Free Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures by Robert E. Howard Page B

countries, in the guise of a Moor, whose speech and customs I have learned through a lifetime of battle against them, and by reason of my captivity among them. Only recently I learned that the man I sought was in Egypt.”
    Al Afdhal did not at once reply, but sat scanning the rugged features of the man before him, seeing reflected in them the untamable nature of the wild uplands where a handful of Christian warriors had defied the swords of Islam for three hundred years.
    “How long have you been in al medina ?” he demanded abruptly.
    “Only a few days,” grunted de Guzman. “Long enough to learn that the caliph is mad.”
    “There is more to learn,” returned Al Afdhal. “Al Hakim is, indeed, mad. I say to a Feringhi what I dare not say to a Moslem – yet all men know it. The people, who are Sunnites, murmur under his heel. Three bodies of troops uphold his power. First, the Berbers from Kairouan, where this Shia dynasty of the Fatimids first took root; secondly, the black Sudani, who, under their general Othman yearly gain more power; and thirdly, the Memluks, or Baharites, the White Slaves of the River – Turks and Sunnites, like myself. Their emir is Es Salih Muhammad, and between him, and el Ghazi, and the black Othman, there is enough hate and jealousy to start a dozen wars.
    “Zahir el Ghazi came to Egypt three years ago as a penniless adventurer. He has risen to emir, partly by virtue of a Venetian slave woman named Zaida. There is a woman behind the curtain of the caliph, too: the Arab Zulaikha. But no woman can play with Al Hakim.”
    Diego set down his empty goblet and looked straight at Al Afdhal. Spaniards had not yet acquired the polished formality men later came to consider their dominant characteristic. The Castilian was still more Nordic than Latin. Diego de Guzman possessed the open bluntness of the Goths who were his ancestors.
    “Well, what now?” he demanded. “Are you going to betray me to the Moslems, or did you speak truth when you said you would keep my secret?”
    “I have no love for Zahir el Ghazi,” mused Al Afdhal, as if to himself, turning in his fingers the ring he had taken from the black giant. “Zaman was Othman’s dog; but Berber gold can buy a Sudani sword.” Lifting his head he returned de Guzman’s direct and challenging stare.
    “I too owe Zahir a debt,” he said. “I will do more than keep your secret. I will aid you in your vengeance!”
    De Guzman started forward and his iron fingers gripped the Turk’s silk-clad shoulder like a vise.
    “Do you speak truth?”
    “Let Allah smite me if I lie!” swore the Turk. “Listen, while I unfold my plan – ”

II

    And while in the hidden wine-shop of Ahmed the Crippled a Turk and a Spaniard bent their heads together over a darksome plot, within the massive walls of El Kahira a stupendous event was coming to pass. Under the shadows of the meshrebiyas stole a veiled and hooded figure. For the first time in seven years, a woman was walking the streets of Cairo.
    Realizing her enormity, she trembled with fear that was not inspired wholly by the lurking shadows which might mask skulking thieves. The stones hurt her feet in her tattered velvet slippers; for seven years the cobblers of Cairo had been forbidden to make street shoes for women. Al Hakim had decreed that the women of Egypt be shut up, not indeed like jewels in vaults, but like reptiles in cages.
    Though clad in cast-off rags, it was no common woman who stole shuddering through the night. On the morrow the word would run through the mysterious channels of communication from harim to harim , and spiteful women lolling on satin cushions would laugh gleefully at the shame of an envied and hated sister.
    Zaida, the red-haired Venetian, favorite of Zahir el Ghazi, had wielded more power than any other woman in Egypt. And now, as she stole through the night, an outcast, the thought that burned her like a white hot brand was the realization that she had aided her