Oh, a few last words before the story: Shaizar is (or was) a real place, an ancient Syrian town that became a fortress in the medieval period before being abandoned after repeated devastation by earthquakes. The illustration for this post is taken from a photograph of the ruins which serves as a frontispiece to Philip K. Hitti's 1929 translation of a memoir of the medieval period.
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| Shaizar in ruins |
THE GATES OF SHAIZAR
When
the order to halt came, al-Mastoub reined in his bay before the guards at the
eastern gate of Shaizar. Behind him, the queue of merchants with ox carts and
camels, the woodcutters leading laden donkeys; the governor’s concubines in
curtained palanquins; the flocks of bleating sheep and goats; the slaves,
pilgrims, and riff-raff of the province backed up outside the iron-studded
eastern gate of the city.
The
gaze of the guards’ lieutenant traveled over al-Mastoub’s cast-off clothing,
the tall warhorse, the sword, pulled although the lieutenant couldn’t know, from
the Varangian Leofric’s stiffening hand. A good horse and weapons, but only a
leather cap and quilted jerkin for armor. Al-Mastoub could see the lieutenant’s
suspicions reflected on the man’s face.
“Sir,”
al-Mastoub said, “I have a passport from the magistrate Haroun ibn Ibrahim of
al-Shara.” He held the now-tattered safe conduct he’d forged before his chest,
like a shield. And he prayed silently, as he had at every checkpoint, that the
man wouldn’t know Haroun’s signature.
The
lieutenant ran a hand over his beard. The document’s elaborate calligraphy,
al-Mastoub knew, was almost indecipherable. He’d added every flourish possible
to dissuade anyone he encountered from giving more than a cursory glance at his
credentials. But as a corner of al-Mastoub’s mouth twitched, the lieutenant’s hand
clamped on the passport.
“No
one enters until I’ve examined this man’s papers. Thoroughly.”
The
guards stationed themselves before the crowd shoving to enter the opened gate.
The sun rose high over the town’s walls in the late summer sky. The crowd
behind al-Mastoub grew more clamorous as the lieutenant read the passport,
muttering each word aloud.
Al-Mastoub
loosened the fidgeting bay’s reins. He fumbled for the pouch under his shirt
that held his small horde of treasure -– the papers of his manumission,
Leofric’s medusa-headed ring, the last handful of stolen dinars.
The
lieutenant’s eye caught the movement. “You!
Keep your hands in sight.”
“It’s
a hot day, sir. Perhaps you’d like something to slake your thirst?”
“In
sight!”
Al-Mastoub
shrugged. If the passport failed, at least he had the sword. He wished he had
Haroun’s practical scimitar. Leofric’s sword was almost too long for him to
wield one-handed. But he hadn’t dared steal another weapon. Roaming through
Syria with a forged passport was enough to get him beheaded without having
Haroun on his trail.
Itinerant
jugglers, beggars, and pickpockets plied their trades among the crowd. Sellers
of wine, fruit juice and sweetmeats counted themselves blessed.
“I’ve
got eight for the head,” a singsong voice chanted just beyond the gates. “Do I
hear any more?”
“Put
me in for the head.” One of the guards pulled a copper dirham out of his sash.
“A
small bet at short odds,” the bookmaker sneered. “You might do better to wager
on nose and ears.”
“I’m
for nose and ears,” another man shouted.
“Aren’t
you going to give odds which gate he hangs at?” A man with eyebrows that met
across his forehead pushed as close as the troopers would allow. Al-Mastoub
cursed him under his breath.
“It
would just be taking your money,” the bookmaker said. “Whatever part of him the
lieutenant decides to hack off will hang here on the front gate for all to
see.”
“I
want to place a bet,” al-Mastoub said.
The
bookmaker stared. “Show me your money.”
Again,
al-Mastoub eased a hand under his shirt.
“In
plain view!” the lieutenant said.
Al-Mastoub
withdrew his hand.
“No
money, no bet,” the bookmaker said.
“Silence!”
The lieutenant looked up at last. “This mentions two companions,” he said.
“They
were taken prisoner.” Al-Mastoub shifted his damp hands from the saddlebow. “I’m
here to ransom them.”
The
lieutenant flung the passport at him in disgust. “Then do so. And leave
quickly.”
Al-Mastoub
joined the travelers surging toward the marketplace. He scanned the
merchandise. At the point in the line
where Jehan and Robert had been chained, there now stood only a gawky girl with
big feet. There was no sign of either of the captured soldiers. No Jehan, no
Robert.
