The Strange Round Bird: Or the Poet, the King, and the Mysterious Men in Black

by Eden Unger Bowditch

  But Jasper explained that, for Noah, it was important to look through these things. There was more to understand here than just her disappearance. She was Noah’s mother. And Noah was in pain. This was a way of getting closer to her, even if he came no closer to actually finding her. Faye was struck by the fact that Jasper had been so aware of Noah’s feelings and that she, herself, had not.

  “We know that she wanted to find something. She was pursuing something in that parchment, her translations, hidden in her reticule.” Noah picked up the small reticule, the silk satchel that held the poem. “What if she happened upon something important, something she may not have realized would draw attention from Komar Romak? Without even knowing of the existence of that resident evil, Ariana might have raised an alarm.

  “But still, something was important to her, and it’s all we have. It may even have brought doom upon her. Sir Edward even said she thought it might help me. In Giza, I’ll go to the Mena House. I’ll look through her things. Perhaps, then, we can learn something.” Noah closed his eyes for a moment as he thought of his mother caught up in this mess. He worried for his father, but it didn’t change that small corner of darkness he could not escape…Would he ever be able to forgive his father, or any of the parents, for bringing his mother into this? His beautiful, angel-voiced mother now suffered through no fault of her own. The sound of her voice filled his thoughts and drowned out the sobs that threatened to engulf him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE LIBRARIAN’S FAVORITE BOOK

  OR

  THE BRAVE NIECE AND

  THE WRITTEN SYMBOL

  It was a long ride to Giza and the brothers’ roundabout ways made it even longer. Noah was exhausted but restless. He couldn’t sleep. The rugged roads kept the carriage bouncing and his heavy head kept banging against the window. He tried several times to sit up, but his head drooped and eventually fell against the window again. Even when the carriage stood waiting for crossing sheep or cattle, he’d jerk awake in a panic, having unconsciously missed the absence of the bumpy road.

  When the Great Pyramids of Giza came into view, Noah sat up in earnest. The shop El Maktaba Malakaya, “The Royal Bookshop,” was across the road from the Pyramids and very near the entrance to the Mena House. When Noah arrived, a young boy was just leaving the shop. The boy was carrying a bucket of rags and a feather duster. The place looked very tidy. The boy had evidently done a good job. As Noah entered the shop, a cheery Sir Edward greeted him with enthusiasm.

  “They all called me maktabat el malakaya, the Royal Librarian, so when I opened the shop, it seemed to fit.” Sir Edward gestured for Noah to take a good look. The shop was larger than his shop in the Khan. There was a large central room and smaller rooms on the sides. It was filled from floor to ceiling with books. Like the library in Mr. Bell’s office, there were rolling ladders to reach the highest shelves. Noah observed that the three glass cases contained especially rare or fragile specimens, tomes from the 14th century and even a medical journal from Oxford a century earlier than that.

  “Sit down, young man, and make yourself at home,” Sir Edward said as he began his search for the book.

  Noah sat on one of the red velvet seats as an invisible Sir Edward searched among the stacks. After hunting around and stirring up much dust that clearly had been missed by the cleaning boy, Sir Edward sighed. “I always put it safely away, but sometimes I forget where I put it.” He replaced the books he had taken from shelves and used a rag to wipe his hands. He picked up a pile of papers and files from a small wooden desk and dropped them in Noah’s lap.

  “Here, look through these for now,” said Sir Edward. “I’ll put the kettle on. My niece will be arriving for tea. Little Pamina will know where the book is hiding.”

  Little Pamina? Sir Edward left the book in the sticky fingers of his little niece? What if she made the book into a house for her dollies? It made Noah a bit anxious. Most of the papers in the pile on his lap looked to be in Arabic or Persian or Turkish. A few pages were in mid-translation.

  “What is this?” Noah asked Sir Edward. “‘And my beloved son, my dearest to me, my first, my heart defended her against my accusations, ‘You must not be so critical,’ Mustafa had said in his kindness. ‘I am sure that your wife has faith in her advisor.’”

