Casca 13: The Assassin by Barry Sadler Read Free Book Online

Ali's voice constricted a bit as he forced a polite response from it. "No, Kasim. It is not permitted by the Prophet. But for you, until you follow the True Way..." Bu Ali left the sentence unfinished.
    So Casca now found himself alone at a table in a dark corner of the small, crowded room, his back against a wall, a cup cradled in his hands, and his thoughts guttering lazily in his mind like the slowly smoking lamps.
    He checked out the patrons. There was the usual crowd of losers one would find anywhere, men whose faces one never remembered. But there was more than the usual number of quiet men, tough men. They made the cafe seem more of a club ... like wine shops he had remembered from his early days in the legion where most of the patrons were legionnaires. There was no sign of the woman Miriam. Maybe he had to ask for her. And, oddly, there were no "characters," exotics, the odd men you expected to find.
    No, that wasn't right.
    At a table to his left sat a young, fresh faced boy, obviously drunk, very drunk. And just as obviously an Arab. Not only the facial structure, but even in the dim, smoky light the dark brown eyes. Casca couldn't quite put his finger on what it was that made the kid unusual. Something, though. The memory of other young men in other wine shops across the years rose in his mind, and he moved irritably, puzzled at why tonight he should be so sunk in memories.
    Then he saw the big Circassian, the bearded man who looked like a bear, the bully.
    Casca hadn't noticed him before; the big man must have been sullenly drinking. Now he was baiting the fresh faced Arab kid. He had pulled out a dagger and slammed it point down into the table. Right now he was working on the kid verbally the usual remarks about his ancestry. What he was really doing was setting the kid up, and the boy apparently didn't have enough experience, or was too drunk, to know that the big Circassian intended to cut him up.
    Circassian? Shit! He looked more like he was from one of the tribes of barbarians far to the north. Casca searched his memory.... The ones called Rh'shans? More to the point, what dumb bastard of an owner let a brute like this loose with a dagger nearly half as big as a gladius? But, hell! It was none of his business.
    That was when Miriam appeared.
    On a cleared off tabletop back against the wall, more or less well lit by a couple of extra lamps. Apparently she was a dancer. And apparently she was also going to do the dance of the veils.
    Casca smiled, then sipped on his wine. If the trade wine weren't Falernian, neither were the veils the costly stuff Salome had used on Herod. There had been a lot of wear and tear on this fabric, and it had been cheap to begin with. And as for Miriam, she was no Salome. Momentarily Casca's face darkened as he recalled the time, long ago now, when a young woman had danced this same dance of the veils for him personally. Damn all memories... This Miriam was no young girl. She had been around.
    And yet...
    There was something oddly appealing about Miriam, something that seemed intended to draw him to her, something more than her looks. Mamud was right though, she was red headed, and she was beautiful, and she had a damn fine well-built body. Maybe it was because she was a Jewess. Casca felt an affinity for the people of Abraham despite his experience with the Jew. Maybe it was because she was no longer a young girl, but, like him, knew her way around. Maybe –
    A small, pearl handled dagger slid across the table in front of Casca at the same time as the noise of the struggle behind him. He had forgotten the Rh'shan bully and the young boy. He turned.
    Apparently the Rh'shan had finally prodded the boy to attack him, had kicked the kid's pearl handled dagger from his fingers, and now was standing over the fallen Arab youngster loudly describing what he intended to do with the dagger he held in his own big ham of a hand.
    He never finished.
    Something happened to him. Something quick,