The Bones of the Old Ones (Dabir and Asim) Read Online Free Page A

you were out in the stalls, so what was I to do?”
    I felt my blood boil, yet did not curse. “Buthayna, you are not to open the door today unless it is Dabir, or this servant girl he wants to attend our guest. Do you understand?”
    “As you wish.” She turned back to her doings.
    “If I am out in the stables, or up the stairs, you are to come and find me.”
    “As you wish,” she repeated carelessly.
    “Now who delivered this?”
    “That big soldier from the palace.”
    “Abdul?”
    “The polite one,” she growled pointedly. “Yes.”
    “Thank you,” I said as pleasantly as I could, and left her.
    I returned to the sitting room and studied the brown paper in interest. The seal was familiar, for it had come from my former master in faraway Baghdad. Jaffar had sent letters addressed to the both of us in the last year, but this one was labeled solely for Dabir.
    I am not a petty man, but I was rankled that Jaffar had not seen fit to put both our names on the letter so that I might straightaway read his news. Dabir and I had both, after all, been his servants, I for far longer. Likely it had merely been an oversight, but I would make no assumptions.
    I was still frowning down at the thing when there came a rap at the door. I sighed, tucking the missive into my robe, rising quickly lest the cook decide to ignore me once more.
    She shouted at me from her den. “There is someone at the door, Captain!”
    I advanced to slide back the eyehole, thinking to find the servant girl she’d sent for.
    Instead I saw a tall, silver-haired gentleman with light-green eyes. Behind him stood two men garbed all in black, with deep hoods.
    The kidnappers had arrived.

 
    2
    “I have come for my daughter,” the fellow told me in a deep, stern voice. I could not quite place his accent, although it sounded a little Persian. “I have been told that you have her.”
    I was rarely a quick thinker unless a weapon was in my hand, and I was momentarily troubled by his assertion. Might he have the truth of it, and Najya be the liar?
    “Open the door and return her to me immediately,” he continued, “or I shall call forth a judge.”
    If he meant to threaten me with mention of a judge, he surely had no idea with whom he spoke. Dabir and I were not only honored by the caliph, we were sometimes cup companions with the governor of Mosul. “Who are you?” I asked.
    He glared, giving the impression he could see more than my shaded eye through the little opening, and I studied him in greater detail. I saw one unused to bending to any man. Indeed, he held his head as though he were accustomed to instant obedience. He was slim and straight-backed and as tall as myself. His beard and the hair that showed beneath his turban were gray, but here was no old man, rather one who had prematurely silvered. His thick robes, finely trimmed, must have warded him completely from the cold, for he looked not the least bit uncomfortable.
    “I am Koury ibn Muhannad,” the fellow said, his breath steaming. “Do you intend to speak to me from behind the door?” The disdain all but dripped from his voice.
    I slammed home the eye slot, then opened the door and stepped forward to fill the portal. My size did not seem to trouble this Koury.
    “I am Asim el Abbas,” I said.
    “And do you have my daughter?”
    I checked his men. Neither of them wore weapons or moved forward. Neither of them, in fact, moved at all. Both stood with their left arms raised to belt level at the same angle, their right hanging at their sides. I knew not what to make of this, unless they were especially disciplined soldiers whose master desired a uniform presentation.
    Koury awaited reply.
    My oldest brother, Tariq, may peace be upon him, once told me that each time you lie you foreswear a little of your own soul. As a boy I had accepted his words without question; as a man I better understood his meaning. Some lies are surely necessary, but I strove always to avoid them.
    “It is