The Jealous

by Laury Silvers

  As they moved on to the next room, people grumbled at them for advancing without a wait, they who had already waited so long. A small, barrel-chested man, who looked like a butcher just short of his leather apron, saw them coming and thundered, “The police and two scholars! Look how they put each other ahead!” He yelled at the secretary, “These police won’t do a cursed thing for me! I’m here to complain about it to the Chief, but the way you treat them tells me I won’t be seen or heard fairly in this court.”

  One of the guards nearby said, “You, quiet!”

  The butcher turned to the man next to him. “See?”

  Ammar looked back at the secretary, who had stood up and gestured to the guard to quiet the men down. He replied so all could hear, “Each of you will be seen in turn. If your case were urgent, you would be moved ahead as well.”

  The man grunted, “Lies,” but sat back down.

  Another man called out from the side, “My case is urgent, but I’ve been waiting three days, coming here each day, then walking clear across the city and back again just to wait again.”

  The secretary replied, “Get back in line and I will review it.”

  That was a mistake, thought Ammar. Sure enough, that man got up, but so did many others who filed their way to the back to get their cases reassessed, making the serpentine line before the secretary even longer.

  Ammar gave the guard a wry look over the scene, who smiled and nodded sagely. “He’s new.”

  The next room was smaller by half but still grand by any measure; it had the same carpets and low couches. People waited more patiently as they were that much closer to coming before the Chief himself. The administrator sat at another desk on a similar pallet covered with sheepskins.

  As they joined the line, Ammar said to Ibn Salah and Mustafa, “You can go sit down.”

  When Ammar reached the front, he kneeled before the administrator’s desk and handed over the letter. The man unrolled the document and began to examine it. Ammar broke in, “Ibn Marwan has sent me with his approval for a request to move a murder case to the court in Rusafa. The request to move is from the judge of Rusafa himself, Qadi Ibn al-Zayzafuni.”

  “You are from Grave Crimes. Ammar at-Tabbani, correct?”

  Ammar nodded.

  “Well, Ammar at-Tabbani, why don’t you just tell me the reason, since you won’t let me read this.”

  “The reason isn’t in there.” Ammar explained, “That’s why I’m telling you. An enslaved girl is accused of killing her master, a scholar. It’s politically charged. It needs to be handled by another religious scholar to demonstrate that the caliphate is handling the issue fairly. We do not have a petitioner yet, but will by the end of the day.”

  “Oh, the case of Imam Hashim? You are not the only one.”

  “What do you mean?” He looked back at Ibn Salah and Mustafa and waved them to come forward with urgency.

  Once beside him, Ammar said, “Would you tell them what you just said?”

  “Are all of you here now? I do not want to repeat myself. The judge for Karkh, Abu Burhan, has been here himself and spoken with the Police Chief directly. The case has been moved to his court. They have a petitioner. We haven’t put the paperwork through yet, but it has been decided. You are too late.”

  Ibn Salah pulled a rolled-up document from his sleeve and handed it over. “With respect, we have here a letter from the judge of the court of Rusafa, Qadi Ibn al-Zayzafuni, who has approved that the case be brought to his court should a petitioner be found.”

  The administrator scanned the document. “I see that according to Qadi Ibn al-Zayzafuni, the objectivity of the judge of Karkh is compromised due to his relationship with the deceased. But,” he offered, “one could argue that his familiarity with the case makes him the ideal adjudicator. In fact, I understand that is what he argued to the Chief this morning.”

  Ibn Salah said, “On the contrary, her case is inflammatory. I myself petitioned the court on her behalf on a matter of extreme cruelty perpetrated by Imam Hashim against her. Qadi Abu Burhan’s ruling was in keeping with the law, but it was unpopular, to say the least. There were accusations of judicial impropriety and favouritism among the people and scholars alike. This case must be handled with the utmost care, or I fear the people and the community of scholars will find ground for complaint to the Caliph.”

  “If this case is so sensitive, it should go to the High Judge in the Mazalim Court.”

