The Dragon and the Djinn Read online

  The server went off; but his place was almost immediately taken by Baiju, who sat down next to Jim on a cushion in the niche where they were seated, and drew his legs up in cross-legged position. He reached out and helped himself from their bowl of food.

  It was only after he had taken a mouthful and eaten it that he looked at Jim and Brian.

  "Now what do you plan?" he said to them.

  "The fact is," Jim said, "we're looking for someone who might be here in Palmyra. He—"

  "But swords, first. We must buy ourselves weapons, Mongol. As for telling him about Sir Geoffrey, you need not bother, James," said Brian. "I have already told Baiju about our search."

  "When did you do that?" asked Jim.

  "Oh, one of the times in the caravan, when you were talking with that wordy fellow ibn-Tariq—or should I call him a gentleman?" said Brian.

  He looked at Baiju, who was industriously eating.

  "Was he a gentleman?"

  Baiju shrugged and took another handful of food.

  "In any case I told Baiju what Sir Geoffrey would look like," said Brian, "in case he should see him. You have not seen him, I take it?"

  He was still looking at Baiju, who shook his head and went on eating.

  "We are at something of an impasse," Brian told him. "Leave the food alone for a moment, if you please, Mongol, and give us your attention. There is reason to believe that he is in this town; but we have no idea of how to go about searching for him."

  "Look!" said Baiju, pausing only briefly as far as feeding himself went, and staring at Jim and Brian. "Look—and ask to see if anyone else has seen him."

  "We just did," said Jim. "We asked the server here who brought us this food. He said that if there was someone like that in Palmyra, he would know it because those who pass through here on caravans and by other means usually stop and eat here; and the word gets out of any strangers in the land."

  Baiju gave a momentary short sound that was somewhere between a cough and a laugh.

  He looked around the room, and focused on the server who was busy with some people in another niche a quarter of the circle around.

  "Come!" shouted Baiju.

  In the other niches, the men in flowing robes eating there stopped, looked at him, looked at each other and spoke to each other in low tones which were unintelligible to Jim and Brian sitting in the booth, but which were pretty clearly—judging by the hand gestures and the facial expressions—either shocked or contemptuous statements about Baiju's manners. The server deliberately kept on doing what he was doing for a few moments, as if he had not heard, then turned and almost ran across the room to Baiju, all smiles.

  "My master called?" he asked.

  "Tell me," said Baiju abruptly, "are there any Frankish slaves in Palmyra?"

  "Assuredly, there are, master," said the server. "But how many, or to whom they belong, I could not tell you. Who keeps track of slaves?"

  "You told me there were no Franks in Palmyra," said Jim.

  "So I did, master," said the server. "But slaves—"

  He shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands.

  "We are looking for a Frankish slave, then, taller than you by a hand placed sideways," snapped Brian, "with graying hair that has gone halfway back on the head, and a small mustache which is perhaps pure white. It could be that he is beardless and that the hair is white. But he is not old and feeble, but still upright and strong, with blue eyes and a scar across a corner of his chin and jaw. He will have other scars as well, but this is the most notable one. Have you seen such a slave?"

  "I have not, O master," said the server. "I could ask those who pay attention to such things if they know of any such? Perhaps in a day or so I would hear."

  "He will reward thee," said the Mongol. "It will not be a great reward. But it will be a certain one if you have found the slave I speak. Do you understand?"

  "Indeed, understanding comes clear to me, O generous and beneficent master," said the server, salaaming. "Is there any other thing I can do for you?"

  "Yes," said Baiju, "bring us more of what was in this bowl."

  "Yes, master," said the server. He took the empty bowl and hurried off.

  Baiju leaned back against the padded wall of the niche. He sighed contentedly, looked at Jim and Brian and belched.

  Brian had grown accustomed to this eastern way of expressing satisfaction with the meal. Jim had learned to control his face at this, but he still winced inside; even though he knew that here it was a way of saying, "That tasted good!"

  Baiju grinned at them, a fierce and sardonic but undeniably humorous grin.

