Faint music.
Distant laughter.
The smell of perfume… women's perfume.
Damn! I've died and gone to Paradise.
Casca opened his eyes.
Bright lights. Beautifully carved walls. Well, damn. The Muslims had it right after all. Somehow he had died and gone to Paradise, and here he was in the Muslim Paradise, because this was obviously a very, very fancy heavenly whorehouse.
Then reality kicked him in the butt.
Wherever he was, and he had no idea where nor how he had gotten here, it sure as hell wasn't Paradise.
He was stripped buck naked and tied to a marble column in what he recognized now as the anteroom in somebody's very fancy palace, an anteroom apparently very close to the seraglio. Standing around him were half a dozen armed eunuch guards, a snaky-eyed son of a bitch in very rich robes of Chin (obviously somebody of very big importance), Bu Ali, and Mamud.
"… tried to get into the seraglio," Snake-Eyes was saying. "Mamud, such discipline is deplorable."
"My lord-"
Snake-Eyes raised his hand. "Spare me your excuses or apologies. Yesterday was a holy day, and Allah — Blessed be His Name — has filled my soul with mercy and compassion. Even for a Frankish dog. Had this happened tomorrow, when such excess of mercy would have left my soul, I would have taken the utmost pleasure in seeing that the death of this dog be arranged so that the pain would match the severity of the crime. But tonight… ah… tonight… A simple little beheading." Snake-Eyes smiled. "As a matter of fact…" The smile became even greasier, the eyes even more cunning.
The damn fag is crazy, Casca thought.
"As a matter of fact, perhaps not even a beheading. My mercy is great this night. And besides, I do admire the nerve of the Frankish dog. Yet I would not want to encourage another to try the same thing. Killing him is too public a matter. Disappearance, I think. Ah, yes. Disappearance. We will send him to the copper mines of Khorramshahr. There he will be of value to us. And there no one will believe any fantastic story he may tell of trying to slip naked into the Sultan's seraglio."
Sultan! So that's who old Snake-Eyes was.
"My lord-"
Again the Sultan raised his jeweled hand to interrupt Mamud. "I know, Mamud. You have an investment in this piece of Frankish offal. It is not just that you should suffer loss. Therefore, here." He tossed the slaver a small leather purse taken from the folds of his garments. "I am sure this will more than cover the value of this slave."
"You are most generous, my lord."
"Yes. I am, am I not? And you will remember that when you serve us in the future, as you have so well in the past. Now I am bored. Guards! See that the Frankish dog is taken immediately to wherever such slave dogs go."
He turned and walked out of the room.
While the eunuchs were untying him, Casca caught one glimpse of the bemused look in Mamud's eyes.
He smells a rat. Wonder what in Hades this is all about…
Mamud bowed his way out of the Sultan's presence, wondering what game was being played and whether he should report this odd circumstance to Nizam al Mulk. There was definitely something most odd about the whole arrangement. Of course, he did not believe for an instant that Casca had ever even been close to the seraglio.
He never reached the slave barracks, of course. Outside the Sultan's palace Bu Ali had three of his Mamelukes, and they took custody of Casca from the eunuchs. At one point Mamud apparently started to say something to Casca but thought better of it. He had liked Kasim, but he knew it was much too risky and foolhardy to interfere in the plans of the Sultan. After all, Kasim was only a slave, a good one, but a slave nonetheless. He left, going alone down the street in the opposite direction to that taken by Bu Ali, the Mamelukes, and Casca.
Now, what…
Bu Ali had halted the group at the entrance to a dark alley. He motioned, and one of the Mamelukes took a sack from his shoulders and approached Casca.
"Kasim…" Bu Ali's voice was low. "Put on this clothing."
The other two Mamelukes untied him, apparently not caring whether he tried to escape or not. They merely stood silently while Casca dressed in the darkness of the alley entrance.
"Wait," Bu Ali ordered.
