So far luck had been on the conspirators’ side. But Abu Murra’s suspicious nature was to lead to disaster. He insisted on meeting the spy in person, trusting neither the barbarians nor his host the Syrian. Brother Catwulf resolved that if he was to risk his life sneaking into the city, he would also find the mercenary’s mother, and hear her tale for himself.
The old woman had been sworn to silence, at pain of punishment in both this life and the next. She was a gossip by nature, and to know a secret of such gravity and yet be unable to share it grieved her sorely. Over the years she had taken to inventing foul conspiracies and spreading rumours of them, to stop herself bursting out with the horrible knowledge that tormented her. Only to her son had she told the real story.
When an exotic foreigner came to her, offering bags of gold and a sympathetic ear, the temptation was too much for her. At first she was frightened, but then she told herself that an oath could not still bind her after so many years, and besides the foreigner already knew her secret. What harm could it do, if, just once, she relieved herself of her terrible burden?
What neither of them knew was that the Father of Bitterness, still suspicious, had followed Brother Catwulf after their meeting. The priest left discreetly, but Abu Murra’s strange appearance had begun to draw attention from the neighbours.
The Roman General, fearless in war, became confused and frightened by their stares. Then the widow saw the foreigner outside her home, and assumed he was an associate of Brother Catwulf. Boldly she approached him and asked him who he was. He, accosted by a strange woman and addressed in a strange language, replied with the only words of Arabic he knows:
“Abu Murra.”
Having just unwittingly told her he was the Devil, he used the power of the Fire to cover his escape. Now the old woman was scared. She had broken her oath, and because of her sin Iblis was stalking the streets. She lacked the imagination to lie about their conversation when asked, but guilt caused her to change one crucial detail; instead of the fair skin that she remembered, she gave him the black skin she believed the Devil ought to have.
Then her neighbour’s son disappeared, and it seemed her own wicked stories were coming back to haunt her. In desperation she half remembered a fragment of scripture, that an oath-breaker can expiate his sin by feeding ten needy men. But there was to be no absolution for Umm Dabbah – at least, not in this world.
Nevertheless Umm Dabbah was the loose thread of your conspiracy, which caused the whole thing to unravel. Now I have the Brass Bottle, and the only mystery left to be solved is the secret for which the Chamberlain risked so much, and for which the widow died. So, Brother Catwulf: what is the Name?
Twenty Three
The Tale of the Door That Should Not Have Been Opened
“What a pity. You were doing so well.”
Brother Catwulf’s sudden confidence was so unexpected that I looked around, thinking Gorm must have recovered. However the warrior was not there, and the spy continued.
“That was entirely the wrong question. The Name itself is not important. In fact you have had it for days. Your servant stole it, but you lack the wit to understand it.
“The Name is useless, without the story behind it. Let me take the Bottle, and I will tell you everything.”
Abu Nuwas smiled.
“They say many things about me, brother, and most of them are true. They call me debauchee, deviant and drunkard; libertine and blasphemer; seducer, sinner and sybarite. But my father was a warrior, and no man has ever called me a traitor. If you believe that I would let you walk away from here with what is in that Bottle, knowing the death and destruction which it can unleash – then you are not as clever as you think you are.”
“Right then, if I’m not going to learn anything of value, let’s make an end to this nonsense.”
We had forgotten Thomas was there, and his interruption caused everyone to turn to him.
“I’m sick of listening to this pervert anyway. You can come out now, boys.”
Through a door concealed by a wall hanging emerged half a dozen Christians, armed with swords and shields, more like soldiers than street thugs. They quickly surrounded us.
“As they say in the Game of Four Divisions, ‘shah mat’ – your king is dead. I’ll probably find out more from the Frank by torturing him. As for you, poet, you borrow money without paying it back, you punch me in the face, beat up my fityan and now you invade my home. I’m going to make you wish it really had been Iblis that you found here.”
Abu Nuwas seized Abu Murra by the arm, and pushed his sword against the old man’s neck.
