CHAPTER 15

BENZAMIR TOOK THE first step out of his door and entered a world of noise and colour and scent.

The calls of the merchants wove in and out of each other; the cries of men outraged at the latest price; the guttural shouts of the camel and donkey drivers goading their beasts through the narrow streets; the hammer of brass and copper and tin and silver and iron; the rasp of cut wood; the chip of stone; the last bleat of a goat as its throat was cut to the incantation of ancient words. The flash of saffron and carmine and azure and crimson and olive and pomegranate, on clothes and on walls and over archways and covering shutters. The glance of dark eyes beneath a veil.

It was the smells that fascinated him most: he could identify each one, pick up its signature over the others if he screwed his eyes up and concentrated hard. There, bread; there, cinnamon and pepper. Again, as he let himself drift with the mass of people pushing at him from all directions – sharp sweat, stinking fish, burning charcoal, over-ripe melon, the damp alluvium of the Nile, the dry wind from the desert.

It was amazing, and his senses sang at the banquet delivered to him quite without payment. Misr El Mahrosa, the city on the Nile from the dawn of civilization to the present day, and it still stood, vigorous, dazzling, rich. He stepped briefly out of the way of a cart pulled by two chained Ewer slaves, and continued his wandering, his sandals treading the hot, dusty paths trod by generations of people. Once or twice he looked up at the slits of bright sky between the buildings, attempting to orientate himself using the towering and elegant minarets as landmarks.

Said and Wahir found the streets terrifying, too crowded and alien for them ever to be comfortable with. They would emerge later, after the dawn rush had dwindled to a manageable trickle of traffic.

Not Benzamir. He revelled in the contact, in the sheer press of the bodies against him. He dived in like it was clear, cool water, and only came out reluctantly. He was so proud of them all, every one – every indigent beggar, every shoeless urchin, everyone who clung to life on the back of this great beast of a city – that he thought his heart would burst.

As the purposeful yet chaotic movement of the streets drove him on, it washed him up in a metalworkers’ quarter. Smoke and sometimes flames poured out from open doors. Sparks flew and anvils rang with industry.

‘Salam,’ said a worker, plunging a red-hot piece of work into a bucket by the door. The water hissed and spat, then merely bubbled.

‘Let me see,’ said Benzamir, and the man lifted the tongs he was using clear of the bucket.

The object clasped in the tongs was a knife blade, as long as Benzamir’s hand, a beautiful blue steel, forged and not cast. The edges would need to be ground, and a haft attached to the spike protruding backwards from the guard, but already it was a fine piece of work.

‘Do you have others like this, finished?’

‘My master’s inside. He’d be pleased to meet you.’ The man ushered Benzamir into the dark heat of the forge.

‘Salam alaykum,’ he shouted over the hammering. There was a boy, no more than Wahir’s age, heaving at the leather bellows, pumping the coals to an incandescent white. The smith, stripped to the waist and gleaming with sweat, brought out another knife blade from the heart of the fire and placed it on his anvil. He worked it hard, beating life into it with his hammer before the cherry-red glow faded. He held it close to his face and nodded with satisfaction.

Benzamir could tell he was in the presence of greatness, a man who didn’t mind what others thought of his work because he held himself to the highest standards.

The smith handed the blade over to his servant to be cooled in the bucket outside, and took notice of his customer.

‘Salam. Come and drink with me. We’ll talk, and you can tell me the news.’

There was a back room, separated from the forge by a simple heavy curtain; once through, Benzamir could see that the room faced a courtyard full of light and shadows.

‘Selah,’ said the man. ‘If I had any other name, I’ve forgotten it by now. Selah the Ironmaster at your service.’

‘Benzamir Mahmood at yours.’

‘Not from round here? Up the coast?’ Selah plumped up some cushions with his huge hands and indicated that Benzamir should sit.

‘Most recently from El Alam, my ancestral homelands.’ It felt strange for him to say that. He’d never used those words before in his life, and he suddenly felt rootless and sad.

‘But you’re a traveller. A merchant, buying and selling, not getting home as often as you ought.’ Selah sat opposite and clapped his hands. A door behind a tapestry opened and a woman came through carrying a tray of coffee and sweets.

