The Lion of Cairo (33 page)

Stroke followed stroke; in the close confines of the sitting room, the Templar seemed less a swordsman than a blacksmith, hammering out a staccato rhythm on the iron anvil of Assad’s guard. The heavy Frankish broadsword should have snapped the Assassin’s Afghan blade at the hilt. Yet, the
salawar
’s ancient Damascus steel showed barely a notch while the broadsword was fast losing its edges, its cutting surfaces growing ragged from constant punishment.

The timbre of the fight changed, suddenly. The thunderous crash of steel faded; now, the Templar’s blade only split empty air as Assad ducked and sidestepped, keeping his body in motion—and nullifying the Templar’s twin advantages of strength and reach through sheer predatory quickness. Assad feinted, lunged, and forced his Frankish enemy back to the courtyard door.

“By God,” the Templar panted, “you’re no holy man!” His cowl fell back, revealing a pockmarked visage and black hair heavy with sweat; blood dripped from his lacerated cheek to redden the breast of his surcoat. His gaze flicked to the young Caliph, on his knees and scrabbling through the riot of cushions in search of a weapon. Two long strides separated them.

Assad made no reply; he saw the Frank’s muscles tense, saw desperation gleaming in his eyes. The man sought an opening to make his move—a moment of distraction, anything. Assad obliged him. He shifted his feet, feigning to slip on a patch of greasy tile …

And with a roar like a wounded tiger, Godfrey de Vézelay, knight of the Holy Order of the Temple, sprang for the Caliph; he flung his left arm wide, intent on sweeping his seemingly off-balance foe aside. But even as he surged forward, unable to check his momentum, the Emir of the Knife was in motion. Assad ducked that wide-flung arm and drove his
salawar
into the Templar’s chest, just forward of his armpit. The Frank grunted as rich red gore spurted down the blade and over the Assassin’s hand.

“For Ascalon!” Assad hissed, his teeth clenching against the surge of raw, incandescent hate that flowed into his body.

Godfrey staggered and swayed. His sword clattered from nerveless fingers; a heartbeat later, he fell to his knees amid the trampled ruins of the Caliph’s dinner. The Templar rolled his eyes heavenward, his face taking on a deathly pallor. “God,” he pleaded, bubbles of blood breaking on his thin lips. “God…”

With a contemptuous shove, Assad wrenched his blade free. The Assassin staggered; panting, he knelt and wiped his
salawar
clean on the fallen Templar’s surcoat. A moment later he glanced up to see the Caliph, on his feet now and inching toward him.

Wide-eyed, Rashid al-Hasan’s gaze fixed on the Frankish corpse. “Merciful Allah,” he muttered, swallowing thickly. “A … a Templar … in Cairo? In my palace?”

“One of the two who arrived yesterday. Emissaries of Amalric of Jerusalem.”

The young man wiped his brow. “I am in your debt, Ibn al-Teymani of the Hejaz—if that is truly your name.”

Assad straightened. “My enemies know me as the Emir of the Knife, my lord.” The Caliph started, evidently well aware of the reputation associated with that moniker. “But you may call me Assad, if it pleases you.”

“What now … Assad?”

The Assassin padded to the sitting room’s arched doorway and glanced down the long corridor, back toward the antechamber. They were alone and ominously so—thus far, the clamor of violence had drawn no one’s attention, not the eunuchs or the chamberlains, not the stewards or even the guards. “If that old snake Mustapha heard the clap of your hand earlier, how is it he did not hear the racket this infidel made?”

“Shall I summon him?”

“No,” Assad replied, turning. His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “It must be a part of the vizier’s game. How long they plan to ignore sounds of a struggle I cannot say, but I imagine it won’t be much longer. We need to find a safe place for you, my lord. Somewhere beyond Jalal’s reach.”

Rashid al-Hasan exhaled. “Does such a place even exist?”

“Outside these walls,” Assad said, softly yet in earnest, “men of every stripe revere you as Caliph, my lord. They praise you as the Prince of the Faithful, and consider your voice to be the voice of the Prophet. If I can get you out from under the vizier’s thumb, then I have little doubt the multitudes of Cairo will protect you from harm—at least long enough to allow me to finish my sworn task. And after I’ve disposed of Jalal and his faction, his ministers and his sycophants, these selfsame multitudes will make short work of any who hasn’t sworn allegiance to you. First, though, we must quit the palace.” Assad stepped into the courtyard, pausing to give his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness. The sickle moon lent the night a faint sheen of silver. “Keep an eye on that corridor, my lord.”

