Rostam shook his head. “No, sir, not just yet. I need to visit the merchants and make my deals. After you have calculated the taxes, that is.”
The official nodded and scribbled something on the parchment he held against the back of his minion, and then demanded an abacus. The minion reached into his tunic and produced a tiny abacus, which the customs official used for a couple of moments before finally writing again on his parchment. “This is the tax if you are selling all the cargo, as you stated.” He waved the list at Rostam, who had by now descended the gangway and stood before him.
Rostam looked it over and his eyes widened with surprise. “This tax is outrageous!” he complained, staring back at the stumpy little man.
“It will be larger if you don’t part with that.” He indicated the small bag of gold that Rostam had taken from his belt. Rostam pretended to be deeply offended, but tossed the bag of coins at the expectant official with lots of muttering. “I hope I shall be left alone to get on with my business, now that we have concluded here?” he asked.
“Oh yes, indeed, indeed,” the hairy little man smirked, weighing the pouch that chinked in his hand. “You may dock over there.” He waved towards the inner harbor and a space along the stone quay. He and his minion collected their things and clambered back down to their skiff to be rowed away.
“Scummy little man. Wish someone had pushed him overboard,” commented Junayd, as they watched him stamp pompously up the steps of the distant quay. “By now Dimitri should have seen the flag and have someone waiting on the quayside for us.”
“I don’t see anyone as yet.” Rostam sounded doubtful.
‘They will be there, Lord. Just wait until we are tied up,” Junayd stated with confidence. “They won’t be easily noticed, that’s for sure.”
The crew took to the sweeps and soon they were secured alongside the quayside, having tossed their hawsers to some disreputable looking men standing on shore. As the men completed their work, Rostam noticed something and laughed. “You were right, Junayd. See, those two men and a couple of others. The men tying us off!”
Junayd chuckled. “You have only just noticed, Lord? Yes, that’s them. Dimitri sent Khuzaymah and Maymun, along with two others that I have spotted so far.”
Rostam was chagrined at not having noticed beforehand. “I’ll have to pay more attention,” he muttered. Then, in a clearer voice, “What do we do now?”
“You and I leave the ship and follow those fellows at a distance, and they will take us to Dimitri, Lord.”
Rostam posted guards on the side of the ship and told the crew he would be back once he had made contact with their merchants in the city, then stepped down the gangplank behind a fully armed Junayd. There were no greetings. Khuzaymah simply gestured to his men to leave and led the way into the crowded streets of Famagusta.
Within a few minutes they were deep in the maze of narrow alleyways. Some houses had dogs inside, which barked noisily at the passersby, but men ignored them, and finally they were standing at the entrance of a nondescript doorway made of wood with iron bars nailed to its surface. At a signal from Maymun, one of their escort gave a couple of knocks on the door. A tiny grill slid open, they were scrutinized, then it snapped shut. After a rattle of hasps from the inside, the door was half opened and they were beckoned to enter. Everyone slipped into the cool archway behind the door, and it was closed and bolted from within. Leading the way, Khuzaymah trotted off across a small courtyard towards a low tiled loggia on the other side of a small fountain. Dimitri almost ran out of the entrance with a shout of joy.
“I only received the message yesterday morning, and here you are! Welcome, welcome to our humble abode, Rostam!”
Rostam found himself wrapped in a bear-hug by Dimitri, who then held him by the upper arms and exclaimed, “My goodness, young man, but you have grown! You are a man! How long has it been since I saw you last?” He beamed.
“Just over a year now, Dimitri,” Rostam grinned. He turned to observe Junayd and Dimitri’s men embracing and talking at once, slapping each other on the back with pleasure. “They are glad to see one another again,” Dimitri observed with a twinkle in his grey eyes. “Come, we have much to discuss.” He put a hand on Rostam’s shoulder and steered him towards the gloom of the loggia. “It’s cool in here, and we have some good wine… I think you will know it!” he laughed. “Khuzaymah, did everything go the way it should?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Yes, Master, it went well. The customs man did his usual official thing and then they docked. We were there to greet them.”
“Good. But, Rostam, where is the Master Reza? Where is Lord Talon? I was expecting to see one of them at least.”
“There is much to tell, Dimitri. For the time being, Junayd and I were the only ones able to leave the castle. Reza was grievously wounded in Palestine and is recuperating in the castle.” He paused. “We do not know where my father is, nor Yosef; and,” he hesitated, “the news from that quarter is all bad. A note from Boethius in Paphos told us of the catastrophe in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.” Rostam shook his head. “I suppose it will not be called by that name for much longer.”
“Yes, I know the whole world over there is up in flames, but I do hear rumors that Tyre might still be holding out,” Dimitri said, his tone grim. “There is still some hope that Talon is alive, my boy. Keep hoping, and we will keep praying. But you are here, so eat; then we can talk some more.”
Later, when the roasted chicken, bread, olives, cheese and some sweet baklava had been consumed, and Rostam and Junayd had told Dimitri all that they knew about Reza’s experiences at Tiberius, and the recent activities at the castle, there was a silence while everyone at the table digested the news.
Eventually, Dimitri leaned forward and looked across the table to meet Rostam’s gaze.
