Alamut (40 page)

“Some women are like that,” said Sayyida. “They need a man who can master them.”

Morgiana stiffened. “I am
not
— ”

“Don't shout.”

She drew a shaking breath. Her eyes were cat-wild. “I — do —
not — n
eed a master. I need
him
. Do you think I'm glad of it? He wants my blood. He fancies himself man and prince. Infant. Child. This” — her fingers brushed her throat — ”this is a youngling's trick. If he were a man, he would have finished it.”

“Thank Allah he didn't, then.” Sayyida frowned. “You're going to need more than water on this.”

“I need nothing.” Not all grown infants, Sayyida reflected, were male. “You stay here, and stay quiet. I'll be back directly.”

oOo

For a miracle, Morgiana was still there when Sayyida came back, curled on the mat, white-faced and silent and exquisitely miserable. She submitted quietly to salves and compresses, and to the soft wrappings with which Sayyida bound them. She had emptied of rage. “He's hunting me now,” she said. “He thinks I've laired in Masyaf. Wise fool. Shall I indulge him? Shall I go back, and let my master command me to kill him? I could, I think. An oath is a wonderful, terrible thing.”

“You'll stay here,” said Sayyida, “and try not to think about killing. Here, I've brought you something cool to drink, and in a little while, when you want it, you can eat.”

Morgiana did not want the sherbet, but Sayyida coaxed it into her. She lay back after, a little less wretched, and beginning to nod. “I can't stay,” she said in her rough whisper. “My master — I haven't told him — ”

“Your master can wait. Sleep. You're safe here.”

She laughed: a brief gust of breath. “Safe. Yes, I'm safe. Who can touch me? Who can slay the Angel of Death?”

“Hush,” said Sayyida, alarmed.

Morgiana shook her head and yawned, delicately, as a cat will; startling herself with it. “Don't be afraid. We know one another well, he and I. Aren't I the most faithful of his servants?”

“Not here,” Sayyida said.

“No. Pray Allah, never here.” Morgiana's eyes squeezed shut. Tears welled from beneath the lids; she turned her face way, angrily.

She cried herself to sleep. Sayyida stayed with her, saying nothing, stroking her hair with a gentle hand.

When her breathing slowed and steadied at last, Sayyida drew back. She would sleep for a while: there had been a draught in the sherbet. It was a mark of Morgiana's trouble that she had not tasted it.

Sayyida smoothed the coverlet over her and rose, sighing a little. She would never think of questioning Allah's will, but this was a burden. She did not know that she would be able to bear it. Maimoun would be furious: just when she had begun to work him round to seeing sense.

Allah would provide. He would have to.

To be sure, He began it well. Fahimah was alone, at an hour when all the women usually gathered to ply their needles. Hasan slept, flushed and deeply content.

“Ah, the darling,” said Fahimah as Sayyida came to stand by them. “He played as hard as he could play, and then, out he went, as sweet as you please.”

“Someday I'll understand how you do it,” Sayyida said. She reached toward the basket of mending, hesitated. “Where are the others?”

“Your mother has a headache,” said Fahimah. “Laila took Shahin to the bazaar. There's a new caravan come in.”

Laila always knew when the caravans came. She seldom remembered to tell anyone else.

For once, Sayyida was glad. She dropped down in front of Fahimah and took the plump hands in hers, thread and needle and all. Fahimah smiled, startled and pleased. “Little mother,” Sayyida said. “Fahimah, can you help me?”

“You know I always try, child.”

Sayyida swallowed hard. This might not be a wise secret to share. But she could not keep it alone. It was too heavy. “Fahimah, Morgiana is here. Maimoun has forbidden me to see her. But how can I turn her away? She's hurt; she needs me. I can't cast her out.”

Fahimah wasted no time in trivialities. “Hurt? How?”

Sayyida bit her lip. “Someone tried to kill her. But it's not that,” she said hastily. “That's easy enough to mend. It's ...she loves him, and he wants her dead.”

“Did she try to kill someone he loves?”

Sayyida gaped like an idiot.

Fahimah shook her head. She looked no more clever than she ever did: a round, comfortable, faintly silly woman, whom one went to when one wanted ease or comfort or unquestioning acceptance. She said, “Allah gives every woman the man he deserves. Even the Slave of Alamut.”

