A Wind in Cairo Read Online Free PDF Page A

air that was almost clean, and raise his head a little above the dust of the caravan’s passing.
    He found himself dancing, because it was easier than walking. His belly was hollow. He regretted now that he had not drunk more deeply of the water which had been so plentiful for his taking.
    Foolishness. He wanted to die.
    His body had a mind of its own. It wanted to live. It wanted to live and be whole.
    With every ounce of will he had, he made himself plod like the gentlest nag in the caravan. No one took overmuch notice of him. He was tethered and he was docile. The mares had all the guards to themselves: some, barely more than foals, were given to straying.
    The whole long line of them wound out of the horse-market up the broad expanse of the Palace Way to the Gate of the North that looked upon Arabia. They passed beneath its echoing arch, out under the blue vault of the sky. Away westward glittered the Nile, broad as a sea, and beyond it the white splendor of those works of Jinn and giants, the Pyramids of ancient Giza.
    Desert besieged all that country, but here the river was lord. The earth was black and rich beneath Hasan’s feet, Nile earth, bursting with fruitfulness. A myriad of green scents entranced his nostrils. Grass grew near the road, tantalizing for that he could not reach it. Fellahin toiled in the fields that ran down to the river; water birds cried in the rushes there, and somewhere far away roared a bull of the Nile.
    The gate was well behind them, the dry land shimmering ahead. Hasan had skittered round to the Nileward side of his camel, pretending to shy at a shadow.
    He sensed no eye upon him. He had found, in skittering, the limit of his tether. He reared suddenly, plunging, twisting.
    For an eternal moment he knew that he had failed. The tether snapped. He stumbled, tangling his feet, half falling.
    He stopped, amazed. He was free.
    Someone shouted. His body mastered his sluggish mind. It wheeled, gathered itself, sprang into flight.
    The man, rousing, mastered the beast, guided it toward the river and the green thickets. The beast was pure joy, pure speed. The earth had no power to bind it. The wind was singing in its ears. He laughed: a shrill neigh of delight.
    Horses had left the caravan. He heard them behind him. They were swift, those tamed creatures, but they were burdened with the weight of men and weapons; and they did not run of their own free will. He was free, winged, scorning their bondage.
    They divided, circling. Meaning to cut him off. He swerved, darted, skidded. The hunt was closer. So too, by a degree, the river. His mind was emptying of aught but flight. To reach the water. The water, the green, the birds calling.
    Hooves. Ahead. Many. Too many. Despair smote deep. Defiance slew it. He screamed his challenge. He plunged through green into a full company of horsemen, rearing, striking, slashing. They scattered. He laughed. Men cried out. One snatched at the trailing remnant of his tether. Hasan swept him from the saddle, storming over him, rolling him screaming underfoot.
    This was war. It was sweet. Sweeter even than freedom.
    But sweeter still was the mare who stood alone. Poor lonely beauty, she cried in her abandonment. She yearned for ease of the pain that was on her: the blessed torment of her season. He left the battle and the hunt to give her solace.
    Nets fell about him, bound him. Struggle only bound him the tighter. The strength of many hands cast him down.
    He lay and gasped and knew that now, if he must, he could die.
    Men stood over him. They spoke of him. They would not forget him easily, nor forgive. One of them was dead.
    How true a prophet his father had been. Rape, and now murder. Only apostasy had not yet stained him; but there was time yet. Iblis would have him. He was all lost, utterly damned.
    A stallion could not weep. A man could, in his heart, in deep and honest sorrow. For what he had lost. For what he had never known he had.
    â€œWhat will you do