By dawn Yusuf had announced that old Abu Salim had fallen in the darkness when the pigeons knocked down the lantern. Had he admitted to murder, everyone would have remembered the old man's dying accusations.
After Abu Salim's death, Yusuf removed Íñigo's guard.
That was how he put it.
"A prisoner under a water contract should not look like a criminal while Khalid's daughter conducts her investigation."
When Nura heard this, she spat into the copper bowl for dirty water.
"When Yusuf gives you freedom, count the doors."
Zulaykha counted.
Two guards had left the hammam. One remained at the far corner, too distant to intervene but close enough to see. One of Yusuf's boys stood by the lower garden with a jug. Most troubling of all was the empty roof where the pigeons usually perched.
Íñigo came alone.
Without the iron on his wrist, he looked not freer but more exposed. The burn was uncovered. The mark for turning the water stood red on his skin like the print of his father's hand.
"This is a trap," he said.
"Yes."
"And we are going anyway?"
"If we do not go, Yusuf will say the water was diverted under my seal. If we go, he will learn the route."
"Then why go?"
Zulaykha looked at Nura.
Nura took out the women's key to the hammam.
"Because he will learn the wrong route."
The women's door was hidden behind a warm wall where steam lingered longer than in the main bath. Oils, old cloth, herbs for women in childbirth, vinegar and cracked copper bowls were usually stored there. On the maps used by the men, the space beyond that wall was marked as solid stone.
Nura inserted the key.
The lock turned without a sound.
Beyond the door was not a corridor but a narrow, damp descent. The stone smelt of soap, lime and old iron. Rafiq squeezed through first, because an adult would have had to turn sideways.
"If I die, tell them I was a witness," he whispered.
Nura cuffed him on the back of the head.
"If you die, I will kill you myself."
Rafiq snorted, but Nura kept her hand on his shoulder for a long while afterwards.
They descended for a long time. At first they could hear drops and women's voices from the hammam through the wall. The lower they went, the quieter it became. At last there was only a faint wind, as cold as snow in the mountains.
Íñigo stopped at a bend.
"There is no water here."
"Stone remembers where water once ran," said Zulaykha.
"Even emptiness speaks like a master in your country."
"Even truth comes as a trap in yours."
He did not answer.
Rafiq, who was walking ahead, suddenly crouched.
"A mark."
The same sign that marked Íñigo's wrist had been burnt into a wooden support blackened by damp: a circle, a short line and a notch at the side. A fresh scratch gleamed beside it. Someone had recently tested the spot with a knife.
Íñigo touched his wrist.
"There was a mark like this in the trench."
"Did your father know this sign?"
"He said signs were for those afraid of forgetting. Then he burnt them into things he wanted to remember himself."
"And into you."
Íñigo lowered his hand.
"I was his possession longer than I was his son."
Nura, walking ahead, whispered, "Quiet."
A man spoke almost inaudibly beyond the wall:
"Do not turn the upper tooth."
Zulaykha stopped breathing.
Rafiq clutched the lantern to his chest.
The voice repeated:
"The upper tooth leads to the ditch."
Zulaykha followed the voice. Nura tried to hold her back, but when she understood whom Zulaykha hoped to find, she let go.
Beyond the bend was a dry branch of the acequia. The stone was white with lime. A scorched rope hung on the wall, like the one found with Abu Salim, but there were more knots here.
Seven.
Then three.
Then one long knot, charred black.
Khalid al-Mairi sat behind the grille of an inspection passage.
He was thin and grey-haired. Zulaykha had seen that face many times in dreams and had feared seeing it in waking life. Khalid's eyes were open, but whitish patches covered his pupils: he was blind.
Zulaykha could not say "Father." For a whole year she had blamed herself for his death.
Khalid turned his head at the sound of her breathing.
"Zulaykha?"
Then she fell to her knees.
Íñigo stood motionless behind her. Nura covered her mouth with her hand. Rafiq wept in silence.
Khalid reached through the grille but could not find his daughter's face. Zulaykha pressed her cheek to his fingers herself.
He ran his fingers carefully over her cheek.
"You have grown," he said.
"You are alive."
"The living can be hidden too."
She wanted to ask a thousand things. Why he had not called out. Why he had not returned. Why he had left her a traitor's name. Why he had gone alone that night. Why she had opened the gate and helped him not to escape, but to disappear.
But Khalid lifted his face, listening to the water beyond the walls.
"Who is with you?"
"Nura. Rafiq. The prisoner under the water contract."
Íñigo stepped closer.
Khalid went still.
"Say something," he asked.
Íñigo could find no answer.
"The song," Zulaykha whispered.
Íñigo said quietly:
"Snow water does not favour a proud hand."
Khalid closed his blind eyes.
"Amina," he said.
The name echoed through the dry acequia.
"You knew her?" Íñigo asked.
Khalid did not answer at once.
A door banged somewhere far above.
Yusuf or his men might already be searching the empty rooms of the hammam.
Khalid tightened his fingers around Zulaykha's.
"Listen to me. The underground passage is not sealed: it can be opened from the other side. But if the upper tooth is turned, the water will rush into the ditch and sweep away everyone below. Not only the troops. Everyone."
Zulaykha gripped his hand more tightly.
"Who closed the acequia?"
Khalid turned his face towards her.
"I did."
She could not draw breath.
"Not for the enemy," he said. "From the enemy. And from us."
"Do you hear that?" Nura whispered.
Now they all heard it.
Firm footsteps sounded on the stone above.
Yusuf had removed the guard so that they would lead him to Khalid alive.
Khalid spoke quickly:
"Daughter, if Yusuf comes in here, he will force me to testify in his favour. If Gonzalo learns that you have found me, he will take the boy with the song. You must leave by different ways."
"I will not leave you."
"Once before, you opened the gate for me because you trusted me. Now close the door because you trust the water."
Íñigo approached the grille.
"The outer brace. Where is it?"
Khalid listened closely to his voice.
"In your mother."
The footsteps drew closer.
Nura seized Zulaykha by the shoulders.
"We have to go."
Khalid raised his hand.
"Zulaykha."
She turned.
"Water cannot be judged by the sword."
Zulaykha had known those words all her life.
Only now did she understand: her father had been speaking not only to her, but to the whole city.
A stranger's lantern flared beyond the bend.
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