I was rarely a quick thinker unless a weapon was in my hand, and I was momentarily troubled by his assertion. Might he have the truth of it, and Najya be the liar?
“Open the door and return her to me immediately,” he continued, “or I shall call forth a judge.”
If he meant to threaten me with mention of a judge, he surely had no idea with whom he spoke. Dabir and I were not only honored by the caliph, we were sometimes cup companions with the governor of Mosul. “Who are you?” I asked.
He glared, giving the impression he could see more than my shaded eye through the little opening, and I studied him in greater detail. I saw one unused to bending to any man. Indeed, he held his head as though he were accustomed to instant obedience. He was slim and straight-backed and as tall as myself. His beard and the hair that showed beneath his turban were gray, but here was no old man, rather one who had prematurely silvered. His thick robes, finely trimmed, must have warded him completely from the cold, for he looked not the least bit uncomfortable.
“I am Koury ibn Muhannad,” the fellow said, his breath steaming. “Do you intend to speak to me from behind the door?” The disdain all but dripped from his voice.
I slammed home the eye slot, then opened the door and stepped forward to fill the portal. My size did not seem to trouble this Koury.
“I am Asim el Abbas,” I said.
“And do you have my daughter?”
I checked his men. Neither of them wore weapons or moved forward. Neither of them, in fact, moved at all. Both stood with their left arms raised to belt level at the same angle, their right hanging at their sides. I knew not what to make of this, unless they were especially disciplined soldiers whose master desired a uniform presentation.
Koury awaited reply.
My oldest brother, Tariq, may peace be upon him, once told me that each time you lie you foreswear a little of your own soul. As a boy I had accepted his words without question; as a man I better understood his meaning. Some lies are surely necessary, but I strove always to avoid them.
“It is true that a woman has come to ask help of my friend, the scholar Dabir,” I said. “She may or may not be your daughter.”
He nodded once, and his eyes were calculating. “The mystery can easily be solved. Bring her to me that we may see one another.”
This was such a reasonable suggestion I was not sure what to do with it. I found myself stalling that I might gain more time to think. “What does your daughter look like?”
“She is well dressed, and very beautiful, with black hair and large brown eyes. Is this the woman who came to you?”
Instead of answering, I asked, “How did you lose her?”
Koury’s mouth narrowed to a thin line, but he replied. “She is a girl of wild notions since her poor husband was murdered before her. She grew frightened in the marketplace and fled.”
Surely the man looked wealthy enough to be Najya’s father, and he even had an explanation ready for Najya’s strange story—except, of course, that Najya had claimed to be the daughter of a famous, departed general.
“If I might see her,” Koury pressed on, “we can quickly clear this matter up. I might even agree to reward a man who has given my daughter shelter. I am prepared to be very generous.”
His words, sensible enough, were belied by a hardness of tone and manner that showed no fatherly warmth. Rather he sounded as if he viewed the woman solely as a commodity.
“Perhaps a judge would be useful after all,” I concluded.
Koury’s nostrils flared; one of his eyebrows twitched. Behind him both of the guards shifted their gloved left hands at the same moment.
“Sometimes,” he said, his voice low, “men interfere in matters better left alone, through lack of understanding.”
I merely nodded and held my place. “That is surely true.” Then, by way of dismissal, I added, “Good day to you.”
His lips drew up in a sneer; I stepped back and closed the door, immediately dropping the locking bar into place.
I stood a moment, listening for them. Koury said nothing more, and neither of his servants spoke to him, but I clearly heard them crunch away through the snow.
For some reason I discovered that my heart beat rapidly, as if I’d just sparred with a lethal foe. I put my right hand to my chest to feel its speed, wondering that I should be so affected. When Najya spoke behind me I nearly jumped.
“Are they gone?”
I turned. “Aye.”
“They will return,” she said darkly. “I must leave.”
There were three doorways off the entry, and she was backing toward the one to the left.