“It is beginning to come together now, young Lord. Everything you have told us ties into what we are hearing here in the palace, although there is still something of a mystery surrounding the Ambassador Aeneas. What we have heard is that he is from Constantinople. Our informant, who works for the Princess Tamura, let us know that she thinks he is here to hunt down the gold that was stolen.”
Rostam nodded. “Yes, it has to be all about the gold. We all agree on that, but there is more. You said that someone is in prison?”
“Yes. His name is Diocles, and he is—was—the Chief Minister for the Emperor. We have been told he is in prison, and once the Emperor comes back he will probably be executed for treason.”
“Why? What has he done?” Rostam asked.
“He was caught sending a pigeon to the castle, which is why the warning was so incomplete, and so delayed. I didn’t know about the plot until the princess informed me a day later, and by then it was already too late. We owe it to the old man to see if we can help in anyway.”
“Who arrested him?” Junayd asked with a full mouth. He had returned to the remnants of the chicken carcass. Khuzaymah offered him some wine.
“A man called Zenos, the new Chief Information Gatherer. He is ambitious, and we think he was the instigator of the attack on you,” Dimitri responded, and gulped some wine himself. “I hope you brought more of this with you,” he said.
Rostam grinned. “Yes, we did. But you were saying about this Zenos?”
“After hearing about your news and putting it together with ours, I have come to the conclusion that it was he who brought the assassins from Lebanon into the game,” Dimitri told him. “Khuzaymah and Maymun followed some suspicious people and saw them leave the palace the night before the attack. Khuzaymah, tell them what you observed.”
“We watched one of them follow our spy from the palace, and he was good, very good indeed, so we were afraid he might kill our boy, but he merely searched him and then rejoined others at the palace.”
“So now we had some nasty people from Lebanon, mercenaries from the same place, and the cousin of the pirates all joined in an alliance to try and take our castle. What does
this Aeneas have to do with it all? Has he worked something out with this Zenos?” Rostam asked.
“More than likely,” Junayd chimed in, “but the venture failed, which means something else. This is not over yet,” he said, his tone was ominous.
“What do you mean?” Rostam asked with a frown, as he munched on a sweet cake dripping with honey.
“Master Reza and Lord Talon are of that kind. They, Reza in particular, are constantly warning and reminding us about their methods. The leader of the Assassins who lives in Lebanon will not take the failure lightly. I do not think we have heard the last of those people. We must be on our guard,” Maymun stated with a glance at Khuzaymah, who nodded emphatically.
Everyone looked at one another in silence across the food-strewn table, thinking about this.
“Well, first things first,” Dimitri stated. “It would be a show of faith if somehow we could get the old man out of prison and spirit him away from the palace. Any ideas, anyone?”
*****
While the group at Dimitri’s villa were discussing options, another ship entered the harbor. When the custom’s official came aboard he was informed that the only cargo it carried were messages for the Palace. After inspecting the sealed papers—and receiving a small bribe—the official departed and left them anchored in the main pool.
No one left the ship for the rest of the day, but its arrival had not gone unnoticed by one of Dimitri’s spies, and he passed the information along to the villa.
Dimitri dispatched Maymun to check on the vessel, but was not particularly concerned. Ships and large boats came fairly regularly to the harbor, and not all of them carried cargo.
Maymun, however, found it strange that no one at all left the ship all day long. He decided to stay and keep an eye on the odd seeming behavior of the crew. He stayed watching right through the hot day and observed almost no activity at all, until late in the evening just before dusk, when a small boat was lowered into the water and some men carrying bows and swords climbed down to it and were rowed ashore.
Maymun sent an urgent message, via one of the beggar boys who infested the town, to Dimitri, warning him of what he had seen.
Dimitri pondered the information and sent the grateful urchin away with a small coin and a chunk of bread, then he said to his men, “We should follow these people and see where they go.”
His unease was increased when it was reported that the youths made their way to the very house that Khuzaymah and Maymun had made note of when they shadowed the follower of Siranos. Dimitri and his companions were now aware that even more unwelcome visitors had arrived in the city, and these youths were similar to those who had attacked the castle less than a week ago.
“I will need to send a pigeon in the morning to let them know there is something going on,” Dimitri told Rostam, who agreed. “I hope these men are not plotting another attempt on the castle.”
“What puzzles me is that they did not go to visit anyone in the palace,” Dimitri told the others, when they had gathered around the dinner table. “Not one of them has been near the place. That seems a little odd, considering that their predecessors were in and out of the palace not so long ago.”
“Perhaps they are here for another reason?” Maymun offered. He shrugged. “What did you say, Junayd? That they don’t like failure? If you ask me, they failed in a pretty spectacular manner the other day.”
“You mean they have come back to settle a score?” Junayd asked.
*****
Later that evening, one of Dimitri’s spies arrived breathless at the villa, demanding to see Dimitri at once. “Two of the men from the assassins' house went for a stroll not so long ago, Master,” he told Dimitri and the others. “They eventually arrived at the villa of the Ambassador.”
“Did they go inside and visit with him?” Rostam demanded.
