A Wind in Cairo

by Judith Tarr

  The pages were on her before she could stop them, setting the robe over her worn and rumpled shirt, bowing at her feet.

  She stammered something. It must have sufficed: they bowed again, all three, and took their leave in a cloud of ambergris.

  She sneezed. The robe slipped. She caught it, stared at it. “It’s too beautiful for me,” she said.

  “Nonsense,” said Jaffar. He swept it out of her hands. “Now,” he said, “for once you obey me.”

  He kept to the letter of her father’s law. He clothed her in nothing that was not her own; he adorned her with neither scent nor paint. But he freed her hair and combed it until it rippled free and silken down her back. He set her jeweled cap upon her head and her jeweled slippers on her feet; all between he covered in white, with the splendid robe cast over it. Then at last he led her to the mirror which she had always, and studiously, avoided. It was nigh as tall as she: a Frankish shield beaten flat and sheathed in silver. It hung in a room of its own, much frequented by the women, and heavy with their scent and their presence.

  Her coming chilled and silenced them. She was used to that, but it hurt still, as old scars can. She held herself straighter and lifted her chin.

  Jaffar led her to meet a stranger, a slender creature with great eyes like a gazelle’s, and beautiful hair. Even her face was pleasing to see, its sharpness softened by the alchemy of freed hair and shimmering robe. She raised a hand to it: fingers less thin now than slender, their brownness more than comely against the splendor that was blue and green and gold and silver all together.

  She stroked the silk as if it had been a living thing. For no reason in the world, she wanted to weep. Therefore she smiled valiantly at all the staring faces, and pirouetted. “Do you like my robe?” she asked them.

  They startled her. They nodded. Some even smiled. One actually spoke. “I like it very much,” said the newest one, the Frank who was all that Zamaniyah was not: a pure and alien beauty, skin as white as milk, hair the color of wheat in the sun, eyes as blue as the Middle Sea. Her Arabic was laughable, but Zamaniyah was not minded to laugh. “Was it the king who sent it to you?”

  “The sultan,” said Zamaniyah.

  The Frankish woman drew close. She had learned, by force, to be clean; her fingers were light on the silk, her eyes wide with wonder. “You are honored,” she said. “He likes you, no? He lets you ride with him.”

  She sounded wistful. Frankish women were scandalous, Zamaniyah had heard. They were not kept in honorable seclusion. They knew nothing of proper Muslim modesty.

  “Do you like to ride?” she heard herself ask.

  The woman—Nahar, she was called, for her strange beauty—drew a breath that said all she ever needed to say. Her hands had clenched into fists. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes!”

  A demon had possessed Zamaniyah’s wits. She leaned close and lowered her voice. “There is a way. Are you brave?”

  The blue eyes flashed up. “My father died at Damietta. I was with him. I killed an infidel.”

  A Muslim, she meant. Zamaniyah stared at those white hands, soft as they were, clenched at silken sides. That was hate that burned in the beautiful eyes, that hardened the lovely flower-face.

  “You are brave,” said Zamaniyah. The others were closing in, alert to conspiracy. Her whisper lowered, quickened. “Talk to me tonight. Late. After the lamps are out.”

  oOo

  Her name, she insisted, was Wiborada. Zamaniyah struggled to say it. It helped that she knew Greek: her tongue knew what if was to shape outlandish names. Wiborada was not, precisely, amicable. She had not accepted Islam; she had not surrendered to the will of Allah. She was a wild thing in chains of silk.

  “You understand,” Zamaniyah said. “This is not a road to escape. You belong to my father; I don’t intend to alter that. If you mean to betray me, be warned: I can do worse than shoot you down. I can give you over to your master.”

  Wiborada did not flinch where Zamaniyah could see. She lay back on Zamaniyah’s bed, sleek as a golden cat, and laughed a rich alien laugh. Abruptly she straightened, coiled, leaned forward. Her eyes were level. “I understand. I see no escape from here. Too many people. Too many infidels. I make a pact. You give me air to breathe, and sky. I give you honor. No escape while I ride with you.”

  “Fair enough,” said Zamaniyah.

  She had done it. It was the sultan’s robe, and the pain of her twice-cracked ribs, and the shock of knowing that she had, after all, some small claim to comeliness. Her father’s Frankish concubine had always shunned her—or was it she who had shunned them all? Bound by al-Zaman’s command, caught up in her loneliness, finding rejection because she expected to find it.

