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Book One:
The Concert of Vienna
Chapter Twenty Five.
22nd September 1841. Taza.
Hafsa's small eyes glared at the wall. Any minute now.
Al-Fuenti always came on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday. That was the pattern she'd seen. Now, hiding behind a woven basket as she continued to examine the flaky sand and criss-crossed cracks in the stone, she was elated to finally be on the verge of cracking this mystery.
She watched. There was the peddlar, an old, grey-headed man advertising his wares from his large, rickety cart. He always hung around here in the day, making a tidy profit; this was a busy road, after all. There were the beggars, chatting to one another while eating their scraps of bread, holding out their hands in supplication to passers-by and then chortling to themselves once they left.
The sky was dark. She wasn't as fast as the man she tailed, and the same thing had happened each time she'd tried to chase him, some six or seven times in the last few months. He'd turn this corner, and when she caught up, he had disappeared. The two times she'd been fast enough to see, all she'd caught a glimpse of was him approaching the wall, and vanishing into the darkness.
The beggars and the idlers were beginning to leave. Soon, she thought. Soon...
There! Al-Fuenti was coming down the road. She crouched closer behind the basket, and watched.
There he was, going towards the wall, closer... closer... she was near enough to see, this time...
The carter began to rustle. From the bottom of his cart, he dragged up a cloak and a headscarf, and in a single movement, he handed them to Al-Fuenti. Like lightening, the spy whisked them on in a matter of seconds, then sat on the side of the road, head down, his European garb totally covered up by the long and thick garment he was now covering up. He disappeared through disguise.
A chill went down Hafsa's spine. A sense of being in a web far greater than her own began to wash over her. What had she stumbled into?
She looked at Al-Fuenti critically, through the gaps in the weaving. He was tall, dark haired... with a noble bearing and dark, handsome face...
"No, Hafsa. Such thoughts contravene our holy work," came the voice of the djinn in her ear. "Whatever he's doing, it is against the law of God. Watch him... and when he isn't looking, a knife in his craw would do a world of good-"
Al-Fuenti looked up. Straight at her. For a single second, Hafsa froze as they stared at one another. She was his neighbour, damnit, the woman who did her washing as he walked by at the end of the street, who watched him beadily.
He knew who she was.
Al-Fuenti leapt to his feet and ran. Knocking the basket aside, she followed.
In his long robe, Al-Fuenti was unable to run as fast as he ordinarily would have. "Now, Hafsa!" roared the djinn into her ear. "Now, slice the devil and make him bleed!"
Running through alleys in the night. Al-Fuenti's stumblings through a foreign, unknown place made him seem like a graceless goat compared to Hafsa's fluid motion through a city which was her lifeblood. Past the minaret, into a crowd- the people shouted protests as the two of them shoved their way through the hordes of thieves and merchants. Al-Fuenti ran through a passage, Hafsa followed him. Al-Fuenti ran into a square, Hafsa almost caught him. They turned again into a network of alleys, with the dark sky lighting the night, and she reached out, almost grabbing his hood-
Then Al-Fuenti slammed himself to a halt. Hafsa careered into him, tripping and falling. No sooner had the pain of her bruises began to sting, she was hauled to her feet, and pinned against a wall, with dark and cruel eyes staring into the blackness of her own.
The moon shone down, but nobody was their to see them. She looked deep into Al-Fuenti's eyes, trying to see if she could recognise him, make out his features-
"Who sent you?" came a rasp, both rough and eloquent in equal measure.
Hafsa tried to squirm away but the djinn made her stop. "Honesty. Truth for truth. Find out as much about this devil as possible, so we can use it against him..."
She spat in the face of her assailant. "I do Allah's work! You sleep with the innocent maidens, you sneak around... who are you? What do you want from us?"
Slowly, with a kind of restrained fury, Al-Fuenti took a cloth from his pocket and wiped the spittle from his face. "You aren't an agent, are you? You're just some pious heathen..."
"You are the heathen, dog!"
Al-Fuenti laughed, quietly. "You, me, Pope, Caliph... we're all heathens, eking out our meagre existence on this foreign soil. Nobody goes to heaven. No-one will welcome you there. But here... here I will give you a welcome. To my world." Buenaventura Rodrigo laughed again, more bitterly. "A shame you have to leave so soon."
Hafsa barely saw the glint of the knife, as it flashed towards her throat. Sheathing it as her body hit the floor, Rodrigo let out a satisfied sigh, closing his eyes and walking away, a slow and steady swagger on his hips.
Hafsa's conscious thought began to slip away. "I'm sorry, Hafsa", murmured the djinn into her ear. "But I'm a demon. You shouldn't trust a demon."