Damascus – Scriptorium Back Room
The reek of vinegar and gallnut ink clung to the air as Taimur entered the dim workspace. The scholar hunched over his desk, fingers stained black, transcribing a waqf deed with practiced strokes. His head snapped up at the creak of the door.
"You're late with the endowment papers," he rasped, squinting through cracked spectacles. Then recognition flickered in his eyes. "You're not the qadi's man."
Taimur placed a sheet of vellum on the desk—a perfect forgery of the scholar's own hand, right down to the flawed alif he always curved too sharply.
"Beautiful work. Though the seal on the Aleppo land grant was a shade too red."
The scholar's quill snapped in his grip.
"I burned those drafts."
"Not the one you kept to renegotiate your cut." Taimur leaned in. "The qadi's men would pay well for proof of your... side business."
A fly buzzed against an inkpot. The scholar exhaled through yellowed teeth.
"What do you want?"
"Your talents. Transcribing intercepted letters—with creative additions when needed."
The scholar wiped his hands on his stained robe. "I won't forge holy texts."
"Just trade manifests. Templar supply orders. The occasional ransom note." Taimur placed a gold dinar beside the broken quill. "And you'll sleep easy knowing the qadi never sees your private ledger."
A long silence. Then the scholar pocketed the coin.
"Show me the first letter."
Aleppo – The Leper's Colony
One week later
The man calling himself al-Mal'oon—The Cursed—lifted his bandaged face as Taimur's shadow fell across his begging bowl. The afternoon sun glinted off the fresh pomegranate Taimur placed beside the few copper coins—its ruby-red skin flawless against the chipped clay.
"Allah bless you, merchant," the leper croaked. His voice rasped with the perfect timbre of a dying man. Pus oozed convincingly from his bandaged arms—a masterful mix of chickpea flour, vinegar, and lamb fat that reeked of rotting flesh.
Taimur adjusted his merchant's robes, the Damascene silk whispering as he crouched.
"You watch the Templar barracks," he murmured in flawless Aleppine Arabic. "Yesterday at noon. Describe the Frankish knight who entered with a limp."
Behind the stained gauze, the spy's eyes sharpened.
"Not just any Frank—a Templar knight. His surcoat was torn here—" A bandaged finger tapped his right shoulder. "—and his limp came from an old wound. Favored his left leg climbing the steps."
Taimur's fingers twitched toward his dagger. The description matched Reynald's lieutenant—the butcher of Hama. Just where the dossier predicted he'd be.
"Good." A silver dirham clinked into the bowl, vanishing under rags with practiced speed.
"Tomorrow at dusk, a man with a scar like this—" He traced a crescent on his cheekbone. "—will bring a package wrapped in red felt. You'll tell him: The orange seller counts his coins left-handed."
The leper's chuckle collapsed into a wet cough. "And if this humble beggar... forgets?"
Taimur smiled and caught the man's wrist. With his thumbnail, he scraped away a patch of "leprosy," revealing the telltale tan line of a long-gone wedding band.
"Then your wife in Mosul learns why her beloved husband truly fled after embezzling the governor's taxes." He released him with a gentle pat.
"Allah commands us to care for widows, does He not?"
The begging bowl trembled in the dust.
Message received.
Antioch – The Silk Bazaar at Noon
Two weeks later
The merchant's stall reeked of rosewater and sweat. Taimur watched from behind a display of Persian brocade as the man—thick-fingered and sweating in his Damascene silks—haggled with a Frankish knight over a bolt of crimson cloth. His eyes lingered too long on the fair-haired squire behind the knight.
Taimur waited.
When the knight departed with his purchase, the merchant ducked behind a curtain into his back room. Taimur followed, slipping inside before the beads stopped rattling.
"You dropped this," he said, holding up a scrap of parchment.
The merchant's face turned pale as raw silk. The note—written in clumsy Arabic—was not the kind a respectable trader would want found in his shop.
Meet me at the old olive press. Bring the honey.
"I don't know what—"
"Let's skip the denials, Abu Khalid." Taimur tossed the note onto a stack of ledgers. "Your tastes are your own. But your Frankish friends? They talk."
A fly buzzed against the shuttered window. The merchant mopped his brow with a sleeve.
"What do you want?"
"Three things." Taimur counted them off. "First, the names of every Templar who buys from you. Second, copies of their orders—especially anything unusual. Third," he tapped the ledger, "you'll start recommending certain... additives to their wine."
The merchant's jowls trembled.
"You want me to poison—"
"Laxatives." Taimur smiled. "Just enough to keep them from riding for a day. Think of it as... preserving their virtue."
Outside, a donkey brayed. A child laughed. The merchant exhaled.
