Nura put out the hammam furnace so noisily that the guards came to see for themselves.
"The water is cold," she said, standing in the almost cooled chamber. "The sick cannot be washed in the cold. If one of Yusuf's men wants to explain to the mothers why feverish children are lying on stone, let him come in and tell them to their faces."
No one came in.
Too many women stood at the doors: servants, bath attendants, old women, two widows from Rafiq's quarter, and Fatima al-Harrasa in an expensive unadorned covering. They had brought cloth, copper bowls, jugs of bad water and bundles of herbs. Some had come with children they had no one to leave with.
Nura did not give orders, but simply divided the work among them. One woman changed dressings, another counted jugs, a third soothed a crying boy by the door.
Elias spoke to the guards like a physician with no time left for fear.
"If the sick die here, the smell will reach the palace. If we take them down, at least they will not infect the upper court."
The guards liked orders, but they did not like being responsible for the smell of death. They let them pass.
Fatima came to the old room of the water-masters without a key: a key would have aroused suspicion. Two women and an empty litter accompanied her. The guards were still afraid to argue with a courtier in public.
"There is a feverish woman in there," she told the guards. "A woman from a closed house cannot be kept with the sick. If she dies behind that door, the smell will go straight to the emir's arch."
Elias showed them a cloth steeped in the sour-smelling herbs used to rub those confined to bed before they were moved. The guards decided that the smell was already coming from behind the door.
While they argued over the order, Nura found a low smoke passage behind the old bowls. Zulaykha crawled out through it on her knees, into dust and darkness, and for the first time in many hours thanked the old masters for distrusting doors.
Fatima stepped forward first. The guards admitted the courtier, and the women who would have been stopped alone at the door passed in behind her.
Zulaykha was carried out third.
They hid her beneath Fatima's covering, gave her a bowl and told her to hunch over and pretend to be ill. Fatima herself held the edge of the cloth.
"If you betray us," she whispered, "I will say I knew nothing."
"If I betray the children, say it louder."
Fatima did not answer. But her fingers trembled on the covering.
At the lower stair, Zulaykha heard the commotion at the gate.
Íñigo was being led across the inner court towards the northern road. He was in irons again, but his injured wrist had been left free: Yusuf did not want the crowd to see the burn. A chain ran from his belt to his left hand. His right was left in view so that everyone would remember: with that hand, the prisoner had written a sign to the enemy.
Íñigo recognised Fatima's covering on the litter and stopped.
A guard shoved him.
"Move."
Íñigo did not move. He could not take his eyes from Fatima's covering.
One of the embassy men was already waiting at the gate with a horse. A new rope hung from the saddle. They meant not to free Íñigo, but to bind him again as soon as the exchange was made.
Zulaykha lifted the edge of the covering a fraction.
Their eyes met.
They had only a few moments in which to exchange words.
Íñigo said:
"He brought the middle stake as evidence."
The guard jerked the chain.
"Be quiet."
Íñigo went on, louder now:
"The stake I moved. My father brought it to turn what I did against me and make the city believe him instead of me."
Fatima, still holding the covering, swore under her breath.
Íñigo stepped as close as the chain allowed.
"Amina did not sing only over the cradle," he said.
Zulaykha went still.
Íñigo touched the scar beneath his left collarbone, the one Amina had written about.
"Whenever my mother heard in the camp that my father was going to the water, she sang another line. I thought it was a plea not to wake me."
The guard was already raising his hand.
Íñigo managed to say:
"Do not break the single brace: let the water out through small mouths."
The blow came after the final word.
Íñigo doubled over but did not fall. Zulaykha, Nura, Elias and Rafiq heard the fourth line. Somewhere below, the boy was already opening the small drain.
The guards and the embassy men heard the line, but without Khalid's rope, the seven handspans, the three breaths and the single brace, it sounded like a strange lullaby. Only Khalid, Zulaykha, Nura and Íñigo knew its full meaning.
The guard meant to strike again, but Fatima suddenly dropped the copper bowl. It rolled across the stone with such a clang that every head turned.
"The sick woman is having a fit," Fatima said sharply.
The lie was unconvincing, but it gave Íñigo time to straighten and give Zulaykha a faint smile.
Fatima lowered the covering. "Do you know now?" she whispered.
"Now I know what to do."
Nura carried the litter down. The women could move the sick through the hammam without being caught by the palace guard.
Íñigo did not try to escape.
He walked towards the northern gate, knowing that his father would now be forced to speak to him before witnesses.
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