“At that point it became difficult to hear what they were saying. Something about the one who knows the secret of the Name. The Frank said … she painted the face of the one who opened the door …”
“It became difficult to hear? Did they move, or lower their voices?”
“No, it was – the wind, in the trees …”
Abu Nuwas looked at me oddly, but did not pursue the subject.
“So fat little Fadl ibn Rabi is plotting with Franks? I knew he was ambitious and ruthless, but I did not imagine him a traitor.”
“Are you going to expose him?”
My master’s mouth twisted.
“The politics of the court are like a maze of mirrors, with a monster at its heart. Not everything is as it seems. I shall pass the information to the Barmakid, and let him decide how it should be dealt with. Hey, Khalila!”
He whistled, and the falcon dropped from the tree onto his wrist. With the bird on one hand and the mare’s bridle in the other he led the way out of the clearing. A thought seemed to strike him.
“Ibn Rabi speaks no Greek, as far as I know. What language were they speaking?”
“Arabic.”
“Then Brother Catwulf speaks our tongue, but he talked to the hooded man in Greek. I had assumed that the Christian priest could not speak Arabic, but perhaps Abu Murra is a foreigner. When you heard Brother Catwulf at the Garden of Delight, what exactly did he say?”
I screwed up my eyes, struggling to remember.
“He said … ‘The traitor followed me … The oathbreaker spoke to him.’ ”
“The traitor and the oathbreaker – fine company they keep, these Christian holy men.”
We walked in silence for a while. My thoughts drifted to the yellow-haired girl, and my first experience of congress with a woman. It had been strange, certainly gratifying in the end, but awkward and uncomfortable too. It had also caused another physical response.
“Do you have any food, master? I am hungry.”
The effect of my words on Abu Nuwas was extraordinary. He froze, staring into the distance, and gripped my wrist so hard it hurt.
“Hungry – of course – ten hungry men!”
“Master?”
“Umm Dabbah was looking for ten hungry men! We must get back to the city – she is in terrible danger.”
He was climbing onto the bay mare as he spoke, and reached a hand down to pull me up. Reluctantly I swung up behind him, and we left the grove at a canter.
Light as I was, the mare struggled under the weight of two riders, and the sun was setting by the time we returned to the city. Abu Nuwas had ignored my frantic questioning, concentrating instead on nursing the horse through the journey. It was not until we dismounted in the darkening streets of Sharqiya that he deigned to enlighten me.
“I thought that the old woman was delirious, but there was sense to her raving. The Fifth Surah of the Holy Quran enjoins the feeding of ten hungry men as suitable expiation, or penance – for those who have broken an oath.”
It seemed that Umm Dabbah must be the oathbreaker the men had been discussing. I was little wiser for this knowledge, but there was no time for further talk. We had arrived at the house of Ghassan, the porter whose son had disappeared. Abu Nuwas was hammering on his door.
“Umm Dabbah! You must tell us where she lives! I have to see her, now.”
Ghassan was in no hurry to answer the door, but once he realised who we were he could not do enough to help, and agreed to show the way to the gossip’s house. He raced barefooted ahead of us, stopping a couple of blocks away at a modest dwelling. Abu Nuwas shouted and banged, but the house remained silent. The neighbours, on the other hand, were beginning to take an interest.
“We have to get inside.”
Abu Nuwas looked desperately at me as he spoke. Grudgingly I stood so that my body was between the door and the porter. Then I drew the needles from my sleeve. The lock was a crude one. I picked it so quickly that it must have seemed to the porter as though it just opened in my hands. The door to the house swung ajar, and the darkness within beckoned.
“In my saddlebag – there are flints, and a torch. Get them, now.”
I obeyed wordlessly, recognising that my master was in no mood for banter. The porter, seeing him draw his sword, tried to avoid catching his eye in case he was ordered into the house, and came over to help me. However Abu Nuwas slipped through the door alone.
