"Mecca?"
"Makkah," she corrected me. She thought for a few seconds, then pointed confidently across my body.
"That way," I said. "Good. How far?" Noora only shrugged. I hadn't learned very much.
"I'm sorry," she said. "The old shaykh asked the same questions. Maybe Uncle Hassanein knows more."
The old shaykh! I'd been so wrapped up in my own misery that I'd forgotten about Papa. "The old shaykh is alive?"
"Yes, thanks to you, and thanks to the wisdom of Uncle Hassanein. When Hilal and bin Turki found the two of you on the dunes, they thought you were both dead. They came back to our camp, and if they hadn't told Uncle Hassanein about you later that evening, you surely would be dead."
I stared at her for a moment. "Hilal and bin Turki just left us out there?"
She shrugged. "They thought you were dead."
I shivered. "Glad it crossed their minds to mention us while they were sitting comfortably around the communal fire."
Noora didn't catch my bitterness. "Uncle Hassanein brought you back to camp. This is his tent. The old shaykh is in the tent of bin Musaid." Her eyes lowered when she mentioned his name.
"Then where are your uncle and bin Musaid sleeping?" I asked.
"They sleep with the others who have no tents. On the sand by the fire."
That naturally made me feel a little guilty, because I knew the desert got very cold at night. "How is the old shaykh?" I asked.
"He is getting stronger every day. He suffered greatly from exposure and thirst, but not as greatly as you. It was your sacrifice that kept him alive, Shaykh Marîd."
I didn't remember any sacrifice. I didn't remember anything about what we'd been through. Noora must have seen my confusion, because she reached out and almost touched my implants. "These," she said. "You abused them and now you suffer, but it saved the life of the old shaykh. He wants very much to speak with you. Uncle Hassanein told him that tomorrow you may have visitors."
I was relieved to hear that Friedlander Bey was in better shape than I was. I hoped that he might be able to fill in some of the gaps in my recollection. "How long have I been here?"
She did some mental figuring, then replied, "Twelve days. The Bani Salim planned to remain in Bir Balagh only three days, but Uncle Hassanein decided to stay until you and the old shaykh were fit to travel. Some of the tribe are angry about that, especially bin Musaid."
"You mentioned him before. Who is this bin Musaid?"
Noora lowered her eyes and spoke in a low voice. "He desires to marry me," she said.
"Uh huh. And how do you feel about him?"
She looked into my face. I could see anger in her eyes, although I couldn't tell if it was directed at me or her suitor. She stood up and walked out of the tent without saying another word.
I wished she hadn't done that. I'd meant to ask her for something to eat, and to pass the word to her uncle that I'd like another jolt of Sonneine. Instead, I just tried to find a comfortable position to lie in, and I thought about what Noora had told me.
Papa and I had almost died in this wilderness, but I didn't yet know whom to blame that on. I wouldn't be surprised if it was all connected to Lieutenant Hajjar, and through him to Reda Abu Adil. The last thing I remembered was sitting on that suborbital shuttle, waiting for it to take off. Everything that came after—the flight itself, the arrival at the destination, and whatever events had led me into the middle of the desert—was still missing from my memory. I hoped it would all come back as I got stronger, or that Papa had a clearer idea of what had happened.
I decided to focus my rage on Abu Adil. I knew that although I felt peaceful enough now, I was still in deadly peril. For one thing, even if the Bani Salim permitted us to accompany them to Mughshin—wherever the hell that was—it would be very difficult to arrange our travel back to the city. We couldn't just show up again without risking arrest. We'd have to avoid Papa's mansion, and it would be very dangerous for me to set foot in the Budayeen.
All that was in the future, however. We had more immediate things to worry about. I had no real assurance that the Bani Salim would remain friendly. I guessed that Bedu hospitality required them to nurse Papa and me back to health. After that, all bets were off. When we were able to fend for ourselves again, the tribe might even capture us and turn us over to our enemies. There might be reward money in it for them. It would be a mistake to let our guard down too far.
I knew one thing for certain: if Hajjar and Abu Adil were responsible for what happened to us after we left the shuttle, they would pay dearly for it. I would swear an oath to that effect.
