The Bones of the Old Ones (Dabir and Asim)
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Authors: Howard Andrew Jones
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.
For Shannon.
Best friend, muse, first reader, and the light of my life.
Acknowledgments
I’m indebted to kind and talented people who generously gave their time and advice to help me create this book. Pete Wolverton is the sort of editor most authors can only dream of working with, one who digs deep into the text and thinks carefully about the characters, pacing, and plot. I’m immensely grateful to him for insightful commentary and guidance. I’m likewise lucky to be working with Bob Mecoy, my agent and friend, whose brainstorming sessions with me were invaluable for smoothing rough spots in the final stages. John O’Neill read a late version of the text and asked a host of perceptive questions that helped streamline and tighten the story. Nathan Long, Anne Bensson, Beth Shope, and John C. Hocking weighed in during earlier drafts with excellent suggestions that helped steer me toward the novel you hold today. Dr. Amira K. Bennison graciously answered whatever strange questions I asked about eighth century social conventions. Last but not least, my brilliant wife, Shannon, devoted untold hours to reading and rereading the text. She patiently acted as my sounding board, ruthlessly called me out on weak spots, and offered countless fine tweaks that enhanced the prose.
Contents
1
The snow banked knee-high against the walls of the narrow alley, and my boots sank into it as I pressed my back to the cold stone. I quieted my ragged breath and listened for the footfalls of my pursuers. They could not be far behind.
Thankfully the snow-clogged streets were already churned with footprints this morning; I was certain those who sought me lacked the expertise to identify my own.
Before long I heard the sound of snow mashed beneath swift, eager steps. I crouched to ready my weapons. Ambushes come down to timing, and I meant to judge my moment with care.
The footfalls stopped, then shuffled without advancing. My mind’s eye had one of them turning a circle, just beyond my hiding place.
Their leader spoke in low, urgent tones. “The captain has to be close. Rami, you go that way. Sayid, you come with me.”
One of his followers waxed confident: “We’ll get him this time!”
I had dressed for the weather, with multiple robes, a cloak, and even gloves. As I was never a small man, I cut an imposing figure so bulkily garbed. When I leapt into the street, roaring defiantly, two of the three youths jumped back in alarm. The other dropped a snowball at the same moment I launched my own.
“Fly, dogs!” I cried, laughing. My first strike caught Imad, the deep-voiced thirteen-year-old, in the dead center of his chest. While he looked down in surprise I grabbed another missile from those cradled in my arm and flung again.
“Run!” Imad shouted, his voice breaking. He dashed away, little Sayid fleeing with him. I tagged his retreating back with another cast even as Rami ducked into the doorway to the jeweler’s house.
“Ho, young one!” I advanced, one snowball brandished. “Prepare to meet your doom!”
Rami did not run; nay, the brave lad stood his ground and threw. His aim was near perfect, and caught me in the chest. At the same moment, I heard Imad and Sayid let out battle cries behind me, and I whirled. Their blows struck me in chest and shoulder even as I countered, laughing. It was then a frosty missile hit the back of my head. I felt my turban sliding toward my left ear.
“Ah!” I feigned sudden weakness and let my arm fall so that the snowballs rained about my boots. I clutched at my breast with both hands. “The lion falls!” So saying, I sank to one knee, then dropped into the snow. I lay rigid as a dying hero on a tapestry while my youthful companions cheered and cavorted with joy.
Their voices stilled at the same moment I heard the crunch of someone else approaching through the snow. I peered up to see my friend Dabir grinning at me, his blue eyes twinkling with amusement. He cradled a snowball in one hand. “Will you live?” he asked.
I sat up on the instant, adjusting my headgear. “What are you doing here?”
“This is the most direct route home from the palace.”
His grin widened as he saw the expression on my face. The caliph himself had ordered me to ensure the scholar’s safety by day and by night, but Dabir took a more casual approach to the arrangement. When last I’d seen him, he’d been sitting at a brazier in our receiving room, reading over some old Greek text. He had promised he would remain there.
