Casca 13: The Assassin (10 page)

Somehow that brought to his mind Hassan
– because the shooting star bad been over the Elburz Mountains. "'Tis said that you were a friend of Hassan al Sabah."

"Yes." In the darkness his face was not visible, but Casca caught an odd, wistful tone in his voice.
"And of Nizam al Mulk, too. When we were young men we swore undying allegiance to each other. We were all young, then. The whole world was young."

"And now?"

"Now is yesterday's tomorrow."

"Bu Ali?" Omar Kbayyam asked.

It was either the second or the third night that Casca asked about him.

"Yes."

"Ah
!... The big Mameluke bodyguard. The favored of the Jasmine Lady.”

"Baghdad?"

"Baghdad."

Now Casca knew Bu Ali's whereabouts
– and also the significance of the Jasmine Lady.

It was time someone paid for his suffering....

When Bu Ali had returned to Castle Alamut and stood before the Master his legs turned to water and his bowels threatened to let go of their control. Hassan said nothing for a long, long time. Simply sat upon the cushions behind a low table inlaid with mother of pearl. He too accepted fate for what it was. The loss of Kasim was not the fault of Bu Ali. It would serve him nothing to punish the man. As for Kasim, now it seemed he would never know if he had been close to the truth. If indeed Kasim was the spawn of Satan, then not even the fall into the bowels of the earth would kill him and one day, one year, one century he would return. If he was not the Roman, then there was no loss, only another man dead and of no real importance to his plans. He would continue as would the Brotherhood.

To Bu Ali he said, using the tones only a father would use on a well-loved son who had done his best but failed at an assignment, "Return to Baghdad."

Bu Ali was ready to do anything the Master ordered but said, "Lord, there is the problem of explaining my absence to Mamud the slaver." Hassan rose to his feet and went to the window and looked out over the high mountains.

"Mamud and the other Mamelukes who were with you will be no more by the time you reach the city. I will have other work for you there."

Bu Ali knew he'd been dismissed and already other more important things were on the mind of the Old Man of the Mountain. He left the presence of Hassan al Sabah feeling like one whose life had hung by the merest thread, as indeed it had. The next morning Hassan had his eldest son strangled to death for failing him in a mission and for the drinking in public of forbidden wine. He could have other sons but the discipline he demanded must be enforced upon everyone equally, for he was a fair man.

Baghdad. Casca set out for it on the back of the ass that had been left behind. By now the two of them had gotten to know each other very well, and while the back of the ass didn't afford the most comfortable ride, it beat walking. Casca was wearing the oversized robes of the fat monk. He grinned when he thought of what he must look like, and he wondered what kind of reception he would get from the guards at the gate, but he was dead serious when he thought of what he intended doing to Bu Ali. So, if entering Baghdad as an infidel monk riding on an ass was going to be an act of foolhardiness, why let it. He had been pushed around long enough. Now he was going to strike back – and nothing or nobody was going to get in his way.

He had really enjoyed his "vacation" with Omar K
hayyam. Casca was not much for poetry, but he could see how one could hide a message in the fancy verses and say things that one could never get said otherwise.

K
hayyam had also brought him up to date – more or less – on what was happening. Hassan aI Sabah's power was growing day by day, and the Golden Dagger was feared not only in Islam but in Frankish circles, too. As for the Franks – what the Muslims called all Europeans – they were becoming more aggressive about their right to visit Jerusalem. There were frequent clashes with Muslim groups. Actually there was something close to an undeclared war going on. Omar Khayyam had been particularly dubious about Casca wearing the monk's robes since there was talk that this group, originally set up to aid Frankish pilgrims to and from Jerusalem, was to become a military order.

K
hayyam even knew the intended name: the Hospitallers. But Casca figured he would just take his chances.

Something up ahead bothered him. He was approaching a low rise (one of the many in this terrain) and the other side was bidden to him. Casca hunkered down on the ass, outwardly careless, inwardly alert.

The two bandits that had left Yousef on what was to be Yousef's last day on earth had joined forces, and having discovered the basic details about each other, found they made a very agreeable twosome.

