before they would be ready, and he was exhausted.

  * * * * *

  Many miles away, following the faint track that led along the coast line, four camels trotted at a quick pace, heading east.

  Talon de Gilles looked back for the hundredth time to see if there might be any pursuit, and then at his two companions, Max von Bauersdorf and Montague. Neither had ridden a camel before. They were hanging on nervously to the high saddle-like contraptions, clutching the single cord that led from the camel’s nose in one hand and a spear in the other.

  Talon grinned. All three of them had looked like scarecrows with their unkempt and wild hair and bearded faces, but now all this was hidden under the layers of cloth that Talon had stolen the night before for this purpose. Now they looked more like Bedouin, he thought, although he supposed they were known by some other name here in Africa.

  After his talk with the boys, he had reasoned that they were probably in the country of Egypt, and although it was a gamble stealing from the caravan to continue their journey, it was really the only way out of their predicament. He let his camel slow down, allowing the other two to catch up with him.

  “How long before we can expect them to give chase?” Max asked, his voice slightly muffled by the cloth covering the lower part of his face.

  “They will be held up until noon, I hope, if they are to repair the skins and ropes,” Talon responded.

  “I still find it hard to believe that no one saw nor heard us leave!” Montague exclaimed.

  “I told you that Talon learned skills in the east that we will never know the full account of,” Max said.

  “That caravan was our last chance. I contemplated asking if they would take us with them, but there is no mistaking either of you two for Franks. They might have taken us prisoner and sold us, or betrayed us when we got to the city. I could not take that chance,” Talon said.

  “By God, I think that you made the right decision, Talon. But you frighten me some times with your skills,” Max said. “I, for one, am glad that we are on our way…even if it is to go deeper into the Saracen country,” he added.

  “I agree. I was heartily sick to death of shellfish, crabs, and what fish we could find in the bay. I have not eaten a piece of dried meat that tasted so good!” Montague was chewing on some of the food that Talon had purloined.

  “I told the boys, to keep them quiet, that you ate children, and that you were so hungry you might eat one of them anyway.”

  Montague gave a bark of laughter. “I might have …I have been hungry since we were ship-wrecked, what must be months ago.”

  “God’s mercy, but I shall never forget that storm! How we survived can only be due to his mercy!” Max said fervently. “I wonder if any other ships were lost that night??” he asked ruminatively.

  “I am not sure of His mercy sometimes,” Talon said. “We lost all we possess and many friends, may he be merciful to their souls…including my Jabbar. I still miss him sorely; he was not only my horse, but my friend. We shared much together.”

  “Well, now the church will think that you have died and it will not continue to pursue you anymore, Talon,” Max offered, trying to lift their mood.

  “I think that the Order of Templars will be able to deflect that priest’s requests. He trumped up the charges of witchcraft, as all know, just to get rid of me. Well, he succeeded, and now I am on the other side of the world…unable to do him any harm.”

  “Talon, do we keep this speed until we come to the city?” Max asked plaintively. The camel’s gait was unlike anything he had ever experienced.

  “We have to put many miles ahead of the caravan, Max. I doubt if they will send men after us, as they do not have very many to
spare, and I think that their loads are more important to them. We have robbed them, but they still have their lives and camels and most of their goods. The master of the caravan might just consider that he got off lightly and not chase us. Besides,” Talon laughed, “I only took half of the silver he keeps near his sleeping mat. His snores were moving the tent walls!” They chuckled at that.

  “All the same, we must keep this pace and put many miles between us, because we could not fight twenty men, even if they are not as well armed as we now find ourselves.”

  “Will these camels last the pace?” Montague asked.

  “If we do not push them too hard; I picked out the ones I thought might be in good condition, but it was difficult to see in the dark which were the best.”

  They continued in silence, each getting accustomed to the swaying motion of their camels, each immersed in his private thoughts.

  Talon’s mind went back to France, which he had left under difficult circumstances. After helping his father to keep the fortress bequeathed to his wife by her father and winning a small castle as the spoils of war, he, Talon, had found himself accused of witchcraft. The priest from Albi had come to the fort, accused him, then arrested him, and would have taken him to the prison in Albi to face trial. That had failed thanks to his friends, the Welsh archers, who had ambushed the party and slain all but the priest and one other who escaped. Talon had been freed by his Welsh companions, who had then slipped off into the forest to make their way back home to Wales, from where they had been gone for two years or more on crusade.

  Talon and Max had made their way to the Templar stronghold, Mas Dieu, where Talon had been inducted partially into the Order of the Templars. With an experienced Sergeant of the Templars like Max to help him, Talon had quickly learned the ways and discipline of the order. Montague had also been there as a new recruit, and the three had sailed for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, along with a fleet of other ships from Aigues Mortes, the royal port.