Nexus Point (Meridian Series) (13 page)

       He lowered his head with the shame of his
circumstance. Yet, Allah had placed this burden upon him, and he could not set
it aside without just resolution. Could this be my great trial, he wondered as
he stroked the long grey-white beard that fell upon his breast?  He was not yet
old, but he grew his beard long as the sign of his office—Kadi, the judge. It
was his to preside over discernment, and make decree. A Walker was not to be
dealt with lightly. He had conferred with the Sami long, throughout the night,
and with some distress. The Sami was driven by his fear and hatred of the
infidels. It was his to receive the initiates, to prepare the warriors of the
faithful—the
Fedayeen
. His was the charge of the sharpened sword and the
vial of poison. Therefore it was not surprising that death was on his lips from
the very first when they met to consider the fate of this man.

       “You say he is a Walker?’ the Sami’s face
was still mirrored in the Kadi’s recollection, the ice of his eyes flaring like
blue fire. “But he does not first walk in the manner of the rightly guided!”

       “Yes, he is an infidel,” the Kadi had
returned, “By his own admission. Jabr Ali S’ad is very skillful. He has
loosened the man’s tongue. Still, we are not the only ones who walk the unseen
paths.”

       “Then he is of the Order, I tell you. All
the more reason to slay the man now, before he rests here in harmony. Why is he
pampered? Why is he sent fine linen, and the hospitality of our table? No doubt
he is an enemy, perhaps even a Templar; I warn you here and now! He should be
chained in cold iron, and collared with the Lightstone. You know this. Why must
I argue?”

       “A Templar? I do not think so. He certainly
did not shun the attention that was lavished upon him by the maids. No Templar
will treat with women. Besides, his coming was written!” The Kadi remembered
how he had extended the rolled scroll so the light from the lamp would
illuminate the thinly traced script for the eyes of the Sami. “This was late
received from Egypt. You have not seen it, and so how can you know the torment
of my heart in this?”

       The Sami eyed the parchment with disdain.
“Written? How can the coming of a heathen be written? Do you inscribe such when
you throw the scraps from your table to the dogs beyond the castle gate? How,
then, would this be written in the tomb of the ancients? I tell you he is not
the messenger you were told to expect. He bore no scroll, and his effects were
strange to behold. He should be tortured until he speaks his charge. Perhaps he
killed the one you waited for, and came here in his place. Ask him, and if he
remains silent then his life should be forfeit.”

       “That is not for me to judge,” the Kadi
reminded his adversary. “Mine is for discernment here and now. Only the Sheikh
may order the death of a Walker. You may read the scroll yourself, if you wish.
You are initiated. You are rightly guided. Let your eyes read and see that I
speak the truth in this. His coming was written. He arrived on the very day we
were told to look for him. Do you still grasp the hilt of your dagger as the
only greeting we can then make with this man? Perhaps it was necessary for him
to assume this guise as a measure of protection. Do you not train the
Fedayeen
to walk among our enemies, eating as they do, and assuming their manner and
speech? So do they become invisible in the enemy’s own tent, and our work is
accomplished.”

       The Sami folded his arms, unwilling to touch
the scroll, let alone read it; resolved in his anger and resentment that the
work of his servants, the
Fedayeen
, should not be his to fully command.
“Then why would he hide his purpose now that he has awakened?”

       “I do not know, and unless I have word from
Egypt or the Sheikh comes, I must not judge harshly.”

       “Egypt!” The Sami spat out the word, clearly
displeased. “It is always the coming of the scroll that you heed and obey, yet
your eyes are blinded to what is clearly before you. This man is a wolf! The
infidels are a blight upon our sacred cities. They infest the rich valleys of
Palestine like locusts and vermin, and you wait dutifully and receive the
scrawl of unseen hands in Egypt. And another wolf is at large again, Arnot is
on the prowl. Have you not heard?” The Sami took relish and strength from the
uncertainty that arose in the Kadi’s eyes when he spoke of Arnot, the Wolf of
Kerak.

