The Lion of Cairo (34 page)

It’s your fault! You left her to die!

Her body moved of its own accord down the narrow alleys of the Soldier’s Quarter; as she ran ever southward, instinct guided her around obstacles, from an oxcart loaded with stone blocks to knots of grim-eyed Sudanese mercenaries. She skirted plazas where lamplight and mocking laughter seeped out from behind the closed doors of pleasure houses.

You left her to die!

Yasmina increased her pace. Her lungs worked like a forge’s bellows, drawing in the dusty air in great racking gasps; she ran on, heedless of what lay in her path, as though her guilt were a living thing that gave chase. It hounded her through the Glassblowers’ Bazaar and across the Qasaba, where men met to discuss the day’s events. And amid the laughter and babble of tongues, she heard the echo of Zaynab’s voice.

Why did you leave me to die?

The young woman’s endurance gave out. She stumbled and pitched off to one side, old wicker crunching as she collided with a small pyramid of empty cages and dovecotes outside a fowler’s shop. She lay there a moment and listened to the pounding of her heart, the ground beneath her still hot from the baking sun. Sweat stung her eyes and mingled with the tears cascading down her cheeks.

The fowler, a wiry-muscled Egyptian in a filthy galabiya and turban, came barging into the street, shaking his fists and gesticulating wildly; he screeched at Yasmina in a voice not unlike that of the birds he trapped in the reeds and marshes of the Nile. The girl ignored him. She shoved aside a mud-crusted dovecote and scrabbled to her feet, one hand braced against the shop’s mudbrick wall, her eyes fixed on a point down the street, on her destination.

The caravanserai of Ali Abu’l-Qasim.

Why had she come here? The caravanserai was as dark and lifeless as the House of the Gazelle; no lights gleamed from its upper windows, nor did any spill out through the tall doors, closed now and likely barred. All of Abu’l-Qasim’s followers must have traveled with the funeral cortege to al-Karafa cemetery, beyond the Zuwayla Gate. Still, the girl staggered on, knowing only that the caravanserai was the last place she had seen Zaynab, the last place she had known happiness.

The fowler’s curses fading behind her, Yasmina allowed grief to guide her footsteps. She avoided the tall doors of the caravanserai, where men of all sorts had gathered to await the return of the King of Thieves. Instead, she slipped unseen into an alley between neighboring buildings where, hidden by broken stone and cast-off debris, she came to the flight of crude sandstone steps leading down into darkness, to the bronze-barred fissure in the wall of the old underground bath.

Yasmina descended slowly. Moonlight gave a faint sheen of silver to each step; the air wafting up from the fissure was moist and cool, though tainted with the coppery stench of blood.

Zaynab’s blood.

Yasmina sobbed. Tremors racked her body as she stopped short of the bottom step. Here, she sat, staring at the faint glimmer of bronze as though it were a gate to the underworld, as though Zaynab’s soul waited beyond.
You’re dead because of me, because I left you alone!
Her fingers groped in the darkness beside her, searching.
I won’t leave you alone again! I promise!
She came up with a thin wedge of sandstone, its edge flaked and serrated.
I promise!

Yasmina blinked back tears and bared her left arm to the elbow. She understood what she had to do; she understood why.
I won’t leave you alone again!
Gripping the stone in her right hand, the young woman scraped its edge across the soft flesh of her wrist, teeth clenched against the pain. It would take some time, but she was certain she could rip a gash large enough to empty her arteries. What’s more, the agony of it would serve as an act of atonement, penance for abandoning Zaynab when she needed her most.

Her features set in a mask of grim resolve, Yasmina prepared herself. She bore down on the stone, ready to grind and saw and rip, ready to gouge her flesh until hot blood slicked her fingertips. She was ready to follow Zaynab into the afterlife. Yasmina sucked her lower lip between her teeth. She was ready. By God, she was ready …

A sound, though, caused the girl to fumble and nearly drop the instrument of her sacrifice. In the alley above, voices grew near—one voice was raspy and wet; the other she recognized. It belonged to the one-eyed beggar, Musa. “What do you want, wretch?”

At first, the other’s reply was indistinct, then: “… true you’re seeking our poor Gazelle’s murderer in the Foreign Quarter? That he is a tall man, clean-shaven but not a eunuch. Perhaps a Frank…?”

“It’s true,” Musa murmured. “What of it?”

