Casca 13: The Assassin (12 page)

Then only the merciful darkness.
The silence: The nothingness...

"You ready to wake up, son?"

Casca opened his eyes.

The face bending over him was that of an old Arab
– or was it? The face was fully-bearded, and the beard was gray. The eyes were world-weary but kindly. And the voice was gentle.

If I'm dead, wherever I've gone, the people here sure don't fit the descriptions given out by any of the religions I've known.

He was going to close his eyes again and start this dream all over when he saw beyond the man leaning over him the faces of two women – the grinning, redheaded Miriam, the whore from the Cafe of the Infidels; and the shy, smiling Ruth, the slave girl from the Sultan's seraglio.

"What
–" he began, but the old man put gentle fingers on his lips.

"No. There's no point in you asking the questions.
It's obvious what you want to know, and it won't take long to tell you. But, first, lie quietly and listen. Your healing still has a long way to go." The old man's voice was soft, but it carried a great deal of authority.

Casca's first reaction was that it was a very clear, rational voice. Then it suddenly dawned on him that
–

What he was thinking must have shown in his face, for the old man smiled slightly and said, "Yes, Latin.
I can use Arabic if you wish. Or Aramaic. Or any of half a dozen other languages you prefer, but in your delirium you were crying out in Latin, a language neither of these girls speak, so they called me. If Latin is your native language, why then we will use it, though of course that means the two girls here will not know what we are talking about."

The old man sat down on a stool beside Casca's bed, and it was then that Casca realized that he was in some kind of very narrow bed, in a very, very small room. There was something extremely odd about the room, but he couldn't tell what it was.

What he could tell, though, was that under the soft covers, something bound him to the bed.

Again the old man anticipated him and smiled.
"For your protection. To keep you from thrashing about and re-opening the wounds. I think the girls can take them off now, but perhaps we shouldn't be in too big a hurry. Agreed?"

Casca nodded. Somehow he trusted this old Arab... though, come to think of it, the man might not be as old as he seemed. And there was something just a little non-Arab about the structure of his face.

This time the man laughed aloud. "You are perceptive, aren't you? All right, then, we'll satisfy your curiosity by starting with me rather than with where you are. I am the Sheikh Faisal ibn Said, a partly senile, partly-addled old Bedouin who has a small, poor team of the best Arabic calligraphers in all of Islam. Wood, stone, metal, parchment – you name it. If you want the letters of the Koran written with style and flourish-and pious devotion, of course why, wait until poor old man Faisal shows up in your neighborhood. And, he works cheap."

The glint of amusement in Faisal's eye was as impish as that of a small boy. "So you're liable to see Faisal almost anywhere.
Harmless old fellow. Even has a small harem, as any good Muslim should."

Casca grinned. He suddenly remembered what Mamud had told him long ago about the caravan they had passed on their way to Baghdad, the one with the calligraphy on each cart bearing an ancient quotation from the Koran. Faisal again touched his lips.

"No. Now you are anticipating me. And, yes, there is another Faisal – though the name is not Faisal, the race is not Arabic, and the religion is not Islam. I am a Jew. Every drop of blood in my body is Jewish blood. Religion? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Occupation? Well, yes, I am a good calligrapher. The best, as a matter of fact. It is true, however, that I also have a sideline, a small personal interest of mine that I have practiced for a number of years now without getting caught once. Well, I probably shouldn't brag about the once part. Once is all it would take. Even suspicion would be enough. My sideline? Why, my Roman friend, very simple. I believe in freedom. Freedom for all men – and women. And dignity. If one's idea of the Deity doesn't make his life richer and fuller, why, my friend, I would say his idea is wrong. But enough of religion since I am what is known as a 'liberal' in these quarters, and who the hell wants to listen to a liberal?

"Well, now.
My sideline. All abstract words. Of course, a calligrapher lives with words, so that shouldn't be considered unusual. But the trouble with abstract ideas is that you can't feel them or touch them or taste them or see them, or do anything constructive with them until they are translated into concrete acts or things. So my sideline was long ago translated into one very concrete act. The Arabs have enslaved many a daughter of my people, so, whenever I get the chance – and I get chances, my Roman friend – I steal the daughters of my people from their slavery and take them where they can be free. That's the reason for all the trappings of this caravan. These women are not my harem; most of them are rescued slaves I'm taking to freedom.

"Now, you.
The only way I can hide you is to put you here with the women. Even when you're well enough to move about." Faisal smiled. "You see why I wouldn't let you ask questions? I like to talk, my Roman friend. I like to talk. And I cultivate the oddities in my personality so that I can continue to seem addled to the Arabs. He reached down and smoothed the bedcover under Casca's chin... as a father might an ill child. "I leave you to the women."

After Faisal's clear Latin, Miriam's Arabic at first sounded stilted in Casca's mind.

“Thou hast suffered much, O one with the scarred face," she said softly as she bent over him to pull back the covers. He could feel her fingers on his wrist unloosing the knots of the cords that held him, but he was studying the profile of her face, so he was not looking at his own body.... or clothes.

There was
a gentleness in her face that drew him.

Then
–

"Damn!"

''What is it, O scarred one?"

The slave girl, Ruth, who had started to help Miriam, was also startled. Her brown eyes were wide.

"My clothes! What have you got on me?"

Now both women laughed.

“These look like women's clothes!"

"Ah, yes. But they are."

"Women's clothes?"

"But, of course. How else would one be dressed
in the birthing wagon?"

"Birthing wagon?"

