At nightfall we left the Castle of Othman, walking hand in hand down the slope to the copse where the horses were tethered. The black well had left me uneasy, and I had a premonition I had not seen the last of it, yet now I knew its secrets, or some of them. A thing to be remembered: There among the bones lay the largest part of my fallen candle. Such things can be the price of life or death.
We rode, keeping to low ground and darkness, to the entrance to ibn-Tuwais’s tunnel. Once inside we heard no sound. We rode to the hidden stable, left our horses with plenty of feed, and reentered the beautiful apartments where we had first hidden.
No sound came from beyond the wall. We detected no movement in the house. Had ibn-Tuwais been taken away to be tortured or killed?
There could have been no evidence of my presence left in the house, so the search must have been purely routine unless they had previous knowledge of my presence. But how could that have been?
When for a long time we heard no sound, I pushed on the slab and it pivoted gently. There was a slight scrape of stone on stone but no other sound. With drawn sword I went through the door.
A rustle of garments, and a familiar voice. “Kerbouchard? Come in. You are safe.”
The voice was that of Mahmoud. Stepping into the room, we found him reclining upon a divan, one of the books of ibn-Tuwais in his hand. He arose and came to us, bowing low to Aziza.
“We feared you had been captured or killed. Ibn-Tuwais got word to us to wait for you here.”
Why did I not trust him? There was no reason for mistrust, and we desperately needed a friend. “When you could not be found they arrested ibn-Tuwais. He has told them nothing.”
“But how could they know I had lived here?”
He shrugged. “Someone saw you, I suppose. Spies are everywhere, and as you should know, we Berbers trust no one.”
He glanced at Aziza. “Ibn-Sharaz is said to be angry over his daughter’s disappearance, and Prince Ahmed—you can imagine how he feels.”
Mahmoud seated himself and clapped his hands for a slave. The man who came was strange to me, yet I recalled having seen him once. Was it in Mahmoud’s home? The slave began to spread a low table for a meal, and after our poor fare of the past week, my mouth watered.
“You must remain here for the time,” Mahmoud suggested, “and we will arrange to get you out of the city.”
Mahmoud was my friend; there was no earthly reason for not trusting him, yet the situation left me uneasy. Mahmoud was a Berber, yet I did not believe he had any connection with Yusuf or ibn-Haram. His friends had all belonged to the previous ruling group, the Almoravids. I liked it not at all. In effect we were prisoners in the house, trusting to Mahmoud for food as well as information, and I had seen his eyes stray toward Aziza. Was it with envy or jealousy?
Mahmoud was ambitious, and Aziza was a pawn in a struggle for power, a struggle in which I was merely in the way. Reluctantly, I had to admit she would be better off with Prince Ahmed than with me. At least she would be assured of comfort, food to eat, and freedom from pursuit. What had I to offer but love? I was a drifting adventurer, a man living by his wits and his blade. I had neither family, fortune, nor friends.
When Mahmoud had gone Aziza came at once to me. “Of what are you thinking?”
“I do not trust him.”
“Neither do I.”
“You would be safer with Prince Ahmed.”
“But happier with you.”
No doubt she believed what she said, yet I could only think of the city out there, teeming with potential enemies, devoid of friends.
“The slave is a spy,” she warned. “Be careful of what you say.”
“We still have the horses.”
“Yes.”
Was there reluctance in her tone? She had been brought up to a life of luxury and ease, living in the saddle or in occasional ruins could become old very soon. Our stay at the Castle of Othman had been idyllic only up to a point.
Restlessly, I paced, filled with uncertainty, always aware of the presence of the slave. He was busy, but close by. My bow and arrows had been left on my saddle. My scimitar and dagger were with me. There was little food in the secret room, but I could get more. The question was, when to move?
The time was now.
All my instincts as well as my intelligence warned me there was no time to lose. The walls seemed suddenly oppressive, and I wished desperately to be free, to be outside, riding across the tawny plain.
Turning to Aziza, I said, “You must think, and you must be honest both with me and with yourself. If you escape with me now, you will be tying yourself and your fortunes to me, perhaps for always. You cannot go back.”
“I do not want to go back, Mathurin. I wish to be with you.”
“All right. We will go, now.”
The slave had been gone from the room; now he returned suddenly. I went at once to the storeroom and began packing food.
“If you will but tell me what to do, Master, I will do it.”
“Just stay where you are and be still. I will do it myself.”
He turned to leave the room, and I stepped before him, my hand on my scimitar. “Sit down!” I commanded.
His lips tightened, and he grew suddenly wary.
“Try to leave,” I promised, “and you shall choke on your own blood.”
He backed away and seated himself on a cask. Swiftly, I finished my packing and went out of the door, locking it behind me.
Aziza was waiting. “Hurry, Mathurin! They—”
The outer door opened, and I heard footsteps and the clank of arms.
Wheeling in my tracks, I pushed to open the door into the secret room. The stone door swung inward.
Four men faced me with drawn swords.
16
When I opened my eyes my cell was unchanged, and I lay upon the filthy straw that for three months had been my bed. For a long time I lay still, remembering the expression on the face of Mahmoud as he stood behind the four swordsmen.
“I am sorry, my friend,” he said smugly. “You were in the way.”
Aziza had cried when they took her from me, her lovely features contorted with weeping. One other face that I was to remember, a tall, handsome man with a smartly trimmed beard. He looked at me coldly as if I were some sort of insect, then looked away.
Prince Ahmed!
“Throw him into prison,” he said, “and when he has suffered enough, kill him.”
He could not forgive the days at the Castle of Othman with Aziza. That I had even looked at the bride of Ahmed without her veil was an insult.
Three months in this vile place? When and how would they kill me? Or had I been forgotten?
My Berber guards were savage, bitter men, yet they were fighting men, and for this I admired them. They left me my books. When taken from the house of ibn-Tuwais, I had been allowed to bring the books he had given me, and from time to time, mysteriously, I had received others.
Was Mahmoud to be thanked for this? Or had Aziza contrived some means of having them smuggled to me?
One thing I had done. Before being taken away, I cleared ibn-Tuwais of any complicity in my activities; aiding in this was proof that I had paid him for my quarters. As no Arab would accept money from a friend in such a case, they had believed my story, and he was freed.
During those three long months, I had studied the geography of al-Idrisi, far superior to anything of the kind available in Christian Europe. Eratosthenes, a scholar of 194 b.c. in Alexandria, had devised a method for calculating the diameter of the earth, and al-Mamun in 829 had figured its diameter to be 7,850 miles. Also during these three months, I had read the translations of Hippocrates and Galen by Hunayn ibn-Ishaq.
There was only straw upon the floor of my cell and one small window to offer light. When the wind blew rain into the cell, I had to crowd under the window itself to keep dry, and it was always cold, damp, and unpleasant. One day a guard came to my door and handed me a package in which was wrapped the work on surgery by Albucasis.
There was little to do but read, although each day I exercised to keep my body fit. The food was bad, but it was no worse than aboard the galley. My mind was forever occupied with thoughts of escape, yet I now knew the passage outside my cell to be impossible. There were four Berber guards in that passage, and at the end of it a guardroom in which a dozen more were wont to gather to talk and to gamble. My small window opened upon a sheer cliff that fell away for hundreds of feet.