At the top of the stairs, a phalanx of priests blocked passage into the temple itself. They were dour-looking men with long braided beards and heavy caps of black cloth sewn with topazes and garnets. Their long brocaded robes hung to their sandalled feet. Mohammed put his boot on the bottom step, and his eyes narrowed in anger. Some of these men had been acquaintances of his father, in the long-ago days when Abd of the Al'Quryash had served in the temples of the Zam-Zam. Now they held the door to the temple closed against his son, even on a day of worship.
"The Lord who made this world has no shape," he shouted at them as he advanced up the stairs. "You cannot give him a man's face! You are impious to confine him in a form of clay or wood!"
The priests glowered down at him, but did not answer. Mohammed stopped one step below them and put his hand on his saber hilt. Those nearest him flinched, but they did not move.
"You priests, hear me!" Mohammed's voice boomed off the metal doors and echoed across the throng packed into the courtyard. "The murderer of my daughter hides in your house of stone. I will have him, whether you will it or no. Stand aside!"
The priests did not move, and some in the rear ranks linked their arms. In the crowd behind him, Mohammed could hear a muttering rumble begin to rise among the people who had come to lay their offerings on the hundred altars within the sacred precincts. He could hear the Tanukh, too, spreading out on the steps behind him. He raised his arms and turned slowly, watching the crowd with an eagle eye. "Is this your god?" He jabbed a finger out, pointing up at the great weatherworn statue of Apollo. "This is a god of the Greeks, who live far away by the side of the green sea. Is this the god who watches over your flocks? Is this the god who breathes in the deep desert, raising the kamshin?"
The faces of the people in the crowd were confused or angry. It was hot in the noonday sun, and little wind made its way into the pillared courtyards of the temples. He caught Jalal's eye, and the burly mercenary shook his head minutely.
"I will show you the voice of the god who made the world!" Mohammed spun, drawing his saber in one quick movement, and it flashed in the midday sun as he clubbed the nearest priest on the side of the head with the pommel. The man's skull made a sharp cracking sound and he fell away, his arms and legs tangling with his fellows. The Tanukh gave a great shout and leapt up the stairs. The priests cried out and cowered away from the glittering blades. Some fell down the steps. Mohammed, sneering, pushed through them to the doors themselves. He put his shoulder to the right panel, feeling the heat of the sunwarmed metal burning through the cloth of his robes.
The door opened, slowly, creaking on ancient hinges. The close smell of incense and smoke and sweat flooded out. Mohammed stepped inside, his saber nosing forward to test the passage.
Around the cobblestoned square a great cluster of temples had grown up over the years. Domes and minarets sprouted from the decaying brick and stone buildings. Narrow passages wound between the temples of great gods and small, opening into unexpected courtyards and upon wilting gardens. Dim passages echoed with the chanting of priests and the stink of incense. All the Zam-Zam lay in a great bowl that had once housed a spring of medicinal repute. Now stone and brick buried the spring and the waters had been driven deep underground. Dozens of wells had tapped it dry, and only a bare trickle could be had. With the flight of the water, the gardens had withered. At the northern end of the maze of whitewashed plaster, facing the city walls of Mekkah some miles away, a great vaulted gate stood.
In the shadow under the gate, a man sat, his lean, dark face creased by a little smile. He smoothed the fine hairs of his beard down and cut an orange in half with his saddle knife. Some of his men, marked by their white-and-blue turban braid, squatted in the shade as well. Some bore wounds from the fighting in Mekkah, but all were alert in the lazy way of hunting cats. Though the gate of the temple precinct stood open, these men held the way closed.
Uri Ben-Sarid looked up, hearing the rattle of hooves on stone, and in the barren upland that lay between the city and the temple he saw men approaching on horseback. Bone-white dust plumed behind them as they came, rising slowly in the still air. Ben-Sarid pushed away from the stone bench and stretched his arms. He yawned and then bit into the orange half. Juice dribbled at the edge of his mouth, and he wiped it clean with the sleeve of his robe. His men, watching with slitted eyes, had seen the dust as well, but they did not get up. Ben-Sarid nodded to one of them, and the tribesman slowly rose and walked off into the twisting passage that led into the city of the priests.
The riders came closer, coming at a good pace. Ben-Sarid stood at the gate, just within the shade cast by the great vault. There were more than a dozen men coming, maybe as many as fifty. He shrugged his tanand-white robe off one shoulder, freeing his right arm and the polished horn hilt of his saber. Silver and ruby winked at the crossguard. Behind him, there was a rustling as his men finally stood, and a light clatter of metal on metal as they drew their weapons. Those men who bore shields shrugged them into place.
Mohammed pushed aside a hanging drape, letting the thousands of tiny onyx beads flow over his arm like a snakeskin. Beyond it, a room opened up. This was the center of the great square building- this room without windows, pierced only by one narrow door- filled to overflowing with thousands of statuettes, idols, graven images, and painted icons. The air was thick, filled with the sweet, waxy smell of hundreds of candles that flickered around the circumference of the chamber. Narrow pathways wound between the looming shapes of great gods and small. On any day but this, a slow procession of penitents and priests would clog the corridor behind and spill into this room, making a slow circuit through it.
But today it was quiet and empty. Mohammed drifted into the room, his saber sliding through the gloom in front of him. Candlelight glittered in its steel depth, and Mohammed moved as quietly as he could. After a moment of listening, he moved to the right, following the twisting path around the tightly packed cluster of statues that stood at the center of the room. As he edged deeper into the room, the beaded curtain shifted a little, tinkling in an invisible breeze.
Behind the statues, the room was darker and Mohammed slowed, letting his eyes adjust to the light. There, at the back of the room, the walls took an unexpected turn. Old stones, still showing the marks of wind and sun, jutted out of the brickwork at an odd angle. A space had been cleared before this ancient remnant, and many small shoe-shaped oil lamps gleamed at its foot. Mohammed felt his heart lighten, seeing that the oldest shrine in this whole dilapidated place still received some small veneration. He bowed his head, feeling memories of his father curling up in his thought.
A candlestick rattled, brushed by the hem of a robe.
Mohammed dodged aside, his boots scattering the little oil lamps. A cold breeze followed the passage of a blade. The assailant, garbed in dark colors with only his eyes showing in the turban wrapped tight around his face, faded back into the gloom. Mohammed grinned, his white teeth catching the candlelight. "Well met, my son!" Mohammed's voice was eager, and thoughts of his father were lost. "Are you mourning, hiding here in shadows with the priests? Do their soft words wash away your blood-guilt?"
Fire sprang up from the spilled oil, lighting the room with dancing shadows. The Bani Hashim Princeling was revealed. Mohammed circled to the right, his saber drifting in the air before him. Sharaf matched him, his saber- clean and shining with oil- almost touching the Quryash chieftain's. There was little space to move, here among the statues, but Mohammed was certain that his bitter anger would carry him through. "Have you wept, boy, knowing that you murdered your wife?"