by Glen Cook
“Maybe I just wanted to hear somebody talk who could say a whole sentence without cutting me down or bellyaching about something.”
Point to Mish, Aaron thought.
Stafa said, “I ride horsy, Dad.”
“You did? Arif, come here. Tell me what you and Stafa did today while Mom and Mish finish getting supper ready.”
The women got the message.
It was not a world where women dared long exasperate even a man as gentle as Aaron.
He took Stafa into his lap and Arif under his right arm and they talked about camels and such till it was time to eat. The boys were exceptionally quiet during the meal. The women said nothing. He supposed he must be looking very fierce. Maybe they were all waiting for some giving of the law. Let them stew. He could use the quiet. It did not last, of course. But the women were not the instrument of its death.
There was, to his dismay, a tapping at the door. He was more dismayed when he opened it to find Reyha and Naszif outside. He stepped out of their way. They came in without saying anything. Both looked awful. Laella rose slowly, face pallid, as though some horror had come through the doorway with them. Laella held Reyha for a moment, then helped her sit down. Naszif settled beside her,, opposite Aaron. They looked one another in the eye, each knowing what the other knew. Mish moved the boys away.
Naszif said, “Reyha told you some things she would have been wiser to have kept to herself, as she learned today. She had a visit from the Living. Now you’re in it, too, like it or not. The Living will be watching.”
Reyha stared at her folded hands.
“She came to see you last night. This morning they came to see her. They knew she’d come into Char Street but not where she’d gone. They wanted to know that, and who she’d seen, and what she talked about. They were insistent. A very important man of theirs was murdered last night, here in Char Street, about the time she was out, and they think they have reason to believe a woman was responsible.”
“Bel-Sidek’s father!” Aaron blurted.
“Eh?”
The old soldier who lives up the street.”
“Khadifa,” Raheb interjected.
Aaron scowled at her. “The old guy with the bad leg from Dak-es-Souetta. When I was going out to work this morning there were people at his house. I got nosy and went up there. He told me his father died during the night. I wasn’t surprised because the old man had been bedridden since they moved in.”
“Bel-Sidek,” Naszif mused. “That fits. He sounds like the man who visited Reyha. He had a bad leg. She’d seen him before but didn’t recall who he was. He knew all of us. He didn’t really believe Reyha had done anything. He thought she had come here to visit Laella. But he wanted to be sure.”
Aaron was disturbed by the man opposite him. This was not the Naszif to whom he was accustomed. This Naszif was calm, collected, in complete control, and altogether too businesslike. He did not know what to make of the apparent change.
Naszif continued, “Reyha can be very stubborn. She refused to tell them anything till they gave Zouki back.”
“Which they refuse to do because they’d lose their hold on you.”
“No. According to the crippled man they can’t do that because they don’t have him in the first place.”
“What?”
“Yes. Despite the fact that they took me to see Zouki last night, this morning one of them is denying that they have him. And I think he was sincere. If he’d had that advantage he would have used it. On the other hand, Reyha thinks she recognized the voice of one of the men with the cripple, subject to his orders, as that of one of the men who took me away last night.”
Aaron had begun to get a bad feeling about this Naszif that he did not know. He was up to something.
“Is there something going on inside the Living? Are there factions operating without recourse to the established chain of command?”
“What are you doing, Naszif?”
“Thinking out loud. Consider. I’m sure the man who took me out last night, and who was with bel-Sidek today, is a character named Hadribel. Hadribel is the number two man of the Living in the Shu. He was taking orders from bel-Sidek. And bel-Sidek said, at least by implication, that the man who had died was more important than him. Who was that man, really? And who would dare murder him?”
“That’s enough, Naszif. I’ve figured out what you’re doing. I’m not going to let you use me. You had your one shot at getting me killed and got away with it. You don’t get a second chance.”
Naszif frowned, pretending he did not understand.
“Almost two hundred from our tower survived the Herodian prison camps, Naszif. Most of them came back to Qushmarrah. Some work down at the yard. You remember Big Turi? Bad Turi we called him sometimes. What do you think Turi would do if someone told him it was our buddy Naszif that opened that postern that night?”
Naszif looked troubled. Laella said, “Aaron! You stop that kind of talk.”
“Be quiet. And use your head. What happens after he fills me up with everything he knows or guesses? The Herodians somehow get a sign, they grab me, and Naszif gets his message through. So what if old Aaron gets himself busted up some while they’re getting him to tell them what he wants them to know? He gets rid of Aaron and he gets rid of one of the ways he’s vulnerable.”
Laella looked at Naszif, whose face was a blank, then at Reyha, who stared at her hands still, shaking as she shed silent tears. “Reyha?”
Reyha said nothing. She did not look up.
Straining her old bones till their creak sounded in the silence, Raheb moved to the hearth where she began adding wood to the fire.
Aaron’s throat was so tight he was afraid he was squeaking when he said, “The guys who survived our outfit don’t belong to the Living or anything, Naszif. But they’ve got it all planned out, what they’re going to do when they find out who opened that postern. It’s going to take them a long time to get that far, but the last thing they’re going to do is send him out to run through the streets without his skin on.”
