“I only report what men say,” he said.
I stood and crossed to the window. “I would leave here at once, if the Sultan allowed it.”
“And I would follow thee, for thou, though a Christian, have been good to me.”
“Thank you, Abdullah,” I said. After a time I asked him if he thought we were in danger.
“I may not be,” was all he said.
Ibn Faleiha rushed into the courtyard shortly after midday with news of carnage on the desert. A caravan of pilgrims returning from the Hajj had been overcome by brigands a day’s ride from the city. Everything of value had been stolen, and those not lying dead on the sands were gone—kidnapped to be sold into slavery in Egypt or the Sudan. The Sultan had sent a troop to track down the brigands and rescue the enslaved.
Shortly we heard wailing in the streets, from the relatives or friends of those killed or kidnapped, I was certain. I looked out my window and saw bodies carried into the city on the backs of camels, donkeys, and horses. Those who mourned their dead followed them. When Ibn Faleiha and Abdullah returned from afternoon prayer, both looked deeply concerned.
“The mahdi blames this trouble on you,” Ibn Faleiha said.
“And on the Sultan’s infidel wife,” Abdullah said.
“Both are accused,” Ibn Faleiha said, in a quiet but angry voice. He stared at me for a moment, then moved to the window to look out on the street traffic. I wondered if he were prepared to believe the mahdi’s lies against me. Abdullah continued to recite them and to tell me how the illness had spread. Even part of the desert troop had had to return to Agadez because they were so ill. Whether Ibn Faleiha believed me responsible for such things mattered little since others believed them. My presence in Ibn Faleiha’s home put him and his household in danger.
“You have offered to work here in return for my hospitality,” Ibn Faleiha said, turning away from the window. “I ask you now to work, Robert Adams. Help me devise ways to bar the doors and windows of this house.”
Which thing we did. By night, all of us sat quiet at dinner—Abdullah, Ibn Faleiha, his aged wife, even their servants, and myself—behind barred doors and windows, though we knew that if the city rose against us, we would not survive.
“Abdullah and I must escape from Agadez,” I told Ibn Faleiha, after the servants had cleared the table and only he, Abdullah, and I remained in the room. “My life is forfeit if I stay, as is perhaps Abdullah’s since he guided me here. My presence, moreover, puts you and your house in danger. But Abdullah and I need help. We need horses.”
I thought perhaps he might equip us for escape so he might at last be rid of us and the danger of our presence.
“You do not understand,” Ibn Faleiha said. “All our lives are forfeit in Agadez. The mahdi preaches that contagion spreads from my home. Who, therefore, is clean within it?”
I understood then how the Sultan had used me to ruin Ibn Faleiha and exact revenge for privately delivered, if unasked for, advice. Perhaps the Sultan had not seen the coming of a mahdi and his preachings against me, but he must have known how being forced to harbor an infidel Christian, as they thought of me, for as long as I had been under this roof, would damage Ibn Faleiha’s reputation and make his business, his dealings, even his word, suspect.
A servant placed a bowl of hot water on the table. Ibn Faleiha stood to wash his hands, preparing to retire for the night. “You have brought hardship to my house,” Ibn Faleiha said to me, “but it was not your intent; moreover, you have treated me and the customs of this house honestly and with respect. My observations of you over these months prevent me from accepting the mahdi’s preachings against you, or my eyes are blind and my heart incapable of judging truly. If Allah is cursing this city, and blame for it to be assigned, the Sultan should bear it, he who brought an unholy woman into this city to marry and cavort with, not you who traveled here to learn and establish commerce; therefore, I tell you this: my son, who lives in Bilma, leads a caravan that should arrive here within days. My wife and I and all in this household will escape with him out of this sultanate to Bilma. You and your servant may come with us, to save your lives, but you must leave Bilma quickly and be gone from us forever.”
Abdullah fell at once to his knees, thanking Ibn Faleiha profusely, then he turned in the direction of Mecca to offer prayers of thanks. I stood and bowed to Ibn Faleiha, thanked him and held out my hand. I had to explain our custom of shaking hands, but after I did, Ibn Faleiha shook hands with me. I trusted him then. I did not believe he would have shaken my hand had he believed me responsible for the disease spreading through Agadez.
Abdullah and I will sleep as if saved.
In the late afternoon, the Sultan sent a messenger to inquire after my health, which was greatly improved. I had eaten that morning and kept down the food and water. My fever had broken and, though weak, I could walk. I sent the messenger away with that report. Shortly he returned to bid me to the Sultan’s palace for dinner, which invitation I accepted. The eunuch met me at the doors when I arrived, and he escorted me down a different hallway to a room I had never seen, where he closed the door. “You must help us,” he said.
The veiled figure of a woman rose from a chair near the window. She held out a piece of paper to me. I took it and read her words. Please help me leave this city, she had written. My people can protect us, if you take me to them.
“The mahdi will have her killed before he is through, and you, too,” the eunuch said. “I have seen this sort of thing happen before, as it did some years past when a different mahdi urged the Hausa driven from this city, and many Hausa killed or enslaved.”
“Where are your people?” I asked Suleiyá.
She took the paper, dipped a pen in the ink bottle on the table, and wrote: They camp in mountains northeast of here.
“How many?” I asked.
Eighteen, she wrote.
That’s all! I thought. Clearly she and her people posed a minimal threat to England and Europe. I now had answer to that question, though immediately it occurred to me that her people might be nomadic, flying in small groups from aerie to aerie, and that the total of all such beings might number far more than nineteen. “How can so few protect us?” I asked.
From inside our—and then she had written a word I could not read. I handed the paper to the eunuch and asked him to read the word for me.
“This is the word for boat, ship, or craft,” he said, and he handed back the paper.
“Is there a river beyond the mountains?” I asked, wondering whether the Nile, perhaps, had its source in the Aïr. If that were the case, and if we sailed down it to Cairo, I could arrange passage home—and forever be remembered as he who had discovered the Nile’s source, he who had solved that great mystery and lived to profit from it—but Suleiyá shook her head.
“There is no river,” the eunuch said. “She has ever described whatever brought her here with this word. No one understands but she.”
Suleiyá took the paper and wrote: My people should have repaired our ship and come for me before now. I am sick with worry as to why they have not. If you cannot come with me, at least help me find some means of escape so I might go to them on my own.
While I read those words she sat disconsolately in the chair. I considered my options: escape to Bilma with Ibn Faleiha and the company of an entire caravan, which offered considerable protection, or escort Suleiyá to her eighteen people and their “ship” in the mountains to unravel there a great mystery. I chose the mystery.