“Perhaps I know where this killer is…”

Yasmina stiffened; mention of the Gazelle’s Frankish slayer caused all thoughts of suicide to fade away. Rage boiled out from the dark places in her soul, filling the void Zaynab’s death left behind and turning her heart to stone. By all reckoning, vengeance trumped penance—she could die any time, but she had perhaps one chance to strike back, one chance to avenge the woman who had been as a mother to her.

Hate twisted Yasmina’s lips as she strained to overhear …

9

The funeral cortege returned to the caravanserai of Ali abu’l-Qasim in dolorous silence, each mourner wrapped in his own thoughts. The procession was a polyglot: dour Berbers troubled by the deaths of their companions, merchants and tradesmen who hailed from the same neighborhood as Abu’l-Qasim, old thieves clad like desert
shaykhs
who recalled Zaynab as a precocious girl, and beggars who wept for their lost patroness. In the midst of it all, half a dozen slaves bore Abu’l-Qasim’s palanquin on their shoulders. The curtains were drawn, and none could see the King of Thieves’ grieving visage—least of all Musa, who brought up the rear of the cortege.

The one-eyed man wiped his face, knuckling at the dull ache which blossomed behind his empty socket. A crushing despair informed his every gesture and made each step more ponderous than the last. Zaynab was dead, and though he had seen the body Musa could barely fathom it.
Dead and buried
.

Three women, the wives of a neighbor, had done for Abu’l-Qasim what no man might: they had washed the Gazelle’s body, braiding her hair and shrouding her in clean linen, making her ready for prayer and burial—the whole completed before sunset in accordance with the long traditions of Islam. That only a small stone with rough-cut letters marked her resting place seemed insufficient to Musa, an insult. She deserved better.

The one-eyed man sighed. Already, the head of the procession stood at the doors to the caravanserai. Hinges creaked as Abu’l-Qasim’s Berbers levered them open, then stepped aside to allow the cortege entry to the courtyard. Stewards kindled lamps and would soon fetch food and wine for the mourners, but Musa had little in the way of an appetite. No, he decided to pay his respects to Abu’l-Qasim and then slip away, maybe head north to the Mad Caliph’s Mosque and pass the night among his people, among the beggars. He—

Musa flinched as, from his blind side, a small hand tugged at his sleeve. He cocked his head and saw a boy standing there, an unkempt urchin clad in little more than rags yet who smelled strongly of perfumes, rich and cloying. He stared in rude fascination at Musa’s empty socket. “What is it, little brother?”

The boy answered in pidgin Arabic: “What happen your eye?”

“It was burned out,” Musa growled, “after I asked a man with one eye a foolish question. Now, what do you want—and think before you speak, boy, lest I fetch hot coals and an iron.”

The urchin stared, half in disbelief and half in fear. He took a step back before replying: “Djuha want talk to you.”

“Djuha, eh?” The name brought a grimace to Musa’s lips. The man was a pander of the worst sort, a dealer in perversions and aberrations so foul as to render him a pariah to even the most hedonistic of Cairo’s denizens. Thus, he found his custom where he could, mostly in the Foreign Quarter among the dregs and flotsam of a dozen lands. The one-eyed man spat. “What the devil does that swine want with me?”

The boy shrugged. “You come?”

“Where is he?”

The urchin jerked his chin over his shoulder.

Musa looked past the boy and spotted a figure across the street, cloaked in shadow. There was no mistaking the tall and emaciated silhouette. Djuha was Bedouin, an outlaw from the Prophet’s own clan, the Banu Hashim, who had fled to Egypt to escape punishment for his myriad crimes; yet there was no escaping Allah’s wrath. As Musa heard it, the man was dying with agonizing slowness, the victim of divine retribution in the form of leprosy.

“You come?” the boy repeated.

“Why should I?”

“He say it important.” The urchin nodded to the caravanserai. “About her.”

Musa’s eye narrowed.
What could he know about the mistress?
“Tell him to cross the street and await me in that alley.”

With a nod, the boy darted off. Musa watched carefully as the urchin delivered his message; he saw Djuha glance up and nod. Draping a rotting hand around the boy’s shoulder, the leper stepped into the street. Robes of striped silk and wool hung from his wasted frame. He used a fold of linen from his head scarf to mask his disease-ravaged features. Passersby who had come to pay their respects to Abu’l-Qasim flinched away from Djuha, making signs to ward off evil as he vanished into the alley.

