by Barry Sadler
Casca looked up into the no-nonsense eyes of the captain of the Emir's bodyguard standing on the rooftop just above him. Soldiers on either side held bows drawn taut. The captain stroked his forked beard and smiled almost with sympathy at what was going to happen to the fool in the tree. There was no point in his trying to get away.
Casca groaned. Once more his luck in Persia had turned sour. They had him.
CHAPTER TEN
"Hmm..."
The Emir of Apnea prided himself on his "creative" and "imaginative" approach to torture. Not for him the humdrum and obvious. For such a pleasant hobby one must think of a pleasant approach, must not one? So he studied the rather forlorn and obviously drunk Casca carefully with four of his soldiers holding him, two at each side. Symmetry, the Emir thought idly.
The parade had halted. And, though the street was filled with the procession and lined with the crowd there was relative silence now that the Emir had dismounted from his horse and waddled over to the olive tree to personally inspect the stupid dog who had had the temerity to try to assassinate him. The Emir waddled because he was a short, fat, roly-poly little man with a big butt. He was wearing his ornate robes of state, and the net result was that he looked like a very, very fancy big duck. The crowd was quiet because they knew they'd damn well better be. Casca had his mouth shut because he didn't have anything to say right now.
"Hmm..." Again the Emir grunted. He was considering possibilities. Like most men of his race he let his mind work on several levels at the same time, delighting most in the devious passageways to his objective. This Assassin, now... why not use him to make a laughing stock out of old Eagle-Face Hassan? "Hmm..." Hassan's minion had gotten drunk and bungled the job. Hardly a credit to an "invincible" Hassan. So why not – for the crowd's sake (and Hassan's reputation} – turn it into one big joke?
But how?
Inspiration came to the Emir, and he smiled, his small pig's eyes glittering. He called one of his aides to him, pointed at the metalworker's shop down the street, and whispered instructions in the man's ear. The secrecy was not necessary, but the Emir thought it a nice theatrical touch for the crowd.
He turned his attention to Casca. This luckless one wore the five-day beard of the two-day drunk; he was pretty shaggy.
"So ... Hassan al Sabah sends me a hairy dog. I must repay him in opposite fashion. It is symmetry. It is Allah's law of opposites." Then to the soldiers: "Strip him!"
They pulled the Sufi robes from him, and had Casca down to his loincloth.
''That, too."
What the hell has the little bastard in mind? Casca thought. He was getting sober fast. He was also getting ready to try to get the hell away from here.
"Now, tie his right hand to that branch."
That was when Casca started his kick. His legs were still free, so–
Unfortunately, while the captain of the Emir's guard did not know the fighting methods Shiu Tze had taught Casca, he did know prisoners, and before Casca could get started, the broad shaft of a jirad was between his legs.
"Now, the other hand to that branch." The Emir pointed. Then, "Left leg there. And right leg there." He turned to his aides. "You will notice, gentlemen, that this hairy dog is now suspended between the heavens and the hells and that his feet are pointing toward Mecca."
This was a fairly accurate description, assuming the religious part be accepted on the Emir's terms. The naked Casca did indeed lie flat on his back on nothing, suspended by arms and legs from four branches of the olive tree. It was not a dignified position. The crowd had begun to sense that the Emir was making fun of Hassan's man, so a small wave of low laughter was now rolling around the olive tree, and a few more necks were craning tip to see this absurd object. Shit! Casca had been in trouble before – lots of times. But at least there had been a little dignity to it. And whoever had been after him had taken him seriously, which was as it should be: torture and killing were fairly serious matters. To make it a fun thing – now that was cutting it too fine. Who the Hades was this Emir of Apnea anyway? At the moment Casca decided he wanted the Emir dead about ten times more than Hassan, and he wanted to do the job himself. The only trouble was, he didn't know how he was going to get loose from the olive tree. That was the trouble with getting slung up; there just wasn't any way to get loose. At least not as far as he could see...
"So ... What do you gentlemen suggest I send to Hassan in return for this hairy dog?"