‘Almost. A soldier looking for his people’s enemies.’

‘Let’s look at you. Yes, you could handle a sword. You have the eye.’

‘I was admiring your fine knives. You don’t see craft like that often.’

‘Now you’re flattering me. I do what I can with these poor hands, and it provides well enough.’ He touched the woman on the arm, indicating ownership, but the way his touch lingered showed much more.

She poured the coffee in two steaming streams and set Benzamir’s cup before him first.

‘Thank you,’ he said to her.

‘If I was rich,’ said Selah, ‘I’d have more than one wife. But I’m not, so I have to put up with what I have.’

The woman moved Selah’s cup across the low table to him and he smiled lovingly at her; his gaze followed her as she left.

Benzamir had the man’s measure. ‘Master Selah, you make fine knives, but the finest knife needs the finest metal.’

‘That it does, my soldier friend. Which is why you’ll find me down at the diggers’ market, picking up only the best finds. I have a reputation for paying well, and the diggers bring me only their choicest pieces.’

Benzamir had heard that word before, but had failed to discover its full meaning. To him, a digger was one who dug, but it was clear that digger was a profession, and an important one.

‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘does anyone here in Misr El Mahrosa take iron and make steel from it? Do you?’

‘Now you’re asking. Steel is to iron what teak is to cedar. Both useful, yes, but in these parts both steel and teak are as rare as hen’s teeth. I’m told that the Kenyans can make steel’ – he snapped his fingers – ‘like that. But for me, in this little forge? It’s hard. I’ve done it once or twice, to prove to doubters that I can. Mostly brass and iron does. Steel is a rich man’s metal.’

‘I’ve two compatriots who’d be delighted to wear your knives at their belts. So would I, Selah. We can settle a price later, but what about these diggers? Where do they find their treasure?’ Benzamir lifted his coffee cup and breathed deeply. ‘Very good. You honour me with your best.’

‘From the hills of Yamin, brought up by camel train by the Kenyans. It’s a vice, but an agreeable one.’ Selah raised his cup and saluted his guest. ‘You’ve heard of El Iskandariya, of course.’

‘Yes. It used to be on the coast, south of here.’

‘You sound so certain. In a time that was and was not,’ said Selah, ‘there was black land, rich and well-watered, between here and the end of the estuary. There were cities on the plains, huge and populous. Many farms, lots of children. But the Users hated us, and they tortured the seas to make them rise up in torment and swallow these cities whole, and Iskandariya was lost beneath the waves.’ He shrugged. ‘So the stories go. But there are tar roads that disappear out to sea, and the fishermen sometimes drag up things. Diggers go and dive there, and believe they are diving on the ruins of Iskandariya. Other than that, the diggers dig where they can. Some organize expeditions and visit the rubble fields of the far south, where the Ewers now live. Rich pickings, if they make it back.’

‘That’s fascinating. You’re interested in metals, of course. But what else do they dig up?’

‘All sorts of treasures. Some things are just junk – interesting curios, nothing more – but there’s gold and silver and gemstones. More likely than not plucked from in amongst the bones of the ancients, the robbers. And sometimes’ – Selah leaned forward and lowered his voice, sharing a confidence – ‘there’s something special. Maps. Books. On thin sheets of cloth, not written by any human hand.’

Benzamir took a rose-water jelly and bit it in two. ‘I’ve seen one, or at least a copy of one. A set of maps owned by an imam, clearly taken from a pre-Turn book.’

‘If you’re interested, I could arrange an introduction for you. I’ve had word that there’s a market tomorrow at the pyramids. Meet me here an hour before dawn, though I’d advise you to bring your men. Honest traders like myself are in the minority.’

‘Great riches bring great wickedness,’ said Benzamir, watching how the light played through the pink sweet in his hand. ‘I’ll come, and yes, I’ll bring my companions. Thanks for the warning.’

They concluded a price for the knives, and Benzamir left Selah on his doorstep. He slowly worked his way back to his lodgings, and heard his name shouted down from a window as he approached.

‘Master Benzamir! We were beginning to think that the city had swallowed you whole.’

