The Lion of Cairo

by Oden, Scott

  Moments later, Musa followed.

  Perfume barely masked the stench of corruption that clung to Djuha. It filled the alley—a smell like a slaughtered carcass left too long in the sun. The leper waited with the urchin at his side, stroking the boy’s hair and warbling in a wet, raspy voice. Djuha’s words were too low for Musa to hear, but his tone sent a wave of revulsion washing over the one-eyed man. How he wanted to draw his knife and strike down the abomination! But for Zaynab’s sake Musa exercised restraint, if not civility. “What do you want, wretch?”

  Djuha glanced up, his bloodshot eyes unblinking. “Nothing, beggar, save only to be of service. Is it true you’re seeking our poor Gazelle’s murderer in the Foreign Quarter? That he is a tall man, clean-shaven but not a eunuch. Perhaps a Frank…?”

  “It’s true. What of it?”

  “Perhaps I know where this killer is…”

  Musa started forward. “Perhaps? What is perhaps? Either you know or you don’t!”

  “I believe I have seen this Frank you seek.”

  “Perhaps you’ve seen him or you have seen him for certain?”

  Djuha straightened. “Your tone offends me, beggar.”

  “My…” Musa’s jaws clenched; veins in his neck stood out as, with titanic effort, he brought his sudden burst of fury under control. “My … apologies. It has been a day of great sadness. Where … where did you see this man?”

  “Deep in the Foreign Quarter. Come, I will show you.”

  Musa hesitated. He glanced back at the alley mouth, wondering if he should first pass word on to Abu’l-Qasim. But what if this proves to be nothing? What then? The one-eyed man scratched his unkempt beard in indecision.

  “You need not fear me,” Djuha said. “And if by chance it is not the man you seek, there is no harm done.”

  Musa exhaled, unable to refute the leper’s logic. “I will follow you, but heed what I say: if this is but some dark jest on your part, as Allah is my witness, I will finish what the Almighty has started!”

  Djuha, his red-rimmed eyes impassive, bowed in acknowledgment before setting off, cooing to the urchin who bore the weight—and stench—of his arm’s embrace. Musa followed, though he kept his distance from the pair.

  None saw the shadowy form emerge from cunningly hidden stairs leading down into darkness, to the bronze-barred cleft in the wall of the old underground bath …

  10

  Pale and shaking, Mustapha moved with exaggerated care through the wreck of the Caliph’s sitting room. He stepped as gingerly over the crushed fruit and spilled khamr as he did over the smears of blood—the sight of which caused the churning in his stomach to treble. Nor was he alone. A gaggle of eunuchs watched him from the shelter of the doorway, their faces like waxen masks of revulsion.

  “What deviltry is this?” Mustapha muttered; reluctantly, the old eunuch leaned over to take a closer look at the Templar’s corpse, nose wrinkling at the stench of blood and bowel. He shook his head. How? How could he have failed? But Mustapha already knew the answer. It had to be that cursed Sufi, Ibn al-Teymani. The man was obviously more than he seemed. But what was he, an agent of Jalal’s enemies? More to the point, where was he? Mustapha straightened as another eunuch approached the sitting room from the fountain court.

  “Well?” Mustapha snapped.

  “I … I found Babek,” the fellow stammered; fear left him breathless. “He’s over by the niche. S-someone cut his throat.”

  “What of the Caliph and his guest?”

  The eunuch shook his head. “No sign of either of them.”

  Mustapha cursed. They must have discovered the passage! Whirling, he retraced his steps from the sitting room. The old eunuch snatched one of his waiting chamberlains up by the collar of his robes. “You! Take a dozen Jandariyah to the harem and reinforce the guard at the doors to the old hammam! Let no one exit that room alive!” Mustapha shoved him away.

  “Hearkening and obeying, ya sidi!” The chamberlain salaamed and turned. But before he had taken more than a handful of steps, a wild-eyed Egyptian servant collided with him, sending the chamberlain sprawling as he barreled on down the corridor.

  “Allah’s mercies!” the servant bawled. “Allah’s mercies! We are undone!” He skidded to a halt and flopped down on his belly, grimy hands clutching at the hem of Mustapha’s galabiya. “Allah preserve us!”

  The old eunuch twitched out of the servant’s grasp and scowled. “What is it? What goes, damn you?”

