“Yes, Sister?”
“I will say this as plainly as I can.” The serious little line of her mouth softened with the appearance of lips, and her eyes suddenly looked quite old and tired. “I was not the paragon of virtue that you think I was. I performed good works and I served the church as I was instructed, but always with fear and doubt. I respected the Mother’s commandments to preserve life, but as a nun I never created any life myself. In fact, I never really cared for children. So much noise, so much dirt, so much worry. I respected the Son’s commandments to show compassion and mercy, but as a nun I was almost as penniless and lonely as the beggars I cared for. It took little effort to pity them as I pitied myself. But worst of all, I did not respect the Father’s commandments to observe the law and seek justice. I sheltered all manners of criminals, knowing full well what they were, and I sent the police away. I think I was too afraid of the criminals. It was just easier to look the other way, to not get involved. I sacrificed justice to keep my house quiet. I chose the easy road.”
Lorenzo stared at her, frowning, wanting to interrupt, wanting to correct her and to argue with her, but he was lost for words. Slowly, the thought formed in his mind: If she could live such a holy life and still be so far from grace, what chance do I have? He glanced around for a few moments until the queasiness in his stomach died down and he said, “What does that mean for me?”
“It means, poor Lorenzo, that you still have the potential to live a life that is far better than mine ever was.”
He blinked. “How is that possible?”
Ariel nodded at Qhora. “Marry your beloved and have children. God is a creator and sustainer of life. Having children is pleasing to the Mother, especially if you raise them properly. Uphold and enforce the law. Go on serving Prince Valero.”
“As a fencing instructor?”
Ariel gestured toward his espada. “How many men have you killed since we first met?”
“None.”
Qhora looked at him sharply. “None? What about the robbers in Tingis?”
“I slashed their hands and struck them unconscious. It’s easy if you know where to hit,” he said sheepishly. “They probably woke up a few minutes after we left.”
“Yes,” Ariel said. “And you merely disarmed the bandit on the highway, just as you disarmed the woman in white at the marketplace. And you refrained from killing her at the train station. You even offered her alternative punishments. You are not afraid to fight for the law, but you fight with your mind as well as your sword. In fact, few men could do what you do. Destreza is the study of the skillful sword, not the blind sword or the murdering sword or the cruel sword. And you are a master diestro. The youngest in decades.”
“Then you’re saying that I should fight?”
“In the name of the Father, the Mother, and the Son. Yes. Fight for the law. Preserve life. Show mercy. You can do all three in a single stroke of your sword. You’ve been doing it for months, time and again. You are already walking a righteous path, Lorenzo.” Ariel smiled. “But you’ve let your illusions about piety and holiness blind you to that truth. God does not want us to lock ourselves away in cloisters and cells to pray and hide from the world. God wants us to live in the world, to shape the world, to teach the world. You are not a scholar, Lorenzo. We both know that. You are a soldier, but yours is the sword of life and law. Carry it proudly. Teach it to all who are willing to learn it. You could train a legion to fight with courage and honor to preserve life, not to kill. To truly fight in the service of God.”
Lorenzo rested his hand on the pommel of his espada, and for the first time in months he gripped it without fear or doubt. “The sword of life?”
Ariel nodded.
“And children?” He glanced at Qhora for the first time in several long moments and saw a curious look in her eye and slight smirk on her lip.
“But marriage means conversion, doesn’t it?” Qhora asked, turning a colder eye on the ghost. “You want me to be an Espani lady, to turn my back on my people and my gods and everything that tells me who I am.”
“Lady Qhora, you have already sacrificed so much. Your home, your family, your future. I’m in no position to ask you to sacrifice your gods. But you love this man. You want to spend your life with him? To have his children? Yes?”
Qhora nodded and Lorenzo felt a sudden flush in his chilled cheeks.
