The Desert of Souls, page 27
“Whatever they paid you,” Dabir cut in, “Jaffar will triple. You have no idea the threat these men form.”
As he spoke, Dabir paid no heed to the expressions shifting swiftly across the governor’s face—wide-eyed astonishment, openmouthed wonder, finally, lip-tightening anger. As the governor physically drew back without moving a foot: he squared his shoulders and lifted his head.
It was I who interrupted. “Dabir,” I cautioned.
“You will leave at dawn,” the governor said, and with that he stepped through the curtain. The captain hesitated a moment, and Dabir took this as an opening.
“Heed me, Captain—Baghdad and the caliph himself are in danger. It would take so little—a squad of men…” Dabir broke off as the captain, wordless, stepped after the governor. I watched the curtain fall shut and sway after their passage while Dabir vented his anger with curses.
“Sabirah is safe,” I pointed out.
“Either the man is a lazy fool, or the Greek has paid him,” Dabir said.
“It was folly to mention money,” I said.
“What else would you have me do? If money is salve to his wants, I thought to offer more.”
“You sound desperate.”
“I am desperate. Asim, we must get out of here, and stop Firouz.”
I groaned. “I ache throughout my body. I am weak and tired. And I have no weapons.”
“All this is true.” Dabir nodded. “But what are our troubles compared to those of Moses, who had to free an entire people?”
“Moses,” I said, “heard the voice of God, who worked miracles through him.”
“Mayhap it is time to work some miracles of our own,” Dabir said.
His eyes burned with a feverish intensity. I met them, then looked away, choosing my next words with care. “Dabir, I lack a sword. Likely I could sneak up on a soldier, slay him with my knife, and take his blade, but I will be slaying none of these men, who have committed no crime; they are just following the governor’s orders. Even were we mad enough to steal past them, how long do you think it would take for them to find us, two strangers, in the bowels of their palace, and, weak as we are, capture or kill us?”
“But we may have no better opportunity than this!”
“This is not a good opportunity. Firouz means to attack Baghdad—we can wait for him there.”
Dabir’s teeth flashed as he gritted them, then he dropped onto the cushions and placed his head once more in his hands.
It was a long time before he spoke again. “I know you are right, Asim. I clutch at straws.”
“Let us rest, and see what tomorrow brings.”
“I think it shall bring us nothing good,” Dabir said softly.
The morning brought nothing good for me, to be sure, for I awoke with a fever. I have had fevers before after wounding, but never such a one as that. My energy ebbed low, and my body was so cold that it felt as though I had just dragged myself from an ice bath. Dabir and the governor’s servants saw that I was bundled up as best they could. My friend insisted even that I be carried in a litter, which embarrassed me at first. I was embarrassed further to realize that I had fallen asleep while they bore me through the halls, for when next I was conscious I was lying upon a pallet on the deck. An awning shaded me. Dabir sat by my side.
“Asim?” Dabir asked. “How are you feeling?”
“I am not seasick,” I answered, astonished by how weak I sounded.
“The monkey’s bite must have been poisoned after all,” Dabir said.
“I think so.” My thinking was hazy enough that it took a moment for me to remember that Dabir, too, had been attacked. “What of you?”
“My wound aches, but I have no fever. But then I was only scratched. Who knows where else that foul thing had its teeth?”
I felt the spot above my collar where the evil little beast had seized hold of me; the skin there was numb to my touch and I did not recognize it as my own.
“Your neck is swollen,” Dabir relayed.
The governor had sent a young hakim to tend to me—a student of the palace doctor, I found out. He was a quiet fellow, clearly unhappy with the trip away from the palace, but he did his job, which is all I would have asked of him. In truth, I did little asking, for I slept for much of the journey.
I felt fine enough by the afternoon of the fourth day to sit up and converse with Dabir. I was still beneath an awning near the ship’s prow, propped against some tattered cloths. My clothes and blankets smelled of the sickness I had sweated out, and my neck, though sore still, felt like my own when I brushed my fingers over it.
Dabir was obssessed over the matter of Firouz and his arrival in Baghdad on the sixth of Dhu’l Qa’dah, and brooded silently about it when he was not running various scenarios aloud for me of how best the wizard could be stopped. I sat drinking broth from a cup, having little energy to speak.
“I knew that you were doing better when I saw you ask for a third helping,” Dabir said.
At last I put the bowl aside, pushed the pillows and blankets off, and leaned back against the wooden rail.
“Where is Sabirah?” I asked.
“The women keep her sequestered in the cabin,” Dabir answered. “I have seen her only at a distance.”
“What women?”
“The governor sent some matrons and servants for her companions—and to watch her. She is allowed no contact with men.”
I grunted noncommittally. That was probably a better arrangement.
“I wonder how much of that was the governor’s doing, and how much was an order handed down from Jaffar?”
“There is no knowing.”
“Sabirah has sent one of the matrons to ask of your health each day,” Dabir said, adding, “From the matron’s sour face, I think she’d prefer you dead so she would not have to be troubled with extra steps.”
“I did not mean to inconvenience her.”
Dabir chuckled briefly, then fell into a brooding silence.
