Barry Sadler - The Assassin

The glint of amusement in Faisal's eye was as impish as that of a small boy. "So you're liable to see Faisal almost anywhere. Harmless old fellow. Even has a small harem, as any good Muslim should."

Casca grinned. He suddenly remembered what Mamud had told him long ago about the caravan they had passed on their way to Baghdad, the one with the calligraphy on each cart bearing an ancient quotation from the Koran. Faisal again touched his lips.

"No. Now you are anticipating me. And, yes, there is another Faisal — though the name is not Faisal, the race is not Arabic, and the religion is not Islam. I am a Jew. Every drop of blood in my body is Jewish blood. Religion? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Occupation? Well, yes, I am a good calligrapher. The best, as a matter of fact. It is true, however, that I also have a sideline, a small personal interest of mine that I have practiced for a number of years now without getting caught once. Well, I probably shouldn't brag about the once part. Once is all it would take. Even suspicion would be enough. My sideline? Why, my Roman friend, very simple. I believe in freedom. Freedom for all men — and women. And dignity. If one's idea of the Deity doesn't make his life richer and fuller, why, my friend, I would say his idea is wrong. But enough of religion since I am what is known as a 'liberal' in these quarters, and who the hell wants to listen to a liberal?"

"Well, now. My sideline. All abstract words. Of course, a calligrapher lives with words, so that shouldn't be considered unusual. But the trouble with abstract ideas is that you can't feel them or touch them or taste them or see them — or do anything constructive with them until they are translated into concrete acts or things. So my sideline was long ago translated into one very concrete act. The Arabs have enslaved many a daughter of my people, so, whenever I get the chance — and I get chances, my Roman friend — I steal the daughters of my people from their slavery and take them where they can be free. That's the reason for all the trappings of this caravan. These women are not my harem; most of them are rescued slaves I'm taking to freedom."

"Now, you. The only way I can hide you is to put you here with the women. Even when you're well enough to move about." Faisal smiled. "You see why I wouldn't let you ask questions? I like to talk, my Roman friend. I like to talk. And I cultivate the oddities in my personality so that I can continue to seem addled to the Arabs. He reached down and smoothed the bedcover under Casca's chin… as a father might an ill child. "I leave you to the women."

After Faisal's clear Latin, Miriam's Arabic at first sounded stilted in Casca's mind.

"Thou hast suffered much, O one with the scarred face," she said softly as she bent over him to pull back the covers. He could feel her fingers on his wrist unloosing the knots of the cords that held him, but he was studying the profile of her face, so he was not looking at his own body… or clothes.

There was a gentleness in her face that drew him.

Then "Damn!"

"What is it, O scarred one?"

The slave girl, Ruth, who had started to help Miriam, was also startled. Her brown eyes were wide.

"My clothes! What have you got on me?"

Now both women laughed.

"These look like women's clothes!"

"Ah, yes. But they are."

"Women's clothes?"

"But, of course. How else would one be dressed in the birthing wagon?"

"Birthing wagon?"

"Look, Roman Nose, we had to hide you. The Sultan was wild with rage when he found his palace afire. His men searched every inch of Baghdad. We had what they were looking for — you — bloody, out-of-your-head, raving you. So Faisal said put you in the birthing wagon, strap you down, make it look like you were just about to give birth, but give you something to keep you unconscious. It worked in Baghdad, so we decided to keep it up. And after a couple of days, after you had healed up enough so we could move you a little, we dressed you. Just in case. Good thing, too. Just the other day we were stopped, and one of the Sultan's men even insisted on looking in the birthing wagon. When he saw what you looked like sleeping, he was satisfied. By the way, how do you like your hair?"

"Hair?" Casca jerked his hand up to his scalp. There was still hair there. Plenty of it. What in Hades was she talking about?

Ruth brought him a small brass mirror and stood back, grinning.

"Damn!"

The hair was red — even in one of the silver mirrors favored by Egyptians over the brass ones like the Hebrews liked, it would still be red — the same red as Miriam's had been when he first saw her in the Cafe of the Infidels.

But it wasn't just the hair that shocked Casca.

"By Mithra! What in Hades have you done to my face?"

"Oh, Roman Nose, you didn't really think we women were born with the smooth faces you see, did you? A little something here. A little something there. A little rice flour. A touch of kohl. And a few other things." She smiled impishly. "We're pretty good, aren't we? How do you like your new face, the one that's saved your neck so far?"

Well, she had a point there. He held the mirror up again and liked what he saw even less than he had the first time. They had shaved his face so smooth it was impossible to see where the hairs had been, and they had put something on it halfway between paint and oil, so that even his scar — in which Casca had a certain pride — was no longer visible. He couldn't tell what they had done to his eyebrows — cut them, trimmed them, something — but now they had a thin, even line. His eyelids were darkened. It was no longer his face; it was the face of a woman. Not, however, a beautiful young woman. They had known the limitations of the material they were working with, and they had made him up as a woman a little the worse for wear.

"We women are magicians, are we not?"

Hmpf!

We women… where did she get that shit? Sudden fear gripped Casca.

"Er…"

"What is it, Roman Nose?"

"Am I… er…"

"Are you what?"

"The women… did they-"

Miriam laughed uproariously. "No! We got to you just in time. And I've never seen anybody heal as fast as you do. But it was a near thing."

"Then I'm… all right?"

"I hope you are. Because I intend to test you just as soon as you're able… to perform at your best, that is. I've never had a man of my own choosing, one I 'put together myself,' so to speak. No, Roman Nose, I'm betting — and hoping — you'll be as good as new. Now, drink this. It will put you back to sleep again."

So Casca lived with the women. Even when he was well enough to be up and about, Miriam insisted that he continue the charade. Something about "inspiration." Casca did not tell her that he had never needed "inspiration" before. To tell the truth, though, he did dread moving back with the men, because he knew, the first smartass who made a crack would get his grinning face smashed in. And that didn't seem quite fair, considering all the risks these men had run for him. Besides, at least three more times the caravan was stopped by groups of the Sultan's men, and each time it was the disguise as a woman that saved Casca. Miriam and Ruth had it easier. Ruth was dressed as a young boy — the Sultan's men probably thought "eunuch" — and for Miriam, slovenly dress, a smear of dirt on her face, and black hair changed her completely. Casca thought the black hair was probably original, since, when he asked how she got his hair red, she answered, "Henna. From Egypt."

Miriam was unlike any whore Casca had ever known. She did have one failing though, religion. (After his own unfortunate experience with the religious, Casca tended to see danger signals in the piousness of others.) Yet he had to admit that Miriam, like Faisal, saw religion as something that made life better rather than the other way around, which was what Casca had so often seen. She delighted in reading to him stories from the religious scrolls Faisal had stored in secret compartments in his own cart. One story in particular she came back to over and over — the story of Rahab the whore who had hidden two Israelites under the cane rush of her roof in order to save them from the king's men. Casca suspected Miriam saw in Rahab the whore a reflection of herself. It seemed that she had helped Faisal often before. There was a secret passageway into the seraglio.