by Jane Johnson
Malek did not recognize him. They were all so thin: he might have walked past a cousin without knowing him.
“They have a monstrous weapon called God’s Stone-thrower. It was that machine that sent this missile into the city. Usually anything that flies all that way and strikes with such force is pulverized on impact. And yet, as you see, it is hardly damaged.”
Keukburi, the Blue Wolf, ran a hand over the boulder, which stood as high as his waist, and shook his head wonderingly. “How do they even load such a missile?”
El-Adil said grimly, “This rock does not come from the area.”
“We saw the Franj unloading such boulders from their ships,” one of the Akka men said. “We laughed at the time to watch them struggling through the surf with their cargo. We thought they were mad.”
“The English king brought them from Sicily,” said a tall, thin, dark man whom Malek recognized as one of the redeemed prisoners. “They are of an exceptionally hard granite, harder by far than Akka’s walls of limestone.” He spoke very pure Arabic, but with an accent Malek could not quite place. Since his arrival just a few days ago he had been singled out by Salah ad-Din and often sat with him late at night, talking about scripture and architecture. No one seemed to know who he was, and yet everyone seemed to like him and judged him both courteous and learned.
“They brought them all this way for this purpose,” Iskander said, awed by such cold-blooded planning. “They are intent on destroying us.”
“We thought you ought to see what we are dealing with at first hand, sire,” another man said. “We are proud to play our part in the struggle against the infidel. But it is becoming harder every day, and we do not know how long we can hold out.”
The sultan nodded, his lips a thin line. “God wastes not the hire of those who do well. Be steadfast: we are awaiting reinforcements. Islam thanks you for your service. I thank you.”
The men were led away to be fed and cared for. All but two of them returned to the city, even though they were offered the choice of remaining in the camp.
“Those are brave men,” Ibo said, watching them go. “They are going back to their own deaths, and they know it.” He bit his lip as Malek took a sharp breath. “I am sorry, my friend. Your family, I know. May God preserve them.”
Later that day a bird arrived from the emirs of the city. It was a grey pigeon, wild of eye, and it refused to settle on the cote or to rest long enough for any to catch it and retrieve its message until, at last, attracted by the grain they put out for it but exhausted by evading them, it fell dead to the ground. Malek’s heart sank when he saw that the message it bore was not tied with red silk; nor was the message encrypted in the code they used.
“Greetings to our commander and our imam, the glorious Salah ad-Din,” Baha ad-Din read out. “If this bombardment continues much longer the wall around the Accursed Tower will surely fail. We have run out of supplies and cannot hold out much longer. Forgive our weak words, we are desperate. We beg for your succour and your aid. Blessings be upon you. Karakush.”
Karakush, Commander of the City of Akka, groaned and pressed the cold cloth to his head. “It’s the noise I can’t stand. It never stops.”
The rumble of boulders smashing into the walls of the city was clearly audible even above the strumming of the oud player in the musician’s niche.
“Drink this.” Vapour from the steaming cup diffused the perfume of ginger and feverfew into the room. Nathanael cupped the eunuch’s hands around it so that he inhaled the fumes even as he drank. Nat had added a dose of skullcap for good measure: the emir’s headaches were getting worse, which was unsurprising.
When Karakush had drained the tisane he struggled to his feet. “I must go up to the wall, I must see how much the damage—”
Nathanael pushed him back down. “You won’t do any good up there, not in the state you’re in. Don’t let the people see you weak and in pain, it won’t put them in good heart.”
“I have failed. It was a strategic error to leave the city standing, but I thought it could be made strong.”
Nat frowned. What madness was this? Sometimes when the herbs began to have an effect, the emir’s mind would wander as the tension was released in him.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said quietly, hoping it would calm him. “Hush. Just close your eyes and breathe deeply and let your body absorb the medicine.”
