The Lion of Cairo (26 page)

The Persian blinked sweat from his eyes.
“Allahu akbar!”
he panted.

Badr al-Mulahid chose that moment, that instant of minor distraction, to drive home his advantage. A pantherish leap carried him inside Farouk’s guard and into a deadly embrace; before the Persian had a chance to react, before he could block or shift ground or bring his own dagger into play, the Heretic’s Frankish dirk slammed into his chest, left of center.

The Persian’s world exploded in white-hot agony. He gasped, and as he stood at the precipice, awaiting the inevitable fall into darkness, the last thing Farouk of Palmyra heard was the silky whisper of his killer: “Your god is not great, brother, but mine are.”

23

South of the Bayn al-Qasrayn, the Qasaba branched off into individual markets, souks, each under their own roofs and canopies: perfume and spices, slaves and silk; smiths sweated over their forges, those of copper hammered utensils or cast finials; those of gold and silver collaborated with jewelers to create works of art while their iron-mongering brethren forged the swords that would protect them. Adding to the roaring din, the men who made sheaths, boots, and books all haggled with tanners’ agents over the price of the finest calfskin. Myriad odors clashed in the smoke-heavy air—incense, urine, oil, pepper, and sweat—creating a stinging haze that made it impossible to draw a deep breath.

At a stall outside the spice market, where sunlight slashed through an awning of scarlet linen, Assad wolfed greasy chunks of mutton off a wooden skewer, barely tasting the stringy meat as he washed it down with draughts of too-sweet
khamr.
Abu’l-Qasim stood a short way off, his back to Assad as he argued with a
muhtasib,
one of the market chiefs responsible for enforcing public decency in the souks. From what little he overheard, Assad reckoned some of the King of Thieves’ followers had been a bit too brazen in the pursuit of their profession. The
muhtasib,
an overbearing man in a silk kaftan and bulbous turban, demanded an end to it, lest his constituents force him to involve the Ahdath in the matter.

Assad tossed the empty skewer down and wiped grease from his chin with the back of his hand; nodding his thanks to the merchant, he walked over to stand beside Abu’l-Qasim. The
muhtasib
eyed him as one would a feral dog.

“You understand my dilemma, then?” the man said, his gaze shifting back to the King of Thieves.

Abu’l-Qasim leaned closer. “Have I not said I would take care of it personally? Do you hold my word in such low esteem, friend?”

The
muhtasib
grumbled. “No, but neither do I trust the word of those curs in your employ!”

“Leave them to me, as Allah is my witness. They will bedevil you no more.”

Finally, with a curt nod, the market chief salaamed and vanished into the heart of his tiny demesne. Abu’l-Qasim shook his head.

“Men like that make honest commerce seem unclean.”

Assad hooked a thumb in his sash; he looked sidelong at Abu’l-Qasim. “So, these merchants give a portion of what they earn to the urban militia so their shops and stalls will be protected. But you also tithe a portion of your earnings to the militia so they will turn a blind eye to your business of thievery. Thus, the officers who command the militia are well compensated for doing nothing
for
the merchants or
against
you?”

“Aye.”

Assad grunted. “And men call you the King of Thieves? The title should go to whoever thought up this scheme.”

“This arrangement goes back a generation and more. It benefits us all, in the end: the militia will have coin in their purses, provided their officers are generous; the merchants recoup their losses by selling their wares at inflated prices to the militia; and my thieves go about their business unmolested.”

“Perhaps,” Assad said, stroking his jaw. Ahead, he caught a glimpse of a familiar face weaving through the crowd. The Assassin gestured. “Isn’t that your man Musa?”

Abu’l-Qasim followed Assad’s gaze, his brows knitting in concern. “Merciful Allah! Can the dolt not follow simple orders? I told him not to stray too far from Zaynab’s side. He had best be bringing me news of staggering importance.”

Assad, though, made no reply. Still more than a dozen yards away, he studied the beggar’s approach—taking note of his speed and lack of concern for keeping a low profile. Impatient, he skirted a knot of folk who had stopped to watch a mountebank’s capering monkey and nearly tripped over a darting child. He saw Musa hurl a curse after the boy. Assad, from long-ingrained habit, looked past him and searched the beggar’s back trail. Suddenly: “Fool!” the Assassin hissed, turning so Musa could not see his features. “He’s being followed!”

