by Oden, Scott
“Sell it? You little idiot! Of course I plan to sell it! Do you think the meat and bread you eat comes to you by the grace of Allah? There is a price to your upkeep … and the price is that accursed sword! Now, give it over, if you value your precious hide!”
Though young, the boy understood the sword’s worth. It was more than just an heirloom. The work of a master from Herat, its single-edged blade, slightly curved in the Turkish fashion, had the blessings of the Prophet inlaid in delicate gold calligraphy; its hilt was of fine wood and bound in twists of Persian leather, ray skin, and golden wire. It was a gift, his mother had told him, tears sparkling in her eyes, a gift from a great shaykh whose life your father saved. In turn, it saved his life many times over in the wars against the Franks. We must keep it safe and well tended, to honor him. The boy’s gaze flicked to the sword’s hiding place, beneath a loose board under the pallet he slept on, in the tiny room at the rear of his uncle’s mansion.
The boy’s uncle, who often boasted he could read guilt or innocence on the faces of those brought before him as surely as a learned man could read a book, followed his gaze and knew it for what it was. “Soho!” A wicked smile split his ruddy visage. He let go of the boy, turned, and flung the pallet aside. The board skewed, revealing the cloth-wrapped sword. The man bent and retrieved the weapon. “There you are, praise be to Allah.”
“Leave it be!” Tears of rage flooded the boy’s eyes; he lunged for the sword and received only the back of his uncle’s hand for his troubles. The blow knocked him into the tangle of his bedding. He flailed about as he sought to rise again, to continue the fight. The boy’s fingers brushed something metallic. Desperate, he tugged it free—it was the little dagger old Hakim had given him, its pitted blade thin and straight. The feel of it, its weight and balance, sent a thrill down his spine; it lent him strength, afforded him courage. With an incoherent scream the boy threw himself at his hated uncle, raking the knife across the man’s belly. The sensation of steel ripping cloth and flesh, the boy discovered, was more sublime than anything he could have imagined. So, too, his uncle’s reaction.
The man shrieked. He turned loose of the sword and stumbled back, eyes goggling with disbelief as his fingertips probed the wound and came away bloody. “You dare touch me?”
“You dare disrespect my father!” The boy scrambled over and caught up the fallen sword, knife held at the ready as Hakim had shown him. “And you dare disrespect my mother by trying to make her your whore!”
His uncle raged. “No, she was my brother’s whore! That ignorant fool had a weakness for well-used women! I thank the Prophet that he’s dead and no longer a disgrace to my family! And you, you misbegotten little cur, you’ll be my eunuch soon enough! Guards! My men will carve your pea-sized balls off! Then, when I’m done with you, I’ll sell you to the slaves in the quarries! You and your bitch of a mother, too!” The man reached for him. “Guards!”
The dark-haired boy stood his ground, his face screwed up in a rictus of hate as his uncle grabbed him by the throat. Before the qadi’s fingers could constrict, however, the boy struck back.
Steel flashed. With every scrap of power in his narrow shoulders, in his thin arm, the boy rammed the knife in beneath the hinge of his uncle’s jaw; angled upward, it punched through muscle and bone and lodged in his skull. The qadi’s eyes went wide. His hands flew to his own throat as he tried to speak, to breathe. Nothing came from his yawning mouth save a fine mist of blood. The boy spat in his uncle’s face and shoved him away as the bedroom door flew open.
It was Hakim. The gray-bearded old gatekeeper stood on the threshold and watched in stunned silence as his employer writhed at his feet, gobbling and choking on blood. His contortions weakened; soon, they stopped altogether. Quickly, Hakim shut the door. “What have you done, boy?”
“He … He tried to t-take my father’s sword, Hakim,” he said, the cloth-wrapped weapon tight against his chest. “P-punish me as you will, but I … I do not r-regret what I have done. It wasn’t his to take, and I will kill the man who tries to do it again!”
Hakim stared at the qadi’s sprawled corpse, his eyes pitiless, full of disdain. “No. I won’t be the one to punish you. Allah has made His will known. But, listen. You must flee Cairo. Your uncle, he has powerful friends; friends who won’t look kindly upon his murder. You have to go and go fast. Tonight.”