  “We are undone, I tell you! Doomed! They have risen against our master, against the vizier! Allah! They are coming!”

  “Who? Stop yammering, dog! Sit up! What are you talking about?”

  “The mamelukes! The White Slaves of the River are inside the palace! Looting and killing!”

  Instantly, Mustapha’s mind linked the two events—could it be coincidence that the Caliph is spirited away even as the White Slaves of the River go into open insurrection? Of course not! This must be Gokbori’s doing! The old eunuch ground his teeth in frustration, feeling the fool for misjudging the miserable Turk; plainly, he was far more cunning than even Jalal imagined.

  The servant’s news caused chaos to take root among Mustapha’s followers; a frenzy of terror erupted at the notion of rampaging Turks and Circassians loose inside the palace—Turks and Circassians who viewed eunuchs as spoils of war. A dozen voices babbled at once, a deluge of questions accompanied by high-pitched wailing and praying. Their incontinence impinged upon Mustapha’s well-ordered thoughts. “Fools!” he roared, stamping his foot for emphasis. “Be silent! You speak as though we are defeated already! Have you forgotten the Jandariyah? What are a few armed slaves against the cream of Syrian soldiery?” The old eunuch thrust a gnarled finger at the chamberlain. “You! You have your instructions! Now go! The rest of you, dispose of these bodies and put our master’s sitting room back in order! Move, lest I hand you over to the mamelukes myself!” The threat had the desired effect. Slowly, the eunuchs mastered their fear and went about their assigned tasks.

  Mustapha reached down and caught the cowering Egyptian servant by one long-lobed ear, hauling him to his feet with a savage twist. “And you, Inciter of Riots! You shall come with me! No doubt our blessed vizier will want to hear your tale for himself!”

  11

  Single file, Rashid al-Hasan followed Assad through the darkness, its caress stifling and impenetrable save in those places where spy slits afforded a wedge of light and a breath of air. The pair crept with care, easing around the twists and turns of the narrow passage as it followed the centuries-old foundations of the East Palace; Assad paused often to listen for sounds of pursuit—or for any indication that the vizier’s confederates waited ahead.

  “Who would have thought the legends were true?” the Caliph whispered, peering through one of the slits.

  “Legends?”

  “As a boy, my nurses would tell me stories of al-Hakim, whom men named the Mad Caliph. They say he used to creep between the walls of the palace to spy on his slaves, and that he would sneak out from time to time to steal the bits and baubles others left lying about—a cup, a sandal, a pendant—the pettiest of thievery.” Rashid stepped back, the faint light of a distant torch glistening on his sweat-dampened forehead. “If ever I misplaced a toy, my nurses would tell me the Mad Caliph had taken it.”

  Assad grunted. He walked a few paces up the passage and stared out into the darkness. “Did he not also kidnap and murder his own wives?”

  “So they say.” The Caliph’s melancholy smile faded.

  “Do you know where we are, my lord?”

  Again, the younger man leaned closer, this time pressing one eye to the slit. “We’re looking into the outer court. That far door, yonder, leads to the Golden Hall and to my own apartments. That’s curious.”

  “What?” Assad glanced over his shoulder. He frowned, as though suddenly bedeviled by something unseen.

  “I have never known it to be unguarded. But I suspect fewer witnesses m
ean fewer tongues Jalal must trust not to wag.” The Caliph made a noise, somewhere between a chuckle and a sob. “Ever the practical man, my vizier. How could I have been so—”

  “My lord,” Assad hissed; he cocked his head to one side and motioned the Caliph closer. “Do you hear that?”

  Rashid held his breath and listened. After a moment, he did hear something—a faint ringing, distant, like the sound of dozens of hammers striking an anvil, along with muffled shouts and screams. “What is it…?”

  “Hurry,” Assad replied. The Assassin moved through the wedge of light and plunged into the darkness beyond, trusting the Caliph to follow. The sounds grew more strident as the pair traversed a long and lightless stretch of the passage, their hands brushing the jagged brickwork to either side. Cut into the foundations of walls dividing palace courtyards and plazas, the tunnel made a sharp left, continued on straight for a few dozen paces, and then cut back to the right.

