The Lion of Cairo (15 page)

Assad had assumed the identity of a Sufi in the past—what Daoud ar-Rasul called “taking the wool,” after the coarse cloaks some members of the sect preferred—and he had done so in each instance armed only with a small knife, one easily secreted on his person, trusting he could do away with his victim and escape in the confusion. This time, he had to chuckle at the irony of it all: he was taking the wool in the name of peace, to save a man’s life rather than end it; if things went awry he would need something much larger than a dagger to make good his escape—something large enough to stand out. God, it seemed, was not without a raucous sense of humor.

The Assassin caught up his
salawar,
sloughing off the surge of emotions emanating from the blade; he ignored the deep hunger, the yearning, the hate it created in the pit of his stomach—no doubt echoes of the lives it had cut short. Steel rasped on leather as he bared its killing edge.

Assad had seen few weapons in his lifetime to match the
salawar’
s simplicity. Only three fingers at its widest, near the hilt, the weapon tapered gradually to a diamond point, its delicate appearance belied by the blade’s thick T-shaped cross section; this made it heavy and flexible, the perfect tool for piercing mail, flesh, and bone. Yet, it was not a subtle weapon, not one easily concealed on his person.
It needs to be hidden in plain sight,
he reckoned.
But how?

Wrapped in contemplation, Assad tossed the sheath on the bed. He rummaged through his meager belongings and came up with a whetstone, an old cloth, and a small vial of oil. With these, he crossed the room to a cushioned window seat where the light was good. In time, the methodical
slish
of oiled stone against Damascus steel competed with the sounds filtering in from beyond the tightly latticed window screens.

Assad’s perch overlooked an intersection of two narrow lanes, both deeply rutted and now clogged with foot traffic—porters swaying beneath the weight of baskets and bales; water carriers with tinkling brass cups, their goatskins bloated and sweating; braying donkeys laden with goods and toiling under the reed switches of their young masters. Groups of veiled women chatted as they walked, guarded by cousins and uncles armed with walking sticks, bronze-skinned toddlers astride their shoulders. Runners threaded through the tumult, coarse linen tunics flapping. Their bare feet kicked up puffs of dust that added to the miasma of the street—a haze of sweat and musk, incense and offal, rancid fat and wood smoke that seemed to breed flies as punishing as those Moses called down from the heavens.

Beneath him, Assad heard a ramshackle souk blossom into existence, a ragpickers’ bazaar where men in colorless galabiya
s
and filthy turbans squatted in the shade with their meager wares spread before them. Singsong voices rose above the clamor, hawkers touting scavenged pottery as new or poorly dyed cloth as the finest Damietta cotton; their endless palaver vied against the bleating of goats, the laughter of children, and the staccato paean of an itinerant coppersmith’s hammer.

This was the city he’d forgotten. The city of his youth, its mesmerizing flow of humanity broken up by islands of commerce; he cared nothing for its noisy, shifting, restive, particolored currents and, in return, it cared nothing for him. Who was he but one face among thousands? Across the breadth of the world, men might step aside and whisper his name with superstitious awe—
beware the Emir of the Knife!
—but to the city of his birth, Assad’s existence was of no more consequence than a single grain of sand beneath the mighty pyramids …

The Assassin shook his head. He’d forgotten Cairo for a reason … its air, its water, its monuments, all of it made him as mawkish and self-indulgent as an old widow. Assad scowled; stone scraped against steel as he turned his mind’s eye away from the maudlin and concentrated on the task at hand.
The Caliph
. How would he react upon learning that the Hidden Master of Alamut sought an alliance with him? Would the importance of it even register with him?
Still,
Assad thought,
I am sworn to defend him, to make him strong, and to sow fear in his enemies.
But what if he is his own worst enemy…?

A soft knock at the door broke off Assad’s introspection. Scowling, he paused in mid-strop and glanced up as Zaynab entered. She moved quietly, clad in a gown of shimmering blue brocade that whispered with each step, a bundle cradled in the crook of her arm. The sight of Assad awake and sitting in the window, his scarred face cast half in shadow, caught her by surprise.

“I thought to still find you abed,” she said.

“There is too much to do.” Rising, he drove the point of his
salawar
into the windowsill and left it there, quivering. “Have you brought the things I asked for?”

