"You are out of your fucking mind!" Andronicus roared.

"Andronicus!" I exclaimed. "That's what you love about me. Now, keep your voice down and speak in Coptic."

The governor had the ten hostages I provided him gagged and bound, taken elsewhere. He handed me Andronicus in return for any valuable information I was to divulge.

"You think they don't speak Coptic in the governor's palace?" Andronicus asked. Coptic was the tongue of the Egyptians.

"It's more likely that they know exclusively Greek," I swept my hand impatiently. "Now, would your sailors be on board with this?" I giggled. "On board. Because they're sailors."

Andronicus glared at me.

"Would they, my friend?" I pestered him. "This is of the utmost importance."

"What makes you think I would agree to this," he hesitated before speaking.

I stopped as we emerged from the hallway into a splendid courtyard overrun with greenery. There was a shallow pool at its center where rose petals littered its surface.

"I know you will, my friend," I spoke in a hushed tone, continuing the conversation in Coptic. There were two guards here within earshot.

"I'm not going to get myself killed because you're my friend," he groaned. "Besides, it is you who owes me a favor. I provided you with shelter and profession. And you betrayed that trust."

I kept walking, away from the guards and toward the pool.

"I know, my friend. I am indebted to you. I would see that debt soar, however. Especially that this favor is in your interest."

He raised an eyebrow. "It is in my interest to betray Christ and Emperor?"

I smirked. "Only the Emperor."

"And why would I do that? It's foolhardy."

"Is it? You may have this notion that the Roman Empire is invincible, but we have given the world cause to believe this is untrue. We have taken much of Egypt. Syria and Palestine pay tribute to the man in Madinah. As we speak, there are armies pushing north to the fringes of Anatolia. We have brought this Emperor of yours to his knees."

"I am unconvinced."

I sighed. "You had an uncle."

Andronicus snapped his neck toward me. There was a flare to his eyes augmented by the palm that coiled about my throat in half a heartbeat. The man may have been a merchant and a seafarer, but gods was he strong.

"You have no right to speak of this," he fumed.

I gurgled, grabbing his fist. He eased his grip on me so I can speak.

"But I do, Andronicus, I do," I said, heaving. "Why must you bind yourself to Empire and Emperor that have shown you naught but persecution and tyranny? Do you think we give a rat's arse whether you are Miaphysite or Chalcedonian? Do you think we would have killed your uncle because of his preference?"

"Betraying everything I have ever known," Andronicus groaned again. "It won't bring him back."

"It will bring your cousin back, though," I replied hurriedly. "The priest. The one they exiled. Wherever, he is. Perhaps, enjoying a hermitage somewhere in the mountains? Yes? He can be a saint, Andronicus. Your own flesh and blood can be a saint, name recited and revered until the end of times. Think about it."

Andronicus hesitated. His grip on my throat began to ease further.

"Your men on the ship," I continued, never relenting. I was Hanthalah ibn Ka'b. The Devil trembles before me. "They are the poorest of the poor."

Andronicus nodded with pride. "Only former slaves, urchins, beggars and orphans are in my employ."

"Yes, yes. They have all weathered the oppression of the Romans. They know what it is like to lose a loved one so precariously, so callously. To the whims of one corrupt man. When I journeyed with you, I found that most of them did time in the military. And so, did you, my friend. You were in the navy, an officer even."

Andronicus nodded.

"And what has your service got you? Did it spare your uncle? Your cousin? Did it stop the constantly spiraling taxes they keep enforcing? Tell me, Andronicus. Your men, having once been the poorest of the poor, all Miaphysites. I want you to ask them what would have happened to them had they been unable to pay said taxes?"

Andronicus did not answer.

"Did any of them lose loved ones who refused to convert?" I asked. "Did any of them have family members in the Miaphysite clergy, such as yourself?"

He nodded, grudgingly.

"You must be wondering what guarantee you have that this new order will be any different," I took a step back, as his arm dropped to his side. "You need only look at the provinces in Syria and Palestine. The conquered regions in Egypt. We do not see Miaphysite or Chalcedonian. We have restored the Jews to Jerusalem. As we will restore all exiled clergymen.

We will restore your cousin, Andronicus, who will be a saint. We will restore the memory of your uncle, who died a martyr. Of that, I promise you."

And Mundhir.

________________

Days later, I found myself fretting at hemp rope on Andronicus' ship. We swerved a crag, and I paused to feast my eyes on the glimmering city that just took shape on the horizon.

