The Desert Falcon

Chapter 28, The White Sands

"It appears Samir's intel is accurate," Jabil spoke, as he stood by the wall.

I glanced up from my writing desk, poised, midway from my summations. "Oh?"

"Assad's men apprehended those who had commissioned Samir to attack the Sultan," Jabil answered again. "They were executed, but one of them revealed the truth after his interrogation before he was killed."

"What did he say?" I inquired. The death of the man made me feel nothing. I was hard pressed to feel any ounce of sympathy for a man who would use a boy to test his theory.

It was another day of the week and things had fallen into a predictable routine. After I left the Sultan's chambers, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Samir had been removed from his confines and treated. Once he had recovered, I had Jabil locate his mother and sister and brought here. The two had an emotional reunion, before Samir had pledged his gratitude. In return, he had vowed that he would do all in his power to assist me in capturing the ones responsible for the attempted assassination on the Sultan.

Samir had been sent for training. He would serve as one of the Sultan's many secret soldiers, perhaps as a proficient spy and messenger. Jabil had been tasked to oversee his training. Meanwhile, his mother was given employment in the kitchens. Samir had professed that she was an excellent cook and I had offered Samir's mother a place in the kitchen as a cook, but not without the Sultan's permission, for which he demanded a passionate embrace and a reminder that I still owed him for sparing Samir's life.

It was the best outcome I could have imagined.

The Sultan seemed to have backed down with my involvement with the boy and his mother, for which I was grateful. If Rashid had it his way, he would have executed the boy and left the mother to her own fate. However, it was with a sense of relief and partial gratitude that he allowed me interference in the matter, except for where Assad was concerned in tracking down the ones who were responsible for commissioning Samir to kill him. It was assumed that this would not be the only attempt and a threat out there was deemed dangerous considering how close Samir had come to killing the two of us.

With his mother happily settled so close in the kitchens and Samir in training, the two were deemed under my protection. It was perhaps a tad bit unusual to grant employment to the boy who had sought to kill the two of us, but his youth had saved him from the fate of death. It was his naivety combined with the sense of loyalty to his mother that had managed to convince the Sultan and later Assad that he was not deemed such a threat. (It had helped that he was our only lead to the true culprit). With a little bit of mercy and kindness, (however naïve that sounded), I was sure that it would go a long way in earning Samir's loyalty as a valuable asset.

"There was a bid for a large sum of coin for the assassination of the Sultan," Jabil explained.

I found it entirely comical that there was someone out there that had enough coin to make it worthwhile to see to the Sultan's demise.  "You are jesting."

Jabil looked bemused.  "I do not understand how you expect me to derive humor from this situation, let alone accurately convey such a thing in such a manner."

"That there is a bounty on the head of the Sultan astounds me.  He is so heavily guarded and well protected that I did not think there is a sum large enough to make it worthwhile.  The chances of succeeding in such a venture is rather abysmal, I should think."

"You would think," Jabil pointed out.  "I assure you, my lady, there are those who seek for the Sultan's death if not for coin, but for glory or the throne.   Apparently, this bounty was not born from these mercenaries that Samir has interacted with. There were others who were involved and interested in the bounty."