       “Yes,” he pressed on, “he has escaped the
justice ordained for him, and somehow returned to Jerusalem unharmed! Twice now
we have tried to kill the man, yet he escapes the knife as though charmed.
Perhaps he, too, is a Walker—sent here by the Order to plague us.”

       “You tempt fate,” the Kadi warned. “You may
not have been so bold if the Sheikh had been here.”

       “Oh? You think the Sheikh would not approve?
You do not know all or decide every measure in the struggle against our
enemies. It is said that only the hand that wields the sword may hold the
scepter. Sometimes strong measures are required, not the soft hand. And I tell
you that this stranger in the chamber of greeting is another wolf, here in our
own fold. He should be tortured, or slain, but you will not accede. You send
the maids to him instead.”

       “Yes, I do
not
accede. The Sheikh is
not here to rule on the matter and we swore that nothing of consequence should
be done unless we are both of equal mind. Act without sanction, and the weave
of events will come undone. The harmony will fail, and we will have only the
song of bereavement for solace. Will you answer those who mourn when that
happens?”

       The Sami looked away, annoyed and headstrong
to the last. “You are not the only one who receives instruction here.”

       The Kadi remembered how he met the Sami’s
gaze just then, and how they struggled with one another, each seeking to impose
his will on the other. What did he mean by that? Was he, too, receiving
guidance from without—from Egypt, from the wandering Sheikh, from Alamut?

       “No matter,” he said at last, unwilling to
try and charm that snake just now. The matter before him was burden enough. He
had to assure himself that the Sami would not act rashly. “Your intentions and
motives I have already discerned. You have been told not to interfere!” He had
pointed a hard finger at the Sami when he spoke, and even now he regretted his
manners, in spite of the anger he still felt heating the back of his neck. 
“And now you advise me to kill a man I have been told to greet with warmth and
welcome. He is a Walker. His coming was written.”

       “He is  an enemy, I tell you—or he is in the
pay of the infidels” The Sami was adamant. “You allow him to eat from our table
like an honored guest. What might he be planning, even now, while we quibble
here?”

       “He is watched.”

       “Watched? By Whom? The harlot’s maid?”

       “I have appointed
Mukasir
in this
matter, as I have said. He is watched by one who speaks the Saxon tongue—Jabr
Ali S’ad.”

       “Yes, I have heard that he called out in his
fever—with words of the heathen tongue upon his lips. He condemns himself with
his own speech!”

       “You judge too quickly. Could it be that you
are blinded by your own hatred and fear?”

       “Speak for yourself and leave the verdict of
my heart in peace.”

       “I have done so, yet you persist in straying
from the appointed path.
I am Amir al Hakeem: Kadi General of Massiaf!”
The Kadi was not pleased that he had to remind the Sami of that fact yet again.
He had been forced to speak his name and title more than once in the last year.
The Sami remained unwilling to heed the demands made of him, and it was very
troublesome. Yet, in spite of his office, the Kadi knew in his heart that they
were equals. Only one other could pass binding judgment on either man—the
nameless one, the Sheikh.

       “As you wish,” he said with reluctance. “The
Sheikh will decide what we can not agree upon here. I have pigeons at the
ready, and they will take wing for the Sea of Ravens and Alamut.” He waited on
the Sami now, testing his resolve.

       “I have sent as well to Alamut.” The Sami
folded his arms. In truth, neither wished to tempt the judgment of the Sheikh,
for it might be harsh, and unexpectedly cruel for them both.

       As if realizing that their argument would
lead them nowhere, the two men lapsed into silence while the Kadi poured spiced
tea into a porcelain cup and passed it to the dour figure at his side. The Sami
looked at the cup, then reached out to receive it. “I will drink with you again
on this.” He had spoken the words with some reluctance. The Kadi watched how he
raised the cup to his lips and drained it in one quick swallow, and seemingly
with little satisfaction. While three cups were customary, he took only one and
stood up abruptly.

