Empire of Lies

54

To the other passengers on the Kostantiniyye Express, they didn’t seem out of place.

A married couple, sharing a two-berth cabin, taking the overnight train from Paris to Vienna. A trip to visit relatives, a romantic holiday perhaps, maybe an anniversary. No one would really know which, since the couple spent almost the entire trip in their compartment and kept to themselves when dining.

The fact that they had presented themselves on the track that morning with only one small piece of luggage between them was unusual, but it wouldn’t necessarily raise eyebrows. No one needed to know that it was a used piece that they had hastily bought, along with the slightly more fashionable clothes they were wearing, from a secondhand shop in Montmartre, nor that all it contained were the clothes they had stolen from the madrasah at Fontainebleau, which was also the sum total of their belongings.

Kamal only began to relax once the train pulled out of Paris’s grand Osman Sofu Pasha Station and began its journey eastward to Istanbul. Even then, he was still on his guard. They’d done their best to pass unnoticed on their journey from the inn early that morning to the grandiose rail station and across its towering halls to the platform where their train lay waiting, with Kamal’s stern expression projecting a silent barrier to any approach and Nisreen’s face hidden behind a head scarf that was more opaque than anything she’d ever worn. They hadn’t attracted any attention, nor had they been approached by any policemen, which was a better outcome than Kamal had expected. After all, they’d been in Paris for a little over a week, and even given the technological limitations of the period, there had been plenty of time for Taymoor to have the authorities set up an all-points bulletin for them. Perhaps Kamal had overestimated Taymoor’s influence with the Zaptiye. There were no routine identity checks either, since the train wouldn’t be crossing any borders. The entire journey was within the territory of the empire, which offered unhindered travel to its citizens.

The conductor punched their tickets and they were settled into their compartment by the time the train rolled out. It was early morning, and the weather had turned again, with a chill in the air and angry clouds threatening a downpour, but as open country replaced the dense urban sprawl of the French capital, Kamal felt a sense of calmness break through his defenses. He welcomed the feeling, knowing it was only a temporary respite. It would lessen once they got off the train and vaporize along with them once they did their jump.

It would take the express twenty-five hours to reach Vienna, so they’d arrive the next morning after brief stops in Strasbourg and Munich. The train would carry on after they disembarked, taking an additional two days to reach its terminus, the Müsir Ahmet Pasha Station in Istanbul.

To pay for the tickets, Kamal had resorted to something he would have previously considered unthinkable. Having exhausted the charity stones within reach, his only option was to steal. This was a risky undertaking mostly in terms of his identity being discovered. Although the penal law of the shari’a had fixed punishments for most crimes, it didn’t cover more modern situations such as forgery and blackmail, and its stringent rules and procedures made prosecution overly complicated. To counter that, Murad had introduced a secular legal system, the kanun, which made prosecution easier and more effective. During Murad’s reign, under that system ordinary robbers who were caught, even those who had killed their victims, didn’t always receive the severe corporal punishments of Islamic law. Instead, they were often only forced to return the money or the stolen merchandise to the victim’s relatives, along with compensation that would be agreed on by both parties.

Kamal wasn’t overly worried. He could always use the incantation if he were captured, provided he wouldn’t be leaving Nisreen behind. Still, he was placing himself and Nisreen at risk, but he had no choice.

When it came to matters of crime, his significant experience and skills mitigated the risk. And so he’d walked hours that day, far from the inn, sizing up various potential targets, even considering a post office before deciding it was too dangerous. He’d eventually settled on a merchant of luxurious woolen textiles from Carcassonne, a choice that was cemented after he’d been rudely patronized by the gruff, haughty merchant on his exploratory foray into the store.

The gold coins he’d taken from him had allowed him to pay for the clothes, the suitcase, and two tickets in a small sleeping compartment. It was a B-class cabin, which was more than suitable. It had wooden paneling, a large window, a couch that converted to two bunk beds, and a small vanity unit with a washbasin. Each sleeper carriage, of which there were twelve, had two separate toilets for its passengers’ use, but there were no baths or showers on board, not even in the A-class coach. Two restaurant cars and three brake vans, all finished in the same imperial red livery, completed the train.

By midmorning, the train had left the French province in its wake. The ride was smooth, the newly introduced sprung bogies dampening the powerful coal-powered engine’s rumble and any irregularities in the tracks. Flat terrain soon gave way to a more rugged landscape, and, as the train began its climb into the lush wooded hills of the Vosges Mountains, an accompanying sense of trepidation rose within Kamal and Nisreen, one that grew with each advancing mile, even if it remained unspoken.

They spent the day in their compartment going over their plans time and again to make sure they hadn’t missed anything that might prove disastrous, only emerging for meals in the dining car.

They needed to reach the Christian leadership before the suicide bombing at the ceremonial review outside the wooden palisade at Tulln. To do that, they couldn’t do their time jump in Vienna, which was surrounded by the largest army the Ottomans had ever assembled. Under constant attack for two months, it was on the brink of collapse. Those who had stayed behind and the thousands of refugees from the countryside were trapped inside the city’s crumbling walls, barely surviving in desperate conditions. Given that the city’s stout-hearted governor, Count Starhemberg, had refused the Ottoman leader’s demand to surrender and convert to Islam, they faced slaughter or slavery if the city fell.

