The Waters of Eternity

by Howard Andrew Jones

  Two years prior her marriage had been but a week off when the would-be groom died on the wrong end of a Greek lance. Sabirah had never met the fellow, but had expressed grief with great alacrity. The charade had been taken up by both Musa and Jaffar as an excuse to further the education the girl so craved, but everyone knew another marriage had been delayed too long. My own look at that moment must have conveyed my opinion on the matter, for she stared sharply at me. “What did you do?” she asked in a fierce whisper.

  “Me?”

  “This is all your doing!” Sabirah pointed menacingly at me. “Jaffar tells me that it was you who suggested Dabir accompany you to the market. What happened there? Uncle will not say!”

  “I do not think—”

  “Tell me, Captain!”

  “If your uncle would not say, then it is not—”

  “Did he forbid you from telling me?”

  “Nay.”

  “Then I command it.”

  God had seen fit to heap troubles upon me that day. “Mistress,” I said slowly, “it is not that simple, and you well know—”

  “I command it, Captain. So help me—” She stood up from her cushion and began to pace in front of the window. “You do not want me for your enemy!”

  “Indeed, nor do I wish to anger your uncle.”

  “Surely it would anger him to hear that you had not obeyed a command from me?”

  I said nothing, and her eyes narrowed. She stood over me, glowering, while I considered my options.

  “It is true that I suggested Dabir accompany us. The rest was but fate.”

  Bit by bit, pacing most of the while, she pried the story from me. My battle held little interest for her. Again and again she asked for details about the bowls and the fortune-telling.

  “It is clear to me,” I concluded, “that the magic woman confused the bowls.”

  “Is it?”

  “Dabir is no monster slayer, and I am no writer.”

  “So you trust this woman to read your futures?”

  “Well, I suppose so.”

  “So you believe that she is wise enough to foresee the plan of Allah, yet can become confused about the contents of bowls?” Sabirah seemed almost to be quaking with anger.

  “It could happen to anyone,” I admitted.

  “You yourself said she was looking right at you as she pronounced these destinies!”

  “Yes, that is true.”

  “That she seemed to be in a magical trance.”

  “Yes. That is probably why she was confused.”

  “Or perhaps,” Sabirah countered, “that’s why you should believe her the more! Ah! God help me, but men are idiots.” She faced the window. “Dabir is not in love with me, this I know.” She turned back to me suddenly. “You will make it right! I do not mean to cease my learning and give over my life to child rearing! You will march yourself straight to Jaffar and put things as they were!”

  “How, Mistress?”

  “Remind him that it was his fate, not Dabir’s. Use the same reasoning that I have just used with you! Is it not reasonable?”

  “Can you not tell him your reasoning?”

  “He will not listen to me when I speak to him of this.”

  “He does not want to think it his fate, Mistress.”

  She sank back onto the cushions. “That is the problem.” She curled hair ends about her finger and looked up through her lashes. “You could confess that you are the one who desires me, Captain. Then Jaffar would dismiss you, and not Dabir.”

  I blinked at her. “I would not lie to the master.” What else was I to say? Was everyone crazed today?

  “Mostly I jested.” She sighed and dropped her hands. “Why did you ask Dabir to accompany you?”

  “Because,” I said, “I knew that he would be a better man than the poet to help safeguard your uncle. And,” I added, “because I enjoy his company more than Hamil’s.”

  “Have you asked Dabir what he thinks? Surely he can find the words to make this right.”

  “He will not talk to me. He says that I have done enough already.” I sighed deeply, feeling the weight of the day’s events rest on my shoulders. “I did not mean to anger either of you.”

  “Perhaps the woman could be arrested and proven a fake?”

  “That would not be just, Sabirah. Of all things, your uncle believes in justice.”

  “So do I.” She groaned. “This is so unfair!”

  Sabirah could sound like the wisest of counselors one moment and half her age the next. For a moment I’d forgotten that I spoke still to a young woman.

