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We entered a quieter area of the bimaristan, where three rows of old bookshelves teetered in the middle surrounded by desks and chairs in Roman fashion. There was a window at the far end where Samir Ali and some aides argued over a wide paper laid out before them. Samir Ali shook his head tiredly as the others tried to convince him of something.

“We shouldn’t interrupt,” I said but Rabia marched up to the crowd and they quieted.

“Rabia!” Samir Ali beamed and the aides scattered away like hamsters disturbed. Only the aide that was arguing stood his ground against the slave-woman.

“I’m not scared of you Rabia,” said the aide. He turned back to Samir Ali and tried to ignore her.

“Why would you be scared of me, Usman?” said Rabia.

“We are talking, sister.”

“It’s alright, Usman,” Samir Ali tried to calm the situation before it got worse, “Let’s go with what you suggest, I’ll let Khwaja know.”

Usman crossed his arms, “Is that your honest opinion?”

“No, but that woman behind you just killed a Tuqtuq, and I rather not keep her waiting.”

Usman glanced back at Rabia uncomfortably, then sighed and quickly gathered his things. “We need you to be with us on this, Brother Muhtiz.”

“We will see,” replied Samir Ali and let the aide stalk away back to his desk where the other aides had gathered. Samir Ali turned back to us, “If you’re going to be staying here, Rabia, you can’t keep disappearing when I come looking for you. Khwaja’s half a mind to just give you back to Abu Mateen if you’re not going to leave. And the rest of—”

“Well I’m here now, you wanted to talk?”

“Munqidh!” Samir Ali noticed me standing by the shelves. A part of me recoiled at his gaze, inching to hide further behind the shelf. “And look, you dragged Munqidh out of his bed too. Both of you need to be resting after what you went through. It’s only been a day, for God’s sake.”

I mustered the courage to step forward; tried to smile but it was hard. Munqidh… he sees me as Munqidh, I reminded myself.

Rabia snapped back, “The aides know what I did, who else knows about last night?”

“Just us and the Atabeg, and probably the Emir when he comes back. They don’t care as much as you think.”

“Who’s us?”

“The bimaristan, Rabia. Don’t worry, no one in town knows. I’d be more worried about one of Abu Mateen’s maidservants running into you in the laundry square.”

“I was only there for a bit.”

“Word spreads quick, I won’t surprised if he already knows you’re here.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rabia replied shortly. “What about last night? Aren’t your aides already spreading news of the Tuqtuq so close to town?”

“Khwaja has ordered everyone to keep quiet about you two. But that’s besides the point, Rabia,” Samir Ali said. The aide sighed tiredly then added quietly, “I don’t get you, Rabia. What are you still doing here if you ran away from your master? There was a caravan leaving just yest—”

“You have other things to worry about,” Rabia said, trying to change the subject, “Like helping this aimless footman,” she gestured towards me.

“Munqidh,” Samir Ali said as I stepped out from behind the shelves. “I need your help with something.”

“Anything,” I replied.

“Yes, please put him to work,” Rabia said, half-amused. “You’re worried about me when the women are already talking about the lost cavalier wandering the streets like a sad dog.”

“I’m not a cavalier,” I replied quickly. I may have been once, and given my Damascene steel, I didn’t blame the townsfolk for asking questions. But I wanted nothing to do with cavalier-ship, Blight hunting or any past Emir I might have served. “I’m not serving anyone. I don’t even have a horse.”

“It’s alright, Munqidh,” Samir Ali said, “if Emir Murtaza was concerned with you, you wouldn’t be here. Khwaja can keep the Atabeg at bay, but the Emir would already be questioning you if he wanted.”

“He wants this war with the Bedouins, doesn’t he?” I asked.

Samir Ali bit his lip, then grabbed my hand and pulled me further away from the aides.

“I know I told you to stay, but maybe it is better you if leave. With Rabia, if possible,” he spared a glance at the slave-woman, who had wandered to the window, watching the alley outside. “Maybe you can find a Blight-doctor on the road and he can check you for the curse, as outlandish as it seems.”

“What about this favor?”

“Oh that’s nothing, Yaseen just needed help with—.”

“Yaseen!” I felt a rush of guilt, I’d forgotten about the boy. “How is he? Where is he?”

“He’s resting with one of the seamstresses. I was hoping you could help him with remediation this evening.”

“Remediation?”