They were not the most successful bandits in Persia, but they did manage to handle their own needs quite successfully. This particular day they
had waylaid a rich noble, killed him and his slave, and were gleefully pawing through the late noble's possessions when Casca's ass plodded over the top of the rise.

Neither of the two bandits
had recognized Casca, though he had recognized them. One, Shojan, had been the thrower of the jirad into Casca's gut. Now all they saw was a harmless Frankish monk who had made the mistake of taking his ass into Muslim country. Naturally they went for him. It was a nice clear day, and the sun was quite bright.

At the moment of closing all three recognized each other. But it was the bandit who bad thrown t
he jirad and now held a dagger who yelled: "O holy mother of Mohammed!"

"You got your religions mixed up, fellow," Casca grunted, grabbing the arm with the dagger, twisting the bandit around,
then bringing up his knee to form an anvil on which, both hands now on the arm, he broke the arm bones as casually as one would a bundle of reeds. The bandit's high-pitched scream of pain stopped the second one in mid-step, but the scream didn't last too long since Casca grabbed him by his chin, bent his head back, and broke his neck.

This made an impression on the second bandit.

He swung the scimitar at Casca with all his considerable strength, having come to the instant conclusion that the quicker this scar-faced man was killed the safer would be Persia, and more importantly, himself.

The sharp steel sliced through the air like the lightning of Allah
. It did not, however, meet any flesh.

Unaccountably Casca was not in the place where the scimitar cut. The next thing the bandit felt was the full force of Casca's kick, smashing both his testicles.
He bent over in terrific pain. He did not feel anything else because Casca's blow to the back of his head broke his neck, too.

The ass brayed.

"Save the applause, fellow," Casca answered him tolerantly. "Wait till I get Bu Ali." He surveyed the plunder left by the two dead bandits.

The noble they had killed had apparently been only moderately well-off, but there were two extra
robes in the pack on the mule the servant had been leading, and the noble was not too far from Casca's height and weight. Maybe a little bigger.
I guess I've got to grow some
, Casca thought.
The world around me seems to be getting bigger.
Come to think of it, it did seem to him that in the centuries since the Jew had damned him to eternal life the men around him had been growing taller and heavier. Odd. It was something that he would have to talk over with Omar Khayyam, if he ever saw the Persian poet again.

Back to business.
I guess I'm just putting it off. Killing men – even when they come after you – must do a little something to you that you have to get over.

But that was a foolish thing to think. He looked over at the ass and said out loud: ''That right, fellow?"

The mule brayed, and Casca felt better. No sense in having his mind entangled in strange ideas. He had Bu Ali to get.

He shed his clerical ga
rb and put on one of the noble's robes. He looked for a weapon. He had a choice between the noble's scimitar and a very good short sword one of the dead bandits had. Casca really preferred the short sword. It was almost a gladius.

He took the scimitar. Now that he had the chance to enter Baghdad without attracting attention there was no point in taking unnecessary chances. The noble had a pretty fair horse that had now wandered back and was grazing on what little grass there was in the rocky area under the rise. He was easy to catch.

It took Casca only a few minutes to assemble adequate gear – including a leather money pouch with more than enough gold and silver coins to finance his expedition into Baghdad. He decided to use the ass as his pack animal. He had grown fond of the beast.
Face reminds me a little of Glam
, he thought, remembering a barbarian friend, long ago dead. There were times when Casca wished he could be a normal human being, not some immortal freak. The friendship of the ass –
Oh, hell! I've got a job to do...

Baghdad. Casca got there when the dying afternoon sun blended all visual details so that, if there were any forgotten indication that
he was not what be seemed to be, a travel-weary unimportant noble on a routine visit to the city, the guards at the city gate would not notice it. They did not. He found an inn, had a meal, and rented a room. He was set.

His reconnoitering stroll past the Sultan's palace did produce one incident. A young female slave was being dragged, screaming, back into the seraglio by two huge Nubian eunuchs. The guards at the palace gate were watching, and Casca could hear part of their conversation as he walked past: ''That little Ruth is a pain in the ass. Second time this week she's tried to
escape."