My grim thoughts were interrupted by Hassanein, who gave me a cheerful greeting. "Here, O Shaykh," he said, "you may eat." He gave me a round, flat piece of unleavened bread and a bowl of some ghastly white fluid. I looked up at him. "Camel's milk," he said. I'd been afraid he was going to say that.
"Bismillah," I murmured. I broke a piece of bread and ate it, then sipped from the bowl. The camel's milk wasn't bad, actually. It was certainly much easier to get down than the water in the goatskin bag.
Shaykh Hassanein squatted on his heels beside me. "Some of the Bani Salim are restless," he said, "and they say that if we wait here too long, we won't get as much money for our camels in Mughshin. Also, we must find somewhere else to graze the animals. You must be ready to travel in two days."
"Sure, be ready when you are." Ha ha, I thought. I was just putting up a noble front.
He nodded. "Eat some more bread. Later, Noora will bring you some dates and tea. Tonight, if you wish, you may have a little roasted goat."
I was so hungry that I'd have gnawed an uncooked carcass. There was sand in the bread and grit in the milk, but I didn't care.
"Have you used this time to ponder the meaning of what has happened to you?" asked Hassanein.
"Yes, indeed, O Wise One," I said. "My mind is empty of the details, but I've thought long and hard about why I came so near to death. I've looked ahead, too. There will come a harvesting."
The leader of the Bani Salim nodded. I wondered if he knew what I was thinking. I wondered if he would recognize the name of Reda Abu Adil. "That is well," he said in a carefully neutral voice. He stood up to leave.
"O Wise One," I said, "will you give me something for the pain?"
His eyes narrowed as he looked down at me. "Are you truly still in such pain?"
"Yes. I'm stronger now, all praise be to Allah, but my body still suffers from the abuse."
He muttered something under his breath, but he opened his leather bag and prepared another injection. "This will be the last," he told me. Then he jabbed me in the hip.
It occurred to me that he probably didn't have a vast store of medical supplies. Hassanein had to tend to all the accidents and illnesses that struck the Bani Salim, and I had probably already consumed much of his pain-relieving medication. I wished I hadn't selfishly taken this last shot. I sighed as I waited for the Sonneine to take effect.
Hassanein left the tent, and Noora entered again.
"Anyone ever told you you're very beautiful, my sister?" I said. I wouldn't have been so bold if the opiate hadn't chosen that instant to bloom in my brain.
I could see that I'd made Noora very uncomfortable. She covered her face with her head scarf and took her position against the wall of the tent. She did not speak to me.
"Forgive me, Noora," I said, my words slurring together.
She looked away from me, and I cursed my stupidity. Then, just before I drifted off into warm, wonderful sleep, she whispered, "Am I truly so beautiful?" I grinned at her crookedly, and then my mind spun away out of this world.
3
When my memory began to come back, I recalled that I'd been sitting next to Hajjar on the suborbital ship, and facing us had been Friedlander Bey and Hajjar's goon. The crooked cop had derived a lot of enjoyment from looking at me, shaking his head, and making little snotty chuckling noises. I found myself wondering how hard I'd have to twist
his scrawny neck before his head would pop off.
Papa had maintained his air of calm. He simply wasn't going to give Hajjar the satisfaction of troubling him. After a while, I just tried to pretend that Hajjar and the goon didn't exist. I passed the time imagining them suffering all sorts of tragic accidents.
About forty minutes into the flight, when the shuttle had boosted to the top of its parabola and was coasting down toward its destination, a tall man with a thin face and a huge black mustache jerked aside the curtains to the rear cabin. This was the qadi, I imagined, the civil judge who had reached a decision in whatever case Papa and I were involved in. It did my mood no good to see that the qadi was dressed in the gray uniform and leather boots of an officer in Reda Abu Adil's Jaish.
He glanced down at a sheaf of papers in his hand. "Friedlander Bey?" he asked. "Marîd Audran?"
"Him and him," said Lieutenant Hajjar, jerking his thumb at us in turn.
The qadi nodded. He was still standing beside us in the aisle. "This is a most serious charge," he said. "It would have gone better for you if you'd pleaded guilty and begged for mercy."