I was still not entirely sure what was happening. If Umm Dabbah had broken an oath, it did not explain why my master believed her to be in such peril. However, his agitation had infected me, and my hands shook as I tried to spark the torch. Ghassan had to steady me.
Once we had light, I entered the house. The porter hesitated, but came in after me. There was nothing unusual in the design of the building. A short passage led to a courtyard, ringed by rooms. Then, through a door that stood open, we heard a terrible scream, cut short by a gurgling noise.
I raced across the yard, and stepped cautiously into the doorway. Nervous footsteps suggested the porter had arrived behind me, but I did not look back. For the flickering light of the torch revealed Umm Dabbah, lying unveiled beneath an open window. Her heavy face was stained with red, and as we watched, blood bubbled out of her mouth and trickled down her neck. Kneeling over her, his sword dripping, was Abu Nuwas.
In his other hand he held something that flopped like a lump of dead meat. There was so much blood it took me a little while to realise that it was a human tongue. Abu Nuwas tried to speak, but I heard only Ghassan the porter behind me.
“Why is your master killing that woman?”
Twenty
The Tale of The Prisoner and the Guard
Abu Nuwas was struggling to sit the woman upright, but despite his strength, her dead weight was too much. Ghassan hurried over, but instead of helping he began to pull my master off her. I tried to restrain the porter, so that when the neighbours, alarmed by the scream, burst in, they found the three of us wrestling over a gory, mutilated body. Just then a belch of blood, exploding from her mouth, announced that Umm Dabbah had finally expired.
We were hauled out onto the street. Everyone was talking at once, but the porter was known and trusted by our captors. It was his voice which prevailed.
“I thought they were servants of the Wazir – it was al-Takht, the Police Captain, told me that, just after that fire, when Umm Dabbah saw – tonight they came knocking on my door like madmen – I thought they were helping to find my boy! I did what they asked, and showed them to the house of Umm Dabbah. Then the boy kept me outside, making a great fuss over lighting a torch, while that tall one went inside and murdered the woman. I should have known better than to think great men would care about the fate of my son …”
We were taken to the nearest masjid, and someone went to find a Qadi to judge the case. Abu Nuwas shouted for them to fetch al-Takht, but whether anyone intended to obey it was impossible to tell. A crowd was gathering, and nobody was deterred from expressing an opinion by such trivial concerns as not having been at the scene or knowing what had happened. The general view was that we weren’t from those parts and looked funny, therefore we must be guilty.
Then our luck worsened. One of the bystanders was from Harbiya, and recognised my master from the trial of Babak ibn Bundar. Before long we were dragged off again, trailing an ever-growing procession through the streets, until we arrived at the Blue Masjid.
Despite the lateness of the hour, the young judge al-Shafi’i was still hearing cases. When Abu Nuwas was brought before him he tried to disguise his look of triumph as the serene smile of the holy man.
“The good people of Sharqiya have saved me the trouble of having to summon you here. Now you must answer, not only for the aiding in the escape of the child-killer ibn Bundar, but also for murder – the murder of a witness who could have identified him as an evil warlock.”
Once again the Qadi was seated on a prayer mat by the minbar, but this time it was my master a
nd I who were held by burly Baghdadis in front of a goggling mob. Amid the hubbub it took a few moments for Abu Nuwas to digest the implications of the Qadi’s statement.
“Ibn Bundar has escaped?”
Al-Shafi’i narrowed his eyes.
“Your feeble pretence of surprise does not fool anybody, poet. If you tell us how you managed to spirit him away from a locked cell, I may consider making the manner of your death a little easier.”
Abu Nuwas struggled between his captors.
“Don’t be stupid, man! I spent the entire day in the company of the Khalifah and his court. How could I possibly have been here, releasing ibn Bundar?”
“Whether it was your accomplices who freed him, or an evil demon summoned by witchcraft, I have no doubt that you are responsible. Why would you have argued so strongly for his innocence, unless you are a disciple of his foul practices?”
My master had to shout over the muttering of the crowd.