“For the lost farm and cattle the Tuqtuq killed.”

“I will go right now.”

“Let me change your bandages first. Sit.”

“They’re fine so far, I haven’t done much.”

Rabia interrupted, “You’re going to the main square?”

“For Yaseen,” I replied, and yet letting the aide push me down onto the chair. He unfurled the bandages on my forearms with quick, practiced hands.

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“The kitchen needs some onions. I was going to go…” Rabia trailed off at Samir Ali’s sigh, “But I’ll stay, if Munqidh can pick them up from the market.” She looked for the aide’s approval and he nodded.

“Great,” Rabia replied and stuffed a piece of paper in my hand. “Whatever you do, don’t forget the green beans.”

***

The afternoon nap was restful. I woke a bit before evening prayer and not having eaten lunch, my stomach was twisted into a knot. I gathered my belt, cloak and tiptoed out of the bimaristan’s shared room, careful not to step on the sleeping bundles, a couple orphans and elderly alike.

“Who are you!” a maid yelled at me as soon as I entered the hall.

“Just a servant,” I said quickly. “Brother Samir Ali had me sleep in there.”

“Master Al Muhtiz has no servants,” the maid said. Her eyes fell to the scabbard. “Oh, you’re that soldier from the Numayri attack.”

“Yes. I arrived with Sister Rabia.”

The maid still watched me suspiciously as I passed her and into the empty laundry yard. The basin had servants at a few stations but the carding stalls and compartments surrounding the yard were curtained and still.

Someone behind me quickened their gait as I exited the laundry quarter. It was a man in militia uniform. He was terrible at staying out of my sight, stumbling as I turned to eye him down. I figured he was a harmless tail from the Atabeg. He’s the same hashi. The fat bastard who fancies himself a—

“Amjad,” I whispered, the fat bastard who thinks—“Amjad,” I repeated, loud enough to overcome my intrusive thoughts.

There was still time until the evening prayer, so I decided to visit the market, hoping to run into Yaseen. Samir Ali had mentioned the boy would be by the vegetable stalls; with the date-seller, Musa. But the alleyway that I’d entered, turned eastward, slipping behind a row of silent tenements and while it began as a narrow, private pathway, it spilled suddenly into the main market square. I could see the modest citadel on a slope to the north, and in it’s shadow, a two-story coffee-house with cushions splayed out in the open. Local families and their children made for most of the crowd, but the occasional caravaner and their blight guards filtered through. The Muadhin calling the evening prayer had a deep voice that hummed down the quiet square. I checked to see if Amjad was still following and caught him turning the corner. Does he see you as prey?

I slipped into the public latrines, entering to the scent of wet dirt, soap and piss. He’s no threat, but why let this continue? The washing basin was empty, and I chose a stool facing the entrance. The water fountain had no pressure, dribbling out of the waist length pillars and draining back into the basin floor. I washed my hands slowly, the hilt of my sword within a moment’s reach.

Sure enough, the stocky militiaman shuffled into the room nervously, his eyes flicking around and pointedly not resting on me for too long. He’s about to flee. I correctly sensed his instinct as he shifted his weight, trying to casually back out of the room. “Wait,” I called, “Come back.”

“I’m sorry, sayyid, I thought this was—“

“Quiet,” I snapped, and studied him closely. His leather vest didn’t fit him. The tunic was patchy and torn, the stained breeches stuffed into a laborer’s boot; and even those closed shoes seemed like their soles would have holes. “Show me your feet.”

“W-what?”

“Your soles, soldier.”

He raised his foot in a meager attempt, losing his balance, straightening, then raising it again. “Higher,” I said, and the militiaman obeyed quickly. Good, he knows his place.

The soles were fine, cleated with nails poking out at the edges, but otherwise in decent shape. A lazy lout, then. He must not work much.

“The Atabeg wants to speak with me?” I asked and couldn’t keep the bitterness from my voice, “And you’re the one he sent?”

“Yes, sayyid.”

“What do you do?”

“I mind the gate, sayyid.”

I waited for more explanation but none came. He licked his lips, scratched at his scraggly beard and at his sweaty brow, blinking, eying the doorway.

“Tell the Atabeg that this is his chance to speak with me. Tell him he can corner me here, in private. Do you understand?”

His chin wobbled as he nodded. “Sayyid,” he said and scurried out of the room.

