Alamut (39 page)

He paused just within the door, with Raihan ahead of him, black-browed and forbidding. Carefully, in Arabic, he said, “Lord prince. I thought it might be you.”

“Brother Gilles,” Aidan said, smiling in spite of himself. “You were expecting me?”

The Hospitaller eased visibly, and met smile with smile. “Not, perhaps, in such company.”

Aidan laughed aloud. “I'll wager not! I was shocked that your order would treat with Saracens. And here am I, master of a pack of them.”

“That's a story I'd be pleased to hear,” said Gilles, “if you were minded to tell it.”

“It's simple enough,” Aidan said. “I learned the virtue of necessity. The Assassin has been my teacher; the sultan, my fel1ow scholar. He gave me what his own necessity forbade him to use. I was,” said Aidan, “taken aback, to say the least.”

“No more than I, when I heard that one had come who could only be yourself, but in the guise of a Saracen emir. That's a long summer's journey, even for the Prince of Caer Gwent.”

“It has been... very long.” Aidan had not meant to sound so deathly weary. “Thibaut is dead. Did you know that?”

Gilles nodded somberly.

“A little while ago, in Aleppo, his sister was struck and nearly killed. That she lives is no credit to my guardianship. But I have seen the face of the Assassin. I may even, however feebly, have left my mark on her.”

“
Her
?” Gilles wondered, visibly, if Arabic had failed one or both of them.

Aidan bared his teeth and spoke in the langue d'oc. “Yes, brother. A woman. A female, at least; a she-demon with a silver dagger. Haven't you heard of the Slave of Alamut?”

“A legend,” said Gilles: “a terror of the night.”

“A very real one. I hold two lives to her account; the third, God willing, will be the death of her.”

Gilles said nothing.

“Yes,” said Aidan. “Yes, she is like me. My folly, that I would not believe; that I saw her,and knew her, and never dreamed that she would be the death that stalked me.” He was breathing hard; his hands were fists. Grimly he mastered himself. “She is older than I, and stronger. She guards her lair well; for long and long she has kept me from it. And yet, perhaps, God has remembered me. He sent your brother in the cross to find me, even as I contemplated battering down the walls of magic with which she barred the road to Masyaf. Alone I was never strong enough. In the company of your brothers, warded by their humanity, I passed the wall. Now I am within it, and the way is clear. I owe you and yours a mighty debt for that.”

Gilles took time to comprehend all of that: time which Aidan was glad to give, for it freed him to sink down, weary beyond desperation. At length the Hospitaller said, “There is no debt but what is God's. I offered you what aid the order may give; it was offered freely, without price. Even, in the test, without our knowing that we gave it.”

“And yet it was given. I shall remember.” So he had said before, in the courtyard in Aqua Bella, ages ago in the soul's time.

“You expect us to let you go,” said Gilles.

Aidan raised his head. The Hospitaller flinched from the light in his eyes. “Can you hold me?”

“Most likely not,” Gilles said. “Yet for your life's sake, we might try.”

“No,” said Aidan. “You fear that, after all, I may kindle a spark that will sear even you in your castles on the marches of Islam. What surety can I give you, that in this I hazard myself alone?”

“Yourself, and twelve mamluks of the Syrian sultan.”

“They are part of me. I guard them as myself.”

Gilles drew a slow breath. “I am not the ranking officer here. Simply a brother of the order, who thought that he might know an answer to the riddle of the Frank who seemed a Saracen. The castellan is minded to keep you here under guard until you should prove yourself no threat to us or to our castle. I can speak for you, but I must tell the truth. I think that you go to your death.”

“That will be as God wills. I have no great desire to die, you may believe that. The death which I desire is another's altogether.”

A knight of the Hospital could indeed believe that, and understand it. But Gilles, who was monk as well as warrior, said slowly, “Revenge is hardly a Christian sentiment.”

“Then my confessor shall hear of it when I am done.”

Gilles shook his head in wry surrender. “A very perfect prince, and Christian enough for the purpose. Have you quite corrupted your Saracens?”

“Not noticeably,” Aidan said.

They watched Raihan, who, forgotten, had begun his sunset prayer. After a moment Gilles said, “Will you hear vespers with us?”

