Reduan, although anxious to avoid any overt brand of traitor to his people, had not turned a hair over collusion which would rid him of a man he had always despised. He reminded Francho that the blustering Muza Aben scarcely hid his desire to rid Granada of Boabdil and ascend the throne himself, for in such case the general was certain the Barbary caliphs would send help to rescue Granada, this most precious jewel of the one true Prophet. Yet even the charismatic leader of Granada's still formidable army did not dare to make a frontal military assault on the Alhambra yet and depose the Sultan. And Boabdil's intimates seemed incorruptible, his Nubians, more than one thousand of them, were alert, his food he had taken to feeding first to a pet monkey.
It had been Reduan's suggestion to assault Gazul by using his thwarted ambition for the throne. "Send Muza Aben a message smacking of disaffection and greed and hint that you wish to approach him for instructions. He will believe you; why should he not? Disloyalty is woven into the Moorish nature. If you can effect a meeting after he dismisses his staff and retires, you have your chance."
Thinking it over for a minute, Francho had finally agreed. "It sounds viable. In fact the idea that my visit would be impromptu and at an odd hour makes sense. Everyone knows what state of nerves the Sultan suffers and how he clutches at my presence. If I tell him the Sultan gives me little time to myself and that only when he sleeps soundly, therefore I must come when I can, no matter how inconvenient."
"Have you a trustworthy messenger?"
"No. I have a slave boy but he would wonder at my business with Gazul and he talks with the other servants."
"Leave the message with me," Reduan had instructed. "I shall see it is discreetly delivered and an answer and a safe conduct returned, without implicating either one of us."
"My other problem is getting a weapon past his guards," Francho admitted morosely, having racked his brain on how to do it to no avail.
"I can help you with that, too...."
Francho pulled up his horse behind a roadside shrub and waited, nervously moving his shoulderblades against the sheath of the long Moorish dagger ingeniously slung between them. There was a very narrow halter strap about the base of his neck and one running immediately under his left armpit, both well masked by his loose tunic and bunched mantle. The thought of committing cold-blooded murder was ugly to him, but a fair duel would allow the general time to yell for help; it would thwart his purpose and probably claim his life. As it was, even a frontal assault against the burly and dangerous man was chancy. Muza Aben would have to do Francho the favor of turning his back for an instant. The odds for success, unfortunately, were against him. Breathing deeply of the clean, dry night air, he glanced up at the unwinking stars, as alone as he had ever been in his life. The harsh expectation that he might never live to see the sun again drove the pulse to thumping in his throat like a drum.
And then, with a ghostly, amused smile he considered that he had already risked the Alcalde's dungeons and the slaughter of the battlefields with the very same expectation. And he was still breathing.
Muza Aben had the regular habits of a soldier. At the faint cry of the watch calling the hour of midnight, Francho judged his victim would surely have retired. He spurred his horse into motion and continued up the hill, and no dog barked at the sound of his passage because Moslems abhorred canines and did not keep them. He reined in at the general's residence. Taking one foot from the stirrup he kicked at the oaken gates in the long, blank wall. A grilled panel slid back and suspicious eyes peered up at him.
"Who knocks at this hour?"
"I wish immediate interview with the General Muza Aben. The matter is urgent."
"He has gone to bed. Come back on the morrow."
"Then wake him up. He is expecting me. The matter is urgent, friend, this is not a social visit. I shall pass you a safe conduct. Hurry up!" Francho cracked his voice like a lash to get the soldier to move, never mind that it was not in keeping with the mild personality of ibn Ghulam. The man took the paper and the panel slammed shut. Francho waited, keeping his face muffled; he knew there were eyes on him from peepholes hidden about the gates. Finally he heard the bar shoot back. The heavy portal swung open and he guided his mount in.