“I am an agent of the Barid, sent by the Wazir to look into these matters! The Commander of the Faithful will be angry, when he hears how you have treated me!”
At this the Qadi smiled.
“I do not fear Ja’far al-Barmaki, nor his master the Khalifah. My authority comes from God himself, and from his holy and perfect law. And I know who you are, ibn Hani al-Hakami. I have read your blasphemous verse, your cheap mockery of decency and morality, your eulogies to wine and sexual depravity …”
The more Abu Nuwas had to raise his voice to make himself heard, the more he resembled the dangerous lunatic the Qadi was making him out to be.
“But you have no evidence against me! You cannot condemn me for my poetry –”
Instead of shouting, al-Shafi’i lowered his voice, and the crowd quietened to hear him.
“I might well condemn you for your words. But I can do better than that. I have a witness who saw you kill the woman Umm Dabbah.”
Ghassan the Porter stepped forward, apprehensively. Abu Nuwas struggled to regain his self-control.
“He saw me trying to save her life. Are you suggesting I cut out her tongue with a sword? Do you have any idea how difficult that would be? There was another man there, with a scarf round his face like a bandit. When I surprised him, he mutilated her with a knife, and escaped through the window. I pulled the tongue from her throat in a bid to prevent her choking. If the porter had not intervened, she might still be alive.
“I managed to wound the man, before he fled. There are cuts on his arm, in the shape of the letter Zay.”
He traced the curve and dot of the letter in the air with his finger.
“Find the man with the Zay on his arm. He is the killer of Umm Dabbah.”
There was a sense of hesitation in the onlookers, as if they were almost convinced. Then al-Shafi’i laughed.
“This is the defence of the child caught misbehaving! ‘Another boy did it but he ran away …’ Is this to become a precedent? Are we to permit any murderer found with the corpse of his victim to escape punishment, if only they blame a mysterious stranger, whom none but they have seen?”
The roar of the mob gave a decisively negative answer to this question. The Qadi stood up.
“The family of Umm Dabbah have until dawn to come forward and claim their blood price. Otherwise, let him suffer the same fate from which he saved the apostate and childkiller Babak ibn Bundar. When the sun rises, the poet Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn Hani al-Hakami, known as the Father of Locks, shall be beheaded. Take them away.”
“Might I ask a question, wise Qadi?”
I surprised myself by daring to speak, but my surprise was nothing to the astonishment displayed by my master. Al-Shafi’i acted for a moment as though he were about to ignore me, but something, perhaps curiosity, compelled him to turn.
“What is it?”
“I have not been told whether I am accused, or condemned, and if so of what.”
The Qadi waved a hand as if swatting a fly.
“You were present at the murder. You are his servant.”
“The porter was also present, wise Qadi. If I am implicated then so is he. And a slave cannot be held responsible for crimes committed at the command of his master.”
The crowd had fallen silent, wondering whether there was to be a postscript to the story. Al-Shafi’i realised his moment of triumph was being marred by unnecessary complications, and turned away.
“Let the boy go.”
Abu Nuwas watched me walk away, his eyes wide like those of an idiot, his mouth open but empty of words. Then the men who had just released me went over to make the most of manhandling him to the Watch House, expressing their contempt with fists and feet whenever the opportunity presented itself. I kept my head down as I left the masjid, trying to disappear among the masses.
In the gloom I was able to drift with the throng as far as Sharqiya. Slowly they dispersed, returning to their homes and beds. However I kept walking until I was alone. I crossed the river at the Central Bridge, and headed up the east bank until I reached the Palace of the Barmakids.
I let myself into the Hall of the Barid, where a couple of men I did not know dozed on mattresses. I did not stay but made my way into the palace itself. Here I stopped the first servant I saw.
“I need to speak to Ja’far ibn Yahya, urgently. Tell him that the Father of Locks is in danger, and will be dead by morning if he does not help.”
I sat where I was, in the middle of a courtyard, and waited. The servant nodded, and left, as if such requests were not unusual in the house of the Barmakids.
