Assassination in Al Qahira

by James Boschert

  He heard Henry roar at the crew to tighten the sails and then another roar from Guy from his bench as he encouraged the other rowers to keep working. Men heaved, gasping for air, their teeth bared with the effort and sweat pouring off them in the closed area of the oar deck. There was panic in their eyes as they realized that they were far from safely out of danger.

  Talon scrambled to his feet. The screams of the wounded reverberated in his head. Someone brought a lamp and accompanied Talon as he made his way to the area where the first rock had entered. It was still wedged against the side of the hull where it had come to rest. It was about four times the size of a man’s head, almost round and covered in gore. After staring at it for a second he pulled himself together and helped get the four wounded men laid out on the central walkway where he concentrated on binding their wounds with rags to stop the bleeding.

  Men moaned as they were roughly manhandled by their comrades. They had to be moved out of the way to be treated. The two dead men were left where they were until they could be dealt with. Max peered down through the hole, his eyes searching.“We are out of danger for the moment; their missiles are falling well short now, God be praised. Talon where are you? Are you there?”

  “I am here Max, what is going on up there?”

  “We are safely past the towers, thank the Lord. We must sail out to sea a few miles yet. Then we will know for sure that we are out of their reach.”

  No one had any breath to cheer. The horror of the stones had been a sobering experience.

  Talon returned above deck to be greeted by a relieved Max and Henry. He stared at the damage to the deck and the sides.

  “The Good Lord be praised, we were very lucky, Talon,” Henry said. “If the other tower had been working all its catapults, we would have had a worse time of it.”

  “I wondered what those frames were on the top,” Talon remarked. “Now I know. Thank God we got clear. Those stones make terrible missiles.”

  “Now you can tell us all, how you managed to get the chain dropped. God be praised, we are heading for the Holy Land,” Max said, sounding very relieved.

  An hour later the swell of the sea greeted the galley and it began to pitch. Small waves slapped the bows and sent up a light spray that wet their faces. Henry ordered the rowers to stop. They had a good wind behind them. They sped out of the delta, meeting the sun coming up over the eastern horizon. The water changed from muddy brown to light blue and then deep green. It was time to look after their wounded and to say prayers for the dead and for their deliverance.

  Talon’s memories of the last time he had been to sea came back in a rush and he began to feel slightly queasy as the ship began to rise and fall with a mild twisting motion as they moved into the swell of the Mediterranean. He looked back at the low coastline with mixed feelings as he stood in the waist of the ship.

  The ocean alone is your refuge;

  You have nowhere to turn,

  As sails flap and flutter

  And the planks move swiftly along,

  And the winds toy with the water,

  Like threshers of wheat with straw.

  — Yehuda Halevi

  Chapter 31

  Acre

  That morning, Salah Ed Din, Sultan of all Egypt, and now Yemen, was seated upon the throne he disliked so much, observing the person who was standing in front of him with keen interest. Khalidah, richly dressed and well veiled, had come to her feet at his command and stood with Kazim and Jasmine next to her, awaiting his pleasure.

  “You are well met, my Lady Khalidah,” Salah Ed Din said. “Welcome to my palace. I have often thought of you and the tragic circumstances that befell you. My sorrow is as yours over the loss of your fine husband, Abbas. We grieved at his injury in the chogan match and we were devastated to hear of his death later. I have searched far and wide for you to find out how to help, but you had disappeared from the earth.”

  “The people who destroyed my husband are now dead, my lord. I fled because you were not here in Al Qahirah for me to appeal to for protection and I feared for my life and that of my children if we remained. Now I seek only to prove my innocence from any false charges brought against me by those same men,” Khalidah said boldly. She lifted her head and looked straight at the Sultan, who gazed back at her in surprise.

  “I have been made aware of some accusations, my Lady, but there appear to be no witnesses to substantiate them. At this time, I do not think they are valid.”

  “My lord, although they were false, the accusations were still made. If it pleases you, I have a person who can explain not only the murder of my husband but also the plot to kill you.”

  There was a gasp from those nearest to the sultan and he himself stared at her in surprise.

  Khalidah turned and motioned Malek and Panhsj to come forward. They advanced towards the throne, dragging another man between them. The two men went on one knee before the sultan, but they hung onto the arms of their trembling prisoner, whom they dragged down with them.

  “Umarah ibn Ali, al-Hakami, it is you?” The sultan said; his tone was incredulous.

  “My lord I …” he got no further.

  With icy scorn in her tone Khalidah interrupted him. “You can be sure, my lord, that this groveling filth will confess to everything. His leader, Kemosiri ibn Jibade, who hatched the plot, died in the jaws of a crocodile. A fitting death, I think, for the foul play started against my husband at the game of chogan. Not having achieved their treacherous aim they murdered him in his own bed.”

