A Wind in Cairo Read online

  There was no Hasan. There was only Khamsin. Beast-mind and beast-will. Eater, runner, fighter. Taker of the simplest path. Which was, sometimes, obedience; and sometimes battle. Thought had no part in it. He simply was.

  Habits: barley and cut fodder at dawn, cut fodder when the sun was high, barley and cut fodder at sunset. Sleep in the dark, wake to the wail of human voice: words and significance lost with Hasan, only sound left to touch him. And once every day between the barley and the fodder, human presence that lingered, touched, taught. Made him wear the halter, walk on the lead; then trot as she ran with him, slow stilted awkward human creature. He danced his mockery of her. She laughed and applauded him—and then he danced for joy of it.

  He had no dreams. He refused them. He was all mindless beast.

  Sometimes a man was with the she-human, his hand upon the lead, more potent by far than hers, and more ruthless. That hand tricked steel between Khamsin’s teeth, fruit’s sweetness soured with cold raw metal. It bound his tongue; it bruised his tender jaws. He flung himself away from it, tossing his head, battling pain, shock, confinement. Vain. It was part of him, and the man with it, strong on the rein, relentless.

  He stopped. His sides heaved. His mouth was pure ache.

  The man drew near to him, speaking softly. The pain eased. He recoiled.

  Again the man approached. Pain lessened anew to discomfort, to the unwontedness of the bit in his mouth. Soft words grated in his ears. Soothing. Praising.

  He lunged. Won agony.

  The beast was wise. It submitted. It let itself be taught.

  Bit, bridle. Band about his belly. Reins. The lead lengthened. He walked now free, yet bound, circling his human center. Yielding to human will. Because it was simpler. Because else he had no peace.

  But even the beast set limits on its patience. Fought. Reared against bit, reins, line. Cried defiance upon puny humanity.

  Which knew no better than to persist. To come back. To ask again and again, until he answered as, and only as, in its infinite idiocy it desired.

  Why? he wanted to rail at it.

  But that was a human wanting, and he was not human. He could never be human. He was Khamsin.

  oOo

  Khamsin had a companion. A cat that hunted in the rich fields of the stable had decided that the lone red horse was fit to bear it company. It slept in the hollow of his bed. It stalked flies and the odd lizard in his shadow. It kittened, one long night, in the manger, and was most fierce when the lad came with Khamsin’s barley.

  Khamsin was fierce in the cat’s defense. By sunset he had a second manger and the cat a roof over her own.

  “One would think that you were their father,” Zamaniyah said into the twitching red ear. He was meeker in his harnessing than he had been, but little the easier for that: his whole body was intent on the small mewling creatures in the manger. She smoothed the mane on his neck, smiling at his fascination, which had not waned in all the days of it. The cat would even let him breathe gently on her children, although Zamaniyah bore scars of her own attempt to touch them.

  “Are you lonely?” she asked him. Foolishly enough. Stallions always lived alone. They fought with one another. They were perilous among the mares; and this one more than most. Bad enough that she had bought him and persisted in keeping him. She did not need a stableful of halfblood foals.

  She ran the reins from bit to bellyband, bound the long line to the band about his muzzle. Greek sorcery, her father called this. Useless mummery. A bit like a broken bar, no force in it, worse than none at all; a tangle of bands and lines and harnesses, and no Frankish cart to hitch behind. And she would stand all unprotected at a mere spearlength’s remove, trusting to one thin line and a wand of a whip to subdue this spawn of Iblis.

  “It works,” she said, balancing whip and line. “Come, sir. The cats will wait for you.”

  He moved willingly enough, upon persuasion. “There may be hope for you,” she told him, “after all.” He cocked an ear at her. It was more by far than he was wont to give her. “What, my lord! Am I then to be granted the honor of your attention? So, then. Smartly, if you please.”

  He fought her but once, and that for but a moment. He came when she bade him, accepted praise, stroking, a handful of fruit. “O splendid,” she sang to him. “O beauty. Do you see how simple it is to learn to dance? Can you feel the joy that is in it?”

  His eye rolled toward her. Warmth? At last? His head lowered. His breath was warm in her hand. She cupped the velvet of his muzzle.

  The earth rose up in revolt.

  It was the cat. Jealous, perhaps, or weary of her duties, or simply adventurous. She lofted herself lightly to his back. He started. She wailed as he shifted; dug in claws. Khamsin remembered his name.

  He surged to his full height, flinging Zamaniyah from her feet. For a terrible moment she flew. Earth’s weight claimed her with redoubled force. He plunged down. Hooves flailed. Teeth seized cloth, tore, snapped at flesh. Dark whirled close: too close even for fear. She clenched into a knot and prayed.

  Stillness.

  Shouts, cries, tumult enough, but the madness of hooves and teeth had passed.

  With infinite care she uncoiled.

  Froze.

  Four legs like the corners of a cage. Round barrel over her. Stallion scent about her, more sweet than rank, but horrible in its closeness.

  Beyond her prison, men hovered, helpless for all their armor of whips and rods. And one, foremost and furious, with a drawn sword.

  “Father.” It was the barest whisper.

  She set her life in Allah’s hands. She finished her uncoiling. She rolled to hands and knees. She crawled from beneath the stallion.

  oOo

  He did not move. He could not. Khamsin had burned himself away. Hasan woke at last and saw the face of murder.

  Small, thin, thick with dust. Her hair was snarled from its plait, her coat and shirt half torn from her body. She was nothing to delight a young man of taste, but she was certainly not a boy.

