Chapter 9
Once we were supplied with fresh water for the cistern and food from an accommodating fishing village used to looking the
other way, we headed for Zabid. The wind was mostly favorable, giving us plenty of time to return the Marawati to its beautiful self in a blur of wood dust. The broken boards and torn matting used to conceal the oars and oar ports were
repurposed, fashioned into sturdy fighting platforms and shooting barriers. We strung fishing line behind the ship and made
a big drum from a broken barrel and canvas to scare away the aggressive sharks and whales that make the waters near the Red
Sea their home. But except for a ship’s cat that did not actually hunt mice (and which—in the manner of its species sensing
human dislike—took a violent love of me), Tinbu had kept the Marawati in prime shape, and there was little to complain about.
Despite my dismay upon learning it had been stored alongside naft, the ship’s original rahmani—the nautical notes my grandfather had begun, my father had edited, and I had expanded—were also well-preserved.
Our family’s rahmani were priceless, among the most comprehensive captain’s journals in the Indian Ocean, replete with carefully annotated maps, star charts, and anecdotes that detailed everything from the currents around Comoros to the reefs outside Jeddah, the best mangrove forests to hide in in Malabar and a concealed smuggler’s cove outside Sur.
It was not as comprehensive as Majed’s collection of rahmani—I doubted anything was—but Majed himself had gone through these notes countless times, making observations and corrections in his precise handwriting.
I had made a duplicate of the rahmani, copying its pages over the years and sending them along with the money I forwarded
to my mother, but I hadn’t the heart to take the original notes when I retired. They belonged with the Marawati , a decision that felt even more right when I reviewed them now, reading about our past adventures from the captain’s bench
as seabirds squawked and my new crew sang work shanties.
As for that crew, I did not sit on laurels for having saved them in Aden. I trusted Tinbu to select men carefully, but knew
better than him how frequently a man can feign respect for a woman only to turn on her. I was the nakhudha, their provider
and protector, and if I needed to play up some of the old legends of Amina al-Sirafi, so be it. The sailors who’ve served
me most loyally have always done so with a healthy mixture of fear and love; it is only a rare few I’ve ever taken into my
true confidence. I was strict but fair, making clear my expectations.
Bonding with a new crew also meant sitting with them, learning of their families and traditions, the sort of casual discussions
over chores and rest that never fail to bring me delight. Those of us who make the sea our home carry libraries in our head,
a fact I have tried to impress upon many a land-dwelling intellectual. The scholars who travel the world to study could learn
just as much if they would speak to the sailors, porters, and caravan hands who ferry them and their books to such faraway
lands. My crewmates had lived fascinating lives, sharing tales of tapping for sap in forests so deep and dark one needed a
torch to see, and of fending off sharks with spears as they dove for rare mollusks off islands with unfamiliar names.
A few of the men had also heard stories of our Frankish treasure hunter, and their gossip painted a troubling portrait.
A noble like Salima might regard Falco as a gullible, indecorous brute, but from my sailing brethren, there was wary fear.
Supposedly several men under his employ had gone missing, and people whispered that he had access to magic, an inner eye that knew things it should not.
There were more gruesome rumors as well: that he’d bathed in so much innocent blood he’d forged a devilish armor that could not be penetrated.
That he was more beast than man and had the claws and teeth of a wolf.
That he made his followers sign their marks to magical squares that promised retribution if they betrayed him.
Now, I knew too well how such ridiculous legends grew. How could I not, hearing that I myself was half djinn, married to the
king of an island that appeared only at the full moon, and that together we delighted in sucking the marrow out of our victims’
bones? But that night on the lagoon kept returning to me. My own life had taught me that true magic is rare, much rarer than
people would believe, but also deadlier. Salima had not mentioned the sort of talismans Falco sought and Dalila had dismissed
his interest in the supernatural as that of a na?ve mark. But Dalila was a professional charlatan used to running tricks and
Salima was intent on protecting her family’s reputation—might their biases have prevented them from sensing a different kind
of danger?