“W-what about my mother?”
“I’ll look after her, boy. I promise you, she’ll be safe and will want for nothing.”
“I … I don’t know where to go.” Tears welled in the corners of his eyes. His blood-spattered limbs trembled; he looked thirteen again. Thirteen and scared. “What do I do, Hakim?”
The man exhaled. “I have a cousin in Ascalon. He’s an ironmonger and he always has a need for new apprentices. I’ll send you to him. He’ll take good care of you, boy, as Allah is my witness.”
As Allah is my witness … As Allah … As …
14
Assad did not regain consciousness as another man might, by thrashing and jerking about; he did not groan or curse or call out for water. Rather, he came awake silently and lay still, allowing time for his senses to take stock of his surroundings. He knew who it was that attacked him, knew it with cold certainty—the recollection of an eye socket, scarred and empty, was yet vivid in his mind. Musa and his beggars. But why? Robbery? If that were the case I doubt I’d be waking up. Why, then?
The air was cool and moist, thick with the tang of mildew and of damp stone. Assad’s khalat was gone, his boots, too; hemp cords bound him hand and foot. He lay on his side on a floor of blue-glazed tile, his skull throbbing as he listened to sounds around him—the drip of water, the rustle of wings and faint cooing of pigeons from far above. Closer at hand, he heard harsh whispers.
“You say he simply showed up?” This from a man whose voice carried the weight of years. The way he sharply pronounced each word reminded Assad of an old soldier, a leader of men.
“Yes, effendi.” He easily recognized Musa’s voice. “He came around the mosque looking for al-Hajj, so when he left I sent my men to watch him. They fetched me when they saw he was making for Zaynab’s house.”
“Who were these dogs he killed?”
“Harafisha,” he heard Musa say, his tone one of disdain. “Looters, most likely. He slew three. We let the fourth slip past us in the alley, and then ambushed this one as he came out.”
“And he is not an associate, not a contact?”
“No.” A woman answered him, her voice husky and strained as though she tottered at the threshold of exhaustion. “I’ve never seen him before, as Allah is my witness!” Al-Ghazala, I presume. That she was indeed alive brought a small measure of comfort to Assad.
“Let’s see what he has to say for himself, then.”
Boots crunched on the tile; Assad saw them from the corner of his eye—soft leather sewn with silver thread. One nudged him in the ribs just hard enough to roll him onto his back.
The man standing over him was neither tall nor bulky, though the strength of his compact frame was evident in his bull neck, in the corded sinew of his arms. Beneath a plain green turban, coal-black eyes glittered with curiosity as he stared hard at Assad, surprised to find him awake. Assad stared back, unflinching. The man had a weather-beaten face that had seen too much—too much blood, too much grief, too much injustice; the gray peppering his russet beard he wore like a badge of honor.
“Playing dead, eh? Do you know me, dog?” he said, gathering his robes of dark green and cream damask around him as he crouched. Gold shimmered from the pommel of a curved dagger thrust into his girdled sash. Musa came up to stand behind him. “Do you know who I am? I am Ali abu’l-Qasim, whom the folk of Cairo call Malik al-Harami, the King of Thieves! You are trespassing on what is mine! Who are you, and why were you sniffing around the Gazelle’s door, eh? Who were those men you killed?”
“Not looters,” Assad said, rising up on one elbow. He lay on the floor of a ha
mmam, a bathhouse, long past its prime. Water trickled from a broken fountain, from ruptured pipes and cracked basins, following runnels in the tile to pool in the low places. Decades of grime and pigeon droppings stained the floors, while guttering torches left cones of soot on the tiled walls; the unsteady light didn’t reach every corner, nor did it find the vaulted ceiling high above. “Your palace, O king?”
“My torture chamber,” Abu’l-Qasim replied. “Who were they, if not looters? Associates of yours?”
Assad shot a venomous glance at the man known as the King of Thieves. “If I had to guess, I’d say your half-blind idiot there let one of al-Hajj’s killers get by him.”
“Liar!” Musa spat and pulled a knife from his ragged belt. “Give him to me, effendi! I’ll make him sing for you!”
“Be silent!” Abu’l-Qasim snapped over his shoulder. To Assad he said: “How is it you know al-Hajj?”