The
old slave trader, Abu al-Darda, hailed him, walking around al-Mastoub’s tall
bay. “Ain’t you come up in the world since the last time we met? If I knew you
was this good a horse thief, I’d have charged that judge more for you.”
“I
had two friends in this caravan. I’m
able to redeem them now. Or if you remember where you sold them. . .”
Al-Mastoub pulled a gold piece out of his pouch and flipped it.
The
slave trader glanced to the corner where his guards hunched, absorbed in their
dice. With a show of elaborate unconcern, he pulled out a dagger and began to pick the
few teeth that remained to him.
“Two
friends?” he said. “And who would those be? Oh, you mean that pair of village
idiots? Yeah, I remember them. They was
always bragging about that fine day when their friend would come back and
rescue them. What took you so long?”
“I
was detained.”
“Right.
I guess you was, hiding out from that Varangian.”
Al-Mastoub
scowled, rubbing the scabbed, itching scar Leofric’s sword had carved through
his beard.
“Too
bad about that pair,” Abu al-Darda said. “If I’d thought I could have got a
dirham for either of them, I might be able to oblige you now.”
“Where
are they?”
“They
took sick -– them and one or two others. They weren’t worth saving. I took
their heads for bounty and tipped their carcasses off the side of the road a
week or more ago.” The slave trader’s lips stretched in a mirthless grin.
Al-Mastoub
vaulted from the saddle. His sword hissed halfway from its scabbard.
Abu
al-Darda jumped back. “Go ahead! Lay
hands on me, I dare you! There’s law and order in this town, there is. Not like
the other place! Hurt me, and I’ll have justice, I will. I’ll have your head
for bounty and your fine horse and sword, too.”
Al-Mastoub’s
glare swept the marketplace. He’d seen, out of the tail of his eye, half a
squad from the garrison follow him as he left the east gate. He mounted the
stallion again and swung on the reins. The big bay lashed out with a rear hoof,
grazing the slave trader’s head.
The
bay wheeled and charged.
“Stop! In the name of the sultan!” The order rang across the market. Two of the guardsmen scrambled to reach
Al-Mastoub across the crowded square.
The rest lashed their horses toward the four gates of the town to block
his escape.The fallen trader shrieked and scrabbled on hands and knees as
Al-Mastoub’s sword whistled past his head. The horse’s rush carried them across
the market, between the sultan’s cavalrymen, slamming through the awnings of a
dozen small vendors.
Pyramids
of melons collapsed under the bay’s charge. The fruits squashed underfoot,
splashing the grocer’s mantle carmine and saffron-gold. Brass and copper pots
rolled, clanging like gongs under the stallion’s iron shoes.
A
bird seller struggled from under the collapsed canvas of his booth as a
pursuing guardsman’s mount stumbled on the scattered pots. The horse fell to
its knees, its rider flung headlong into a display of caged poultry and
songbirds. The freed birds chirped and fluttered to the winds. The remaining
cavalry horse shied.
The
trooper reined in his horse with one hand and slashed at man and birds with the
other.
Al-Mastoub
glanced over his shoulder. The downed trooper regained his mount and joined his
fellow to clear a way out of the market. Al-Mastoub plunged from the square
into the surrounding medina. Its
meandering streets befuddled his sense of direction. Balconies on each side met
overhead, cutting off his sight of the sky and turning midday to twilight. An
alleyway opened -- toward the west, as best he could tell. He shifted his
weight. The bay dashed into a passageway so narrow al-Mastoub’s stirrups
brushed the walls of the houses lining it.
A
throng of boys and dogs surged through the passage ahead. Yelping as Al-Mastoub
lashed at them with the ends of the reins, the crowd scattered, flattening themselves
against walls or leaping for the safety of jutting upper stories.
Lines
of washing strung between the balconies on either side drooped across the
alley. A housewife pulling her laundry
inside screamed and dropped the string as al-Mastoub and the bay swept past,
leaving a damp garment that clung across al-Mastoub’s face. He tore it away, a woman’s
much-darned pink undershift fluttering into the trampled street, the remaining
string of shabby garments flapping behind him. The outraged woman’s
imprecations died away in the distance.
