Alhazred

by Donald Tyson

  “I see how you were able to scale the wall,” I murmured, shutting the screens.

  She unwound her indigo head wrap and shook out her dark hair, letting both hair and wrap hang over her shoulders. Her hair showed highlights of red where touched by the beams of the afternoon sun that found their way through the holes of the screens. It had been oiled and brushed with greater care than I would have expected from a girl of her type.

  “I am a good climber. Farri sends me up the trees to steal fruit.”

  Tearing the flat loaf of bread in two, I gave her the smaller portion. She bit into it eagerly. Without asking permission, she went to the table. A small knife appeared in her hand. It came from somewhere in the folds of her dress, but she drew it so quickly, I did not see where it was kept. She cut a piece from the block of cheese on the wooden platter and ate it in two bites.

  “The cheese will make you thirsty. Have some wine.”

  She took up the pitcher of water that rested on the table and drank from its rim, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “I don’t like wine,” she said. “Water is better when you thirst.”

  I thought of the months I had survived on the blood of rats and the juice of spiders. She was correct, water was better than wine to quench thirst, but she had never known true thirst. How could she, living in this green land? Pulling the cork from the wine bottle, I sat on the bed and filled my mouth with its sourness, then began to gnaw at the tough outer crust of the bread. It had been left in the oven too long and was burned around its edge.

  “What is your name?” she asked, watching me with her intense gaze.

  “Alhazred.”

  “I am Martala.”

  “Your master spoke your name.”

  “Farri is not my master. Not any more.”

  It was a matter of no importance to me what she called him. Washing the last of the bread down with the dregs of the wine, I set the bottle aside and drew forth the glazed chamber pot from the opposite corner on the other side of the door, then hitched up the hem of my thawb and pissed into it. She did not blush or turn her face away. I hoped the spell of glamour provided her with a satisfying spectacle. When I finished, she pulled the pot to her and raised her dress and chemise, then squatted over it, facing me. Our anatomy was not dissimilar, though she had more hair between her legs.

  The heat of late afternoon penetrated the room and made the air stifling. I recovered the pot with its lid and slid it back into the corner, then pulled my thawb over my newly shaved head and sat on the bed to remove my boots. Bundling everything together, I piled them on the seat of the solitary chair that stood next to the table. Silently, she began to take off her clothing. I paid no attention, but drew my dagger from its sheath and lay on my side upon the center of the bed, the knife cradled close to my chest, my fingers curled around its bone hilt. The mattress, no more than a sack of coarse wool filled with straw, itched through the linen sheets against my sweating skin. At least the sheets were clean. I thought about sliding between them, but the air was too warm.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, standing with her dress in her hands.

  I closed my eyes and rolled over so that my back was to her.

  “Farri won’t come until after dark. I’m getting some sleep.”

  After a few moments I felt her crawl onto the edge of the bed behind me. Her body pressed softly against my back and buttocks.

  “It’s too hot,” I told her. “This bed is not large enough for two.”

  She stiffened against me. For a while she lay still, then slid away and got off the bed. A shadow crossed my face. I raised an eyelid. Still naked, she walked to the window and lay down beneath it, where the breeze from its screen would fall upon her, curling herself on her side like a dog with her face turned away from the bed.

  I wonder if I can trust her not to murder me in my sleep? I said in my mind to Sashi.

  Sleep, my love. I will watch and wake you if she threatens your life.

  Comforted by the knowledge that the djinn would alert me to any danger, I slept deeply, and awoke after the sun had set and full darkness had fallen. The inn was utterly silent, so I knew the hour must be late. I had not intended to sleep so long. By the silver glow of the nearly full moon that filtered into the room, I saw the shadow of the girl standing beside the door, watching me. She had dressed.

  “How late?” I whispered.

  “Almost midnight,” she said in a low voice, her face hidden within the folds of her head wrap.

  I studied the angle of the moonbeams and judged that she was right. Farri and his accomplices would come soon. Swinging my bare feet off the bed on the side nearest the window and turning my shoulder so that my back would be to the girl, I made the gestures and muttered the word that would renew my spell of glamour. She uttered no comment when I rounded the foot of the bed. With my ears alert for a step on the stair or in the hall outside the closed door, I pulled on my boots and thawb, and slung the baldric of my dagger and strap of my water skin over my shoulders. She looked at the full skin as I returned the dagger to its sheath.

  “Why do you carry that weight? We are beside the river.”

  “Habit.”

  She shrugged and started toward the window. I put a finger on her shoulder and stopped her. In the inn below us, I heard the mutter of a man’s voice and a sharp hiss. We stood still and listened. After a while, one of the treads on the stair creaked.

  “They are coming,” I breathed into her ear, and felt her head nod against my lips.

  If they were inside the inn, they could not be watching its doors from outside. That is why I had waited until the middle of the night before leaving. It was my hope that the shadows would conceal our departure from any spy that lingered in the street.

