The Lion of Cairo (52 page)

“Let us look to our wounded and make ready for the dawn!” Amalric turned and made his way back to where de Razès waited. The Templar’s face remained impassive. “This,” the King spat. “This, by God, is why we are here! I’ll hear no more talk of retreat! Have your machines and your Templars ready to move at first light! Do you understand?”

“I do,” Arnaud de Razès replied through gritted teeth. “Forgive my impertinence, milord.”

“Tear the gates of Cairo off their hinges for me and all will be forgotten.”

“It will be as you wish.” Bowing at the waist, the Master of the Temple took his leave. Amalric spared him a final, withering glance before succumbing to the half-drunk and clamorous demands of his barons.

And no one—neither king nor baron nor common soldier—paid even the slightest heed to a scar-faced man in faded green and gold brocade who drifted into the shadows alongside the mosque …

12

Assad studied his quarry through hate-slitted eyes. Though he could make out little of what passed between king and servant—and he understood the Frankish tongue far better than he spoke it—he recognized royal displeasure when he saw it. A grim smile rose unbidden to the Assassin’s lips. Amalric’s disdain for the old man did nothing to sour his usefulness to Assad’s cause … indeed, he rejoiced in the knowledge that the last words spoken between the two would be words of harsh rebuke.

The Assassin drew deeper into shadow as Arnaud de Razès dismounted in front of the mosque, tossed his reins to a waiting groom, and stalked through the arched entryway; he called for wine in a voice harsh and full of wrath.

An instant later, Assad was in motion. Turning, he sprinted down the narrow alley to where a two-wheeled cart waited, empty and wedged into place, its poles driven into the ground. Assad darted up the angled bed of the cart; he leaped from its apex, twisted, and caught the crumbling edge of the mosque’s roof. He hung there for a split second, hissing at the sudden pain in his shoulder, and then pulled himself up into a crouch on the rooftop. Abraded fingers touched the hilt of his
salawar
in silent benediction.

The mosque itself was a squat cube of whitewashed mudbrick surmounted by a shallow dome of peeling green stucco. Its area doubled, however, with the inclusion of an arcaded courtyard, paved in the same yellowish sandstone as the village square. At the far corner of this courtyard, a curious minaret towered above the village—its staircase spiraled along its exterior, an imperfect replica of the minaret belonging to the mosque of Ibn Tulun, south of Cairo.

From this vantage, Assad could see the lights of the king’s pavilion away to the north, positioned on the edge of the village where it might receive the benefit of a steady breeze. What’s more, the Assassin had walked the ground between unchallenged; at times his enemies even greeted him, blind to the fact he was not one of them.
That
was the Nazarenes’ great failing: they were on guard against a force of Saracens, but a single man who knew how to blend in—especially one who looked no different from a native Maronite or Jacobite Christian—could move about at will without raising an alarm.

The day’s heat still radiated off the brickwork on the mosque’s roof. Carefully, Assad crept forward until he had a clear view of the courtyard below, its stones bathed in soft yellow light from lamps hanging between arches along the arcade. At its center, under an awning of sun-faded blue cloth, a fountain burbled in a circular basin. Easily, Assad caught sight of de Razès. Servants had stripped the Templar Master of his blood-crusted surcoat and were helping him out of his armor; a dozen brother knights stood near at hand.

“He means to press on,” de Razès was saying. “And we have little choice but to accompany him.”

One of the knights shook his head. “A fool’s errand!”

“Do not slander your king!” The chief of the Templars sighed; with a grimy hand he massaged the bridge of his nose. “In my heart I agree with you, but Amalric is no fool. He simply lacks his brother’s patience.” He gestured to the knights. “Go. Prepare the siege train. We move on Cairo at dawn.”

“For God’s sake, we will do it, milord.” His men bowed and went about their business. Some returned to the arcade, where they mended mail hauberks and sharpened blades, while others hurried from the mosque to rouse the Genoese and Armenian mercenaries of the siege train—the stewards of those devilish machines that had pierced the heart of Ascalon. Assad bared his teeth. If he had more time, he would pay those sons of whores a visit, as well.

Below, a brown-mantled servant brought de Razès a stool. “Will you eat, milord?”

“I have no appetite. Pour me another cup of wine and have done.”

