Thomas Harlan - The Gate of fire

"Well said," Hala remarked wryly. "Will you really do it?"

Mohammed turned at the sting in her voice and looked at her, cast in silhouette by the light from the window. Something in the relationship between them had changed while he lay in delirium, wracked with fever. Before, she had seemed insignificant and mild beside the burning intellect of her sister, but now he saw-perhaps for the first time in his life-that she was the solid foundation, the steadfast maternal core of the family. Too, though she did not own the sharp tongue and ready wit of her sister, she was neither ignorant nor stupid. Mohammed returned to his seat, feeling a great sense of shame in his heart. "I have done you a disservice, sister of my wife," he said, making a low bow. "I have avoided or ignored many responsibilities for many years. You have not. What must I do to repair this state of affairs?"

Hala sighed and now she looked out the window at the garden. "I do not know-the city is very troubled-but you should see your daughter while you still can. I fear this matter may only be settled with blood. Taiya and some of the other clans are very angry; and others see opportunity where there was none before." She stood, a little stiff from sitting for so long. She was no longer a young girl. "Come with me. I would like to show you something."

– |A broad splash of faded brown was scattered across a wall. Mohammed bent close, his right hand on the stucco, and rubbed a thumb across the dried blood. It flaked away with a rime of plaster. More stains marked the round cobbles of the narrow street. He stood back, his eyes narrowed to slits, looking up and down the alleyway. "When did this happen?"

Hala, her face covered with a heavier black veil, raised a hand and pointed up the street. Two of her servants stood behind her. One held a broad parasol over her head, cutting the heat and light of the afternoon sun. Behind them, standing easily in the street, were two of Mohammed's Tanukh.

"A day ago. Two of your men, Tihuri and Sayyqi, were returning from the marketplace with some of the serving girls from the house. Men beset them here, as they cut across from the high road. The men were dressed in desert robes, and their faces were covered. Tihuri was killed-that is his blood on the wall-but he wounded several of them. The girls fled, shouting, to the house. Sayyqi killed two of the attackers, but then they ran, taking the bodies of their fallen comrades."

"Has this happened before?" Mohammed turned slowly, surveying the rooftops of the houses that lined the alley. He signed to his men, and they moved away, down the street. "Have the disputes of the families grown so vehement that blood is spilt?"

"Yes," Hala said, turning away to return to the house. "Many hatreds that slumbered while Khadijah was alive are now waking. I have learned a little of this; some say that the Hashim were responsible, others claim that the Ben-Sarid sent these men."

Mohammed lengthened his stride to catch up with the woman. "The Ben-Sarid? What quarrel do they have with us? Old Menachem was one of my father's finest friends-he even gave me a book of theology once, as a friend-gift, when I first left the city."

Hala laughed and raised a hand to forestall him. "Your father is dead, and so is Menachem. His son, Uri, is the chief of the Ben-Sarid now and he aspires to make his house as rich as ours. His factors and ours already quarrel on the docks of ports from Aelana to Zanzibar. Oh, relations between us are proper and polite, but they have cooled of late. He well knows that the alliance of Quraysh and Hashim is close to breaking-then perhaps he and his people will become the strongest."

Mohammed shook his head in dismay. In youth he had spent many hours with Uri, running and playing among the statues and altars of the sprawling complex of buildings that made up the district of the Holy Well of Zam-Zam. Mohammed's father had once been a benefactor of the Temple of Allah there, while old Menachem had been a teacher and wise man of his own people. To think of him as an enemy roused an ill feeling. Still, he did not quail away from the thought-he had disappointed his family and friends and would not let it happen again. "Then the city is divided roughly into three factions," he said after a moment. "Perhaps only two if this matter with the Hashim-with Taiya and her cousins-can be resolved."

Hala and her servants reached the gate at the back of the great house. A number of Tanukh were loitering around the gateway, sitting or standing in the shade of the great trees that hung over the wall. They were all well armed. One man had a bow leaning against the wall at his side. Mohammed swept his eyes over them with approval-for all their languid air, the desert-riders were alert and wary. Mohammed felt a prickling at the back of his neck and half turned at the gateway. Hala and her servants passed through, but he looked back. Two or three blocks away, a man was standing in the shade of a doorway down the street.

"They watch all the time, Captain."

Mohammed nodded a little, acknowledging the words of the Tanukh at the doorpost. Then he went in. His men remained on their own watch, as they had done since his return from the mountaintop. They, at least, had no concerns for him.

– |"Here, my lord. This is the house of Lady Roxane."

Mohammed pressed a coin into the man's hand and nodded in dismissal. The servant bowed, his long robes draping to the street, and then hurried away with his lantern held high on a pole. The merchant paused a moment, tugging at the collar of his shirt. Hala and her maids had fussed over him for an hour or more, combing his long hair and beard, setting the jacket and embroidered shirt properly on his broad shoulders. There had been a short discussion of dyeing the white streaks out of his beard, but he had overruled them. "I am as I am," he had growled, and they had laughed but relented in their plan.

He frowned and looked both ways on the street-here the avenues of the city were broad, and torches or lanterns burned by each doorway. Still, there was a watching feeling in the air, and a quiet stillness that put him on edge.

"Captain?"

Mohammed nodded to his two escorts. One was the previously wounded Sayyqi, who had escaped the ambuscade near the market with only a long gash down one thigh. The other was Da'ud, who had joined them in the deserts south of ruined Palmyra. Mohammed thought him a bit young for the life of a sand bandit, but he showed promise.

"All right," he said, and mounted the short flight of steps that led up from the street to the deeply recessed door to the house of his daughter. He rapped sharply on the heavy wooden panels of the door. Roxane seemed to have done well; the fittings of the door were brass rather than cheaper iron. Within a grain, the door swung open and two servants with very dark faces bowed deeply to him.

"Please inform the lady of the house that her father is here," Mohammed said, stepping into the small boxlike atrium at the door. The servants bowed again, and one scurried away. The two Tanukh came in, hands light on their sword hilts. Mohammed moved away from the door and took a deep breath.

He had not seen Roxane in almost six years. She had been sent away to live with a foster family in the southern city of Abha and when she had returned, he had been in India trading for rubies. When he had returned, she had already been married to a cousin-Sharaf, of the Al'Qusr clan of the Bani Hashim-and gone from her mother's house. He realized with a pang of sorrow that he would not recognize her if he passed her on the street.

Have I been away so much?

The inner doors opened, and other servants beckoned them into the great hall at the center of the house. Fine draperies and tapestries covered the walls, which were hung to make the hall seem like a great desert tent. A walkway had been cleared on the floor, showing polished slate tiles that led between divans and rugs. Mohammed strode quickly forward, passing marble statues and chests of rosewood. At the middle of the hall, steps rose up to a deck. A young woman waited on the platform, her hands demurely folded, dressed in a rich gown of red and burnt orange. A chain of light gold links held a whisper of silk across her nose and chin. Mohammed bowed before her, one hand pressed to his heart.