Aidan bowed acquiescence.

oOo

He had not heard an office of his own faith since he crossed the Jordan, nor stood and knelt and prayed in the company of monks in time out of mind. They were all men here, all deep voices in the chanting. No women, ever; no boys. Those had no place on the sword's edge.

This was an army in the midst of war. And yet the words were the same as they had ever been, words of rest and of peace.

Aidan took no comfort in them. He had gone too far; he had suffered too much. For him there would be no peace until the Assassin was dead.

The Hospitallers ended their worship and withdrew from the chapel. Aidan remained in the stall to which Gilles had guided him. Gilles had gone out with the rest. A young brother extinguished the candles one by one, all but the vigil lamp over the altar. Aidan, in the shadows, he seemed not to see. He bowed low to the altar, straightened, yawned audibly, and departed.

In a little while a shadow crept by inches through the door. A sneeze betrayed it: the shock of incense to unaccustomed senses. It slid along the wall, desperately uneasy in this alien holiness, but needing its master's presence. On the edge of the stalls it hesitated. Aidan made no move. It darted, silent and sudden, and dropped panting at his feet. Raihan's eyes stared up at him, startlingly pale in the dark face, and all but blind where Aidan's eyes saw but dimmed daylight. He trembled against Aidan's knees, hating this place, but determined to stay in it. “I went,” he whispered. “I went to see where the others are.”

“Are they well?” Aidan asked, not loudly but not particularly softly.

“They would be, if they could be with you. But they're obedient. They wait for you to command them.”

“Soon,” Aidan said. He leaned back in the stall and closed his eyes. When he opened them, Gilles was there, and the knight of the road, and a third who was older than either: a lean, weathered whipcord of a man, whose black Hospitaller habit sat on him like well-worn mail. All soldier, this one, and yet all God's; no gentle cloistered monk, but a warrior of the faith, as fixed and firm in it as any Muslim.

Aidan rose to accept the blessing of the castellan of Krak. He staggered a little, rising. The ban had taken greater toll of body and power than he wanted to know.

None but Raihan seemed to see: his shoulder was there, unobtrusive, bracing where it was needed. Aidan rested very lightly on it before he knelt for the blessing.

As the castellan gave it, he said, “You are welcome to Krak, lord prince.”

Aidan inclined his head. “Reverend father.”

“Gauthier de Tournai,” said Gilles.

Aidan's head bent again.

The castellan looked up at him, measuring him against what had been said of him. “I see you haven't gone completely infidel.”

“I'm not likely to,” Aidan said, “reverend father.”

The castellan nodded. “The king will be glad of you, if you live to serve him. You won't reconsider?”

“Not until my vow is kept.”

“Even if it kills you?”

“Would you do any less?”

“No,” said the castellan. He drew himself up. “I have no authority to prevent you. If you were to ask my counsel, I would see you returned to Jerusalem and sworn to the king's service. Since my brother here gives me to know how little I can hope for that, then I can do no more and no less than set you on your way.”

“My thanks,” Aidan said, meaning it: more than the castellan knew. But Gilles understood. He smiled behind his superior's back, widely enough to encompass a battle hard fought but well won.

“You may stay,” said the castellan, “as long as it pleases you, and leave when you will. You are the guest of the Hospital; what aid we can give, you may have.”

“I ask only a night's lodging for myself and my following, and your prayers.”

“You have both,” said the castellan.

Aidan swayed. It came on like that, sometimes: power taxed to its limit and then beyond it, turning his body traitor.

This time Raihan was not swift enough, or invisible enough. Gilles caught him through the mamluk's glare. “You're ill,” he said.

Aidan shook his head, too hard: he nearly fell. “Only need sleep,” he said. It sounded odd. He tried to say it again. “Sleep — need to — ”

oOo

They carried him to bed. He had no strength to fight them. Most of them went away, but Gilles lingered, frowning down at him. “If she is too strong for you already, how do you hope to face her in open battle?”

Aidan's tongue at least was his own again, now that his body was at ease. “Do I have a choice?”

“Probably not.” Gilles sighed. “Will you be shriven, at least, before you go?”

