Alamut (30 page)

Aidan was trained in courts and among kings. He did not falter. He did not cry out, or leap forward, or seize her and crush the breath out of her. He entered quietly. Half of the way between the door and the ladies, he bowed a low and courtly bow. “
Ma dama.
You are well?”

Her eyes lowered, as always when she did not want to betray herself; her voice was muted. “I am well, my lord. And you? Have you rested?”

“Well enough, my lady,” he said.

He knew in his skin why she veiled herself against him. Her cheeks were burning. Her breath came quicker than it was used to; he could hear her heart beating.

If he was calmer, it was only because he had a witch's mastery of his body. There were eyes all about, staring, judging, alert for the smallest betrayal. And most intent of all, the ancient woman in her swathing of veils, no more than a shape of shadow with yellow bird-talon hands and eyes as fiercely steady as a falcon's. No servant, this; and no fool.

He would not blanch beneath her stare, though it dared him to defend his discourtesy in greeting Joanna first before her. Let her make of it what she would. He was Joanna's first, any other mortal after.

He bowed as to a queen, a prince's bow, with no submission in it. “Lady,” he said.

The falcon-eyes glinted. The veils inclined a fraction. “Sir Frank,” she said.

Her voice was younger by far than her hands. It made him think of Margaret: of velvet over steel. “You honor me with your presence,” he said to her, “my lady Khadijah.”

Perhaps she smiled. “I do, yes. My granddaughter names you kinsman; the daughter of my granddaughter speaks well of you. And,” she said, “I had a fancy to see your face.”

“Does it please you?”

She laughed, no crone's cackle but the rich deep laughter of a woman in her prime. “Of course it pleases me! The young moon in Ramadan, indeed. I think I shall not let my daughters see you. They might be tempted from the path of virtue.”

“Surely the ladies of your line are not so easily led astray.”

“Perhaps not; but they might be induced to look on the men whom Allah has given them, and be sadly disappointed.”

“There is more to a man than beauty,” Aidan said.

“But never so evident to the eye.” She beckoned. “Come here.”

He came; he sank to one knee before her, to spare her the effort of craning up at him, for she was very small. Tiny; astonishing, for she towered in the mind's eye. He could have lifted her with one hand.

She leaned toward him. “Were I even twenty years younger,” she said, “I would cast prudence to the winds and take you to my bed.”

“Twenty years, lady? Why need you be younger at all?”

She laughed again, that wonderful, earthy laughter. “Why indeed, young stallion? Surely you would not be pleased to embrace such a shriveled husk as I am.”

“My first lover was past her third score of years, and though time had had its will of her, it only made her sweeter.”

“Ah, sir,” said Khadijah, “you tempt me. To know again the sweetness of young flesh...” She sighed. “No; I submit; Allah wills it. My eyes take pleasure enough. Thanks be to Him Who is ever merciful, that I have them yet. Your God may not reward you, but mine understands a generous heart.”

“Is He not all one?”

“Some would say so,” she said. She straightened; she met him stare for stare. “Tell me why you have come.”

She knew it as well as he, but she wanted to hear it as he perceived it. He told her. Time and retelling had smoothed the raw edges of his grief. He could speak quietly, levelly, without tremor or evasion. Even what most condemned him: that he had had no foreknowing of either death, nor sensed aught amiss, until the lives were long since fled. He had been blind and deaf and dumb, and foolish beyond belief.

“A fool,” said the Lady Khadijah, “is one who never knows when he has failed. You failed; you have paid.”

“And I continue to pay, and shall, until this war is ended.”

“One might contend that your enemy is not the murderer in Masyaf but my granddaughter in Jerusalem.”

“Or that it is not even she, but the House for which she sacrifices all that she loves.”

“Truly then, I am here, and defenseless, and ripe for your taking.”

“I think not,” said Aidan.

“Truly.”

She was serene, looking death in the face, too long accustomed to its presence to know any fear of it. He bowed to that serenity. “Pride, I can comprehend; and honor; and the defense of what is larger than oneself. But sheer, raw greed...that, I will not forgive. And I fear what my world would be, if Sinan had sunk his claws into its kingdom of trade.”