  “Murdered? So that is what happened? I remember there was a man who took care of your husband on the field and then sent the messenger to me while I was in the desert. What was his name again?”

  “His name was Suleiman, my lord, and he did save me and my children. Had it not been for that man and my loyal servants here with me, these people would have destroyed us completely. This is the last “witness” that I know about, other than Akhom, who is now in one of your dungeons.” She gestured to the prostrate poet.

  “What has happened to this…Suleiman? I would thank him,” said the Sultan.

  “My lord, he is gone, back to where he came from, but I confess that I do not know where that is. He is not from our country, my lord. However, before he left he asked me to pass a message of warning to you.”

  The sultan’s eyes narrowed at this apparent effrontery. He did not like being threatened by anyone. “A warning. How so?”

  “My lord, it is not as you think, but it is in earnest and for your own safety. He told me that the Assassins are part of the plot that was meant to dispose of you and might still be. He said that you should know that those who work for Sinan Rashid Ed Din, the school’s teacher, have not finished and will try again to harm you.”

  In the dead silence that ensued the men around the sultan closed in on him as though to protect him.

  “How could he know this?” Salah Ed Din demanded after some long moments, while he scrutinized her face.

  “Because he told me he was trained in Persia by these same people and he knows them well.”

  She glanced at Malek and Panhsj still kneeling nearby. They were gaping up at her in astonishment.

  “I have heard from my people that he stole a ship of mine and has disappeared,” Khalidah said with a deliberate look at Malek and Panhsj.

  “He did what?” the sultan exclaimed.

  But Khalidah said, “He is not your enemy, nor is he mine, my lord, because he helped me in every way by destroying my…and your enemies, including Lord Bahir, who was also complicit. My lord, he said you must take steps to protect yourself, but he cannot help you or my family further. I am therefore here to throw myself and my children upon your kindness and mercy.” Khalidah knelt again before the sultan.

  “Then this is the same man who broke through the chain at Damietta at dawn this morning with a galley, it was yours!

  “The sky between Damietta and Al Qahirah was filled with messenger pigeons today. The commander
of the towers sent a flock of them, he was so agitated, telling of a galley full of hundreds of pirates that attacked one of his towers, killing many of his guards, then cut through the chain and escaped into the Middle Sea. This man is bold indeed, but I shall just have to investigate the facts for myself.”

  Khalidah said nothing, although she seriously doubted the story. Malek and Panhsj looked their disbelief,which amused her. They, like she, suspected an entirely different version.

  The sultan stood up and then stepped down from the throne to stand in front of her. His head was turned to the poet and, with narrowed eyes, “Take this…thing out of my sight and record everything he confesses,” he snapped at the vizier nearby, pointing to the poet, who began to whimper and tremble.

  The vizier gestured to guards and they rushed to do his bidding, ignoring the cries and pleas of the poet, whose wails stopped abruptly as he was hauled out of the room. The sultan turned his attention back to Khalidah, who still knelt before him. He held out his hand to her.

  “Please rise, my Lady. As Allah is my witness, you are under my protection henceforth. Your husband’s estates and property are yours and your son will grow up under my protection, to become the Lord of all his father once held. This I promise.”

  * * * * *

  The tired and ragged men on the fleeing galley were jolted out of their sense of relief when a lookout posted on the forward mast shouted that he could see ships exiting the estuary behind them. Talon ran up the steps to join Henry and Max as they stared back to where they had left the river mouth. His heart beat faster. The unmistakable triangular sails of two war ships were visible racing out of the delta in hot pursuit.

  The seaman in Henry took over. “Man the oars! We are being chased! Everyone to an oar!” he roared.

  “We have a three day sail to Acre, and with God’s help and a following wind we can stay ahead of them,” he said to Talon and Max, trying to sound confident, but he looked nervous.

  Initially the two ships appeared to be gaining on them, so that they could soon see the oars rising and falling rapidly and small figures on their decks.

  Max looked at Henry with apprehension on his face. “They have sent their hounds after us, Henry. Can we outrun them?”

  “They only have one sail each, and while they might be smaller and lighter we have two and our oars, and a longer hull. The wind is good, right behind us. With God’s help we will lose them. I shall maintain this course, but tonight I shall turn north east,” Henry said.

  Talon watched the sleek, deadly hulls of their pursuers racing after them. Their sharp bows drove through the waves, sending spray high off to either side. They reminded Talon of hounds who have the scent of their prey in their noses and would follow relentlessly.

  “We might be able to fight them off, but it would be far better if we can just outrun them,” he said to Max, who nodded, his expression grim.

  Henry began to shout orders to tighten the sails and exhorted the men below to row for their lives, as they were not free yet. The rowers needed little persuasion; the tempo of the oars increased rapidly and their ship surged forward.

  The minutes stretched into long hours as all that day Henry kept their ship well ahead of the following galleys. He relieved the men below at regular intervals, having almost two full crews, which made a great difference, and gradually the distance between them and their pursuers lengthened. The men below rowed until some of them collapsed from exhaustion and then others took their places.

