The Abyssinian Proof by Jenny White

remember their homeland.”
    Kamil remembered the Habesh slave in his father’s household when he was growing up. Her skin had the burnished glow of early chestnuts. He had been in love with her, his young heart racing whenever she entered the room to serve coffee to his mother and her guests. It was for good reason, he thought, that Abyssinians were the most sought-after and expensive slaves; they were a beautiful people.
    “On Fridays, the village fills up. Habesh come from all over for the ceremony.”
    “What ceremony?”
    “There’s a hall where they sacrifice an animal and pray. Some kind of old Habesh custom. Then the men walk over to the Kariye Mosque and pray some more. You’d think that with praying twice on Fridays, they’d be more devout, but when they get back, there’s a feast. They play drums and the men sit around drinking raki.”
    “You seem to know a lot about it.”
    Omar grinned. “I like to drink raki and the Habesh are very hospitable. It gives me pleasure to lie inebriated eight meters below the ground in the shadow of a great mosque, letting the prayers of the faithful roll over me. It’s like practicing being drunk and holy for your coffin. Plus, they pray enough for all of us, so I don’t have to bother.”
    Kamil imagined Omar pretending to be drunk, all the while keeping a close watch on the community.
    “Why do they go all the way to the Kariye when the Sultan Selim Mosque is right there?” he asked, puzzled. The Kariye Mosque was near the city walls and, he guessed, at least a twenty-minute walk from Sunken Village.
    “They have some kind of special relationship with the Kariye. Malik is the caretaker there, but it goes back before him. The caretaker position is inherited, always a Habesh.”
    “Does Malik have a son?”
    Omar clicked his tongue. “As far as I know, he never married. A sign of great intelligence. The position’ll go to his nephew, Amida. Malik’s sister, Balkis, is the priestess.”
    “A priestess? I thought they were Muslims.”
    “So they say,” Omar replied cryptically.
    “Tell me more about the robbery at the Kariye.”
    “Well, I can tell you there are some interesting angles to this robbery. For instance, what the thief didn’t take.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well, he took that old, tarnished reliquary, but he didn’t take a gold chalice studded with rubies that was in the same room. There was even a box of coins, and he didn’t touch it. And the mosque has some valuable silver candleholders, although those are heavy. He must have taken the rug to wrap the reliquary in.”
    “Some thieves specialize,” Kamil reflected, “while others take anything they see. Either this was a particularly picky thief, or he was disturbed and had to leave before he could take anything else.”
    “I don’t think he was chased off. About four in the morning, an apprentice was walking by the mosque on his way to stoke the fire at a bakery, and he saw a man coming out of the mosque carrying something.”
    “A witness!” Kamil exclaimed, excited at the prospect of a real lead. “Why didn’t you write that in your report?”
    Omar looked sheepish. “To tell you the truth, Magistrate, I thought you people never read them.”
    Kamil sighed with frustration. “Well, we do. At least, I do.” That explained the skimpy police reports. It meant he would have to follow up each case individually, something that could take weeks when he had just seven days. He wished he had trained investigators on his staff, but he had to rely on the police, the gendarmes, and a roomful of lazy clerks. When this was over, he would approach the minister about training investigators for the new courts.
    “I’m glad to hear it, Magistrate, although in this case you’re probably wasting your time.”
    “Without decent reports, the whole enterprise is a waste of time,” he couldn’t help remarking. “But the fact that you have a witness is excellent news. Did you get a