“Tell your boys to drop their weapons, or I kill him. If he dies, you will never learn how to open the Brass Bottle.” Thomas laughed.
“What do I care about his Bottle? I’ve got the gold, that’s all I wanted. Here –”
He snatched a sayf from the belt of one of his men, and thrust it into Abu Murra’s heart. As the Father of Bitterness fell to his knees, eructing dark blood, Brother Catwulf’s foot flew up. It kicked the Brass Bottle from my hand. The flask soared up into the air, then crashed onto the ground. Its slender neck was broken.
The Bottle seemed to emit a horrific, guttural moan. Then I realised the sound was Abu Murra’s death rattle. The fire that began to bubble out, however, was no illusion. A liquid pulsed from the flask, and the rug on which it fell burned with furious, smoky flame.
Amid the chaos I saw that Brother Catwulf had disarmed one of the thugs and was making his escape. I tried to follow him, but a pair of hairy hands grabbed me. Abu Nuwas still had his sword and had felled another of the Christians. Thomas himself blocked the way though, backed by two of his men.
Another of the Syrian’s gang had dashed to the well for a pail of water. He hurled it onto the burning rug, but this was a disastrous mistake. The water splashed the liquid everywhere, seeming to enrage the fire rather than dousing it, and spreading the flames across wall hangings and carpets.
Abu Nuwas, faced by three blades at once, was barely holding them off, and it was only because he was trapped in a corner that they had not flanked and overwhelmed him. I struggled, then was surprised to find my captor’s grip slackening. I jerked myself free, and looked back to see the thug collapse to the ground.
While I pulled the knife from my turban, I watched another Christian fall. This time I saw the stone that struck him on the head. It appeared that, in the right hands, the sling could be effective after all.
Thomas was consumed by his desire to kill Abu Nuwas, and had not noticed that one of his comrades was no longer by his side. Now, though, a howling arose which compelled his attention. It was high in pitch, but the war cry of the Raiders put fear in the souls of grown men.
The room was full of smoke, and the small figures which darted in seemed like demons, dancing around jabbing at the Christians with improvised weapons. Thomas looked round at the blazing abattoir that his house had become, and Abu Nuwas took the chance to smash the sword from his hand. The poet drew back his arm to strike, but a voice shouted:
“Mine!”
A young man with a birthmarked face walked toward the Syrian. Thomas narrowed his eyes.
“Who are you?”
“I am Mishal ibn Yunus al-Rafiq.”
The young man waited until he saw signs of recognition, and they were a long time coming. Then he pushed his dagger into the Syrian’s chin and on up into his brain.
I gripped Mishal’s gory hand, although I knew that he had been motivated more by hatred of Thomas than by friendship for me. That was what I had been counting on, when I sent a street boy to take him a message. That message was that he could finally avenge his father’s murder – if he found the Syrian’s door standing open that night.
“Let us get out of here, before the ceiling falls onto our heads.”
The words of Abu Nuwas were wise ones, and we followed him into the courtyard. I glanced back at the conflagration that was eating the building.
“Di
d you really know nothing, master? About the Name?”
“Of course not. You rarely find anything out by admitting to your ignorance. I thought if I showed them I had worked out half of it, they would give away the rest.”
“Then you do know what that was, in the Brass Bottle? Was it an Afrit, a Jinn?”
“Yes, boy, I do know. But it was not a spirit. The substance is called Greek Fire, although no Muslim can tell its true nature. It is the reason the Roman Empire still stands in the east, despite nearly two hundred years of Islamic invasions. At sea it is fired by catapult onto the ships of enemies. It decimates navies, and floats on the water still burning. In battle it is sprayed on opposing troops, searing human flesh and causing hardened veterans to run in terror.
“The method of producing it is the most jealously guarded secret of the Romans. With a sufficiently large sample, however, such as the contents of the Brass Bottle, a man skilled in al-khimiya might discover its composition, if he knew how to work with it safely.