  "Ibn-Tariq is here," he said. "I caught sight of him earlier in the day, before you were down."

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Both Jim and Brian stared at him.

  "The caravan is in?" said Jim.

  "No," said Baiju. "Yet he is here."

  "How could he be?" said Jim, remembering how they had pushed their camels for long hours during the day, snatched a little food and sleep and gone on again day after day, to the limit of their endurance.

  "I do not know," said Baiju. The server brought a new bowl of food and Baiju dug into it.

  "I do not know," he said again, after eating a couple of mouthfuls. "It is barely possible—his camels were good, possibly as good as ours—and if he started not two days after you had been taken, as we did, but at once. If he started as the sun came up, or before, with one camel, alone but taking enough food and water. If he did that and knew the way well, it is just possible a house-dweller could be here by this time. In any case, here he is. I saw him buying a headdress in the souk. He did not see me."

  "Did he look like a man who'd pushed himself to the limit, when you saw him?" Jim asked.

  "Do I?" said Baiju sardonically. "If he could make such a trip, he could be able to travel even as I do. Do not judge the world by yourself."

  "Let us go to this same merchant he visited in the souk," said Brian, "and examine his wares. Mayhap in conversation we can discover from him something he may have learned about ibn-Tariq; such as where he is lodging here in Palmyra, and even perhaps the reason for his hurrying to this place. Furthermore, it was in the souk here that Sir Geoffrey, my lady's father, was seen by the knight who brought news to her of catching sight of him. So, we ourselves might be lucky enough to catch sight of him. It may be he is no slave but a merchant, or someone concerned with one of the merchants of the souk, but hiding the fact he is an Englishman. He will be changed, perhaps—it has been over six years now—but he cannot have changed so much that I will not recognize him."

  "Well enough," said Baiju. "I will eat some more here, and then we will go."

  "Fine," said Jim. "In that case, I'm going to step upstairs and get that small friend you know of, Brian. I want to bring him along with us."

  Baiju had stopped chewing on his latest mouthful and was staring at Jim. Jim ignored him.

  "Is that wise, James?" said Brian.

  "It is, if he has to act in an emergency." He looked hard at Brian to remind him of the fact that Hob was with them to carry word home on the smoke at high speed, to tell both Geronde and Angie if anything happened to them. Brian frowned, then slightly nodded.

  "As you will," he said. He looked back at the second bowl, which still contained a fair amount of food. "I might have a bite or two more myself, while I'm waiting."

  Jim went upstairs. He had already decided that about the only way to manage things would be to wear the cloak that had the secret pouch for Hob on his shoulders and at the back of his neck—the same cloak he had worn with the caravan, and had in fact been sleeping in when he was captured. If he was going to be hot anyway, he might as well have Hob with him. Then if anything happened to them, the hobgoblin would be along to know of it.

  It was fortunate, he told himself now, that Hob had not been in the cloak at the time he and the Assassin had rolled over and over down the stony hillside. Hob would have been squashed. But then Hob must
have been in his favorite spot, lying on top of the smoke of the fire in front of their tent.

  The cloak, he decided now, looking at it up in their room, and he was once more tempted to use his magic to control the temperature inside the cloak, so that he would be comfortable.

  But no, better he just toughed it out. Carolinus had never given any advice yet that had not turned out to be important. He reminded himself hopefully that the cloak would hide the chain mail he was wearing, not only from public view but from the direct rays of the sun, which might otherwise heat up the metal links to make matters even more uncomfortable.

  "Hob," he said, before picking up the cloak where he had left it, "you're back in your pouch there?"

  "Yes, m'lord," Hob's voice came back.

  "All right," said Jim. "I'm going to put the cloak on and we'll be going out to go through the souk—that's a sort of market they have down here. Do you still have that special tinder? And do you remember the magic word I gave you to say to make it light up and create smoke, so that you ride the smoke right out of the pouch and be out of people's reach before they even know you're there?"

