The Desert of Souls, page 29
“So take it from me, one who has seen and heard much over the years, that you would be best served if you kept your tongue silent on this issue. Palace gossip has it that you are a hero—perhaps one that was tricked, but a hero who was stalwart and brave. All this is true. Why worry about the small details?”
A chill touched my flesh. “Small details like the truth?” I asked quietly.
Boulos shook his head. “Small details can make the difference between life and death. Your life and death.”
I said nothing.
“Think on it.” He smiled and rose, bowed once. “God be with you, Asim,” he said, and then let himself out.
I am a man of large appetite, but Boulos had set my thoughts tumbling at such a furious pace that it was long before I moved to consume the feast he had left.
I ate slowly and weighed my options. Outside, storm clouds gathered and the sky rumbled. I heeded the evening call to prayers, and asked God to help me in my steps, for I had chosen a path. And then I sat down to write a note to Mahmoud’s mother. It was easier, then, for I had decided that there were things that I must do. I wrote my cousin in the caliph’s guard. And I wrote a third letter, as well, the boldest, broadest lie I had ever composed, one that would surely condemn me to death and possibly damn me.
My most comfortable travel clothes had been worn threadbare upon my journey, and so I donned my finest jubbah, a dark, stiff-collared affair with intricate scrollwork, inlaid with pearl buttons. My turban wrap was threaded with gold. All this would better suit my purpose in any case. I had been gifted with a ceremonial sword, but this I left, preferring a sturdy blade I took from Mahmoud’s quarters. Would that I might have taken up my own curved blade again, the only belonging of my father’s I’d owned, but it was lost forever in the Desert of Souls. Almost everything I’d valued had been lost upon my journey, and now I was readying to abandon almost all I had left; my office, my oath of loyalty to Jaffar, and my pledge of fealty to the caliph. But not my honor. Nay, it was my honor that drove me to break those oaths and forswear all I had won by my service.
Well groomed, perfumed, resplendent from heel to helm, a sword at my side, I left my quarters and the wing of the palace. I did not expect to return.
I paid a servant boy to deliver the note to Mahmoud’s mother, then turned toward Jaffar’s office. You might think that I would feel fear at such a time; such was my state of mind, though, that I knew only a grim sense of determination as I neared the door. I raised my hand to knock. An hour or more before, Boulos had relayed that the master was gone. Wherever he might be, he did not seem to be in his chambers. I stepped inside, closing the door gently behind me.
Jaffar had a number of receiving rooms and halls, but only one real office where inks and papers and a wide variety of books were stored. He worked here in the mornings sometimes, his chief secretary at a desk by his side. A wall of thick tomes stood upon shelves that stretched behind both desks. As you might expect, the office looked down upon one of the gardens, and the patter of rain upon leaves sounded outside the window screens. Always orderly, Jaffar had stacked a square of papers on the desk, and a pen was sharpened and ready for use beside them. I frowned then, for I saw no ink.
Jaffar’s desk had but two drawers, one to left, which proved to hold only some unsharpened quills. The right drawer held his inkwell. This I sat atop the desk and unstoppered. I had not trusted to produce his signature from memory, so I lit a candle and stepped over to a neatly stacked sheaf of papers on his secretary’s desk. Alas, the first of these were letters dictated to the secretary and awaiting Jaffar’s signature.
A second, smaller stack on the right-hand side of the secretary’s desk was a set of papers that had been signed and awaited only Jaffar’s seal—thank-you notes to banquet attendees, by the look of them. Platitudes and pageantry, but they provided Jaffar’s signature.
One of several flaws with my plan was that Jaffar had a fine hand—he was, in fact, well known as a talented calligrapher—whereas my writing was only passable. My thought was that I would copy the look of his signature, but write it swiftly, as though Jaffar had been in haste, or distracted.
I brought the paper back to Jaffar’s desk and my note, stared hard at it, then dashed down my rendition of his name. I had not done it justice, but as I had but the one letter there was no chance to try again. My meager effort would have to suffice.