  Never trust a Frank, people said.

  Between women, perhaps, it could be different. Zamaniyah had never been one, to know. Jaffar would not presume to judge, which meant that he did not approve. It was not his office to approve.

  “Sometimes,” she said to him, “you are too dutiful for words. Unless they be curses.”

  He came perilously close to a smile, for which she came perilously close to hitting him.

  oOo

  It was simple enough to manage. Wiborada was tall and, for all her cultivated softness, robust. She made a passable mamluk, from a distance, with her headcloth drawn across her face to guard it from the sun; and she could sit a horse well, for a Frank. Al’zan, whom Zamaniyah did not even try to deceive, honored her. He held his tongue, and he mounted her on the gelding which he had been training for himself.

  Zamaniyah made sure that her companion would not be questioned: she provided a diversion. She began to ride Khamsin beyond the walls of the house.

  Wiborada was enchanted with him. If he had been a man, Zamaniyah would have said that he was enraptured with her. He made himself beautiful for her: arched his neck, flared his great nostrils, danced until she clapped her hands in delight.

  Zamaniyah realized, startled, that she was jealous. Wiborada had the grace at least not to ask if she could ride him; perhaps his bright wild eye deterred her, or the saddle. Al’zan had had it made for training, on a Persian model, but altered out of recognition: light and almost flat, without ornament, nor ever with the height before and behind that secured a Frank on the back of his charger.

  “But what keeps you there?” Wiborada asked.

  “Balance,” replied Zamaniyah, “and milord’s assent.”

  Wiborada had seen how milord flinched from the touch of hand on his back, and edged away from the saddle itself; and bucked when Zamaniyah settled there, not to dislodge her, simply to remind her that he was Khamsin. The Frankish woman was well and visibly content with the bay gelding, whose spirit was tempered with plain good sense.

  She was an excellent companion. She rode quietly, without chatter. She kept her mount out of the way of Khamsin’s restless heels, but she rode close enough to hold off the press of people on the road to the south gate.

  Zamaniyah stopped watching her and centered herself on Khamsin. He was remarkably calm, but he was very far from quiet. He danced with excitement; he snorted at every shadow. Once she shifted too abruptly and nearly lost her seat altogether.

  “Red horses,” said Wiborada, “are for fire, no?”

  “And for war.” Zamaniyah was surprised. “How did you know that?”

  “I listen,” Wiborada said. Her eyes were bright between headcloth and veil, taking in all that there was to see: Cairo’s rising walls, and the splendid new gate, and the roar and seethe of the city.

  It was louder than Zamaniyah remembered, and wilder. Khamsin altered it by being so new to it; and Wiborada whose presence would enrage al-Zaman if he learned of it. She was being twice a fool, and knowing it, and refusing to give way to the knowing.

  Jaffar’s mule drew level with her, ignoring Khamsin’s flattened ears. “Best we turn back,” the eunuch said.

  Anger sparked, heated with guilt. “What for? We’ve hardly started.”

  They both had
almost to shout to be heard. Jaffar’s mouth opened. Zamaniyah clapped heels to Khamsin’s sides. He shot forward, bucking in outrage. A flood of people swirled between. They were moving together, shouting. Something flew: a stone.

  Her body knew before her mind. Riot. She snatched the reins. Too late. Khamsin had the bit in his teeth. She armed all her strength to haul his head about. He tossed it; the reins burned through her fingers. The flood caught him, carried him.

  Grimly she set herself to guide him. Not thinking, not daring to think, who he was and what he was, and how little she dared to trust him. He heeded her command, or seemed to; breasted the current, angled slightly away from it, slanting with painful slowness toward its edge.

  She was not the only rider within sight. She was the only one on a horse and not a mule or a camel. The others likewise struggled to escape the press. Their faces twisted as they cursed; they flogged their beasts, which brayed and balked. One tall mule swerved broadside, kicking.

  Above the featureless roar, a new sound went up: a sound hideously like a snarl. It had words in it. Turk! Filthy Turk!

  Zamaniyah watched. She could not do otherwise. She was trapped. She saw the mule go down; saw hands stretch, claw, tearing.