Ariel nodded back. “Then, as long as you intend to live in Espana, it seems a small concession to perform a brief ritual. Say the words, wear the triquetra, and read enough of the Book to discuss it with your neighbors and friends. You might be surprised how little effort would make you as pious as most Espani. But keep the gods and prayers of your people in your heart, if they bring you comfort and peace. Can you do that for Lorenzo? Can you do that for your children?”
Lorenzo watched the fiery wheels turning behind the princess’s eyes and for a moment he thought the argument he had been fearing was about to erupt, but instead Qhora nodded and turned back to face him. “I can do that. But only if you come back to me. Be my Enzo again. No more sulking, no more hiding. And one more thing.”
“What?” he asked.
“Smile, damn you.” She grabbed his collar and pulled him down toward her face.
The smile came on its own, stretching his cold and stiff cheeks, and they kissed. It was the warmest, softest sensation he had felt in over a year and it only ended when he ran out of air. But as he straightened up he saw clearly how blue her lips had become and turned to say his farewells to Ariel, but the ghost had vanished. “Come.” He grabbed her hand. “Let’s get out of here. We have things to do.”
“What things?”
He smiled. “Everything.”
Chapter 33. Syfax
The marshals’ office in Arafez was nearly identical to the one in Tingis and Syfax quickly threaded a path through the hallway traffic to the locker room where he took a quick shower and changed into someone else’s clothes and boots. With the slime and smell of the Zemmour Canal finally gone, he found the records room where he took one look at the rows and rows of cabinets before asking the clerk to find an address and any files on Barika Chaou. The young woman appeared to be in no particular hurry until he presented his badge for verification and she saw his name etched along the bottom of it. Within three minutes, Chaou’s file was in his hand.
The first few pages were standard. Education, work history, current and previous residences. But the list of known contacts and associates read as a who’s who of the wealthy elite of Marrakesh, Espana, and Numidia. It went on for pages, names of people followed by brief descriptions of how and why Chaou knew them. Bankers, diplomats, merchants, generals, admirals, princes, and countless others that meant nothing to him. The file was long, detailed, and therefore useless. It gave him a thousand leads and none of them were people he could reasonably shove up against a wall in a dark alley. Syfax flipped to the back of the folder to the errata and found a few pages of miscellany, some letters and memos, most of it several years old.
He tossed the file onto the clerk’s desk and rubbed his eyes.
“No help, sir?” the clerk said.
“Not really. Give me the one on Lady Sade.”
She hesitated for a bare instant before taking back the Chaou file and fetching the one on Lady Sade. It landed on the desk with a heavy thump and Syfax exhaled slowly. “Is there a shorter version?”
The clerk smiled and shook her head. “Sorry, sir.”
He opened it to find a longer and more detailed version of Chaou’s. Lady Sade’s entire family history, all of her business dealings and associates and all of their histories and associates, and on and on. Chaou was there, briefly. So was Fariza Othmani. But he only found them because they were listed alphabetically. There was nothing obviously helpful about either of them.
Syfax groaned and tried to ignore the gnawing in his belly. “All right, help me out. If you were rich and powerful, and doing something totally illegal, would you meet
with your friends at your own house where you can control the security or would you meet somewhere else, somewhere hidden, somewhere private?”
“Do you mean Lady Sade and the ambassador, sir?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, if I had to guess, I’d try the Onyx Club. Very exclusive. Tight security. And it wouldn’t arouse suspicion if every rich and powerful person in the country happened to be there at one time.” The clerk drummed her fingers on the desk. “Definitely the Onyx Club, sir.”
The Onyx Club was a long hour’s walk from the marshal’s office, but the major eventually found the towering building across the street from a massive park. The armored doors huddled behind a row of Hellan columns and the ground floor windows were all curtained. The upper windows revealed only the massive chandeliers suspended from the ceilings and the shadows of servants passing in front of the bright electric lights. Syfax paused long enough to observe the two small boys in matching blue uniforms standing side by side in front of the doors before he turned and strolled back to the corner, out of sight, to watch and wait.