  “I will talk to your uncle,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I will remind him of Dabir’s faithful service. I could suggest to him that the woman was merely playacting. It might be that she recognized us and played upon our hopes and fears.”

  “I would not doubt it. It is the way of the souk, to mislead and exaggerate.”

  “The problem,” I said, wondering whether or not I should mention the issue, “is that the fortune-teller predicted something important would take place if we left immediately and lo, she was right.”

  “So you said. Argue to Uncle that it was coincidence.” She must have seen the doubt in my eyes, for she continued. “Clearly you think well of Dabir—if he is your friend, speak for him.”

  I rose and bowed to her.

  “Captain, perhaps such a duty requires reward. I have funds at my disposal…”

  I bowed once more. “Mistress, Asim el Abbas needs no compensation for right action.”

  She bowed her head to me.

  “Good evening to you, Mistress. I shall speak with the master immediately.”

  “Good evening, Captain, and thank you. Go with God.”

  Boulos lurked just down the hall, and fell in step with me as I left. “What was that about, Captain?”

  Our shadows were stretched out along the corridor as we left. I listened for the muezzin’s call, knowing it would come soon. “The master spoke to her about his trip to the market today.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “To make my life more difficult, I’m afraid. I must see the master.”

  “This is all quite puzzling,” Boulos said in an attempt at a casual tone. “What could have happened in the market that would so upset the mistress?” He awaited an answer.

  “I wish that I could say, Boulos. It does not bode well for either Dabir or myself, though.”

  That seemed to whet his appetite for information even more thoroughly, and his neck craned forward, as though to better gauge me.

  “I really must see the master, Boulos. Do you know where he is?”

  Information was the chief slave’s main source of power, and he nodded, smirking. “He will be in the private mosque, and then means to play backgammon this night.” As if I did not already infer his meaning, he winked.

  I sighed. The year before, Jaffar and his older brother Musa and some friends had attended a party where there was much wine and many courtesans. One, a sloe-eyed dancing girl, had painted all visible flesh in alternating triangles of black and brown, and a drunken Musa had confessed to my master—and to any within earshot—that he was determined to learn whether the designs had been painted across the whole of her body. Jaffar joked after morning prayers the next day that his brother must have played backgammon with her the whole of the night, and ever since it had become a euphemism within the palace. A rather tired one, by that point.

  The master being occupied, I returned for evening prayers with Mahmoud, asking Allah to send an angel to the dreamland, one with wise words to aid my argument when I spoke with Jaffar. Then I finished a shatranj game with Mahmoud before I lay down to sleep. I planned to make my case with Jaffar just after he broke his fast, when he was always in the best of moods.

  It was fated to happen otherwise.

  3

  The Greek entourage arrived early the next morning, three bearded officials and a dozen servants clothed all in gold silk, bearing bas
kets and boxes. The master’s chamberlain guided them to the reception room where they were offered refreshments. I supervised the placement of two dozen guards within and without the room, emphasizing both that they should be wary and that they should hold off from rash acts, and then reported to Jaffar in his chambers. He sipped fruit juice from a mug amongst plump cushions and rich furnishings, surrounded on every hand by brilliant wall hangings.

  I had hoped to speak with him alone, but Dabir sat at the master’s right hand, conversing in low tones. Jaffar looked bright and animated, in high spirits. Dabir’s manner was subdued. There were dark circles under his eyes, the blue of which seemed somehow duller.

  “Ah, peace be upon you, Captain,” Jaffar said at sight of me.

  I bowed low. “And also upon you.”

  “You slept well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Both Dabir and I were up many hours,” Jaffar said. The master looked immaculate and well rested. But he was almost always thus. “Inspiration struck,” he continued, “and I worked upon the writing of verses describing that door pull. And Dabir was hard at work deciphering the runes upon it.” He smiled at Dabir. “I think my work was less taxing. And,” he added, raising his index finger to make his most important point, “my strength is back from the illness.”