Dabir dropped the snowball, and extended his hand. “No one was going to attack me, Asim. Captain Tarif came to get me.”
That made me feel only a little better. He helped me to my feet.
“Where is he now?” I asked, suspecting already the answer I would receive.
“Oh, I walked back on my own. Tarif had more important things to do.”
I sighed as I stepped back to brush snow from my robe.
Dabir smiled good-naturedly at the gathered children, but they could only stare back, shyly, even little Rami, our stable boy. They all regarded him with a certain amount of awe, for they knew him as a famous scholar and master of great secrets, someone to be treated with pronounced formality.
After a moment Rami worked up the courage to speak. “That was a good shot, Master.”
Dabir chuckled. “Thank you, Rami.”
“That was you?” I asked.
“You made too fine a target,” Dabir explained. “What say you to a meal? Are you hungry yet?”
I was, in truth, for I had taken a long morning walk before joining the snowball fight. Thus I bade the children farewell. They were sad to lose me, and in truth I was somewhat reluctant to quit, but Dabir was clearly set on continuing alone if I did not go with him, and as usual he had not even bothered to buckle on a sword. And besides, the cook’s fine pastries were now firmly in my mind. She was a harridan, but I could not dispute the excellence of her food.
So Dabir and I started for home.
Mosul was old … old almost as the Assyrian ruins that lay across the river, but not derelict, and sometimes showed a haggard beauty, for her stones had been set with care. Aye, her builders had been artisans as well as laborers, so that there were pleasing patterns in the brick and mortar. On that day, though, it was as if she had donned an enchanted cloak that restored her youth. Even plain features to which I normally paid no notice—the heights of buildings, the bricks of walls, twisted old tree limbs topping garden enclosures—were mantled in white and transformed into sparkling works of art. It brought a smile to my lips as we walked.
“What did the governor want?” I asked.
Dabir turned over a hand as we walked past the homes and shops that lined the streets.
“Ah, Shabouh has him worried. He keeps going on about the positions of the stars and bad omens.”
I rather liked the pudgy court astrologer, but Dabir was skeptical of the man’s auguries.
“He swears that this snowfall was foretold,” he went on, “and that some old Persian star chart predicts even greater misfortune.”
I frowned. That certainly sounded alarming to me. In truth, the blizzard that had struck Mosul three days before defied any experience in living memory, so a little concern was perfectly justified. “What did you tell the governor?”
“Well, I did not wish to dispute Shabouh, but it seemed unwarranted to worry the governor over isolated acts of nature. I told them I would take a look at the records in the university. By the time I’ve compiled a listing of all the unusual weather in the last hundred years, the snow will have melted and all this will be a charming memory.”
“Do you think so?”
Dabir laughed. “Aye. When I was boy a great frost came to Mosul in early fall. It was so cold that ice formed over part of the Tigris. But it all melted by midday. Strange storms happen from time to time, and it is nothing to wring hands about.”
In light of what befell in the coming days, you will not be surprised to learn that I reminded him of that pronouncement for years after, but I get ahead of myself. At that time I merely groaned a little at the thought of spending the day watching him read texts in the cramped university library.
“I did not say that I would look today,” he added, clapping me on the back. “I plan instead to enjoy a nice game of shatranj near a warm brazier with my friend Asim.”
Soon we reached home, and after a pleasant meal we sat down in the receiving room and set up the shatranj board. We had moved but a few pieces when Rami pushed through the door curtain. He was ruddy-faced from the chill and panting from exertion. “I have found a woman in the street,” he gasped.
Rami’s sudden arrival set smoke from our brazier dancing above the cherry-red coals and introduced a blast of cold air seasoned with the scent of horses and manure, for the smell of the stables clung to him.
Dabir paused with his hand over the checkered board between us, the emerald on his finger glinting. “A dead woman?” he asked.
“Nay, Master.” Rami breathed heavily.