I replaced the letter, the ink, and wiped clean the quill. I folded the paper and was in the act of tipping the candle to provide the wax when I realized that Jaffar’s seal did not stand on his desk in its accustomed place.
Thus did I face the first of my obstacles. It was my hope that, ranked as I was, I might bear a sealed note from Jaffar without question. Why, I might be able to declare what the note told me to do without ever having to present the signature for scrutiny. But waving it around with authority would only work if I had Jaffar’s seal pressed into the wax. And it was nowhere in sight.
Once more I checked the drawers. They held only the styluses and ink I had noted before. As I stepped over to the secretary’s desk I heard a noise at the door. I turned in time to face the man who thrust it open.
Boulos was framed in the doorway, a lantern in one hand.
“Asim?” he said.
“Yes.”
“What are you doing here?”
I had no ready answer, and said nothing.
He glanced over his shoulder and stepped inside. “What are you doing?”
I dismissed the idea of slaying him, likewise the idea of taking him prisoner. Before I knew what I was about, I answered his question. “I am looking for the master’s seal.”
Boulos closed the door and stood staring at me. “Asim…”
“I need his seal, Boulos. I go to free Dabir.”
He shook his head. “It will be your death, Asim. There will be no getting out of this.”
“Dabir did not abandon me when enemies were leagued against us. I cannot abandon him.”
“Do you think to use this seal and get back into the master’s grace? It cannot be done!”
“The seal, Boulos. I do not care about the master. Just the seal. Do you know where it is?”
The eunuch sighed tiredly. “There. In the little box above your head on the shelf.”
My hand closed upon a small casket of dark wood, enameled with green stones in the shape of an elephant. Inside lay the master’s seal. “Thank you, Boulos.”
He stood there, watching, as I dripped wax across the paper and pressed the seal in, leaving the master’s official mark. I replaced it, then tucked the letter into my coat.
“Just because you have done this thing does not mean you have to go farther.”
“The letter does not command me, Boulos, but loyalty to my friend.”
The eunuch nodded, looking suddenly old and worn. He bowed. “I shall pray to God for you, Asim. And for me,” he added, “that I might have a friend like you, someday, in my hour of need. But I shall pray in vain, I think.”
I bowed my head in response. “Where is the master?”
“With the caliph, at the Golden Mosque. Asim, go with God. I will pray for you.”
“Pray also for Dabir.”
I clapped him on the shoulder, then bethought myself of something. “Oh, Latif is the brightest of all the guards. He is not much to look at, but he will serve the master best.”
Boulos nodded. “I will urge his promotion.” He smiled and shook his head.
“What?”
“You leave now on an errand that will be condemned as treachery, yet your last thought is for the safety of the master who will order your death.”
I put my hand to the door latch. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
“I know. I will miss you, Asim. Try to get killed before you’re captured. It will be much less painful.”
18
Boulos’s advice was sound, for if captured, I would almost surely die by slow torture.
I meant to bluff my way into the caliph’s palace, pretend that Jaffar had ordered Dabir’s company, then flee the city on our horses. It was a house of lies built over the bedrock of betrayal of my master, Jaffar. Fittingly, the muezzin made their last call to prayers as I rode through the city, and I did not stop. Certainly I had little time, but was I not making excuse after excuse for turning against my own beliefs and standards? How easily does man turn from God.
All these things were in my mind as I galloped, slowing only when traffic barred my way.
The storm had blown over by the time I reached the walls of the Round City. Even at prayer time there are those who must stand watch. I sat in my saddle under the long shadow of the frowning Iron Tower of the mad caliph as guards at the gate briefly scrutinized me. They recognized either me or my bearing, and waved me in.
The palace courtyard was mostly bare, and I rode through unobstructed, leading the extra horse I’d requisitioned from Jaffar’s stables.