Nostalgia swept in then, overwhelming and cruel. The wind lapped at my cheeks as I walked to the prow of the ship, and my hair billowed like a cloak behind me. The fresh smell of the sea filled my nostrils as I tugged at my flowing Muslim beard, reminiscing days long past when I had been standing in this very same position with nothing to my name but the clothes on my back and a single weapon.

When I had marveled at the beauty of this pearl floating on the seas.

That was nearly ten years ago now. And the sight of Alexandria did not fail to take my breath away.

But where my first sight of it nine years prior had ended in deceit and tragedy, I resolved my second visit would usher in a day of conquest and soaring reputation.

A day for rescue and restoration, I thought, my eyes wandering to the looming lighthouse. There was no fire adorning its peak now that we were in broad daylight, but I knew that once the city fell, I must go there.

"Half crew," I told Andronicus before we set sail from the harbor. "One half stays behind, the other comes with us."

"This will make for laborious sailing," he complained.

"We will not be going far," I reassured him. "Besides, your men are more than capable."

We left the harbor with the excuse of reimbursing the city. Since the Arabs were yet to build a navy, Alexandria was frequently reimbursed with supplies from Constantinople via the Mediterranean.

Andronicus was a respected figure and an established merchant in Alexandria, known to all the officers and high officials that mattered. His crew would set forth to collect the barrels and bundles of precious food and fodder from the open seas and return with them to the city.

That was what he had been doing for seven months. This was just another such endeavor, carried out in the name of Christ and Emperor.

Only he had other arrangements. Ship filled to the brim with empty barrels and crates, it was manned by thirty Egyptian sailors and just as many Arab.

"Who goes?" a man challenged us as we neared the city. He was on a ship floating a distance away from the harbor, I saw. There were other such vessels docked, I saw, but this was the only checkpoint I could see. The Romans continued to underestimate us.

"Judas," Andronicus confirmed the password.

Judas, I thought. Fitting. I was grateful for Martha's tutoring all those years. Now I was able to pick up on such anecdotes.

"Nice to have you back, Andronicus," the officer on board the other ship exclaimed with a bright smile.

"Nice to be back," Andronicus answered flippantly.

Our ship inched ever closer to the harbor. It seemed to be taking an agonizingly slow time to do so. Though I reassured Andronicus we would not stir suspicion, I still feared discovery.

"Men see what they want to see," I'd said. But was I willing to bet the lives of nearly sixty men on that?

The rowers on either side of the sleek vessel were almost all of Andronicus' original crew. The Muslim troops we had collected from the port city some days earlier, inexperienced in the ways of sailing, bustled about the ship, trying to make themselves look busy.

"You look well prepared for pirates!" the officer exclaimed again.

Oh shit, I thought. I had proposed the plan with Zubayr before setting foot into Alexandria for the negotiations. The men he sent to the port city some leagues east were all clad in mail shirts. That must have been what the officer was referring to.

"Furl the mainsail!" Andronicus bellowed.

The prow was nearly gracing the harbor now. I heard a number of confused grunts and saw some raised eyebrows from the other ship as some of our rowers rose from their benches to fret at the mainsail.

We've been discovered, I thought. I didn't think the plan out to its details. Thank the go – I mean, thank Allah for the contingency.

"Blaze!" I roared, unsheathing the dagger at my waist, hopping onto the railing of Andronicus' ship and hurling myself into the Roman one.

There was an inner compartment at the center of the ship where a door of timber could be opened to access the horde of shields and swords we hid in the bowels of the ship. But we had roused suspicion, so we had to act fast while we still had the element of surprise.

Someone behind me let loose a flaming arrow in response to my announcement. It soared upward to the heavens in all its blazing glory – like a flare.

And so, armed with nothing but daggers and concealed weapons, we hopped onto the inspection ship, hacking at bamboozled Romans. After disemboweling the first man who challenged me, another came howling at me, charging wildly.

During my time with the Romans, I knew they preferred overwhelming the enemy with numbers of brute strength more than anything. They taught us to lunge – to strike forward with the tip of the blade – rather than swipe or hack. I could not parry the man's charge with a pitiful dagger, but this intimate knowledge of Roman tactics emerged spontaneously to the front of my mind.

And so he came, sword outstretched, spittle flickering savagely, entrenched in a moment of stillness, like the idols that belonged to the gods of old. I sidestepped, threw myself on my right shoulder as the Roman barreled forth where I had been a moment before. The tip of his sword snagged on the timber of the railing. He ground his teeth in frustration, attempting to yank it away, but by then I had found my feet again.

