Assassination in Al Qahira
Page 18
The stables were situated along the back south wall of the palace, along with the accommodations for the syce and gardeners. Talon wandered down the line of horse boxes and stopped by his horse Rakhsh. While standing looking down the row of stalls he absently stroked the horse’s soft nose. The horse nuzzled his midriff and half closed his eyes as Talon rubbed his ears and chin.
His mind was busy wondering how he could get away from this city and be on his way back to Max and then to escape altogether. It was now many months since they had staggered ashore half-drowned. Now Max was a virtual prisoner, while he was alone in Al Qahirah. It made him feel rudderless. He knew he could not complain as, although a slave, he could go anywhere he wanted to. In some ways that was worse than being imprisoned, but his word had been given and he would not break it.
The children had been whisked off into another part of the house by a gaggle of chattering women almost the moment they had appeared at the door along with their mother. He assumed the women to be either wives or concubines of the master, or perhaps servants. Talon had not even had time to say goodbye.
Later, Talon heard that there were other women here besides the concubines of Abbas. Abbas’s father had had concubines in his old age; three of them lived in a relatively secluded manner on the second floor of the palace. There had to be at least fifty retainers of one kind or another, all of them subservient to the mother of Abbas, who used the eunuch Chisisi to keep order, which he did harshly.
Chisisi was a fat man with thick legs and huge chest and arms, topped by a smooth, shaved head which looked as though it was polished. His small black eyes were almost buried in the flesh of his face and his small pursed lips were disapproving. Bilal had mentioned to Talon that he was a bully who administered punishment directly with either his stick or a slap of his huge hand, hitting the offending servant’s head, male or female.
Everyone feared him, for he had the ear of the mother and indirectly, her authority, which meant literally life or death for some of the lesser slaves.
The next day Bilal came to look for Talon.
“Suleiman, you are wanted at the house by Chisisi,” he said, breathing hard. Bilal was becoming just a little portly.
“Do you know why, Bilal?” Talon asked.
“No, but you need to watch your back with that eunuch; he is no one’s friend and makes a bad enemy.”
Talon walked back towards the house deep in thought and found Chisisi standing in the main hallway shouting at a maid servant. The eunuch did not even look up when Talon came towards him. He continued to shout abuse in his high voice at the cringing maid and then dealt her a heavy slap on the back of the head which almost knocked her off her feet. She fled crying towards the kitchens. The huge man regarded Talon with suspicion; his small black eyes stared at him from his fleshy face.
“Ah, Suleiman, I have heard that you are a teacher, and the lady wants you to continue your work with the children.”
“When does she want me to start?” Talon asked.
“Tomorrow. You are to report here in this hall in the morning and then go to the children. That room over there will be the class room.”
Talon turned to go.
“You will wait here until I have finished with you!” Chisisi said loudly.
“Forgive me, I thought you had finished,” Talon said.
“By Allah! When I have finished I shall let you know, and you will bow and then leave,” Chisisi shouted for the benefit of passing servants.
Talon turned on the man, standing so close he could smell the onions he had eaten for his last meal and his other odors mixed with a stale perfume. Talon looked straight into Chisisi’s eyes and spoke very quietly.
“I will tell you once only. You do not shout at me and you do not tell me what to do. I take my orders from my lord or from my lady, but not from you.”
He saw what he wanted to see, hesitation and a flicker of uncertainty in the man’s eyes. It was enough.
The household servants treated him with the respect due a learned person, but they kept their distance. He was neither one of them nor one of the family, so he was regarded with reserve.
The next morning after he had eaten, he reported for lessons with the children. They now looked forward to lessons as much as he did and accepted him as their tutor in all things. When he was not absorbed with them he felt isolated, other than the times he was able to spend with Bilal at the stables.
Despite the loud protestations of the eunuch, he managed to get them outside for most of their lessons, as he and they enjoyed the garden and its calm. The household was sadly a tense place, where the servants scuttled about in fear of retribution from Chisisi, who bullied them mercilessly. Chisisi had a couple of henchmen, Donkor and Jahi, who ran to do his bidding in all things, and more often than not joined in the bullying, punishing servants for the most trivial of offenses or for no reason at all. Talon took an instant dislike to them and decided that he would try to avoid all three at all times.
The one person he was careful not to offend in any way was the mother. Lady Emushire was not unkindly, but having had to run a house full of servants and bored, squabbling women for a long time, she had become hardened and rarely let her more kindly disposition show.
Talon noticed that Bilal stayed away from the house as much as possible, and he followed his friend’s example. On the whole it was not so hard to do, as their quarters were nearer the stables, far to the rear of the house and its unhappy occupants.
