Chapter 9 #2
“Falco Balalamata must pay well,” I noted dryly.
“His last name is Palamenestra , and you have taken me to worse places.” Tinbu ushered me through the open doorway. “Come.”
The tavern wasn’t any more appealing on the inside. Perhaps it kicked up when traders visited for some nighttime licentiousness,
but right now it was occupied by about a half-dozen sleepy men in various states of intoxication and poor hygiene. Fish bones
and nutshells cracked underfoot, the smell of hashish and sweat heavy in the stale air. The poor construction and threadbare
roof meant the light was good, however, a benefit in a place that looked like patrons often got knifed in shadowy corners.
Good unless you were the one who needed to do the knifing, that is.
I followed Tinbu to a low table in the back. Surrounded by stained cushions and half hidden by a threadbare curtain, it all
but declared “come here to plot your harebrained criminal conspiracies!” My estimation of Layth fell to lower depths.
Layth appeared to hold similarly misinformed expectations of me, however, for I had no sooner stepped around Tinbu than Layth’s
eyes rose in slow horror to take in my head nearly scraping the low ceiling.
He jerked back. “Tinbu, you fucking liar. You told me you had a client , not the sea witch herself!” He shot to his feet. “I’m leaving.”
“You’re staying.” I swept my robe aside to reveal the weapons at my waist. “And be warned that the sea witch does not like
when people speak of her as though she is not there. Nor does she enjoy learning those same people are spreading coin to hunt
her down for a foreigner.” I pressed him back into his cushion with little effort. “ Sit .”
Layth sat, shooting me a look I believe was intended to be rage but mostly appeared as though he was trying not to shit himself.
Damn, either the stories Falco and his people had heard about me were particularly creative or there was more to this situation than Tinbu suspected.
I could read a mariner’s hard life in Layth’s features: his skin was mottled and prematurely lined by the relentless sun, and his gnarled hands and joints were swollen with arthritis.
One eye had turned cloudy, and he had the gaunt, uneven body of a man whose diet had swung between feasting and malnourishment.
His hair and beard, both unruly, were entirely white.
My grandfather had looked much the same at the end of his life, but he had people to care for him. In a sweat-stained jubba
in need of mending, his body hunched in suspicion, Layth did not strike me as someone with people. He looked like someone
sick of all this, ready to exchange a life of criminality for a quiet hut by the sea. I settled on the opposite cushion. The
old leather creaked beneath me; God only knew what might have been crawling out from between its fraying seams.
“Tinbu, get our guest something for his nerves.” I didn’t take my gaze off Falco’s former agent, and when Tinbu left, I continued.
“Now, I mean you no harm. Indeed, nothing would please me more than to leave you a newly wealthy man. But we are going to
talk no matter what, understand?”
Layth was visibly fuming even while trembling. “I want a hundred dirhams. A hundred dirhams or nothing.”
It was a ludicrous sum to demand for a few moments of his time. Salima had paid me enough of a deposit that I could spread
some of it around, but I had not come that prepared. “I can give you twenty now and then get the rest from my ship. Deal?”
Layth glowered but said nothing, crossing his arms over his chest and jutting out his chin like that was supposed to impress
me, until I reached into the purse hanging from my belt and he jumped again.
I dropped two silver coins on the sticky table between us. “Asshole, it would take little convincing for me to leave you with
a blade between your ribs instead of dirhams. So. As I said earlier... we are going to talk, yes?”
Layth swallowed loudly and plucked up the coins. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know why the hell some Frank is so interested in me and my crew.”
“Because he wants to hire you, lunatic. You and the rest of your band of merry thieves. Falco fancies himself some sort of scholar of the occult and
has visions of sailing all over the Indian Ocean building a collection of magical talismans. A source had convinced him you
could all but walk on water and that there was no nakhudha as skilled a tracker.”
A scholar of the occult? My skin prickled—I did not like the sound of that. “Who?”
“Who what?”
“Who was Falco’s source?”
Layth rubbed his throat. “God only knows. He is a violent, unpredictable man who likes his secrets and has surrounded himself
with even more violent, more secretive men. It could have been one of his fighters or it could have been a stranger in a brothel.
Falco did not say, and I did not ask.”