  “Ah, yes,” said Sir Edward, perusing the page. His lips moved as he silently read the poem to himself. “This is from Muhabi’s diary. It is a sad tale, this. His son was killed and the betrayal was—”

  The kettle whistled loudly. Sir Edward hurried over to remove it from the fire.

  Noah picked up a bound, handwritten manuscript. He was hoping to find something that would link to his mother. “Unfinished Poems of Muhibbi,” he read.

  Sir Edward looked at the yellowing pages. “It is a small collection of Muhabi’s unfinished work. The editor of this collection was a poet and a painter and created beautiful work, inspired by Muhabi or, as he is referred to here, Muhibbi. The artist was a friend of Titian. Titian painted the wife of Muhabi, Roxalene, the woman who inspired so much of the poetry. See.” Sir Edward pointed to a sketch of a man with a light moustache and a very large turban. On his shoulder was a large raven, “This is a picture of Muhabi.”

  Something about the picture reminded Noah of Solemano. They had found another painting of this man in Solemano—the painting with seven ravens.

  “Is that the Raven King?” he asked.

  “The Raven King? asked Sir Edward. “You mean Matthias Corvinus? No, this is the poet. But there have been many paintings of him.”

  Sir Edward pointed to a painting of a beautiful woman that hung next to it. “That is Roxalene. The painter was moved by the idea of an unfinished poem. If you look carefully, you will see that the painting itself is unfinished.”

  Noah looked. Then he read.

  For now I fear

  If end is to come

  And I, alone, have come

  To know that

  There is a path

  To the evil lair

  Where half is double

  And Love lies bare

  Fit magna terribilis

  “Fit magna terribilis?” asked Noah.

  “He did tend to love the dramatic,” said Sir Edward.

  “Is the path perhaps a reference to a map?” asked Noah. “I can’t help but feel this is some kind of clue.”

  “Muhabi was known for his beautiful love poetry,” said Sir Edward, “and his love of music, especially songs of Ziryab, the blackbird.”

  “The blackbird?” Noah started. The ravens? The brothers?

  “Yes, Abu el-Hasan. Ziryab was his nickname. He was a musician and songwriter and helped improve the oud, a traditional instrument from the region. He lived in the 9th century BC.”

  Noah shook his head, worrying that he was trying to find connections where none were present. How did a 9th century oud player have anything to do with anything?

  “And the poet?” Noah returned to the subject.

  “Mostly Muhabi wrote to his one true love, Roxalene. He was mad for her, madly in love. But something happened. Something created a rift between them. Perhaps she loved another or did something to hurt him beyond repair. It has never been clear. What is known is that he was never the same, not the man, not the poetry. It is said, too, that she died of a broken heart, broken by her own cruel act. From the clues we have, we believe she betrayed him. Exactly how…we do not know. Shortly before her death, Muhabi began writing these odd poems that seemed to be more a collection of riddles than poetry.”

  “Well, this certainly seems like a riddle.” Noah looked at another page on which the same poem was written, but there was another part. “It says ‘map’ here,” Noah read.

  Forgetting whilst lost

  That all is a touch

  Hidden with the Map (but this is crossed out)

  They hide with the Map (crossed out)

  They hurt with the map

  Written on the Map

&n
bsp; Shelter the Map

  To change the

  It stopped there with some scribbles and splotches of ink. “He was working on the poem,” said Noah, “but he definitely says there is a map and something is hidden with it or it is hidden with something or…or…I have no idea.”

  “The Map shall not know the secret held/The hidden ways/The winding truth,” Sir Edward quoted from memory. “That is what I’ve always considered his map poem. A metaphor, of course, for the path of the heart, don’t you think?”

  Noah thought hard. A map. A metaphor? What if it was not a metaphor, but a clue? He looked around the room at the bookshelves and the artwork. On the wall was the painting of Roxalene. What did she know? How did she betray the poet? Noah looked closer. The painting was ancient and there was something familiar about it. The face? No. Something else.

  He looked out the window of El Maktaba Malakaya. He saw a cloud of dust coming across the sands near the Pyramids. Someone was riding furiously fast on a horse. Whoever it was…was headed their way. Out of habit, Noah turned to look for the brother in black, who was still standing just outside the door. The brother, too, was suddenly on high alert.