I held up a hand to her. “You need not fear. Even if he finds a judge to hear him today, none will act without hearing first from Dabir.”
She shook her head quickly. “You don’t understand.”
“You are safe here.” I spoke slowly, for emphasis.
“No,” she said more forcefully. “Were you not listening? Did he have his men with him?”
“Aye,” I started to say more, but she cut me off.
Her eyes blazed. “My husband fought the both of them, striking them again and again, and doing them no harm. They would not fall. They cannot be hurt. And God help you if he also has Gazi with him, for that man fought circles around Bahir…” Here she paused, and her voice fell away. “My husband,” she finished needlessly.
“Perhaps he did not strike deeply,” I suggested, hoping it was true, “and Koury’s guards wear armor beneath their robes.”
“Captain!” She spoke now with great force, as though she meant to strike me with words until I took her seriously, “Bahir was skilled and daring, yet Gazi cut him to pieces.” Moisture glistened in her eyes, though her voice did not falter in the slightest. “They cannot be stopped and everyone here will die!”
“Now there you are wrong.” Something in my manner brought her eyes firmly to me, as if she saw me clearly for the first time. “I have faced stranger things than these and come out alive. I will not let Koury take you. This I swear upon my life.”
Her answer showed more restraint. “I do not wish it to come to that.”
“It shall be as Allah wills, but that does not mean I intend to wait for the sword stroke on my neck. Dabir will shortly return, and I can guess that he will wish us to ride straightaway for the governor. Let us make preparations.”
She seemed calmer now, and unless I misjudged, she no longer saw me as an adversary. “You have great faith in your master. Is he, too, a warrior?”
“He is not my master, and his sword work is fair, though it is his wisdom we need most. Go to the upper floor and watch that corner.” I pointed to the southwest. “A man positioned there might see both the front entrance and the stable door.”
This must have seemed a good idea to her, for she started for the doorway to the dining room. “What are you going to do?”
I was unused to explaining my orders, but the question did not bother me overmuch. “I will have Rami saddle the horses. Then I will ready our gear. I’ll get you a traveling cloak.”
I was not sure what she meant by the searching look she bestowed upon me and there was no time to trouble myself over a woman’s thoughts. I turned away.
Rami, anxious to please, set eagerly to work. As to winter wear for our guest, Buthayna’s clothes would have been too small, and mine too large, so I raided Dabir’s wardrobe and took the steps to the second floor.
The upstairs consisted mostly of empty rooms—they were intended for an army of servants we did not have. From a shuttered window Najya showed me one of the black-robed men standing statue-still down the street, outside the home of Achmed the jeweler.
“He watches, just as you said. Though I know not how he sees,” she added.
His hood was deep and pulled low over his face, but it could be he sheltered his eyes from the glare of the empty white street and simply monitored with his ears. A thought occurred to me then concerning Najya’s previous description of the guard�
��s invulnerability. “Perhaps he is a kind of warrior ascetic. Some of them take drugs to render themselves insensitive to pain. It may be that your husband wounded them and they did not feel it, though they would have died later.” This sounded more plausible as I spoke it, and I added: “That might also explain how they stand so still.”
“They used some drug on me,” she said slowly. “I suppose they could have other sorts. Look. Isn’t that Dabir?”
I bent close beside her and could not help but breathe in a scent of jasmine from her hair. Sure enough, Dabir came swiftly down the road with that impatient, determined stride of his, heading straight to our door. I bethought then of how I had said Dabir’s name to Koury, and I swear that my heart almost stilled when I realized there was no way I could reach him before the watcher should he choose to attack.
“Here is your cloak.” I shoved it into her hands and leaped down the stairs.
I flung open the door, hand to my sword, eyes set on the motionless watcher. Dabir came on, his brows raised questioningly at me. They rose even higher as I beckoned him to hurry.
The watcher did not move, and once Dabir was in I closed the door and slammed home its guard. I explained quickly all that had transpired while standing in the entryway, then Dabir fell to asking questions. At about that time Najya crept down the stairs and stood listening, the cloak still cradled in her arms.