Benzamir took a step back and squinted upwards. ‘It’s not as scary as you think, Said. And stop calling me your master. You’re your own man, my friend.’

‘I don’t call you master for your benefit. I call you master for mine. The grander and more important you appear, the more status I have.’

‘Is that how it works? So am I a step up from Ibn Alam?’

‘Immeasurably greater, master.’ Said turned from the window. ‘Wahir, you lazy boy. The master is at the door, and all you do is sit and eat dates. Go and pour some water, fetch a towel.’

‘Said, I can wash my own feet,’ Benzamir laughed.

‘Quiet, master. Someone will hear you.’

He sounded genuinely concerned, and Benzamir stopped joking. He shouldered open the heavy door that led to the shared courtyard, then up the steps to his rented rooms.

He salamed two of his neighbours before beating off the attentions of Wahir and finally sagging down on a divan.

‘Where did you go? What did you see?’ asked Wahir, who still hovered with the bowl in his hands and the towel around his waist.

‘I found a man called Selah the Ironmaster, who makes fine weapons out of scavenged steel. He’s also invited us on a little adventure tomorrow morning. Before dawn, if you please.’ Benzamir held out his hands for the bowl and set it between his feet. Taking the towel, he said to Wahir: ‘If you’re desperate to do something, you could find me some beer.’

‘But I want to hear about this adventure,’ Wahir said, hands on hips.

‘Then you’d better hurry, insolent boy,’ said Said.

‘Enough. But he’s right, of course. No stories without beer. My people hold very dear to that.’

Wahir went at a run, and Said sent a scowl after him. ‘You’re too easy on the boy. At his age, he needs discipline, and to show respect to his elders.’

‘He does, in his own way. I like his enthusiasm, and I don’t want to squash him. I know it seems like bare-faced cheek a lot of the time, but if it doesn’t bother me, it shouldn’t bother you.’

‘What would have happened,’ said Said, ‘if you’d talked to your father like that? He would have beaten you with a stick. My father did to me, and it didn’t do me any harm.’

‘What your or Wahir’s father do with their sticks is no concern of mine. I’ve not got a stick, and even if I had, I wouldn’t use it on a child.’

‘He’s almost a man.’

‘Then I would have to give him a stick too, and we’d make a fair fight of it.’

‘You’re very strange, master.’

‘Not as strange as I am thirsty. Said, what do you know about the diggers?’

Said snorted. ‘Apart from the fact that they’re all pirates and thieves? That they’d sell you, your mother and your grandmother as slaves as soon as spit at you? Nothing, really, beyond that we should have nothing to do with the dirty grave-robbers.’

‘Ah,’ said Benzamir, ‘that’s a shame.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because tomorrow, while it’s still dark, we’re all off to the pyramids to see the diggers’ market. Selah asked if I wanted to go, and I said yes.’

‘We’re all going to have our throats cut – except you, of course – and left for the vultures. And the pyramids? Don’t you know that the reason why the diggers go there for their infernal market is because no one else dares to. At night. What were you thinking?’

‘I need to look for something – something my enemies might be using for trade. It’ll look like a User artefact, but new and clean and working. It’ll be the sort of thing that these diggers won’t be able to resist. They’ll try and sell it to me, and I’ll try and find out where they got it from.’

‘Master,’ said Said, ‘when you talk of such things, I get very confused. Mainly because I have no idea what you’re saying. You talk around yourself like you’re processing around a sacred stone, circling what you want to say but dare not.’

Wahir came crashing back through the door. His reed basket clinked promisingly. ‘What did I miss?’

‘Master Benzamir tells us that we’re off to get butchered like sheep at the hands of diggers tomorrow.’

‘That doesn’t sound so good,’ said Wahir, and pulled out three bottles of beer. He handed one to Benzamir, one to Said, and unstoppered the one he was left holding. ‘What?’

Benzamir put his feet up on the divan. ‘I was about to say you’re still too young, but considering what I’m about to tell you, I imagine you’ll need a stiff drink. Listen then. You’ll think me mad, but everything I say will be as true as I can make it.’ He drank some of the beer, washing the dust of Misr away, loosening his tongue. ‘Very well, then. There was a time that was, and was not.’