A Wind in Cairo (22 page)

Khamsin's nose had found and marked each one, for diversion, and because he could do it. They were eating: bread, mutton, a hint of oil.

His nose twitched. The wind had shifted a fraction. Something new drifted upon it. Something odd.

Human. But strange. Clean, as men went, clothed in—linen? Cotton? The strangeness overlaid it, part of it. Sweet yet pungent. Faint, but strong.

He snorted, sneezed. He knew that scent. Its name eluded him.

Magic?

Not—quite. Not wholly.

Out of one of the hollows where no guards were, men came. They were quiet, yet they advanced without stealth. He had never seen or scented them before. They all wore white, white headcloths drawn over their faces, swords and daggers white-sheathed and white-hilted.

He blinked. It was far from hot enough to draw a shimmer from the air, and yet these men seemed to flicker and blur. Out of the corner of his eye he could see them clearly. A straight stare turned them to a dizzy dance.

Instinct deeper than thought eased him from his taut and prick-eared tension, lowered his head, sent him ambling in search of one last unnibbled bit of fodder. The strangers paused just beyond his trampled circle. There were twelve of them and one. They were calm, unhasty, as if they belonged there; as if they had no fear.

He started, turned it to a stamp, a snap at a fly. There was an enchantment on them. None of the horses who were near seemed even to have scented them. No guard challenged them. A groom dozed in the tent of his cloak, oblivious, though when a stallion sidled toward a mare he was up at once and catching the stallion's halter.

His back was to the strangers. Their eyes measured him. Dark eyes, strange, as if they walked in a dream; but keenly, vividly awake. A fire seemed to burn behind them.

One of them, who seemed to lead them, nodded. Softly, swiftly, silent as cats, they glided toward the camp.

Khamsin's head snapped up. Their scent. Magic; and hashish.

And death.

The groom was caught up still in the stallion's resistance. Khamsin blessed him, and the wind, and Allah who had ordained it all. Quickly and as quietly as he could, he caught the peg in his teeth and tugged. It held. He dug in his feet and pulled. It yielded, twisted, leaped free. He rocked back on his haunches. He looked, he knew with the clarity of the hopelessly vain, absurd. He scrambled up the lead as best he might—swift, swift, no time to break it, none at all to cast it off. With the coil of it in his teeth, he bolted on the strangers' track.

They were all at dinner, all the army, gathered in and about the center and the sultan's tent. Khamsin stopped, dismayed. A man could have done what he had to do. A horse alone, unattended...

Already they had seen him. Fingers pointed. Someone shouted.

Thirteen white-clad figures moved among the ranks. They had divided. Like servants they carried jars, platters, mounds of flat bread. Their progress, always, was inward. To the center.

Khamsin drew the deepest breath he could with a mouthful of rope, gathered himself, and took the straight way.

Men rolled out of his path. Men staggered into it. He hurdled them. They snatched. He flung them off. Tumult surged before and behind him.

His eye fixed on one face out of all the gaping, yelling faces. One narrow, brown, big-eyed face; one that knew him and called his name. He plunged toward it.

Zamaniyah heard it first: an uproar on the fringes of the army. Then she saw him. Red horse, wandering blaze, tail flagged stiff and high as only Khamsin's tail could be. He had something in his mouth. Rope, coiled. Peg swinging, striking hands that stretched to halt him.

The men about the sultan had turned to stare. She was on her feet. Maybe she called the horse's name. She could only think that her father would be furious.

Khamsin swept his head about. The peg smote a white-clad servant in the face. Blood spattered. The man screamed, reeling, falling.

“No,” she said.

People ran. Soldiers. Emirs. Servants. Did all the servants wear white? Did they all cover their faces? Did they all have such eyes?

Red ruin fell upon another.

Daggers gleamed.

Zamaniyah fought her way through knotted men. Khamsin was coming toward the sultan. Unless she stopped him. Unless...

One of the emirs swept out his sword. A Syrian. New come to them; newly sworn to the sultan's war.

Treachery?

“
Hashishayun!”
he bellowed. “Assassins!”