Some minutes later a cart pulled by a single mule came slowly down the street and stopped by the group. Bu Ali came close to Casca and said, his voice low: "Kasim, they will wrap you in a carpet, and you will go on a journey. No, it is not to the copper mines of Khorramshahr. It is to a higher destiny that Allah calls you. There will be a caravan. Go in peace. Do not let yourself be discovered."
Suddenly he embraced Casca, holding both arms around him. "Nu salam aleikom — Peace be with you." Then he added softly, "Brother."
It was not the most comfortable journey even though just before they rolled him into the carpet one of the Mamelukes had handed Casca a small pot of gummylike substance and said, "Eat this. It will still the pain."
Like thickened honey. Bittersweet. Odd. Casca had eaten this stuff, not really wanting to know what the hell it was. He had a strange feeling of not really giving a damn about anything. His head, which should have hurt, if not from the blow on it earlier, at least from the hangover the young Arab's "wine" had brought on, had no feeling whatsoever. In fact, he felt light all over, like he was slipping in and out of dreams. Somewhere in the back of his brain was the leftover crumbs of a dream where this same bittersweet "candy" had been forced into his mouth. A dream? Or a memory? Somehow it did not matter. There were a lot of things that didn't matter. Like, had he ever gotten to bed Miriam or not? And the Sultan's palace. Shit! He couldn't have been stoned enough to try that. And the Sultan himself. Was that little queer really Malik Shah, third, and so far the greatest of the Seljuk rulers? But if he was a fag, what the hell was he doing with a harem? These thoughts and others like them bubbled through Casca's mind. And in between them he slept. Rolled up in the darkness of the carpet, he really didn't know what was happening to him, where he was being taken, how long it would take. When he was awake it was like a dream. When he slept there was only a silent darkness, peaceful as the death forbidden to him.
Hassan al Sabah came personally to inspect this unexpected "Novice." He had not yet decided how he would react to Bu Ali taking matters into his own hands. Such a thing was not to be tolerated. Yet
… an intuitive sense of opportunity smoldered in the back of his brain. Like all who are touched by the dream of personal greatness, he felt in his heart that the Destiny which had such great things in store for him might bring those things in strange and unusual ways.
Besides, the message from Bu Ali was that this Kasim was "a scar-faced Frank."
A Frank with a scar on his face? Casca Rufio Longinus, the Roman of the Lance, had been scar-faced. What if…? He stared thoughtfully at the rolled-up carpet.
"Unroll him," he ordered.
Casca awoke to see an eagle-beaked old Arab staring into his eyes. Yet he saw the old Arab as kindly, fatherly almost. Immediately Casca liked him. Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a reason for the liking. For a moment the images of old men he had known flickered in his brain… Glam… Shiu Tze… others… He closed his eyes.
Hassan al Sabah was disappointed. No, this could not be Longinus. Scar-faced? There was only a thin one, running the length of a lady's little finger from the side of his right eye to just above his mouth. It gave this Kasim a slightly sinister look… that would probably turn on some seemingly reluctant maid, the Franks being what they are, Hassan thought. He regretted now that he did not know more about Longinus, but certainly if he had been remembered as "the scar-faced one" his scar would have to be much more prominent than this. No, the man on the carpet was not Longinus.
However…
If he could be trained…
Perhaps the time might come when he could be put forward as Longinus…
At the moment Hassan had no full-blown use for such an impostor in his mind. But, on the theory that it might be useful to have such a one on hand, he decided not to have Kasim thrown from the parapet of Castle Alamut into the Bottomless Pit on the west side, which was what he had originally planned to do. After all, if this Kasim was as good a fighter as Bu Ali's message said he was he might prove very, very useful.
Casca stirred, and his eyes opened again.
"Welcome," Hassan said in his most fatherly voice. "Welcome to Castle Alamut, my son."
Bu Ali had called him "brother." Now this eagle-faced one called him "son." Shit! Casca thought, I don't know whether I'm ready for this family business or not…