Zaynab handed him the bundle. “Black woolen cloak, a belt, sandals. All of it used, but serviceable. Also an old Bedouin prayer rug and a copy of the Qur’an I borrowed off one of my father’s more devout Berber guards.”

“Good. It seems Ibn al-Teymani shall live once again.”

“Who?”

“Ibn al-Teymani.” Assad glanced sidelong at the young woman. Something in the tilt of Zaynab’s head, in the way her delicate eyebrows arched in expectation, provoked desire in Assad. His rational side knew he was simply responding to her mystique—the Gazelle’s livelihood depended on her ability to set a man at ease, to enter into his confidence quickly and unobtrusively. But Assad’s irrational side, flattered by her attention, seized upon it and craved more. “You’ve never heard of Ibn al-Teymani?”

“Never,” she replied. “Was he a follower of the Hidden Master?”

“His messenger, more like.”

Zaynab sat at the edge of Assad’s bed, stiff-backed and proper. From under a loose shawl of pale muslin her hair glistened like polished mahogany; she watched him open the bundle and examine the items one by one. “And these things will make him live again? I sense the beginnings of what surely must be a profound story … or a profound ruse.”

Assad flashed a sharp smile. “Both. ‘Ibn al-Teymani’ is a ghost, a name I inherited from my mentor, Daoud ar-Rasul.” The Assassin let the sandals fall to the floor and then slipped them on. Woven hemp and old leather creaked; he flexed his toes, rocked back onto his heels and then up onto the balls of his feet. Nodding, he picked up the threadbare black cloak and shook it free. “Daoud was never a soldier of the fedayeen. When the Hidden Master dispatched him, say, to Baghdad or Damascus, it was because he wished to send an undeniable message. As our enemies tend to be of the devout sort, Daoud made an art of taking the wool in order to get near them. He took to impersonating an Arab holy man, whom he called Ibn al-Teymani, and would attend mosque day after day; afterward, he engaged those around him in conversation or debate—making sure the recipient of Alamut’s message was among them.”

“And this bit of subterfuge well and truly worked, with no other form of persuasion?” Zaynab held her head just so, her curiosity tempered with skepticism.

Assad snorted. “It well and truly worked for Daoud. When he would take the wool, he would become an Arab holy man to his very soul, a Bedouin son of the desert who was as pious as he was mad. For myself, I trust that whomever I’m speaking with understands his life hinges on my good will. I remember a time in Basra…”

Basra. After a decade, Assad recalled only fragments of it—narrow lanes of whitewashed mudbrick that reflected the too-hot sun; palm trees rustling in the constant breeze off the Persian Gulf; he recalled sitting in the bazaar, under a striped awning, where he sipped icy
sharabs
with the local cleric while the man’s green-furred monkey bedeviled his neighbor’s cats.

He recalled, too, the cleric’s mosque: a small structure, rustic, built of gypsum-plastered brick and sandstone tiles. Despite its size, however, the cleric roared and thundered as vociferously as if he preached from the great pulpits of Baghdad. In almost every sermon he made a point of reviling and refuting the “murderous fanatics of Alamut.” It was only a matter of time before his voice reached the ears of the Hidden Master. Rather than kill him, which would perhaps lend credence to the cleric’s words, the Lord of Alamut sent Assad, posing as Ibn al-Teymani, to reason with him.

After days of getting to know the man, of learning his peculiarities and his passions, Assad came to his home one night with an irrefutable offer. Catching the cleric unawares, he hurled him to the ground and put a heel to his throat. He drew a knife with one hand and a bag of gold with the other. “A martyr or a man of means,” Assad spat. “Choose now!”

Zaynab’s hazel eyes widened. “Which did he choose?”

“The gold, of course. The man was no fool.” Assad chuckled. “Some time later, his people asked him why the sudden change of heart, why had he softened his stance against the devils of Alamut; I’m told the cleric replied—and, mind you, without the slightest pause—that though our arguments were brief, they had great weight.”

The sound of Zaynab’s laughter caught Assad off guard; it had a bright quality, like chimes tinkling on a cool breeze. He almost smiled; instead, he turned away, a frown creasing his brow. What was it that round-faced tailor had said?
Beware, she is enchanting
. The man had not lied …

Lapsing into silence, Zaynab stood and walked to the window, drawn by the gleam of watered steel. “Is it true what men say about you? That you journeyed to the Roof of the World and destroyed a prince of the djinn over this knife?”

