Arabesque

Sarn

Ciris Sarn woke a with a start. Something was wrong. He opened the shuttered window, and the sudden brilliance of the suns blinded him. After his vision cleared, Sarn observed his surroundings. Closely packed buildings of worn stucco and stone overlooked narrow streets that wended in all directions. A breeze carried the scent of honey, melon, and orange.

It was deceptively serene.

Sarn dressed and then stood for a moment at the foot of his bed, listening. He heard voices from below, faint but discernible. He had slept too long. Last night's encounter with Barrani had troubled him, but what he'd received nurtured a spark of hope inhim. Dassai had lured the assassin into Havar by once again using Sarn's father as bait. It was clear with the death sentence that Fajeer Dassai's patience with Sarn was at its end.

Yet this fateful meeting with his father had not proved fruitless.

Sarn reached into his pocket and fingered the talisman, calmed by his mere possession of it. Then he grabbed his gear and moved across the room. He listened at the door. Nothing. Sarn paused again for a few seconds before turning the handle and opening the door just wide enough to slip into the empty hallway. He left the key in the lock and descended the stairs.

He was in the coffeehouse of Azraf Lahteeb. The man was just one of many in the sheikdom whom Sarn knew well and kept close to him. Due in part to Sarn's efforts, Lahteeb had risen from a beggar-thief in the souks to a prospering business owner. He ran a number of busy coffeehouses, but also worked the black market and was a trafficker in women. Lahteeb would keep him safe. They shared mutual interest, though they did not trust each other.

When he reached the ground floor, Sarn stepped through a doorway and onto a wide veranda. Beneath the boundless blue of the sky was an even bluer sea. White cubes of houses cut a dazzling line between air and ocean. The high walls of arcaded terraces ran upward to the still higher domed mosques and cylindrical minarets of Havar. Beyond the south gate, olive-clad, vineyard-laden rolling hills shone green in the distance.

Sarn took a deep breath. How long would it be before he had to carry out more dark deeds for his paymasters? In the past, premonition had played its part—the unease he'd felt earlier would not prove unfounded.

He was in trouble.

A fountain bubbled in the corner, shaded by an almond tree. Sarn did not pray, but the ablution would clear his mind. He removed his shoes and washed his feet. When he was finished, he cupped his hands and splashed his face with the jasmine-scented water. He dried himself with one of towels that lay beside the fountain. 

Running along the edge of the veranda was a low wall covered with flowering bougainvillea. From this vantage point, Sarn watched the activity of the port as the sound of midday bells rang, pealing out over the harbor. Crowds of people made their way from the quays and moorings to the north gate that led into the medina.

Sarn picked an orange from a low-hanging branch and bit into its sweet, blood-red pulp as he considered his options. He needed money. But to emerge now might prove dangerous. Sarn's exile had lasted nearly a year, and there were many people looking for him.

The most significant of those was Dassai.

Two months earlier, Sarn had sent a message to Lahteeb, who was also a wine dealer, to have him look for prospective buyers of rare, highly desired wines that were exclusive to the cellars of the royal family. Illegal trading in wine was both risky and profitable, a chance Sarn was more than willing to take. However, weeks had gone by without word before he got an answer. Lahteeb had set up an afternoon meeting today with Sarn and a wine merchant named Aban Seif al-Din.