Moments later, Musa followed.

Perfume barely masked the stench of corruption that clung to Djuha. It filled the alley—a smell like a slaughtered carcass left too long in the sun. The leper waited with the urchin at his side, stroking the boy’s hair and warbling in a wet, raspy voice. Djuha’s words were too low for Musa to hear, but his tone sent a wave of revulsion washing over the one-eyed man. How he wanted to draw his knife and strike down the abomination! But for Zaynab’s sake Musa exercised restraint, if not civility. “What do you want, wretch?”

Djuha glanced up, his bloodshot eyes unblinking. “Nothing, beggar, save only to be of service. Is it true you’re seeking our poor Gazelle’s murderer in the Foreign Quarter? That he is a tall man, clean-shaven but not a eunuch. Perhaps a Frank…?”

“It’s true. What of it?”

“Perhaps I know where this killer is…”

Musa started forward. “
Perhaps?
What is
perhaps
? Either you know or you don’t!”

“I believe I have seen this Frank you seek.”

“
Perhaps
you’ve seen him or you have seen him for certain?”

Djuha straightened. “Your tone offends me, beggar.”

“My…” Musa’s jaws clenched; veins in his neck stood out as, with titanic effort, he brought his sudden burst of fury under control. “My … apologies. It has been a day of great sadness. Where … where did you see this man?”

“Deep in the Foreign Quarter. Come, I will show you.”

Musa hesitated. He glanced back at the alley mouth, wondering if he should first pass word on to Abu’l-Qasim.
But what if this proves to be nothing? What then?
The one-eyed man scratched his unkempt beard in indecision.

“You need not fear me,” Djuha said. “And if by chance it is not the man you seek, there is no harm done.”

Musa exhaled, unable to refute the leper’s logic. “I will follow you, but heed what I say: if this is but some dark jest on your part, as Allah is my witness, I will finish what the Almighty has started!”

Djuha, his red-rimmed eyes impassive, bowed in acknowledgment before setting off, cooing to the urchin who bore the weight—and stench—of his arm’s embrace. Musa followed, though he kept his distance from the pair.

None saw the shadowy form emerge from cunningly hidden stairs leading down into darkness, to the bronze-barred cleft in the wall of the old underground bath …

10

Pale and shaking, Mustapha moved with exaggerated care through the wreck of the Caliph’s sitting room. He stepped as gingerly over the crushed fruit and spilled
khamr
as he did over the smears of blood—the sight of which caused the churning in his stomach to treble. Nor was he alone. A gaggle of eunuchs watched him from the shelter of the doorway, their faces like waxen masks of revulsion.

“What deviltry is this?” Mustapha muttered; reluctantly, the old eunuch leaned over to take a closer look at the Templar’s corpse, nose wrinkling at the stench of blood and bowel. He shook his head.
How? How could he have failed?
But Mustapha already knew the answer. It had to be that cursed Sufi, Ibn al-Teymani. The man was obviously more than he seemed. But what was he, an agent of Jalal’s enemies? More to the point, where was he? Mustapha straightened as another eunuch approached the sitting room from the fountain court.

“Well?” Mustapha snapped.

“I … I found Babek,” the fellow stammered; fear left him breathless. “He’s over by the niche. S-someone cut his throat.”

“What of the Caliph and his guest?”

The eunuch shook his head. “No sign of either of them.”

Mustapha cursed.
They must have discovered the passage!
Whirling, he retraced his steps from the sitting room. The old eunuch snatched one of his waiting chamberlains up by the collar of his robes. “You! Take a dozen Jandariyah to the harem and reinforce the guard at the doors to the old hammam! Let no one exit that room alive!” Mustapha shoved him away.

“Hearkening and obeying,
ya sidi
!” The chamberlain salaamed and turned. But before he had taken more than a handful of steps, a wild-eyed Egyptian servant collided with him, sending the chamberlain sprawling as he barreled on down the corridor.

“Allah’s mercies!” the servant bawled. “Allah’s mercies! We are undone!” He skidded to a halt and flopped down on his belly, grimy hands clutching at the hem of Mustapha’s galabiya. “Allah preserve us!”

The old eunuch twitched out of the servant’s grasp and scowled. “What is it? What goes, damn you?”

“We are undone, I tell you! Doomed! They have risen against our master, against the vizier! Allah! They are coming!”