“I don’t. Like I told that one, I bear a message for him from an old friend.”
“And does this message have anything to do with the Gazelle?”
Assad pursed his lips. “Perhaps. If she is here I would speak with her.”
“Would you?” Abu’l-Qasim straightened. His boot heels clicked as he paced, clearly agitated. “And what would you say to her, were she here?”
“Mind your business, old man,” Assad snapped. “Bring her, if she is here, and all will be made clear. I mean her no harm.”
“Y’Allah! The dog has arrogance enough for ten men! Who is in whose power, eh? You make demands of me? Of Ali abu’l-Qasim? You dare tell me what I should do? Man, Zaynab al-Ghazala is my daughter, and anything you would say to her you can say to me!”
Assad’s eyes narrowed. “Your daughter?”
“She is the only child I have left.” Abu’l-Qasim stopped pacing. His hand moved to the pommel of his knife. “And if your death will make her safe, I swear—by the blood of the Prophet—you will never see another sunrise. My patience is at an end. Who are you and what do you want with my daughter?”
Assad studied the man, searching Abu’l-Qasim’s face for some hint of deception, for the barest wisp of dishonesty. He found only cold resolve. The muscles of the Assassin’s jaw clenched and unclenched. Slowly, he nodded. “Tell her this,” he said. “Tell her the Emir of the Knife would speak to her.”
His words provoked the desired reaction. Musa paled and swore. Abu’l-Qasim stepped back, scowling with uncertainty; at the same time, Assad heard a sharp intake of breath come from one corner of the hammam. He craned his neck and saw a woman emerge from the shadows, unveiled, her chestnut hair confined by a shawl of dark silk; dark, too, was the fabric of her gown and robe, so that the outline of her body melted into the gloom around her. Still, Assad saw enough to know she possessed grace and uncommon beauty.
Her eyes, though, were wide with alarm.
“T-the Emir of the K-Knife, you say?” She edged closer, her manner as skittish as her namesake. “He is in Cairo?”
“Aye. He is closer than you would imagine.” Assad struggled into a sitting position. When he again spoke it was in Persian rather than Arabic, and he kept his voice low and calm. “We serve the same master. A young shaykh of storied lineage who dwells on a mountaintop by the shores of the Caspian Sea.”
“Speak the words,” she answered in the same tongue, her voice trembling. “If you are who you claim, you will know the words.”
“ ‘Sharp-eyed are the eagles in the minarets of Nizar,’ ” he said.
The Gazelle closed her eyes and nodded. “Loose him, Father.”
Abu’l-Qasim looked askance at her. “You’re certain?”
“Loose him. He is an emir of the Hidden Master. He is an ally.”
The King of Thieves glanced at Assad, concern fretting his brow. Finally, he said: “Cut him free, Musa.”
Reluctantly, the one-eyed man approached. The Assassin sensed Musa’s fear as he used his knife to slice the ropes, first his feet then his hands. Assad flexed his shoulders, feeling the first pinpricks of restored circulation. His head ached and blood matted his hair to the back of his skull. “Fetch my things,” he growled. “And if so much as one thin dirham is missing, you will pay with your other eye.”
Musa hurried to do the Emir’s bidding.
Abu’l-Qasim came over to where Assad sat. “I make no apologies for my rough treatment of you. My daughter’s life is all that matters to me,” he said, extending a hand to help the Assassin to his feet.
“We have no quarrel, you and I.”
“Good.” Abu’l-Qasim nodded. “I offer you my hospitality, and my protection, while you are in Cairo. Anything you need—”
“A place to sit and some wine would be welcome,” Assad said. He looked from the King of Thieves to Zaynab. “And answers to my questions.”
“Of course,” she said. “Follow me.”
15
By what rights Ali abu’l-Qasim called himself the King of Thieves, Assad did not know. Perhaps because those who stole for a living—from sneak thieves and extortionists along the Qasaba to bandits and Nile smugglers—tithed him a portion of their gains, an illicit tax which in turn financed the collective apathy of the urban militia, old soldiers who earned their stipends policing the city’s streets. Or, perhaps it had something to do with his beneficence.