  Khamsin squealed and snapped. Faces blurred, stretched out of all humanity, howling, hating. Bodies buffeted them both. Fingers tore at her coat, her belt. She snatched her swordhilt; but her hand froze there. Never, Jaffar had taught her. Never draw steel in a mob. Better to taunt the buffalo. He kills quickly.

  Helpless, helpless. Something plucked at one of the plaits that hung below her turban. A voice shrilled. “Turk! Turk!”

  Khamsin went mad. She clung blindly to mane, saddle, sides. A small cold creature sat behind her terror and smiled. This, it decreed, is a warhorse.

  Shame smote her to the bone. Her fingers twitched, frightened. The whip which she carried looped to her wrist stung her thigh. She seized the haft of it, swung. Aiming for eyes, heeding nothing but that, and staying astride, and escaping from the mob.

  A black face loomed over her own. She caught her blow at the utmost instant. Jaffar pulled her down into the blessed, numbing quiet of an alleyway. Wiborada was with him. Zamaniyah clung to him and strove with all her strength not to burst into tears.

  She thrust away. There was no safety here: it was a cul-de-sac, scarcely deeper than it was wide. The course of the mob had slowed and begun to eddy. The shopkeepers who had been slow to bar their doors were suffering for it now.

  “Greed will hold them,” Jaffar said in her ear, “for a while.”

  She nodded. She was still shaking, nor could she stop it, but she took no notice. She had lost her turban somewhere: she had not known it until Jaffar set his own cap on her head.

  Close together, leading their mounts, they ventured out into the street. Khamsin blocked Zamaniyah’s view of what passed there, mincing half ahead of her, eyes white-rimmed. She tried to pull him back, but Jaffar slapped his rump and drove him forward again.

  At first she had dared to hope that they could do it. On foot, with Jaffar’s cunning in the hunt to aid them, perhaps they might have. But the horses were conspicuous; and Zamaniyah would not abandon them. Not Al’zan’s beloved bay, and not ever her Khamsin. His neck foamed with the sweat of his terror, and yet he went on steadily, lashing out at bodies that stumbled or fell against him. She had gripped his bridle tightly; she loosed it, freeing his head for the swift slash of teeth.

  He was valiant, but he was a rich man’s chattel, and the fellahin knew it. Like jackals in the wake of a kill, they began to close in.

  This time she would draw her sword. A charge, a spray of blood, a blaze of battle rage—they might rend her limb from limb, but they might fall back.

  Jaffar saw the baring of steel. His hand was strong. She fought it. She won, snatched mane, pommel. And Khamsin flung her staggering back into the eunuch’s arms. For an improbable moment she thought that their eyes met; that Jaffar said, “You know the city, prince. Save us from it.” And that, most improbable of all, Khamsin had nodded with human understanding.

  Jaffar had the horse’s bridle. She found herself with the mule’s, and Wiborada between them with the bay, silent, steady, admirable.

  Zamaniyah’s sword was still in her hand. She did not sheathe it. She had lost her bearings. It was all a black dream of tumult, jostling, violence. It was like war; but war was a planned thing. This was raw chaos. More than once she stumbled, or her foot caught on softness, or crushed what had been living flesh. One at least was still alive: he screamed. She could not stop. Something mad, that might have been human, sprang at her. She beat it away.

  Instinct drove her to seize Wiborada’s belt; Wiborada, wiser or swifter-witted, had caught Jaffar’s already. In a straggling, stumbling, much-buffeted line, they made their way along walls and under awnings. They were perfect fools. They should have stayed in their sanctuary.

  And been trapped there, and even killed.

  What would happen to them here?

  Jaffar must have been leading. It looked as if Khamsin was; and as if the eunuch insisted on it. Did they confer? She could not hear.

  The mule screamed like a woman and fell, dragging her with it. Howling demons fell on it. Wiborada hauled at Zamaniyah, kicked her, cursed her in guttural Frankish. The woman vaulted to the bay’s back. Jaffar flung Zamaniyah upon Khamsin. He had drawn his long knife. Wiborada had a dagger. She seemed to know how to use it. “Now!” cried Jaffar. “Run!”

  The bay’s rein cut into Zamaniyah’s knee. It was tied to her saddle. Khamsin plunged, kicking, across the mass of struggling, smiting, looting human beasts.