Naturally there was no response. The Emir's aides held their positions of honor partly because they knew when to keep their mouths shut. But, on the other hand, the Emir was now beginning to frown because he had not gotten an answer. So the captain of the guard offered him:
"Lord, it is written upon thy face that thou hast already determined the perfect answer to this impertinence."
"Ah!" The Emir beamed. "Yes. He sends me a hairy dog. I return him a plucked chicken."
Chicken? What the hell...
The aide who had been sent to the metalworker's shop was holding two long iron objects that Casca now saw were tweezer-pointed. The Emir took one, put the tweezer point against Casca' s hairy chest, and pulled a hair, "Observe. This is the middle of this hairy dog whose feet point toward Mecca. You –" The Emir selected one of the more intelligent-looking of the peasant bystanders. "Start here and move toward the head." He tossed the peasant the tweezer-pointed tongs. "You –" He selected an old crone. "Start here in the middle and move toward Mecca." The Emir stepped back and admired his handiwork.
Now ..... He raised his hand, the symbol of a curt order to his guard. "Now, we will resume the parade and leave the chicken-plucking to our people... for the time being."
The crowd gave him a laugh for that, which was what he wanted. The look on the captain of the guard's face was just a little more than odd, though. Yet he joined the parade, but not before personally testing the ropes that held Casca to the olive tree.
The procession moved on down toward the mosque. There were now no soldiers guarding Casca, but that didn't help him one bit. The peasants had crowded in, gleefully watching the two with tweezers pull the hairs from his chest, one by one. There were a few gaming souls, and they began to make bets as to which would be reached first: Casca's eyebrows... or the family jewels.
As for Casca, he was not too sure he could get out of this by himself – but there sure as hell wasn't anybody to help him.
There was one possibility. Over his left big toe he could see that the limb that held his left foot had a sharp bend in it. It was tough wood, but... He began jerking his body with each pull of the tweezers, covertly putting the force on the left leg. The crowd loved that, thinking it was a pain reaction.
How did I let myself get into all this... But it could have been worse.
Both Yousef and his men, and Bu Ali and his Mamelukes were now aware of Casca's predicament. For Bu Ali it was a problem he couldn't solve. For Yousef it was a great deal simpler: he immediately dispatched an archer to the roof of the building across the street.
Bu Ali had not gotten to be the captain of Mamud's Mamelukes by keeping his head in his ass. Nor had he risen from the rank of Novice in the Brotherhood of the Hashishi by being stupid. He was a damn good soldier. Standing now in the shadows of a building fifty feet up from the mosque, and with a clear view of Casca's olive tree and the crowd around it, he was now the typical tactical commander with the usual impossible situation to solve. Well, what did a commander usually do when he had no solution to the problem? Yeah ... Send in the enlisted men. Bu Ali thought about that, turning to look at his available "army." Standing behind him were three men, scimitars scabbarded at their sides, bows unstrung and strapped with arrows to their backs. The fourth man guarded the tied-down horses. A couple of the town peasants mingled with them, not paying them any attention since the religious procession had brought all kinds of people to town. Beyond the horse line, on the next street, some rather ragged-looking shepherds were holding a highly restless flock of sheep
, keeping them from coming down this alleyway into the main street in front of the mosque until the procession was over. Apparently the sheep were without water, which was one reason they were milling around and bleating. But next to them there was also a flock of goats in the same predicament. Separating the two flocks was a farmer astride an ass that was hitched to a small cart piled high with hay. The procession had sure screwed up farm traffic this morning.
Sheep... Goats... Hay...
Bu Ali thought about that. He looked back at the olive tree. He could see the branches swinging. Not much chance of Casca getting loose, though. And by now the Emir had been in the mosque a pretty long time. The rites would be over any minute, and once the Emir's bodyguard had Casca, there would be no chance whatever to free him.
Not that there was any chance now. The look in the eyes of his men underscored the point. They were watching him, Bu Ali, with the same cynical stare enlisted men the world over have from time immemorial given a commander they don't think can hack it. Knowing his men – he had trained them and knew their abilities – Bu Ali respected their judgment. He couldn't hack it.
