The Emir stepped back and admired his handiwork. "Now…"
He raised his hand, the symbol of a curt order to his guard.
"Now, we will resume the parade and leave the chicken-plucking to our people… for the time being."
The crowd gave him a laugh for that, which was what he wanted. The look on the captain of the guard's face was just a little more than odd, though. Yet he joined the parade, but not before personally testing the ropes that held Casca to the olive tree.
The procession moved on down toward the mosque. There were now no soldiers guarding Casca, but that didn't help him one bit. The peasants had crowded in, gleefully watching the two with tweezers pull the hairs from his chest, one by one. There were a few gaming souls, and they began to make bets as to which would be reached first: Casca's eyebrows… or the family jewels.
As for Casca, he was not too sure he could get out of this by himself — but there sure as hell wasn't anybody to help him.
There was one possibility. Over his left big toe he could see that the limb that held his left foot had a sharp bend in it. It was tough wood, but… He began jerking his body with each pull of the tweezers, covertly putting the force on the left leg. The crowd loved that, thinking it was a pain reaction.
How did I let myself get into all this… But it could have been worse.
Both Yousef and his men, and Bu Ali and his Mamelukes were now aware of Casca's predicament. For Bu Ali it was a problem he couldn't solve. For Yousef it was a great deal simpler: he immediately dispatched an archer to the roof of the building across the street.
Bu Ali had not gotten to be the captain of Mamud's Mamelukes by keeping his head in his ass. Nor had he risen from the rank of Novice in the Brotherhood of the Hashishi by being stupid. He was a damn good soldier. Standing now in the shadows of a building fifty feet up from the mosque, and with a clear view of Casca's olive tree and the crowd around it, he was now the typical tactical commander with the usual impossible situation to solve. Well, what did a commander usually do when he had no solution to the problem? Yeah… Send in the enlisted men. Bu Ali thought about that, turning to look at his available "army." Standing behind him were three men, scimitars scabbarded at their sides, bows unstrung and strapped with arrows to their backs. The fourth man guarded the tied-down horses. A couple of the town peasants mingled with them, not paying them any attention since the religious procession had brought all kinds of people to town. Beyond the horse line, on the next street, some rather ragged-looking shepherds were holding a highly restless flock of sheep, keeping them from coming down this alleyway into the main street in front of the mosque until the procession was over. Apparently the sheep were without water, which was one reason they were milling around and bleating. But next to them there was also a flock of goats in the same predicament. Separating the two flocks was a fanner astride an ass that was hitched to a small cart piled high with hay. The procession had sure screwed up farm traffic this morning.
Sheep… Goats… Hay…
Bu Ali thought about that.
He looked back at the olive tree. He could see the branches swinging. Not much chance of Casca getting loose, though. And by now the Emir had been in the mosque a pretty long time. The rites would be over any minute, and once the Emir's bodyguard had Casca, there would be no chance whatever to free him.
Not that there was any chance now. The look in the eyes of his men underscored the point. They were watching him, Bu Ali, with the same cynical stare enlisted men the world over have from time immemorial given a commander they don't think can hack it. Knowing his men — he had trained them and knew their abilities — Bu Ali respected their judgment. He couldn't hack it.
Yet…
Sheep. Goats. Hay. Bu Ali looked back at the livestock, something in the back of his mind telling him to. The farmer had gotten down from his ass and was walking over to the window of the nearest house where an enterprising cook was selling cakes from an open window, cooking them on a small charcoal brazier placed on the windowsill. The glowing red of the burning charcoal seemed to wink at Bu Ali.
Several things came together in the Mameluke captain's mind at the same time. His first reaction was to shy away from the idea that formed. Too fantastic. Bu Ali had been trained as a conventional soldier. Never try anything new. But a Mameluke who had enough chutzpah to suggest intrigue to the great Sultan, Malik Shah, was capable of anything — if he had to be.
But first he rechecked the street.
Unfortunately, it was a wide street, as befitted the approach to the mosque. But, fortunately, the sun was up pretty high now, and the heat had driven most of the crowd from the other side of the street over to Bu Ali's side. And there was an almost unbroken wall of houses and courtyard stone fences up to the olive tree where Casca was held captive. So there was a relatively narrow passage to the olive tree, and beyond that a lot of wide open space and a single alley. Oddly enough, there were mounted men on horses in this alley. Bu Ali counted at least six, and it bothered him. But they were scruffy-looking and didn't look like they could be the Emir's men. The way the sun was throwing shadows Bu Ali had difficulty seeing their faces, though the momentary turning of one man did reveal a face.
Bu Ali thought he recognized the man. The leader of the bandits they had fought. And certainly these scruffy-looking men could be bandits.
But there was no reason for such bandits being here. Must be his imagination. Bu Ali could accept one odd idea, but not two on the same morning. Besides, the more he searched his memory the more he found justification for what he was about to try. He remembered a story told around a long-forgotten campfire by a Jewish slave. Only that one was about foxes… Samson and foxes…
Well, he would just have to make do with what he had in mind. He called his men in close and gave them their instructions. Their first reaction told him that they thought he had gone mad. But then the humor of the situation got to them and they smiled.
The damn branch won't break. Casca was discovering how tough a tree can be. And by now the hair pulling, which at first he had thought simply humiliating and embarrassing, was getting to him. Shit! It was always the simple tortures that got you down.
Yousef's archer was in place, but he had a problem. The gnarled limbs of the olive tree formed a kind of twisted lattice shield. Although he could see Casca, he had an uncertain target. He waited.
Speed. A hell of a lot of speed. And no mistakes. That's what Bu Ali's plan required in order to succeed.
"Now!" he said.
They jumped to it. The shepherds and the goatherds were knocked on the head — not enough to take them out permanently, because their running after the flocks might be an extra help, but enough to keep them from interfering as the two men assigned that job freed the flimsily penned-in animals and stampeded them toward the broad street. The hay cart was stripped from its ass, turned around, and headed backward toward the street of the mosque, with a mounted Mameluke horseman on either side holding the shafts as though they were spears. Bu Ali himself grabbed the burning brazier from the open window and lit the hay. It was very dry hay. It smoldered for a moment, flickered, then roared up into flame. Meanwhile the goats and sheep were herded forward, the Mamelukes behind them yelling, the goatherds and shepherds chasing behind, cursing. The animals surged forward, then were in front of the burning hay cart. The dismounted Mamelukes swung into their saddles, drew scimitars, and jerked the ropes that held the pack horses. The charge was on.