“Without my father, the city’s tax collectors and usurers would doubtless have bled whole neighborhoods dry,” Zaynab said. Assad shifted in his seat; she stood behind him and sponged blood from his hair, her fingers gently exploring the extent of his injury. They were alone in a chamber on the second floor of the caravanserai where the King of Thieves dwelled, that worthy having gone to make a quick circuit of his guards while Musa had yet to return with Assad’s things. Unlike the hammam, this portion of Abu’l-Qasim’s lair showed signs of better maintenance, with reed mats and carpets and tapestries of silk and wool stitched with sayings from the Qur’an. Sweet smoke coiled from censers hanging amid the oil lamps of an intricate chandelier. “He ensures they take only what is proper and no more. Those under his protection prosper.”
“And your father, he … approves of what you do?”
Zaynab smiled. “Which part? That I am a courtesan or that I collect information for al-Hashishiyya?”
“Both.”
“On the former: I am a courtesan, not a whore. Men pay for the pleasure of my company, for conversation, for stories, for songs. They pay because I appreciate the lies they tell about their lives, because I compliment their egos. If it goes any further, the choice is mine alone, and coin is never a consideration. As for the latter: I learned of the teachings of Ibn al-Sabbah from my father, who is a devout Ismaili. Much of what I pass along to Alamut comes from him, from his countless eyes and ears.”
“How long have you been under your father’s protection?”
“I am always under his protection,” Zaynab replied, a hint of rancor in her voice. “But I have been dwelling under his roof again since the night after our enemies got to al-Hajj.”
“They came for you, too,” Assad said. It was not a question.
Zaynab exhaled. “I was abroad on business that night. In the cold hours before dawn someone invaded my house. At least, I presume it was but one man. No one knows how he gained entry, for dawn found the doors and shutters still locked and bolted. This wraith, whoever he was, killed my maidservant, instead. And she did not die easily. No doubt he thought she was the Gazelle, and then he prolonged her agony when the truth came out and she wouldn’t reveal my whereabouts.”
“You’re certain she did not break?”
“Why?” The Gazelle bristled. “Do you doubt a woman has the wherewithal to keep her mouth shut? Y’Allah! The poor girl did not betray me.”
“Then who did? Who else is privy to the secret of your allegiance?”
“Only my father and Musa.”
“And al-Hajj. How close were you?”
“We weren’t close at all. He knew as little about me as
I know about him. We took great pains never to move in the same circles. Al-Hajj collected information from the folk of the streets, from the beggars at the gates, from the drovers and herdsmen; he worked the Qasaba, the souks, listening to the chatter of merchants and caravaneers, to the plaints of the soldiers who guarded them, while I limit my activities to courtiers and officers, a few ministers and a qadi or two. I supplement what I glean from them with whatever news my father might provide. Save for Musa, we had no mutual contact. Nor is it known in the streets that the mistress of the House of the Gazelle is also the daughter of the King of Thieves.”
“And yet, al-Hajj is dead and you are living in exile. Someone has betrayed you, but to whom?”
“Our master’s enemies are beyond reckoning,” Zaynab said. “Fatimid, Abbasid, Sunni, Shiite, Nazarene, Jew, Yezidee … the men you killed tonight could have been acting on behalf of any one of them.”
Assad gave a derisive snort. “No, those men were hirelings of the basest sort, local daggermen and street thugs. Doubtless someone paid them to keep a discreet watch over your door but their greed got the better of them. Still, someone confided in them—they knew enough to identify you as an Ismaili spy.”
Assad felt a faint stab of pain as Zaynab roughly dried the gash on the back of his head. It was a flesh wound—bloody, perhaps, but innocuous and not worth stitching. A linen square, held in place with strips of cloth, would protect it until it scabbed over. She finished her work in stony silence, then: “I give you my word: I have never flaunted my allegiance to al-Hashishiyya! Nor was it a spur-of-the-moment decision to send news of our dilemma to Alamut. I was at my wit’s end—”
“Your dilemma is not why I’m here.”
Zaynab blinked. “Then it’s mere chance that brought you to Cairo?”
“Chance?” Assad replied. “No. It’s not chance at all. I’m here for a reason, and I sought you out—like al-Hajj before you—for information. What do you know of the Caliph and his predicament?”