Surly-looking soldiers surrounded him as he dismounted in the leaping flares of hanging oil pots. The guards understood that the nameless visitor with Muza Aben's pass wished to keep his head down and in the shadow of his deep hood, but his mantle was opened and rough hands ran down his body feeling for a weapon. A whisper came down through the years and he heard di Lido's sibilant voice bouncing from the stone walls of Mondejar, "It is the military mentality, Francisco. If they are not used to something they will never, ever think to think of it." Surely not a dagger slung down the back. Nevertheless he was grateful for the dark cloth that hid the sweat beaded on his forehead as he sturdily withstood the examination.
Suddenly a searcher's sleeve came into accidental contact with the edge of his hood, pushing it partially away from his face. Francho found himself eye to eye with a spike-helmeted, hook-nosed soldier as tall as he. The man barely blinked, said nothing, and quickly pulled the hood forward again, but Francho had seen the instant flare of recognition in his eyes. Jamal ibn Ghulam was, after all, a familiar and distinctive figure in the Sultan's train. Francho spent no time worrying over it now. Whether he succeeded or died in the trying, his Moorish identity was spent coin from this point on.
Having turned up nothing threatening, the guards gave him over to a sleepy house servant, who led him into the dwelling.
Like most Moorish mansions it consisted of a series of arched and columned suites connected by roofed galleries and fountained courts, and Francho concentrated on remembering the route they took, in the dire and hopeless event he had to make a run for it. Orange-sashed, pantalooned guards impassively crossed pikes and opened them again in front of the general's portal. The servant flung open the door, showed Francho in, and then backed away.
He stood alone for a minute in a multi-arched, heavily carved little salon, evidently adjunct to the sleeping quarters and used as a study by Muza Aben. There were documents and papers strewn all over a low table and nearby several tall baskets of rolled maps. But Francho's gaze was caught and held by the glittering, singular paperweight which lay atop the pile of reports on the table—the sharp and unsheathed curve of the general's huge scimitar. If Muza Aben sat at the table, at the first false move the hilt of the damascened weapon would spring to his hand and put a bloody end to his visitor's precarious plan. Having hoped that bringing the general from his bed would also bring him without a sword, Francho could only clench his jaw at this circumstance and accept it. Kill him with his own sword, flashed through his mind.
But before he could move, the curtains on one of the archways stirred as if the general was first peering at him, and then they were pushed aside and Muza Aben strode through, scowling darkly behind his mustaches at the interruption of his rest. Yet, even in a long velvet robe, hastily wound turban, and turned-up Turkish slippers his powerful bulk was intimidating.
Francho salaamed deeply and pushed back his hood. "A thousand pardons, honored General, for this late visit, but there are few convenient times when I am dismissed from the Sultan's presence."
"I need my sleep, minstrel, let us come to the point." Muza Aben briskly seated himself cross-legged at the writing table, pushing aside the papers with careless disregard. "I am informed that you are willing to perform a certain difficult task for a suitable fee."
Taking on the retiring coloration of ibn Ghulam's personality Francho eyed the curtained archways uncertainly. "This is a very delicate matter. May I assume there is no danger of eavesdroppers?"
"You may," Muza Aben grunted. "Those with no knowledge can tell no tales is my belief. The guards cannot hear a low discourse through the door. Speak freely."
Diffidently approaching as close as he dared to the general's table, Francho began a rambling account of his relationship to the Sulta
n, using the digression to buy time to come up with a circumstance that would get the man away from that scimitar and give him reason for one brief moment to turn his back; force him away from that scimitar, get him to turn his back ran through his mind so desperately he thought the directive must be burned across his brow.
Fed up with the preamble from this self-centered sycophant, Muza Aben rapped loudly on the table and leaned forward, bracing his beefy hands on his crossed knees. "I am already aware of the Sultan's limitless regard for you, ibn Ghulam. Enough chatter. Just tell me why you are so suddenly willing to turn against him."
