Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures (10 page)

Then changing his tone suddenly, he cried sharply: “Seize her!” and the dogging shadows closed in, revealing themselves as black men with the wizened features of mutes. As their fingers closed on her flesh, Zaida fainted for the first and last time in her life.

She did not feel herself being lifted and carried through the gate, across gardens waving with blossoms and reeking with spice, through corridors lined with spiral columns of alabaster and gold, and into a chamber without windows, the arched doors of which were bolted with bars of gold, gemmed with amethysts.

It was upon the carpeted, cushion strewn floor of this chamber that the Venetian regained consciousness. She looked dazedly about her, then the memory of her adventure came back with a rush, and with a low cry, she stared wildly about for her captor. She shrank down again to see him standing above her, arms folded, head bent gloomily, while his terrible eyes burned into her soul.

“Oh Lion of the Faithful!” she gasped, struggling to her knees. “Mercy! Mercy!”

Even as she spoke she was sickeningly aware of the futility of pleading for mercy where mercy was unknown. She was crouching before the most feared monarch in the world: the man whose name was a curse in the mouths of Christian, Jew and orthodox Moslem alike; the man who, claiming descent from Ali, the nephew of the Prophet, was the head of the Shia world, the Incarnation of Divine Reason to all Shiites; the man who had ordered all dogs killed, all vines cut down, all grapes and honey dumped into the Nile; who had banned all games of chance, confiscated the property of the Coptic Christians and given the people themselves over to abominable tortures; who believed that to disobey one of his commands, however trivial, was the blackest sin conceivable. He roamed the streets at night in disguise, as Haroun ar Raschid had done before him, and as Baibars did after him, to see that his commands were obeyed.

So Al Hakim stared at her with wide unblinking eyes, and Zaida felt her flesh shrivel and crawl in horror.

“Blasphemer!” he whispered. “Tool of Shaitan! Daughter of all evil! Oh Allah!” he cried suddenly, flinging aloft his wide-sleeved arms. “What punishment shall be devised for this demon? What agony terrible enough, what degradation vile enough to render justice? Allah grant me wisdom!”

Zaida rose upon her knees, snatching off her torn veil. She stretched out her arm, pointing at his face.

“Why do you call on Allah?” she shrieked hysterically. “Call on Al Hakim!
You
are Allah!
Al Hakim is God!
”

He stopped short at her cry; he reeled, catching at his head, crying out incoherently. Then he straightened himself and looked down at her dazedly. Her face was chalk white, her wide eyes staring. To her natural acting ability was added the real and desperate horror of her position. To Al Hakim it seemed that she was dazed and dazzled by a vision of celestial splendor.

“What do you see, woman?” he gasped.

“Allah has revealed Himself to me!” she whispered. “In your face, shining like the morning sun! Nay, I burn, I die in the blaze of thy glory!”

She sank her face in her hands and crouched trembling. Al Hakim passed a trembling hand over his brow and temples.

“
God!
” he whispered. “Aye, I
am
God! I have guessed it – I have dreamed it – I, and I alone possess the wisdom of the Infinite. Now a mortal has seen it, has recognized the god in the form of man. Aye, it is the truth taught by the teachers of the Shia – the Incarnation of the Godhead – I see the Truth behind the truth at last. Not a mere incarnation of divinity – divinity itself!
Allah!
Al Hakim is Allah!”

Bending his gaze upon the woman at his feet, he ordered: “Rise, woman, and look upon thy god!”

Timidly she did so, and stood shrinking before his unwinking gaze. Zaida the Venetian was not extremely beautiful according to certain arbitrary standards which demand the perfectly chiselled features, the delicate frame – but she was good to look at. She was somewhat broadly built, with big breasts and haunches, and shoulders wider than most. Her face was not the classic of the Greeks, and was faintly freckled. But there was about her a vital something transcending mere superficial beauty. Her brown eyes sparkled, reflecting a keen intelligence, and the physical vigor promised by her thick limbs and big hips.

As he looked at her a change clouded the wide eyes of Al Hakim; he seemed to see her clearly for the first time.

“Thy sin is pardoned,” he intoned. “Thou wert first to hail thy God. Henceforth thou shalt serve me in honor and splendor.”

