The Lion of Cairo

by Oden, Scott

  “Allah’s mercies upon his keen eye, whoever he is,” Farouk murmured, a sentiment echoed by others. Assad noticed several other men, merchants and caravaneers, had wandered over and now stood at the periphery, listening as Umar told his tale—one they had doubtless heard a thousand times over. Still, the old man relished their attention; he paused for dramatic effect and took a long drag off his water pipe.

  “Who stopped him, this godless Circassian?” someone asked. “Was it a great cavalier or a cunning servant?”

  Umar shook his head. “It was the vizier himself. The Circassian was so intent upon the Caliph—almost as if he were blind to all else, my nephew said—that he did not see the vizier approaching on his right hand. Without a word, that worthy man snatched the mameluke’s own dagger from his girdle and drove it into his heart!” Umar pantomimed the killing, tugging a curved knife from his belt and stabbing the air. “Once! Twice! Thrice! Until the infidel lay dead at his feet.” Feigning exhaustion, the old man dropped the knife into his lap. “Well, it was chaos after that. The Turkish mamelukes blamed their Circassian brothers for this lapse in the Caliph’s defense; the Circassians blamed the accursed Jews and Nazarenes lurking in Fustat for corrupting one of their own, and the vizier blamed the lot of them—whence springs your rumors of riots and fires, Farouk. For a month, Fustat ran red with blood as Circassian, Jew, and Nazarene fought one another, looted, and destroyed. Finally, acting on the blessed Caliph’s behalf, the vizier sent Sudanese mercenaries into Fustat to quell the riots, then expelled all the mamelukes from the palace! The Turks were ordered to garrison Cairo’s gates, while the vizier reduced the Circassians to a wretched existence as mere foot soldiers in the urban militia.”

  “Surely, though, the vizier would not leave the palace undefended?” Farouk said.

  “Allah forbid! No, that task has gone to another band of mercenaries called the Jandariyah, Syrian Arabs hired out from under the very nose of the Sultan of Damascus, God curse him…”

  Assad turned slightly and stared at the back of Farouk’s head. But what of the Caliph? he wanted to ask. The whole story sounded almost too pat, too convenient, as though someone in the palace—indeed, in the Caliph’s own circle—had engineered it as a way of removing the threat of the mamelukes. As Umar had said, these slave-soldiers were fiercely loyal to their master and would have presented a major stumbling block to an enemy who sought to remove the Caliph. Handily, someone circumvented them and put mercenaries in their place. But who? The vizier? The commander of the army? Some faceless chamberlain who prefered the anonymity of the shadows? Or could it truly be as simple as a disgraced Circassian seeking to expunge the stain on his honor with blood?

  Assad needed more to go on. He—

  A commotion behind him, from farther down the street, crushed his ruminations like a mace. He heard the approach of horsemen, their clatter all but drowned out by a rising tide of voices—curses, cries of outrage, and the shrill screams of unseen women: “Al-Dawiyyah! Allah yil’anak! God curse the wretched Infidels! Al-Dawiyyah!” Assad spun; harness rattled as his and Farouk’s horses whinnied and tossed their heads, spooked by the sudden cacophony. “Al-Dawiyyah!”

  The Assassin spotted a squadron of cavalry cantering toward the Gate of Victory; most of the horsemen were Sudanese, lightly armored lancers wearing the black cloaks and turbans of Fatimid soldiery. The two men they escorted, however, were neither Arab nor Moslem. They were Franks—mailed Knights astride great prancing stallions, their white surcoats sporting the bloodred cross of the Order of the Temple.

  Al-Dawiyyah. Templars.

  The sight of that hated symbol of Nazarene arrogance brought a curse to Assad’s lips. A dream-image flashed through his mind: a design in blood caking the chest of the figure’s surcoat: a cross, red on white. The stench of death clung to it …

  The Assassin’s fingers curled around the hilt of his salawar; the hate radiating from that blade paled against the naked fury already coursing through his body. Assad’s eyes blazed. His jaw clenched and unclenched. He wanted to rip into their bellies and tear out their entrails, hack them apart as they had hacked apart defenseless captives at Ascalon. Assad wanted to drink Templar blood.

  It took every scrap of resolve he possessed to simply stand still and watch them pass—let them pass—when in his soul the spirits of long-dead friends cried out for vengeance. Soon, brothers. Soon. Slowly, finger by finger, he let loose of his salawar as the cortege vanished into Cairo.