  Rashid struggled to keep up. Through the sweat stinging his eyes, he could see the light was fast rising—a smoky glow the color of blood suffused the darkness ahead. He lost sight of Assad as he rounded the far corner. Gasping for breath, blood pounding in his ears, the Caliph lengthened his stride. He, too, came round the corner …

  … and skidded to a halt, reeling from the sounds of steel and fury that pierced the thick walls. The clamor, like nothing he had ever experienced, reached through the spy holes like a living thing to snatch the breath from his lungs.

  “Merciful Allah!”

  A battle raged in the courtyard beyond the tight confines of the passage, not a score of paces from where the Caliph stood. Harsh voices echoed amid the crash of sword upon sword, upon shield, upon mailed flesh; terrible shrieks erupted from the slashed and riven throats of men who had but seconds to live. Above it all, Rashid al-Hasan heard someone bellowing in the hard, guttural tongue of the Turk, a warcry that jolted his body like a physical blow.

  “Allahu akbar! For the Caliph! For Cairo!”

  Stumbling to one of the spy slits, the young Caliph pressed his palms flat against the rough brick and put an eye to the narrow aperture. In the flickering chaos, he caught a glimpse of bloody silks and gold as iron-shod Turks hewed through the Jandariyah, breaking with savage efficiency the backbone of the vizier’s small army. Curved swords flashed in the light of countless torches; spears thrust and shattered, and archers loosed their arrows haphazardly into the throng of defenders.

  “Allahu akbar! For the Caliph! For Cairo!”

  “The White Slaves of the River,” Rashid heard Assad murmur at his back. “We have to get clear of these tunnels and find their leader. This could be our best opportunity, my lord. Come. We should not tarry.”

  “Wait, Assad! Wait! What’s going on? I cannot see!”

  “See? What is there to see? You need only listen to hear the tale unfold. Your vizier’s maltreatment of your mamelukes forced their hand; they’ve found a way into the palace, and the Jandariyah are too few, too scattered, to stop them. Yonder Syrians are men whose traditions and discipline preclude them from ever turning their backs on Jalal; they are bound by oaths as hard as iron chains. Nor will they seek quarter, preferring slaughter to enslavement. Listen and you’ll hear the veterans among them shouting for their comrades to fight on, to fight harder.”

  Rashid did, hearing Syrian voices tinged with desperation. He craned his neck and tried to locate the loudest of them, but found his view blocked. A man reeled from the fray, staggering toward the courtyard wall—Syrian or Turk, the Caliph could not say; gory hands clutched at the lacerated flesh of his face. He pitched forward suddenly like a puppet unstrung, the weight of his mailed body shattering potted azaleas. Only then did Rashid see the white-fletched arrow standing out from the dead man’s cervical spine. Blood splashed the emerald leaves of the azaleas; its coppery stench mingled with the heavy air of the passage.

  “Listen, my lord,” Assad said slowly. “Listen and you can hear the sound of a Turkish mace staving in a shield or a helmet, splintering the bones beneath. In a fight like this your enemy is so close you can smell the garlic on his breath; you look into his eyes and he looks into yours, and you pray the fool stumbles or loses his grip. You pray for speed, accuracy, and the blessings of Allah. You know he’s doing the same, so you pray that Allah hears your pleas first. And you kill him, if that be the will of God, before he kills you. Steel rings on steel, and spilled blood makes your footing treacherous. Go down in such a press of mailed bodies, my lord, and you’ll never rise again.”

  Drawn by the curious timbre of the Assassin’s voice, Rashid al-Hasan turned his hollow-eyed gaze away from the spy hole. Assad crouched with his back against the far wall, his naked salawar upright between his knees, fists wrapped around the hilt. Flickering torchlight bathed the scarred half of his face in blood; the other half remained cloaked in shadow. The young Caliph swallowed hard at the grim emotion swirling in those cold black eyes. “What … What will happen next?”

  “What do you think will happen?” Assad gave a sharp jerk of his chin, indicating the courtyard beyond. “Listen. Already, you can hear it. The Syrians are falling back. Make no mistake, my lord: they do not flee. There is no shame in their withdrawal. And those who survive will fall back again and again, to interior gates never meant to contain an armed host, even to the very doors of the Golden Hall. Each time, at each courtyard, at each redoubt, they will stoke their courage back to fighting pitch. They will convince themselves that here, that now is where they will stop these sons of Turkish whores! This far, and no further! But, all the courage under heaven will avail them nothing. Their allies are too few, their enemies too many. Death becomes a certainty, less a matter of when than of how…”

  The Caliph frowned, though not from perturbation. The Assassin’s demeanor confused him. “You pity those men.”