A servant leaped. Away from the mad stallion. Upon the emir with his sword and his hate-mad face. Dagger out, stabbing. Blood dyed white robes scarlet.

“Assassins!”

Khamsin reared over Zamaniyah. Her fingers snatched mane. Briefly she flew. Spun. Dropped bruisingly on his back; clamped legs to sweat-slick sides. He wheeled. The sultan's face blurred past. Her sword was in her hand. White gleamed. A dagger stabbed from it, the sultan full in its path, sword too far to reach, raising the frail shield of a hand. She swung, the stallion spun. Her sword caught, bit, wrenched free.

Her world stopped. The army roared and seethed. Twelve Assassins and one, known and named for what they were, died; died gladly, died crying the name of Allah. Two had died by a stallion's doing. One lay dead at the sultan's feet, headless, stretching even in death to take the life which he had been sent to take.

She had done that. She, and Khamsin. Her arm alone could never have struck that head from its neck.

“You knew,” she said to the twitching red ear. “You
knew.”

Did he nod?

She looked at her notched and dripping sword, and up, at the sultan. His face was stark white. She saluted him, bowing over Khamsin's neck. “Your life,” she said, “O my sultan.”

Aleppo had done it. Bought Assassins; bargained for the sultan's death. Through a stallion's madness and an emir's swift warning, they had failed.

“Assassins do not fail,” said the sultan. “There is no word for it in their dialect.”

Zamaniyah would not have called him frightened. Wary, rather. Roused to prudence. Aware, at last, of what his title meant; the freedom, and the unending confinement. The power, and its price.

A doubled guard was the least of it. Even in sleep he wore mail.

“They have arts,” he said. “They can come upon a man in his own castle, take his life without a sound, and depart invisible. Or they take the shapes of his most trusted servants, and surround him, and while he rests complacent, destroy him.”

“Is it magic?” she asked.

“Some of it.” He paced his tent. Eyes glittered in its corners: men of proven constancy, armed to the teeth. And one unarmed, an old man, long-bearded, in the green turban of the Hajj. A physician, perhaps, or a scribe, though he wrote nothing, only sat in silence, reading from a book. She had glanced at it, bowed in reverence. The holy Koran.

The sultan turned to face Zamaniyah. “Much of it is absolute trust in Allah. He defends them, they believe beyond all doubting. They perfect their faith with prayer and with the waking dreams of hashish, and with utter fidelity to their master. He has taught them that they may know Paradise in this world, while they live this life, if they only do their lord's bidding: betray whom he bids them betray, slay whom he bids them slay. And when they die, as is their deepest desire, they dwell there forever under the eye of God.”

“Then there's no way to stop them?”

“I intend to. When Aleppo is mine. The heart of the madness dwells in Persia; but these were servants of the Syrian sect, of the stronghold of Masyaf, whose lord is called the Old Man of the Mountain. His heresy is Shiite, and the Shiites are strong in Aleppo; his own power is greater in this kingdom than any king should endure.” His fist rose, hammered down. “I will stop him. I will set my foot upon his neck.”

“Perhaps, my lord, you should rest content with your life and your kingdom.”

It was the old man who had spoken, with respect but without servility. The sultan rounded upon him. “What is his secret? A little sorcery. An excess of fear. I refuse it. I will not be cowed by a nest of heretics.”

“Then,” said the old man, “you had best beware. Asleep or awake, in camp or on the march, by day or by night, you must look for his servants, and guard against them; or in the end they will have you.”

“Do you prophesy, sir?”

The old man smiled. “Have I need? I know your enemy. Of the arts of which I am called master, he is reckoned a novice of great promise. And Aleppo will have paid him splendidly. A sultan's ransom; and more, perhaps. Are your emirs looking to themselves? Have you warned even your regent in Egypt?”

“All of them,” said the sultan. “And, now, this my savior.”

She flushed. She wished he would not call her that. The old man regarded her gravely, as if he measured her. She stiffened, but less with outrage than with puzzlement. People never looked at her like that. Not as if she were and oddity, or a perversion, or a thing he had to school himself to accept. As if she were simply human, and he judged her so.

He nodded slowly. “You are stronger than you think,” he said.