I do not know how much time passed, although it felt like hours. Finally I saw a figure approaching. It was not Ja’far, however, but Ilig, the Kazakh bodyguard who had caught me in the Chamber of Ancients. I had assumed he worked for Salam al-Abrash, but I realised now that he must be in the service of the Wazir. I got to my feet as he spoke.
“I bring a message from Ja’far ibn Yahya al-Barmaki, Wazir to the Khalifah Harun al-Rashid. He commands me to repeat his words to you exactly:
“ ‘I thank you for advising me of the difficulty faced by your master. I am certain your master will appreciate that I am too busy behind closed doors with the Khalifah to offer any assistance at this time. I wish you luck in your endeavours.’ ”
With that he walked away, leaving me staring at his back, dumbfounded and despairing. At first I did not understand why the Wazir was abandoning us. Then I recalled the off-hand comment my master let slip at the house of Abbas, about Ja’far and Harun:
“Sometimes I wonder about those two; they seem a little too close. If the Khalifah drinks in private, what other sins might he commit behind closed doors?”
Someone must have reported his words to the Wazir. Perhaps it was the poet Abbas, but more likely it was the mysterious woman. Either way, Ja’far had taken offence, and now was leaving Abu Nuwas to his fate.
For a while I stood there in the courtyard, while the household bustled around me. I had no idea what I was to do. I supposed I could return to my original plan of finding a patron for my poetry. Perhaps I could approach Salam al-Abrash. The city seemed different to me though, now that I knew about the missing children and the barbarian spies and the murders in dark places. It was as if someone had lifted a rock and showed me the vile things scuttling underneath, and I could no longer sit on it in comfort.
Then I thought of the last words of the message. They may have constituted a dismissal, but they may also have been a challenge. I had not been discharged from the Barid; or, if I had, nobody had told me.
I returned to the Hall, where I tested my theory by demanding a change of clothes for myself and for a taller man, and supplies for a long journey. I almost expected to be refused, or simply thrown out of the palace. Instead servants arrived silently carrying everything I had asked for, packed into a travelling bag.
I wondered what the limits of this privilege were. Had the servants been instructed to give the Barid anything they requested, or did they go to a shadowy presence
for authorisation? However this was not the time to investigate. Rather, it was time to face my fears. I went to the stables.
There are those who claim to find the odour of the camel repugnant, but to me it has a reassuring earthiness. It is the stench of the horse that revolts me. Even walking into the stables caused my gorge to rise.
I think my fear of horses must have begun when I was enslaved by the Badawi. I had very little to do with them before that time. I felt no resentment of the mule, against whose coarse hairy hide my head bounced as we trekked across Ifriqiya. However as I stared every day at the indifferent back of the slaver, it somehow became associated for me with the dung-crusted rear of his stallion.
The ostler assented to my requests without demur. The bay mare had done too much work that day for my purposes, so I trusted him to pick out another steed of similar quality. Then I was forced to choose a pony for myself.
After staring uselessly at a succession of ugly, stinking beasts, I had to admit that I had no idea what to look for in a mount. Eventually I selected a cross-eyed gelding with a face that looked more dumb than dangerous. Leading the two animals at the longest reach I could manage, I left the palace by the nearest gate, and set off westward.
The Watch House in Harbiya was of similar design to al-Takht’s in Sharqiya, but located by a canal near to the district’s own small suq. I was relieved to see that a light still burned inside. If Abu Nuwas had been taken to the Matbaq, the hulking prison in the Round City where political dissidents were left to rot, there would have been no chance of saving him. Fortunately he was being treated as a common criminal. I tied the two horses to a strut on a nearby bridge, trusting that the proximity of the Watch House would deter any thieves, and cautiously approached.
The door was open. From the darkness of the street I could clearly see the bright interior. A single policeman sat on the ground within, his head hanging down. He looked asleep, and I wondered whether I could simply creep past him. However as soon as I entered his head snapped upright.
The Father of Locks Page 25