Two hours later, as he leaned against a tree eating a bag of nuts he bought from a cart at the far end of the park, Syfax saw two people step out onto the street. The first was a woman, middle-aged and short and rather pale, who emerged from the Onyx Club and began walking along the sidewalk. The second was a young man in a red jacket who jogged out of the trees across from the club and caught up to the woman just as she was turning the corner.
Syfax grinned and muttered, “Good work, kid.” He crossed the street and slowly made his way over, approaching from behind Kenan so he could get a good look at the woman and hear them talking before the corporal saw him.
“Excuse me, Doctor Medina?” Kenan jogged up alongside her. “Are you Doctor Medina?”
“Hm, yes?” The woman stopped short and glanced at him with wide eyes. “Who are you?”
“Corporal Kenan Agyeman, marshals’ office,” he said. “I’m, uh, I’m part of the task force investigating the fire at your office last night. I’m assisting the fire chief and local police.”
“Oh? Oh, yes.” The woman blinked and her shoulders relaxed a bit. “Yes, what can I do for you, corporal?”
“Just a few questions.” Kenan clasped his hands behind his back. “Do you know a man named Medur Hamuy? Tall, muscular build, late thirties.”
“I don’t recognize the name. But if he was a patient of ours, then I’m sure we have…oh, no, no, all the records must have been lost in the fire.” Genuine dismay passed over the doctor’s face. “All the patient records, serial numbers, invoices. Gone.”
Kenan pursed his lips for a moment. “What about a woman named Barika Chaou? Short, older, silver hair?”
The doctor froze for a fraction of a second, but there was a tiny flash of fear in the woman’s face.
“Ah, yes.” The doctor offered a smile, obviously false and full of nerves. “Yes, a lady in the government service, I believe? I do recall that name, although I think it has been some time since I last heard it.” Her speech began slowly, but accelerated the longer she went on. “Yes, I believe she was a patient several years ago, back when I was first starting out here in Arafez. It was quite an unexpected honor to have such a distinguished person in my shop back then. I was still wondering whether I would have any success at all in this country, and suddenly, here was this very important lady seeking my services! Oh, that was a good day. But what does any of this have to do with your investigation of the fire? Surely Senora Chaou was not hurt in the fire?”
Kenan shook his head. “No. Actually, I’m more interested in the electrical device you inserted into her arm so she could shock people with her fingers. And if there’s time, I’d like to hear about the bullet-proof armor in Medur Hamuy’s chest.”
The doctor froze yet again, this time her small mouth hanging open slightly.
Kenan cleared his throat. “Whenever you’re ready. Take a minute, if you need it. I have time.”
The round little Espani made several sounds as though she was beginning to speak and then suddenly forgot how.
“Kenan!” Syfax called out.
They both turned to look at him.
“Major?” Kenan beamed. “You’re all right! Are you all right? Are you hurt? You look a little tired.”
“I know how I look.” The major joined them and glared down at the woman in the green dress. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend here?”
“This is Doctor Elena Medina. She’s the one who put the armor plate in Hamuy’s chest and the shock device in Ambassador Chaou’s arm.” Kenan folded his arms across his chest. “She was just about to start lying to me about how we’ve got it all wrong, that it’s all a big misunderstanding.”
“Good work. Any word on Chaou?” Syfax glanced around at the empty street.
“We haven’t seen or heard from her.”
“Well, she’s in town. I lost her at the South Station this morning and I’ve been running down leads all day. I heard that wealthy government types like this club, the Onyx. We should check it out.” Syfax jerked his head back toward the club doors.
“Actually, major, I tried that but I couldn’t get in.” Kenan pointed at the park across the avenue. “So I waited in the park to catch the doctor coming out. I saw every person who’s gone in since noon, and Chaou hasn’t been here.”
“She could have arrived before you did. Let’s go.” Syfax strode away.
Kenan hurried after him, dragging the doctor by the arm. “But major, they’ve got private security in there.”
