by Donald Tyson
When she returned in late afternoon, I sat reading the scroll of the Old Ones at the table by the glow of the oil lamp. The rattle of the door drew me up from my chair like a fish on a hook. I stood behind the door with my back to the wall, dagger drawn. Her solitary shadow in the rectangle of daylight upon the floor reassured me. She set her heavy wicker basket on the table and smiled, her face expressing the success of her mission.
“We depart on the evening tide, aboard the vessel Sword of the Prophet. Her captain is a Syrian named Ravicar, who makes Tyre his home. He trades all along the eastern coast and has agreed to take us as far north as the port of Iskanderun, in the Gulf of Issus.”
“I wish I had a map.”
She drew from the basket a folded parchment and spread it across the table on top of the scroll. It was a crude map of the eastern coast done in charcoal.
“The captain drew it for me when I asked him if there was any port farther north.”
Rough though it might be, the map had been drawn by a man who knew the making of charts. The names of a dozen ports were written along the coast in Arabic script. It even had a scale in Roman miles. I saw that Iskanderun was located on the easternmost side of the Gulf of Issus. The only other town shown in the gulf was Issus itself, but it was at the head of the gulf and further to the west. The line of the Euphrates river had been drawn in more vaguely than the coastline, but if the scale of miles was accurate, there would be a journey overland of some one hundred Roman miles from the port to the river. This matched my own vague recollection of the maps I had studied in Sana’a. I remembered that Iskanderun stood near the Syrian Gates, a pass through the mountains that ran along the coast, and for this reason the port was the western end of a caravan road that conveyed cloth and spices from Baghdad and the lands further east.
“The captain is a faithful follower of the Prophet,” Martala said, leaning over my shoulder to look at the map. “He did not want more passengers, but I told him that you were a countryman of his, the eldest son of a noble family, fleeing the wrath of wealthy Egyptian Christians. I presented myself as your Egyptian serving boy. I think he believes I am your lover.”
“Why not? You have attractive features for a boy,” I murmured, folding up the map. “I hope you did not pay with jewels?”
“Have I earned the name of a fool?” she asked with indignation. “I exchanged two of them for a purse of dinars and dirhams before going to the docks.”
“It is a risk. They know we have gems.”
“We needed gold and silver.”
I nodded. Risks must be taken. She had done well.
“What else do you have in that basket?”
“A feast.” She drew out fresh fruit and newly baked pastries. “Enjoy it, Alhazred, it is the last meal we will eat in Egypt.”
Seeing the wisdom of her words, I sampled a pastry, which was still warm from the oven, and discovered shreds of spiced goat meat at its center. While I chewed, I wondered if it would be our last meal in this world.
Chapter 35
The cry of the ship’s boy high overhead woke me from dreamless sleep. A cool breeze fanned my eyelashes and stirred the hairs on my chest. I opened them and saw the pale light of morning reflected from the stripped yellow and green cotton awning that acted as the roof of my sleeping place. Strung on part of the ship’s rigging, the awning angled up from where it was pegged to the deck and opened toward the sea, so that it gave the illusion of privacy to those who lay beneath it.
Not that such a thing existed on a ship, as I had learned on the Eye of Mecca. The awning fluttered softly. With automatic gestures and a muttered word, I restored the glamour of my appearance and slid across the sleeping rug toward the rail.
The naked boy, no more than nine years of age, clung like a monkey to the tip of the mast that projected above the crossbeam of the sail, both legs and an arm wrapped around the slender pole. The other arm gestured to someone below who stood on deck, concealed from my sight behind the awning. The boy’s round face beamed with cheerfulness.
The heat of the sun made clothing a burden, but the laws of Mohammed were strict on the matter of modesty. No one except the boy was permitted to walk the deck naked, although the seamen shed as many garments as they thought Ravicar ibn Anas, captain of the Sword of the Prophet, would tolerate. Having no wish to invite his disfavor, I imitated their example during the day, but slept in my own skin at night for the sake of comfort.
Martala stepped around the awning as I hung from the rail with my bare buttocks projected as far as was physically possible beyond the side of the ship. The captain was particular about cleanliness, and wore an unhappy expression for hours after I fouled his planks on the first day of our voyage.
The sight of her disguise still startled me, although I should have become used to it. She had bound her breasts flat, and the green felt cap pulled over her head completely covered her long hair. So slender was her body, the slight swell of her hips below her belt was unlikely to be noticed, and few would ever guess she was other than the youthful scholar she pretended to be.
Wrinkling her nose, she waited for me to wipe myself with a scrap of cotton rag and watched it float behind the product of my bowels.
Sea air agreed with her. Enthusiasm glowed in her cheeks and brightened her pale gray eyes.
“Alhazred, the captain was right.”
“Iskanderun?”
“The boy saw it first from the top of the mast. Come and look.”
She raced away before I could respond. The previous afternoon during mealtime, Ravicar had predicted that his ship would reach the port by morning, even though land had not been sighted for two days. Cheerless and strict though he might be, he was a competent navigator.