“The Franks cannot be permitted to acquire a weapon of such destructive power. The Roman Empire is dying, so slowly it can barely be seen, but dying nonetheless. The west, however, is rising. Some day they will come to take what is ours. And when that day comes I pray they are not armed with … this.”
Abu Nuwas gestured behind us. Huge ghosts of gold and blood burst out of the crumbling masonry, and the heat scorched our faces like the desert sun. Then the roaring of the flame was echoed by a second roar, from the opposite direction.
Gorm the Rus was stumbling into the courtyard, dragging his axe behind him. One side of his face was covered by streaky lines of blood and caked red hair, and the fire tinted his white skin bronze. He barely looked human at his best, and now his visage was truly monstrous. Several of the Raiders screamed and ran. Others, more courageous, slung stones at him, but their pellets bounced off his skin.
The giant lumbered remorselessly forward, and I realised to my horror that he was walking straight towards me. His blue eyes, so like those of his daughter, skewered me as surely as his hunting spear had done. I hefted my knife wearily, but Abu Nuwas stepped in front of me.
“Don’t be silly, boy. This battle is definitely mine.”
My master took guard, but Gorm appeared not to notice him. Instead he raised his axe and quickened his pace, emitting the hideous bellow of a wounded, desperate beast.
Abu Nuwas watched his approach carefully. Then, at a few paces’ distance, he pounced forward, driving his sword into Gorm’s belly. His attack was swift enough that the great swing of the axe passed over him, and the two men pressed closely together, like lovers.
But the Rus did not stop. He walked on, even as the tip of the sword emerged on the other side of his body. He walked on, while the metal slid through his his guts. He kept walking, forcing Abu Nuwas backwards until Gorm could see me. He swung the axe.
I stepped easily out of reach of the feeble swing. Then the warrior and the poet fell to the ground, in a tangle of limbs. I leapt on them with my knife, but Gorm was finally still.
“Get him off me, will you? It is becoming hard enough to breathe round here as it is.”
The fire had spread to rest of the building. Smoke drifted across the courtyard, and the air was so hot it hurt the chest. Mishal helped me push Gorm’s body away, and we hurried out while the exit was still clear.
We were coated in soot, and went down to the river to wash. Neighbours were beginning to arrive with buckets to extinguish the blaze. Abu Nuwas assured me that the contents of the Bottle would have burned off some time ago, and what remained was just an ordinary fire. Since they were in no danger, we left them to it.
As we splashed the filthy Tigris water onto our faces, blackening them still further, Abu Nuwas gestured behind us.
“Brother Catwulf said you stole the Name. Have you engaged in any unlicensed thievery you have not told me about?”
“No, master. The only thing I have stolen is –”
“The egg! Can you remember the word that was written upon it?”
One who lives by telling tales must develop a reliable memory. I nodded, and scratched the letters into the mud with my finger. Ghifaha. At. Tighasa. Abu Nuwas leaned over, examining it.
“I think we can assume that we are no longer looking for an occult name, that will summon a demon or Afrit. But what kind of name is this? Ghayn, Fa’, Ha’ …”
He stared at the script for a moment. Then he slapped my back so hard I nearly fell over.
“Atbash! It is Atbash!”
This meant nothing to me at all.
“The Name is Atbash, master?”
“No, boy, Atbash is not the Name. Atbash is the disguise under which the Name has been hiding, laughing at us all this time. It is a trick used by the Rabbis of the Jews, to conceal secret knowledge. Each letter of the word is replaced by its equivalent in a mirror alphabet.”
I stared blankly at him.
“See, Newborn. If this were an Arabic name, what would be the most likely first letter?”
“I suppose … Alif. Abu, Ibn, Al – they all begin with Alif.”
“Indeed. Alif, the first letter of the alphabet, and the first letter of many names. Yet this word starts with Ghayn, the last letter of the alphabet. What was it Isa ibn Maryam said? ‘The first shall be last, and the last shall be first …’ Next we have Fa, which is …?”
I counted furiously in my head.
