A Wind in Cairo (7 page)

He bore it in his memory, with his oath and all that had come before it. Zamaniyah was pleased with him. She told him so. The Greek came, and watched, and though they spoke in that tongue which he did not know, he understood approval.

“Al'zan is a very great master of horses,” Zamaniyah said when the Greek had gone. She had fallen into the habit of talking to Khamsin, who listened hungrily, craving human speech. He was even learning a little Greek, from when Al'zan was there to teach him. “There are only a few like him in the world. They don't cry themselves in the market, you see. They have an ancient art which they pass from father to son and from master to pupil. Someone wrote a bit of it down long ago. Xenophon, his name was.” She spoke the name with care, with no little pride in her mastery of it. “But he wrote only a little, and that in the barest necessities. The truth goes deeper by far. It's a magic, almost. A high art.”

Khamsin's cheek itched. Her shoulder was convenient; he rubbed against it.

“You'll see,” she said. “We've barely begun, we two. You're still more than half a wild thing. But I'm not going to tame you. Nothing so simple. I'm going to show you what a horse can be.”

He was more than horse enough now. He nipped her, to silence her. She slapped him. He shied. She pulled him back and held him, and he found himself disposed to allow it. With a sound that was not quite laughter, she let him go.

The center of Cairo was twofold: the two palaces of the false caliphs, the east that was greater and the west that was lesser, and the great court that divided them. Their riches, Zamaniyah had heard, were beyond belief. She did not know. The last feeble fool who had called himself caliph was dead; his dwelling places were fallen into the hands of Yusuf who was the servant of the true Commander of the Faithful. One of the palaces, in piety, he had given over to the care of the sick. The other housed his brothers and his kinsmen, who camped like Bedouin in the splendid halls and warmed themselves at pyres of its furnishings. The royal city itself was royal no longer. Common folk out of Old Cairo, which lay in charred ruin beyond the walls of the fortress of Victories, had raised their hovels against the very walls of the palaces.

She was a good Turk and a good Muslim, but she was sorry, a little, that victory had come at such a price. She would have liked to see the wonders which lingered yet in all the tales.

Salah al-Din Yusuf, cleanser of the Faith in Egypt, was a young man still, and modest. He had taken no palace for himself but a house hardly higher than al-Zaman's own, that dwelling near the palaces which had been the old vizier's. It was very plain within, with no glitter of gold save here and there in the hilt of a captain's sword; the livery of the guards was black, mark and blazon of the true Faith and the true caliph, brightened only by the yellow baldric which was the sultan's own.

Zamaniyah found in it the mate of her mood. Her father had bound her to his will. She stood with him in the sultan's diwan, his time of audience.

She had been in public before. She had even, greatly daring, prayed in the mosque among the men. But never in front of the sultan. Never beside her father, for people to stare at, wonder at, speculate on. They thought her a boy. She was, after all, turbaned, and she wore a sword, and no veil concealed her face.

Her back was naked without Jaffar to guard it. Al-Zaman had forbidden his presence. They were all strangers about her; all men. No eunuchs, and never a woman.

She looked at al-Zaman and saw no comfort there. He was handsome, robust for a man of his age, his beard unmingled with grey; his face was smooth and full, his lips curved by nature into a faint and perpetual smile. But that was nature's image only. Yakhuz al-Zaman was not an amiable man. What once he set his will upon, he had. He had never known the meaning of submission.

His hand rested on her shoulder, light and ineluctable. Part of it was honest affection, like the glance he turned toward her, but none of it was gentleness.
Here,
it said.
This is mine. I claim it. Let no man presume to take it from me.

One man in particular was there to be told, and thereby tormented. He was a subtle rebel: he wore no black. His coat was deep green, the Prophet's color, and his trousers were white. So too his turban and his long beautiful beard. His face was an Arab face, narrow, high-boned, haughty. He never deigned to lower his gaze from the heaven of his lineage to the offspring of a mere and earthly Turk.

She hated him. She had been raised to it. But seeing him in the flesh, she could not help but pity him. Beneath the arrogance of his bones he looked worn and sorrowful. His only child was gone. Vanished, she had heard; dead. And good riddance, people said. The boy had been worse than useless, a wastrel and a fool, a worthless layabout: a blight upon the Prophet's tree. But a father could love a son, even such a one as that, and mourn his death.

Their eyes met, sudden enough to shock. Zamaniyah recoiled, staring with all her force at the toes of her boots. But memory lingered. She had seen grief in those deep eyes; she had seen implacability to match her father's. But not, in that instant, hate.