Francho delivered an indignant but glib pastiche made up of the offended patriotism of a man whose family had been murdered by the Christians and, more convincingly, his present lack of financial aggrandizement. He complained angrily that the Sultan's listlessness had cut off the flow of gifts which had augmented his minstrel's niggardly wage and that an artist could not live on melancholy sighs and tragic moans alone. He even dropped a hint that he was thinking of going to Italy, where it was said the Duke of Mantegna showered his artists with silver and gold. "If we can come to an agreement, honored General, I could find perfect occasion for, say, a pinch of powder in his wine cup, or when I play him to sleep, a pillow pressed forcibly to the face. The deed is not difficult for one in my intimate position?" He turned the statement into a question as a form of false modesty, and added unctuousness to his smile as he had observed of several of Boabdil's courtiers.
The black Asiatic eyes bored into him. "But what of Abu Abdullah's huge Nubian slave? That suspicious mute is constantly in his presence."
The oily smile became slyer. "So trusted is the musician Jamal ibn Ghulam that many times when he is present the Sultan dismisses M'jambana to stand guard outside, or to lead the black leopard out for an airing. Alone I soothe him to sleep often. If I take care to arrange the body to appear sunk in slumber I can be far away from the palace before the corpse is discovered." His speech flowed smoothly, but Francho's nerves twanged. Get him away from the scimitar. Get him to turn his back—
The general was direct. "Name your price."
To one side of the table there was a large, gilded chest upon which rested a heavy hammer used to strike a polished brass gong hanging nearby. There was a good possibility Muza Aben kept money locked up in that chest.
"One thousand dinars," Francho said flatly.
"Your greed is fantastic, minstrel!"
"But the risk is vast and a dead man cannot find pleasure even in one dinar. My price is in accordance with the delicacy of my service and its uniqueness. And I must have it all now. You will understand, I have made arrangements for my own escape and I cannot come out of hiding to claim a remainder." Or to be killed in my turn, were the unspoken words that hung in the air between the two bargainers. Francho raised his hands in a depreciating gesture. "You may trust me, my General. I cannot get out of the city."
Eyes narrowed, Muza Aben contemplated him silently for a moment, one hand absently rubbing the cold metal hilt of the scimitar. Finally he growled, "Very well. I have no time to dicker with you."
Get up and go to the chest, go, go.
But Muza Aben merely shoved away a sheaf of loose papers and uncovered a flat iron box which he unlocked and pushed toward his hired assassin. "There are six hundred dinars in this box. That is your fee. Take it or begone. I will give you three days to accomplish your task. If your tongue wags or I do not get full value for my money, my cavaliers will have a living target upon which to practice their aim with the lance. Be assured of this, ibn Ghulam: if you dare cross me you will never escape my vengeance."
"You will be satisfied, my master. Allah hear me," Francho promised, stalling again with a shallow salaam and casting about in despair for another lever to get Muza Aben off his pillow. As his eye caught the basket of rolled maps in the corner he improvised, "To show good faith I can indicate to you a secret passage into the Alhambra from a residence outside the palace walls, by which the Alhambra could be infiltrated when the Sultan is dead." He thought he saw a stir of interest on the dark, burly face and added quickly, "However, to show you which outside residence is the terminus I would require a chart of the Alhambra." Surely if Muza Aben had plans to seize the palace he would have a chart. "I could trace the path of the passage and perhaps you would recognize the exit?"
Go, go to the basket of maps, Moor, take your eyes off me, leave the safety of that scimitar.
"I know of many tunnels into the Alhambra," the general said coldly. "Men must go in single file and few could get through before being discovered. Your job is to destroy the defensive purpose of the palace Nubians by removing its object. I will take care of the subsequent events."
Francho smiled hastily. "Of course, honored sir. I was just attempting to be helpful."
Muza Aben waved him out, barely disguised disgust on his face. "Go. In three days we will know whether your own life is forfeit for Boabdil's."
Sweat dampened Francho's brow. What now? The interview was over and the general sat facing him as stolidly as ever. There would be no other chance. Could he whip out his dagger, dive across that glittering scimitar, and make a deadly strike before his agile target dodged away from the blow and yelled out an alarm? He would surely die trying it, he knew, but even so, subtly shifted his weight so that the whole of his force would drive his arm. His desperate peripheral vision noted the chest again and one last gambit to help his chances flashed into his mind.