  Ammar looked at Ibn Salah for some sign of what this could mean for them, but his face was impassive.

  Ibn Salah continued, “I do not think it should be taken that far. I would argue that it would raise difficulties of another sort. While we must be seen as taking this situation seriously, we should not make so much of it that it becomes a popular scandal on trial.” He paused. “I ask you to consider the people’s response if they knew a slave was on trial for killing her master, a scholar, who had sexually mistreated her.”

  The administrator nodded in understanding.

  “Her case must be heard objectively, shown to be done so by scholars themselves. We must be seen as holding ourselves to account. Yet, it should not be so public as to become a show trial, as it would in the Mazalim High Court.”

  Mustafa was silent, his mouth drawn tight.

  The administrator turned to Ammar, “And you?”

  Ammar found his voice, “As his letter states, Ibn Marwan agrees it needs to be handled carefully, and specifically by Qadi Ibn al-Zayzafuni’s court. Complicating matters, the case against her is not clear. We have a weak confession and no direct evidence.”

  The administrator seemed shocked. “Why has it come this far?”

  Ammar owned up to it all, “It is my doing. Her confession was clear at first, so I refrained from pushing her in the interrogation and considering alternative suspects. I had her confession taken and submitted to Ibn Marwan’s office. Ibn Marwan sent it to you based on my certainty. It was only when my colleague insisted that I question her further that the doubt came to light, but it was too late.”

  The administrator asked, “And what of the other woman,” he read her name out, “Tan-shol-pan?”

  “She is accused of providing the murder weapon, a talisman,” Ammar replied. “Ibn Marwan is asking that both be tried together. Again, the Caliph would not be happy for the police to be the cause of another riot in Baghdad.” He lowered his voice, “That complaint from the Caliph would find itself on the Chief’s lap, and he would blame those beneath him to save his own neck.”

  The administrator blanched, but he recovered with a small laugh to break the tension, “Can you imagine how many slaves the Caliph would have to free and how many convicts we would have to let loose from the prisons to quiet the people?”

  Ibn Salah nodded. “Just so.”

  The administrator stood. “If you will excuse me, I will go speak to the Police Chief’s assistant on this matter.”

  He got up, slipped his stockinged feet into leather slippers, tugged his quilted robe straight, and walked to an adjacent room, nodding to the guard as he passed.

  Ammar looked at Ibn Salah whose face showed the strain of the conversation. Mustafa had turned to face the door. Ammar said, “Looking to run, Mustafa?”

  “If only such a thing were possible,” he sighed.

  Ibn Salah nudged Ammar. The administrator was on his way back.

  He gestured that they should follow him, saying quietly as they walked to the Chief’s door. “This case will be finished in a moment.” At the door he said, “Just wait until they leave, an officer of the court will present you before Chief al-Amrawayh.”

  Ammar had only seen the Chief once before, and at a distance. Al-Amrawayh had ordered a few hundred of the thousands of men he governed to be lined up in his palace courtyard for inspection. It was to be a display of the higher offices of the police, not the watchmen who patrolled Baghdad’s streets day and night, the guards of the Caliph’s courts and administrators’ palaces, th
e officers of the judicial courts and prisons, nor the men who policed the great roads outside the city. Al-Amrawayh had lined up under his eye the administrators of the various quarters of the city, the men who ran the offices that handled sensitive crimes, those who ran the spies and the men who worked undercover infiltrating criminal gangs or political and religious enemies, and them, the investigators of Grave Crimes.

  Military life in the police was different from the frontier where it was men fighting as brothers, foot-soldier and officer alike deep in the fields of battle, all the men and their families living in the camps when they pressed beyond the towns, expanding the empire’s borders, one bloody skirmish at a time. This here, in Baghdad, was another world, and he didn’t like it.

