Chapter 2 #4
She folded her hands neatly over her lap. “My granddaughter was kidnapped. I need you to get her back.”
There was a waiting look on her face as if my sole duty in life was dealing with stolen granddaughters. Which I should clarify
is untrue. Kidnappings have never been my specialty—either the taking or the returning. I have tried the taking, but no ransom
is worth listening to the whining complaints of trussed-up rich folk.
Yet intrigue stalked me, and I hated myself for becoming its prey. “Kidnapped?” I repeated.
“Yes, kidnapped. Two months ago tomorrow.” The first hint of a crack appeared in Salima’s flinty eyes. She worried the hem
of her shayla, crumpling the fine fabric in her fingers. “She was taken from our home in the middle of the night.”
“Do you not have guards?”
“Of course I have guards: you just met them. But her kidnappers managed to avoid detection.”
Damn, maybe killing the men in the courtyard would be easier than I thought. “How old is she?”
Her expression softened. “Sixteen.”
Sixteen. A child, aye, still in the flush of girlhood. It struck too close, and for a moment, I thought of my daughter snatched
by strangers in the dark. I imagined her screaming for me, scared out of her mind. I forced the thought away, into that awful
corner of a parent’s mind where dwell the incomprehensible fates you know would destroy you if made real. This granddaughter
was not my concern. But given how determined Salima had been in tracking me down, I thought it best to let her speak.
“Have you had any word?” I asked. “Any demands?”
“No.” Hatred bloomed in Salima’s face. “But I know who took her.”
“Who?”
“Falco Palamenestra.” She all but spat the name. If it was a name, because it sounded like foreign nonsense to me, and I speak
a half-dozen languages.
“Balamanatrah?” I repeated.
“ Palamenestra . He is a Frank, God curse them. A former mercenary.”
“A Frank ?” I was not unaware of the wars raging in the north, but I’d never heard of any of the Franks making their way to our lands.
“Here?” I asked, flabbergasted. “Did he get extremely lost on his way to Palestine?”
“No. He made it to Palestine but apparently after fighting for both sides—a fact he was quite proud of—it is personal treasure he desires now. He has been traveling the coast, seeking any rare items he can get his hands on.”
I frowned in confusion. “How do you know all this?”
“Because he sought me out. My family...” The noblewoman paused, seeming to choose her next words with care. “We are fortunate
to own a great many artifacts and unique texts from an earlier age. We are normally loath to part with them. But occasionally
when the right buyer comes along—”
“You really charged into my home calling me a pirate and yet were willing to sell family heirlooms to some Frankish mercenary?”
I nodded rudely at her jewels. “You do not appear hard-pressed for money.”
Salima’s mouth tightened into an indignant line. “I had no idea who he was. He had a local agent set up the audience under
an assumed name, and when I realized he was not only a Frank, but a madman, I had him thrown out.” Her voice turned bitter.
“I should have had him arrested.”
“Why didn’t you? Wouldn’t someone in a position of authority want to know a Frankish mercenary was sniffing around Aden?”
Granted, I had not kept up on politics during my retirement—I generally operate under the principle that all politicians are
corrupt, lying dogs—but I did have a foggy idea that the rulers of Aden hated Franks. Or were allied with people who hated Franks. Or perhaps had yet to
strike a business partnership with the Franks advantageous enough to be worth forgetting the Muslim blood shed during their
incursions. Like I said, I don’t think highly of politicians. At least we pirates are honest about our goals.
Salima sniffed. “I realize respectability might not rank high in your world, but surely you can understand me not wanting
to bring news that I had entertained a possible Frankish spy interested in the occult items my ancestors were fond of hoarding
to the attention of the authorities.”
The ancestors sounded fascinating, but no matter. “I take it he wants those items as a ransom for your granddaughter?”
“No. As I said there has been no demand for ransom. There... there has been no contact at all.”
“Then what makes you certain he kidnapped her? She might have simply run away.”
“She would never run away,” Salima said adamantly. “Dunya is a good girl. She was happy at home.”
“Happy sixteen-year-olds are rarer than just kings.” I sighed. “Sayyida, it has been two months without word? Without anyone
seeing where she went? I do not mean to suggest this lightly, but if he took her in revenge—”
“She is not dead.”
