A deep voice came from the shadows to his right, where his back was framed broadly against the light of the moon for any would-be murderer’s knife. “Man of Granada, would you be selling that Basque pony?”

“Who in this starving hell knows what a Basque is, let alone his ornery mount?”

He turned to look at a broad-faced man with sweeping black beard and great hands emerging from the deeper shadows of an open doorway into the lamplight cast from the window above. “I am Ibn. How is it in Alexandria traveler?”

‘You don’t ask my name so you have already killed me in your mind. Let us see who dies before our names under God are known.’

“Flesh-feasting whores, scavenging wretches, imams robbing Jew graves and eating the fetid flesh, a governor who lay in the poppy haze, jabbering in fear of the Frank, who it is said have been bribed to invade some other land…”

‘There, Ibn with no name under God, you have your news, give me mine.’

Their eyes locked and swam in a contest of wills, one weary traveler on his horse, one wily jackal of a Berber—and one never really trusted a Berber when they were together under the Arabs—measured each other in the flickering shadows of the guttering lamp above.

‘The lamp goes out and you die dog, smashed against that wall!’

Ibn, with no name under God, looked up above and clicked his tongue. With that a woman’s dainty hands replaced the lamp with a carry-lamp, and then lowered the carry-lamp down on a silken cord, to Ibn, who retrieved it with a grin. “So Man with No Name, here in Miserable Misr…hag dines on child, bitch on babe, poor on poorer, man on youth, ruffians on Good Folk. I see by your eye that you come to Cairo to feed on knowledge—not flesh. You have blessed me with news, having somehow gotten across the Nile on Basque there. The crocs are as thick as fleas on a Frank out there since the starving who do not want to be eaten by their fellows began throwing themselves in under the sign of Aquarius. What news are you in need of?”

‘I would have turned back if I had known about the crocs.’

In case this was some ruse he scanned the shadows and let his hand rest on hilt, signs of suspicion that Ibn noticed, “Come visitor, I am unarmed, of good class, and known by the functionaries of the Sultan up to and including the Vizier himself. If you think I would cross a blood-spattered rogue like you in the nighted street you vastly overestimate both my abilities and my bravery.”

‘I like this not. I should press him against the wall but then that bitch in the window could drop a roof tile on my bare head. So be it.’

“I am looking for Abdul Matin, dog of a donkey doctor out of Fez. I am made to believe he is in certain favor among the sycophants who somehow seek to doctor this famine away.”

Ibn’s voice came deep, “Yes, he spends much of his time—in good days—overseeing the gelding of eunuchs. But there is not a slave left to snip after the famine. He keeps his time between the Commandant’s duty house, and among the stables of the Good Class of People, maintaining what is left of their livestock, which is not to say much. As I intimated earlier, you could fetch quite a price for that boy as he won’t account for the feed of an Arabian.”

“He’s my best friend, and has saved my ass thrice this very day, and once this night. Not for sale. Where do you think I would find that goat-sucker Abdul?”

Ibn whispered in a simpering rascally way, unbecoming of such a strong-framed fellow, “I do not know good man—or man of mystery perhaps. He keeps a small residence that he does not let be known, perhaps out of some fear that a bloody-handed man out of the waste might swim the Nile to tug his beard in the night. It is known that he keeps council with the Doctor of Wide Repute, Abd al-Latif—a Persian I think—at noon, at the Commandant’s duty house. If your errand be a bloody one, that is not the place. The Commandant retains six fierce Turks, and a troop of horsemen under one known as The Khwarzim, whose face has never been seen.”

“Where then can I get a decent bite to eat this night? It is Ramadan, surely what food is left is for sale after nightfall.”

Ibn came closer with open arms and hands, and a sly whisper, and was stopped by the angry snort of El Frank and the glare in Yusuf’s eyes. Halting he spoke in a low un-whispered voice, “The House of Lamb, presided over by the Moroccan soul-trader Bengar el-Fez. In the off season, when there are no Christians or blacks to sell, he deals in slaughtered lamb. These days he will dine you on the finest kid brought down from Ethiopia itself, even slaughter it before you—that is during the day. By night you will have to make do with fricassee.

“His is the great house seven down to the right. The stables are attached and run between two alleys for a bow shot. It’s not normally proper, but camel meat is being served these days, as if we were on the Black Coast to Zanzibar. There are separate guards for the house and the stable. See the stable men first. They are loyal and burly, and your boy here will be secure. The rascals do not approach the House of Lamb.

“You may have coffee with Bengar el-Fez if you have news to sell, up in his apartment. It is the only three-story building in this quarter. He has done quite well. The Sultan’s banner flutters from the roof poles.”

“Thank you Ibn.”

As he nudged El Frank Ibn placed his hand on his knee and almost lost his head for it. “Traveler, you might desire a scented bath, perhaps the softest hands in Cairo washing your back? You must be lonely man.”

He gave a glare of warning.

“Look to the window above man, look at her eyes sparkle in the moonlight!” whispered Ibn.

He looked up and saw the veiled face a of a beauty with green eyes and long black lashes batting down at him. Without taking his eyes from hers he said, “How much?”

“You be the judge—leave what is due in your heart.”

‘How can I resist a woman whose pimp is that confident in her charms?’

“Done.”

“Permit me Lord to walk you upstairs.”

“No need. Watch my horse, and mind you he bites.”

Yusuf placed hands to pummel, pressed up out of the stirrups to stand on the saddle, and then leaped for the window, which he caught with ease, dragging himself through in an instant, the big-eyed beauty now reclining breathlessly on her couch, shocked at his stunt. She was still a little plump, tastefully dressed in silk, and veiled with the scarf that was slit so that one could see her lips. A ceramic tub with rose-petal water was at the center of the room. Two candles lit the plush interior.

She caught her breath, “Why Master, you are so eager it flatters a slave. But please, I have upholstery to consider, a bath first.”

He listened for sounds of skulking and creeping, and spied the door, which was barred from this side, another selling point in the girl’s favor. He then whistled the warning check. El Frank’s lazy snort indicated that no cutthroats where about.

“A bath then woman, and take your sweet-scented time. The coin will be good.”