She prostrated herself, kissing the carpet before his feet, and he clapped his hands. A eunuch entered, bowing low.

“Go quickly to the house of Zahir el Ghazi,” said Al Hakim, seeming to look over the head of the servitor, and see him not at all. “Say to him: ‘This is the word of Al Hakim, who is God; that on the morrow shall be the beginning of happenings, of the building of ships, and the marshalling of hosts, even as thou hast desired; for God
is
God, and the unbelievers too long have blasphemed against Him!’ ”

“Hearkening and obeying, master,” mumbled the eunuch, bowing to the floor.

“I doubted and feared,” said Al Hakim dreamily, gazing far and beyond the confines of reality into some far realm only he could see. “I knew not – as now I know – that Zahir el Ghazi was the tool of Destiny. When he urged me to world-conquest, I hesitated. But I am God, and to gods all things are possible, yea, all kingdoms and glory!”

III

Glance briefly at the world on that night of portent, 1021 A.D. It was a night in an age of change, an age writhing in the throes of labor in which all that goes to make up the modern world was struggling for birth. It was a world crimson and torn, chaotic and awful, pregnant with imponderable power, yet apparently sinking into stagnation and ruin.

In Egypt a Sunnite population groaned under the heel of a Shiite dynasty – a dynasty shrunken and shrivelled from world empire, but still mighty, reaching from the Euphrates to the Sudan. Between the borders of Egypt and the western sea stretched a vast expanse inhabited by wild tribes nominally under the caliph’s sceptre, the same tribes which had in an earlier day crushed the Gothic kingdom of Spain, and which now stirred restlessly in their mountains, needing only a powerful leader to sweep them again in an overwhelming wave against Christendom.

In Spain the divided Moorish provinces gave ground before the hosts of Castile, Leon and Navarre. But these Christian kingdoms, forged of blood and iron though they were, were not numerically powerful enough to have withstood the combined onslaught of Islam. They formed Christendom’s western frontier, while Byzantium formed the eastern frontier, as in the days of Omar and the conquering Companions, holding back the horns of the Crescent that else had met in middle Europe to form an inexorable circle. And the Crescent was never dead; it only slept, and even in its slumber throbbed the drums of empire.

Europe, in the grip of feudalism, was weaker internally than on her borders. The nations were already taking shadowy shape, but as yet there was no real national spirit. In France there was neither Charlemagne nor Martel – only starving, plague-harried peasantry, warring fiefs, and a land torn by strife between Capet and Norman duke, overlord and rebellious vassal. And France was typical of Europe.

There were, it is true, strong men in the West: Canute the Dane, ruling Saxon England; Henry of Germany, Emperor of the shadowy Holy Roman Empire. But Canute was almost like the king of another world, in his sea-girt isolation, and the Emperor had his hands full in seeking to weld his rival realms of Germany and Italy, and in beating back the encroaching Slavs.

In Byzantium the glorious reign of Basilius Bulgaroktonos was drawing to a close. Already long shadows were falling from the east across the Golden Horn. Byzantium was still Christendom’s mightiest bulwark; but westward from Bokhara were moving the horsemen of the steppes destined swiftly to wrest from the Eastern Empire her last Asiatic possession. The Seljuks, blocked on the south by the glittering Indo-Iranian empire of Mahmud of Ghazni, were riding toward the setting sun, not to be halted until their horses’ hoofs splashed the waters of the Mediterranean.

In Bagdad the Persian Buides fought in the streets with the Turkish mercenaries of the weak Abbasside caliph. But Islam was not crushed, but only broken into many parts, like the shards of a shining blade. Active strength lay in Egypt, in Ghazni, in the marauding Seljuks. Potential strength slumbered in Syria, in Irak, in Arabia, in the restless tribes of the Atlas – strength enough to burst the western barriers of Christendom, were the various separate elements united under a strong hand.

Byzantium was still unassailable; but let the Spanish kingdoms fall before a sudden onrush from Africa, and the hordes would gush into Europe almost without opposition. Such was the picture of the age: both East and West divided and inert; in the West was yet unborn that flaming spirit which, seventy-five years later, stormed eastward in the Crusades; in the East neither a Saladin nor a Genghis Khan was apparent. Yet, let such a man appear, and the horns of the revived Crescent might yet complete the circle, not in central Europe, but over the crumbling walls of Constantinople, assailed from north as well as south.