“You
know
?”

“Little one,” she said, “my wits aren't the quickest in the world, but sometimes they don't need to be. When I married your father, he gave me some of his secrets to keep. This was one of them.”

“Then you can help?”

“Let me see,” said Fahimah.

oOo

“Ah, the poor child,” she said, bending over the sleeping Assassin. Between them they had carried her to the room that was Fahimah's, washed her and clothed her in Laila's castoffs, and taken her bloodied garments to be burned. Asleep, with her astonishing hair tamed in a braid, she seemed all harmless, too young and slender by far to bear such a burden of death.

“Not so poor,” said Sayyida, “and not such a child.” Hasan yearned out of her arms; she yielded abruptly, and let him curl in the hollow of Morgiana's body. He seemed to know what was expected of him: he was quiet, and although he could not resist the wine-red braid, he contented himself with nibbling on the end of it. “‘Giana,” he said distinctly. “‘Giana.”

Sayyida clapped hands to her mouth. Fahimah was less restrained. She swept him up. “His first word, Sayyida! His very first! Oh, the little prince!”

The little prince showed clear signs of his displeasure. “‘Giana!” he demanded peremptorily.

“‘Giana,” Sayyida sighed, as Fahimah returned him to the place he wanted. “His first word, and I can't even tell his father.”

“There will be others,” Fahimah comforted her. “Come now, stay with him, and I'll see to everything.”

“But-” Sayyida began.

A frown was so rare a sight on that gentle face, that it quelled Sayyida utterly. She bent her head; Fahimah nodded, satisfied, and went to do Sayyida's duties as well as her own.

At least Sayyida could keep herself busy: she had brought the basket with her, and enough needlework in it to last out the month. She settled to it with the patience that every woman learned, if she was wise, long before she put on the veil.

oOo

Morgiana slept through the day and into the night. Sayyida worried, for she had not meant to give so large a dose, but it seemed a natural sleep. She breathed easily; her face was no paler than it ever was. Sometimes she stirred, to lie on her side or to shift a cramped limb. When Fahimah came to change the guard, she was calm about it. “She'll wake when she's ready to wake. Go to your husband, child.”

It seemed that Sayyida was always going or staying at someone's bidding. She left Hasan, fed and drowsy, where he so obviously preferred to be, and arranged her expression for Maimoun.

He suspected nothing. He wanted to talk about an idea he had had, a new way to work a pattern in a dagger's hilt. It was interesting, she granted that; she did her best to listen and make the proper noises. She even saw a way round a problem; he was lavish in his praises. She was glad when the flood of talk began to ebb. He was eager for her tonight, but he was trying: he went a little slower, the way she liked it, and a little gentler than his young male urgency might have called for.

For a little while, she let him carry her out of her troubles. But he was sated too soon, as he often was, and then he was asleep. And she was alone beside him, her body like a note half-sounded, her mind cravenly glad that it was over. She found herself wondering what it would be like to share a bed with an ifrit. He would know everything she felt, everything she wanted. Would he fall asleep as soon as he was satisfied, and leave her to lie awake?

She shook her head, annoyed at herself. There was another side to that coin: no solitude when one wanted it, and no secrets. She could never have hidden Morgiana from a demon * *

oOo

The second day was harder. Laila was home, and needed art to elude. Mother, recovered from her headache, wanted to be catered to. Hasan was fretful; Sayyida went in imminent dread that he would try his new word on someone injudicious.

Allah offered one small mercy, if mercy it was: when Morgiana regained her senses, Sayyida was there. She woke cursing the light and her pounding head; her voice was a croak. It must have been agony to swallow, let alone to speak. Somehow Sayyida got a cupful of coolness into her: plain water, this time, and after she spat the first mouthful in Sayyida's face, she seemed to recognize it. She drank thirstily; when the cup was empty, she leaned back on Sayyida's arm, glaring. “Never,” she whispered. “Never dose me again without telling me. I'm not like a human woman. You could have poisoned me.”

“But I didn't,” Sayyida said.

“No thanks to your leechcraft. How long have I been asleep?”

“A day and a night,” Sayyida admitted.

