I expected that we would take our exhausted mounts to the Hall of the Barid, there to seek aid and exonerate my master. Instead we walked the beasts through the streets to the ruckus and rackets of night-time Harbiya, where he was still held responsible for the murder of Umm Dabbah. Abu Nuwas noticed my reluctance.
“By the time we have resolved our little difficulty with Ja’far ibn Yahya, it will be too late. We must act now, and pray that our endeavours meet with sufficient success to placate the Wazir.”
“But master, where are we going?”
“We are going to find Abu Murra, and the Brass Bottle. There is only one place they can be. How could a foreigner of distinctive appearance, who cannot speak Arabic, remain hidden in a city full of busybodies? Somebody must be hiding him. Somebody who was holding their own secret meetings with Frankish spies. Somebody who we know was making groping efforts to find out the Name. I believe we will find Abu Murra at the house of Thomas the Syrian.”
The leader of the Christian fityan lived north of the Round City, where rowdy Harbiya meets genteel Zubaydiya. His home was a discreet building, lacking in ornament and ostentation, but it sprawled across an entire block. Its only distinctive features were the arrow-slit windows and iron-banded doors that gave it something of the look of a fortress.
We approached cautiously, and were wise to do so. From the shadows of a nearby building, we watched as bands of armed men with torches patrolled the perimeter. Abu Nuwas hissed a curse.
“Well, at least this proves that my hunch was correct. Thomas is a careful man, but I have never known him guard his home so thoroughly. This must be the night when the exchange is to take place.”
“What exchange, master?”
“Really, boy, I thought you were cleverer than that. Abu Murra is to sell the Brass Bottle to the Franks. They will pay for it with gold provided by Fadl ibn Rabi. I am not certain what secret the Chamberlain is getting from the deal, but it must be of great significance for him to commit such treachery. And the only way we can thwart the conspiracy is to get into that building.”
He was interrupted by a movement away to our right, a looming shape which drifted towards us. It did not approach us, however, but slid ominously in the direction of the Syrian’s house. When the torchlight caught the shape I saw it was a boat. Invisible in the darkness, a canal ran alongside the street, presumably connecting the building to the Tigris. Obviously this was how Abu Murra had travelled to his assignation with Brother Catwulf.
A gate creaked noisily upwards, like the portcullis of a castle, and allowed the boat to enter. As we watched it disappear within, and the portal drop down behind it, Abu Nuwas took my shoulder. I sighed.
“Let me guess, Father of Locks. We are going to swim into the Syrian’s house?”
“Wrong, Newborn. You are going to swim in, then open the door for me.”
“And why do we not both swim in, master?”
“Because, boy, I cannot swim.”
There was no answer to that. I considered pointing out that my inability to ride had simply been ignored, but I did not fancy dragging him behind me down the canal.
“Very well then, master. But you must allow me a little time to prepare for our incursion. We might need help from another quarter, if we are to survive this night.”
***
I was already shivering when I stepped into the black water of the Tigris. I had stripped down to pants and qamis, with a knife and my lockpicks stuck in the folds of my turban, just in case. The mud closed quickly over my feet, and I began to walk faster, fearing that I would sink into the silt.
The canal ran for some five hundred cubits between the house and the river. Although it did not appear to be guarded, I doubted I would be able to plunge in at any point along its length without making enough noise to raise the alarm. Reluctantly therefore I had agreed to enter via the Tigris.
I made no attempt to swim upstream but waded slowly, water up to my waist, until I was near the mouth of the canal. Then I had to strike out, battling against the current. At times it took all my strength simply to avoid being swept away. Painfully I worked my way to the bank. Here it was too high and steep to climb out, even if I admitted defeat. I clutched at the earth with desperate fingers, and managed to claw myself round into the canal.
The artificial waterway was sheltered from the current, and I was able to cling to the side and assess my situation. Unlike the irrigation channel I had swum in on the day of the hunt, this canal was cut deep to allow boats to pass, and I could not walk along the bed. I pushed off, and began to ease myself along with gentle strokes, as quietly as I could.