He needed to collect Nima from Rana the crabber’s daughter and see to his mother’s dressings. Sara had been knocked down by a panicked crowd avoiding a fire in the medina. She had sustained a broken arm and abrasions that had gone septic, despite all his best efforts. Lack of food meant that none of them had the strength to fight infection, and his mother was suffering. He worried she would lose the arm. It would not be the first amputation he had carried out, but to have to do it to your own mother? He was not sure he could.
The eunuch’s grip tightened. “I feel responsible for this city, not just because of my position. He was going to destroy Akka, Salah ad-Din, after he took it back, did you know that? He said it was too strategic a port to be allowed to fall into the hands of the Christians. It was badly damaged—hardly worth the repair. But I saw the possibilities, how to strengthen its defences, to rebuild it stone by stone. I argued for us to save Akka, and he put me in charge of the renovations, and then of the treasury, of the infidel cross we captured at Hattin, and then of his armoury—and finally of the entire city and all its people!” He gave a small, mirthless laugh. “The Orientals have a saying: Be careful what you wish for. It was hubris to think I knew better than the sultan. And see where my ambition has got me, has got us? He knew it was vulnerable to siege—hadn’t he taken it himself by such a method? Had I only listened to him, the people would be safe, moved inland to Damascus, or down the coast to Haifa, and our army would not have been tied up here these two years, enforcing this pointless double siege. And my friend Salah ad-Din would be safe in his palace, being tended by his wives, or by good doctors like your poor dear father, rather than suffering from fevers and colic amidst the filth and disease of a stagnant army camp.” He breathed out, long and slow, a great sigh. “We cannot continue. If we try we will all perish.”
Nathanael stared at him in horror. “I hope this is your headache talking. You can’t possibly surrender Akka. Not after all we’ve been through.”
Karakush looked unhappy; Nat could see his reaction had taken the governor by surprise. The eunuch put his hands to his head. “I believe we shall have to surrender. I can see no other choice.”
They were so intent they did not notice the huge shape filling the doorway.
“What, you would discuss our plans with a foreigner?”
The man who had entered the chamber was as large as his voice, hulking, and with a bush of a beard. Al-Mashtub, made grand emir by the sultan, glared first at Karakush, then at Nathanael.
“He’s not a foreigner, he’s my doctor,” Karakush told him defensively.
Nat’s eyes glittered. “I was born in this city,” he enunciated. He laid his palm on the eunuch’s forehead, then pressed three fingers flat to the side of his neck and stared off into empty air, counting silently. “Elevated,” he pronounced at last with something approaching satisfaction. He turned to Al-Mashtub. “Do you know what I was doing before I was summoned here? Throwing stones at Christians, that’s what. I was up on the north-east wall risking my life with everyone else up there, men, women and children—hurling boulders and fire pots, gathering arrows, piling up whatever ammunition we could find. We’re all inhabitants of this city, most of us born here. For some of us it’s the only home we’ve ever known. People have grown up here, made friends, built houses, raised families. It’s our city: it belongs to us and we’ll fight to the death to save it. Have you talked to those people? Have you asked them what they want? Whether they care that all they’ve suffered these past two years may go for nothing?”
What he meant was: It’s you who is a newcomer, a K
urd. And the Black Bird is a eunuch out of Egypt. What do either of you know of Akka?
The Grand Emir looked put out. “I do not ask,” he growled. “I tell.”
Karakush winced, but Nat had seen too much to be outfaced by such bluster.
The eunuch spread his hands, apologetic, helpless. “Akka will be razed to the ground if we do not come to terms. The walls will fall to this incessant battering—there are only so many repairs we can make before they give way. And these kings are the flower of Christendom: men of honour, famed for their chivalry …”
“Men of honour! I’ll tell you what my father, God rest his soul, would have said to hear you speak of surrender to such men. My father was a man of peace, but he was also a scholar and a man of knowledge who said we never learn anything from history, of which he would have reminded you with just one word: Jerusalem.”
The emir and eunuch exchanged a puzzled glance.