"Yeah ... But if you had for a mistress who she has for a mistress... "

"Well... know what you mean.” Pause. "Wonder why she wants to have Jewish slaves."

"Better not wonder where she is concerned."

"Yeah... "

It really did
n't concern Casca. But he did feel sorry for the slave girl, although he couldn't afford to help her. And he did wonder who the mysterious "mistress" was the guards had referred to. But again, it was not his concern. There was one thing that Casca wanted that he didn't think he was going to get. A woman.

It would be safer not to look for one. The fewer times he risked his Muslim noble disguise the better off he would be.

Well, he might just walk down this street a little ways and see what was going on. It wasn't much of a street. Narrow, crooked. Stone houses built right up to the edge. Not too prosperous looking, either, though in the darkness of early night that might not be fair to judge
. I guess I go by the smell more than anything
. It just didn't smell prosperous even though it was only a couple of hundred cubits from the palace–

Bu Ali!

Damn!

Here he had been so busy thinking about smells he had almost missed what his eyes saw. There up ahead of him, maybe four or five houses and shops up was Bu Ali. There was no mistaking that big ass, but he was doubly sure when Bu Ali turned to go into a cafe, and the lamplight showed the profile of his face.
Bu Ali, all right.

Go in the cafe after him?
Wait until he goes out, then get him? Check to see if Bu Ali uses this same route and goes to this same cafe each night – and set up an ambush?

Casca had had a woman on his mind; now be had to shift his thinking suddenly to Bu Ali. He turned into the dark alley he was abreast of at the moment, ostensibly to piss, actually to sort out in his mind what he was going to do about Bu Ali.

“Psst!"

Well, damn! Looking for a woman and finding Bu Ali.
Thinking about Bu Ali and a woman finding him.

Her face was in shadow.
Or veiled. But hell! Whores didn't wear veils. She was a shapeless darkness in the shadows against the opposite house wall. Then she apparently pulled open her robe – or whatever it was she was wearing – and her breasts shone like smoked ivory in what little lamplight and moonlight there was in the alley's mouth.

"You want a little?"

Her voice was husky. Almost familiar. That was no problem for Casca. He had known many, many whores. It had been a whore who put the scar on his face. A whore's voice would be familiar, Do matter what the language or country. But–

There was something wrong here.
In Casca's brain all kinds of warnings were suddenly being voiced.

She moved slightly, and the breasts seemed to dance provocatively... like the bellies of two Egyptian dancers seen in a three-quarter view.

Interesting.

Yet the voice in Casca's brain still said:
Stay away from this woman.
He thought he knew why. Though she had only said the one short sentence, and though her voice had the husky sound most whores he had known had, there was just the slightest touch of falsity to it. This woman was no ordinary whore. She either had been "quality" – respectable, prosperous, upper class – or still was. It was the "still was" that set every sensitive nerve alarm in Casca going. He remembered the Roman times of Nero when even that imperial bastard had roamed the midnight streets disguised as a thug. For a thrill.

Roman matrons, highly respected by day, were said to have done the same thing.
Just a handful.

Hearsay maybe.
But in every time and culture Casca had been in, where there were settled cities there was the rumor of rich, respectable women out on the town. For a thrill.

And that thrill was for them
– not for the dumb bastard who let himself be sucked into a weirdo broad's fantasies. Pure poison. Pure poison anywhere. But in a Muslim country... where the ordinary Muslim idea of a woman was of a sex machine operating solely for the benefit of males... Oh, no! This woman was a fake.

Yet, that might not be so. Societies changed. All he knew of the present Muslim world he had seen from the viewpoint of a slave
– and he hadn't been in the cities enough, except on "business", to know what went on there. Maybe walking the streets was the way a whore worked in Baghdad. Still... baring the boobs bothered him. Better check this out. Maybe a little friendly conversation first. A jest or two. So he said: "Those skinny little muskmelons you got there, do they have tits on the ends of them?"