"Listen, pal," I said, "I haven't even heard the charge yet! I don't even know what we're supposed to have done! How could we have pleaded guilty? We weren't given a chance to enter a plea at all!"
"Say, your honor?" said Hajjar. "I took the liberty of entering their pleas for them. In the interest of saving the city time and money."
"Most irregular," muttered the qadi, shuffling through his papers. "But as you entered both pleas of innocent, I see no further problem."
I slammed my fist on my seat's armrest. "But you just said it would have gone better for us if—"
"Peace, my nephew," said Papa in his imperturbable voice. He turned to the qadi. "Please, your honor, what is the charge against us?"
"Oh, murder," said the distracted judge. "Murder in the first degree. Now, as I have all the—"
"Murder!" I cried. I heard Hajjar laugh, and I turned and gave him a deadly look. He raised his hands to protect himself. The goon reached across and slapped my face, hard. I turned toward him, raging, but he just waved the barrel of his needle gun under my nose. I subsided a little.
"Whom were we supposed to have killed?" asked Papa.
"Just a moment, I have it here somewhere," said the qadi. "Yes, a police officer named Khalid Maxwell. The crime was discovered by an associate of Shaykh Reda Abu Adil."
"I knew Abu Adil's name would come into this," I growled.
"Khalid Maxwell," said Papa. "I've never had any contact at all with anyone by that name."
"I haven't either," I said. "I've never even heard of the guy."
"One of my most trusted subordinates," said Hajjar. "The city and the force have suffered a great loss."
"We didn't do it, Hajjar!" I shouted. "And you know it!"
The qadi looked at me sternly. "It's much too late for denials," he said. His dark face didn't seem sturdy enough to support either his bulbous nose or the bushy growth attached to it. "I've already reached my verdict."
Papa began to look a trifle upset. "You've already made your decision, without letting us present our side of the story?"
The qadi slapped his handful of paper. "All the facts are here. There are eyewitness accounts and reports from Lieutenant Hajjar's investigation. There's too much documented evidence to allow for even the slightest doubt. What is your side of the story? That you deny committing this foul crime? Of course, that's what you'd have said to me. I didn't need to waste my time listening to it. I have all this!" Again he slapped the papers.
"Then you've reached a verdict," said Papa, "and you've found us guilty."
"Precisely," said the qadi. "Guilty as charged. Guilty in the eyes of Allah and your fellow man. However, the death penalty will be set aside because of an earnest petition from one of the city's most respected citizens."
"Shaykh Reda?" I said. My stomach was starting to bother me again.
"Yes," said the qadi. "Shaykh Reda appealed to me on your behalf. Out of respect for him, you will not be beheaded in the courtyard of the Shimaal Mosque as you deserve. Rather, your sentence is banishment. You're forbidden ever to return to the city, under pain of arrest and summary execution."
"Well," I said sourly, "that's a relief. Where are you taking us?"
"This shuttle's destination is the kingdom of Asir," said the qadi.
I looked across at Friedlander Bey. He was doing his serene old wise man routine again. I felt a little better, too. I didn't know anything about Asir other than it bordered the Red Sea south of Mecca. Asir was better than some places they could have shipped us, and from there we could begin drawing on our resources to prepare our return to the city. It would take time and a lot of money passed under a lot of tables, but we'd come home eventually. I was already looking forward to my reunion with Hajjar.
The qadi glanced from me to Papa, then nodded and retired again to the rear cabin. Hajjar waited for him to leave, then let loose a loud guffaw. "Hey!" he cried. "What you think of that?"
I grabbed his throat before he could duck out of the way. The goon rose out of his seat and threatened me with the needle gun. "Don't shoot!" I said with feigned terror, all the while squeezing Hajjar's larynx tighter. "Please, don't shoot me!"
Hajjar tried to say something, but I had his windpipe shut off. His face was turning the color of the wine of Paradise.
"Release him, my nephew," said Friedlander Bey after a moment.
"Now, O Shaykh?" I asked. I still hadn't let go.
"Now."