       “Yes,” he whispered, “you are Kadi General of
Castle Massiaf, and I am the Sami here. So I will drink your tea on this, but
one cup only. And you should remember the day you sat naked in my presence and
drank another cup—do you recall it?” The Sami was referring to the initiation
rite that had first brought the Kadi into the clan, many years ago. It was an
all too obvious insult, and the Sami made it plain that he considered himself
the elder, and therefore the wiser in all things, in spite of the title that
had been conferred on the Kadi. “Do what you wish with this man, then. But
remember that I will be watching from the shadows, even as I was watching you
that day when you sat with me and drank your first cup. And remember also what
was spoken to you on that morning—was it so long ago that you have forgotten?”
He looked at the scroll when he spoke. “Nothing is written,” he whispered. “And
everything is permitted.”

       The Kadi heaved a disconsolate sigh, as if
to shrug off the burden the meeting with the Sami had placed upon his shoulders.
Now he must speak with the stranger, and the time of judgment was at hand. His
able servant of the watch, Jabr Ali Sa’d, had reported that the visitor was
well, and ready to pass the discernment of his eye. Jabr was
Mukasir
,
the breaker, charged to greet the unbeliever and begin the long process that
would break his attachment to heathen ways. He had made a warm greeting with
the man, and opened his voice. Yet there was still so much left to discern and
time was short.

       He stood up now, and his servants, sensing
his movement from the adjoining room, rushed at once to his side to see to his
needs. He told them to prepare the conference room, and set out fine pillows,
food and drink. “And send to Jabr Ali S’ad,” he said. “Tell him we will see our
guest in an hour’s time.”

11

Paul sat in the quiet
warmth of  his
bed chamber, surrounded by silken pillows and soft linen. Until moments ago,
the sensuous maid, Samirah, had been curled at his side, her warm body pressed
close to him while he slept. There was certainly something to be said of Arab
hospitality, he thought, yet he wondered at the treatment that was lavished
upon him. This did not seem like the austere and oppressive manner he had been
told to expect on his trip to Jordan.

       He knew that Westerners,
particularly Americans, were not liked in the Middle East these days. It was
dangerous to travel there after the long simmering unrest that grew from the US
invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. Yet, here he was, smothered with
scented oil, dressed in fine Arabic robes, plied with sweet wines, food,
wonderful coffee and, to his great surprise and delight,  visited by this quiet
beauty each night! It was the fifth day since he had fallen into the sinkhole,
and the long hours of pampered rest had restored him.

       God only knows what happened to
Nordhausen, he mused, but if he knew about this hidden warren in the desert he
would probably have jumped in himself. Where was he?

       Paul threaded through the vague
recollections of his coming to this place—the fall, the water, the struggle to
save himself in the wild underground stream. He came up against a blank, and
his memories became tattered and disjointed, until they coalesced again in the
sensation of soft warm hands on his body, and the smell of incense and spiced
coffee.

       His host, Jabr Ali S’ad, had
been cautious at first, but grew more open and genuinely warm as they spoke
together. In his conversations with Jabr, Paul had come to the conclusion that
he was no longer in a subterranean vault beneath Wadi Rumm. Yes, he could still
hear the constant flowing of water, but Jabr’s references to  rooms and
battlements and walls and gates led him to believe that he had been rescued
from the stream and then taken off, unconscious, to some nearby outpost. Could
he be in Akaba? Wherever he was, he had not seen daylight once in all the time
he was awake. Apparently he was still being kept in a hidden room, on the
lower, underground level of some greater complex. Sounds came to him in the
night—strange ghostly horn calls, the whispered passing of feet on smooth
stone, sonorous chants that echoed in the halls above and an occasional hard
grate of metal on rock, resounding sharply in the distance.

       It occurred to him that he may
have been taken hostage by some rogue group that used Wadi Rumm as a base of
operations. Perhaps the underground stream he fell into had carried him some
ways to the shore of their hidden outpost. It was all he could determine for
the moment. Still, there were other things that seemed oddly out of place here.
If he was hostage, why was he being treated like a prince? His expectation
would be more of blindfolds and harsh treatment; rough interrogation and abuse.
Yet, in spite of the fact that he
did
feel that Jabr was quietly trying
to extract information from him, he was coddled and comforted by his captors,
if they could be called such. It did not make sense.