The Lion of Cairo

by Oden, Scott

  She wondered what the Damascenes would do to them, to those left outside the city, after the truce engendered by tomorrow’s parley came to an end. Would Shirkuh leave the poor unmolested as he had the merchants of Fustat, or would his army circle the city and drive the masses before them, killing the men and damning the women and children to lives of bitter slavery? A palpable sense of desperation hung over Cairo. Desperation and fear. Parysatis tasted both in equal measure—though not for her own welfare. Her deepest fears were for Yasmina, who still had not returned.

  “I sent a man to inquire after your girl among the servants of Ali abu’l-Qasim,” Massoud had told her that morning. “They claimed not to have seen her since the day of Zaynab’s murder.”

  “If she’s not there, then … then where would she be?”

  Massoud tugged at his beaded mustache. “Al-Karafa, perhaps,” he’d said at length. “It is the cemetery on the road to Fustat, not far from the old mosque of Ibn Tulun. Abu’l-Qasim’s son and two of his wives are buried there.” Parysatis wanted to go; she wanted Massoud to provide an escort to al-Karafa, but the Circassian responded with a brusque gesture of denial. “Impossible. We cannot even open the gates to admit the families of those poor wretches.” Massoud raised his chin to indicate the fellahin who clambered at the Emerald Gate. “We are under Shirkuh’s scrutiny, lady. Thus far, he has acted with admirable restraint, but only Allah knows how long his benevolence will last. So, we do nothing to provoke the dog until we know for certain what his true intentions are.”

  “I cannot leave Yasmina alone out there!”

  “We’re not even certain she is out there, lady. That’s the problem … we do not know where the girl has gone. For all we know she might have found a bolt-hole here in the city, a place where she might lie low and grieve.” The Circassian amir pursed his lips. “What I can do is send a few of my men out to scour the streets for her. This, at least, will give them something to do while we await Shirkuh’s pleasure. And, if it be Allah’s will, perhaps they’ll find her.”

  So as a handful of men searched the streets and alleys of Cairo, Parysatis kept a resolute vigil over the Emerald Gate—the only entrance to the palace the White Slaves of the River had not shut and barred. Of course, the Gate of al-Mansuriyya remained open; those tall, keel-arched doors of cedar and gilded iron provided a direct route from the Bayn al-Qasrayn to the Golden Hall. Reflecting its importance, that way was off limits to all save the amirs of the army and of the palace, their officers and their messengers. No, if Yasmina returned to her—when she returned, Parysatis corrected—it would be through the Emerald Gate.

  The day trudged on, flurries of commotion punctuating the long stretches of indolence—the clash and clatter of mail as the guard changed; the song of the muezzin as the sun reached its zenith and again as the shadows lengthened; the ghostly bells of Fustat’s Coptic churches, calling their frightened parishioners to the pulpit. Parysatis watched as the wise men of the city—the imams and qadis, shaykhs and sharifs—arrived to take counsel with the Caliph then left again, their faces no less grim for the effort. She watched the tide of fellahin rise and ebb, their hope that the Caliph might grant them leave fading with the daylight. Parysatis’s hope faded, too, as dusk settled in with no sign of Yasmina.

  “Where are you?” she whispered. Desperate tears welled at the corners of her eyes. “Please, come back. Allah, please—”

  “May I sit with you?”

  Parysatis jumped as a familiar voice spoke from behind her. She turned, wiping tears away with the heel of her hand. Rashid al-Hasan stepped closer and leaned against the bole of the plane tree. The Caliph was dressed simply in a galabiya of loose white linen, without belt or sash, and a turban-wrapped fez. Slippers of gold-embroidered leather protected the soles of his feet. Parysatis made to rise, but Rashid waved the gesture off.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not mean to startle you. May I sit?” The woman nodded and brushed pillows aside to make a space on the bench for the Caliph. “When I didn’t see you this afternoon, I thought perhaps you had returned to the harem. Then Massoud told me where you were … and why you’re holding vigil here. Is there still no sign of your friend? What is her name?”