  Jaffar’s illness had begun as a simple cough, then lingered long, afflicting him so that it became difficult to both breathe and sleep. He had grown so weak from fatigue that the caliph himself had sent his best hakims to care for his friend. Under their ministrations Jaffar had mended. Usually Jaffar sat in judgment upon weighty matters that shaped the course of the city and the caliphate. The caliph had made him leave off his duties for more than a month while he regained his strength, much to my master’s frustration.

  “So,” Jaffar asked, “what do you think of the Greeks?”

  “They have come with many presents,” I said.

  “They desire the door pull,” Dabir said.

  Jaffar and I both looked at him.

  “How can you be sure?” I asked.

  The master answered instead of Dabir, a smile on his lips. “I see! You think that this must be related to the Greek coins you found on the cutthroats.”

  “Yes, Master. It appears that they went to a great deal of trouble to obtain this door pull, spending far more than its apparent decorative worth.”

  Jaffar considered this information, then nodded decisively. “Let us see what we can learn from these Greeks. Asim, I want nothing revealed to them. Show a face of stone, and we will see what they say.”

  “As you wish, Master.” I bowed my head.

  “I shall be there shortly. See to the security of the situation.”

  I bowed again, debating telling him that I’d already ensured his safety. Also I still hoped to speak a word in Dabir’s favor, yet was unsure how to accomplish that with the scholar in the room.

  Jaffar sipped at his juice, then looked up at me. “Is there something else, Captain?”

  Dabir eyed me sharply. Did he mean to communicate something particular from that glare, or was he truly that angry with me?

  “No, Master.” I bowed, then left. I would have to seek him out after the reception with the Greeks.

  There was no harm, I decided, in checking over the men again. It would press upon them the importance of the meeting.

  Jaffar’s reception room was a grand, colonnaded space, long and tiled, with narrow raised pools to left and right of the carpeted walkway leading to the dais. Fish swam in that sparkling clear water, and light from the high-set windows flashed along their scales. The room itself was built so that those who waited at one end could not hear the conversation before the dais, which kept courtiers and supplicants wondering as to events that were not their own affair.

  The master entered to recline along a settee upon the dais, somewhat in the manner of the caliph, though he did not wait behind a curtain. Mahmoud and another of my lieutenants stood grim and silent behind him. I stood at Jaffar’s left, Dabir on the right. This day both Jaffar and Dabir were in their finery, complete with gold thread wrapped through their turbans.

  The chamberlain, well-fed old Abdul-Rafi, presented the master’s titles to the Greeks, then preceded them to Jaffar’s roost, bowed, and formally announced their names before the dais. Old he might be, but few could match the booming power of Abdul-Rafi’s voice. “The Archduke Theocritus, his son Nicephorous, and their translator, Diomedes.” Also there were servants carrying boxes.

  Diomedes was all smiles as he bowed. His gaze fastened briefly upon me, then flicked to Dabir and back to Jaffar. The Greek’s dark, protuberant eyes were striking in a sharp, dangerous way: I had the sense that he weighed all he saw for import.

  Theocritus, thickset with distinguished sprinkles of white hair along his temples, spoke. Diomedes cocked his head, listening.

  “The archduke thanks you for seeing us at such short notice,” Diomedes said, his voice almost a purr, “and wishes to bestow upon you a number of marvelous gifts.”

  Jaffar brushed his curled and perfumed beard. “Tell the archduke that I am pleased to make his acquaintance. I hope that he finds Baghdad and my home to his liking. I thank him also for his gifts.” Diomedes translated this, and both the archduke and his son, a thinner, younger cut of cloth with a sharper nose, bowed their heads. The archduke then chattered at the servants, who brought forward the boxes. Two of my men walked with them.

  Diomedes introduced the gifts as they were presented, and Jaffar either pretended interest well, or was sincerely curious. For my part, I found the carpets and gold baubles and sundry fabrics only an irritating delay. Were the Greeks truly after the pull? Surely for the cost of these gifts they could fashion more gold in its shape.