  He had aimed himself like an arrow to a target; another alleyway, but longer, crowded with huddling people, animals, a waterseller doing trade with remarkable aplomb. Beyond it opened a new face of the mob.

  Khamsin checked, half rearing. His sides heaved. He gathered himself, plunged again, dragging the gelding and the woman, and Jaffar clinging to a stirrup.

  Zamaniyah knotted her fingers in Khamsin’s mane, shifted her grip on the hilt of her sword. Her mind had darkened. She knew the way at last. They were half the width of the city from home and safety. They could not go on as they went now. Khamsin would burst his heart; Jaffar would fall.

  The stallion swerved. A wall loomed, a gate. It could not but be barred. He turned his back on it and kicked it down.

  They tumbled together into a passage. It was black after the glare of daylight. Zamaniyah’s skin knew the presence of men, weapons.

  Jaffar’s voice rose. “In the name of Allah! We mean no harm. We seek sanctuary.”

  Khamsin stamped, echoing in the vaulted space. She could see his ears against light. He trumpeted, deafening, dragging them all into the sun.

  It was a house like their own, gracious, with a wide green-rimmed court. Servants crowded there, armed, and at their head, of all things, a Frankish man-at-arms.

  His garb was of Cairo, and of Cairo’s Arab lords at that; and he spoke Arabic, rapidly, easily despite a heavy accent. “Down blades!” And truncheons and staves and what looked suspiciously like a pruning hook. He squinted at the invaders. What he thought, she could not read. His great sword lowered to the tiles; his body eased a fraction. His eyes scanned, pondered, settled on Zamaniyah. He bowed as Franks did, the head only, an inclination like a king’s. “I grant you sanctuary,” he said, “in my master’s name.” Servants, barked at, ran to salvage the gate. None too soon, from the sound of it.

  Zamaniyah slid from Khamsin’s back. Her knees buckled; she stiffened them fiercely, shaking off hands. “My horse. See to my horse!”

  One of the servants exclaimed. “These are women!”

  She was far gone enough to want to laugh, so swiftly did the guard change. Women flocked, and eunuchs. Only the Frank did not go. It was all she could do not to scream at him. “My horse. We are alive because of him. I pray you by Allah, by your own Christ, see to him.”

  The blue eyes
blinked once. Contemptuous? Amused? They ran over Khamsin. His hands followed, gentler by far than she would have expected. Khamsin shuddered under them, eye rolling. “Good horse,” said the Frank. He called: servants came. The gelding went docilely. Khamsin dug in his heels and shook his head and struck with his forefeet.

  Zamaniyah wanted to lie down and howl. Khamsin had been a wonder and a marvel, a hero, a champion. Now of course he must be plain mad Khamsin again.

  Jaffar had gone mad himself. He seized the bridle, held the rebellious head: he who had no skill with horses, and no love at all for this one. To the Frank he said, “I shall tend him here, if I have the wherewithal. See to my ladies.”

  They needed seeing to. Wiborada was hurt: a great blackening bruise on her shoulder. Zamaniyah bled. She had not even noticed the knife that slashed her arm, though once she was aware of it, it hurt appallingly. Soft-handed women washed her, bound her wound, clad her as one of them. She could not muster voice to protest. They brought food, drink. She ate a little for courtesy, sharing with Wiborada who, unveiled, was paler than even a Frank should be.

  But steady, and not at all like to faint. “You know this house?” she asked.

  “Not at all.” Zamaniyah worked at being undismayed.

  “Your horse seemed to,” said Wiborada.

  “My horse has a mind of his own. As,” she added, “does my eunuch.”

  “He is a good servant,” Wiborada said. And after a moment, “I never saw a eunuch before I came here.”

  “What, none? Who guards the women?”

  “Men.”

  Zamaniyah was shocked.

  “We have no harems,” said Wiborada. “Nothing so separate that it needs the guarding of geldings.”

  Zamaniyah rose, wounds forgotten. “Never call Jaffar that. Never.”

  The lady saved them both. A very beautiful lady, with a queenly carriage: a Circassian with skin as white as Wiborada’s and hair the precise, burnished chestnut of Khamsin’s coat. She greeted them with soft words and perfect courtesy, and gave them her name: Safiyah.