  As the figure approached, the horse reared up and Noah heard a whoop. It was the sound of a woman’s laugh, though deep and strong. Now the brother took a step back. The rider and horse slowed to a trot, then a walk. With a final prance, the pair stopped right at the shop door. Noah’s jaw dropped.

  On the horse was a young woman, a girl. She could not be more than a year older than Noah. She had long, light brown hair and a fierce grin on her face. The light filled her locks as she shook the sand from her shoulders. She was beautiful.

  “Hi, ho, Uncle. What say you?” Pamina Falk reared her horse once again, just for the pleasure of it.

  “Noah, this is my niece, Pamina Falk.” Sir Edward beamed as Pamina threw her leg over and jumped from her horse like an acrobat. She wore men’s riding jodhpurs, something Noah had never seen on a woman. Women’s riding clothes, yes. But a woman in a man’s suit? Pamina seemed completely natural in the men’s jodhpurs. In fact, she did not seem to be wearing a lady’s anything. She rode a man’s saddle, straddling the horse with both legs instead of sitting sidesaddle.

  But even in a man’s riding habit, she looked every bit the rare and elegant beauty. She came right up to Noah and smiled. Noah could not look away. Her eyes did not seem to be exactly the same color. She had a particularly interesting little beauty mark on the pupil of one eye. Everything about her was unique and amazing. Noah was stunned. He realized his mouth had been sitting open. He felt like an idiot.

  “Cat got your tongue, eh wot?” said Pamina, poking Noah on the shoulder.

  “Yes…uh, no…uh…I…me…I’m Noah. Noah Canto-Sagas.” Noah’s tongue kept attempting to stick itself to the roof of his mouth.

  “Reginald!” shouted Pamina as she entered the shop.

  Reginald? Noah didn’t even know there was someone else in the shop. Suddenly, a grunting, snorfling sound made Noah jump. Some kind of creature seemed to be rooting in the shop’s back corner.

  “Reggie, my sweet, snoring, fat, grunting piglet,” said Pamina, now rubbing the belly of a very small but stout French bulldog who waddled out from the stacks of books and was now lying on his back on the floor of the shop.

  Noah watched for a moment, embarrassed by the touch of jealousy he felt watching lucky Reggie get a belly rub from such a remarkable girl.

  “I have a dog, too,” he managed to say.

  “What breed?” she asked, still playing with Reggie.

  “Rather a muddle of different breeds,” said Noah.

  “What’s his name?” she asked.

  “Ralph,” said Noah, wishing Ralph had been there.

  Pamina stood up and smiled. Noah could have sworn she wiggled her ear. She stuck out her hand. “I’d never trust a boy without a dog,” she said and shook his hand with vigor as Reggie began sniffing around Noah’s feet. Noah bent down to pet Reggie, who let out a great sneeze that showered Noah in dog spittle and snot.

  “Reggie likes you,” laughed Pamina. “A sneeze is as good as a handshake for old Reg.”

  In Mr. Bell’s library, Jasper said, “We know that Suleiman was responsible for creating the order of mysterious men in black. That was ages ago. We are hunting back in time for something that is hunting us now.”

  “And if the threat of Komar Romak is likely that ancient,” added Faye, “it means that whatever the mysterious brothers in black are protecting must be that old, too. The Young Inventors Guild journal proves that the guild, our predecessors, have been around for that long, too. There must be a hint among the books and stories and poems, something that can tell us where Komar Romak hides. If there is something, it would be a clue to where Ariana might be.”

  “Do you think there could be a lair, a hideout, of Komar Romak somewhere here in Cairo?” asked Jasper. It made sense. “The entries in the Young Inventors Guild journal are from everywhere on the planet, it seems.”

  “And every place where some terrible awfulness occured,” said Lucy, frowning. “It is as if the Young Inventors Guild chased volcanoes and earthquakes and wars and sadness. I don’t want to chase those things.”

  “I don’t think they chased those things, Lucy,” said Jasper, “I think those things followed the Young Inventors Guild.”

  Lucy’s wrist flew to her mouth and she began gnawing on her bracelet.