She frowned, puzzled. “Are you an oracle?”

He rose and bowed. “Ah, no, young warrior. Merely a servant of God, and sometimes, in some small fashion, of the hidden arts.”

“A magus?”

“You may call me that.”

She had heard of his like. She had never seen one. “You look...” She pondered. He had sat down again. His eyes glinted, wicked as a boy's. She could not help it: she glinted back. “You look like a magus,” she decided. “Though I never knew that magi could laugh.”

“We are quite human,” he said. “It is nothing remarkably uncanny. Only learning and hard labor.”

“And wisdom.”

“That comes as it wills, and not to all of us.”

“To you, I think, it has.”

“Perhaps. Sometimes I fail.”

“Ah,” she said. “The word is in your dialect.”

He laughed, which startled her a little. “I think that I would call you wise, young warrior.”

“I can't be a mage,” she said a shade quickly.

“Why not?”

“A mage can't be a woman.”

“Why not?”

Her brows knit. She was growing, unwisely, annoyed. “A woman can't be anything.”

“You are a warrior.”

“My father is mad.”

“Then so, perhaps, am I.”

“You have a daughter?”

“Yes.” He paused. His face darkened as if with sadness. He sighed. “She will be greater in the Art than I. If...”

“If?” she asked when he did not go on.

The darkness deepened. “If she remembers her strength. If she can master herself. It is a bitter battle, and long, and perhaps she cannot win it. Perhaps the wound is too deep ever to heal.”

“She's hurt?” Zamaniyah dropped beside him, taking his hand, not needing to think. “Was she in a battle?”

“Of sorts.” His hand was thin and cold. His eyes were black. “An old battle of an ancient war. A guest forgot his place. He seized her, though she fought. He had his will of her.”

Her throat closed. Not that he said it; that he said it so, with such deadly calm. She choked out words. “That is a man's right. So they say.” Her eyes met his. “Death would have been too gentle for him.”

“Indeed,” said the Hajji. “He serves a woman now, utterly, with body and soul. And so, when he has paid in full, shall he die.”

“But your daughter can't forget.”

“I pray that she may. She dwells among women who are masters of the Art; she rises high and swift. But she will not suffer the presence of a man.”

“Even you?”

His head bowed, rose. “I am part of it. I taught her magic, but I had not taught her enough. When it came to the crux, she could muster no defense. She was no mage then. She was only a woman, and weak, and free for any man's taking.”

Zamaniyah held his hand tighter. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe in time. Maybe she can learn to forgive herself. Maybe she can even forgive him.” Anger gusted. “How could a man, a guest—how could he?”

“He knew no better.” She stared, astonished; for he was almost gentle, almost compassionate. “He paid, and pays. So do we all. There are always prices. The wise know, and accept them, and pay as they must. Fools dream that they need never pay.”

“Do fools grow wise?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes too late.”

She nodded. “I've heard that.” She stood. “I'll pray for your daughter.”

“Allah will surely hear you,” he said.

“Allah always hears. Sometimes,” she said, “He's slow to answer.” She hesitated. Then she said it. “If you'd like...you could share me. Father won't mind. He's only mad about making me his heir; and he's very generous.” She was starting to babble. She swallowed. “I know I'm nothing to a great mage. But I'm here and I'm willing, and I'm not afraid of you.”

His laughter was sweet and deep. “Indeed you are not! And indeed I would share you. With your father's leave, and your sultan's permission; and my gratitude. Will you call me Uncle?”

“Uncle,” she said.

He smiled, kissed her hands. “May Allah bless and keep you. May his angels watch over you. May the spirits of the air guard your coming; may the spirits of the earth look upon your going. Go in the Name of God.”

“That was magic,” said Zamaniyah, bemused.

Jaffar had forgotten what it was to be glad. Strange. Light. Wonderful. He danced about her, singing. He swept away her garments one by one. He bowed with a flourish. “Your bath, O wonder of the age.”

She stepped into it, puzzled but pleased. “You're happy tonight.”

“Happy!” He laughed for plain joy. “O wise! O splendid! Who but you would have known exactly how to win the heart of the greatest mage in Egypt?”