That short paddle through the icy blackness felt like the longest swim of my life. Every splash and gasp seemed to me as loud as thunder, and I expected the Christians to come running at any moment. However I reached the gate undetected. Drawing in a deep breath, I ducked under to examine the barrier.
I could see nothing in the filthy water, and tried to feel for the bottom of the gate. We had hoped it would not extend all the way to the bed of the canal. However we had underestimated the Syrian’s concern for security. Each dive I went deeper, and resurfaced more noisily. Each time I failed to find the edge of the portcullis.
I found the bottom of the gate and the bottom of the canal at the same time. The portcullis terminated in a row of spikes reaching almost to the mud. Small as I was, there was no way I could wriggle through. I tested the spikes for weaknesses but found none. I broke the surface again, trying to stifle my gasps.
I was alone. Abu Nuwas, I presumed, was lurking near the front door waiting for me to unlock it. I wondered whether I should turn back, clamber out of the canal and seek his guidance. However I knew that if I got out of the water now I could never make myself get back in.
When the light appeared, and the noise, a groaning, slapping sound, my heart almost stopped beating. I was certain that I must have been discovered. Then I realised that it was another boat approaching. The gate began to grind open. I plunged under the water once more, and wriggled beneath the spikes.
I was inside, but exactly what I was in, I had no way of knowing. I guessed that the canal must lead to some sort of boatyard, like a smaller version of that at al-Khuld. I had to assume that the two large shadows above and ahead of me were moored vessels, and swam to their shelter. Then the pain in my chest forced me to surface, trusting to the hulls to conceal my arrival.
In front of me was a wooden boardwalk, to which the boats were tied. Behind it was a brick-built landing, then a wall, with a door which must lead to the rest of the house. I was not surprised to hear voices. Somebody had to be there to open the gate, and to greet the visitors.
I seemed to have got in undetected. Carefully I eased myself between the boats and underneath the boardwalk. Here there was a gap between the wooden boards and the surface of the water, so that I could breathe while taking a better look at the wharf. It was the size of a large courtyard, open to the sky above, but surrounded by walls on all sides. I observed the mechanism of ropes and weights which closed the gate behind the arriving barge. I heard the footsteps of two or three men clattering on the timbers above my head as they came to meet its occupant. And I saw Brother Catwulf standing in the barge, carrying a large sack that I guessed must contain the gold.
Few words were exchanged. There was a boom as the gate closed, and a thud and clink as the Christians helped Brother Catwulf haul the money off the barge. Then the sounds changed as they moved from the boardwalk to the landing. I heard Brother Catwulf’s oddly accented Arabic.
“Hey, friend! Don’t stand there, give us a hand with the sack.”
Finally they banged the door shut behind them, and there was silence.
I waited for a moment, listening in case anyone had stayed behind. When I was certain I was alone, I edged from under the timbers and pulled myself out of the water. The boardwalk was studded with posts, to which three craft were moored. At one end of the landing was a wheel, which control
led the gate, and scattered along its lengths were coils of rope, barrels and other nautical junk. I was approaching the door, when bubbles erupted from the water behind me.
A metal object began to emerge from beside Brother Catwulf’s barge. It was dome-shaped and cast from burnished copper. The object drifted to the boardwalk, where two arms shot out and seized the edge. Slowly a figure emerged from the water, human in shape but with the copper dome where its head should be. I was reminded of the old Jewish legends of the Golem, in which statues are brought to life through witchcraft.
Then, as the figure stood upright, it brought its hands to the dome and pulled it off. I was hardly less horrified to see that beneath the shining metal was the head of Gorm the Rus. The dome must been a device to trap air below the water, so that he could breathe as he followed the boat through the gate. He pulled his battle axe from where it hung at his back. And then he noticed me.