Yet...
Sheep. Goats. Hay. Bu Ali looked back at the livestock, something in the back of his mind telling him to. The farmer had gotten down from his ass and was walking over to the window of the nearest house where an enterprising cook was selling cakes from an open window, cooking them on a small charcoal brazier placed on the windowsill. The glowing red of the burning charcoal seemed to wink at Bu Ali.
Several things came together in the Mameluke captain's mind at the same time. His first reaction was to shy away from the idea that formed. Too fantastic. Bu Ali had been trained as a conventional soldier. Never try anything new. But a Mameluke who had enough chutzpah to suggest intrigue to the great Sultan, Malik Shah, was capable of anything – if he had to be. But first he rechecked the street.
Unfortunately, it was a wide street, as befitted the approach to the mosque. But, fortunately, the sun was up pretty high now, and the heat had driven most of the crowd from the other side of the street over to Bu Ali's side. And there was an almost unbroken wall of houses and courtyard stone fences up to the olive tree where Casca was held captive. So there was a relatively narrow passage to the olive tree, and beyond that a lot of wide open space and a single alley. Oddly enough, there were mounted men on horses in this alley. Bu Ali counted at least six, and it bothered him. But they were scruffy-looking and didn't look like they could be the Emir's men. The way the sun was throwing shadows Bu Ali had difficulty seeing their faces, though the momentary turning of one man did reveal a face.
Bu Ali thought he recognized the man. The leader of the bandits they had fought. And certainly these scruffy-looking men could be bandits. But there was no reason for such bandits being here. Must be his imagination. Bu Ali could accept one odd idea, but not two on the same morning. Besides, the more he searched his memory the more he found justification for what he was about to try. He remembered a story told around a long-forgotten campfire by a Jewish slave. Only that one was about foxes ... Samson and foxes...
Well, he would just have to make do with what he had in mind. He called his men in close and gave them their instructions. Their first reaction told him that they thought he had gone mad. But then the humor of the situation got to them and they smiled.
The damn branch won't break. Casca was discovering how tough a tree can be. And by now the hair pulling, which at first he had thought simply humiliating and embarrassing, was getting to him. Shit! It was always the simple tortures that get you down.
Yousef's archer was in place, but be had a problem. The gnarled limbs of the olive tree formed a kind of twisted lattice shield. Although he could see Casca, he had an uncertain target. He waited.
Speed. A hell of a lot of speed. And no mistakes. That's what Bu Ali's plan required in order to succeed. "Now!" he said.
They jumped to it. The shepherds and the goatherds were knocked on the head – not enough to take them out permanently, because their running after the flocks might be an extra help, but enough to keep them from interfering as the two men assigned that job freed the flimsily penned-in animals and stampeded them toward the broad street. The hay cart was stripped from its ass, turned around, and headed backward toward the street of the mosque, with a mounted Mameluke horseman on either side holding the shafts as though they were spears. Bu Ali himself grabbed the burning brazier from the open window and lit the hay. It was very dry hay. It smoldered for a moment, flickered, then roared up into flame. Meanwhile the goats and sheep were herded forward, the Mamelukes behind them yelling, the goatherds and shepherds chasing behind, cursing. The animals surged forward, then were in front of the burning hay cart. The dismounted Mamelukes swung into their saddles, drew scimitars, and jerked the ropes that held the pack horses. The charge was on.
By now half the crowd was yelling, and those that weren't would soon be. And for once Bu Ali was in luck. Just at that moment the Emir's trumpeters came out the door of the mosque and blasted out on their horn, presumably to announce the coming of the Emir.
To the sheep and goats, though, it was more like the end of the world.
As for the crowd at the olive tree, well... They looked up to see a river of frantic goats and sheep bearing down on them, urged on by a moving pillar of fire that had no apparent source; yelling horsemen brandishing scimitars that flashed in the sun; and the mosque itself trumpeting.
Under such circumstances men have been known to decide that other territory is more desirable to be on. Those in this crowd not only came to such a conclusion instantly, they also acted on it.
They got the hell out of there.