“These ‘men of honour’ come of the same stock as those who torched the synagogues of Jerusalem with my grandfather’s father, his sister, her husband, their children, his grandmother and my great-aunt Miriam inside. They were all burned to death, screaming for mercy, while outside the flower of chivalry hooted and cheered and fed the flames. And outside they butchered every Muslim they found—except those rich enough to earn them a fat ransom—and raped the women and cut the throats of the children. The streets ran knee-deep in blood, and yet you would surrender to such people?”
A long silence followed this outburst; the oud-player had stopped strumming.
Al-Mashtub looked to Karakush, prompting him to bid his wayward “doctor” still his tongue.
At last the eunuch took a deep breath. “We are all people of the Book, sir. There is an understanding between us, no matter how brutal these wars become. And this English king, this Malik al-Inkitar, is greatly respected as a courtly warrior. Times have changed since Al-Quds fell to the Christians. Our enemies behaved like barbarians then, but now we are dealing with great kings, and the eyes of the world will be upon them. If we must sue for peace—insh’allah, the reinforcements our sultan has promised will arrive—but if they do not, then we must come to terms that will not shame the brave people of this city, or demean their suffering.”
Nat wanted to stay, to argue, but it was clear there was nothing more to say.
“No! No, you can’t take them!”
The birds made a noise Sorgan had never heard before as Tariq took them from their roost. When he or his father handled them they cooed gently, a soft trilling that made him feel warm and comfortable inside. There was a panic in this noise, though. As his brother-by-law straightened up with one pigeon grasped in each hand, the birds stretched their necks up and away from the engulfing fingers, their eyes bulging.
“If I want them, I shall take them. Everything in this house is mine,” Tariq pronounced.
Sorgan frowned. “But the pigeons are not in the house.”
“Get out of my way, idiot!”
Sorgan knew that this word was a sort of insult. People with mean eyes and laughing mouths used it about him. But Tariq was not laughing now. His eyes were small and mean—narrowed to a glare—and his face was getting red.
“Put them back!” Sorgan shouted. “They aren’t yours. They are Baba’s, and this is his house, not yours.”
But Tariq kept moving forward, head down like a bull ready to charge. He must have squeezed the birds as his body tensed, for one of the pigeons gave out a sort of squawk.
Sorgan did not like Tariq. He ate too much and made too much noise. And he had heard muffled cries from his sister’s room in the night, and sometimes in the morning Zohra’s eyes were red-rimmed and too bright, and there were bruises on her arms. Like some sort of epiphany, Sorgan now suddenly made a connection between Zohra and the pigeons, a connection that had to do with pain.
“You’re hurting them!”
Tariq laughed. “You’re soft in the head, you are. And so’s your father, keeping perfectly good eating like these when people go starving.”
“They take messages to the sultan.” Sorgan wasn’t entirely sure what a sultan was but he knew it was important.
“The sultan! What more does he need to know? He knows we’re starving to death and still he does nothing. So I’m going to take these two birds and wring their necks and then your sister is going to cook them for me. Can’t do my job if I’m hungry, can I?”
Tariq made to push past Sorgan, but Sorgan blocked the doorway.
“Get out of the way!” Tariq said.
“You can’t take the pigeons!”
“I can, and I will!” Tariq thrust his sweaty face at Sorgan. “What’s more, I’m going to EAT them, and no one—least of all a moron like you—is going to stop me!” He barged into Sorgan with his shoulder, putting all his weight into it, and gained a yard of space so that he made his way towards the stairs. “I’m going to have Zohra stuff them with ground almonds. And dates. I know there are some left—I found a parcel of them tucked away behind some sacks. She’s been trying to hide them from me, sly bitch.”
Sorgan’s giant hand grabbed the back of his robe and Tariq’s feet went out from under him. He hit the stairs hard, first with his spine, then his head, which bounced up off the stone with such force that a piece of his tongue went flying, blood spraying from it. He splayed his fingers wide and the birds flew free. Nothing could stop his fall, or his yelling. Not until he hit the wall where the steps turned the corner.
The pigeons fluttered wildly in the stairwell, their wings clattering. Then they alighted on Tariq’s unmoving form and all was quiet. Sorgan smiled.