Neither of us could cry out; the Syrian’s men would have killed us both. Only our footsteps echoed from the walls as I raced for the door, and he blocked my way. I turned around, but there was nowhere to go. Gorm advanced on me while I backed away along the landing. At the end I moved to hurl myself in the water, but a huge hand seized my dripping qamis, ripping the fabric, and lifted me up against the wall.
This time Gorm would not delay, allowing time for me to be rescued. He put down his axe, and his hand closed about my throat, to crush the life from my body. And he looked quite surprised when I smashed him on the head with the belaying pin I had grabbed as I fled.
For a moment I thought I had not hit him hard enough. Then his grip slackened, and we both fell to the ground. I extricated myself and stood up. Blood streamed from his wound, tangling with his red hair, but I could hear his heavy breathing. I contemplated slitting his throat, but could not bring myself to slaughter him like an animal. Instead I left him where he lay and carefully opened the door.
The door led to a courtyard, with a well at its centre. It was difficult to relate the interior of the building to what we had seen from outside, but I guessed that the front door was to my left. Here there were two open rooms flanking a passageway.
I crept out into the courtyard so that I could peer into the nearest room. A torch within illuminated a Christian thug, armed with a sayf. He seemed to be staring at something in the wall. I realised that he was looking through a window onto the passage to the front door. He would see anybody entering or leaving the building before they saw him.
If I was to get Abu Nuwas inside, I had to get rid of the guard. I tugged at my torn qamis, pulling off a strip of cloth which I fashioned into a crude sling. I only had to reach down to find a smooth, hard pebble.
The slingshot is the weapon of the lowest of the low, of the tribe who have not yet developed the bow, of the peasant who cannot afford a knife to cut his bread. When Dawud used one to kill the giant Jalut, he was not a king facing a champion; he was a lone assassin, the shepherd boy lurking in the rocks who dared to take on the oppressor.
He was also very lucky. If the sling was a reliably accurate, deadly weapon, there would be no need for the sword. Or the bow, the spear, the axe, or any other of the myriad tools man has invented to destroy himself with. My pebble missed, rattling against the wall of his room.
The Christian spun round. Recognising the futility of trying to actually hit him, I hurled another pebble into a far corner of the courtyard. The second noise confused him sufficiently to draw him out of his room. Obviously the enemy he was expecting to fight came waving sticks and shouting.
One more pebble had him sniffing around like a dog. He was close enough now that I could have been on him before he knew, my knife glinting –
Instead I ran for the door. He turned when I flashed past him, but I got to the door before he had started moving. My fingers fumbled with the bars and bolts, and I could hear his feet pounding toward me.
I flung open the door, to see Abu Nuwas thrusting his sword at my face. The blade cut my turban as I dropped just beneath it. It also drove into the chest of the guard who was just behind me, causing his blood to burst across my back.
“Get up, boy. There will be time for prayers later.”
We ran into the courtyard. My master headed towards the passage from which I had come, but I took his arm.
“No! Over there!”
A wide double door stood in the wall facing us. We burst through into a chamber hung with rich draperies and strewn with prayer mats. There stood Thomas the Syrian, his deformed face twisting in fury. There, too, was Brother Catwulf, gold dinars spilling from the bag at his feet.
The third man in the room was elderly, with a white beard. He was clearly a westerner, probably Greek, and had odd, bulbous eyes which seemed to stare around us as we crashed into the room. In one hand he held a large flask, fashioned from yellow metal. His skin, however, was not black as Umm Dabbah had described, but fair. Abu Nuwas put his sword to the old man’s throat.
“Peace be with you, my friends. Newborn, if you would remove the bottle from this man’s hand – carefully! My thanks. Now, this is an interesting gathering. Three Christian conspirators, a fortune in gold, and a mysterious Brass Bottle. Who would like to explain the nature of your business?”
The men were silent. I examined the Bottle, which had a curiously elaborate stopper and a long, thin neck, made from a different material. The old man did not appear to understand what was being said, although his divergent eyes made it hard to tell where he was looking. Thomas smiled and folded his arms. Abu Nuwas continued.