"Look, Roman Nose, we had to hide you. The Sultan was wild with rage when he found his palace afire. His men searched every inch of Baghdad. We had what they were looking for – you – bloody, out-of-your-head, raving you. So Faisal said put you in the birthing wagon, strap you down, make it look like you were just about to give birth, but give you something to keep you unconscious. It worked in Baghdad, so we decided to keep it up. And after a couple of days, after you had healed up enough so we could move you a little, we dressed you. Just in case. Good thing, too. Just the other day we were stopped, and one of the Sultan's men even insisted on looking in the birthing wagon. When he saw what you looked like sleeping, he was satisfied. By the way, how do you like your hair?"

"Hair?"
Casca jerked his hand up to his scalp.

There was still hair there.
Plenty of it. What in Hades was she talking about?

Ruth brought him a small brass minor and stood back, grinning.

"Damn!"

The hair was red
– even in one of the silver mirrors favored by Egyptians over the brass ones like the Hebrews liked, it would still be red – the same red as Miriam's had been when he first saw her in the Cafe of the Infidels.

But it wasn't just the hair that shocked Casca.

"By Mithra! What in Hades have you done to my face?"

''Oh, Roman
Nose, you didn't really think we women were born with the smooth faces you see, did you? A little something here. A little something there. A little rice flour. A touch of kohl. And a few other things." She smiled impishly. "We're pretty good, aren't we? How do you like your new face, the one that's saved your neck so far?"

Well, she had a point there. He held the mirror up again and liked what he saw even less than he had the first time. They had shaved his face so smooth it was impossible to see where the hairs had been, and they had put something on it halfway between paint and oil, so that even his scar
– in which Casca had a certain pride – was no longer visible. He couldn't tell what they had done to his eyebrows – cut them, trimmed them, something – but now they had a thin, even line. His eyelids were darkened. It was no longer his face; it was the face of a woman. Not, however, a beautiful young woman. They had known the limitations of the material they were working with, and they had made him up as a woman a little the worse for wear.

"We women are magicians, are we not?"

Hmpf! We women... where did she get that shit?
Sudden fear gripped Casca.

"Er...”

"What is it, Roman Nose?"

"Am I... er..."

"Are you what?"

"The women... did they
–"

Miriam laughed uproariously. "No! We got to you just in time. And I've never seen anybody heal as fast as you do. But it was a near thing."

"Then I'm... all right?"

"I hope you are. Because I intend to test you just as soon as you're able... to perform at your best, that is. I've never had a man of my own choosing, one I put together myself, so to speak. No, Roman
Nose, I'm betting – and hoping – you'll be as good as new. Now, drink this. It will put you back to sleep again."

So Casca lived with the women. Even when he was well enough to be up and about, Miriam insisted that he continue the charade.
Something about "inspiration."

Casca did not tell her that he had never needed "inspiration" before. To tell the truth, though, he did dread moving back with the men, because he knew, the first smartass who made a crack would get his grinning face smashed in. And that didn't seem quite fair, considering all the risks these men had run for him. Besides, at least three more times the caravan was stopped by groups of the Sultan's men, and each time it was the disguise as a woman that saved Casca.

Miriam and Ruth had it easier. Ruth was dressed as a young boy – the Sultan's men probably thought "eunuch" – and for Miriam, slovenly dress, a smear of dirt on her face, and black hair changed her completely.

Casca thought the black hair was probably original, since, when he asked how she got his hair red, she answered, "Henna.
From Egypt."

Miriam was unlike any whore Casca had ever known. She did have one failing though, religion. (After his own unfortunate experience with the religious, Casca tended to see danger signals in the piousness of others.) Yet he had to admit that Miriam, like Faisal, saw religion as something that made life better rather than the other way around, which was what Casca had so often seen. She delighted in reading to him stories from the religious scrolls Faisal had stored in secret
compartments in his own cart. One story in particular she came back to over and over – the story of Rahab the whore who had hidden two Israelites under the cane rush of her roof in order to save them from the king's men. Casca suspected Miriam saw in Rahab the whore a reflection of herself. It seemed that she had helped Faisal often before. There was a secret passageway into the seraglio.

"Then I wasn't dreaming?"

''The pain you must have been in, you might have been dreaming. Of death. But, no, we were there. It was the night agreed on for me to come for Ruth."

"Lucky for me."

"Luck? No, Roman Nose. The hand of God."

There was no point in arguing with her. She had this faith in a God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob so deeply ingrained in her that Casca resisted the temptation to kid her about it. Hell, she even gave credit for his rapid healing to her "prayers" for him.
A nice twist,
he thought.
Here's a whore who's more religious than most "respectable" women I have known.

Yet, oddly, her religious feelings weren't obnoxious.
Kinda nice, in a strange sort of way.

The primary thing about her was, of course, her body. Somewhere there probably were more beautiful bodies
. Nothing is ever so good it can't be bettered somewhere else, Casca had to remind himself. But this body here and now was damn, damn good, and increasingly he looked forward to bedding her.

There was one problem, though. This intimacy with women was too much. This eating with them, bathing with them, dressing with them
; this living with them constantly did things to a man. Casca wondered if–

''Tonight.''

"What?"

Casca had been hunkered down on the hard board seat at the front of the cart, watching the line of mountains ahead toward which they jolted, when Miriam had come up behind him and spoken into his ear in a voice so low it was almost inaudible.

''Tonight,'' she repeated. "You're well now. We've waited long enough. Tonight I bed you
– or you bed me, if your manly pride insists it be that way."