I flung Hajjar away from me, and the back of his head bounced off the bulkhead behind him. He gasped and choked as he tried to force air into his lungs. The goon lowered his needle gun and sat down again. I got the impression that he was no longer personally concerned with how Hajjar was feeling. I took that to mean that he didn't have a much higher opinion of the lieutenant than I did, and as long as I didn't kill Hajjar outright, I could pretty much do whatever I wanted to him without the goon interfering.
Hajjar glared at me hatefully. "You're gonna be sorry you did that," he said in a hoarse voice.
"I don't think so, Hajjar," I said. "I think the memory of your red, pop-eyed face will sustain me through all the difficulties to come."
"Sit in your seat and shut up, Audran," Hajjar uttered through clenched teeth. "Make a move or a sound, and I'll have your friend over there break your face."
I was getting bored, anyway. I put my head back and closed my eyes, thinking that when we arrived in Asir, I might need my strength. I could feel the maneuvering engines roar to life, and the pilot began turning the giant shuttlecraft in a long, slow arc toward the west. We descended rapidly, spiraling down through the night sky.
The shuttle began to tremble, and there was a long booming noise and a high-pitched wail. Hajjar's goon looked frightened. "Landing gear locking into place," I said. He gave me a brief nod.
And then the shuttle was down and screaming across a concrete field. There were no lights outside that I could see, but I was sure we must have been surrounded by a great airfield. After a while, when the pilot had braked the shuttle to what seemed like a crawl, I could see the outlines of hangars, sheds, and other buildings. Then the shuttle came to a complete stop, although we hadn't arrived at a terminal building. "Stay in your seats," said Hajjar.
We sat there, listening to the air-conditioning whining above our heads. Finally, the qadi reappeared from the rear cabin. He still clutched his sheaf of papers. He held up one page and read from it:
" 'Witness, that regarding the acts of members of the community, which acts are certain crimes and affronts to Allah and all brothers in Islam, those in custody identified as Friedlander Bey and Marid Audran are herein found guilty, and their punishment shall be exile from the community which they so grievously offended. This is a mercy shown unto them, and they should count the remainder of their days a blessing, and spend them in seeking the nearness of God and the forgiven
ess of men.'"
Then the qadi leaned against the bulkhead and put his signature to the paper, and signed a duplicate copy so that Papa could have one and I could have the other. "Now, let's go," he said.
"Come on, Audran," said Hajjar. I got up and moved into the aisle behind the qadi. The goon followed me with Papa behind him. Hajjar brought up the rear. I turned to look back at him, and his expression was oddly mournful. He must have thought that soon we'd be out of his hands, and so his fun was almost over.
We climbed down the gangway to the concrete apron. Papa and I stretched and yawned. I was very tired and getting hungry again, despite all the food I'd eaten at the amir's celebration. I looked around the airfield, trying to learn something of value. I saw a big hand-painted sign that said Najran on one of the low, dark buildings.
"Najran mean anything to you, O Shaykh?" I asked Friedlander Bey.
"Shut up, Audran," said Hajjar. He turned to his goon. "Make sure they don't talk or do anything funny. I'm holding you responsible." The goon nodded. Hajjar and the qadi went off together toward the building.
"Najran is the capital city of Asir," said Papa. He completely ignored the goon's presence. For his part, the goon no longer showed much interest in what we did, as long as we didn't try streaking across the landing field toward freedom.
"We have friends here?" I asked.
Papa nodded. "We have friends almost everywhere, my nephew. The problem is getting in touch with them."
I didn't understand what he meant. "Well, Hajjar and the qadi will be getting back aboard the shuttle in a little while, right? After that, I guess we're on our own. Then we can contact these friends and get some nice, soft beds to spend the rest of the night in."
Papa gave me a sad smile. "Do you truly think our troubles end here?"
My confidence faltered. "Uh, they don't?" I said.
As if to justify Papa's concern, Hajjar and the qadi came out of the building, accompanied now by a burly guy in a cop-like uniform, carrying a rifle slung under his arm. He didn't look like a particularly intelligent cop or a well-disciplined cop, but with his rifle he was probably more than Papa and I could handle.
The Exile Kiss Page 4