He pressed both palms together in a fawning bow. "Sir General, one request I beg from you. A sum such as this"—he indicated the heavy box of dinars he was about to take from the table—"can be kept safer in my house in the Albayzin than at the Alhambra. However, at this late hour the Albayzin crawls with voracious thieves, and as you know I do not carry any weapon. Would you most generously send one of your men to escort me through the quarter and see I am not beset by a gang and meanly relieved of my wage? I beg my General's indulgence to his loyal servant?"
Muza Aben's sour look spoke of distaste and the doubts he had always had of the virility of singers of pretty songs. But sending a guard along with the craven musician was little enough to do to keep him alive long enough to perform his function. The general shrugged an assent.
Get up, get up, don't bellow out for a servant, Francho agonized at him mentally through his clench-jawed smile, go to the gong, Muza Aben Gazul.
With a light movement unexpected for a man of his thickset proportions Muza Aben rose and walked the few paces to pick up the gong striker. He turned and raised the mallet to strike the large, flat disc. Francho's long dagger flashed out and its soft snick was almost simultaneous with his desperate, flying lunge. The shimmer of silent movement was reflected in the gong's burnished surface and whirled Muza Aben about, and in a split-second defense the hammer, with a decorative, deadly spike projecting from its head, came down in a whistling arc as Muza Aben's mouth opened to roar for help. But Francho's terrible blade, aimed for the back and by fortune plunging directly into the heart beneath the velvet robe, robbed the great lungs of life and breath before the voice could be willed, and the dagger drove up to its hilt into the formidable chest. The slanted, brutish eyes glared fury a tiny second and then glazed over. Blood spurted from the open mouth and the legs buckled.
With a grunt Francho grappled with the heavy body before it fell. He lowered it noiselessly to the thick carpet and dragged it behind the table. Stunned that he had accomplished this critical murder with his own life still remaining to him, he put his hand over the corpse's open mouth to make sure the formidable Muza Aben was really dead. Dulling, lifeless eyes stared up at him accusingly: would you have dared meet my scimitar in honorable combat? "Yes, I swear it. Sooner that than this," Francho muttered miserably.
For the first time he realized that blood was dripping into his beard from a bad rip torn down the side of his face by the spiked hammer, and he realized how he was blessed. Given a second's more warning and a longer re
ach, Muza Aben, even as he was dying, would have smashed his assailant's face. He took a moment to swab away the blood from his face with the hem of the dead man's robe, pressing on it to try to close the wound, then pulled his hood over his turban and as far forward over his face as possible. He took a deep breath to steady himself and opened the door to the chamber, still guarded on the outside by stalwart, unmoving sentries. He stepped out quickly, closing the door behind him, and forced himself to walk unhurriedly back the way he had come, tense to hear any minute the pinioning cry of "Murder!" It had to come; it did not seem possible that he could stab to death the great Muza Aben and yet escape in one piece.
Someone fell in step with him and his head jerked in alarm, but it was only the sleepy-eyed servant who glided from the shadow of a huge bronze urn to guide him to the entry. The few vulnerable moments this took were blown into hours by strain before they arrived at the gate and Francho was able to swing onto his steed. Blood was trickling down the line of his jaw and soaking into the dark folds of the hood about his neck, but he forced himself to wait silent and patient for the guards to open for him, his heart pounding in dread of the shout, "Hold that man! Muza Aben is murdered!" The gate yawned wide but neither did he gallop away from the residence. He rode at an unworried trot, his back prickling, his cheek and neck sticky with blood, until he came to the foot of the hill, out of earshot of Muza Aben's men.
Then he kicked the horse unmercifully and galloped west through the cobbled streets, ignoring two city guards who yelled for him to halt and identify himself, rounding jogs and corners with so little speed sacrificed to margin that his calves scraped against building walls. At last he reached the same city portal he had reentered a few days before. As he pulled up he gritted his teeth to hear the thunder of urgent hoofbeats behind him, but, watching the unmoved face of the guard who held up a lantern to read the pass he presented, he realized it was only the pulse hammering furiously in his ears.
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