“Did you note any smell about the robed men?” Dabir asked me.
“If they smelled, they were not close enough to detect anything.”
“What about you, Najya, when you met them?” Dabir faced her. “Was there any salty smell, or a strong herbal scent?”
“No. Why?”
“Just a thought. Asim, I think you have suggested a fine plan. If this fellow has gone to a judge, we shall go to a governor.”
“What did you find?” I asked.
“An inn near the Tigris where Najya and Koury and two others checked in last night. They boarded no horses.” Again he faced our guest. “Have you remembered anything further of arriving in Mosul yesterday?”
“No,” Najya answered.
“The innkeeper said that you were alert and deep in conversation with Koury until late in the evening.”
Her eyes widened. “I swear,” she insisted, “upon my life and the holy Koran, that I remember nothing of this.”
Dabir stared hard at her.
“I do not lie!”
Dabir nodded sharply, and I had the sense that he meant to question her more fully at a later time. “Let us go,” he declared.
“There is one more thing,” I said, and passed over the letter from Jaffar.
Dabir grew more concerned as he studied the wax seal. “What is this?”
“It was sent from the palace just before Koury arrived. It is from Jaffar, but addressed only to you, or I would have opened it.”
He broke the seal. I could not see the writing, but watched his eyes search the paper. A shadow of gloom crossed his face.
“Is all well?” I asked.
“Aye,” he said softly. “Sabirah has given birth to a baby girl, and both she and the child are healthy.”
“Praise God,” I said, heartily. “That is good news.”
“That is surely good news,” Najya added. “Is she your sister, or a cousin?”
“No.” Dabir folded the letter and tucked it away. “She is merely a former student.”
That was a minimal description, and I do not think it fooled Najya, but she did not press for further details. I tried to put a better face upon the matter. “It was kind of Jaffar to tell you,” I pointed out.
Dabir stared at me pointedly for a moment, as if unsure as to my meaning. “Yes,” he said slowly, without enthusiasm, then closed the discussion. “We must be going.”
Only a short while later, Dabir and Najya and I rode out from the stables, the woman mounted on our old cart horse, for we had no other animals. Usually Dabir and I walked Mosul’s streets, which are frequently crowded in better weather, but we wished to outpace pursuit if it came to that.
I caught sight of the black-robed guard as we left, but he did not follow, or even turn to acknowledge our passing. I watched carefully but saw no sign of further monitoring or pursuit.
We diverted around the few, well-wrapped folk in the street and passed walled homes and shops, our life breath rising in wispy clouds. Before long we had neared the great square that lay before the governor’s palace, on the heights of the city at the end of a wide avenue that stretched the length of Mosul to the bank of the Tigris.
The governor at that time was Ahmed bin Hakim, a kind and generous man in middle age. He had been raised to office on a whim of the mad caliph, Haroun al-Rashid’s immediate predecessor, Allah alone knows why, and had proved so popular with the folk of the north that he had retained his position even as most other appointments were handed over to the current caliph’s adherents, which is to say allies of Jaffar’s family. Though quite pious—Ahmed had made the holy pilgrimage twice—he was not one of those religious men who seek always to point out the faults of others. He loved a good story, good food, and, as I had seen, the grape, though it be expressly forbidden. In all other ways was he devout, most especially in almsgiving and in good works, and I think it was due to his nature rather than a desire for praise. Two nights before, to aid the suffering of his people in the cold, he had decreed that a fire must be kept burning in the square in front of the old fortress, and so a great bonfire had been erected. As Najya and Dabir and I rode in, a flock of beggars and indigent folk huddled before it in relative ease, under the watch of a few bored soldiers. If the great cold continued, God help him to find more wood and to afford its cost, but the governor, like Dabir, had no head for money.