“Twelve from the end.”
“Then we replace it with the twelfth from the beginning. Alif, Lam – now a name begins to emerge.”
He scratched the letters into the ground with his finger as he worked them out.
“Kha’ … Ya’ … Zay …”
I knew already what the next three letters would be, without having to solve the puzzle.
“Ra’ … Alif … Nun.”
We both gazed at the name he had written, mocking us in the dirt.
“Al-Khayzuran.”
It seemed that the Name for which Umm Dabbah had died, the Name of the one who opened The Door That Should Not Have Been Opened, was the name of the widow of the Khalifah al-Mahdi, and mother of the Khalifah Harun al-Rashid: Al-Khayzuran, the most powerful woman in the world.
***
It is unlikely that two more sorry-looking petitioners ever knocked on the door of the Palace of Blissful Eternity at dawn. We were daubed in soot, blood and mud from head to foot, and our clothes were ribbons and rags. However Abu Nuwas would not be deterred, now that the truth was so close.
“My apologies for the hour, but we must speak with al-Khayzuran immediately, on a matter of the gravest importance for the security of the Ummah. We need to talk to her about The Door That Should Not Have Been Opened.”
The gatekeeper could hardly believe it when word came back that we were to be bathed, breakfasted, then escorted into the royal presence. As I was being scrubbed and scented, exhaustion hit me like a wave. It felt as though the filth had been all that was holding my body together. However I was determined to see this through.
I had expected to be taken to a grand hall for the audience, but the room in which Al-Khayzuran sat was surprisingly small. A screen hung across the room, but it was a gauze of such fineness that I could clearly see the two slave girls attending her. On our side of the screen there stood a single eunuch guard. We made obeisance, and waited to be addressed.
“Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn Hani al-Hakami, I believe there is a question you wish to ask me?”
My master sat up.
“Yes, o mother of Islam. What was behind The Door That Should Not Have Been Opened?”
There was no movement on the other side of the curtain, the stillness so prolonged that I wondered if she had heard him. Then:
“Who knows about this?”
Abu Nuwas seemed to be surprised by her question.
“My servant and I. The Chamberlain, Fadl ibn Rabi. And, I am afraid, the Frankish emissaries.”
“I see. Then there is litt
le point in having you killed. Besides, it would upset my son, who seems immoderately fond of you. Ah, I have always too much indulged his whims.”
She seemed deep in thought. My master held his peace, and in time she spoke again.
“I should have told somebody – my husband, or my son. But it was never the right time. There was always peril, conspiracy, intrigue. In the end the only one I trusted to tell was Yahya al-Barmaki.
“I suppose that is why the Chamberlain wanted the secret. If the Khalifah were informed that his mother and his counsellor had kept such dangerous knowledge from him – well, who can say how a monarch will act? However, it will certainly harm the Barmakids. Ibn Rabi’s supporters will become the dominant party, and the court will be poorer for it.
“I am a sick woman. The doctors tell me I will recover, but they are idiots. I know that I will not live to see this year’s pilgrimage. I am sorry for Yahya and his sons, for they have been good friends to me. But I would like to tell the tale just once, whole and true, if you would like to hear it.”
So she did.
***
I was only a slave girl from Yemen, in the beginning. All I knew was the tribe, and the camp, and the animals. I was never brought up to rule the world.
But as I came to my womanhood my master saw that my virginity might be worth a great deal to him, too much to give up for a night of rough pleasure. He sold me to a dealer of Sana’a, who could find a buyer worthy of my beauty.
The dealer, however, believed he could do better, and sold me on in Makkah. There I was displayed in the slave market. I was fourteen years old, and shivered at the stares of the men.
God was watching over me though, and made sure that among the eyes fixed on me were those of my prince. Al-Mahdi was a graceful man, cultured, pious and kind. His skin was dark, his mother having been black, but virtue shone from his eyes. I understood immediately that my future happiness depended on remaining in his favour, and used every trick I knew to make him love me.
The Father of Locks Page 29