The city of beggars never sleeps
The noise goes on 24 hours a day
It is not safe to walk in the street of beggars
Because you can get robbed and killed
at any time of the night or day
The traffic is chaotic in the city of beggars
Thanks God there is no snow in the city of beggars
— Aldo Kraas
Chapter 12
Beggars
Talon’s duties were light, and by the time it was noon he was free to do much as he pleased. He took the opportunity to explore the streets of the huge city of Cairo. Noon was the time when the city virtually went to sleep. No one wanted to do anything for the two or three hours on the other side of noon. The oppressive heat placed a suffocating mantle over everything, which became even worse on days when there was a light layer of high clouds that resembled fish scales in the sky. On such days the city steamed. People with means retreated indoors and closed the shutters to the noises and stinks and either slept, or, as Bilal joked to Talon, enjoyed their wives, or concubines, or both. A heavy silence would settle over the normally noisy city.
“Night is for sleeping, but the afternoon is for making love,” Bilal declared, and often as not, he too disappeared to follow up upon this philosophy with a servant girl to whom he had taken a liking.
Talon found it a good time to wander about the almost deserted streets and to explore the somnolent souk, where even the noisy hammers of the metal smiths were silenced. He would stride in his unobtrusive manner along the narrow streets and explore the dim arched passageways of the market place, observing the slow pace of life. Merchants might still be awake, drinking coffee or smoking hashish from a water pipe. They were mere shadows in the darkness at the back of their shop openings as they watched over their displays of goods with a stoic resignation, waiting for the cool of the evening to bring customers back.
Cairo was surrounded by high, well maintained walls which protected it from would-be besiegers, and that included the Crusaders. Bilal, who knew a little of its history, had told Talon that it was founded on very old ruins. The newer construction incorporated much of the older city walls and buildings that dated back to the time of Greece and even further back into the darkness of antiquity.
As evening came and the prayers were called from the many minarets in the city, Talon would join in to ensure that he did not stand out. When done with the prayers he would go and sit at a tea house, a chai khane, along Al Muizz Street among other chai
khanes, where they not only served tea, lemon wine, or coffee, but where men told stories.
The men who told them were in some cases famous artists, because they could bring to life the characters of their tales. They would on occasion use a couple of musicians to back up their narrative, men who played a crude tambourine or a rababa, which squeaked and wailed to add emphasis to the story teller’s tale. The tea houses would compete to have a particularly good story teller because he attracted more guests to drink tea or eat the spicy falafel and small, sweet wheat cakes with coatings of honey. The tea houses also served bitter, black coffee from tiny cups that were filled in a long stream from the elongatedF snouts of brass pots poured elegantly from the height of an arm length by harassed waiters. Students carrying books or rolled papers would pause to listen briefly or to talk loudly with one another about the latest depredations of the Turkish mercenaries, who were not liked in this city, or the Franks to the north. Older men came to smoke sweet herbal tobacco flavored with honey; others smoked hashish, sitting in the darker recesses, giggling to one another while telling crude jokes.
The crowd would hush these boisterous customers and any other noisy clients when a story teller arrived. He would climb onto a tall stool, which helped his voice to project and reach the people on the edges of the crowded floor. From this tall perch, he would mimic, intone, declaim, raise or lower his voice to emphasize, glorify or to generate tension or suspense, while at other times he would gesticulate vigorously in a comical manner as the tale unfolded with a faster momentum. A skilled narrator could keep the crowd silent in rapt attention and not infrequently bring the audience to its feet with tears and shaking fists as a hero was betrayed or when a heroine perished.
Talon began to look forward to spending time around these places. One in particular attracted him, for the artist was a Syrian and told enchanting stories from literature he was familiar with. This man knew tales from all the lands, including Persia. The favorite story of the crowd in this tea house was the story of the Congress of Birds by a famous poet named Farrid al Din Attar. This fable was long, with moral lessons, but also full of emotion and passion. Talon, often as not, took these tales back to his two young wards. It would be unthinkable for them to follow him into such a popular place, but he wanted very much to share the stories with them. The children were enthralled, and would mimic and participate in the story by acting between themselves. It made for lively and enjoyable lessons of poetry and folk lore.
Talon never revealed his explorations of the town to anyone, because even though he liked Bilal, he was not sure that he would approve of him wandering about the city in this manner. These places were for the lower classes and the merchants. Sometimes while in a tea house, Talon’s thoughts would wing away to Hamadan or Isfahan, where he and his two companions Rav’an and Reza used to sit for long hours talking together, enjoying the atmosphere of the chai khane, as they were also called in Persia, and then his heart would grow heavy, as he did not know of their fate.
He sometimes walked along the river bank below the city walls to watch the boat builders and rope makers running the length of the beach with their rotating, twisting tools held high during the fabrication of a new rope. The smell of new cut wood and the activity drew him to watch the forming of an elegant prow and then the attachment of the formed strakes. He admired the symmetry of the bow and the curves that these craftsmen were able to create with very basic tools, seemingly without recourse to any plans.
