Chapter 6 #2
I made no move toward the bag. “I cannot. I am fermenting apricots in there. Best cure for gas, but if you expose them to
air too early—wait!” I cried as the second man reached for his baton, clearly meaning to beat me into obedience. “ Fine .”
I opened the bag. Nestled inside were two large, dark, sticky bricks of compressed herbs and resin.
The pox-marked soldier inhaled. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Sweets for my grandchildren,” I lied. “Best halwa around.”
“If that is halwa, I am the sultan of Iram,” the other officer remarked. “I thought it smelled like hashish.”
“But it’s so dark,” his fellow officer mused, picking up one of the bricks and bringing it to his nose. He inhaled with a shudder. “Oh. Oh, my. I bet that’s strong.”
“This is how the rich are said to take their hashish. I heard they dissolve it in sweet wine that they sip from the navels
of dancing girls at their parties.” The officer cut a glance at me. “Is that what you are, then? Some sort of drug runner
for the nobility?”
“I am nothing of the sort,” I said defiantly. “That is fertilizer for my garden. I confused it with the sweets for my grandchildren.”
The man snorted. “Before or after you confused it with the fermenting apricots? You can’t even keep your lies straight. Deceiving
the police, vagrancy, theft, drug running... and here I thought the homicidal pirate would be our only excitement for the
month.”
“Still, perhaps we should try it,” the pox-marked officer suggested. “Just a taste to confirm her story,” he added more hastily.
“It is not hashish!” I sneered. “And if it was... how would a pair of country bumpkins such as yourselves even know? Tell
me, for you have not a hair on the chin between the both of you, have your balls dropped yet? Or did your members, knowing
they would never be inside a woman, not bother to mature thus?”
Their eyes flashed in anger at the crude insult to their manhood. And we all know where this is going, yes? I do not need
to recall the snippy bits of rising invectives that led to the inevitable?
The soldiers tasted the cake.
A sliver had barely passed the lips of the first when he swooned, his eyes going glassy. “I... I do not feel right.”
“I feel amazing,” his fellow whispered. “I feel as though I could fly among the birds and compose a dozen verses and—” His
eyes rolled upward and he crumpled to the floor
The other soldier stared at him, tilted his head, and abruptly keeled over.
Yusuf clasped a hand over his mouth. “God preserve me...” His voice was muffled through his fingers. “Did you just kill them?”
“No. But be silent.” I grabbed one of the soldier’s batons and headed for the door. I pressed my back flat against the wall,
nodding to Dalila.
“Save me!” she cried, hefting up her staff and positioning herself near the doorway leading to the prison cells. “Oh, please
help! She’s gone mad!”
There was a flurry of motion and then the soldier who’d been standing guard outside rushed through the door. He was barely
over the threshold when I cracked the baton over his head and knocked him out. In the next second, I rushed to join Dalila,
but no soldiers emerged from the dark prison.
I waited a long, tense moment and then stepped back. “I think we are alone.”
“ This was your plan?” Yusuf sounded aghast. “What would you have done if they did not taste the cakes?”
I checked the pulse of the man I had knocked out, quickly binding the wound on his head. He would wake with a demon of a headache,
but he likely would wake. “Yusuf, my dear, if I have learned anything in my years of work, it is to never underestimate the
pride of young men. The moment I insulted them, they were going to taste the cakes. And if not? Well”—I held up the baton—“there
are always contingencies.”
“Contingencies,” he repeated weakly, tiptoeing around the cakes as though they might lunge up and hurl themselves into his
mouth. “Do I want to know what is in those?”
“You better not want to know anything.” Dalila glared at him, possessiveness stealing into her voice. “That formula is mine . It took me years to perfect.”
“He’s not going to steal your formula,” I assured Dalila.
“Stay here and keep watch. Search the men and the office and take everything we can carry. Waterskins, weapons, food, and supplies. In that order. Yusuf”—I rooted into one of the soldier’s pockets, pulled out a set of keys, and tossed them to the merchant—“time to free your lover.”
Holding the wooden baton in one hand and an oil lamp in the other, I slipped through the door to the prison block. There were
four cells: cramped places with barely enough room for two people each. That had not stopped the police from cramming in the
twenty or so men making up the Marawati ’s crew into the narrow lockups. Most were curled into tight balls on the floor, some sleeping, others looking dazed with
thirst. A few straightened up when I passed, letting out soft sounds of sluggish surprise.
But I only had eyes for Tinbu. My best friend was not in a cell, he was shackled to the dirty floor at the end of the corridor,
bleeding and alone. He’d been stripped to his waist and flogged, swollen lash marks crisscrossing his skin.
“Tinbu!” Yusuf rushed forward with the keys, swiftly unlocking the manacles around Tinbu’s ankles.
“Yusuf...” Tinbu croaked through cracked lips. “You should not be here.”
“It is all right,” Yusuf replied. “We are here to rescue you.”
Tinbu’s bleary eyes blinked open. “ We? ”
I stepped forward. “We.” I cut through the ropes binding his wrists with the knife the police had been too incompetent to
find sheathed at my thigh. “Good to see you, my friend.”
“Amina,” Tinbu exhaled noisily. “Am I dead? Not even your timing could be this good.”
“So, you do know each other.” Yusuf stiffened. “You might have mentioned being the right hand of the most notorious female
bandit of our time, Tinbu.”
Guilt swept his face. “I was trying to go legitimate.”
“You were just caught with illegal salvage.”
“Yes, but...” Tinbu sat up, grimacing in pain. “I did not kill those men, I swear.”
“Hey!” one of the imprisoned crew members called out. “Hey, lady! Pass over those keys, I beg you!”