The servant did as ordered, then withdrew to a discreet distance. For some time Arnaud de Razès sat in the shadow of the fountain’s awning, sipping his wine as he brooded over the day’s events. Assad, though, did not have the same luxury. Time was of the essence. So moving with infinite patience, his body low against the roof, he worked his way down to the narrow ledge that ran around the top of the courtyard wall. Decorative crenels, like teeth of broken brick, afforded him slight cover; dripping sweat, he crab-crawled toward the far minaret—the only way down from the roof that offered any hope of concealment.

Assad was wrestling with how to strike quickly and remain unseen when abruptly Ya-sidi Arnat stood. He slung wine lees from his empty cup and tossed it to the waiting servant. “Fetch the chaplain,” he said. “After I take in the night air, I would have him hear my confession.”

The servant bowed and scurried off to do his master’s bidding. De Razès turned; with hands clasped behind his back, he walked toward a door in the corner of the courtyard. A door that led to the minaret’s spiral stairs.

Assad dared not believe his eyes. No servants followed the Master of the Temple; no brother knights offered to join him. For a few moments, at least, Arnaud de Razès would be alone and out of sight of his fellow Templars.

For a few moments, Ya-sidi Arnat would be vulnerable.

The Master of the Temple vanished through the doorway; with a renewed sense of purpose, Assad scuttled the last few yards to where the minaret’s foundations rose from the courtyard wall. The Assassin squatted on his haunches with his back pressed against the waist-high balustrade of solid brick and listened to the measured shuffle of the Templar’s feet as he mounted the stairs. De Razès passed him by, oblivious to his presence; a dozen steps later he gained the summit of the minaret.

Noiselessly, Assad vaulted the low wall and dropped to a crouch on the stairs. From below, he heard the faint snores of sleeping Templars and the soft footfalls of their servants; from above, a resigned sigh from de Razès.

The Assassin’s hand drifted to the hilt of his
salawar,
its rage and hatred calling to him.
No,
his own good sense cut through the din,
the others might hear.
With titanic effort, he let go of the blade and instead reached up to untie the thong securing his long hair. The tough leather was thin and damp with sweat, but long enough to wrap once around both hands while still leaving a span between—sufficient to whip around a man’s neck. Catlike, Assad padded up the last few steps to the minaret’s balcony …

… and beheld Arnaud de Razès leaning against the railing. He was staring away north, as though trying to pierce the purple fabric of the king’s pavilion and read his mind. The Templar must have seen something from the corner of his eye—some brief flicker of movement—for he turned his head suddenly and muttered in perturbation: “Yes, what is—”

Before he could register alarm, the Emir of the Knife was upon him.

Assad struck first with the heel of his foot, a crushing blow that caught the Templar in the side of his knee. Bone and sinew parted with an audible snap; de Razès gasped, stumbling against Assad as his leg gave way. He opened his mouth to loose a bellow of agony even as the leather thong drew taut around his throat. The two men went to the ground like lovers in an obscene embrace.

“
Allahu akbar,
O Master of the Temple,” Assad spat, his voice carrying no farther than his victim’s ear. His back to the Assassin, Arnaud de Razès gurgled and thrashed, eyes distended, the veins standing out on his temples as he clawed at the makeshift garrote. “God wills it.” With a savage wrench, Assad cinched the cord ever deeper into the soft flesh of his enemy’s throat.

The struggle for life was draining from de Razès’s limbs with every breath denied him. His feet struck the balcony railing; his heels drummed against the brick. Spasms racked his body as only a croaking hiss escaped his crushed larynx. Suddenly, the Templar’s rigid frame relaxed; Assad felt him go limp, tongue lolling from his open mouth. After a few more seconds, the Assassin slackened his grip. He caught his own breath and listened for sounds of commotion coming from the courtyard below.

Nothing.

Then, nodding to himself, he bared the edge of his
salawar
 …

13

“Amalric…”

The King of Jerusalem stirred on his divan and jerked awake, drawn from his exhausted slumber by … by what? By a disembodied voice? Or was it simply the soft cry of a bird coming from somewhere outside his pavilion? Regardless, the blond-bearded monarch yawned and rubbed his bloodshot eyes.