Morgiana staggered up. She promptly fell down again, dragging Sayyida with her. The second time, she moved more slowly, and settled for sitting up, holding her head in her hands. With great care she let it go. It seemed to stay where she bade it; she drew a long breath. “Beard of the Prophet! Girl, if I loved you even a little less, I would have your hide for this.”

“Go ahead and take it. Maimoun can have the leavings.”

Morgiana seized her. Even weakened with sleep and the drug, her hands were cruelly strong. “Has he made you suffer for me? Tell me!”

“He doesn't even know you're here. Nor will he, until we're most properly ready. Can you play an indigent cousin whose husband has set her aside? You'll have to wear a veil when he's likely to be near, and cover your hair.”

“What good will that do? The women will still know me.”

“They'll get enough of the truth to keep them quiet. Fahimah already knows everything.”

Morgiana shook her head. “I have to go. My master is waiting. The hunt is up. It won't touch Masyaf, I've long since made sure of that, but the Frank may be stronger than I think. I've dallied here more than long enough.”

“Can't you do what you need to do from here? You told me about guard-magic. It's nothing that calls on you to be in your master's clutches.” Morgiana's grip loosened; Sayyida took her hands. “Stay at least until your throat stops hurting.”

“I can't.”

“A day, then. Or two. Hasan said a word yesterday. It was your name. Don't you want to hear it for yourself?”

Morgiana knew blackmail when she heard it. She scowled, but she said, “A day. No more. To get over the poison you dosed me with.”

That would do, for a beginning.

“For an ending,” said Morgiana, snatching the thought from her head. “Now. Where is this eloquent son of yours?”

27.

Aidan left Krak in the early morning, rested if not entirely hale, and fixed on his course. Gilles rode with him as far as the border of the Hospitallers' lands, as much for a surety should they meet with Hospitaller scouts, as for the company. The black robe and the white cross stood out oddly amid the mamluks' scarlet, but he rode easily, trying his Arabic on Aidan's hellions and winning them over with skill that even the prince could admire.

At the border between the Hospitallers' lands and those of Masyaf, stood an ancient milestone, the name of a forgotten procurator carved on it, too dim and ageworn now to read. Gilles drew rein beside it. The others paused, spreading a little, watchful. “Lord prince,” said the Hospitaller. “Won't you reconsider even yet? Yonder madman has done the Lady Margaret all the harm that he can do.”

“No, Brother,” Aidan said. “That, he has not. Her daughter has a son in fosterage near Acre.”

“But surely, an infant — ”

“He didn't stop at a child or a woman. Why would he hesitate to kill a baby? Or worse. Take him; keep him. Raise him an Assassin.”

Gilles smote his thigh with an armored fist. “Devil take you, man! The Sultan of Syria with all his armies couldn't even begin to break the power of Masyaf. And here are you, with a dozen half-grown boys and a string of skinny camels. He'll eat you alive.”

“He might not,” Aidan said. “He might let me in, to see how amusing I can be.”

“And then?”

Aidan shrugged. “And then God will guide me. Or the devil, if you will. You forget what I am.”

“I remember what he has of his own.”

“She is flesh and blood, even as am I.” He flexed his fingers before the Hospitaller's face. “These have left their brand on her already. Who's to say that I won't finish what I began?”

Gilles was silent for a long moment, eyes steady on Aidan's face. At last he raised his hand and signed the cross. “God go with you, my friend, and bring you home again.”

Aidan bowed beneath the blessing. “God keep you,” he said, “my friend.”

He looked back once before the road bent, raising a spur of rock between. Gilles sat his patient horse by the milestone. His helm was on; he was a shape without a face, a knight of stone and steel. Aidan lifted his hand. The mailed arm went up in answer. Aidan turned away from it, toward the Assassins' country.

oOo

It was not so very far from Krak to Masyaf. A horseman could ride it in a day, if the need were great enough. Aidan did not choose to. It was not wholly cowardice. He was less strong than he wanted to be, and more prudent than a good madman ought to be. The way grew steep as they advanced, a narrow mountain track, now passing between high walls, now careening on the edge of the cliff. He kept a careful pace, his power stretched as much as it would allow, to warn of ambush.