  The Gate of Victory trundled shut, hinges squealing.

  With a promise to break bread with them tomorrow, Farouk left his clutch of friends and went to stand beside Assad. “A curious thing,” the Persian muttered. The tumult of the Templars’ passage faded as men returned to their business, drifting back inside their caravanserais and warehouses, their moods darker. “Come, let’s be off.”

  “No. I want to know what deviltry is afoot! Why is the Caliph consorting with the dogs of Jerusalem? In the name of God, who rules Cairo? Is that too difficult a question?”

  Farouk shrugged, clapping Assad on the shoulder. “We are tired. Perhaps we cannot see the truth of it? Come, let us repair to the house of Abu Hamza. A bath and a meal will no doubt foster much-needed clarity—”

  “I have all the clarity I need. What I don’t have are answers.” Assad passed him the reins of both horses. “You go on ahead and ply your contacts. Find out what you can.”

  “What of you? Where will you be?”

  The tall Arab pushed past Farouk and headed for the Gate of Conquests, his mind already on the names Daoud had given him. When he looked back, his eyes were like slits of cold fire. “Plying contacts of my own.”

  5

  Behind Cairo’s walls, in the sumptuous East Palace of the Fatimid Caliphs, the most powerful man in all of Egypt contemplated his next move. He studied his adversary closely, recalling the adage that a weakness of the body did not necessarily translate to a weakness of the mind. His adversary, perched on a divan across from him, was a wizened old eunuch, sharp-featured and pale, his bulging belly and pendulous breasts hidden beneath a loose galabiya of finely woven black linen. He watched as the eunuch’s palsied hand hovered over the game pieces arrayed between them. Weak in body, not weak in mind.

  Lamplight gleamed from the edges of the elegant shatranj board, its squares fashioned of milky alabaster and deep green tourmaline. Pawns of ivory and silver confronted those of ebony and gold, while tall horsemen, crenellated rukhs, stately elephants, and bearded wazirs defended their jewel-encrusted shahs.

  With excruciating slowness, the eunuch selected an ivory elephant and used it to capture one of the man’s ebony pawns, adding it to the four he already possessed. “It is not always flash and glitter that wins a battle, vizier,” the eunuch said. “Sometimes, victory can be achieved through the simple act of attrition.”

  “You are as predictable as the Nile, my old darling,” the vizier, Jalal, said. He moved one of his rukhs into position to threaten the eunuch’s shah. “And you know nothing of battle.”

  The eunuch smiled, his teeth yellowed kernels. “Ah, the blessed river may be predictable,” he said, “but does that make it any less dangerous?” Deftly, he drew a horseman back to protect his shah. “Tread with care, my friend.”

  Jalal sat back, studied the board. He was a tall man, lean and dark, with heavy-lidded eyes and a sensuous mouth that lent his predatory features an aspect of wanton cruelty; traces of gray flecked his goatee. Clad in a silken robe girdled with satin brocade and a pearl-sewn turban, he reclined easily on his cushioned divan and reached behind him, past the remnants of his evening meal, for a goblet of wine. Slave and master sat beneath a colonnade, on a marble portico overlooking one of the palace’s many small gardens. Delicate lamps of gilded glass hung from the branches of willows and sycamores, casting bands of light and shadow over a cobbled path that wound past the burbling fountain. A chorus of crickets drowned out the sounds of Cairo settling in for the night.
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  Jalal glanced up. “How is our Caliph this evening, Mustapha?”

  “Restless,” the old eunuch replied. “For days he has wanted no more of the opium pipe, so this night we were forced to mix the juice of the poppy with his wine, instead. He sleeps, but fitfully. I do not know how much longer we can continue this, Excellency. Al-Hasan grows resistant to my arts.”

  The vizier’s eyes narrowed. “How comes this resistance? You’re giving him the full measure, are you not?”

  “The full measure and more, besides, when he will take it. His dreams are the culprit, Excellency. They give him hope, and in hope he finds the strength to resist. As Allah is my witness, I fear the day is coming when he will try to assert his authority over you, when he will seek to truly reign as Caliph and not simply as a figurehead. His dreams tell him this. He also dreams of his Circassian friend, the one you killed before his eyes, and he demands we send for a Sufi to aid him in interpreting these visions. I do not know how much longer we can deny him, Excellency.”