  I had already taken note of which floorboards in the room gave forth noise when stepped on, and drew the girl around them so that we reached the window without a sound. The hinges of the screens swung silently. I motioned her to climb down to the ground. She was gone almost before I could turn back from a glance at the door. A boot scuffed in the hall and the wooden door latch made a faint rattle. It would be brief work to raise it with the blade of a knife slipped between the door and its frame. With a silent prayer that the trellis was strong enough to support my weight, I stepped over the sill and began to climb down its ladder-like rungs.

  It had been well made, and carried me easily without even a groan of protest. The scent of flowers intoxicated me like wine on the night air, and the nearly full moon lit the garden brightly.

  “Which way did you enter?” I whispered.

  She led me to a corner where a lime tree grew near the wall and climbed its trunk without effort, then waited while I struggled to find a grip on its smooth bark. Its branches were well above my head. The only way I could reach them was to hug the trunk like a lover and inch my way upward with my cheek pressed against it. A muffled curse issued from the open window of my room. I echoed it in my mind, trying to hurry.

  “Climb faster,” the girl hissed. “Why are you taking so long?”

  The urge to strangle her gave me renewed strength, and I was able to grasp one of the limbs of the tree before I slid down the trunk. I pulled myself up and with the support of the branch got my feet on the top of the wall, which I discovered was embedded with broken bits of glass and pottery to discourage climbers. They did not pierce the thick soles of my boots, but how the girl had avoided being cut while climbing into the garden was difficult to imagine. Another moment, and we would have been on the other side without detection, but I was too late. A cry sounded from the window.

  There was a wooden thud as the girl dropped into the alley on the far side of the wall. Feeling my way downward with one leg in the shadows while hanging awkwardly from my arms, I discovered the head of a wooden barrel. I followed the
girl into the street. Farri had left someone to watch the back of the inn, who heard our footsteps. Feet pounded toward us on the cobblestones. I ran down the street in the opposite direction and turned into another, the girl behind me. In the silence of the night, the noise of my boots might as well have been the beating of a drum. Our pursuer was joined by at least two others. I could clearly hear them running toward us, but as yet they had not come into view. I stopped, realizing that in the night and the unfamiliar streets, I was completely lost. I did not even know where the river lay.

  “Which way, Alhazred?” the girl asked.

  “The east gate.”

  That was the gate through which I had entered Bubastis, and I knew where the donkeys and horses were stabled not far from it. My intention had been to steal a horse and rise southward along the tributary of the river.

  “No, they will expect you to flee to the gate. I know where we can conceal ourselves until morning.”

  Her meaning was obvious without the need to express it. Once the sun rose, and the streets thronged with people, the opportunity for secret murder would be lessened. We could ride through the gate in full view of Farri and his band of cutthroats so long as we kept in plain sight. They might follow, but would never attack us amid the crowd. Did I dare to trust that the girl would not lead me directly to him?

  “Show me.”

  Night or day, she knew the streets as I knew the corridors of the palace at Sana’a. She led me swiftly down back alleys and through gaps in fences to a large building in an open square. It was an ancient structure of massive stone blocks, but the wooden pitched roof had a modern appearance. Carved into the roof gable was a cross. I realized the building must be a Christian church. She did not approach the closed front doors, but made her way around the back to a small door sheathed in green copper. Innumerable copper nails held the tarnished metal in place, their heads arranged in a graceful pattern of lotus flowers. She struck this ornate portal three times with her fist, then after a pause, twice more. I was surprised to see the door open. The golden light of an oil lamp shone forth, outlining a plump woman of middle years in a white linen dress and head wrap.

  “It’s Martala,” the girl said in Greek. “I’ve brought someone who needs the protection of the Goddess.”

  The round woman stepped aside, holding the door open, and I saw in the flickering glow that her wrinkled face bore a kindly expression.

  “Enter in peace, and may the Goddess watch over you.”

  I smiled and nodded, noting that her hand had the same pointed fingernails I had observed on Martala’s hands, and on the hands of the innkeeper. When she closed the door behind us and slid its iron latch bar home, I felt easier in my heart. It was not a latch that could easily be forced. We followed her down a narrow hallway, toward the sound of murmuring voices. I bent my head close to the ear of the girl.

  “What is this place?”

  “This is the temple of Bast. We will be safe for the night.”

  “It has a cross on its roof.”

  She laughed with derision.

  “The Christians call it their church. For centuries they have tried to take over all the sacred places and make them their own. In the day it is a church, but at night it is the temple of the Goddess, and always will be.”

  We went down a flight of stone steps and emerged in a large chamber the flat roof of which was supported by massive pillars carved in the shape of lotuses. It was lit by oil lamps hanging on chains from the walls. The far end of the chamber was dominated by a black pedestal in the shape of a double cube that supported the figure of a cat carved from green translucent stone. The statue was the same size as a living cat, and so well had the artist rendered the figure that it seemed to breathe and watch in the flickering light of the lamps. Its eyes, formed from polished bits of lapis lazuli and jet, appeared alert. Fastened to its head was a milk-white crescent of polished moonstone. A dozen or so men and women knelt on woven reed mats before the statue and murmured prayers, while rhythmically bowing so that their foreheads touched the slates of the floor.

