“He [the huntsmen]killed his own wife to allay the hunger of Hsuan-te, and when Hsuan-te asked, ‘What is this meat?’, he replied simply, 'Wolf.' And they supped.”

The market bustled as usual, only with fewer goods and fewer people. There was no produce save spices and the most desiccated items. There were no meat-sellers’ stalls, for no one trusted the meat. Rather the meat-sellers had animals—mostly half-starved creatures, caged and on sale for extravagant prices.

Abd al-Latif was moved to pity those around him, all as thin as the emaciated goat that was being haggled over by the Arab and the Sudanese drover. He and the other residents of the duty house supped on siege rations that had been laid in case of a Frankish invasion of spiritual defilement, though the mud wallowing humanoids regarded these attacks on Islam as something akin to a Jihad.

Their diet consisted of a dried lentil and barley gruel. The cistern water was clean and fresh, which placed the garrison in much better straights than the populace, who had to either drink mud and sewage, filter nearly as vile Nile water, or haggle here with the camel men for oasis water. He was one of the best fed men in Cairo, yet his belly growled and he knew a gnawing hunger. Bread had not been tasted except by the Sultan and the Rich, for months.

Niko nudged him as Babyrs shoved some Sudanese drovers aside. The boy looked up with his stupid questing eyes, a question behind them. “Yes Niko, speak.”

“Master, why do we come to market? There is nothing here any good but water, and we have better.”

“Because Niko, I am a doctor charged with investigating the famine and the attendant plagues. I do say that the place is cleaner—less animal filth and no carcasses—than last I was here.”

Babyrs grumbled, “That is because the dirty two-legged goats have been eating the carcasses and are feasting on camel dung after sundown rather than burning it. Do you think that vile bitch there is going to burn those camel clumps? No, she is going to eat them.”

‘He is such an abrasive bore!’

‘At least he remembers it is Ramadan.’

They were now past the dung merchant’s stall into the center of the diminished population and the sparse crowd began to part to make way for a group of lean laborers, formerly brawny men who were now built like youths. The largest man was dragging a woman by her arm, who was keeping her feet but barely. She had a head wound and her veil was down. She was a formerly plump woman in middle age of the artisan class, her skin sagged as did her darkened eyes. Her teeth were bloody stumps where they had been knocked away by a club, which the leader carried in one hand. He was a small wiry man with a short hard wood club that had two teeth protruding from its bloodstained end.

Babyrs called out, “Halt.”

Then men stopped, bristling with aggression and Babyrs, taking a step back, indicated Abd al-Latif. The leader glared at him and Abd al-Latif spoke, “I am investigating the flesh-eating plague. Is she guilty?”

The man growled as another held up a half eaten roast baby, that had been but days old, “These artisan bitches, and their rich whore betters think they can eat the children of our caste! These dogs think they can dine on our flesh and blood because we haul their food and dig the shit trenches they require after they stuff themselves to bursting! We caught this bitch munching away over in the shadow of the kiln—roasted the kid with a fire that was not hers, even a thief in that.”

'I could take action now, and be off before the stench rises; a lesson to these who dine so evilly, and less death ash for me to smell at the duty house.'

Once again his voice sounded not his own, like it belonged to some man of haughty standing, “Babyrs,” he said as he held the gaze of the lead laborer, “the thieves’ pole, right there. Gather the combustibles and the firebrand from the stalls and have the owners come seek payment from the Commandant."

The camel dung merchant said, "Hey there, that is not going—”

Babyrs spoke a harsh Turkic word to Brute and the warhorse went eyes blazing into a frothing frenzy and reared up over the merchant’s stall and smashed the linen-covered bartering boards with his hooves. As camel dung and splinters flew and Babyrs drew his saber with a wicked flourish, the crowd gasped, for a broken jar of pickled baby feet had been hidden away beneath this merchant's stall.

The man made to flee and was seized by two strong laborers and dragged out of his stall as Babyrs roared like some conquering fiend, "The dung is forfeit, pile it to make their punishment pyre! They burn as one! God wills it!”

Now of a sudden a periphery character in this ever-more sickening drama, Abd al-Latif felt washed out, a adrift on the swells of a barren sea. Ever attentive, Niko nudged his foot as he stood by his side with the donkey’s lead in hand, “Master, they don’t care what you say anymore. The burning is going to make you sick. How about we return home by the nice way through the Good Quarter. Nobody is getting eaten in the street up there. I’ll be your little Babyrs if we get attacked by rascals, and Slippery Butt here can be Brute.

“The boy has a heart and more of a brain than half of these degenerates.’

“Niko that is a fine notion. Let us proceed through a good part of town. Perhaps we will come by me fellow doctors—they all ply their trade up there now.”

Niko turned Slippery Butt around and led him off, looking back over his shoulder with a wide smile, a sign that a funny notion had come to him and he wanted permission to speak without fear of censure.

“Go ahead Niko.”

“Now I know what kind of doctor you are!”

“You do. What kind of doctor am I?”

“Your doctor friends all attend the Rich, or the Sultan, or the Good People, or that one stupid doctor that looks after the animals and castrated boys.”

‘Yes, good old Abdul. I wonder how he is doing, with not much livestock to occupy his time now.’

Niko continued with a sly grin now, “So that only leaves one doctor in all of Cairo for the rest of us, to take care of us people that the Sultan’s cronies, and the Rich, and the Good People, think of as shit! So that makes you a shit doctor—the Shit Doctor of Cairo!”

‘And I was just getting to like the little guy.’