The silken walls of the king’s pavilion soughed and sighed; poles of carved cedar creaked in the soft night breeze. A small golden lamp, its wick burning sweet-scented oils, cast a flickering glow over carpets and velvet tapestries, over a desk laden with books and papers and a wooden stand supporting the royal panoply. Impenetrable shadows danced in the corners of the pavilion.

Seeing nothing amiss, Amalric was on the verge of rolling over and surrendering once more to sleep’s embrace when a tiny imperfection—a thing out of place—caught his attention. He blinked, looked again. If his thick-nasaled helmet, with its circlet of gold, was resting atop the wooden stand, then what was that sitting on the edge of his desk?

The King grunted and clambered to his feet, naked but for a long shirt. He shuffled over to his desk. Rubbing his eyes once more, he stared down at the object someone had left for his perusal.

An object that dripped blood.

Amalric recoiled. “Christ and the Saints…!”

It was a man’s head. What’s more, the King recognized its waxen countenance, though slack and colorless in death:
Arnaud de Razès.
A cry of alarm rose into the King’s throat, but before he could give tongue to it a shape boiled from the shadows at his back. It struck him across the shoulders, a massive weight that drove him to his knees. Amalric felt iron fingers knotting in his hair … and he felt the cold touch of steel at his neck.

Something clawing and horrible fluttered down his spine, something that did not care that he was a king of men—something that stripped away his courage even as it settled in the pit of his stomach. He dared not utter so much as a whisper for fear of angering it even further. The King’s eyes rolled heavenward.

“Speak,” a voice hissed in his ear, “and Jerusalem will be poorer by a king. I bring you a message and a warning from my master, a
shaykh
of storied lineage who dwells on a mountaintop by the shores of the Caspian Sea. He bids me tell you,
Malik al-Morri,
that Egypt is not for you. Leave here. Cease your foolish struggle and be content with what lands you possess. That is my master’s message. His warning is thus: should you force his hand, should you ignore his wise counsel, should even the least of your siege engines come within sight of Cairo’s walls, then he will send me unto you once more—and the head I take then will not be the head of some God-cursed Templar, but rather one of royal blood. Perhaps yours … perhaps your son’s. Do you believe I speak the truth?”

Amalric swallowed hard; slowly, he nodded.

“Pray, then, O King of the Latin Franks. On your son’s life, pray your God grants you wisdom and health, for if I return you will have neither.”

The King felt the steel lift from his neck; he felt the fingers loosen their hold on his scalp. Velvet hangings rustled. On the soft carpets, faced by the severed head of the Master of the Temple, Amalric remained kneeling, not daring to move until the unaccustomed spasm of fear passed.

Quietly, he prayed …

14

The splash of water, louder than the familiar burble of his fountain, easily roused Rashid al-Hasan from his bed. A tomblike silence had settled over the East Palace during the night; the White Slaves of the River did their diligence, patrolling its halls and arcades, its plazas and gardens. Handpicked cadres stood rigid guard over the gates while, across the Bayn al-Qasrayn, the West Palace was ablaze with light and raucous noise. Turkomans mingled with Sudanese, with Syrians. They drank to the shades of the dead, to the health of the wounded, and to the victory of their commander.

Already, the Prince of the Faithful sensed the walls of ambition rising around the hero of the hour, the swaggering Kurd, Shirkuh.
Let him have his triumph,
Rashid had decided, retiring to his apartments where an anxious Parysatis awaited him. They passed the night in conversation, only withdrawing to their separate beds when her kohl-rimmed eyes became heavy with sleep.

Rashid’s own slumber had been fitful, at best—his dreams haunted by the faces of men slain in his name, by the groans and pleas of the injured soldiers who returned by the wagonload from the field of slaughter. Not even Parysatis’s soothing presence could allay his nightmares.

Now, repeated splashing piqued the Caliph’s curiosity. He rose and drew on a silken robe. Gray light filtered through the lattice-worked doors leading out to his garden; tendrils of morning mist drifted under the threshold to dampen the tiles of his floor. Shivering, Rashid al-Hasan eased open the doors and stepped into a world of fleece and velvet.

Dawn was not far off, and a heavy fog reeking of the Nile lay over the domes and minarets of Cairo. The Caliph walked barefooted in the wet grass until he could see the stone basin of the garden fountain.