  “Pity? No. They deserve no man’s pity! But I understand them, my lord. I understand them, for I was at Ascalon.”

  “And so?” Rashid shook his head, unsure of what Assad meant. Ascalon was a Frankish port on the Levantine coast; one that, in his father’s day, had been under Moslem control.

  Assad said nothing for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat and emotionless. “I was but a common soldier, my lord, younger than you are now, when the Infidel King of Jerusalem—Amalric’s elder brother—decided to take Ascalon, to deprive Egypt of its last port in the Levant near enough to mount an expedition on his lands. Not long past midsummer that year, a Frankish fleet from Sidon blockaded our harbor, though the siege only began in earnest when the machines of Jerusalem’s godforsaken champions, the Templars, commenced their vile work—day and night, they flung stones and incendiaries at the walls. We endured this for five months and more. But, at sunset on the one hundred and sixty-eighth day, the Infidel breached the Great Gate of Ascalon, and throughout the night wave after wave of Nazarenes hurled themselves against it. We could not hold.

  “Some eight thousand souls died during the siege, from injury and illness; we lost countless more at the breach. The rest, untold thousands, were slaughtered in the streets, fighting the Nazarenes from house to house. We set the price high, and the Infidel paid for each cubit of Ascalon’s soil with a pound of flesh. I know not how many others escaped, for at the end the Templars offered no quarter and took no prisoners. So, yes, my lord. I understand those soldiers who fight on though their cause may be lost—and whatever pity I have left to me I reserve not for those fated to die, but for those destined to live. The men who survive this will never know another night’s peace. Nor will another day pass without them asking of themselves ‘what more could I have done?’ ”

  The Caliph returned his gaze to the courtyard and saw it again through the prism of Assad’s words. Chaos gave way to clarity. He saw grim Syrian faces splashed with blood, their own and their enemies’, withdrawing through an archway to the Caliph’s left—a route that would take them nearer to the Golden Hall; opposite them, howling Turks f
ought with passion, this assault the last gambit of desperate men forced to the edge of reason. What more could I have done?

  “This folly is my own doing,” Rashid al-Hasan said quietly, pushing away from the slit and turning to face Assad. “Mine and Jalal’s. Two armies bear down on us, if what you say is true, and yet here we stand fighting amongst ourselves. Is there not any way we can salvage this? Would not the Jandariyah accept quarter if I held them blameless?”

  “You would pardon them, even though they’re the vizier’s allies?”

  “Is the sword to blame for its master’s ambition?”

  Assad rose from his crouch and shrugged. “Then follow me, my lord, and quickly. We must find who commands the Turks and force him to rein in their slaughter, if he is truly loyal.”

  “And if he’s not?”

  Resolve flared in the Emir of the Knife’s eyes; he skinned his lips back over his teeth, a snarl of barely contained fury. “Perhaps his successor will be…”

  12

  Hugh of Caesarea awoke to the sound of voices. Saracen voices, tinged with anger and muffled by the heavy cedar door of his chambers near the Saffron Gate and the House of Memory. Surrounded by Eastern opulence—by vessels of alabaster and gold, clouds of rich incense, tapestries woven of Cathayan silk, and rugs of costly make—the Frankish knight sprawled like a sybarite on a pillow-strewn divan, his muscular frame clad only in the long tunic his Arab steward called a galabiya. His mail hauberk and leggings hung from a wooden tree in the far corner, away from the door; his white surcoat, sewn with the bloodred cross of the Temple, lay folded atop it. His broadsword, however, rested near his sinewy hand, its worn wood-and-leather sheath a spot of incongruity amid the many splendors around him.

  The knight of Caesarea opened his bleary eyes and stared in annoyance at the door to his chambers—idly, he wondered if the guards had perhaps caught de Vézelay, ever one to feel the thorns of lustfulness, sneaking into the Saracen harem. But the Frank bolted upright when one of the angry voices turned to a choking scream.