  Wallace adjusted his glasses. “The terrible events that happened must correspond to dates we found written in our leather bound journal. There is some unfortunate connection, I fear. It’s a connection to us.”

  In the green leather journal, pieces of pages had been torn out. On the front cover, it said Young Inventors Guild. Inside the front cover, there were dates.

  Lucy raised her hand excitedly, as if she was in a classroom and knew the answer. “Breda, November, 1618 and some other earlier dates that were smudgey,” she said.

  “Wait, Breda? November, 1618?” Wallace flipped through the pages of a book titled, The Eighty Years War. “That was where and when René Descartes met Isaac Beeckman. I can’t believe I never put that together before. That’s where Beeckman introduced Descartes to mathematical physics. They were in the army of the Prince of Orange. 1618 was also the beginning of the Thirty Years War.”

  “What other dates do you have in that head of yours, Lucy?” asked Jasper.

  “Muktsar, Spring, 1705,” recited Lucy, ticking off the dates on her fingers.

  “That is the battle of Mukstar,” said Faye. “It’s Indian history.”

  “Edinburgh, Late Autumn, 1738,” continued Lucy. “Amsterdam, Mid-Summer, 1740…and remember, ‘Vienna, Early Spring (but too late), 1827’—remember it said that? And there was Naples, Spring, 1872, although the ink was slightly smudged but we could still read the date.”

  Jasper, holding a volume called A Timeline of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Britain and Europe, said, “Wait…the harvest crisis in Scotland, 1738…and Amsterdam, well, I see the French invaded the Netherlands and it was the war of Austria. I see, too, that it was a horribly cold winter that year. Ludwig van Beethoven died in March 1827 in Vienna. And Naples, 1872…the volcano.

  “And then there was Dayton, Ohio, 1903—that was us. And then there was Solemano, Abruzzo, Italy, 1904, and that was us, too!”

  “I guess we’ll have to add Cairo, Egypt,” said Faye, “if we survive Komar Romak.”

  Lucy’s wrist flew to her mouth again. Jasper’s eyes flew to Faye. She knew instantly that she had been thoughtless and pessimistic, but it was too late. Jasper gently took Lucy’s hand so she would not gnaw on her bracelet.

  “Which, of course, we will,” said Faye.

  “We’re going to be just fine,” said Jasper, smiling with pretend-enthusiasm. “We’ll find Komar Romak and make sure that Ariana is safe.”

  “It makes sense that he’d have a place here,” considered Wallace. “If not in th
e city proper, certainly near. Having a secret lair is part of the deal with these fellows.”

  Faye agreed. “The mysterious men in black have lairs. Komar Romak, star of the disappearing act and being in more than one place at one time, should, too. There must be a place where they go.”

  “Place,” said Jasper, “or places. I wonder if the brothers have ever been able to find where Komar Romak can remain hidden.” Jasper wondered how much the brothers focused on actively trying to find Komar Romak. From what the Young Inventors Guild had seen, the brothers only focused on hiding.

  “What about Komar Romak back in the olden days?” Wallace said.

  “I haven’t found anything that says Kanunî Sultan, or Suleiman, knew Komar Romak,” said Faye. “Have you found anything, Lucy?”

  “Well,” Lucy started, turning pages in the book, “I found a couple bits about how much everyone loved Suleiman and that he and his wife did much for the people who they wanted to do things for, though it was really more his wife who did the things that were some of the not war things, but even then he was nice for a sultan. There was something…I’m looking for the picture since I didn’t look at the page number.”

  Everyone waited, not quite sure what Lucy was talking about. “Here,” she said, and with help from Jasper, she turned the heavy book so the pages could be seen by everyone. It was a painting of a beautiful woman wearing a hennin, the tall cone-shaped hat worn in the Middle Ages by women of royalty.

  “Who is that?” asked Faye.

  “It’s the wife of Suleiman, Hürrem Sultan. See, the king was ‘kanunî sultan’ and the wife was ‘sultan.’ He called her Hürrem, which meant ‘cheerful’ since she was very witty and funny and happy. But she doesn’t look so happy in this picture.” And Lucy was right. The woman seemed worried.