“Followed? Impossible! He—”

“Over his right shoulder. Three men twenty paces behind, moving too quickly to be browsing merchants’ wares. Every few steps, the one in the lead looks ahead to make sure Musa hasn’t stopped or veered off. He’s subtle, but there’s no doubting it. They’re shadowing him.”

“
Y’Allah!
What do you wish to do? Avoid him? Let them pass by?”

Assad’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I will take care of them. Greet Musa as you would normally and draw him off, down a quiet street and into an alley. They will no doubt follow. Once you’re in the alley, duck out of sight however you may and do not tarry about—make straight for your caravanserai. I will join you there once I’ve dealt with them. Understood?”

Abu’l-Qasim nodded. Like a stranger, Assad stepped around him and walked away, back toward the bustling spice market. There, amid heaps of saffron, baskets of cloves and seeds, and bundles of paper-thin cinnamon bark, he felt sure he could observe the men following Musa with little chance of detection.

Musa caught sight of Abu’l-Qasim and rushed to him, more animated than Assad had yet seen him. The man waved his hands about as he spoke to the King of Thieves, who reined him in with an embrace; whatever passed between them was lost to the din of the crowd. Musa’s three shadows stopped, as well—ostensibly to watch the mountebank’s monkey dance to the music of a reed flute. All three were Arabs: dark skinned, bearded, and so nondescript in dress and manner that their lack of individuality raised suspicions in the back of Assad’s mind.
Like soldiers trying to be anything but.
One had an infected eye, which was all that set him apart from the other two.

Now, Abu’l-Qasim turned and walked arm in arm with Musa, back toward the Bayn al-Qasrayn, two old friends locked in earnest conversation. Strolling past the entrance to the spice market, the pair turned left off the Qasaba. Their shadows followed with predictable diligence.

After a moment, so too did Assad.

24

Thin gray light filtered into the heart of the old hammam, illuminating basins of age-worn marble and heaps of shattered terra-cotta—ruined pipes and vessels; a generation of accumulated rubbish. The place must have been grand in its heyday, when its fixtures were of silver and gold and cut crystal, but that day had long passed. Now, it bore the aspect of a tomb.

Zaynab’s slippered feet pattered on cracked faience tiles. She and Yasmina kept to the pools of shadow, their eyes ever cast behind them, seeking signs of pursuit as they made for the brightest source of natural light: a fissure in the wall of the bath.

“Where does it lead?” Yasmina hissed.

“Out. To the street.” This Zaynab knew well. She had played in these warrens as a child, spying on her brother Qasim as he learned their father’s trade, and she had watched him come and go by way of this fissure—sometimes empty-handed, other times loaded down with spoils, for he was truly the Prince of Thieves. None of her father’s followers had used the cleft in years, though, not since Qasim’s death in a raid on a Nile barge; now, a grate of thick bronze bars secured with chains and an iron lock kept interlopers at bay. Beyond, weeds grew in the joints of sandstone steps leading to the surface. To safety.

Yasmina reached the grate first. She dropped to her knees and wriggled between the bars, struggling to force her lean hips past the pitted bronze. For a moment she hung suspended, half in and half out, until her flailing feet found purchase; then, cursing at the patches of abraded skin left behind, she kicked free. Yasmina turned to give Zaynab a helping hand. “Hurry,” she hissed.

But the look on the Gazelle’s face as she gauged the span between the bars stole the breath from Yasmina’s lungs. “I cannot squeeze through this,” Zaynab said.

“You must try, mistress! Let me help you!”

Zaynab shook her head. “No, you cannot draw a camel through the eye of a needle. Go ahead. I will find another way out.”

“I can’t leave you!”

“You must, Yasmina. I’ll be fine, I promise you. Get back to the palace and bid Parysatis meet me tonight, at the Inn of the Three Apples. You know it?” The girl nodded. “Good. The White Slaves of the River are her best hope for protecting the Caliph. With her knowledge of the palace’s secret ways and their fighters, the vizier cannot stand against them for long. Tell her this! Make her understand she must come to the inn! She must speak to the Circassian amir, Massoud!”

“She will, mistress. I will make sure of it. What about you? What will you do about
him
?”

She made a rude noise, her bravado more forced than real. “I can elude the Frank for hours down here. Long enough for more soldiers to arrive and send him on his way to hell.”

“Keep this, just in case.” Yasmina passed her knife through the bars.