The labor of lawgiving went on about her. In the diwan, as custom had it, any citizen might approach his lord and call for justice. She had seen her father hold audience for his own people. This was greater by far, and more complex: the settling of a whole realm.

Its focus sat cross-legged on a low dais. The carpet under him was good but worn. He affected no richness of dress nor any ornament; even his belt was of plain leather much softened with use, the sword across his knees plain-scabbarded, plain-hilted, without gold or jewel to mar its simplicity.

It was not, thought Zamaniyah, an affectation. He was comfortable, sitting there. He rested his chin on his hand, stroking his close-clipped beard, listening with every appearance of interest to the petitioner before him. She had heard that he was diffident. Quiet, rather. Young to be what he was, and mindful of it. Feeling his way through this wilderness that was the governance of Egypt.

People were murmuring of his troubles. Frankish armies in the north; rebels in the south; the caliph in Baghdad and the sultan in Syria contesting his sovereignty. None of it seemed to torment him as he heard the tale of a cloth merchant seeking redress for an injury done him by his neighbor the seller of spices.

Zamaniyah shifted from foot to aching foot. There was a dull pain in her middle; her head wanted to throb, but she would not let it. She stifled a sigh. Nothing here had anything to do with her. She wanted the comfort of her own place: the practice ground, Khamsin's courtyard, even her corner of the harem.

A voice spoke close to her, startling her. It was her father. Calling for the sultan's ear. Receiving it. His hand was on her shoulder again, gripping hard.

He drew her with him from among the emirs, in a murmur that swelled and sank. She was not thinking, not daring to think. She followed him down in obeisance; she rose with him, but kept her eyes lowered. Chance fixed them on the sultan's shoe. Its sole had been mended.

“My lord,” her father was saying, “O Malik al-Nasir, O king who is strong in salvation, defender of the purity of Islam, Lord Commander of Egypt, Light of the Faith, servant of God, Salah al-Din…”

Zamaniyah glanced up under her brows. The sultan heard his titles as he had heard the cloth merchant, with patient attention. He spared her a glance, a glimmer that might have been a smile; it made him look very young, and very human.

But she was growing afraid. She was here, and she was a lie. And her father…

Her father said, “O commander of my loyalty, I seek a favor of you.”

“It is granted,” said the sultan, “O best of servants.” His voice was pleasant, more deep than light, with an odd accent: half of his Kurdish kin, half of his youth in Damascus.

“Unheard, my lord?” asked al-Zaman.

“Unheard,” the sultan conceded, “but not unguessed. This youngling with you: he would, perhaps, be your heir?”

“My heir indeed,” said al-Zaman. “But not—”

A smooth voice cut him off. “Glad tidings, my good friend! A nephew, is it? A cousin? Even—can it be so?—a grandson?”

The man who spoke stood close by the dais. He was very young, though older than the sultan; in face they were very alike, but his was rounder, softer, more self-indulgent. His garb was richer than the sultan's, and his belt was of gold. He smiled at al-Zaman; his joy seemed honest.

Al-Zaman mustered a smile in return, and a tone of respect which struck Zamaniyah even in the midst of her shock. “My thanks, my lord Turan-Shah.”

The young man waved them away. “No lord to you, my friend, whatever my brother here may be. Here, lad, stand up straight; show us a little of your mettle.”

Zamaniyah raised her head. Her mind whirled, trapped, beating against its walls. Her shoulder throbbed as her father's fingers tightened.

“This is my heir,” he said. “This is the one who will inherit all that is mine. I declare it before you all; I bid my sultan be my witness.”

“It is witnessed,” the sultan said. His eyes had sharpened. As if—her heart leaped, stumbled. As if he suspected something.

He disappointed her. He said, “But that cannot be the favor which you ask for. Are you offering me a page for my household?”

“In all gratitude,” said al-Zaman, “I am not.”

That startled the sultan. His brother leaped into the breach. “What, then, old friend? A man may dispose of his property as he wishes; he need not proclaim himself before the diwan. Is there some impediment?”

“No impediment,” replied al-Zaman, “but perhaps a misunderstanding.” His voice rose a little. “This, O Egypt, is my heir and successor, the child of my body. My lords, my friends, my sultan whose favor is so freely given, I bid you acknowledge this my heir, my daughter, Zamaniyah.”

The silence was more mighty than any roar of outrage. Turan-Shah's mouth was agape.