“I extend more charity. I think that he sees a fair road to the triumph of his mission and his faith. It is our misfortune that he pursues his ends by secret murder. Is he any better, or worse, than the captain who puts every soul of a city to the sword because their lord has resisted his will?”

“That captain has not murdered my sister's son.” Aidan drew breath in her silence. “Yes, lady. As simple as that. I loved him; he was a son to me, and more than a son. Among our people, the sister's child is sacred; he is the closest of kin, the heart's son — the more if one has no son of one's body. For his sake alone I would level Alamut.”

“Perhaps,” mused Khadijah, “that is what it is to be a Frank. To love one man more than nation or tribe or clan. To see that man's death as the fault of one man, and one man only. To cut straight to the heart.”

“Better that than to lop off limbs one by one, as he has done to us. I have been called cruel, my lady. But when I can, I seek a clean kill.”

“There is wisdom in that,” she said.

He paused, glanced at Joanna. She was mute, listening, clear as water to his sight. She had been amused, if more than slightly scandalized, by her grandmother's frank appreciation of Aidan's beauty; even his confession that he took no account of years in reckoning desire, had almost comforted her. Now she waited for him to say what he must say.

He said it with care, but not with diffidence. “Lady. Would you advise your granddaughter to surrender to Sinan before he raises his vendetta against the whole of your House?”

“I would not,” said Khadijah.

He nodded once. “Have you considered taking the war to him before he brings it to you?”

“We are not a house of war.”

“Even when compelled?”

“When compelled, we avail ourselves of the weapons that come to hand.”

He sat back on his heels. “Are you telling me that I am that weapon?”

“Did I bid you swear your oath against Sinan?”

“Ah,” he said. “I understand. I shall wreak my revenge, and you will reap the profits. And, since I am a western nobleman and therefore no merchant at all, I cannot trouble you by demanding even a sellsword's pay.”

“Of course you will not.” She was amused, and not at all cowed. “We are merchants, prince, but we are honest merchants. We pay our debts.”

“Is there a debt, then?”

“If you succeed,” she said, “yes. And you are due at least a guardsman's hire, for bringing our kinswoman safe to us. I think that we can give you recompense beyond your guesting here.”

“Such as?”

“What do you ask? Gold? Jewels? Spices? Silks to adorn your beauty?”

“A part interest in certain of your caravans.” They both turned to stare at Joanna. She had dropped her veil; her chin was up, her face stubborn. She went on in the same hard clear voice. “Ten years' worth of shares in trade, including the trade with Rhiyana, at family rates of exchange.”

Aidan opened his mouth to protest. Khadijah herself prevented him, turning to her great-granddaughter with what could only be relish. “Ten years' shares, for the averting of a danger that might never be more than indirect?”

“Would you rather Sinan had my mother's share, and all that goes with it?” demanded Joanna.

“But — ” said Aidan.

Neither paid him the least attention. They were merchants; haggling was their life's blood. And they were bent on making a tradesman of him, if only by proxy.

“You need never touch coin with your clean white hands,” Joanna said when it was ended. She was not unduly dissatisfied, although it was evident even to Aidan that she had been outmatched. Two years' share in five caravans and trading ventures, aside from any that went to Rhiyana; of those he was to have five years' share. And with that, full guesting in Aleppo, and provisioning for his venture against Sinan, and mounts and remounts for himself and any who went with him. All to be overseen by the House of Ibrahim, through a steward of Khadijah's choosing and Joanna's approving. He need do no more than accept what was given him, and use it as he saw fit.

It was no more than royalty ever did. He did not know why he should feel as if he had been led on like a child. He who had done what he might with what his lands in Rhiyana could spare and his hosts in Outremer bestow, now had wealth in his own right: more than he could conceive of.

“If,” said Khadijah, “you turn Sinan aside from the House of Ibrahim, without setting his servants and his sect against us. Aleppo is an Ismali city; we live in Aleppo. We would prefer to continue in peace.”

“That was not what I was swore to do,” Aidan said.

“You swore to exact payment for your kinsman's murder. You did not specify the nature of the payment.”