  "Yes m'lord," said Hob. "And I remember the magic word to light the tinder very well. It's—"

  "Don't say it!" said Jim hastily, and a little more loudly than he had intended. He lowered his voice. "That's only to be used if you need to hurry home to the Lady Angela with word Brian and I are in serious trouble. The minute you say the word, that tinder is going to kindle; and you'll be in a pouchful of smoke."

  "I'd like that," said Hob.

  "Yes," said Jim, "but you realize that once you've used it you won't have any other way of making smoke in a hurry if trouble crops up."

  "Oh," said Hob. "Very sorry, m'lord."

  "That's all right. Just remember the word is for emergencies only," said Jim. "I'll try to call out your name when the time comes you should go. But if for some reason whatever happens to us doesn't give me a chance to, then it'll be up to you to decide when to make your smoke and start back for England as fast as you can."

  "I'll watch everything very carefully," said Hob. "Is it all right, then, if I peek out of the pouch, or ride on your shoulder? Somebody said something to you about my being taken for a monkey, I think they said, if they saw me here."

  "I suppose it'll be all right," said Jim. "But if you can see by peeking, I'd like that better. After all, I'd just as soon not have anyone know that there's anyone riding with me."

  "Yes, m'lord," said Hob.

  Jim put on the cloak and went down. The second bowl was empty; and both Brian and Baiju seemed in a good humor. Jim paid for their meal—there was evidently nothing such as putting your meals on your hotel bill in this place—and they sallied forth.

  The souk, Palmyra's open-air market, occupied what must have been the location of the chief Sanctuary of Palmyra at one time; now, in this fourteenth century, the remains of the Roman architecture were generally buried by an accumulation of dirt and filth. In the time of Jim's original world, he remembered reading once, a French expedition of archaeologists had uncovered four porticoes and a ritual basin plus a large altar for sacrifices as well as other pieces of architecture in this area.

  Certainly, at the present moment there was nothing architecturally remarkable about it. Most of the shops were half-tent and half-shack, and the lanes between them wandered like trails in the wilderness, barely broad enough for three people to walk abreast.

  The one thing the shops all had in common was an opening fronting on the lane that passed them, in which samples of their wares were displayed. Baiju led the way, first to a weapons shop, where they did not seem to have swords but offered long and heavy knives almost as large. For want of anything else, both Brian and Jim bought one, plus scabbards, and sashes to go around their waist and hold the scabbards.

  Next Baiju took them to a shop that had both headwear and other items of clothing ready-made, plus bolts of cloth.

  "What is this?" Baiju demanded of the shopkeeper, a blocky, not unkindly-looking man with a graying mustache and a striped headdress.

  "It is the finest silk from beyond the Great Wall in the far, Far East," said the shopkeeper.

  Baiju dropped the silk as if he had discovered it was suddenly unclean.

  "It is Egyptian silk," he said flatly. "I had a friend who bought a headdress from you this morning, and spoke of silk this color. I would have been interested if it had indeed been silk from beyond the Great Wall, or even the silk of Hind."

  "Allah pity me!" said the shopkeeper, wringing his hands. "And I bought it believing it to be the true Eastern silk. How will I ever recoup the great amount I paid for it?"

  "By finding some other idiot who cannot tell Egyptian silk from the Eastern cloth," said the Mongol. "How else? But I see my coming has been wasted, as another friend of mine from whom I would buy knows silk—though not as I do. He believed you had better stuff than this."

  "I have indeed some better silks—silk that would ravish your soul if you knew the true materials," said the shopkeeper. "It is in the back of my shop. But do you truly wish to buy? I would not expose it to the light before one who was not serious about buying."

  "How can a man know if he wishes to buy until he has seen what is for sale?" said the Mongol.

  "This silk is very carefully wrapped and protected and deep under other piled goods of great value. It would be some labor to get to it. A shopkeeper cannot go to such trouble for any not serious."