Kamal and Nisreen didn’t want to be trapped with them. They wouldn’t be able to get out to warn the commanders of the pope’s army about the suicide bombers. So their plan was to get off the train in Vienna and take a car or a horse-drawn carriage out of the city, to a place far from the siege, where they could do their time jump and connect with the Christian leaders safely.

Their research showed that the Polish king and the rest of the military leaders had gathered at Stetteldorf Castle before the move across the river to Tulln. The castle, an elegant two-story structure with a Renaissance façade, sat on a commanding hilltop that overlooked the Danube meadows and the town of Stockerau. Kamal and Nisreen would make their time jump somewhere inside the castle, choosing a date when the commanders were there and warning them about the suicide bombers and Ottoman onslaught. The commanders would then need to think up and execute a counterplan, which, if successful, could decimate the Ottoman advance and put an end to Rasheed’s conquest.

But that wouldn’t be enough. Kamal also needed to kill him while all this was happening. He had an idea about how to achieve that, but he didn’t share it with Nisreen. She wouldn’t like it. He wasn’t enamored with it either but couldn’t think of a better option to make sure he got to Rasheed. The history books told them where Rasheed was during the suicide bombing and where he witnessed the massacre that ensued: on a hilltop, where Kamal would get to him.

If all went well.

Shortly before lunch, the train made its first scheduled stop at Strasbourg. Kamal and Nisreen didn’t join the passengers who stepped out to stretch their legs. They preferred the safety of the cabin and took in the view of the great mosque of Strasbourg from there. It had been a cathedral before the conquest, its second spire had never been completed. The Ottomans had finished the construction in their own style. Both spires, in keeping with other converted churches, were now capped by domes and surrounded by even taller minarets.

The stop was only for ten minutes. Just before they left, another train pulled up on the track alongside them. It was a slower, local train, heading in the opposite direction. Kamal glanced through one of its windows. It was a bare carriage without seats. A few peasants sat on the floor, huddled around bundles of farm produce, smoking long gilt pipes. One of the women looked out and saw Kamal. She held his gaze, staring back at him through impassive eyes.

The sight stirred something inside him. These people, these simple folk, would soon be eradicated if he and Nisreen succeeded. He wondered about that. Was that fair? And what did that mean? Would they simply vanish? Would they have never existed? It was both troubling and perplexing, and he was glad the express started moving again, distracting him.

As the day progressed, the woods of vivid spring greens that cosseted the winding tracks became engulfed by the shadows of the falling sun. By sunset, they’d be crossing the Danube, rolling into Munich a couple of hours later. Again, Kamal and Nisreen elected to stay on the train for the brief stop. The train then headed back the way it came, reversing out of the main station before looping around the south of the city and resuming its eastward travel. Vienna, the next stop, would be waiting for them after breakfast.

Before long, the express had left Munich and its spires in its wake and was straining on its long climb through alpine country. The air grew colder as the train snaked around the foothills of the snow-capped mountains that straddled the Bavarian states and their Austria brethren, the whole majestic edifice backlit by a flaming sunset that had somehow managed to elbow its way through the oppressive cloud cover. It was on that slow climb and shortly after leaving Munich that the conductor sounded the bell for dinner.

Kamal and Nisreen left their cabin again and crossed to the dining car, where the meal was an even more subdued affair. The moment of truth was almost upon them, and it was weighing heavily on them. The air around them was thick with the intoxicating mix of honey-and-apple-flavored tobacco from the multitude of water pipes, which only added to their heavy-headedness. By the time their waiter offered them coffees and rosewater infusions, they were mentally drained, their spirits as somber as the sepulchral darkness outside the dining car’s windows.

“We should get some sleep,” Kamal said. “Might be the last comfortable night we have for a while.”

Nisreen’s face was tightly drawn, her eyes lost in a faraway stare.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yes. It’s just… there are so many unknowns. The language. The war. What they’ll make of us there… the food, the diseases, all kinds of things our bodies aren’t used to. We’re taking a huge leap into darkness.”

Kamal shrugged. “True. But we’re not going in blind.”

“Still… I don’t know what to feel. I keep trying to think of it like we’re early pioneers off on some exciting adventure, explorers heading into uncharted waters… but I can’t shake feeling terrified.”

“It can only be a mix of the two.”

“We’re going to be okay, right?”

“Absolutely. Just promise you won’t leave me behind and go off to another time without telling me where you’re jumping.”

“You mean, when.”

“That too.”

The tightness across her face loosened marginally. She picked her napkin off her lap, set in on the table, and pushed her chair back. “Give me a few minutes to wash up, would you? I’m feeling sticky.”

“Take your time,” he told her. “No rush.”

He watched Nisreen rise up. She gave him a weak smile, one that was miles from reaching her eyes, then headed down the aisle of the dining car before stepping out through the door at its far end.

Nisreen’s mind was still swamped by questions that had no answers as she walked away.

She navigated the narrow corridor, past a steward and an elderly couple, before stepping across the interconnecting gangways between the dining car and their sleeper carriage.

She inserted the key into the lock of their compartment, opened the door, and stepped inside. She had barely started to undress when a couple of gentle taps at the door interrupted her. She let out a light snicker and stepped over to the door.

“I thought you said, no rush,” she said as she unlocked the door—

It flew open, pushed in with brute force by strong, unseen hands. She faltered back, narrowly avoiding getting hit in the head by it, and in that confusing instant she realized what was happening.

It wasn’t Kamal charging in.

It was Taymoor.

He was moving fast, shutting and locking the door before spinning around and coming right at her, clasping his hand around her mouth before she could even scream.