  “This is a night of worship,” Martala explained. “We adore the Goddess for seven nights when the moon is large.”

  A black cat, its fur shining like sable, jumped from the floor to the pedestal of the goddess and rubbed its face against the face of the statue. After a moment, it curled up and went to sleep with its tail tucked under its nose. Other cats moved in the shadows at the corners of the room. I noticed pewter plates of raw fish and wooden bowls of milk set on the floor at the feet of the statue. Through a small round channel in a wall, a cat entered and crossed to eat from a plate. The plump woman saw my eyes on the hole.

  “She is their goddess, too, and they must be allowed to reach her.”

  “One sleeps at her feet,” Martala said to the woman. “A good omen.”

  The woman nodded, a happy smile on her face.

  “Your friend has brought us good fortune this night.”

  All those who knelt and chanted before the statue had pointed fingernails, and it was clear to me that it must be a sign of membership in the cult of the cat. I noticed that one elderly man had no fingernails at all, and asked Martala about it.

  “The leaders of the town are Christian, and try to suppress the worship of the Goddess. They cannot punish us all, because we are many, but when we wear the points of our nails too long, they take it as an affront to Christ and petition the Muslim administrator to have our nails torn out by the roots, as a warning to others.”

  “Christians are barbarians,” the fat woman said. “They fear what they do not understand.”

  “As do we all,” I murmured in my own language. Neither gave any sign that they understood.

  I remained in the back and watched Martala perform her ritual observances before the statue of Bast. When she was done, we sat together on a reed mat and waited for the dawn. All during the night, men and women came and left through the green copper door in a ceaseless trickle, depositing their offerings of silver dirhams at the feet of the statue and speaking their prayers. The offerings must have necessitated considerable sacrifice. With only a few exceptions, they were laborers or servants. The cult of Bast was for the poor.

  A scattering of citizens walked the streets when we left the temple, even though the morning hour was early. I searched with care the mouths of alleys and doorways for any spy, but if Farri’s men had followed us to the church, they stayed far enough back to remain undetected. Making the gestures and uttering the word of the spell of appearance, I renewed the glamour that concealed my features. I took my direction from the sun and set out at a brisk walk in an easterly direction.

  The girl stood watching me for a few moments, then ran after me and matched my pace.

  “What are your plans, Alhazred?”

  I told her I would get a horse and ride to Memphis. Her laughter surprised me and made me stop in the street.

  “This is Egypt,” she said, staring at me as though I were a simpleton. “Egypt, the land of the Nile? Nobody rides here. We use the river.”

  I considered this, and had to concede that it made sense. Why endure the discomfort of a horse when I could take a boat? I looked around with uncertainty.

  The girl rolled her pale gray eyes.

  “Follow me. I will show you where we can hire a boat that will take us up river.”

  She led me across town to the bank of a tributary of the Nile where boats floated, moored to poles driven into the river mud so that they would not be pulled downstream on the sluggish current. Their owners sat under awnings, gossiping with each other, or maintaining their sails with needle and thread across their knees. They looked up as we approached with the same stare a cat uses to watch a mouse. Martala walked along the dockside, examining the brightly colored boats that bobbed on the water. They were all of the same design, constructed of
countless reeds gathered together in tightly tied bundles and curved up at the bow and stern.

  She found a boat she liked, then spoke in rapid Coptic. One of the older men, so thin and fleshless that he resembled a walking corpse beneath his dirty linen tunic, uncoiled himself from the ground and approached us with a broad but toothless smile in the bristle of his gray beard. He and the girl began to argue. The smile faded and was replaced by a look of outrage. He protested while the other boatmen murmured and laughed quietly, watching us as though we were a performance. At last the owner of the boat threw up his hands and stalked away, cursing under his breath.

  “What went wrong?” I asked her in Greek.

  “Nothing went wrong. We sail as soon as the man I talked to can prepare the boat.”

  He removed his long tunic and tied it into a bundle, which he balanced on his turban. He was not naked beneath, but wore a dirty loincloth around his groin. As I watched, he waded into the muddy water toward the boat, pressing through the reeds that grew in profusion along the riverbank. The water rose to just above his waist. With a practiced motion he threw his clothes over the side and lifted himself from the river with his hands. The boat rocked violently but did not capsize.

  “I thought something you said offended him.”

  She laughed, a surprisingly musical sound.

  “He was offended. I made him agree to take us to Memphis for less than half the fee he wanted.”

  “What makes you think you are going to Memphis?”

  “I have to go,” she said simply. “The boatman doesn’t speak Greek.”

  Since I wished her to accompany me, I made no strenuous argument.

  The boatman used a long pole to guide his craft to a plank dock extending from the shore on rough posts. It was designed so that passengers could enter the boats without getting their feet wet, but since it was of small size and there were many boats, the boats were moored in the river and had to be brought up to the dock. We climbed on board and sat in the bow facing the mast. He pushed the boat into the midst of the current and raised the dirty linen sail on its angled crossbeam. It was triangular in shape, as were the sails of all the other boats I saw moving on the river. The breeze filled it with a snap and the boat seemed to come alive beneath us as it pressed forward against the current.