Disgusting. I watched the water drip from the pillar, an echoing ripple in the puddle below, a constant ripple, the soft sound of some mumbling so self-pitying against my restlessness and … Disgusting. Disgusting. Disgusting. Why did he treat himself so? Why does he embarrass you? To be nameless is better than that name. A mercy. Anything but that name.

“Munqidh,” I whispered, a lump forming in my throat, followed by the unrelenting urge to push steel into my own heart. I took a breath, a labored gasp that quickly turned into a coughing fit, my throat burning as I retched into the basin. The Atabeg… don’t look weak in front of him.

Shadows passed across the doorway and I straightened, wiping my mouth and washing my face and hands. But the Atabeg didn’t arrive until much later. Until the last bit of light had disappeared and the torches around the square were lit one by one, filling the doorway once again with flitting shadows.

And the stench, the awful stench of piss that hung in the air as the room had no windows and the roof was brick. This building wasn’t meant to be a latrine.

With half a mind to leave, I noticed one of the shadows moving outside grew darker, larger, until a hulking figure stepped into the room. With him drifted a fresh gust of leather and hay and horse manure. The smells calmed me immediately. He’s here.

"Sit,” the Atabeg ordered and I realized that I’d stood up by instinct in front of the cavalier commander. He stepped closer, threw his gloves on the ground beside him and picked a stool across from mine. He washed his sweaty hands in the basin as he measured me up and down, eyes lingering on my sword-belt. “Footman?”

I nodded, “Yes, sayyid.”

“Northerner?”

I shook my head, “Shayzar, but…” Why are you being so honest with him?

“But what?” he asked immediately. His bitter expression and grimace easily betrayed his emotions, but I appreciated his directness. His honesty.

And before I could explain further, he continued, “Look, brother, this is a good place. With good people. We don’t need any troublemakers.”

“They attacked me!” I snapped, “I was there to… help the boy. The Abbasi boy.”

The Atabeg nodded gravely, then stood, tall enough to meet me eye to eye. He had braided hair like mine that fell around his broad shoulders, a rough riding coat fitted to his frame and layered with mail. “You will be leaving soon, yes?”

“Does the Emir want to speak with me as well?”

“He’s not in town. It’s best you leave, brother.”

“The Numayri released a Tuqtuq near the walls, I’m sure I can be of—“

The Atabeg held up a hand and my jaw clenched shut. “We found a dead Numayri on the road. A man that you wounded. Fatally,” he ended the sentence gruffly. There is a threat in there, somewhere.

“But I ordered the body be given back to the Bedouins, before the Emir returns from Hims. It’s best that you leave as well so we can put this entire business behind us. Tack, bags and ropes... understand?” He worked his tight jaw, waiting for the only answer that was expected.

“Yes, Sayyid.”

“Good.” The cavalier commander tried to smile, revealing crooked teeth. “How about a bath, then? Sonu!”

A young ward carrying some towels and linen rushed into the room at the bark. I’d barely noticed him lingering by the doorway. His full attention was to the Atabeg, who snatched a towel out of his hand and offered it to me, sticking it into my chest.

“That’s fine, I must be going back to the bimaristan.”

“The sick house?” the Atabeg said incredulously. “What for?”

I couldn’t really answer the question as I thought of Samir Ali and the kindness he had shown me. The trust and hope that he had for me. It’s too shameful to describe. He wouldn’t understand.

Fortunately, the Atabeg didn’t wait for a response, “the best bathhouse in town is at Abu Mateen’s compound. The Exchange guild-master. You should come. Meet the men.”

“I really must go,” I said, feeling more and more uncomfortable by the second. Why did I feel so unnerved? Everything about this moment seemed wrong. The stench still hanging in the air, the nervous boy gazing up at the Atabeg, entranced. And the way the cavalier’s smile never reached his eyes.

“Fine,” the Atabeg tossed the towel at the youth who, caught off-guard, dropped it on the muddy floor. “Don’t dirty it!”

The Atabeg, possessed by a sudden blinding rage, kicked at the servant boy’s leg, hard enough to procure a yelp and send him to the floor whimpering. More of the linen fell to the ground.

But before the commander could unleash further rage on the poor boy, I jumped in between, rushing to gather the rolls. I helped him up, and oddly enough, with tears still gleaming under his eye, the boy rushed to the Atabeg’s side as the official strode out of the room.

***