“Wait,” the Caliph called after him. “There’s no way out through there. The only other door leads to my bedchamber.”

“That may be, but the Nazarene got in somehow and I doubt he planned to linger once the deed was done. Nor can I see a dozen Jandariyah, plus assorted menials, being trusted to keep the truth of your murder a secret. No, my lord, his escape is somewhere in this courtyard. Bide a moment.”

Bent nearly double, Assad loped along the perimeter of the wall, looking for some sign of where the Templar had entered the courtyard. He spotted the latticed entrance to the Caliph’s bedchamber, faintly illuminated by a lamp burning within, and a tinkling fountain of cold marble. The wall itself was blank save for a single scalloped niche, like the mihrab of a mosque. He slowed to a walk as he came abreast of this niche. Assad discerned no ropes. Perhaps the Templar planned to climb one of the potted poplars? But, no. They were flimsy and decorative, and none of them reached the level of the wall’s summit.
How, then? How
—

“Is it done?”

Assad whirled, stifling a curse. Beside him, stone grated on stone as the interior of the niche, partially blocked by one of the ornamental trees, swung inward. He took a step back, inverting his
salawar
so that it ran unseen along his forearm.

“Is it done?” The speaker repeated the question, harsher this time. He was expecting the Templar; similar in height and breadth, cast in silhouette by the distant lamp, Assad and the dead Nazarene could have been one and the same.

“Aye.” Assad mimicked as best he could the Templar’s guttural voice. “Done.”

“Praise be to Allah!” To the Assassin’s surprise, a shaven-headed eunuch clad in the robes of a high chamberlain stepped out and gestured impatiently at him. “Come, we must get you back to your chambers ere anyone grows suspicious. Make haste, lord Kni—”

The eunuch apprehended his mistake even as Assad struck. Before he drew another breath, the Assassin ripped the edge of his
salawar
across the eunuch’s throat; quickly, he bore the thrashing chamberlain to the ground and held him still while his life’s blood gushed over dry grass and soil. No others followed him, and the eunuch’s twitching legs kept the secret door ajar.

“What the Devil—” he muttered, peering into the dark passageway beyond the cunningly hidden entrance.

Assad did not waste time with idle speculation over who built the passage or why, nor did he let where it might lead to trouble him. It was enough that it existed, and that it would carry them away from what the vizier meant as a death trap.

With a grim smile, he went to fetch the Caliph …

7

An army moved through the streets of Cairo.

Hundreds of shuffling feet raised a pall of dust invisible against the night sky. Steel rustled and clashed; moonlight reflected off helmets and mail hauberks like the play of distant lightning on a hot summer evening. The rattle of war harness set dogs to barking; their masters, roused from slumber by the sudden clamor, threw open shuttered windows. They were poised to bellow curses when the source of the disturbance revealed itself.

Parysatis heard windows banging shut as she advanced with Massoud and his Circassians through the neighborhood of Barqiyya. She wrung her hands at the noise and dust raised by the movement of so many men. Surely someone would hear them and sound an alarm? Yet Massoud appeared indifferent as he walked beside her, silent but making no pretense at stealth.

She understood his lack of concern when they came across the first body. The corpse of a thickly muscled Sudanese soldier sprawled faceup in the middle of the street, a pair of arrows standing out from his bull neck. Already, the spilled blood attracted a swarm of flies. Beyond were more bodies, the remains of an ambushed patrol. Parysatis stepped around the arrow-riddled corpses and tried not to stare at their slack faces, gray and frozen in death.

“Gokbori sent his scouts out ahead of us,” Massoud whispered. “His Turks have eyes like owls in the dark.”

She nodded and said nothing, still numb from the news of the Gazelle’s murder, from Yasmina’s flight from the Inn of the Three Apples. She glanced at the armed men flanking her.
Merciful Allah, I pray we’re doing the right thing
. Yet, whether they were in the right or not, it was too late to second-guess their decision; it was far too late to seek other alternatives. By shedding blood in opposition to the vizier they had sealed their fates. Now, a new terror crept into the pit of her stomach, edging aside her fear of detection:
What if we fail? What then?
Parysatis shuddered and had no answer.