I ducked beneath the awning and pulled on my loose linen undershirt, then unrolled my tunic, which served as my pillow at night. Thrusting my head and arms through its narrow openings, I belted on my sword and dagger, adding Gor’s skull and my purse, and slid my feet into my boots. The scroll I left in the woven hemp bag the girl had bought to hold our meager possessions before our departure from Alexandria. Whatever the faults of the crew, dishonesty was not among them. I found Martala with several seamen in the bow, peering forward with her eyes shaded against the glare of the rising sun. One man clapped her on the back with good nature, and she made some indistinguishable comment that caused them all to laugh.
I glanced back at the stern. Ravicar stood in his usual place by the steering oar. Indeed, he had scarcely moved from it in our fifteen days and nights at sea, apart from meals and brief periods of sleep. Old enough to be my grandfather, he met my eye with no hint of greeting in his grizzled face. I was grateful to him for bearing me safely out of Egypt, but he was not a man to inspire affection. His black tunic only emphasized his solemn manner.
The entire crew believed Martala to be my lover. This might not have troubled Ravicar so much had she not disguised herself as a youth. He made no effort to conceal his religious prejudice against such connections. My uncovered head and shaved chin also annoyed him since they conflicted with the sartorial code laid down by the mullahs.
Instead of going to the bow, I made my way back and leaned over the port rail, where it sloped upward toward the stern, to scan the horizon to the south and west. It stretched unbroken between the perfect blues of sea and sky.
Sashi, do you see a sail?
The sea is empty, my love.
I allowed my grip on the rail to relax. No doubt I worried needlessly. For the past three days a sail had followed in the wake of our ship, never near enough for me to see the hull to which it was attached. The sight of fishing boats and galleys along the coast was common, but this sail troubled me with its persistence, and it was unusual for vessels to venture as far from shore as had the Sword of the Prophet.
Ravicar cast me a sidelong glance from beneath h
is turban.
“She may have passed us in the night,” he murmured.
We had not spoken about the sail, but I should have known he would notice my interest in its movements.
“Could it travel so much more quickly than your ship?” I asked in surprise.
“The wind is capricious. We were becalmed last night. If she found the wind when the Sword lost it, she may already be in port.”
He offered no other comment. Martala had given him the tale that I was fleeing Egypt from persecution. No doubt he believed the ship to carry my persecutors.
I returned to the bow, moving with accustomed ease to the gentle roll of the sand-scrubbed deck. The last two weeks at sea had taught me the trick of it. Even the milk goat that wandered free and the Egyptian cat were no more sure-footed.
Martala caught my hand and drew me to the rail, causing one seaman to grin at another and wink.
“There.” She pointed with her other hand. “See the whiteness of the stones? That is what they call a breakwater.”
“Iskanderun lies behind it?”
“So they say.”
There were dozens of ships moored in the harbor when we glided in on the morning tide. I studied them closely, but with their sails furled I could not tell if our pursuer was among them. The large white stone blocks of the docks and the sea walls gave the port an appearance of aged strength, yet it seemed cramped in comparison with the bustling expanse of Alexandria. By the time the side of the ship touched the dock, the efficient crew had struck our awning and stowed it below the deck. Martala had paid our passage before our departure from Egypt. Nothing remained except to gather our travel cloaks and the hemp bag with our possessions, and debark. A gang plank was rattled across to the dock for our benefit. The barefooted seamen did not bother with it, but leapt from the rail to the stones while they finished securing the ship.
Ravicar approached, his hands clasped before him at his waist in his habitual manner, his face grave. I half expected him to make some disapproving remark at our parting, but to my surprise he merely bowed his head.
“Go with God,” he said.
I returned the words, reflecting that even a strict follower of Mohammed could be a man of honor. We left him at the rail, watching us pass into the walls of the city.
Iskanderun was much like Alexandria save for the absence of Egyptians. The streets were thick with cheerful and drunken seamen, most of them Arabs and Greeks, who stopped in knots to laugh and banter words with the red-robed whores, or made their way purposefully carrying packs or pulling wagons. The air hung heavy with the stench of rotting fish, and was rent by unceasing screams from sea birds that wheeled in the cloudless heavens, or pecked at trash in the gutter with no concern for the humans who shared the cobblestones.
I watched a trio of naked street urchins, none as old as the ship’s boy, creep up on a gull as it worried with its beak the flattened corpse of a rat crushed beneath a cartwheel. They burst with shrill cries from behind a wagon and threw pebbles at the bird and ran after it, waving their arms like wings.
Touching Martala on the shoulder to attract her attention, I bent my head close so that I would not need to shout above the din.
“Find us a room. We will spend the night here.” I opened my purse and gave her two small dirhams. “Buy food and drink for yourself, if you wish.”
“My lord is too generous.”
Her voice carried a hint of mockery. I had taken for my own the purse that held the remaining jewels and the coins acquired at Alexandria, leaving her with no more than a few brass fils tied in a rag at her belt.
“A good servant has no sense of humor,” I reminded her.