We were on a quiet stretch of the Tigris at that moment; there was little to be heard but the creak of the ship and the wind breathing in the river reeds. Occasionally the sailors spoke to one another, but even they were quiet. The birds called to each other overhead, flying far and free.
“Asim,” Dabir said finally, “Jaffar will be difficult to persuade.”
“Sabirah and I will add our voices.”
He nodded. “I know. If he will but place guards around the cornerstone of Baghdad’s oldest building … then all will be well. At least for Baghdad.”
“And us?”
“I think even a reasonable man might find reasons to be angry with us. All those under our charge have perished. His niece stowed away aboard our ship—”
“That was not our fault,” I cut in.
“And she was kidnapped before she was returned. She then spent a month, unchaperoned, in the company of a man whom Jaffar suspects, rightly, is in love with her.” He held up his hands as I started to object. “Then consider that we have failed to recover the golden plaques that were our goal, one of which was appropriated by Jaffar from the treasury of the caliph. Nor did we capture or kill the men behind the theft.”
“The caliph does not lack for gold,” I pointed out, knowing as I did so that the amount of gold was not the crucial part.
“That is not the point,” Dabir said.
I sighed. “There were victories along the way.”
“None that shall matter to him. We recovered the door pulls, only to have them stolen from us.”
“What of the matter in the Desert of Souls?” I said. “Surely that was a victory.”
“I doubt that it will have much bearing upon his assessment of us,” Dabir said. Gloom fell thickly then about us.
I frowned, knowing he was right about all his worries. “No man could have done better.”
“Do you think?”
“Aye. If not for you, we would not have survived in the swamps, nor would we have walked alive from the desert.”
He pondered that for a moment. “It seems to me that we would not have survived if we had not stood together.”
“Aye, that is the truth. Well, we have stood together, and we may well fall together, my friend.”
My thoughts thereafter were mostly grim. Though my mind turned sometimes to Sabirah, I did not see her. Dabir, who must surely have been thinking of her even more frequently than myself, looked sometimes to the deckhouse windows. She was never there. He was lost in thought, and would pace the deck. Sometimes he studied the sky, mayhap searching for black birds with ebon stones for eyes.
As for me, I did not fear for Sabirah. She would be reprimanded, surely, but she was too valuable a commodity—a marriageable young woman in a powerful family—for Jaffar and the other elders to rebuke too sternly. Likely I would be called upon by Jaffar to testify to her continued chastity. Dabir’s fate, now that I considered it, did not seem promising, and I wondered as to my own. Almost certainly I would be dismissed from service. If I were to face disgrace, what would happen to my cousins and nephews also in government service? Would they, too, face dismissal? I, who by my successes had opened the door for so many of them, might drag them down.
Suddenly I felt much older.
We reached Jaffar’s palace in the middle morning of a warm spring day, the fifth of Dhu’l Qa’dah. One day before Dabir was sure Firouz would strike. The master was nowhere in evidence, but his orders reached us swiftly: we were to dress and wait in our rooms until summoned to speak with him. I need not remind you that Jaffar spent most of his working hours as a judge; we would not be facing casual questions.
Dabir glanced back at the deckhouse a final time, but the ladies were to be escorted last, so he had no sight of Sabirah. I thought that for the best, though I felt for him. Losing her company was one of many burdens he bore this day.
Jaffar’s chamberlain, Boulos, walked with us for the brief moments that our journey saw us down the same corridor, warning us that he’d never seen the master so cross. “Things may not go well for you! Why didn’t you send Sabirah back sooner?”
“We would have sent her from Basra,” Dabir said, “but she was stolen from us.”
Boulos shook his head. “You will have to be more convincing than that.”
Dabir turned near a marble column, pausing only to nod at me. His quarters were in an entirely different portion of the palace from mine, for I bunked near the soldiers, he near the servants.
“Go with God, Dabir,” I told him. I wished that Boulos were not there, so that I might say more.
“And you.” He nodded and raised a hand in farewell. He looked very slight as he walked away from me, the light from high windows scattering shadowed rectangles into his path.
Boulos stayed with me as I walked to my quarters. “What happened to you? I swear that you look thinner.”
“We were beset by troubles.”
“And where’s Hamil?”
“He is dead,” I answered.
“Ho! Jaffar will be unhappy to hear that. Though I imagine you did not weep long!”
“He was a better man than I thought.”
I felt the eunuch’s small eyes keenly upon me. He did not speak for a long moment. “You mean that, don’t you. But then you always say what you mean. Still. You seem a different man.”
“Nay, just a sad and weary one. My nephew and my most promising soldiers were slain by treachery, and foul magic stole the life of Hamil. I saw Dabir strive every step of the way, and succeed against all odds. Yet I think it will end poorly for him.”
“I am sorry for your losses, Asim,” Boulos said, and I think that he was.
Boulos fell silent again, and our footsteps echoed together on the stone as we passed between carpets. “When you have rested, I would hear tell of your journey.”
I was in no mood for that this day. “I might not have a room here much longer, Boulos.”
“Oh, do not say that!”
He said nothing more, but walked with me almost to my door. Finally, he said, “It is good to have you back, Captain. I have other duties, though. I wish you well.”