The domes and minarets of the East Palace gleamed against the star-flecked heavens. Ahead, the alley they followed debouched into a wider avenue that ran alongside the palace. She could barely make out the low wall of the herb garden with its old bronze gate, a lamp burning in a niche beside it.

Parysatis stiffened at the sight of a pair of Jandariyah loitering outside the gate. “T-there were no guards posted when we left!” she said, clutching Massoud’s arm. “You m-must believe me!”

The Circassian amir turned to her. “I believe you. Now, keep quiet and play along,” he hissed, motioning one of his men forward—a red-bearded soldier clad in silk and steel. “Throw her over your shoulder and follow my lead.” The fellow nodded; Parysatis gasped as he did his amir’s bidding: none too gently, he caught her up and flung her over his mailed shoulder like a sack of grain.

The man swaggered in Massoud’s wake. Parysatis faced the narrow alley they had just quit; though she could not see ahead of them, the sound of Massoud muttering under his breath reached her: “That’s it. That’s it. We’re two fellow soldiers on an errand to the palace.” She felt tense knots of muscle in the Circassian’s shoulder despite his best efforts to appear nonchalant.

After a few more steps, a harsh challenge sent chills down her spine.

“Who goes?”

“Returning a bit of property, brother,” she heard Massoud say, his tone jovial. “This one here belongs to the palace, or so she says. I expect she’s lying, but by Allah! She’s comely enough to be a harem flower … though, if you ask me, she could do with a proper bit of fertilizing.”

The soldiers laughed along with Massoud. “Put her down, then, and let’s get a look at her.”

The Circassian dumped Parysatis unceremoniously off his shoulder. She squeaked in alarm, but somehow managed to keep her footing. Callused hands spun her around to face the two Jandariyah—Syrians in spired helmets and gilded mail, their white
khalats
embroidered in silver and black thread. They leaned on tall spears, their shields propped against the stone wall. Her cheeks flushed at their brazen scrutiny.

Massoud stepped past the soldiers and peered through the bars of the gate. “Allah, but this is a lonely post. What did you do to deserve it?”

“Got the short shrift,” one of the Jandariyah replied; the other leered at Parysatis and licked his lips. Lust gleamed in his eyes. “Why, you can barely tell there’s a woman under there. You’d best leave her with us. We’ll take—”

Massoud struck without warning. He snatched the spire of the Jandariyah’s helmet, wrenching the soldier’s head back. A cry of alarm turned to a bloody gurgle as the amir’s dagger tore open his throat. The remaining Jandariyah spun. Yet, before Massoud or the red-bearded Circassian could raise a hand against him, Parysatis heard a soft hiss followed by a meaty
thunk.
The Syrian’s head snapped back and he pitched against the wall, his spear clattering from his hands; slowly, to the accompaniment of metal scraping stone, he slid to the ground. An arrow stood out from his left eye socket.

At close range, driven by the powerful Turkish bow, it had pierced not only the flesh and bone of the Jandariyah’s skull, but the steel of his helmet, as well.

Stunned, Parysatis glanced across the avenue. Gokbori stepped into the wan moonlight. The Turkish amir grinned like a madman as he tossed his bow to another and drew his curved saber. Massoud nodded his thanks. The Circassian knelt and wiped his dagger on the dead soldier’s
khalat
before returning it to its sheath. Quickly, he stripped a knife from the corpse’s sash, stood, and held it out for Parysatis to take.

The Persian woman stared at the curved blade, with its delicate inlay of silver leaves; her hand flinched from its worn ebony grip as she finally accepted it from him. “I … I am no fighter, my lord.”

“I know,” Massoud said, “but if things go badly for us, do not let them take you alive. Do you understand?”

Parysatis did. All too well.

Satisfied, Massoud turned away. The amir’s sword rang from its sheath. He held it aloft for his men to see, silver light gleaming from its edge. “White Slaves of the River! With me!
Allahu akbar!
For the Caliph! For Cairo!”

Hundreds of swords thrust at the sky; their owners, be they Circassian or Turk, added their voices to his:
“Allahu akbar!”

And Parysatis, standing forgotten in Massoud’s shadow, cradled a dead man’s knife in her hands. “For Rashid al-Hasan,” she whispered.

8

Yasmina had only dim recollections of her flight from the inn—tear-streaked memories of a voice calling her name, of faces blurred by grief, and of the blood-warm darkness beyond, its embrace alive with whispers of self-recrimination.