“Is that what men say?” The Assassin picked the empty sheath up off the bed and joined her by the window. He stood on one side, Zaynab on the other; between them, his
salawar
protruded from the sill, the silver wire in its hilt sparkling.

Zaynab raised her shoulders in a half-apologetic shrug. “It is, but surely it must be an exaggeration.”

“No, there is a kernel of truth to it, but just a kernel. I did journey to the Roof of the World, into the peaks and passes of the high Afghan Mountains, but it was no djinn I fought. He was a chieftain of the Afridis, a madman who had waylaid emissaries of Alamut on their return from Cathay the year before. I was the fedayee sent to avenge them.”

She shuddered as a chill passed through her. “Alone?”

Assad leaned against the window frame, arms folded across his chest. “Some tasks are best suited to a single man. I was a soldier before Daoud recruited me into
al-Hashishiyya,
but rather than sacrifice myself to kill a single man I instead took a different path. I killed them one by one, always leaving the bodies where others of the tribe could find them. Finally, when he had no more warriors left to sacrifice, the chief came for me. Armed with this. As you can see”—he tapped the scar bisecting the left side of his face with the tip of the leather-bound sheath—“I did not escape unscathed.”

“And thus the Emir of the Knife was born,” she said. He watched as she extended her hand toward the leering pommel; he made no move to stop her as her fingers brushed the cool ivory, as her flesh made contact. The response was immediate. Zaynab gasped and recoiled, snatching her hand back as though the hilt were white-hot. She stared at Assad with terror in her eyes. “Merciful Allah! What kind of deviltry…?”

“Whoever forged it bound an insatiable hate into the steel.” Assad tugged it free, oblivious to the galvanizing rush of emotion, and held it up before his eyes to study the pattern of light and dark whorls running through the blade. “It wants revenge.”

“Revenge against whom?”

“Only Allah can say for sure. Not even the Afghans recall for what reason their ancestors created it, only that it’s a relic of the Time of Ignorance. The Afridis found it in the safekeeping of a prince of Kabul when they sacked that city. Their chief took the blade back into the high mountains and made it his own, an heirloom of power. But his sons, and the sons of his sons, were weak-willed and indolent. Whatever sorcery the ancients imprisoned in the steel had no trouble sowing madness among them. It needs a stern master, I’ve found.”

“But how can you stand to touch it? It’s unclean!”

A grim smile curled Assad’s lips. Carefully, he slid the blade home into its sheath. “It brings me good fortune.”

The Assassin turned away from the window as Abu’l-Qasim shouldered through the door, gold glittering on his fingers, and his robes of cream and white rustling. Farouk followed in his wake, looking as though something had scared him from his bed. Assad grinned at the Persian. “I see you’ve met our new host.”

“Yes, yes,” Farouk snapped. “The mighty King of Thieves!
Bismillah!
Now that we are allies, he owes me for a shipment of incense his swine stole from me last year!”

“That was yours?” Abu’l-Qasim smiled broadly. “You move a fine product, my friend. Perhaps we should speak of a joint business venture. Your wares, my guards … we split the profits equally. What say you?”

“And give you the opportunity to rob me twice?”

Abu’l-Qasim roared with laughter. “By God! Persians are the shrewdest of men! This one saw right through me!” He clapped a hand on Farouk’s shoulder, gave him a good-natured shake. “I like you, Persian. Mayhap I’ll even pay you what you’re owed.”

“Allah’s blessings upon you, O generous King of Thieves.”

“Indeed.” Abu’l-Qasim glanced sidelong at his daughter. Zaynab remained by the window, her hand clasped to her breast as though it still pained her. Tension crinkled the corners of her eyes; her gaze drifted back to the weapon clutched in Assad’s fist. “Is aught amiss?”

His question drew from her a terse rebuff. “No. The morning grows late. We should be about our business.”

“And what is our business, eh?” Abu’l-Qasim turned to Assad. The Assassin, however, appeared lost in thought. He stared at his
salawar,
weighing it in the palms of his hands, eyes slitted in concentration. “Assad. What goes?”

He glanced up. “You have a network of spies. Send them out to hunt down the dog who escaped me last night.”