Many of the houses Nathanael walked past were deserted, the doors locked, the windows shuttered. But others stood open, violated and looted. Poor leavings lay scattered in the dust outside—scraps of fabric, shards of pottery and glass. He bent and picked up a curious piece of wood, only to find it was a discarded toy, a little dolly, its limbs all twisted and broken. It didn’t look as though he could repair it: a shame, or he would have given it to little Nima to replace her lost cat.
The tabby, Kiri, had disappeared a week ago. Nat had a pretty good idea of what had probably happened to it: you didn’t live in a starving city without seeing people eating things they would never have considered edible in better times. He’d done his best to keep the little animal in the house, but of course you couldn’t easily confine a cat, and when he’d tried Kiri took it as a challenge, fleeing between his legs out into the courtyard and climbing the vine up onto the wall. She sat there for a moment, watching him reproachfully, before disappearing onto the neighbours’ rooftops, only to reappear at her usual time in the evening for food and petting. After that, he had given up and hoped the little cat would have the sense to avoid danger. Day by day Kiri had proven herself a skilful survivor, but Nima cried herself to sleep the first night the tabby didn’t come home. The next day she made Nathanael walk the streets with her, calling its name. They even knocked on doors, with Nat making apologetic faces at the neighbours while Nima asked if they’d seen her cat, describing it in loving detail.
Some people were sympathetic, and one or two even gave the little girl a piece of food—bread made with ground date pits, a piece of dried fish—that they could barely afford to part with. But most were short with them, and a couple were openly derisive and angry. “A cat? If that’s the most you’ve lost you’re very lucky.” One man even said, “I tell you, habibi, if we’d seen a cat, there’d have been kebabs that night!” After that house visit, Nima was very quiet.
Nathanael no longer walked near the central plaza, where the bazaar had once spilled into the square. The sight of the abandoned stalls, the empty crates and canvas covers, the shattered boulders, cratered ground and gaping reed roof over the qissaria, and the dust over everything simply depressed him too much. The little Henna Souq, where he had first encountered Zohra Najib, was all closed up: no one cared much about how they looked or how they smelled when they did not kno
w where their next meal was coming from.
He was luckier than most: Rana and her father looked after Nima when he was working, in exchange for his treatment of Rana’s little brother, who suffered from intermittent shivering fevers. These Nathanael could never quite eradicate, but he could at least relieve them with warming possets and tisanes. Rana’s family also gave him small fish and crabs from time to time. They had also, till last week, provided Nima with fish heads and tails with which to feed Kiri.
Nathanael sighed. If it had not been for the crabbers and the fishermen at the quay, they would all have starved to death long ago, though even the little harbour was not safe from the Franj missiles. Only last week a boat had taken a direct hit and gone to the bottom, and any vessel attempting to slip out into the open sea was immediately set upon by the ships in the enemy blockade
Rana and her father lived in a row of little mud-brick houses close to the docks. It had been a poor area at the best of times, and now it was little more than a slum. He reached the crabbers’ door and knocked. Sad to see doors shut, he thought: in times of peace folk were so much more trusting, in and out of each other’s houses, sharing food and gossip, borrowing pots and ingredients, doors left wide open. Now it seemed people trusted their neighbours even less than their common enemy, the Franj.
“Hello! It’s me, Nathanael!” he called, and Rana opened the door and ushered him inside.
“Look, Nat, look!” Nima held something out—an earthenware pot full of water. Nathanael took it from her and raised it to his lips.
“No, silly!” The child giggled so much she almost choked. “It’s not for drinking, look, look!” Inside the pot there was a small, multicoloured fish swimming around in a dull, endless quest for the non-existent exit from its earthenware prison. “Rana says you can’t eat this sort, so I’m going to keep it. But if Kiri comes home we’ll have to hide it away or she’ll eat it and get sick.”
How long before she would forget the cat, Nat wondered, then felt ashamed of himself. Nima’s adoration of the tabby was as ardent as his for Zohra: as a child, you didn’t make the distinction between differing values of objects of desire.