Talon made two important discoveries during his explorations. The first one was that along the north wall of the city, on a hill, there was an impressive construction site in progress. Talon had asked Bilal about it.
“The sultan, may Allah be his guide, ordered the work of this ‘Citadel’ – which is to be called Qalaʿat Salāḥ ad-Dīn. It is being repaired, and on the highest point of the city. It will be made impregnable, especially from the depredations of the infidels. They have on several occasions tried to take Al Qahirah before, did you know?” Bilal glowered then he carried on. “The design is taken from that of the infidels who build huge castles in the area of Jerusalem, Allah curse them. But even if they are barbaric people they certainly know how to build castles,” he had remarked dryly.
Talon noticed that every time someone in this country talked about the Christians he always seemed to add an expletive. He decided he might have to emulate Bilal someday to be like everyone else. “Why does the Sultan not take Alexandria as his capital city, Bilal? It is a very beautiful place with a huge sea port, and cleaner air than here,” Talon ventured.
“I think it is because it is not at the center of things, Suleiman. Al-Qahirah is in the middle of the great river delta, so it controls the river; all the ships passing through have to pay a tithe, which means good revenue; and besides, the Sultan is ever looking east. Alexandria is too far to the west to be useful strategically, other than as a bulwark against the barbaric Berber tribes of the deserts, Allah’s curse be upon them.”
“Are they not Muslim too, Bilal?”
“They are, but they covet the riches of Egypt and would plunder our country, notwithstanding.”
Talon thought he understood. Although he did not as yet have a good map of Egypt in his mind, it was formulating, and it did seem as though Cairo fulfilled several vital functions for the sultan. However, he didn’t like the climate much: it was distinctly humid and oppressively hot here, whereas he remembered the cool dawns and evenings of Alexandria during his short stay, before he was tossed into jail. Not only was Cairo a steam bath, but with its seething mass of humanity it seemed about to burst out of its walls.
He agreed with Bilal about the Citadel; it was indeed a formidable construction, swarming with workers, masons and slaves, even during the hottest time of day. Talon did not doubt that many of the slaves were Christian prisoners. The walls of three sides were already built; their color was almost red, like most of the city buildings.
The shape of its towers and battlements did resemble the castles he was familiar with, as he remembered his former home in the kingdom of Jerusalem; but this castle was going to be far larger than anything he had ever seen before, including the castle of Carcassonne in Languedoc that he had come to know. The Citadel was already massive and dominated the entire city.
While ambling around the fortification, observing its strengths, his trained eye looking for weaknesses, Talon arrived at the main frontage and noticed that men were playing chogan at the bottom of the hill on a large flat field. He paused to watch. He remembered how much he had learned to love the game while in Isfahan, during the short respite while he and his friends Rav’an and Reza had been running for their lives. Although he had played at Al Fayou, he was not certain he would be able to play here in Al Qahirah. He was envious of the riders on this field.
The same field served as the place of execution for common criminals and traitors alike. The last one he had witnessed only a few days ago had been for a senior mason who had neglected to construct a portion of the citadel wall properly. The section had fallen away in a landslide of rubble the previous week and killed slaves and citizens on the path below. The embarrassing pile of rubble was still there being cleaned up by a gang of sweating slaves. Talon walked around the still bloody scaffolding that had been placed at the base of the steps leading up to the main entrance. He guessed that there would be another execution that day.
He did not stand out as a stranger in this city, for his mode of dress was just like that of any other male of moderate means on the street, a light shirt of much washed white linen, over which he sometimes wore an expensive cotton embroidered waist coat, pantaloons, and his calf length riding boots. His loose turban hid his lighter hair while his light beard and eyes, although not common, did not attract much attention in this city of so many differing peoples from many different countries. He was allowed, by virtue of his position of tutor and bodyguard, to wear a sword, and he carried a knife in his sash and another hidden in his boot.
He walked the tree lined areas that catered to the rich, and wandered across the several wide and spacious maidans that provided a setting for the very beautifully decorated mosques. He saw new ones being built in several locations around the city and imagined they were on the orders of the sultan. These open spaces, shaded by trees and with gardens, were ideal for family outings.
On occasion, when Abbas was not somewhere carrying out his duties for the sultan, he would take his family to the Al Azhar Mosque. Talon had seen that the children clearly enjoyed these occasions, as they were able to escape the confines of the palace and see more of the city. It was an adventure for Kazim and Jasmine. It was on these rare occasions that he could set eyes on Khalidah, although most of the time she was well hidden behind the curtains of the palanquin. Talon, Bilal, Panhsj and several soldiers would attend the family on those outings as bodyguards, clearing the way through the crowded streets for the entourage. The entire family would settle into an area in the spacious maidan of the huge mosque and enjoy the surroundings. Friends would come by and talk, always performing on arrival the elaborate greetings that Egyptians seemed to enjoy so much.