I waited, but Salima did not elaborate on her words, and that itself spoke volumes. In a world such as ours, where disease
steals away the healthy with little warning and princes play out violent dreams of power with our blood, we rarely speak with
such certainty. We invoke God’s mercy, couch our hopes and fears with prayer and faith, often the only things we can rely
on.
But would I not speak the same if it were Marjana? I would burn down the world to save my daughter, keelhaul any who would
hurt her, and do it all until I knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was no longer with us.
Then I’d kill everyone.
“You are clearly well resourced,” I said more gently. “Have you asked the governor—”
Salima instantly stiffened. “No. Not the governor. I-I dare not. My husband is dead, and I have no one I trust to press my
claim discreetly. If the truth got out, it could ruin Dunya’s life.”
“It might save her life,” I argued, but Salima looked only more stubborn. God save me from nobles and their daft ideas of
honor. “To clarify, you came all the way from Aden to badger a retired bandit into investigating a kidnapping you have no
proof occurred at the hands of man who has not claimed it. Sayyida, I am sympathetic. I truly am. But I am not in the business
of rescuing—”
“You find things,” Salima interrupted. “And more important... you get away . People still trade stories of the wily Amina al-Sirafi. The Chinese envoys who fell asleep on their grand junk to wake up
drifting in dinghies, their ship and cargo gone. The treasury at Cambay, plundered under the eyes of at least a dozen soldiers...”
A little desperation swept her face, and there it was again, the odd sense I’d seen her features before. “Please. I can pay
you handsomely.”
“I do not need your money.”
She looked pointedly around at my creaking, crumbling reception room. A few of the rushes I’d used to mend the roof had fallen
through the ceiling, creating a damp bird’s-nest-like clump on the floor. The dripping of the leak was softer, but only because
the water was now high enough to absorb the blow.
“With all respect, nakhudha... you do not appear to have found great fortune in your retirement.”
I glowered. “I do not need more enemies . You gave me a list of people who would rejoice at the sight of my body hanging in Aden’s bay and I am to add a Frankish
mercenary to the lot?” I picked up the tray Marjana had brought and stood, meaning to dismiss her. A stab of pain went through
my right knee; the ghost of an old injury reminding me of my age in case I was getting any fanciful ideas.
“Surely you could ask around,” Salima persisted, her voice cracking. “Falco mentioned having a ship. He would have needed
sailors, no? Your class of people. Could you at least come with me to Aden? Ask your compatriots if they know anything?”
“I cannot get involved,” I insisted, the heartbreak in her eyes nagging at my soul. “I am sorry, truly. But I would be endangering
the lives of my own family if I returned to that world.”
Salima grabbed my sleeve. “And what if you never had to worry about that world again? If I paid you enough to start a new life for your family, a more financially stable one?”
I shook my head. “There is no amount—”
“A million dinars.”
The tray clattered to the ground. I was not even aware of dropping it, the inconceivable number Salima had uttered sending
my head into a maelstrom.
“You— you cannot have that kind of money,” I stammered. “A million dinars?”
“A million dinars. When you return Dunya safely,” Salima added more firmly. “I will liquidate every one of my family’s assets if necessary.”
By the Most High. I took a deep breath, my heart racing. A million dinars was a life-changing sum. My family would never have
to worry about money again. My great-grandchildren would never have to worry about money again. We could buy an estate somewhere far away and the staff and guards to keep it.
And Marjana...
Marjana would never have to worry about money. About a leaky roof or her next meal; about security or needing to bow to the
wishes of some rich woman who used her wealth like a cudgel. Even after I was gone. No matter how long she might live.
No matter what she might become.
Salima must have seen the temptation in my expression. She pressed further. “Surely you realize the money is not all you might
win. Falco has been plundering for years; he must have his own treasures. I am not a pirate, nakhudha, and have no interest
in stolen loot, only Dunya’s safe return. Whatever you recover would be yours.”
A million dinars and an entire ship of plunder. As if a cruel taunt, a breeze played through the narrow window, smelling sweetly of the ocean.
God, it had been so long since I had been at sea. The prospect of standing on the Marawati again, of spilling riches before the awed eyes of my crew while making this Frank rue the day he had ventured south and taken
one of our girls... It was tempting. It was tantalizing .
It was me. For I have always had a gambler’s soul, finding prizes tinged with risk utterly irresistible. But my gambler’s soul had gotten
innocent men killed. My gambler’s soul was now so heavy with crimes that God would have to be most merciful indeed if I was
to escape hellfire.