Tinbu rejoined us, handing Layth half a coconut shell filled with a muddy liquid I didn’t bother trying to identify: I’ve
learned the hard way in my travels that people will attempt to ferment anything at least once (and sometimes only once if
the results are dire). The smell of this concoction was enough to roil my stomach.
“His fighters ?” Tinbu asked, sounding alarmed.
“His fighters,” Layth confirmed. “He has a pack of them, the nastiest soldiers for hire he could find.” He gulped down half
of his drink and immediately began coughing.
I leaned back to avoid the spray of spittle and considered all that.
The news about more vicious mercenaries aside.
.. who in God’s name could have been Falco’s source?
Dalila was the most enigmatic person I had met in my life, trained from childhood to cover her tracks.
Tinbu had concealed his past even from Yusuf, a man he clearly loved.
Asif was dead nearly ten years, and though he might have been foolish enough to share details in his letters home, he hadn’t ever seemed to have anyone in his life besides us and his family.
Of our core group, that left only Majed, but as Tinbu had said, my old navigator probably would have cut out his own tongue before selling us out.
So who, then?
Layth took another sip from his cup and shivered as if it had gone down with a burn. “By God, what do they put in these drinks?”
He glared at me like it was my fault. “Get to the point, al-Sirafi. We both know what you’re after.”
That was news to me, but I decided to play the hand he offered. “I’m looking for a girl he is rumored to have kidnapped.”
Layth burst into choking laughter. “Oh, is it the girl you’re after?”
“You know of whom I speak?”
“The little rich girl out of Aden?” Layth withdrew a rag and made a disgusting wet hurking noise as he coughed something foul
into its depths.
Hope rose in my chest. “That’s the girl, yes.” When Layth glanced pointedly at my purse, I rolled my eyes but handed over
another two dirhams. If he could give me solid information about Dunya, I would happily shower him in silver. “Tell me what
you know.”
He snatched up the coins. “I know the family is from Iraq, though all that’s left of them is a bitch of a grandmother and
the girl. One of those old clans trying to restart in Yemen by selling off their treasures, you know? Such treasures supposedly
included the kind of artifacts Falco liked, so I set up a meet.”
“And how did that go?”
“Spectacularly wrong. Had the grandmother been spryer, I think she would have tried to run Falco through with a sword when
she realized he was a Frank. She started shouting about him being a spy and ruining her family’s reputation. We were lucky
her guards settled merely for throwing us out. I figured she was a dead end, but then the granddaughter tracked us down in
the street. Said she wanted to make a deal.”
My mouth nearly fell open in shock. “The granddaughter wanted to make a deal?”
“Falco was just as disbelieving, trust me. The girl was rambling about needing to leave, suggesting all sorts of prizes she
could give him. We tried to shake her off... but then she offered something that halted me in my tracks.”
“Which was...” I prodded when Layth fell silent.
His taunting bloodshot eyes met mine. “The Moon of Saba.”
There was a long moment of stunned silence between us.
Tinbu spoke first. “Horseshit.”
“Ah, so tales of the Moon have made it to Malabar?” Layth snorted. “Falco knew only a little—I suspect it was my reaction
that stopped him cold. Convinced him to listen and then strike her bargain. I’m still not certain he understands what he’s
after. But you, al-Sirafi... I bet you know the stories.”
Of course I knew the stories. Everyone along these shores grew up on legends of the Moon of Saba. The largest pearl in the
world; a miniature moon said to have been snatched from the sky by a lovelorn fairy and gifted to Queen Bilqis, who made it
the centerpiece of her crown. A gem believed to bestow upon its owner countless wishes, supernatural sight, and unending good
fortune. A pearl that had brought mighty empires to their knees, foolhardy kings to madness, and had finally been lost when
warring sea djinn destroyed one of their island kingdoms in a battle to possess it.
There are dozens more stories. Hundreds—especially among the pirates and fortune-seekers with whom I’ve spent my life. We
all love a good tale of blood and treasure.
Asif used to talk about the Moon of Saba .
Not often; it was only one among the many ridiculous stories he told of his family’s supposed past, his nostalgic waxing about how his ancestors used to be great, how they had served emperors and shahs.
A dreamy history he had so desperately longed to recover and emulate. A way to make his parents proud.
I hardly knew what to question first. Did I ask just how developed—and possibly dangerous—was Falco’s interest in the occult?