“I don’t care.”
“Here, sir, at least take my gun.”
He frowned over his shoulder at the corporal. “Nah, you keep it. I’m just going to take a look around. Not planning to kill anyone today.” He fished the Persian’s brass knuckles from his pocket and slipped his fingers through the rings. The metal was warm.
Syfax shoved through the double doors of the Onyx Club over the shrill cries of the two little boys in matching blue suits. He made it halfway across the carpeted foyer before three young men with thick necks and bulging arms hustled through an open doorway on his left.
The major frowned at them. “You know who I am?”
One of the men shrugged. “No police, no marshals, no exceptions.”
Syfax tightened his fist around the brass knuckles. A gun might speed this up, but then they’ll get their own guns, and then we’ll need bigger guns, and then the bodies start stacking up in the street like cordwood. And no one wants that.
For a moment, he considered apologizing to them ahead of time. Instead, he lunged at the closest one and smashed his fist into his windpipe, sending him reeling back against the wall, choking and gasping. Then the other two grabbed his coat from behind.
The major yanked forward and down, whipping his arms free of his coat and his attackers. As the men stumbled toward him off balance, Syfax delivered a flurry of heavy-handed punches to their heads. On a better day, he might have been a blur of martial artistry, but today there was only strength, relentless and barely disciplined. He smashed his knuckles into jaws and ears and necks and eyes as hard and fast as he could, taking only a few of their wild swings to his own upper body. He didn’t feel them at all.
One guard toppled over backward and bounced his skull on the wall. The other took a roundhouse to the side of his head and spun as he dropped to the floor. The three guards sat or lay on the carpet, clutching their heads and chests, shuddering and coughing.
Syfax massaged his hands. “Sorry, fellas. Nothing personal.” He picked up his coat and slowly pulled it back on.
The two boys in blue hid outside the doors, peering at them with wide unblinking eyes. Kenan arrived in the doorway a moment later, still wrestling with the heavy-set doctor. Syfax jerked his head at the corridor leading into the club. “Come on. Try to keep up.”
Syfax strode down the hall glancing into the open doorways on either side and seeing richly furnished
sitting rooms and sun rooms and dining rooms, all decorated in very different styles: classical Yoruba, modernist Igbo, industrial Mazigh, azure Songhai, imperial Eran. Even one that looked like a Hellan theater and one that resembled an Espani chapel. Some were occupied, and the women who noticed the marshal studying them frowned back rather intensely. Most of the rooms were empty.
Syfax left the corporal on the first floor and sprinted up a wide stair to the next level and repeated his search. And again above that, and again above that. Until finally he stood at the center of the lush greenhouse on the roof, sweating, alone.
When he returned to the foyer, he found Kenan holding back his coat to display his holstered gun to the angry, battered security guards. His other hand held the doctor against the wall.
“She’s not here. We’re leaving.” Syfax strode out into the fading afternoon heat and stood on the sidewalk, glaring at the nearly deserted street. He took the spare moment to put on his new Persian glasses with the blue tinted lenses, but found they’d been broken in his pocket so he tossed them to one of the little boys in blue, who called out, “Thanks, mister!”
Kenan followed him out with the doctor in tow. “Where to now, sir?”
“I have no idea.” Syfax leaned toward the doctor, frowning into her round face. “But I bet you can tell us where we want to go. Let’s go find a nice spot to have a little chat.”
They crossed the street, found a footpath in the park, and deposited the doctor on the grass in a nook between some trees and a large brown stone where they were unlikely to be noticed, had there been anyone else in the park to notice them. Syfax leaned against the rock and felt the subtle warmth captured in the stone seeping into his sore back. He eyed the Espani woman, a lumpy figure of soft, bulbous curves and great sagging breasts that hovered around her lower ribs. The puffy flesh around her jaws and cheeks made her face seem unnaturally young and smooth, but her bright green eyes stared back at him with a piercing intelligence.
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