Zaynab received the blade with a smile of thanks; she took the young Egyptian’s hand and kissed it. “Remember all I’ve taught you!” she said, her voice brimming with ferocious urgency. “Remember all you’ve seen! I will meet you tonight, if it is Allah’s will, but if I cannot make it to the inn then you must speak for me! Do you understand?”

Yasmina nodded, resting her forehead against the bars; she felt Zaynab squeeze her hand in reassurance before letting it loose.

“Good. Now you must go. Hurry, dear Yasmina!”

The girl’s composure slipped; her lips trembled, and she blinked back tears. “Mistress, I—”

“No!” Zaynab replied, swallowing her own anguish. “No grim thoughts. Go! I will find a way, I promise you!” Yasmina nodded again, wiping away her tears; her face became once more a mask of iron. Slowly, she backed away. “Go! Hurry!” And, with a final nod, the young Egyptian vanished up the stairs. For an instant, sunlight etched her shadow in the stone and then that, too, was gone.

Zaynab stood there a moment longer before turning her back on the barred cleft, her eyes hardening to cold points. She had lied to Yasmina. There was no place to hide down here, no bolt-holes where her enemy could not find her. Farouk—poor Farouk!—must have fallen defending them from that cursed madman, that renegade Assassin. That no soldiers had come looking for her yet meant the other two would-be beggars must have disposed of their escort without raising an alarm. Zaynab al-Ghazala was alone; she had no way out and little hope of rescue.

Even still, the Gazelle was not without her wiles.

Swiftly, she retraced her steps a short distance and ducked beneath a crumbling brick archway. The chamber she entered had once been a fountain room, its walls of turquoise tile set with faded calligraphic plaques, its marble floor cracked and littered with detritus. Ribbons of dusty light filtered from sculptured perforations in the roof. Sound, too, drifted in from the streets above—faint voices, ghostly laughter.

Zaynab nodded.
Not perfect, but it would do.
If she could distract him, she reckoned on having one chance to strike.
If
she could distract him …

She moved to the far wall, to the fountain’s edge; with her free hand, she loosened her robes and drew open her undergarments, revealing the curve of her breasts and a long expanse of skin above her navel. Stripping off her scarf, Zaynab leaned back then, her shoulders against the wall, her face framed by tousled chestnut hair. She held her knife low against her thigh, out of sight. And she waited.

Exhaling, Zaynab closed her eyes and prayed for Yasmina, prayed that Allah might grant her peace and long life; so, too, did she pray for her father and her long-dead brother, for loyal Musa and Farouk, and even for the grim Emir of the Knife. For if she failed, it was on his shoulders that she placed the onus of her vengeance.

The rustle of cloth signaled an end to her brief vigil. She opened her eyes, her throat tightening. The Heretic stood in the archway, half cloaked in shadow, one hand—his knife hand—hidden from view. Pale eyes shimmered in the gloom.

“Where’s the girl?”

“I sent her to rouse the guard,” Zaynab replied, feeling his gaze drawn to the glimpses of flesh.

“Pity,” the Heretic said. “You’ve led us on a fine chase. I should make you pay for that, but my mercy outweighs my frustration. Your death will be swift.” He made to step closer but paused, his brow furrowing.

It was her reaction that startled him. The Gazelle did not dissolve into tears, nor did she beg for her life or try to flee. Instead, with a mysterious smile, she straightened and sketched a languorous curtsy; the gesture revealed even more skin.

“I thank you for your compassion, but would it not be infinitely crueler to leave me alive? Witness: by killing al-Hajj and leaving me alive you will have destroyed any trust Alamut had in me—how could they know it was not I who betrayed him? I will be an outcast. Doubly so if, with a well-placed word, you let slip my role as a spy for
al-Hashishiyya
. I will be hounded from Cairo, most likely to end my days as a two-copper whore in the stews of Alexandria. If that be my fate, then death becomes a welcome respite.” Zaynab swayed closer, stopping at arm’s length from the Heretic; she tilted her head to one side and swept her hair back to expose the graceful curve of her neck. She watched him from the corner of her eye. “But you are an emir of Massaif and I trust you will do what’s best.”

The Heretic closed the gap between them. To her credit, Zaynab did not flinch when, with his free hand, he ran his fingers from her earlobe to her collarbone, stroking her silky skin as one caresses a lover. “Your argument has some merit,” he murmured. “But if I allow you to live, how long before you run back to the Emir of the Knife? How long before you come up with a plan to ingratiate yourself to your dog-shit Hidden Master? No, I would trust you no more than you trust me.”