I rammed myself into him shoulder-first, hurling him overboard with a loud splash as the sweet clamor of battle raged all round.

But the melee was not to be. The other half of Andronicus' crew we left behind had seen the signal of the flaming arrow. Thirty men armed with bows and arrows formed a neat line on the harbor a short distance away and let loose the first of their volleys.

"Shields!" I roared, pushing past another assailant to pick up the shield of a fallen Roman.

An arrow thumped into the wood of my raised shield as I fought off other Romans. But bit by bit, their numbers dwindled. The pressure on us relieved by the newcomer archers on soil.

Andronicus roared, flashing red teeth, hefting the severed head of the officer that had spoken to him only minutes before, displaying it high in the air for all to see.

Disheartened at seeing their superior perish, the remaining Romans were either made short work of or surrendered, throwing their weapons at our feet.

The first phase was a success. But the clamor must have alerted the attention of the garrison of the city. We needed to get going, and fast.

And so, with ninety men at his side, yours truly leapt off the prow of a Roman ship and onto Alexandrian soil once more.

With one last lingering look at the dimmed zenith of the lighthouse, I unsheathed my sword and sprinted into the streets.

____________________

Racing past the fine plastered houses of the polished district of the city, away from the cries of alarm, the shuffling of feet and the flicker of torches under the amalgamation of hues splattered in the dusk sky.

"Keep to the canals," I whispered to Andronicus and 'Amr who were at my side. The former echoed the command to his sailors, the latter to the Muslim troops.

We saw the paved streets of cobbled stone give way to dust and mud. The water of the canal running through the Egyptian district was of a sickly greenish tent; muck and feces floated on the surface of the water.

The fine brick houses were no more. In their place was rotting wood, thatch and clay. Narrow alleyways stained with piss, the distinct scents of decay and smoke and incense.

Smells like home, I thought, a flurry of memory and emotion overcoming me again. I tried resisting, but the rage pricked at me, provoked by the influx of agony like a lion prodded by a stick.

I came to a halt in a familiar neighborhood.

All too familiar.

A single tear ran down my cheek. The last months, all I thought of was Sumayya's request. Her smooth, pale, unscathed face. Her wide, beady eyes and soft voice.

Standing before the tavern, however, I could not recall her features.

Only those of Martha.

I pointed at the tavern with my sword's tip.

Don't do it, I thought to myself. It's a bad idea. They'll know where we are.

"Fuck it," I said beneath my breath. "Burn the fucking place down."

"You what?" Andronicus demanded. "If you do that, they'll know where we are. They outnumber us by the hundreds!"

"Burn this fucking place down!" I bellowed, pointing at the tavern.

That damned tavern. The source for all my misery. Fuck that tavern.

"Warriors of Allah," I turned to face the Muslim troops, speaking in Arabic now. "This place is the abode of Shaytan! They perform the most heinous acts in that building. Do you know what it is?"

"A whorehouse?" one man guessed to the sniggers of his comrades.

"It is!" I agreed. "And do you know why we are here? In Egypt?"

"To do God's work!" another chimed in.

"Hanthalah," Andronicus spoke with warning to his tone. "We need to move."

"God's work!" I roared. "Do you think our god would let us emerge unscathed if we turn a blind eye to a venue that offers the vices of alcohol and wedlock? Burn it down."

"Hanthalah!" Andronicus yelled.

But it was too late.

"Demolish this abode of sin and evil!" I demanded of my men.

Within moments, the last vestiges of Martha were obliterated from the face of the earth. The inferno crackled wildly as the shrill screams of those inside rang heavy against our ears.

Appalled, Andronicus stood by my side, gaping. Finally, he recovered his composure.

"Cross the canal," he said. "We need to get to the fucking gates. We can use this as a diversion."

Hurrying away from the savage beast of yellow and red and orange, I spared a glance behind my back momentarily. By the time we got to the canal, the tavern was little more than blackened, charred wood, emitting only the aroma of scorched flesh.

My eyes were watery, and my vision was clouded with an unceasing stream of tears.

It was the fires, I told myself, dabbing at my eyes. I would not tolerate weakness.

Yet, somewhere between the smells of rotten wood, dung and roasting corpses, was that of saltwater. The smell of the sea carried from the shore by the winds.

And I no longer denied the source of the tears.