The first soldier through the door shot the cat.
Get up, Murad told himself and was relieved to discover that he could. Taking the steps two at a time, he raced away from the black shadows tumbling through smoke, their weapons at the ready. At the very top of the house, at the foot of the stairs leading to the roof, Murad removed the key from the bottom door and used it to double click the lock from the other side. Then he did the same for the top door, the one that led out onto the roof and took that key as well.
"Ifritah . . ."
"Not there," he told Hani. "I'm sorry."
"You're bleeding." It sounded as if she'd only just noticed the fact.
"What?"
Hani touched her nose and Murad touched his own, fingers coming away sticky. "And your ear," she said. That turned out to be sticky too.
"We'll be in worse trouble," Murad said, "if we don't hide." Which proved to be easier to say than do, as there was only one exit to the flat roof of the dar and it was already locked.
"Down there," suggested Hani, pointing over the rear parapet to a dusty garden which obviously belonged to a neighbour. "We can use that."
Below them, built so that its nearest end joined the back wall of Dar Welham was the tiled roof of a fourth-floor balcony. The drop from where they stood to the tiles was maybe twice Hani's height.
"Unless you're afraid?"
Instinctively Murad's chin went up. "Of course I'm not," he started to say, then met Hani's dark eyes and stopped. "Okay," he said, "I admit it. I've been scared ever since we left Tunis."
"Me too." Hani reached out to wipe dirt from his face, as if that was just a natural thing to do. Maybe it was, Hani didn't know and probably wasn't the person to ask about stuff like that. Until six months ago she'd believed that keeping a toy dog in her room deserved the slaps it invariably earned her, because Ali Din was male and her Aunt Nafisa had rules about such things.
Only now Hani lived with Raf, whose rules were less strict. Which made life easier but doing the right thing more difficult, because most of the time Hani just had to guess what that was . . .
"Like now." Hani said to herself.
"Like now what?" demanded Murad.
"We need to move."
She nodded to the sloping roof of next door's mashrabiya. "You first," she said.
"Wait . . ."
"No time."
"But I'm not ready," Murad protested. And that was when Hani realized that both his ears must be damaged. Someone was trying the handle of the door at the bottom of the roof stairs. A fact that seemed to escaped Murad.
"Do you want Kashif's men to catch us?"
Sliding over the edge, the boy twisted round until he hung by his fingers, then she heard a clatter below as Murad flailed for a grip to stop himself tumbling over the edge.
Hani's landing was rather better, although less catlike than she'd have liked; her knees coming up to hit her chest as she met the tiles. Something else to add to the list of bits that hurt.
"This way," Hani said, dropping to her belly so she could peer over the edge of the mashrabiya. Its original carved screen was stolen and whoever had ripped it out had tacked a rotted tarpaulin in place to hide what they'd done. There was a market for architectural salvage, particularly at the top end. Back in El Isk, Hamzah Effendi had a houseful of the stuff. Hani was about to explain this to Murad but decided to save her words. He looked a bit preoccupied.
"I'll go," Hani said. "You went first last time."
The difficult bit turned out to be lowering herself over the edge, what with tiles scraping against knees, legs and tummy until the pull of gravity left her hanging. And that was before Hani edged rapidly along the drop looking for a tear she'd seen in the tarpaulin. Swinging once for luck, Hani flipped through the gap to land inside the mashrabiya.
It was all she could do not to miaow.
"Now you," Hani hissed, ripping aside some of the rotted canvas. "That should make it easier."
She saw his shoes first, scuffed oxfords followed rapidly by socks, turn-ups from his flannel trousers and then the length of his body up to the waist. She thought for a second Murad was about to freeze but he kept coming until he hung, eyes shut high above the courtyard.
"Do it," Hani said.
So Murad swung once, jackknifing like a gymnast and when he landed it was on his toes.
"That was okay," Hani admitted and Murad almost smiled. Together they refixed the rotten canvas as best they could. Hanging the tarpaulin from the holes that Hani had made when she ripped some of it down.
The empty house had two exits, a main one onto an alley and a small door, cupboardlike, that opened into a cul-de-sac so tight it was little more than the gap between two barely separate walls, one obviously much newer than the other. They chose the narrow way and finally exited on a street called Rue des Jardins, walking quickly with their heads down until they passed through a car park behind a hotel.
Walking slowly would have made more sense. Only neither one quite had the nerve so they hurried instead, trying hard not to run. And when they finally reached the market on Rue Ibn Chabbat, Hani made Murad stop in the shadow of a lorry.
"Let me," she said. Her handkerchief was unused and still held creases from where it had been ironed by Donna. Just looking at it made Hani want to cry. Licking a corner, she steadied Murad's chin with one hand and wiped crusted blood from the side of his mouth with the other. When she tried to wash blood from his left ear Murad began to cry as well.
"We are running away, right?" Murad asked, once his face was clean again.
"Not exactly," said Hani. She smiled at the boy's exasperated expression. "We're staying out of trouble . . ."
It was Murad who first saw the bus. And Hani who pointed out that the vehicle was actually a coach. A brief argument about the difference then followed before Murad eventually bowed to Hani's insistence that coaches had smoked-glass windows, air-conditioning and their own loos.
This one even had onboard newsfeed, computer games and four private cabins. A fact advertised in large gold letters along both sides. Right below a line that read Haute Traveclass="underline" Tripoli and above the URL for a site few locals could get, because Web connections without licence were banned by law in Ifriqiya. Not to mention most other parts of North Africa.
"We need a disguise," said Hani.
Murad stared at her.
"Think about it," said Hani. "Those soldiers were after Murad Pasha and Lady Hana al-Mansur." That Hani admitted her own first name was unusual in itself.
"If they are actually after us," Murad said. He'd been thinking about that.
"Who else would they be after?"
"Ashraf Bey?"
"They waited until he was gone," Hani said firmly. She turned to Murad, face serious. "You're certain they were Kashif's men?"
"I'm sure," said Murad.
"Even though they said they were the Army of the Naked?"
"Yes," Murad said. "That's why I'm sure."
"Okay," said Hani. Peeling $5 from her roll she gave it to Murad. "You got this as a tip from an American journalist," she told the boy.
"Why?"
Hani sighed. "It doesn't matter . . . For showing her the way. For fetching her a glass of water. Make it up."
"What do you want me to get?" Murad demanded.
He bought a white T-shirt, made in Morocco, size XXL and a pair of plastic sandals with sputnik in red across the strap. Murad also bought a Dynamo's hat, which he wrecked by ripping off the brim so that from the front it looked like a skullcap.