“Trouble up there?” Wake asked Woodgerd as the colonel and Sohkoor joined them below.
“Nah, just a little object lesson on hospitality. Hell, I didn’t even have to touch him . . . much. Don’t worry, we got what we came for. We’re leaving anyway.”
Sohkoor looked pensive and disappointed. “It is regrettable that sometimes common courtesy is not a common behavior. You know, Peter, they say in England that courtesy is the lubricant of an advanced society. I tend to agree with that, but unfortunately it is a mannerism that the man up there never learned. So sad. Now he has to live in fear of dire consequences.” Sohkoor shrugged. “The sultan does not suffer impolite people.”
Faber huffed. “That is interesting, but why is it we are in this particular slum in the first place?”
A patient softness came over Sohkoor’s face, as if a child had acted up. “To get the information we came here for, Monsieur. I now know that three days ago your wife and the others were in Fés, thirty English miles to the east from here. Renegade Blue Men on the run from their chief had taken them for ransom. They did not get what they wanted in price and returned south when they heard the sultan was sending a search party from Rabat. These renegades are not afraid of mortal men, but all men are afraid of Hassan, Lion of the Atlas.”
“Blue Men?” asked Wake.
“Men of the Tuareg, the tribes of the desert. Named for their indigo-dyed robes. Very independent, but most recognize the sovereignty of the sultan. These particular men are renegades from their clan. One must be very careful with Tuareg.”
Faber seized Sohkoor’s burnous, shaking him in rage. “To hell with being careful—let us go now! Get after them!”
Woodgerd stepped up and locked Faber’s wrists in an iron grip, prying them away from the scholar. “We all understand your anger, Mr. Faber, but we don’t even know where they are now to chase them. We have to go to another place tonight to find out more information, but we are finally on the right trail. And Sohkoor is crucial to our finding your wife and the others. He’s doing his best.”
Faber suddenly swung around and slammed his fist down onto a cart, swearing in French and startling everyone but Sohkoor, who took Faber’s fist and held it in his hands. “We will find her, Monsieur Faber. As Allah is my witness, I am saying that we will find her for you. . . .”
The scholar glanced at Woodgerd, who spoke quietly. “Very good, gentlemen, Now we go, and we go fast. We need to be at the spice souk at Fés in the morning.”
Faber, deflated, looked up at the man still standing on the balcony. “What about him?”
Woodgerd shook his head. “We know what he knows now. He will stay here and inquire for more intelligence. Mr. Faber, that man is definitely on our side now.”
“How can you let him go? Trust him?”
Woodgerd transformed into the man Wake had seen on the train platform—the face of death. “Because he knows he will die slowly, inch by inch, in front of thousands of people, if he does not do exactly what he has been told to do.”
None of them said a further word as they wound their way back out of the maze of alleyways, emerging from the walls of Meknes as the sun was turning golden in the west. Once outside the inner city, they stopped to water and feed the horses for a few minutes. Then, following Sohkoor, they rode east, this time on a main road.
Sohkoor turned around and watched the sunset for a few minutes, then leaned over and spoke to Woodgerd. The colonel called back, “We’re picking up the pace. We don’t have much time.”
***
They stopped at midnight and camped without a fire on a mountain top just outside the city of Fés. Sohkoor sat apart from the others, gazing at the moon and stars, continually singing a low chant.
When Wake and Rork were roused before dawn Sohkoor was still there, still chanting. The Arab cavalrymen ignored him as they went about the business of saying their morning prayers, eating their couscous, and saddling up. When the line was formed Sohkoor stood and walked over, fresh and relaxed, as if he had just woken.
He swept his arm over the valley where Fés lay sprawled. “And now we go to the capital, a city of ancient moral certainty. And of artistic creativity, which you will see. The great Idriss himself decided that Volubilis was too small for a capital so he began Fés in the Christian year seven eighty-nine. It has been the center of our life and empire since then.”
“Rabat’s not the capital?” said Wake.
“The sultan maintains the foreign embassies there and visits often, but this is the traditional capital. This is where it began and where it continues. It will offend the sultan greatly that the renegades came here, in this beautiful place, to further their horrific crime.”
“I thought that the palace we visited in Rabat was the royal palace and the center of his government.”
Sohkoor’s face crinkled into a smile. “Peter, the great Hassan has twenty-six royal palaces across his land. The one in Rabat is small compared to some. You have only seen a tiny fraction of our land and people. We are spread far and wide, for thousands of your English miles, from the Sahara to the ocean, from the Mediterranean to Senegal. Hassan, may Allah bless and protect him, is the leader of it all and travels constantly to see and hear all.”
“Sohkoor, if I may ask, what were you chanting all night? You don’t even look tired.”
Sohkoor touched Wake’s shoulder but didn’t answer. Without a further word, he mounted his horse, Woodgerd nodded and everyone trotted off, joining the main road and descending to the city.
Fés was even bigger and busier than Meknes. To Wake’s surprise, they did not