His brother moved slowly, straightening. Astonishing them all. Bowing his head. Smiling. Saying, “Lady.”

“Your pardon,” said al-Zaman with great gentleness, “but I think, my lord, that even yet you fail to understand. This is my heir. Entirely. My daughter in the body which Allah in His wisdom has given her. My son in all else. That is the favor which you have granted me. To accept my daughter as my son. To accord her the rights and privileges of a man. To regard her in all respects as you would regard a young nobleman of her age and training.”

Someone laughed, hurting-sharp. “Training!” said a voice without a face. “In what? The lute?”

Within Zamaniyah, something snapped. She spun. “The sword!” she shot back. “The bow, the lance, the arts of the hunt, of horse and hound and falcon.” Her voice sweetened dangerously. “And, yes, the lute and cittern; the poets; the law and the sciences. And first and most blessed of all, the heart of all learning, the wonder of Islam, the holy Koran.”

They stared at her, too shocked even to laugh. Struggling to see a woman under the turban, behind the pride and the temper and the high fierce words. She watched the scandal grow.
Appalling,
they whispered.
Intolerable. Unnatural.

“But not,” she pointed out, sweetly still, “unprecedented. Yaquta the daughter of the Caliph al-Mahdi—upon them both be peace—wore the turban even as I do, and rode out with her father, armed and clad as a man. And if she does not suffice, what of those who fought with the Prophet, the blessing and peace of Allah be upon him: Umm Umarah who lost a hand in battle for the Faith, Safiyah who at threescore years and ten struck down an infidel in the siege of Medina—”

Men's voices drowned her out. Drums rolled over them; and the sultan's voice, pitched as for the battlefield. He was on his feet, and his sword was drawn, glittering over Zamaniyah's head. She flung herself flat.

He spoke over her. “My favor is granted. My word is given. The heir of al-Zaman lies under my protection. Who threatens her, answers to me.”

She was proud of herself. Having broken once, and then into a fine fire of defiance, she did not break again. Not before her father, or before the clamor of the court, or before the eyes of the city as she rode home to haven. Not even in front of Jaffar, who blessed her with silence. She was—yes, she was taking it like a man.

She went in the proper hour to her training of Khamsin. When she had done it, she remembered none of it. The sun dazzled her eyes. She blinked fiercely. He nudged her hand. She started. She had forgotten. She fed him his bit of dried apple.

His mane was cool, his neck warm beneath, silken against her cheek. He was patient: he did not pull away.

She did not cry long. She never did. She stood still, breathing warm damp horse-scent.

He shifted, stamping lightly, startling a fly. She drew back. Her hand smoothed his wetted neck; she played with his mane. “My father is mad,” she told him calmly. “He always has been. But since my brothers died… He's clever, Khamsin. He knows how to keep people from knowing that he doesn't see the world as anyone else sees it. Today, he showed them. He named me both his daughter and his son. He made the sultan himself a witness to what he did; and more than a witness: a sharer in it. Oh, I wish—I wish—”

Her voice faded. She hardly knew what she wished. That he were dead? Mad, blind, unsparing of mercy, still he was her father; and she loved him. Which was a madness of its own.

That she were a man? She stiffened, contemplating it. Touching her cheek, her breast. As if the thought could make it so.

“No,” she said. “I want to be Zamaniyah. But what Zamaniyah is…”

There was always flight: the veil, the harem. Life forever within walls, with a lattice between herself and the sky, and no will in anything but her master's bidding.

She laughed bitterly. “What will have I ever had? My father has always been strange. He had me raised almost as my brothers were. I learned to read, write—even to ride and shoot, because I showed a liking for it, and it amused him to see what I could do. Then they all rode away, he and my brothers, to drive the Franks from Egypt; and my brothers never came back. My father sent for me, all the way from Syria, and when I came, though I was staggering from days of riding at courier's pace, thick with dust, reeking of the road, he had me brought to him. He looked at me as if I were a mare he had a mind to buy. I remember his eyes, how strange they were, how keen and yet how blind. He looked, and after a while he nodded, and then he laughed. ‘God has robbed me of sons,' he said, ‘but one child still He has left me. That one shall do for all the rest.'” She pulled off cap and turban, stared at them, flung them spinning across the sand. “He gave his orders then, and saw that they were obeyed. No veil for me; no womanly arts. I was to learn what a boy learns. Not only what I had been pleased to learn. All of it. But set apart. Not hidden, not secluded, but not made a public spectacle. He let people decide for themselves who I was, what I was, and what I signified.