“I'll kill him if I have to. What will you do to me then?”

“What can we do, except revoke the bargain? You will do as you must. So too shall we.”

He could not quarrel with that. But there was still his pride to think of. “I won't fulfill my vow for your gold. If I hesitate to do murder, it will be for honor's sake.”

“Of course,” she said. “You are honorable above all. The gold, if you fulfill the bargain, will be our gift of thanks. Surely you can accept a gift in return for a mighty service.”

He looked hard at her. He could discern no laughter, no mockery of knightly scruples.

After a long moment he said, “As a gift, yes, I can accept it. If I am able to do all as you would wish. That, I cannot promise you.”

“I understand,” said Khadijah. “It is a bargain; it is witnessed. Allah's blessing be upon it.”

20.

Sayyida stifled a yawn. Hasan was asleep at last on his blanket beside the fountain, flushed with the fever that had kept him awake and fractious through the night; but morning and quiet and the song of falling water had lulled him. She rubbed the breast that he had bitten in his temper, not wanting to touch him and chance waking him again.

She was refusing to listen to fear. How fragile his life was; how many children died in infancy; how easily, how hideously easily, a fever could rise to burn the soul away. Fahimah had wound him with her own blue necklace and its amulets against evil. Mother had prayed. Laila had promised to pray, later, when she was properly purified after her night with Farouk.

None of them had shared the night's vigil. Fahimah had tried, but she was not as young as she had been, and Sayyida had not had the heart to wake her when she fell asleep.

Sayyida's yawn escaped at last, wide enough to crack her jaw, deep enough to feign for a blessed moment the relief of sleep. She opened her eyes from it, to meet Morgiana's.

The ifritah sat cross-legged next to Hasan, looking like a young man of Damascus: slender and beardless, a eunuch, and not one who accepted meekly his condition. The illusion was startling. Maybe there was magic in it; maybe it was only Morgiana in man's clothing, being Morgiana. “He has a fever,” she said of Hasan.

Sayyida nodded wearily. “I was up all night with him. He's a little better now, I think.”

Morgiana ran a light hand down his back. Sayyida swallowed the swift protest. He neither moved nor woke. Maybe his frown eased a little.

“I can't heal sickness,” said Morgiana. “It's too subtle. All the myriad tiny demons...” She paused; she seemed to sense Sayyida's incomprehension. She shrugged. “No matter. He was sicker, earlier; I felt it. He's mending now.”

Sayyida almost fell over. It was one thing to hope. To know — it was too much, all at once.

Morgiana's strong hand held her up. She leaned against it, glad of it. After a little while she straightened, took a breath. “It's silly. But I was so scared. I love him so much; he's so close still to not being at all.”

“Not silly,” said Morgiana. “Never silly, Sayyida.”

Something in her tone made Sayyida stop and stare. She was different. Not gentler, exactly. She was fiercer, if anything. Woman-fierceness.

She did not look like a eunuch any longer, even in the turban, with daggers. She propped her chin on her fists and glared at the fountain's fall. “Why is it,” she demanded, “just why is it that Allah makes us love what we can only lose?”

Sayyida blinked. She was too tired to be profound. She could only say, “We love it because we know we'll lose it; and we see Allah in it.”

“That is not an answer. That is a circle.”

“I'm sorry,” said Sayyida. “I can't think. I keep wanting to fall asleep.”

“Sleep, then. I'll watch the baby.”

“No,” Sayyida said, though she yearned to accept the gift. “Keep talking to me. What's troubling you? Is it the Frank?”

Morgiana bared her sharp white teeth. “Am I that obvious?”

“I don't know. Maybe not. I noticed how you looked at him, the day Ishak brought him to dinner. Maimoun wanted to throw out every dish we had, and buy new ones. Mother talked him out of it.”

Morgiana snorted. It was almost laughter. “What would Maimoun have said if he had known all of what the Frank was?”

“What, a king's son? Ishak told me that. I'm not surprised. He looked noble, for an infidel.”

“He's a little more than that,” Morgiana said. “Did you notice how white he is, here where the sun stains every man black?”