He could not believe this was him talking. Never in his life, that he recalled, had he threatened anyone.
“I’ve kept quiet for six years, out of concern and respect for Reyha and Zouki. But now you’ve forfeited my silence by denying me and mine an equal concern and respect. Now you have to buy my silence. You will go out of my home and out of my life and forget I even exist. If you ever speak my name to anyone and I hear about it I’ll see that yours is mentioned to those of our company who survived.”
Naszif met his gaze briefly, saw that there was nothing more that could be said or done. He rose.
Raheb turned from the hearth. Clutching a large, greasy carving knife, she threw herself at Naszif. Aaron did not move fast enough to deflect her assault completely. The knife ripped a gash almost the length of Naszifs left arm.
It was eerie. Nobody made a sound. Faces pale, eyes filled with horror, they all watched in silence as Aaron disarmed the old woman, who stopped struggling the instant he did so. In a calm voice she said, “Sixty thousand murders blacken your soul, Naszif bar bel-Abek.” She spat on him as Reyha, eyes still downcast, tried to look at his arm. “Sixty thousand curses upon your grave, may it be an early one.”
Pale and terrified, Naszif backed toward the door. Reyha opened it for him. They went out. Aaron closed it behind them.
Still there was no sound except a soft sniffle from Laella. Raheb went back to her chores. The boys clung to Mish, frightened. In some symbolic gesture he did not understand himself, Aaron stabbed the carving knife into the door and left it quivering there as he went to comfort his sons.
He eased back from the boys and told them, “Go hug Mom. She needs you.” They toddled right over, somewhat reassured.
Aaron watched, the fear snarling inside him.
“Aaron?” Mish said in a small voice.
“Uhm?”
“When I was talking to Yoseh... His brother Nogah said he stayed all
night in Tosh Alley last night. In the middle of the night, he said, he saw the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. She came from up the hill. She came down and stopped in front of our door for a few minutes. Then she disappeared in the fog.”
“Uhm?” The fear grew stronger.
“That man said they thought a woman k-killed Mr. bel-Sidek’s father. If Nogah saw a beautiful woman, that couldn’t have been Reyha.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
Someone knocked.
Fear filled Aaron’s home.
Bel-Sidek was just steps from his door when he saw the traitor and his woman leave the carpenter’s home. What now? Didn’t he have troubles enough? Now the traitor was going to go roaming around anywhere he felt like?
He eased into shadow and let them pass. They did not notice. They were engrossed in themselves. The woman moved with difficulty, still feeling the effects of her stubbornness this morning. The traitor carried his left arm oddly, as though it was injured.
The khadifas would begin arriving any moment. But this bore investigation. With a resigned sigh he limped to the carpenter’s door. He knocked.
The door opened. The coldness that came into the man’s face was so intense bel-Sidek retreated a step. “May I come in?”
“No.”
Forthright and rude, that answer flustered him. What could he do?
But the carpenter surrendered some of his advantage. He stepped outside, closed the door behind him. “We aren’t interested in the games being played around here, old man. By you or anybody else. Leave us alone.”
“Qushmarrah...”
The carpenter spat at his feet. “You’re not Qushmarrah. Thieves and extortioners, torturers of women and stealers of children, claiming they speak for Qushmarrah?” He spat again.
Bel-Sidek could not restrain his anger. It had been piling up all day. “Aaron, we’ve never touched a child!”
“If you believe that, you’re a fool. A fool without an idea what those who owe him allegiance are doing in his name. And for that I fear you more than I fear you for all the knives you can send in the dark. A knife can kill a man but a fool can kill a city.”
“Aaron...”
“Ask yourself, if you truly believe the Living aren’t stealing children, how it is that they can show a man the child that was taken from him. When you have an answer, if you care to share it with me, you might find me more inclined toward conversation.”
Bel-Sidek did not know what to say. The carpenter was behaving so far out of character, was so upset, that anything might make him do something crazy.
“Aaron...”
“Just stay away and leave us alone. You ignore me and I’ll ignore you.”
“All right, Aaron. I’m a reasonable man.” And it was no time to press.
“I’m glad to hear that. If it’s true. One thing I might owe you. A Dartar warrior who spent the night hiding in Tosh Alley saw a woman pass in the middle of the night. He didn’t know her. He described her as the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Dartars are strange but I don’t think they’re strange enough to confuse my wife’s friend Reyha with beauty. Good night.”
Bel-Sidek stood there a minute after the door closed behind the carpenter, the only thought in his mind the certain fact that the Living were losing the war of the heart even where men had the most cause to hate the conqueror.
He turned away and began to labor uphill. This might be something instructional he might mention during his confrontation with the khadifas.
Azel left Muma’s Place soon after sundown. A few experimental maneuvers showed him that Colonel Bruda’s men were still on him. He spotted four. That big an effort suggested there might be more, less easily spotted. He must have stumbled good.
He took only the routine precautions of a man who did not expect to be followed. Let them get comfortable and confident. He would shake them later, when he needed to.