I left the reins of both animals in the hands of a stable slave with warning that they must be ready to ride, swiftly. I repeated the information twice, for the boy’s glassy-eyed expression did not suggest a powerful intellect.
People were returning to duty stations from prayer as I stepped in through the service gate. I brandished my sealed paper to a turbaned guard with a waxed beard. “I’ve been sent to retrieve Dabir ibn Khalil, late of the household of my master, Jaffar. Do you know where he might be found?”
The fellow did not, and suggested I speak to one of the eunuchs. So it was in the caliph’s palace as it was in Jaffar’s—the eunuchs and slaves specialized in information. I asked the guardsman if he knew my cousin Rashad, and when he replied affirmatively I asked him to convey my letter.
I had meant to warn Rashad without being specific—lest someone else read the letter—apologizing that actions I felt honor-bound to take might jeopardize his own standing, and that Baghdad itself might soon come under attack by strange forces so that he should be ready to depart with his loved ones. I did not wish to detail information about the Magian any more than I meant to detail information about my own plans, nor did I wish to contact my cousin myself, lest he be seen as a conspirator. I thought it possible my letter, phrased as it was, could even serve as proof of my cousin’s innocence in my planned actions.
The guard permitted me deeper into the household, in the company of a slave who asked another slave, and after a chain of exchanges I learned that Dabir was not in the servants’ quarters, but already sitting in the caliph’s dungeons. I strove not to reveal my concern. Did he still live? Had he been tortured? I faced an entirely new obstacle. Could I pass the level of scrutiny I would necessarily undergo when I presented myself to dungeon guards?
I was no stranger to the caliph’s dungeons, for Jaffar, as a judge, heard many cases every week, and sometimes I oversaw the transfer of prisoners from holding cells in the palace to Jaffar’s reception room. In other parts of the caliphate guards might lounge; never did they do so in the entry hall to those dungeons. As I turned the corner beneath the vaulted roof and descended the short flight of wide stairs, I immediately saw two large men at the hall’s end seated at a table. They had ample time to stand and consider me during my approach, for the hall was thirty paces long. Both matched my height and girth. No matter that they had been playing quirkat—they were no sluggards. They wore armored cuirasses, highly polished, and jeweled scabbards hung from their belts.
I bowed my head to them. “Peace be upon you.”
“And upon you, peace,” said the taller of the two, a sharp-eyed fellow with a long nose.
“I am Captain Asim, of the household of his honor, Jaffar,” I said. With these two, I did not wave the paper in my hand about. Why call attention to my lie?
“I know you,” said the other fellow, and so I nodded once to him, though I did not recognize him. He returned my greeting politely enough.
“I’ve been sent to retrieve a prisoner in your holding, Dabir ibn Khalil, late of Jaffar’s household.”
“The scholar,” the first man said.
“Aye.”
“Have you an order?”
I lifted the paper.
The tall one took it from me, glanced at the seal, then back at me before breaking the wax and unfolding the paper. He leaned down toward the steady bronze light of the wall sconce.
I pretended calm as the fellow studied my scrawls. I tried to sound casual as I spoke to his companion. “I wish there was such a long hall opening to the cells my men guard.”
“There can be no surprise here,” the soldier agreed professionally.
I continued. “Though we expect no challenges in our dungeon, I tell my men that they must be careful. We have but a sharp turn, and then the desk.”
“Everything seems in order,” the taller one said as he folded the paper and set it down. His companion, anticipating the next order, moved to unbar the door in the wall behind them.
“I’d heard your master was furious with this Dabir.” The tall guard chuckled. “It looks like his hand was shaking when he signed the order!”
I forced a laugh. “No one in his office dared even look at him at that moment,” I said.
The guard gestured that the door was open, then said to his companion, “Take Captain Asim to the prisoner and bring him forth.”
My guide lit a lantern, then bore it before him and advanced into the dark hall. On the whole, dungeons smell foully, for prisoners are not usually permitted access to water or soaps or other toiletry articles.