“Have you the authority to do it?”

“I,no. I've taken only monk's vows.”

Aidan closed his eyes. “Then I'll live in sin for yet a while.”

“I should be scandalized,” Gilles said.

Aidan smiled in the dark behind his eyelids. “Brother, I am a scandal. Would you have me confess to a stranger, how very much of one I am?”

“Under the seal of the confessional, what harm can it do?”

“Enough,” Aidan said, “and little enough good. Let be, Brother. I am what I am. I do as I must. We'll fight the infidel yet, you and I.”

“God willing,” said Gilles.

Aidan laughed, though he was fast falling into sleep. “You sound like a Saracen.”

“Sometimes even an infidel may perceive a little of the truth.”

“As God wills,” Aidan said, smiling still. “He will, Brother. Only wait, and see.”

26.

All of Sayyida's men were fed and settled into the day: Father and Maimoun in the smithy, Hasan with Fahimah who was minded to spoil him for an hour. Sayyida, freed and oddly incomplete, went to tidy the room she shared with Maimoun. She smiled a little as she went. He had promised to come again tonight, and he had all but promised to let her go out to the bazaar in a day or two. Subtlety, that was what he needed. Allah knew, it had taken her long enough to discover it.

The tiny cell of a room was blind dark. She made her way deftly through it to fling open its window, and paused, savoring the warmth of sun on her cheeks.

A whisper of sound brought her about. Someone huddled on the mat: white and scarlet and sudden, astonishing crimson. Sayyida named it in surprise and pleasure. “Morgiana!” Then, less joyfully: “Morgiana. What in the world — ”

She was wound in a knot, trembling. Sayyida touched her shoulder. She knotted tighter. She was weeping. Sayyida gathered her in and held her.

She stilled; in shock, it might have been. Had she ever wept? Had anyone ever given her plain love, with no price on it?

Her body loosened from its knot. She raised a face that, even blurred with tears, was beautiful. It was a long moment before Sayyida comprehended what was beneath it. Her throat was livid, swelling almost as Sayyida stared. Her voice was a raw whisper. “I wasn't supposed to come here.”

“Who told you that?”

Her head shook, tossing. She struggled upright. Her hair tangled in her face; she raked it back. Stopped. Stared at her hands. There was blood on them, not much, but enough; drying, beginning to crack. She shuddered. “Clean. Must be — clean — ”

There was water near, for washing in the morning, before the prayer. Sayyida brought the jar to the mat, and gently, persistently for Morgiana kept trying to recoil, sponged away the blood. It had a scent, faint yet potent, like earth and iron.

“Heart's blood,” said the battered remnant of Morgiana's voice. “But not... not lifeblood. I failed. I, who have never failed of a kill.” She tried to laugh; it was hideous to hear. “For once it was clean hate and not cold murder. For once, I truly wanted a life. And Allah took it from me.”

“It looks,” said Sayyida, “as if He had help.” With a clean cloth and the last of the water, she began to bathe the tortured throat. Those were brands on it: finger-wide, a little narrower than her own, but much longer.

Morgiana's fists struck cloth and hand aside. “Let me be!”

Calmly Sayyida came back. “Don't shout,” she said. “You'll ruin your voice.”

Morgiana hissed, but when she spoke, it was in a whisper. “Allah had nothing to do with it. It was not even Iblis. It was a Frank of my blood, and I taught him to hate me.”

“A Frank?” Sayyida paused. “Your Frank?”

The ifritah's lip curled. “Never mine. He belongs to a great cow of a giaour. A mortal woman, a Christian's wife; but no wife of his.”

Sayyida needed a moment to make sense of that. “You found him in bed with someone else's wife?”

“I found my master's quarry dancing the old wicked dance with her guardsman, who is no more a mortal man than I am mortal woman. I struck as I have never struck, in hot hate, and it blinded me. I smote awry. And now he knows me, and he hates me, and he has flung all his heart and power into the saving of his doxy's life.”

“He tried to kill you.”

She laughed again, choking on it. “Not — not kill. Nothing so merciful. He cast me out.” Tears streamed from her eyes, through the horrible, strangled laughter. “He hates me. But I — but I — I want him more than ever.”