  The men on the upper deck stood watching the distant ships, tense with anxiety. As darkness fell, Henry calmly continued on his course until it was nearly midnight, then he ordered the steersmen to shift to a northeasterly course. Despite their exhaustion no one could sleep, and they all prayed he would be successful in eluding their pursuers.

  The next morning, tired and red-eyed men examined the western horizon from end to end but could not find the other ships that had dogged them all through the first day. They were gone. The weary rowers slept at their oars, too tired to find other places to rest.

  “You lost them, Henry, God be praised,” Max said with relief.

  Two days later, a lookout on the forward mast head shouted that he could see land. The galley had a good wind behind and drove its sharp prow through a choppy sea. It sent occasional sprays of water high into the air to wet the faces of the eager men on deck. Henry, who had demonstrated his seamanship to perfection, peered forward from his position near to the steersmen.

  “This might be the land just to the south of Acre. We are nearly there, praise be to God.”

  The battered ship had weathered the seas well. Two of the wounded had died, but Talon was trying to keep the others alive until they could be taken ashore and given into the dubious care of the Christian physicians.

  Several hours later they could see land from the deck and Henry turned the ship to sail northward, keeping parallel with the distant coastline. Before long he steered them closer to the land, and they saw clusters of buildings surrounded by a great wall that marked a city of some substance. Sailing out of the heavily fortified harbor opening was a galley, not unlike theirs, but with only one sail. It headed straight for them. The men cheered wildly at the sight of it and were still waving or praying on their knees when the speedy galley drew to within a hundred paces of them, tacked about almost within its own length and began to sail parallel with them. A man clad in chain mail with the unmistakable red cross of the Templars embroidered on the left side of his surcoat climbed into the rigging of the ship and waved at them.

  “Who are you and where from?” he shouted.

  Max looked at Talon and asked, “Shall I answer them, Talon?”

  Talon nodded agreement. Max leaned out from the side of the ship and shouted.

  “Max Bauersdorf, Sergeant of Templars, with released prisoners from Egypt. Guide us in to port.”

  The official on the other boat gave a surprised exclamation. He waved to them as dozens of the ragged men on this strange ship waved and shouted joyfully back at him. He stepped down from the side and his ship and sped ahead to escort them into the bustling port of Acre.

  Men were openly sobbing as they stared at the longed-for Holy Land which had been denied them for so long. Talon leaned on the rail next to Max. He contemplated in silence the place he had left bound in chains over two long years ago.

  * * * * *

  In a city called Isfahan, many weeks ride away to the East, a rider dismounted and handed his lathered horse off to a syce who ran up to take the reins. He walked slowly, with a very slight limp, into the wide gardens of a fine house, heading for a particular place in the garden where he knew he would find the person he was seeking.

  “Peace be with you, my dear friend. I am glad you are back.”

  “God protect you, Khanom.”

  “You must take refreshment and then we can talk. What is the news from the North?”

  “There is no news but…there is something.”

  “Tell me before you go what is this…something?”

  “Everyone is talking about an incident in Egypt, months ago now, where there was a plot against the Sultan Salah Ed Din that was thwarted. The people who belong to Sinan say there is a man named Suleiman, but who looks like a Frans. They say he is very skilled in our arts and not only killed most of them who were involved in the conspiracy, but then stole a ship full of Frans and sailed away; they know not to where. Our people in Persia laugh, because Sinan is not liked by them and he is very angry at being thwarted, but they laugh behind their hands when they say it. It is a great mystery.”

  The woman put her hand to her mouth, her gray eyes wide with surprise in a lovely face that had gone a little pale. “Reza, please do not tease me!”

  “I would never tease you, my Lady Rav’an, at least not about this.” His teeth gleamed white in his dark face as he smiled. “It is surely strange news and it is being spoken about by everyone in the North.”

  “Do you think that
…perhaps it might be?”

  “God alone knows. I cannot be sure, my Lady. It is curious nonetheless; I too am wondering.”

  “We must tell Fariba! Come and join us when you have bathed and are refreshed. There seems to be much to talk about.”

  The End

  About the Author

  James Boschert grew up in the then colony of Malaya in the early fifties. He learned first hand about terrorism while there as the Communist insurgency was in full swing. His school was burnt down and the family, while traveling, narrowly survived an ambush, saved by a Gurkha patrol, which drove off the insurgents.

  He went on to join the British army serving in remote places like Borneo and Oman. Later he spent five years in Iran before the revolution, where he played polo with the Iranian Army, developed a passion for the remote Assassin castles found in the high mountains to the north, and learned to understand and speak the Farsi language.

  Escaping Iran during the revolution, he went on to become an engineer and now lives in Arizona on a small ranch with his family and animals.

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