“Where will you be, Alhazred? How shall I find you?”
“Meet me in the marketplace. There are items I must purchase for our journey to the Euphrates.”
I left her to her task and climbed the slope of the street. It twisted from side to side like the back of a great serpent. The market square of any town is easy to locate. All roads lead to it, if you follow them far enough. This one had no wall, but was completely enclosed by the sides of buildings, apart from the streets that led into it. As was not uncommon, an elevated well of carved stone adorned its center. Three women knelt on the steps of the well, washing garments in a large wooden tub. The slap of the wet cloth against the worn stone steps sounded across the square above the voices of the hawkers in their stalls, and the milling tread of buyers. The stench of fish had remained behind at the docks, and in the air hung the savor of baked bread.
Most of the sellers were Greeks, but a few Jews plied their trade among them. I wandered around the square, glancing at their wares and ignoring their cries, until I found a table of leather goods and saw what I had been searching for, a water skin. All the time since fleeing from my own house at Alexandria, I had been uneasy without the familiar water skin I had carried in the Empty Space. It was foolish to be concerned about water when so much of it was free for the taking, but I knew I would not rest easy in my own heart until I carried water.
I selected a large new skin hanging on a peg at the side of the stall and slung its strap over my shoulder. Its weight felt reassuring, even though it was empty. The Jew seated behind the table smiled, showing a set of even white teeth through the well-oiled black beard that covered his lip and chin.
“Does my lord travel east with the caravan? Perhaps I can provide you with other necessities.”
Nodding, I studied his wares. There were saddles and saddle bags, whips, bridles, soft-sided bottles, belts, empty scabbards, and other articles of leather.
“Do you have any travel packs, for carrying things on the back while walking?” I asked in Greek, the common tongue of the port.
He spread his hands in apology and shook his head.
“They do not use such things in this land. No one walks. Everyone rides.”
“Why should they not walk?”
“The distance between wells on the caravan road is too great. One who walked would surely perish. And there are many bandits on the road. A man on foot would be easy prey.”
Had I traveled alone, I might have ignored this well-intentioned advice, but Martala was not hardened to the desert. It would be best, I reflected, to purchase horses for the many days we must spend on the road. We haggled over the price of the water skin without ill feeling, and I made him add a small leather purse to the bargain, for the girl. After paying the amount agreed upon, I had him direct me to a stable where I could buy mounts. He tried to sell me new saddles but I declined, thinking that the stable owner would surely have used saddles at a much better price.
The weight of the well water in the skin bumping at my side comforted me. I was pleased that the skin did not leak. The stables were located inside the city wall near the eastern gate. Had I not been given such good directions by the Jew, I could probably have found them by following my nose. They were filthy. In Sana’a, any stableman who kept his stalls in such a condition would have been whipped through the streets—King Huban had always held great fondness for horses and prohibited their mistreatment. A pity for me that his tenderness of heart did not extend to men.
Accustomed as I was to the royal stables, even the best mounts the proprietor had to offer seemed to me poor beasts. He was a fat unwashed man in a stained leather apron that covered the entire front of his body. For modesty’s sake he wore a sleeveless shirt that hung down to his knees, and sandals that were almost the same black color as his feet. Not too many days before he had burned his forearm, and the sear mark had turned an interesting shade of purple around the red crease. He sweated in the growing heat of morning, black hair plastered tight to his forehead.
I picked out two horses, one a gray gelding and the other a tan mare, that did not look as through they would drop dead on the first day of riding. He named a price that was easily four t
imes their value.
“If you don’t wish to sell your horses, I can always walk the caravan road,” I told him in irritation.
His small dark eyes widened in horror.
“No one walks. It would be certain death. If you did not die of thirst, you would be killed by bandits.”
This seemed a popular theme in Iskanderun. Glancing around the stable, I noticed a row of saddles resting across a rail in the shadows at the rear.
“I will buy your horses for half your price.”
He thrust out his lower lip and glared at me. I met his gaze with a mild expression. His resolve softened.
“But only if you supply those two saddles as part of the bargain,” I added, pointing at the rail.
As is true of most men who bluster, once he had expressed his initial indignation, he became more reasonable, and we settled on a price that was only slightly higher than what I had named. As I turned to leave the stench of the stables, he caught my arm.
“My lord, forgive me, but I cannot allow you to travel east with only a single companion. It would be your death. You must go with a caravan for your own protection.”
“When is the earliest caravan departing the city?”
“Not for six days.”
“Then I must go with only my servant. I cannot wait that long.”
“If you must leave before the caravan, at least allow me to hire men to accompany you and guard you from bandits.”
“For which you would expect a fee.”
“A small fee,” he agreed with an apologetic smile. “My wife’s brothers are trained in the use of the sword. They often serve as bodyguards for noble travelers like yourself. You will need to hire at least four guards, or your party will be too small to discourage bandits. They are very bold, my lord. Just last month bandits killed an entire sect of religious zealots who made the mistake of trying to walk the road. They piled up their heads beside a well.”