“The two of you can hash this out another time,” I hissed under my breath to Tinbu and Yusuf. “What is the shape of the Marawati ? Is she seaworthy? Have you taken on provisions?”
“Provisions, no,” Tinbu replied. “Not really. The water in the cistern is more vinegar than anything and I have no doubt the
soldiers stole our food and anything else they could get their hands on. Seasonal repairs are done, and the ship is seaworthy,
but the sails are tied up and the oars hidden under a false bottom.”
I lowered my voice further. “And the crew?”
“Loyal and disreputable enough to be tempted by whatever you offer.” Tinbu’s bloodshot eyes met mine. “I assume you have something
to offer?”
“I always do.”
Yusuf and I hauled Tinbu to his feet. By now the rest of the crew had awakened, and with our escape appearing imminent came
more pleas alongside a few offers of sexual innuendo that would have to be put down. They pressed themselves to the bars of
the overcrowded cells, their sweaty faces shining in the light of my oil lamp. They were a diverse crew like the majority
that ply these shores, their garments and tongues suggesting homelands in Ethiopia and India, the most southern reaches of
East Africa and north to Aqaba. More were likely of mixed coastal heritage like myself, and around my age as well. There were
a handful of youths and older men, the elders reliably sporting the missing limbs and milky eyes associated with a hard life
at sea and the young ones looking like spry babies.
I had no doubt Tinbu had vetted them carefully. But if I’ve learned anything in my career, it’s that men often respond to
vetting differently depending on whether it is a man or a woman they are supposed to serve.
“Hey. Hey, lady. Big Lady.” It was the first man who had spoken, his Arabic reminding me of Red Sea ports and his garments stained with cooking grease. “Let me out. I will make it worth your while, I swear.”
“Oh, will you?” I handed Tinbu the oil lamp, my friend cringing as I strolled closer to the other man’s cell. “How will you
make it worth my while?”
He gave me a leering smile. “You are a good deal larger than the women I typically go for, but...” His gaze traced down
my body and he leaned close, his teeth gleaming near the bars. “I am certain you still taste—”
I smashed the hilt of my dagger into his mouth. He let out a screech of pain, blood and at least two teeth flying. Before
he could recoil, I grabbed his belt and yanked him against the bars.
I pressed my knife where his legs met. “The first offense costs a tooth. The second, something far dearer. So shut your fucking
mouth and listen to me.” I shoved him back and he fell into a pack of now very wide-eyed and utterly silent sailors.
I paced the cellblock, boldly meeting their eyes and examining them with brusque assessment. “I have little time so I will
make this quick. I am the nakhudha known as Amina al-Sirafi.
You have been crewing on my ship, the Marawati , a task Tinbu says you have performed somewhat competently.
I am in Aden because I need my Marawati —and a crew—to steal something very precious for a rich old woman who has promised to shower all those who take part in the
endeavor with gold.”
“Bullshit.” It was a skinny youth who shrank back when I turned on him. “I mean, respectfully. No one has seen Amina al-Sirafi
in ten years. How do we know you are truly her?” He glanced at Tinbu. “What say you?”
Tinbu bowed his head, knowing better than to talk in my defense. I would not work with anyone who needed a man to speak for
me. “She is my nakhudha,” he said simply.
“And I return for my own,” I added. “But none of you are my men, and truthfully, the smaller the group, the easier it will be to sneak away.” I frowned, as though reconsidering my offer. “Can any of you even row an oared ship?”
There was a moment of hesitation and then they broke.
“ Yes, ” a stout man with a heavy Persian accent said breathlessly. “I have been rowing for years. I know the patterns well and can
teach others.”
“And I am willing to learn!” the skinny youth said quickly. “I’m a great lookout too, best eyes on the ship.”
I clucked my tongue with doubt. “You would need to decide together. That is how my crew does things.”
As you might imagine, the choice between “stay behind to face possible crucifixion for piracy” or “escape with the large,
armed woman promising riches” was not a difficult one. We freed the men swiftly and slipped out, stepping over the crumpled
bodies of the now very naked cops.
Tinbu glanced between the bare bodies, the completely stripped office, and the hashish cakes before glancing at Dalila and bowing his head. “Mistress of Poisons... glad to
see you have not let your skills deteriorate.”
“Idiot.” Dalila smiled sweetly. “She came to me first.”
“It is not a competition, Dalila,” I said. “Should I ask why the cops are naked?”
“A professional thief leaves nothing behind,” she replied, tying up the last bundle. “But there were no weapons besides the
soldier’s batons and daggers. And only a single skin of water.”
“Pass the water around. Each man gets a sip. Tinbu, you said the oars were underneath the deck?”
Still leaning on Yusuf’s arm, he nodded. “They can be pried loose, but oared galleys of the Marawati ’s size tend to make port authorities skittish, and I’ve been trying to pass her off as an old fishing ship.”
“How long would it take to free the oars?”
“Not long; I made sure the planks concealing them could be easily pried off. But getting them out and laid is going to be loud. If those warships are still there...”
“They are,” Dalila confirmed. “I saw them when I went to fetch the police.”
I swore. Those oars were our only chance of escaping Sira Bay. The sails would take even longer to set up and there was little
wind tonight either way.
Tinbu spoke again. “There is, ah, something on board that might help us. Something I found when I salvaged the iron ship.
I hid it before we were boarded, but I doubt the soldiers found it. The wali would have added its possession to my charges.”
“Tinbu, you are deeply worrying me.”
He raised his hands in the same imploring gesture that had gotten him knocked out by the police. “Just listen. I have an idea.”