  Jalal sighed, picked up a captured pawn and studied the detail. It resembled a tiny mameluke, carved from African ivory and accented with fine silver, clutching sword and shield as it awaited the hand of its master. Ready to die like a good slave. “Perhaps,” he said after a moment, “it is time our poor young Caliph is stricken with the illness of his forefathers.”

  Mustapha arched an eyebrow. “So soon, Excellency? Are you prepared for the chaos his death will engender? The common folk love him…”

  The vizier returned the pawn to the table’s edge. “And so? Who among the peasants would dare thwart me? Who among the courtiers and officers, for that matter? Not the Jandariyah, for their captain answers to me alone. Not the Turks or the Circassian mamelukes, for we have winnowed their ranks and thrust their leaders to the margins of influence. All that remain are the Sudanese mercenaries—a contentious lot, to be sure—but so long as their prince, Wahshi, is well paid he will do as I command. Allow the Caliph to linger for a month, Mustapha, and my position will be unassailable. I will be Sultan.”

  The old eunuch nodded. “So be it, Excellency. By week’s end, our dear al-Hasan will be in the grips of a terrible fever. No doubt mortal.”

  “Sometimes,” Jalal said, his lips curling into a devilish smile, “the answer to a problem is profoundly simple.” He reached out and decisively moved a humble pawn forward to capture one of the eunuch’s elephants.

  Mustapha sat up straight. The remaining pieces on the shatranj board assumed an ominous symmetry. “You’re using Dilaram? Oh, you are a cunning one, Excellency. Cunning, indeed. But, is it enough to be cunning? That is the question—”

  Before Mustapha could continue, however, another eunuch interrupted—this one well muscled and as black as the Abyssinian night, his skin in marked contrast to his red silk pantaloons and gold-scaled vest. He abased himself on the cold marble beside the vizier.

  Jalal glanced over. “Speak.”

  “Two men have arrived in Cairo seeking an audience, Excellency. Franks, from Jerusalem, under a banner of peace. They are … they are Templars, Excellency.”

  Both the vizier’s and Mustapha’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Surely a ruse,” the old eunuch said, tugging absently at the loose flesh under his chin. “When have those infidel jackals ever honored a flag of peace? I would wager they are not Templars at all, but Assassins…”

  Jalal gestured for silence. “What are their names?”

  “Hugh of Caesarea, Excellency, and with him a man called Godfrey. They claim to be messengers from King Amalric, bearing grave news. More they would not say. Shall we execute them or imprison them, Excellency?”

  After a moment’s pause, Jalal responded with a brusque shake of his head. “Neither. Escort them to the Golden Hall. I will speak with them before I pass judgment.”

  “Hearkening and obeying, Excellency.” The Abyssinian eunuch salaamed and hurried off to do the vizier’s bidding.

  Jalal looked back at the chessboard. “So, my old darling, you were saying something about cunning?”

  6

  The twin minarets of the mosque of al-Hakim, whom men called the Mad Caliph, gleamed like naked bone against the night sky. This ruined edifice—long since abandoned as a place of worship—straddled the walls of Cairo between the Gate of Conquests and the Gate of Victory, its covered galleries and sharply crenellated bastions indistinguishable from the city’s own ramparts. A crumbling portico jutted into a broad unpaved square where by day fruit sellers and garlic merchants set up their stalls; by night, square and mosque were the abode of beggars.

  Cairo had its share of mendicants and fakirs—gadflies who cajoled travelers or spun exotic tales in exchange for coin—but most of those who clustered about the mosque of the Mad Caliph were truly wretched, the diseased and the insane whose existence depended upon the whims of Moslem generosity. Few regarded them as human; most paid them little heed whatsoever. The blighted aura of pestilence and death that clung to the mosque of al-Hakim provided the perfect camouflage for an agent of al-Hashishiyya.