I thanked him. My chambers seemed smaller than I remembered. As guard captain I was given a balcony overlooking the front garden, and I stepped outside and placed my hands on its railing. Below me a fountain burbled water into a stone pool, and a little blue songbird perched upon the scrollwork. Whether it sang for a mate or for the sheer pleasure of being alive I could not guess, but I envied its joy. Still lying atop a chest just inside the door to the balcony was my shatranj board. Mahmoud never replaced the thing inside the chest after we played, always laying it there unless I scolded him. My first impulse was to take care of the matter myself, but I thought then of his hands upon the case for that last time and I stood staring at the old wood—for it had been his father’s board before mine—and had to breathe deep lest sorrow drown me.
I left the board there when I headed to the north baths to clean up, then trimmed and changed. Though my back and neck were healing, I was still sore, and sudden movement pained me. Boulos sent one of the house slaves with a huge platter of food, and this I consumed eagerly. Ah, the things one can take for granted when exposed to them so frequently. I could not help wondering as I ate the finely seasoned duck and flatbread sprinkled with raisins if this were the last meal I would enjoy within the palace, or upon the earth.
We had been told we would meet with Jaffar in the early afternoon, and I did not anticipate a delay. Yet the afternoon wore on, and no one came to my door. It was not until the shadows lay stretched out across the floor like victims that I heard a dull knock. When I rose and bid the visitor to enter, it was not Boulos, but a houseboy I did not recognize.
If he was unfamiliar, the way he led me was not, for we passed into better traveled halls where servants even now hustled. Two passed me bearing platters of steaming slabs of mutton upon gold platters; shortly thereafter a trio of boys hurried with finely wrought goblets. Clearly a banquet was under way. As captain of the guard it was my responsibility to be kept abreast of all scheduling so that I might ensure Jaffar’s security, and it did not bode well that these servants were better informed than I.
At last we arrived at the polished walnut doors of Jaffar’s main receiving room. The boy opened one of them and gestured; I heard him close it behind me.
Jaffar waited alone. I had thought to see Dabir and Sabirah and perhaps a contingent of guards, but there was only Jaffar, sitting upon the settee atop a raised dais at the room’s far end. I bowed, and he waved me forward. Never had the walk down that brown carpet seemed so long.
I bowed once more when I reached the edge of the dais, keeping my eyes low and only glancing at Jaffar’s expression. That day he wore finely tailored dark robes. Rings glittered on his fingers, and the sweet smell of his soaps was evident from many paces away. His expression was not angry so much as downcast.
“Peace be upon you, Asim,” Jaffar said sadly.
“And also upon you, Master.”
He raised his hands to belly level and tapped his fingers together distractedly. “I was sorry to hear of your loss, Asim. Mahmoud was a promising young officer.”
“Thank you, Master.” Was he merely marking time until the others might arrive? Where were they?
“You were my hope, you know,” Jaffar continued. “Once I learned that Sabirah was missing, I sometimes feared that Dabir had leagued against me to gain the gold and my niece. But I always took solace in thought of you, for I knew well that you would never betray me.”
I bowed. “Thank you, Master.”
“I have heard from both my niece and Dabir how valiantly you labored over the course of your journey, and knowing you as I do, I am inclined to believe that portion of their tale. And here.” He gestured to my neck, from which the bandages had been removed. My wounds still shown above my collar, scabbed and swollen. “Here I witness evidence of your struggles.”
Where was he going with this? He was being extremely generous with compliments. His delivery, however, was slow, quiet. Sorrowful.
“I must put questions to you, Asim.”
“I shall answer them, Master.”
“You were the first to find Sabirah. Why did you not insist that the ship be immediately turned around?”
I bowed. “I spoke with Dabir about the matter. He thought it more important that we catch the thieves.”
“Did he?”
“He was concerned about the appearance, Master,” I added, “but he was trying to do what he thought best.”
“Did you not think it likely that he wanted only to extend his time with my niece?”
“He seemed focused upon the mission, Master.”
“Does that mean, then, that he took no joy in her presence?”
I saw then the road he meant to travel, and I hesitated before setting my foot there.
“Asim, answer me.”
“I think that he did,” I said. “But we all did, Master, for her company is a pleasure. And,” I added, speaking quickly, for I’d seen him raise a finger as if he meant to make another point, “I guarded her well so that nothing unseemly took place.”
“Did you?” His eyebrows lowered then, and he frowned. “Were you guarding her, then, when strangers broke into your Basra apartment and abducted her? Were you guarding her by leaving her with strange Bedouins? What about when she ran off after the Greek was slain?”
I bowed low.
“It seems that you did not guard her so finely as you would have me think.”
“Master, the girl came to no harm—”
“Purely by chance, praise be to Allah.”
“And I swear that I watched her closely when she was with Dabir.”
Jaffar sighed. “You are a simple man, Asim, and I have always held that as one of your strengths. Surely I have few men so loyal. But Dabir and Sabirah, I think, are more clever than you. Do you insist, like these others, that you witnessed djinn and magical realms and giant snakes with feathers?”