“No, Lord. We watched while they walked around the place. I could swear that they were checking how to get inside. They did not go anywhere near the main entrance. They behaved just like, er, as I would, if I were about to get into a house and rob it.” He looked uncomfortable, but his words caused the others to laugh.
“Sooo, in your seedy past you were a thief?” Junayd asked with a grin.
“Dimitri caught me, or rather, Khuzaymah and Maymun did, when I tried to get into this house to rob it, and they nearly killed me; but Dimitri spared my life and now I work for him, Sir,” the thin, wiry man addressed Junayd respectfully.
“What do you think we should do, Dimitri?” Rostam deferred to the spy master.
“I have an uneasy feeling about this, Lord. But whatever they plan to do with that man is of little concern to us at this time. I believe we have a more pressing matter to deal with. Unless we get the old man out of prison, he is doomed. Zenos will see to that, and next to go will be the princess, which is even more serious because she is our main source of information in the palace. If they are killed we are blind! Zenos must be dealt with, Rostam,” he insisted. “I see no other choice.”
“Then we must waste no more time,” Rostam stated. “Do we know where the old man is held?”
The one person who can tell us is Siranos,” Dimitri said, “and I think he will be coming to the wine house tomorrow on one of his ‘errands’. We will make arrangements with him then. We must be prepared to act swiftly on what he tells us.”
___________
Chapter 28
Encounters of Every Kind
There is nothing wrong with wanting a woman,
And loving girls is hardly a sin—
But whether or not they are pretty or pure,
Arabia’s daughters is what you should look for…
—Todros Abulafia
The next evening, Rostam, Maymun and Khuzaymah went over the walls and into the gardens of the palace. There they waited for Siranos to find them, huddled in the bushes not far from the terrace that led into the palace. It had been decided that Junayd would go to the villa with some of the local men and try to intercept the assassins if they went prowling about. Junayd was concerned that, when they were done with whatever they were up to at the villa, they might head for the palace to help their companions. He intended to stop them.
The three young men observed a very nervous Siranos stroll into the darkness of the gardens, then stop and pretend to relieve himself. He nearly had a heart attack when they materialized just behind him.
“Oh my God!” he squeaked, as he wet himself in earnest. “You scared me to bits!”
“We certainly scared the piss out of you!” Khuzaymah commented unkindly.
“You are Siranos?” Rostam demanded in a harsh whisper.
“Yes, and you are the men from the Greek?” Siranos glared in the darkness at Khuzaymah.
“Take us to the prison; we fear there isn’t much time,” Rostam said.
Siranos obediently turned and led the way with care to the back of the kitchens, and after checking that there was no candlelight showing under the door, opened it very carefully.They slipped in behind him, and the door closed with a loud snap of its metal latch. The noise woke one of the scullery boys, who sleepily called out, “Who is there?”
The three intruders froze and disappeared into the deeper darkness of the kitchen, but Siranos called back in a soft voice, “It is all right, Gabby, it’s just me, getting some food. Go back to sleep.”
The boy needed no further reassurance or persuasion. Exhausted from his day’s labors, he fell back asleep before his head hit the sacking.
Siranos peered around. He could see nothing of the three mysterious men he had brought here, and a cold feeling went down his back. But then one of them re-emerged from the shadows, to be joined by the other two in utter silence. Forcing his fears down, he beckoned them to follow him. They were, after all, here to help the kind old man who had helped his mistress deflect the worst of the Emperor’s excesses and cruelties. Bolstering his confidence with these thoughts, he lead them along darkened corridors and down a flight
of steps to the dungeons. It looked like the pit of Hades, it was so dark, but Siranos knew the way and padded down the steps, heading for a glimmer of light that showed in the distance.
He led them silently along a cold, dark tunnel towards a lighted chamber, stopping before they came to the corner of the area where candles burned. The distinct sound of snoring came to their ears. “The two guards are there,” Siranos whispered to Rostam, who was right next to him. Rostam nodded and peered around the corner to note the two men lying on straw pallets in front of the cells. Both guards were fast asleep. Then he spotted a narrow archway at the other end of the arched chamber. He assumed it lead to another corridor. More importantly, he could see a ring of keys hanging on a large nail in the wall above one of the sleepers.
Rostam beckoned Siranos closer. “Which cell is he in?” he whispered.
Siranos pointed to the one at the end of a row of four. “That one.”
Rostam beckoned to the other two, pointed out the sleepers, and then the far end where Diocles was kept.
“I would like to take him out of his cell without killing them,” he whispered. “Can you make sure they don’t wake up at the wrong time?”
Both men nodded and slipped past. “You stay here; we will bring him out,” Rostam told Siranos.
Moving silently, he glided over to carefully lift the ring of keys and, holding them gingerly, went to the cell where Diocles was held. He could see what looked like a bundle of clothing on the floor, which emitted soft snores. Opening the door took a little time; he had to try several keys before the lock turned. All the while he expected the occupant of the cell to wake up and make enough noise to alert the guards, but no one stirred. Finally, the lock turned with a grating sound and he was able to push the iron-barred door open. It groaned on its hinges and he tensed, but it was still not enough to wake the sleepers.
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