"And if I refuse?"
Taimur reached into his robe. The merchant flinched—but what emerged was only a small ivory figurine, unmistakable in its depiction of two men entwined.
"Your workshop in Mosul makes these, yes? Beautiful work. Very... lifelike." He set it beside the note.
"Pity if a crate found its way to the Grand Mufti."
The color drained from the merchant's face.
"When do we start?" he whispered.
Antioch – The Brothel of Seven Sighs
The eunuch's knife gleamed in the lamplight as Taimur stacked golden dinars on the lacquered table. Each coin landed with a deliberate clink that made the castrato's eyes flicker between the pile and Taimur's face.
"Twenty dinars," Taimur said, sliding the last coin into place. "For whispers about the Franks who frequent your establishment."
The eunuch's blade didn't waver from Taimur's ribs.
"And if my whispers are worth thirty?" he breathed, aniseed-scented breath brushing Taimur's cheek.
A slow smile spread across Taimur's face. He slid five more coins forward, then a leather pouch that clinked with promise.
"Twenty-five now. Twenty-five more when your information proves true." He tapped the table near a crude carving—a cross within a circle. The mark of a Hospitaller knight.
"Tell me about the one who comes on Tuesdays."
The knife wavered.
"You'll have me killed for this," the eunuch whispered.
"Only if you're caught." Taimur produced a small ivory token stamped with a fox's paw.
"Show this to any spice merchant from here to Mosul, and you'll have safe passage."
A long silence. Then the eunuch's free hand darted out, scooping up the coins.
Taimur leaned closer.
"What did the Frankish knight with the scarred lips whisper to your Syrian boy last night—the one paid in Venetian silver?"
By midnight, Taimur had the names of three Templar officers frequenting the brothel—and their humiliating preferences scribbled in lemon juice between the lines of a Quranic verse.
Tripoli – House of Azure Veils
Two weeks later
The scent of oud smoke curled through the silk-draped chambers, mingling with laughter and the clink of goblets. Outside, the city thrummed with the distant sound of prayer bells and market calls, but inside the House of Azure Veils, the world melted into music and perfume.
Taimur leaned against a carved cedar balustrade on the second floor, watching as a Norman knight reclined on cushions below, a veiled courtesan whispering into his ear. The wine was watered, the coins clipped, but the pleasure was real enough to cloud the man's judgment.
A soft voice stirred the air behind him.
"Most men come for the girls," the woman said, her accent flavored with the coast. "You come for something else."
Taimur turned. The woman before him was no courtesan. Her robe was rich blue silk embroidered with golden lotuses, her jewelry modest but real. Khatun Zaynab, mistress of the House of Azure Veils. Her kohl-lined eyes studied him with calculating calm.
"I've come," Taimur said, "for the ledger behind the wine rack. The one with entries in Latin, Greek, and your own private shorthand."
She didn't flinch. "That ledger burned in a fire last year."
"Ah. Then the Venetian ambassador you've been entertaining must be a ghost."
A beat of silence. Zaynab walked past him to the balustrade, watching her girls work the room below.
"You think because you've uncovered one secret, you hold the reins?" Her voice was low. "I've had emirs and archbishops begging for my silence. What makes you different?"
Taimur stepped beside her and set down a small wooden box. "Because I'm not asking for silence. I'm offering a purpose."
She opened the box. Inside lay a ring bearing a stylized fox's head carved in obsidian, nestled atop folded parchment and a sliver of gold-leafed paper. On it, in Taimur's fine script: Every whisper, every moan, every lie — now has value.
Zaynab ran her thumb over the fox ring, then glanced at him.
"Information is currency. You're offering a bank."
Taimur smiled. "I want names. Who visits, what they say, what they fear. The Franks, the locals, even my own officers. Give your girls new eyes, new ears. Teach them to listen not just with their bodies, but with their wits."
"And in return?"
"Protection. Coin. And power beyond this house. Your girls become shadows, your house a nest of serpents. You—" he leaned in, "—become the spider in the web."
She closed the box.
"My girls don't kill."
"They won't need to. Just speak." He gestured to the shadows. "Leave the knives to the men who dream of glory. You and I? We deal in truth."
Zaynab studied him, then nodded once.
"Then the House of Azure Veils is yours, fox."
Taimur slipped a folded page into her palm before vanishing down the stairs.
When she opened it later, it read:
Tonight, the knight in Room Nine will confess treason between his fourth and fifth cup. Ask him what he traded for Antioch's gates.
[System Notification: Spy Network—'The Sand Foxes' established]
[+3,000 Merit Points]
[Total: 5,800 / 10,000]