“I cannot,” I said hoarsely.
Salima stared at me for a long moment before her expression shifted. “You have not asked his name.”
The change in topic threw me. “What?”
She hesitated another moment, like someone forced to play a pawn they had wished to hold back. “My son who served on your
ship, the one who wrote about you. You have not asked his name.”
No, I suppose I hadn’t; though in my defense, “Frankish bandits have kidnapped my granddaughter and I’ll pay a wealthy kingdom’s
annual revenue to get her back” had been rather distracting. “What is his name?”
Salima’s gaze did not leave my face. “Asif al-Hilli.”
And there it was.
I sucked in a breath. I should have known this change in tack was a trap, and yet not even I was so talented a liar to steel
my reaction. Asif . A decade later, his name was still a blow. God, no wonder Salima looked familiar.
“I take it you remember him,” Salima said stiffly.
“Aye.” I struggled to compose myself. “So Dunya... she is his daughter?”
“Yes.”
Oh, Asif, you bastard . “I-I did not know. He never spoke of a daughter.”
She drew back in obvious hurt. “I suppose ignoring our existence made it easier for Asif to run off to sea.”
At the charge, a tug of old loyalty sparked in me. “The home Asif spoke of was not a happy one, Sayyida. Your husband—”
“My husband is dead.” Salima was trembling now, not bothering to hide her grief. “And Asif was not a child when he left us. He was a married man with responsibilities. His wife died when Dunya was a toddler. I have raised her ever since.”
Dunya. The story had been easier to bear when she remained a stranger. A tragedy, no doubt, but tragedies happen. Now she
was Asif’s daughter. An orphaned girl left fatherless—at my hand.
You owe it to him to chase down a few contacts . It is the least you could do. And honestly, I doubted some Frank could have swept into Aden, stolen a noble girl, and sailed off for parts unknown without
people noticing. My kind of people, as the Sayyida had so tactlessly pointed out.
“I am old,” I said, reminding myself as much as Salima. “Too old for these sorts of adventures.”
She lifted her chin. “I’ve two decades at least on you.”
“I am retired. I have no ship, no crew...”
“There is no way that the Amina al-Sirafi of my son’s letters has rid herself of her ship.”
Perceptive old bat. “Sayyida...”
“Please. You are my last hope.” Salima suddenly looked frailer, which was worse than if she had reverted to threatening me;
I hate seeing women reduced to such straits. Asif’s ragged letters shivered between her fingers.
I cleared my throat. “Let me see those letters.”
Salima handed them over. I took the letters and walked to the corner of the reception room where the sunlight was brightest.
Asif’s mark at the bottom was instantly familiar, as was his neat, looping handwriting. My own writing is awful, and he’d
been a good scribe.
He had wanted to be so much more than a scribe. He had wanted so, so much; the kind of wanting that is dangerous. The kind of wanting that draws predators like blood in the water draws sharks.
“His letters—” Salima spoke up. “Just before he died, they got... stranger...” She trailed off, probably hoping I would fill in the rest: that I would have answers to the questions that must have plagued her for the past decade.
But there is no power in this world that will make me tell Asif al-Hilli’s mother what really happened to him.
I should have turned her away. To this day, I do not know my own heart enough to understand what drove my response. Was it
the unexpected chance to seize one last adventure and win riches that would secure Marjana’s shaky future? To do right by
the family of the young man I doomed? To avoid Salima’s wrath and being turned over to a list of enemies?
I suspect only God knows. And perhaps, on the Day of Judgment, I shall too.
Tossing down the letters belonging to the friend whose soul I lost forever, I looked his mother in the eye. “I will give you
four months. You have presented me with extraordinarily little to go on, and I will not chase rumors forever. Four months
and a hundred thousand dinars, regardless of whether I am successful. I expect ten thousand dinars to be paid to my family
before I leave and an additional ninety thousand if I learn where Dunya is being held. If I return her, I get the rest.”
It was a ludicrous counteroffer. I could lie, claim the girl was being held anywhere, and vanish with a hundred thousand dinars.
Perhaps I even hoped Salima would turn me down and quash the dangerous dreams swirling in my heart.
She did not. “Four months, nakhudha. I will hold you to that.”