  “Yasmina.” Parysatis sighed. “And no, nothing yet, my lord. I’ve racked my memory for an answer to where she may have gone, some hint from her past as to where she might find a small measure of comfort, but to no avail. I am at my wits’ end.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Parysatis raised her face, her eyes meeting the Caliph’s; she saw nothing patronizing in his expression. Indeed, the stern set of his jaw convinced her that the Prince of the Faithful would reorder the heavens for her if she but asked. Quickly, Parysatis averted her gaze. “No, my lord. No. I thank you for your kindness, but my troubles are of little consequence compared to the troubles afflicting all of Cairo. You have enough to worry about without my making demands of—”

  “And yet,” he said, cutting off her protests, “where would I be if you had chosen simply to look the other way, to go about your own business and not get involved in mine? We both know the answer. Jalal’s intrigues have left us in desperate straits, to be sure. But for the moment I’ve done all I can to soothe what ails Cairo. Give me a chance to do the same for you.” The Caliph raised one hand in a gesture of summons; a chamberlain standing a respectful distance hurried forward and knelt.

  “Command me, Most Excellent One.”

  “Send a robe of honor to Ali abu’l-Qasim, who dwells near the Nile Gate, and send along with it our condolences on the loss of his daughter, Zaynab. She did us a great service and it is one we shall not forget. Further, tell Abu’l-Qasim we would consider it a personal favor if he were to focus his considerable resources on discovering the whereabouts of the girl Yasmina. She, too, has done us a great service and her safety is of the utmost concern.” Rashid al-Hasan dismissed the chamberlain with a nod and returned his attention to Parysatis. “If Massoud is right this Abu’l-Qasim has more eyes and ears than even my own spymasters. He will find her, I’m sure of it.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” Parysatis said. Tears glistened in her eyes; on impulse, she clasped the Caliph’s hand to her lips and kissed it. He did not recoil, as she feared he might. Indeed, her body trembled as he caressed her cheek and gently wiped away her tears.

  “May … may I ask a kindness of you?” he murmured.

  “Ask anything of me, my lord.”

  “For tonight, at least, I wish to be known simply as Rashid. Not ‘my lord,’ not ‘O Caliph,’ not ‘Excellent One’ or ‘Prince of the Faithful’… just Rashid. Can you do this small thing for me?”

  “Yes, my—” Parysatis smiled suddenly. “Yes … Rashid.”

  “Would that you smiled more often,” he said. “Have you eaten? Something light, perhaps. Come; let us pass the evening in comfort and without pretense. I would hear the tale of your family, and as payment I will tell you the scandals of mine.” He stood.

  Parysatis’s smile faltered. Unsure, she cast a worried glance at the gate. “What if Yasmina returns…?”

  “We will not be far, and besides: my chamberlains know she is to be shown into my presence immediately.” Rashid al-Hasan offered Parysatis his hand. “Will you join me, if only for a short while?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she glanced away from the gate to meet the Caliph’s gaze. She noticed a tightness around his eyes, no doubt born of anxiety over the coming days, but Parysatis recognized something else, something deeper—a desire for a thing he had never experienced, a thing made of gentleness and passion. One night of normalcy out of a thousand days of madness, that was all he was asking for. And he’s asking me to share it with him. Parysatis’s smile returned as she took the Caliph’s hand and rose to her feet.

  “You have a scandalous family … Rashid?” she said, still unused to calling him by name.

  The young man chuckled; slowly, he escorted her into the garden, where th
e sound of their passage silenced insects in mid-chirrup. “Glorious and Almighty God! I am an opium addict whose followers perpetrated a palace coup against my vizier, and still I would be accounted among the tamest in a long line of Caliphs stretching back to al-Mu’izz li-Din Allah.”

  Parysatis laughed. “My father, may Allah hold him in His favor, used to spin me stories of his youth here in Cairo … and his adventures with your own sire.”

  “Truly? I have not heard this. Do tell…”

  4

  The sun hung in the bloodred sky like a misshapen disk of copper, its edges blackened, its face radiating waves of excruciating heat over a landscape ravaged by war. Thousands of corpses littered the streets of Ascalon, a carpet of hacked and riven flesh. Mothers clutched their children; fathers and brothers clutched shattered spears and broken swords. Tattered yellow and green banners once carried with pride by Ascalon’s defenders now rustled like ghosts on the hot wind.