Al-Mastoub
and the bay swept around a corner. Too late, he saw in the narrow passage a
tiny boy driving a donkey whose burden of firewood spanned the width of the
alley. The bay’s muscles bunched under the saddle as the horse gathered itself,
leaped over the wide-eyed wood carrier, and pounded on, the curses of the
pursuing guardsmen and the donkey’s braying as it bucked off its load,
scattering kindling across the alleyway, followed the fugitive.
The street straightened again. And
dead-ended onto the tiny, ruined courtyard of an ancient house. The bay reared
and wheeled.
“God’s blood!” al-Mastoub scrambled
onto the pommel.
As the bay skittered beneath him,
he leaped from the horse’s back to the flimsy lattice covering the balcony of
the house on his right. A rotted panel give under his hand and swung himself
feet first into the dark opening, falling against a maid crouched at the window,
gazing out at the commotion. As her lips parted to scream, al-Mastoub grabbed
her, crushing her mouth against his. The girl pulled back, but he kept his arm
snug around her waist.
“How do I get to the roof?”
Wordlessly, she pointed to a
ladder-like stairway.
Still holding her tight, he
reached into his money pouch and pulled out a dinar and tucked the coin into
the jasmine-scented bodice of her dress. “Keep this to remember me by, lass.”
Then he sprang up the ladder and
onto the roof, crouching behind its parapet as the guardsmen rounded the corner
to confront only a riderless horse.
The guardsmen’s mounts whickered
and sidled in the narrow space. The sultan’s men glanced from courtyard to
alley, both as empty as if they had been swept. The half-naked urchins who had
followed the soldiers, shouting and jeering, had vanished. No gray-bearded
porters dozed at their posts. Every door stood closed, every window shuttered.
As the foremost guard gestured to
his fellow to fall back, Al-Mastoub dropped from the low roof onto the back of
the second horse, grappling its rider from behind. The horse reared, and both men
plunged, struggling, over the saddle cantle and into the alley.
Al-Mastoub leaped on the fallen
guard and slashed. With a yell, the downed man shoved his wrist, spurting blood
from its severed hand, into al-Mastoub’s face, swinging crazily with his
remaining hand. Al-Mastoub struck again. The guardsman fell forward.
As al-Mastoub drew a gasping
breath and wiped the blood from his face he felt the other guard’s sword on his
throat. He dropped his sword and raised his hands.
“Spare me, master, spare me!” He cringed
low to the ground.
“You son of a whore.” The guardsman
pushed the body of his fallen comrade aside with his foot. “You dog. You think
you can kill Kasim here, throw down your sword, beg to surrender. . .”
Al-Mastoub whistled.
“. . .save your hide. Just like that. . .”
The big bay shouldered the
guard’s smaller horse against the wall. At the sound of the commotion, the
guard looked over his shoulder, panic spreading across his face at the sight of
the charging warhorse. Ducking beneath the guard’s sword blade, Al-Mastoub drew
the dagger concealed in his sash. He plunged it into his enemy’s belly, and up.
The guard dropped his weapon to clutch the vitals uncoiling from his slashed belly.
There was a flicker of motion
from the courtyard’s window above al-Mastoub as he stripped helmet and coat of
mail from the smaller of the guards and wrapped himself in the armor. An odor
of jasmine floated above the earthy tang of blood and dust. He glanced over his
shoulder. The girl leaned out from the broken lattice, eye-whites gleaming. A
single blossom floated, star-like, from her bosom into the stagnant water of
the fountain. Al-Mastoub severed the guard’s head and battered it with the flat
of the weapon until neither mother nor wife, he hoped, would recognize the man.
The girl at the window screamed, but this time there was no rough kiss to
silence her. Al-Mastoub leaped into the bay’s saddle, swinging the head by its
hair. He cantered back the way he had come.
***
Al-Mastoub stopped as far from
the lieutenant as he dared and saluted, lowering his chin to let the helmet’s
cheek guards swing forward across his face, and holding out the severed head.
Barely glancing at it, the lieutenant grunted. “Nail it
to the gate.”
Al-Mastoub trotted across the
marketplace toward the western gate.
“Not that gate! The front one!”
Al-Mastoub steadied his hands on
the reins, passing beyond the reach of the lieutenant’s curses. He tucked the
head into his saddlebag as he reached the western gate, facing the no-man’s
land of the border.
The guard in the postern presented
his lance. “Halt! What’s the password?”
Al-Mastoub fumbled at his
dripping saddlebag. “The password? You’d better ask Kasim!” he said, throwing
the head, and setting spurs to his horse’s side. He was across the bridge into
the no-man’s-land of the border before the alarm sounded.
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