  They slipped into the Chief’s office and stood along the back wall. The Chief sat on sheepskins on the carpeted floor with a simple backrest to lean against. He wore a black robe and woolen wrap without adornment and sat with his legs tucked beneath him. Ammar appreciated the performance of humility but the braziers on either side of him for warmth gave the Chief away. Ammar had heard the Chief was a rough man. He had argued so brutally with the Caliph al-Mutamid’s son, he caused the man to have a stroke. Yet here was the great Chief himself, using braziers so early in the cold months. This man, who had more power than any man should, could not manage an early autumn chill.

  A couple of guards stood against one wall looking at Ammar, Mustafa and Ibn Salah. One whispered something to the other who then quietly exited the chamber.

  Two men stood before the Chief, one looked like a merchant, the kind who sold paper or copper pots but doesn’t make them.

  The merchant said firmly, “I demand it.”

  The Chief leaned in. “I will not permit you to kill this man. I would be happy to see your daughter married to him instead.”

  “Never!”

  “Yet the Caliph’s coffers will happily pay the dowry for her and offer a present to your family in celebration of the marriage.”

  “No,” the merchant said, “I demand that the man be killed.”

  The man in question looked like no more than a boy, a pretty boy at that. He trembled before them.

  The Chief called to a guard, “Fatih, bring me your sword.”

  Fatih started to pull his sword from the scabbard. “No, man! Give me the belt, the sword and the scabbard, too.”

  The boy cowered, putting his hands against the back of his neck.

  Ammar thought, He’s going to give this man a sword to kill the boy!

  Mustafa grabbed Ammar’s sleeve, horrified.

  The guard gave the Chief his sword in his scabbard, the belt hanging off it. The Chief asked the merchant to come forward. The Chief held the scabbard and offered the hilt to him, saying, “Take the sword.” The man pulled the sword out clumsily, letting it hang by his side.

  Ammar braced himself to intervene, no matter the cost.

  The Chief said, holding out the scabbard towards him with one hand. “Now put it back in.” The merchant tried to return the sword to the scabbard but the Chief jerked it away just enough that the man missed it with the point of the sword. The Chief slapped his knee and said, “Come on, put it back in!”

  The merchant tried, but the Chief moved the scabbard again so he could not return it. He became frustrated and demanded, “Why won’t you let me do it?”

  The Chief replied, “If your daughter did not want the man, he would not have been able to force her. If you want to kill him for what he did, then you must kill them both.”

  The man returned the sword to the scabbard and fell to his knees before the Chief, begging, “Let them marry.”

  The administrator came up next to Ammar and whispered sharply, “I didn’t say to wait inside!” Ammar retreated from the room, pulling Ibn Salah and Mustafa along.

  Mustafa whispered, “Will our intrusion go against us?”

  Ibn Salah grabbed Mustafa’s arm. “He breaks with God’s law!”

  Ammar cut in, “You didn’t know that he rules as he likes?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Ibn Salah shook his head. “But I am shocked to see it. They are fornicators; lashing is called for, not execution or marriage!”

  Mustafa asked sincerely, “How did he know what the daughter wanted?”

  Ibn Salah looked annoyed by Mustafa’s question, “We must get this case out of his court.”

  “I hope you’re right about Ibn al-Zayzafuni,” Mustafa said.

  “There will at least be some principles by which her case is examined!”

  The merchant and the young man left the court, neither looked satisfied.

  An officer came out and called out their names into the waiting room.

  Ammar raised his hand. “That is us.”

  The officer said, “Stand before the Chief and do not speak.”

  The Chief’s secretary kneeled beside him, speaking to him quietly and pointing to documents before him in several places.

  The Chief handed the documents back to the secretary, then held his hands out in supplication. “May God bless these proceedings with His wisdom and may He be pleased with my decree humbly offered in His name, and with the permission of our Caliph Abu Ahmad ibn Ali Muhammad al-Muktafi billah, may God protect him and his glorious rule. If I should decide wrongly, may it become known to me, and may I be held to account for my errors.” He said, “Amin,” into his hands, and as he lifted his head sighed, “Bismillah.” He looked at the three men sitting before him, slapped his thighs with both hands, and said, looking at Ammar, “You are from Grave Crimes?”