“Subhan’Allah,” my companion muttered under his breath. “I never grow accustomed to it.”
I prayed silently, Allah, let him be well and whole! Let him survive his trials, and like Joseph rise to greater heights.
Dark it was in that hall. We advanced almost to the point where it turned, and then the guard held the lantern up to the narrow aperture set in each of the iron doors along our left. He must not have liked what he saw in the first cell, for he wrinkled his nose and stepped to the next. A pitiful groan rose from one of the cells across from us.
“Nobody’s in here.” The fellow’s voice betrayed concern as he stepped away. He meant to conceal his worry, but I knew his fear. Might Dabir have engineered his own escape?
The guard lifted his lantern in front of the final cell on the left, then let out a satisfied grunt.
“Is this him?” He passed me the lantern.
I lifted it and peered into the narrow space. Dabir, dressed still in his fine garments, blinked up at me from a sagging pallet.
“Asim, what are you doing here?”
It was a testament to my friend’s character that I heard more concern than relief in his voice. For a moment only, I was puzzled. Then I understood that he was worried for me; he feared I, too, was being imprisoned, or that I was attempting something risky.
Thus it saddled my spirit with a great weight to speak harshly to him, so that I might maintain my ruse before the guard.
“Silence, dog! Who are you to ask why the master requests you?”
The caliph’s man raised jangling keys to the lock. There was a click as worn tumblers turned, and then he threw open the door.
Dabir, still blinking, stepped into the circle of lantern light. I fixed him with a stern gaze. His return scrutiny was like a deep knife wound, for I saw that he feared I had betrayed him.
The guard slammed home the door. I motioned Dabir to precede me.
“The prisoner had a ring,” I said, “valued by the master. Do you know its whereabouts?” I had not seen the emerald upon Dabir’s finger.
“I know nothing about it.” Likely he spoke the truth and some other enterprising fellow had appropriated the ring before Dabir was in his custody.
The senior guardsman waited alertly just outside the door.
He retained my letter, and brandished it on one hand. “I see you found him, Captain.”
“I did.”
“There was something I wanted to have made clear to me,” he said.
Dabir, ahead of me, watched attentively. My companion guard seemed not to have noted the suspicion in his officer’s voice, and stood to my left.
“What is it?”
“Where was it you rode from?”
“The master’s palace.”
The senior guard nodded, closing the letter. “There is a mystery then, Captain. This is an appalling signature. I have seen a number of your master’s letters. Usually they are written by his secretary. Even when His Excellency Jaffar is in a hurry, he prides himself too much in his hand for it to look like this.”
I sat the lantern down on the table with a thud. “He was not only in a hurry, but angry as well.”
“Was his secretary also angry? I do not recognize this hand either.” He slapped his own against the letter.
“The usual man could not be found.”
He nodded once. “Can you also explain to me how it is that you rode from the palace to deliver the message your master sent when Jaffar has been with the caliph the whole of this day?”
Let the failure of my plan stand as an example for all men who think themselves clever.
“Impressive!” Dabir said.
The officer’s gaze set warily upon him.
“I mean it,” Dabir said. “It was truly a shrewd line of—”
I seized the lantern and swung it into the head of the poor fellow beside me. He groaned and collapsed drunkenly across the chair. As his fall began, I drew my sword.
The senior guard brought down his blade in a vicious overhead blow. It is always better to parry early in the strike, when it is weaker, but I had no choice but to block at the last moment. Catching his blade with such force numbed much of my forearm.
He snarled down and pressed with the blade.
Dabir dashed forward on the guard’s left, and the fellow, being cautious, broke off so that he could see us both. I could not tell what Dabir was about, and did not trouble to look, for I sprang after my opponent with a swipe of my own.
He caught the blow on his armored chest; I ducked a savage head strike. It whistled keenly through the air. My opponent dropped back as I swung hard at his shoulder, then tripped against a chair that Dabir slid into his path. I was on him in a moment and was raising my blade even as Dabir shouted not to kill him.