  As a ghost, too, did the dark figure of a man drift through the multitudes of the slain, the flash and glitter of his gold-chased mail incongruous in this gore-blasted wasteland. He followed the dry wind, followed zephyrs of dust through deserted plazas and down winding streets; past fire-gutted buildings looted by victorious Nazarenes. The wind led the man to the city’s heart, to where a ruined mosque squatted in the middle of a broad square.

  Here the man stopped, one hand falling to the carved ivory hilt of an Afghan sword-knife that jutted from his sash. His brows drew together as he swept his gaze across the mosque’s crumbling portico; higher, he peered through the dusty haze at a dome scarred by endless bombardment. Fury racked his body. Fury as hot and relentless as the coppery sun. He bounded up the shallow steps and burst through the open doorway. Inside, shadows swirled like smoke from a funeral pyre; shafts of murky copper radiance lanced through ruptures in the domed ceiling. The man caught sight of a figure pacing the periphery of the chamber, a lean wraith clad in a surcoat of grimy white cloth who warily avoided the columns of light.

  The man’s wrath made him fearless. He crossed the threshold, his voice profaning the silence. “Why?”

  Instantly the silhouette stopped and spun toward the door, falling into a predatory crouch. It snuffled the air like a hound on the trail of a hare.

  “Are you deaf?” the man said. “I asked you why! Why Ascalon?”

  “Why?” the figure replied, its voice hard, guttural, and full of rage. It crept forward, still in a crouch. “Because God willed it.”

  “God?” The man spat. “Your God holds no power here!”

  “Lignum cruces, Signum ducis,” it muttered, coming closer. “Sequitur exercitus quod non cessit, sed praecessit in vi Sancti Spiritus.” Closer, sidestepping a shaft of light. Menacing eyes glittered and sinew creaked. Still, the man displayed no trepidation; he stood motionless, his knuckles whitening around the hilt of his blade.

  “What is that you babble?”

  Now, with only six paces separating them, the figure straightened. This close, the man saw a design in blood caking the chest of the figure’s surcoat: a cross, red on white. The man’s eyes narrowed, his nose wrinkling. The stench of death clung to it.

  “Behind the wood of the Cross,” it hissed. “Behind the banner of the Chieftain follows the Army which has never given way, marching in the strength of the Holy Spirit. God wills it!” The Templar threw its head back, howling its rage as it sprang upon the man. Ancient steel rasped on leather even as searing cold talons dug into his throat …

  5

  The rasp of a whetstone echoed like a drawn-out sigh through the cavernous Golden Hall. Inside the Caliph’s alcove, the Seat of Divine Reason looming above him, Assad sat on the lowest level of the dais with his back to the alabaster wall. He held his salawar up in the morning light and squinted down the length of the blade, looking for the slightest imperfection in its cutting edge. Unsatisfied, he resumed his ministrations. The oiled whetstone hissed …

  He had risen with the sun, drawn from sleep with a curse on his lips and fury in his heart. It was the nightmare—the same familiar nightmare that had troubled him for years. Even now, hours later, he could recall shreds of it: the shattered ruin of Ascalon, the stench of death, the hateful presence of the Templar. Yet, this time the nightmare was different. Why was I not afraid? Was it because you were with me? Assad scrutinized the blade once more. What was it the old man had said? “I hear his voice … he rages against the injustices done to him, against the betrayals and the broken promises.”

  “How did he know?” Assad muttered. But whatever haunted the salawar made no answer beyond the faint, ever-present vibrations that coiled along his arm. The question of the Heretic’s master troubled Assad like no other. Who was this man, this necromancer eager to blacken his very soul by consorting with the dead? What purpose brought him to Cairo? And, more importantly, where was he? “I have slain the wolves,” the Emir of the Knife whispered, “but let the lion escape, it seems.” He smoothed the whetstone over an almost imperceptible nick in the blade.