  “The spies of Alamut hide in plain sight, my young Emir,” Daoud ar-Rasul had said. “Chief among them is one called ‘al-Hajj,’ the Pilgrim. He lurks near the old mosque between the gates, posing as a poor merchant even as he watches the comings and goings. When you find him, speak thus in the tongue of Persia: ‘Sharp-eyed are the eagles in the minarets of Nizar,’ and he will know you as a Comrade of the Hidden Master…”

  Assad stalked across the square, slow and predatory. A thin mud of trampled fruit and excrement squelched underfoot; clouds of stinging flies arose with each step. During the day, merchants paid a few bits of silver to a censor who would wander the market and sweeten the air. After nightfall, however, the incense faded, leaving behind a ghastly stench of human waste and rotting garlic. None of the beggars picking through the offal left behind by the fruit sellers accosted Assad, nor tried to bar his way; one glance at his scarred face, at the deadly gleam in his eyes, at the well-worn hilt of his salawar, was enough to convince them to mind their business.

  Assad remembered this place from his childhood, though he rarely had occasion to travel into this quarter of the city. His father had died when he was a boy; he and his mother—a laundrywoman—had joined the household of his uncle, a well-respected qadi who lived outside the Zuwayla Gate, on the road to Fustat. The old gatekeeper of the house, also called Hakim, loved to regale him with bloody tales of his namesake, the Mad Caliph. “He lives inside his mosque,” Hakim would say, his wide eyes bloodshot and glassy, breath reeking of wine. “And it is to his mosque that ghûls and djinn bring the hearts of children who do not recite their Qur’an properly. Do you know your Qur’an, boy?” Assad’s lips thinned in a half-smile. Hakim and his stories were one of the few fond memories he had of Cairo.

  Flakes of old limestone crunched underfoot as the Assassin ascended the steps of the mosque’s portico. Sickly light streamed out through a yawning archway that led into the interior, giving him enough illumination to see—and to be seen. “I seek al-Hajj!” he said to the beggars clustered beneath the portico. “Is he here?” The ragged figures flinched and yammered at the sound of Assad’s voice. They shrank from him and slunk away, or simply crouched against the wall with their faces averted.

  Assad passed beneath the arch and entered the mosque’s courtyard. Ancient columns like palm trunks hewn from yellowed marble held up the decaying arcade; a century and more of filth and neglect caked the floor while the soot of countless small fires blackened the walls. Beggars stirred at his intrusion, their fear giving way to annoyance; from the shadows he caught the glint of rheumy eyes, heard muttered voices. A mad cackle echoed about the courtyard before it degenerated into a fit of coughing.

  “Al-Hajj!” Assad called out. Pox-scarred faces glared at him. “Gold to the man who can show me to al-Hajj!”

  After a moment, a voice bellowed in return: “Who wants to know?” Assad’s head turned; across the courtyard
, in the corner where a fire burned beneath a mottled pepper-pot dome, six men sat apart from the other beggars, dicing for scraps of fruit. In appearance they were as thin and ragged as the rest, but their faces lacked any hint of insanity. The one who spoke canted his head to one side to stare at Assad with his good eye, black and glittering—his other was nothing but a scarred socket.

  “Are you al-Hajj?”

  “Who wants to know, I said!”

  Assad moved out from beneath the arcade and walked toward them, his temper checked by the thinnest thread of reason. “I am but a messenger, sent by an old friend of al-Hajj.”

  “Bah!” The one-eyed man grunted. “That whoreson has no friends!”

  “You know him, then? Do you know where I can find him?”

  “Aye on both scores, praise be to Allah. I know him and I know where he is.” The men around him stiffened as Assad drew closer, their hands dropping from sight. Whoever this man was, with his wiry russet beard and fey locks escaping from beneath a sweat-stained scarlet turban, they thought him important enough to defend.

  “Take me to him. I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “I doubt it not, but he is easy enough to find on your own, stranger. You need only go south, out the Zuwayla Gate, and follow the road to Ibn Tulun’s mosque on the outskirts of al-Karafa cemetery. You know it? Good. Ask anyone there, and they will show you al-Hajj’s grave.” The men around him chuckled. “Tell him Musa sends his regards.”

  “Musa, is it?” Assad’s hand dropped to the hilt of his blade as he took a menacing step toward the one-eyed beggar. “Do you think it wise to toy with me, Musa?”

  To his credit, Musa did not flinch. “I don’t know you, stranger, as you don’t know me. Perhaps humor at your expense is unwise, but so is assuming I have lied to you. Al-Hajj has been dead a week now, knifed in the caravanserai where he dwelt, not far from here. I found him myself.”