“Nobody? Perhaps I should explain it then. I am sure you will forgive me if I am wrong in certain small details. I have filled in the gaps from my deranged imagination, since I do like a story to be elegantly told. However I am confident that the substance of it is true.”
Brother Catwulf was looking around nervously. I realised that he was waiting for Gorm to come and save him. But nobody interrupted my master.
“Very well. I shall take your silence as assent, and tell the tale.”
And so he did.
***
Once there was a man of Konstantinopolis. I do not know what his name was then, and it does not matter now. He was a soldier, this man, a warrior, and he served his Emperor faithfully. Through courage and diligence he rose to become a General of the Roman Army, and was entrusted with protecting its greatest secret.
Although accomplished on the field of battle, the General was clumsy when it came to the politics of the Imperial court. He fell out of favour, and his younger, less able rivals were promoted ahead of him. When he was forced to bow to the man who had once been his subordinate, his resentment turned to hatred. He decided to betray his country.
And so the General stole the great secret, which he was supposed to be guarding. He cached it in a Brass Bottle of cunning design, which he had fashioned for the purpose. Anybody who tried to open the Bottle without knowing the proper method would destroy both its contents and himself. With the Brass Bottle concealed in his robes the General fled the city.
Unfortunately his escape plans went badly wrong. He had bribed pirates to take him west, where he hoped to find a buyer for his secret. Once the pirates had been paid, however, they saw no need to make a long and hazardous voyage. Instead they abandoned their passenger on the shores of Syria and sailed away.
The General was now in great peril, alone and helpless in an enemy land where he did not speak the language. He made his way to Dimashq and sought refuge among his own kind there, the Christians of the city. They gave him a new name to conceal his identity. Perhaps there was mockery in the name they chose for him, knowing that he would not understand its meaning, nor recognise it as a by-name for the Devil. They called him Abu Murra, the Father of Bitterness.
However this cursed name seemed to bring him luck. Word came of an embassy heading for Baghdad: a legation from the Kingdom of Frankia, the rising power in the west. Surely their ambitious king would pay well for the contents of the Brass
Bottle? Perhaps Abu Murra would be able to sell his secret to Christians after all, and not have to deal with the hated Muslims, against whom he had spent his whole life fighting.
Abu Murra’s allies arranged for him to be smuggled to Baghdad, under the protection of their contact in the city: the notorious usurer and extortionist known as Thomas the Syrian. (I see you smirk as if taking pride in that description, Thomas. It was not intended as a tribute.) Thomas sent a messenger to the Franks, who were camped outside the capital. He offered them for sale the Brass Bottle, and the secret of the terrible Fire that lay within it.
The price he asked was extravagant; Abu Murra needed to fund his flight to Christian lands, and Thomas planned to take a generous commission for himself. It was more gold than the Franks possessed, more than any sane man would carry on such a long and dangerous expedition. However the Franks had a secret of their own, a secret that explained their real purpose in visiting the Khalifate.
Far away, in distant Andalus, they had captured a Saracen, a mercenary who came originally from the city of Baghdad. The mercenary sought to bargain with them. In exchange for his freedom, he would tell them a story, one his mother had told him. His mother had worked at the royal palace, and there had seen things she was not meant to have seen. He offered to tell them the tale of the Door That Should Not Have Been Opened; and the Name of the one who opened it.
The King of the Franks, like all sensible rulers, surrounded himself with clever men. When the clever men heard the mercenary’s tale, they realised that it had the power to rip the Land of Islam apart. However, they were also clever enough to understand that this would benefit them little. Instead, the King sent his most persuasive diplomat, his wiliest spy and his most fearsome warrior to the court of the Khalifah, to see what their knowledge might buy them.
Now the Syrian’s messenger brought a new possibility. If they could sell their story for gold, they could use the coin to buy the Brass Bottle. The Franks turned their attention to finding an ambitious, unscrupulous courtier, with the wealth to afford their secret, and the hunger to use it. They settled on the Chamberlain, Fadl ibn Rabi.
The Father of Locks Page 28