  He had almost killed her.

  With a hand that shook only a little, Zamaniyah gripped his bridle. Instinct flung up his head; will checked it. Slowly, gently, she stroked his cheek and ear and his neck. “I know,” she said. “It was the cat. I know you never meant to hurt me.”

  “Did he not?” Al-Zaman’s rage was heavy in the air, acrid, like naphtha burning.

  “He was frightened,” said Zamaniyah.

  “He is a rogue and a killer. I saw his eye. I saw the blood in it.”

  “Fear,” she insisted. “He was working well, Father. He was beginning to be obedient.”

  “Viciousness,” said al-Zaman. “A Greek sorcerer I may not be, but I know a bad bargain when it tramples my only child. Go now, I’ll deal with him.”

  “No,” said Zamaniyah.

  Al-Zaman’s hand was blurringly swift. The blow rang in Khamsin’s ears. Zamaniyah rocked against him.

  Blind hate, red rage; but human hate and human rage. He lunged.

  Al-Zaman scrambled back, stumbling, dropping his sword. Khamsin laughed at the fallen jaw, the hand flung up in feeble defense, the stink of fear. Such a strong brave man. What thought he now of striking children?

  His foot turned; he toppled. Khamsin bestrode him, snapped teeth in his face. He cowered.

  A hand tugged at his halter, pulling his head about. Zamaniyah wanted to be angry: it was in her voice. But her scent was half fear, half perilous mirth. “No, Khamsin. No.”

  He tossed his head, but gently, forbearing to break her grip. She pulled harder. “Come, my sultan.”

  He did not want to, but her hand was firm and her fear was swelling. Not of him. For him. He had turned on the lord of the house. For that, he could expect no mercy.

  She was crying, and trying not to. “Please, Father. Don’t kill him. He was defending me.”

  Al-Zaman rose stiffly. His face even to horse-sight was terrible. “Dogs defend their masters.”

  Khamsin s
norted at the insult. Steel flashed before his eyes; he stilled. The Turk had his sword again.

  The beast wanted to crouch and tremble. The man gathered himself to die as befit his lineage.

  Zamaniyah stood between her stallion and her father. She trembled, but she was immovable. “Very well, Father. Kill him. But if you do, mind this well. I will play no longer this game you force upon me. I will seclude myself in the harem, in another man’s if need be, and be all utterly a woman.”

  That gave him pause. But he said, “You will not. I forbid it.”

  “I will do it.”

  She would. Al-Zaman, it seemed, had the wits to know it. And wisdom learned at Khamsin’s hooves, not to beat her into submission. “This beast will kill you.”

  “He won’t. You’ll see. He’ll be the wonder of Cairo.”

  “Zamaniyah, little pearl, it’s for your life’s sake that I do this. Leave him to me; I’ll dispose of him quietly. I won’t kill him, since you treasure his life so much. I’ll sell him. I’ll buy you the best horse in Egypt, a royal horse, a horse fit for a sultan.”

  He was crafty, but she was adamant. She shook her head. “I want no horse but Khamsin.”

  The Turk’s mask cracked; he all but shouted at her. “Then have no horse but Khamsin! He and he alone is yours. None other may you have. Not one. Do you understand me?”

  She bowed, understanding, accepting.

  He trembled, fists knotted, grinding his teeth. “What under Allah do you see in him?”

  “Splendor,” she answered. She wound fingers in Khamsin’s mane. “I heard a Bedouin say once that the will of God grants every man three perfect gifts: a horse, a friend, and an enemy. This is my horse. When the world was made, we were matched, he and I.”

  “He is more than your perfect horse. He is your perfect enemy.”

  “Inshallah,” said Zamaniyah.

  oOo

  They went away, as humans did. Khamsin was alone. The cat, who bore him no rancor for her brief wild ride, purred in her nest.

  He wearied his body in plunging about his prison. His mind was not so simply vanquished. It had slept too long; it had come too terribly awake.

  Night came. He ate to quiet hunger, drank for his body’s sake. He lay in the bed which his body remembered.

  To these eyes, darkness was but a dimmer day. He stared into it, and faced what he must face.

  He had tried to kill Zamaniyah. True, and appalling. But the truth ran deeper than that. She was his enemy, the daughter of his enemy. She, who was all that and woman too, had dared to set her will upon him. He was geas-bound to serve her.

  And he could not hate her for it. He did not want to be her slave, but he wanted still less to be her slayer. She could not help what she was. She tried, in her own way, to show him respect. She was worthy at least of his patience.

  He would not lose himself again. That was a vow, and solemn. He swore it as best he could, standing in the courtyard, head lifted to the moon.

  Its light was pure and cold. Its scent was wondrous. He cried his oath to it; his tongue sang in astonished delight. He could taste it. Finer than the finest sherbet, cool and heady and icy-sweet. It was better than any wine he had ever known. He drank great draughts of it. He danced, to honor his oath, to honor the vintage.

  The sky was full of stars. They sang; and the wind sang with them, and the night, and the creatures of the night.

  The moon’s wine reft him of fear. He saw the dance of Jinn above the earth: winged like great shining birds but shaped like men, with faces too bright to meet. They were too high to take notice of one enchanted boy, but they suffered him to stare. He yearned for wings, to dance with them. He made what shift he could with what he had. Perhaps, for a moment, he found a shadow of their grace.

  oOo

  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.

  6

  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.