  After a tedious quarter hour the baskets and boxes had all been opened and the servants dismissed, escorted out by two of my soldiers.

  “The archduke is quite generous,” Jaffar said to Diomedes. “Convey my thanks to him.”

  The large man chattered some more. “The archduke says that your reputation is well known even in Constantinople, and that you are judged a fair and honorable man.”

  “I thank him.”

  “The archduke and his son had traveled to Baghdad to consult scholars within the household of the caliph.”

  “How interesting,” the master said. “The caliph mentioned nothing of it to me.”

  Diomedes bowed his head and relayed this. “It may be,” he answered, “that the caliph himself did not know of the matter, or that he simply thought it beneath your interest.”

  “Oh, I doubt that.” Jaffar smiled now. He was enjoying himself. “I would have been very interested to learn of a Greek deputation arriving in Baghdad. You are in an official capacity?”

  “Somewhat,” Diomedes said, after consultation with his master. “You see, the archduke hopes to present the Empress Irene with a gift soon, a rare item from antiquity. Certain sources reveal that the gift’s twin might lie within the treasure vaults of the caliph.”

  “What manner of item is it?” Jaffar’s voice was awash with innocence.

  “A door pull, Excellency, all of gold, with several jewels. The archduke brought it with him to Baghdad in the hope that he might compare it to that rumored to be held by the caliph. If indeed they matched, the archduke hoped to purchase the pull from the caliph’s estate.”

  “Very interesting,” Jaffar said, rubbing his beard.

  Diomedes conveyed this to the archduke, who studied Jaffar for a time before speaking again.

  “Lamentably,” Diomedes said, then paused, listening further to his master, “the pull was stolen from some of the archduke’s servants, who were murdered by the thief.”

  “That is unfortunate,” Jaffar replied.

  “We set men on his trail, but the pull itself was taken by other men.”

  “Wicked behavior yields wickedness,” Jaffar said.

  “I suppose so, Excellency.” Diomedes bowed.

/>   The archduke said something to Diomedes, who shook his head no, but said nothing.

  “I have to ask,” Jaffar said, “why you have come to me about this matter.”

  Diomedes bowed once more. “Our men were closing on the thief when they were confronted by three men near the souk. We think … the archduke has reason to believe that they were men from your household.”

  The master said nothing.

  “If you know anything of the matter,” Diomedes continued, “the archduke would be grateful for any information about the door pull; if you find that your servants did, indeed, recover it, he hopes that you would facilitate its return. He means to well compensate the pull’s discoverers,” Diomedes continued quickly. “Obviously they had no part in its theft.”

  Jaffar nodded, and held up a hand. “I will look into this matter immediately.”

  While the Greeks bowed and expressed their thanks, Dabir bent to whisper to the master’s ear, so quietly that I could not hear.

  “A fine question,” Jaffar said, nodding, then returned his attention to the Greeks. “Why did the archduke not have an identical door pull constructed based upon the pattern of the first?”

  Diomedes consulted softly with his master before facing us once more. “It is said that the pulls are not completely identical; there is an ancient pattern upon them both, slightly different.”

  Dabir leaned toward Jaffar and spoke into his ear. As he straightened, my master asked: “From whence did these door pulls originate?”

  Diomedes held a brief, whispered conversation with the archduke, then bowed. “The archduke’s explanation may inspire incredulity, Excellency. He does not know for certain.”

  “What has he been told?”

  “He believes they may be from a ruined city of the ancient Greeks, Excellency.”

  “Indeed? Most interesting! Which city?”

  “Mycenae,” Diomedes answered sharply, without consulting Theocritus.

  Jaffar exchanged a glance with Dabir, then opened his arms to the Greeks. “Please stay in my palace. Be my guests, while I seek the truth.”

  The Greeks thanked Jaffar with many bows, and then the master exited with Dabir and me.

  “You,” he said to Dabir as we walked the dark hall together, “are to go to the caliph’s palace. I shall write a note. Bring forth this pull, if it exists, and study it. See what it reveals.”