The Third Caliph by Alex Archer

Author:Alex Archer
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Marrakech

Kingdom of Morocco

Even standing in the shadow of the building eaves, Annja felt the city heating up around her. It would only be a matter of hours before Marrakech was once more in full fever. Thankfully, the city was high in the Atlas Mountains.

As she leaned against the wall behind her and kept watch of the foot-and-vehicle traffic around her, Annja knew MacKenzie observed her from the small restaurant at the corner. She made certain she didn’t step out of his view because she didn’t want to worry him while she talked with Professor Khadija Zayd.

“How much do you know about Philip Gardiner and his service aboard the Spanish ships?” Khadija had a soft voice, but she was a direct person.

“Not much.” Annja referred to her journal and flipped through the notes she’d taken while talking to Ernest Woolcot. “I’ve been on the run and I haven’t actually been in the best place to research what I’ve found.”

“That may not be true.” The woman had a curious blend of Indian and British accents. “Philip Gardiner’s work caught the eye of a rather skilled Syrian historian, Dr. Ulker Bozdag. Have you heard of him?”

“No. Can you spell it?”

“Of course.”

Annja wrote the name down in her journal.

“I’m not surprised that you haven’t heard of him, Miss Creed.”

“Call me Annja, please.”

“If you were not interested in the caliphs immediately following Muhammad, you would never run across his name. Even at that, he would be hard to find. Bozdag was trained at Oxford in the 1960s and fell in love with pop culture. I have been told he loved the Beatles and favored esoterica bordering on conspiracy theory. Adored the notion of hidden puzzles lying about in history.”

“There appear to be no shortage of those kinds of puzzles. I’ve tripped across a few myself.”

“I think most of what people believe are puzzles are nothing more than events, people and objects that have been forgotten over the years. But in the case of the Middle East, the battles between Christian and Muslim forces have never been out of the international eye since the Crusades. And many people are interested in what happens there, and what has happened there. You’re familiar with the Battle of Bassorah, yes?”

“Yes. The Battle of the Camel. Muhammad’s widow Aisha rallied forces around her to chase down Uthman’s assassins.”

“So it is written in some histories. In other histories, Aisha was making her bid to control the caliphate by naming Muhammad’s true heir after Uthman’s death.”

“As I recall, that didn’t work out for her. Ali ibn Abd Munaf became the fourth caliph despite her protests. Ali let her live, but he banished her.”

“To Medina, yes. And she lived there for the rest of her life. Probably as a very bitter woman.”

“As one of Muhammad’s wives—”

“Purportedly his favorite.”

“—she had everything. Then she was left with nothing.”

“She was still referred to as the Mother of the Believers. But while Muhammad had been alive, she had led more of a life than women in that day could be expected to have.

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