  Sunrise had brought with it a stifling heat; sticky with sweat and crusted blood, Assad had staggered from the kiosk where he’d slept, traversed the silent garden, and pressed into his service one of the palace’s ubiquitous eunuchs, ordering from him a bath, food, and a change of clothes. The creature responded admirably. Two hours later, Assad emerged from the hammam with his hair and beard trimmed and oiled, his skin freshly scrubbed, and his left shoulder bound in clean linen. A bowl of stewed mutton and a flat loaf of bread had taken the edge off his hunger, while the eunuch had replaced his grimy clothes with the finery of a Fatimid officer: silk, linen, and gold over a hauberk of fine mail. He rejected the thick-nasaled helmet the eunuch had offered, opting instead for a simple steel cap … something easily hidden under the folds of his turban.

  And thus had he retreated to the Golden Hall, to think and to partake of the chamber’s delicious cool while waiting for the appointed hour of the Caliph’s parley with Shirkuh. Beyond the curtain, beyond the hall’s gold-crusted doors, Assad could hear the rising din of Cairo’s embattled populace. There was a desperate energy in the air, no doubt born of a belief that frenetic activity could stave off imminent doom. Messengers scurried to and fro; soldiers brought in reports from the city’s walls, while scribes of the chancery compiled tallies of what remained in the granaries and magazines. Chamberlains issued contradictory orders to the legion of eunuchs serving them, bellowing to be heard over the incessant bickering of courtiers and petitioners.

  Assad seemed the sole island of calm inside the chaotic palace walls. His sojourn in the East had taught him that worry served no purpose, and only fools frittered away their day trying to second-guess the will of God. Allah wrote each man’s destiny at birth; inevitably, that destiny included the cold hand of Death. Assad could no more change that than he could change the course of the sun, so why allow himself to become overwrought? His end would come, in its own time.

  The Assassin glanced sharply at the niche behind the Caliph’s throne. Over the slish of stone on steel he heard a faint click—the sound of a latch on a hidden door. He remained perfectly still as the rear of the niche swung inward.

  Rashid al-Hasan’s voice echoed from the secret passage: “To think I sat so close and never imagined its existence. But not every niche hides a door, does it?” He stepped out, turned, and offered his hand to Parysatis.

  “No, not every one,” she said. “But with few exceptions, all the doors I have found are in these niches. I wish I could have found them all, but to stay gone from the harem too long was to risk Lu’lu’s wrath.”

  “Lu’lu!” Assad heard a note of anger in the Caliph’s voice; woven in with it, the Assassin sensed a confidence that had not been there before. “That creature will bedevil you no more! His days as Chief Eunuch of the Harem are numbered! This I promise.”

  Parysatis sighed. Her hands smoothed away a wrinkle in the Caliph’s undervest, brushed a phantom bit of dust from the ch
est of his snowy khalat. “Rashid, please. You make me regret telling you the tale. I have no love for Lu’lu, but he is excellent at managing affairs and much beloved by your aunts. He only needs guidance. Your guidance. Grant him clemency and give him a chance to prove his worth to you.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Besides.” She flashed an impish smile. “Does not ‘Rashid the Just’ have a better sound to it than ‘Rashid the Merciless’?”

  The Caliph laughed. “Either one rings superior to ‘Rashid the Obscure.’ Still, I should make an example of someone, at least. Why not Lu’lu?”

  “Please, Rashid…”

  After a moment the young man nodded. “As you wish, then. I will practice leniency on this harem despot of yours. But—and I will brook no argument on this!—I do not want you returning to Lu’lu’s demesne until I’ve had a chance to set this right. Honor me as my guest … and allow me to bask in the life you bring to my cold apartments.” Gently, he stroked her cheek with the back of his hand.

  “Well, if you will brook no argument,” she said, capturing his fingers with her own, “then I shall not argue. But what will your advisers say?”

  “Nothing,” Assad said, rising up from the base of the dais, “for he is Caliph and he does as he pleases.” Parysatis gasped, her eyes widening in surprise; Rashid al-Hasan whirled. Wrath flickered across his hollow-cheeked visage, but upon seeing it was the taciturn Assassin who interrupted them the Caliph whistled a sigh of relief.

  “By God, man! Are you the spawn of cats, sired by the wind?”

  A thin smile curled Assad’s lip. “So some might say.”

  The Caliph gestured to the scarred emissary of the distant Lord of Alamut. “Should some ill befall me, trust this man, Parysatis. He has proven himself worthy beyond reproach.”