Bu Ali and one Mameluke reached Casca first. Both used a single scimitar swing to free him, Bu Ali slicing through the two ropes that held his hands, the Mameluke through the two that held his feet. Casca was free. Of course, he fell on his ass, but considering his circumstances at the moment he was in no mood to complain.
Before he could pick himself up, the Mameluke leading the spare horse pulled up, dismounted, helped boot Casca up on the spare horse, got back on his own horse, and got them going in less time than it took the Emir, appearing now in the open door of the mosque, to think: What the hell...
With Casca safely en route, the Mamelukes pushing the burning hay cart dropped the shafts, and all the party swung into position behind Bu Ali and beaded for open country.
They got away, heading down a narrow wadi outside the Emir's city and turning up a broader but deeper cleft in the rocky landscape some minutes beyond.
At the first oasis – a small clump of trees and a stagnant pool – Bu Ali signaled a halt and watched as one of the Mamelukes took clothing from a pack horse and handed it to Casca who dressed. The scene in the alley in Baghdad was being repeated, although this time closer to high noon. When Casca was dressed, Bu Ali dismounted and walked over to him.
"Ah, Kasim! It seems we have done this before." He was smiling.
Casca thought, Now, why did I dislike him?
Still smiling, Bu Ali suddenly brought one big hammy fist up and smashed Casca full in the face.
At the same time, on cue, the Mameluke beside him struck him a tremendous blow on the back of the neck with the blunt edge of his scimitar.
Casca was out before he hit the ground.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Yousef the bandit thought he had seen just about everything, but the trick with the sheep, goats, and fire wagon was certainly new. He still wanted Casca and now he was getting away. Not aware of it he kicked his horse in the flanks and took off after Bu Ali and his party, following through the narrow cobbled streets and hunkering low to avoid arrows from the startled guards at the gates of the city.
During the escape the captain of the Emir's guard had been at the side of his master on the prayer rugs in the mosque. Hearing the clamor coming from outside he took his leave of his master and rushed to the door of the mosque in time to see the tail end of Yousef
's raggedy band leaving the scene of the rescue. Naturally, he thought the bandits were Casca's rescuers and ordered immediate pursuit. The captain's men raced to find their mounts, slapping the local inhabitants out of their way with the flats of their swords. Once clear of the city gates all three parties headed straight for the desert.
From the door of the mosque the Emir shook his head at all the disturbance, turning to his nephew, a smooth-cheeked boy of sixteen, to whom he had given the post of standard-bearer. The boy would be at his uncle's side during official ceremonies and hold the Seljuk standard of horsetails tied to a silver blade.
The Emir had given the boy the prestigious post in order to honor his sister. "Ah, Sulman, son of my sister, do you not see how the life of one who rules is one of endless problems. I wonder what will happen next'?"
Sulman smiled sweetly with understanding at his uncle and replied easily, "That is easy to foretell, my uncle. What will happen next is your death." Sulman drove the silver point of the standard deep into the Emir's soft belly and twisted the blade severing his intestines and stomach. Before the remaining attendants and guards could respond, Sulman stepped over the fallen body of his uncle and removed the Golden Dagger from his sequined jacket. Crying out to the heavens, "Allah Akhbar" he slit his own throat with the dagger of the Assassins. Hassan at Sabah was never one to risk failure, and he always kept his word.
The Emir of Apnea had died by the lance.
Neither Bu Ali nor the Emir's captain had any idea of what had transpired at the mosque. The captain's attention was on overtaking the fleeing men in front of him. His horses, being of better quality than those of the bandits, were quickly gaining on Yousef's group.
Yousef was faced with a dilemma. He couldn't catch the Mamelukes in a straight chase and looking behind him at the Emir's guards coming up fast, he knew he had to break off his chase and head for the rougher ground where, knowing the terrain intimately, he'd have a chance of losing his pursuers. Leading the way into a twisting labyrinth of wadis and dry streambeds, it took an hour to shake loose the captain and his men. Resting his panting horse just under the top of a rocky rise, he was joined by the toughest of his men.