  "Ho, as for buying," said Baiju, waving a hand at Jim, "the buyer is here with me. I have come with him merely because I know silk. But he is interested in many things, and silk was only one of them. If it is too much labor for you to find this fine silk of yours, undoubtedly we can find some elsewhere in the souk; and meanwhile he can be gaining information and possibly buying other things which he wishes."

  "Indeed?" said the shopkeeper. "What might these other things be?"

  "They are too numerous to mention. But perhaps you might point the way for us to the slave market. He has a fancy to buy a Frankish slave. Being a Frank himself, and being able to indulge his wishes, he prefers to have Frankish slaves only around him."

  "Alas," said the merchant. "There is no slave market today. There will be one in a few days, perhaps. But Frankish slaves are not normally found in Palmyra."

  "Yet my other friend, the one who bought the headdress from you," said Baiju, "spoke of seeing a Frankish slave here in the souk. He saw him for only a moment before he was lost in the crowd, but recognized him immediately for what he was."

  "I know of no Frankish slaves about the souk, or in Palmyra at all," said the shopkeeper. "It may be that those with much wealth might have one or two. But the price would probably be very high. Is he indeed willing to pay such a price?"

  "He cannot know that until he sees the slave," said Baiju.

  "Such a slave is merely a curiosity, of course," said the shopkeeper, "but I do not think one would ever come cheaply. The price would be much more even than that for my finest silk."

  "Price is not the problem if the slave is what he wants," said Baiju. "The problem is that he is staying but a few days only in Palmyra; and then he will be traveling on. It is a pity you do not know of any Frankish slave. He would be grateful to one who could direct him to finding one, particularly one that was for sale."

  "What is not for sale?" said the shopkeeper. "But, if the owner has little intention of selling, of course, the price may be—possibly I could be of help in getting him a better price. I am, of course, a merchant in cloths only, and slaves are of no interest to me. Still, I hear things, and I know the ways of those who buy and sell here. It is just possible that before he leaves I might hear of such a slave. If so, perhaps I could get word to him. It would be an effort, of course, on my part and I would welcome his gratitude for my finding such a slave for him."

  "I am sure that he would not forget gratefulness in such a case," said Baiju. "If you should hear something, and if it sho
uld lead to what he wants, and if the purchase was practical, certainly the matter of his gratitude will be something he and you can discuss between yourselves when the time comes."

  "Certainly—" the shopkeeper was beginning, when the attentions of all of them were suddenly attracted to a hubbub that had broken out at some distance down the lane between shops. It was enough of a distance, and there were too many people crowded around, for them to see exactly what was happening, but voices were being raised, and even sticks were being waved.

  Without warning, a figure broke through the crowd of people and ran toward them down the lane. All those in his way hastily got out of it, and the mob he had momentarily left behind tore after him, all but catching up with him and striking out at him with sticks. Only a few of the blows got home, but they kept him running; and in a moment he was up to the shop where Jim and the others stood, level with them and gone on, and there was a jostling, shouting and screaming crowd filling the lane in pursuit of him.

  But in that instant, Jim had a momentary glimpse of a tall, brawny man with black eyebrows and black mustache and the sleeve of his nearer arm torn completely off, showing some unsightly disfiguration, which could have been a scar, running almost from wrist to elbow, or a wide, grayish-white rash. His face, glimpsed for a moment, was white and staring, his mouth half open as if he was screaming; but if he was, he could not be heard over the noise of the crowd on his heels.

  "Allah protect us," said the shopkeeper, "it is Albohassan Karasanij, the Persian—the leather-seller. It has been suspected for some weeks past now that he might bear the curse of leprosy secretly among us. He has sworn that he was only subject to boils; but someone must at last have torn off part of his garment to make sure."

  He cast a glance up the lane in the opposite direction, then shrugged his shoulders and brought his gaze back to meet those of Brian, Baiju and Jim.

  "Those with the shops on either side of him will have gained all his goods by this time," he said with a touch of regretfulness in his voice. "It is the will of Allah. Now, what else would please you?"

  "I think that's all," said Jim. He wanted to get away from here.