  Ammar’s throat caught on the words, “I am, sir.”

  “Is it you who sent this case forward before it was fully investigated?”

  Ammar nodded.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I will be sending an account of my displeasure to Ibn Marwan. I will leave it to him to decide whether or not you are to maintain your position.” He gestured to the documents. “You have shaken the foundation of our justice with your ineptitude. Now this case is being called to go before a court that is unfamiliar with adjudication of grave crimes. These religious scholars sit around all day in mosques debating theoretical murders that no man has ever committed and concocting legal resolutions that no one could administer in the world outside their legal fantasies.” He raised his hand. “I face the people who have committed these crimes every day. I face their victims.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “God guide these scholars, for they are ignorant.”

  Ammar held firm before the judgment against him.

  The Chief leaned in and looked in Ammar’s eyes, saying slowly, “Any injustice done is yours to face before God on the Last Day.”

  He said in a clear voice, “Yes, sir.”

  The Chief leaned back, let out a great exhalation of air, and slapped his thighs again. “Good. Despite the right of my court over the murder, I grasp the sensitivity of the situation as that fool Qadi Abu Burhan made his case this morning.” He frowned. “Now, I see there are further complications of which he did not apprise me. I agree to let the case go from my jurisdiction on the condition it is seen in Qadi Ibn al-Zayzafuni’s court. I understand you do not have a petitioner for the case?”

  Ibn Salah spoke up, “That is so, sir.”

  “Qadi Abu Burhan’s son was to bring the petition forward to his father’s court on behalf of Imam Hashim’s family. It seems only fitting that he should do the same in Qadi Ibn al-Zayzafuni’s court. Of course, I cannot force him, but I will send a letter strongly suggesting it given his father’s misrepresentation of the facts before me this morning.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Ibn Salah answered.

  He directed himself to Ammar, “My secretary will draw up the papers to transfer the prisoners from the police jail to Ibn al-Zayzafuni’s cells.”

  Then he said to all three, “It’s done, then. May the outcome be one that restores order to our city,” then to Ammar, “and saves your sorry soul.”
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  Mustafa replied, “Amin….sir.”

  Al-Amrawayh laughed. “The ‘amins’ are to God, young man.” Ammar felt someone behind him and nearly jumped out of his skin. The Chief waved his hand to the officer behind them. “Take them out. I have many cases before me today.”

  The three men followed the officer. Ammar’s legs were numb and shaking. He walked as carefully as he could until they got through the door. The officer pointed to the administrator they had spoken to. “He has your papers. You’ll need to wait for them.”

  Ammar leaned against the wall after they got out, shaking his feet to get the feeling back in them. Mustafa wandered out behind him and stood beside him on the wall, breathing deeply.

  Ibn Salah commented “You two are as wide-eyed and pale-skinned as houris.”

  Tipping his chin to Ibn Salah, Ammar objected, “My legs fell asleep standing there.”

  Ibn Salah asked, “What do you think Ibn Marwan will do with you?”

  “I’m his best man,” Ammar said with an assurance that he did not feel. His legs began to shake again. He stomped his feet.

  Ibn Salah said, showing his temper, “That man is a danger to the faith. He has no right to adjudicate such cases over us who have spent our lives discerning God’s legal intent. And his complaints of us! He knows better!”

  Mustafa was nodding.

  A young man walked over with several rolled documents. “These are from the secretary.”

  They looked over the papers, everything was there. The letter to Ibn Marwan, the approval of the case to be transferred to Ibn al-Zayzafuni’s court, and the transfer of the prisoners.

  Ibn Salah raised his eyebrows. “He’s making you take your dressing down to Ibn Marwan yourself?”

  Mustafa said weakly, “It is a good sign that he trusts you to do so.”

  Ammar shook his head. “No. It’s a test. If this document didn’t make it to Ibn Marwan, you’d find out about it when they came to take my ignoble head.”