Such was the panorama of the world on that night of doom and portents, when two hooded figures halted in a group of palm trees among the ruins of nighted Cairo.

Before them lay the waters of el Khalij, the canal, and beyond it, rising from its very bank, the great bastioned wall of sun dried brick which encircled El Kahira, separating the royal heart of
al medina
from the rest of the city. Built by the conquering Fatimids half a century before, the inner city was in reality a gigantic fortress, sheltering the caliphs and their servants and certain troops of their mercenaries – forbidden to common men without special permit.

“We could climb the wall,” muttered de Guzman.

“And find ourselves no nearer our enemy,” answered Al Afdhal, groping in the shadows under the clustering trees. “Here it is!”

Staring over his shoulder, de Guzman saw the Turk fumbling at what appeared to be a shapeless heap of marble. This particular locality was occupied entirely by ruins, inhabited only by bats and lizards.

“An ancient pagan shrine,” said Al Afdhal. “Shunned because of superstition, and long crumbled – but it hides more than a grove of palm-trees shows!”

He lifted away a broad slab, revealing steps leading down into a black gaping aperture; de Guzman frowned suspiciously.

“This,” said Al Afdhal, sensing his doubt, “is the mouth of a tunnel which leads under the wall and up into the house of Zahir el Ghazi, which stands just beyond the wall.”

“Under the canal?” demanded the Spaniard incredulously.

“Aye; once el Ghazi’s house was the pleasure house of the Caliph Khumaraweyh, who slept on an air-cushion which floated on a pool of quick-silver, guarded by lions – yet fell before the avenger’s dagger, in spite of all. He prepared secret exits from all parts of his palaces and pleasure-houses. Before Zahir el Ghazi took the house, it was occupied by his rival, Es Salih Muhammad. The Berber knows nothing of this secret way. I could have used it before, but until tonight I was not sure that I wished to slay him. Come!”

Swords drawn, they groped down a flight of stone steps and advanced along a level tunnel in pitch blackness. De Guzman’s groping fingers told him that the walls, floor and ceiling were composed of huge blocks of stone, probably looted from edifices reared by the Pharaohs. As they advanced, the stones became slippery underfoot, and the air grew dank and damp. Drops of water fell clammily on de Guzman’s neck, and he shivered and swore. They were passing under the canal. A little later this dankness abated somewhat, and shortly thereafter Al Afdhal hissed a warning, and they began to mount another flight of stone stairs.

At the top the Turk halted and fumbled at some bolt or catch. A panel slid aside, and a soft light streamed in from a vaulted and tapestried corridor. De Guzman realized that they had indeed passed under the canal and the great wall, and stood in the forbidden confines of El Kahira, the mysterious and fabulous.

Al Afdhal slipped lithely through the opening, and after de Guzman had followed, closed it behind them. It became one of the inlaid panels of the wall, differing not from the other sandalwood panels. Then the Turk went swiftly down the corridor, going without hesitation, like a man who knows his way. The Spaniard followed, saber in hand, glancing incessantly to right and left.

They passed through a dark velvet curtain and came full upon an arched doorway of gold-inlaid ebony. A brawny black man, naked but for voluminous silk breeches, who had been dozing on his haunches, started up, swinging a great scimitar. But he did not cry out; his was the bestial face of a mute.

“The clash of steel will rouse the household,” snapped Al Afdhal, avoiding the sweep of the eunuch’s sword. As the black man stumbled from his wasted effort, de Guzman tripped him. He fell sprawling, and the Turk passed his blade through the black body.

“That was quick and silent enough!” laughed Al Afdhal softly. “Now for the real prey!”

Cautiously he tried the door, while the Spaniard crouched at his shoulder, breathing between his teeth, his eyes beginning to burn like those of a hunting cat. The door gave inward and de Guzman sprang past the Turk into the chamber. Al Afdhal followed, and closing the door, set his back to it, laughing at the man who had leaped up from his divan with a startled oath.