As you might expect, cloth and food vendors quickly set up stalls and carts near the fire to partake of the free source of heat, and to prey on those who wandered by to deliver alms to the poor or those en route to the governor’s palace. With the merchants had come customers, and with them a few entertainers and game players, so that what had begun as an aid to the downtrodden had taken on new life as a street carnival complete with jugglers and stilt walkers, gamblers, and even wine merchants who lured in patrons with the promise that fruit of the vine inured one to the cold.
I did not care to ride into that shifting mass, where enemies might hide, but we had no choice if we wished to reach the palace. Scanning constantly for sign of ambush, I led the way, with Najya following and Dabir bringing up the rear. I fully expected to see danger before the others, thus I was startled to hear Najya call out in alarm just as we reached the far fringe of the throng. I turned on the instant to find one of Koury’s hooded men at her side holding her mount’s bridle. Koury himself was running up from a side street, his robe belled out behind him. The crowd turned to him as he called out in praise to Allah that his child had been found.
The cloak of Najya’s hood had shaken loose and her face was obscured by a wave of midnight hair that slung back and forth as she struggled against the hand that gripped one of her ankles. Her patient old gelding shifted in consternation.
My mare, Noura, answered smoothly as I turned her. “Let the woman be!” I put hand to my sword hilt, and at that moment I saw the other black-robed man flanking me from the right.
Najya’s captor did not reply, thus I drew my sword. A nearby man gasped, and I heard mutters about me. The crowd parted.
Koury pushed his way clear and strode up to us. His smile was thin, his voice loud so that it would be heard by the onlookers. “Ah, thank you.” He raised his head sultan high. “You have found my wayward daughter.”
“That remains to be seen,” Dabir said shortly from my left. “Release the woman.”
The other black-robed man had halted on my right.
Najya addressed the crowd in her clear, commanding voice. “This man is not my father! Do not believe him!”
The murmuring intensified even as the encircling wall of onlookers widene
d.
Koury laughed theatrically and looked to Dabir. “You see the sort of fancies that she takes. She is a willful, spoiled girl, and I have only myself to blame.”
“This is a matter for the governor,” Dabir declared. He looked only at Koury but pitched his voice loud enough to carry to the crowd.
Koury’s expression hardened. “I am beholden to no man for her fate.” He bared his teeth and lowered his voice. “She is mine.”
“Not at this time,” Dabir responded sternly. “You’d best have your men leave off.”
“You heard Dabir.” I pointed my sword at the man on the left. “Release her.”
This he did not do. He took one hand from the nag’s headstall and effortlessly dragged Najya from her saddle as she shouted in protest and struggled in his clutches. The other charged my horse and struck out with a gloved fist. He connected, hard, and blood sprayed out from a gash near Noura’s nostrils. She screamed in anger and pain even as the madman lunged at me.
“Dog born dog!” I cried, trying to steady my outraged mount. I did not know how a man might draw such blood striking only with his hand. Somehow he avoided Noura’s dancing and grabbed hold of my boot with stiff fingers.
I leaned from my saddle to shroud the idiot by cleaving his skull.
My blade bit deep into his head, but the strike felt wrong. Those of you who have never brained a man with a sword—and may it please Allah that it be most of you, for there is altogether too much braining of men in this world—will not know that there is a distinct difference to the way a blade feels when wielded against a skull as opposed to most other objects. My blow caught in the fellow’s head as if I’d sliced into a stump. He did not fall with splayed limbs and spraying blood. He did not even flinch. Even were I wearing a helmet I would have shown some reaction to having sharp metal bounced off my crown. Yet from him there was nothing. A cold dread certainty gripped me as I pulled my weapon free. This was no warrior ascetic. I faced dark sorcery.
Dabir shouted from up ahead and the crowd about us was calling out all sorts of nonsense, but I could spare no attention, for the enemy had hold of my boot with fingers of steel and snatched at my sword arm as well. Between its grip and Noura’s dancing I had no good options. I dove at the thing, bearing down with my weight, my arm snaring it around the throat.
The Bones of the Old Ones (Dabir and Asim) Page 3
