Daggers in the Dark (Book 3 of Hanthalah)

Interlude

The Umayyads, no doubt, had forgotten all about her once the transaction was complete. Why would they pay heed to a woman merchant?

But a well-placed forged letter would serve to contribute to their downfall, all the same. All from the comfort of her couch.

Ruqayya tossed the fake ring aside, remembering that there were yet other letters. Other loyal servants entrusted with carrying out the task of forgery. She would exploit the limitations men imposed on her kind.

Women could not venture out of the household and deliver a speech to rile up the masses?

Ruqayya would speak for them. On parchment, much like the letter supposedly signed by 'Uthman that she knew was intercepted by the troops of Egypt.

Men wanted to rally behind figures they could trust. They wanted to receive clear instructions, simple creatures that they are, from those that they know well. And who better to trust than the Prophet's wives?

The first wave of letters from the so-called Mothers of the Believers must be in circulation now, she surmised.

Drenching with sweat in the sun? She would happily leave that to the men.

The tiny slave girl Ruqayya had taken a liking to – she was named Sofia, a Roman girl – squirmed on her lap, mirroring the priest's very different sort of squirming in the corner. Ruqayya fondled her dark curls.

Ruqayya ignored him.

"How did the Nubians treat you today?" she asked of Sofia, tracing a finger down her spine.

The Roman girl smirked. "They wouldn't buy the linen. Otherwise, it proved quite a profitable evening. For you."

Ruqayya clicked her tongue.

"For us," she corrected her second in command, now in charge of all matters on ground.

For a moment, Ruqayya's mood soured as she remembered Andronicus' final moments. Withering and bone-thin. A husk of the father she knew. Wasting away into nothing as a result of the avarice of these people. Filling their insatiable thirst for coin while the likes of Andronicus paid the price.

Ruqayya wondered what chaos her machinations in Madinah would bring forth. How the people responsible for her father's death would end up.

How she would rise from the ashes of one empire to forge the next.

***

17 June 656 AD - 18 Dhul Hijjah 35 AH

"Is such a blockade necessary?" inquired a genuinely concerned man from the crowd. Not all of them had been riled to the point of enmity toward 'Uthman.

"I swear by Allah, I will not allow the passage of water into the house so long as Banu Umayya do not pay us what is due to us," answered one of the senior protestors – one Talha. A notorious companion of the Prophet and one of the key figures of this strike.

Tensions had been flaring since the letter the administration disowned circulated itself amongst the protestors. Such an act of cowardice and deceit. How un-Islamic, thought 'Abdullah.

One more reason to be done with this damn clan that thought to make themselves kings over the believers rather than just shepherds of their flock.

Firelit sconces on either side of the barred gate offered scarce lighting for the protestors' eyes under the star-spangled night sky. It illuminated the two robust young men flanking either side of the gate – the grandsons of the Prophet, the two guardian angels of the Khalifa, at the behest of their father 'Ali.