He drifted into the Blessed Way, a waterfront to acropolis avenue a quarter mile north of Char Street, but left it immediately. Herodian soldiers were busy there, questioning anyone who ventured into the street. He wondered what was up but had no time to find out.
The watchers tracked him through the narrow ways only because he did not care whether they stayed with him or not. They would not leam anything interesting.
Shortly before he reached the place where bel-Shaduk stayed, he did lose them simply by stepping around a corner, then scrambling to a rooftop. He scurried across the tops of several houses, to a point from which he could watch bel-Shaduk’s place.
It leaked a lot of light.
Most Qushmarrahans went to sleep soon after nightfall, their working hours dictated by economics and the availability of natural light. Ishabal’s place being so lighted suggested that all Azel’s guesswork was adding up the way he expected.
“I thought he had better sense,” Azel muttered.
The lights faded soon after he took his position. A man stuck his head outside. He saw nothing. He came out. A whole squad, seven more men, followed. They scattered but it looked like they had some common destination.
Azel thought he knew what that was. He set off across the rooftops, headed south. Easier to do that than try to follow somebody and maybe get spotted. As long as he’d guessed right about where they were going.
“The damn fool,” he grumbled to himself. “She must have offered him a fortune.”
He ran into no trouble. The lords of the roofs were lying low tonight. He wondered if that was an omen. He hoped it was just the weather. The drizzle made the footing troublesome.
He found himself a perfect position overlooking Char Street long before Ishabal’s gang arrived. He even had time to scout his, and their, most likely avenues of retreat.
The damn fool was going to try it.
Ought to be interesting.
He settled down to watch. His vantage was perfect, tactically, but it was damned wet.
General Cado went over Rose’s letter for the third time, almost character by character this time. Colonel Bruda stared out a window, toward the harbor, pleased that there was an overcast and an unseasonable chill. That would keep some people off the streets tonight. Maybe the troops could be moved without being noticed at all.
Cado asked, “How much of this do you buy?”
“All of it and none of it. I think Rose is telling us the truths he believes. That doesn’t mean somebody hasn’t been lying to him.”
“I grow more curious about our Rose by the hour. He told me he learned to speak Herodian when he was a sailor, before the conquest. But how many merchants can read and write their native tongue, let alone a foreign one?”
“He’s done great work for us.”
“I know. I know. This is an example if only half is true.” He tapped the letter, leaned forward, glared down at it. “General Hanno bel-Karba, presumed dead for six years, murdered, by witchcraft, the same night the Living slaughtered Sullo s More-tians on the estate of the woman who believed herself to be bel-Karba’s widow. Our man Rose actually gets to see and identify the body because by lot he gets chosen to be a guard at the funeral. Do you buy that?”
“I can’t refute it. His reported movements are consistent with his claims.”
“But you didn’t have him under observation every minute.”
“No. He’s a cautious man. He takes extensive precautions routinely.”
“And he says he thinks somebody is watching him and if it’s us would we kindly lay off and stop attracting attention because his bosses in the Living are never going to believe we think he’s important enough to rate that much trouble.”
Bruda smiled. “He’s always been a brassy bastard.”
“He’s always been a bastard who doesn’t add up.”
“But useful.”
“No matter how useful I’ll never completely trust a man who won’t accept a commission in the army. He’s the only Qushmar-rahan agent we have who hasn’t enlisted and converted.”
&nb
sp; Bruda stared into the night.
“Keep watching him.”
“I intend to. If only because I’ve never been able to find out who he is or where he came from. I have to satisfy my own curiosity.”
Cado grunted. He let Bruda stare at the night while he read the letter again. “What’s the implication here? Sullo had his witch avenge his Moretians?”
Bruda shook his head. “It would be something deeper. The acts don’t balance. If Sullo had bel-Karba killed it wouldn’t have been because of the Moretians. I don’t think he knew about them till he opened that trunk.”
“Uhm? Spin me a fable.”
“I’ll posit you a problem first. You know Sullo. He comes to Qushmarrah and right away stumbles onto the fact that Hanno bel-Karba is alive and running the Living. Even better, he finds out where to lay hands on the old man. What does he do?”
That was an easy one. “He snaps him up, whatever the cost, parades him around, and gets us laughed out of town as raging incompetents.”
“He didn’t.”
“He didn’t. Could he be playing for higher stakes?”
“Maybe.” Bruda stared out the window, rehearsing his theory. He had given it a great deal of thought since first he had read Rose’s letter. “You recall the death in the Hahr the other day? The reputed khadifa of the Hahr?”
Cado grunted.
“The public consensus in the Hahr now is that he was put away by the Living, not thieves. Because he had been using his position to enrich himself and his cronies, not to work against Herod. He was moving into all the usual underworld activities. His death was an example to the other khadifas, some of whom were involved in rackets in their own quarters. He was proof that nobody was immune to the law of the movement.”
“You’re going to spin me that fable now?”
“Yes. I think Marteo Sullo is an ambitious man. I think he harbors notions toward achieving the imperial honors. I think someone inside the Living offered him an alliance in return for removing that pesky old man. Access to an organization like the Living, which has contacts with malcontents everywhere, would be invaluable to an ambitious and unscrupulous man.”