However, in those early sun-filled days back on the Marawati , it took more than murky rumors about mysterious Franks to dampen my joy at being at sea again. As I finished praying one
afternoon, the scent of salt and teakwood coming through the fabric of the cloak I pressed my brow against, the Marawati rolling and creaking in the water as I shifted positions, my soul was suddenly filled with such pleasure it brought tears
to my eyes. Salah has always had a different quality out here, a rawer one. There is a great vulnerability in being entirely
at God’s mercy, a position akin to a worm upon a floating splinter that with the slightest ripple may be lost forever.
It’s a vulnerability that brings to the surface truths long buried in your heart. And the truth was that Frankish kidnapper
or no Frankish kidnapper, I had desperately missed this life.
I had missed praying at sea. I had missed jesting with my beloved companions and falling asleep after a hard day’s labor to the gentle rocking of the current.
I had missed the ocean’s briny air in my face and the too-bright glare of the sun.
And yes, although doing so had spectacularly blown up our original plans, I had enjoyed the brazenness of breaking the Marawati ’s crew out of prison.
In saving innocent—yes, that’s relative—men from a horrific fate because some blasted civil servant
wanted to look important. Indeed, it was difficult not to see God’s hand in setting me in Aden the very day Tinbu needed me.
I am a believer, after all, and we are told to look for signs.
What did it mean if those signs pointed to a path I had sworn to disavow?
I sighed, turning my head from right to left, greeting and apologizing to the overworked angels recording my deeds, and then
winced as I accidentally pressed my bad knee against the deck. I was hardly the only Muslim needing a bit of extra maneuvering
while praying, but the reminder of my age was not a welcome one.
You are too old for these adventures. You should be home with your family .
Home with your daughter. As swiftly as pleasure had lightened my soul, it was swept away by guilt.
How could I enjoy being on the Marawati if it kept me from the daughter I loved more than life?
I ached to hear Marjana’s happy humming and spy her sweet little
face. And though I would never have dared brought her on such a dangerous mission, I knew she would have delighted in being
at sea: searching for dolphins and lying flat on her belly to peer at the colorful fish dashing through the deep corals.
But by the time we were approaching Zabid, I had put personal fretting aside to focus on the job at hand. We anchored offshore,
south of the town itself, along a stretch of coast whose high cliffs and unfavorable rocks made it unpopular with ships who
were not trying to stay hidden. Tinbu went ahead in the Marawati ’s dunij, the small boat we used to ferry cargo and people across the shallows, on the guise of buying supplies to see if
this supposed agent was around.
He was—but the news was not encouraging.
“Layth is here,” Tinbu said, climbing back aboard. “But he also claims he’s done with the Frank, forgive me— that ‘demon-snake
of an infidel.’ I said I had a client looking for information and he said he hoped you had deep pockets.”
“How fortunate that I do.” And whether that meant it held coins, my fist, or a knife, I’d yet to decide. I’d already dressed,
choosing the rough woolen robe of a Sufi mendicant. I suspected news would carry of two women orchestrating a prison break
out of Aden, and I had little desire to look like the foul-mouthed busker with poisoned hashish cakes. The loose-fitting garment
would also better conceal the sword and dagger at my waist, an agreeable side effect.
“It was strange, though,” Tinbu continued. “Layth was jumpier than usual, like he was expecting someone might come for him.”
“To murder him or buy information?”
Tinbu frowned. “I don’t know. Just something about his demeanor made me uneasy.”
“Something about his demeanor made me uneasy” led to me leaving Dalila behind. I needed somebody I trusted to look after the ship, and if that person was someone with a history
of poisoning jumpy informants when she got impatient, all the better. Tinbu and I rowed to shore, and then he led me around
a winding rocky pass to a roadside tavern well outside Zabid proper where Layth had agreed to meet.
The tavern was a sorry place, one that all but announced it preferred gamblers and highwaymen to merchants and pilgrims. Constructed
from a motley assortment of scavenged black tents, patched sailcloth, and palm fronds that had been stacked, nailed, or otherwise
tied to crumbling mudbrick walls and scorched wooden columns, it looked like the previous building had died a violent, fiery
death and had a ghoul of one resurrected in its stead. There was a smell—burned hair? dead fish?—emanating from the open entrance
and vomit stains splattering the dust.