Alamut (21 page)

“Your decision suits my plans perfectly,” Hasan laughed. “Your presence will be enough to protect the caravan, so that Abdul Malik will only have to take a handful of men along. Muzaffar should add a few men of his own for the trip back. I’m counting on you to look after our harem kin.”

Then he turned back to Abu Ali.

“Send a messenger to Rudbar immediately with an order for Buzurg Ummid to come to Alamut. I need him personally. It’s a pity Khuzestan is so far that Husein Alkeini couldn’t get here in time. But he needs to be informed too. Things will happen here that will make our remote descendants gape in awe …”

He chuckled to himself quietly, absorbed in his own thoughts. He was silent for a while, then he spoke to the reis.

“Listen, Abul Fazel! I have the impression you still take me for an idiot, like you did in our Isfahan days, because what you see is an army of thirty thousand soldiers marching against our handful of men. But what you don’t see are the angels gathered to help and protect us, like they once protected the Prophet and his people in the battle of Beder.”

“Always joking, you’re still always joking,” Abul Fazel replied with a sour smile. He was a little offended, because he thought Hasan was making fun of him again.

“I’m not joking, no, old friend,” Hasan said cheerfully. “I’m just speaking a bit in parables. I’m telling you, I’ve got such surprises ready that people won’t believe their own ears. I’m going to show the world what kind of miracles
faith
can work.”

Then he resumed dictating instructions. Finally he gave orders to Abu Ali.

“Inform everyone of the tasks I’ve assigned them. Select your messengers and write out the appropriate commands. They must set out at once.
Have Abdul Malik bring my daughters to me before he leaves. Once you’ve taken care of all that, assemble all the men and tell them that the sultan has declared war on us. Order the novices to get ready, because tomorrow morning will be the beginning of their test. Be firm and demanding with them, squeeze everything they can do out of them. Threaten them that they won’t earn their ordination. But tomorrow evening you’ll assemble them in the mosque and ordain them as fedayeen. Make that the most solemn moment of their lives and their highest achievement in this world. All of this following the model that you and I experienced in Cairo … Is all that clear?”

“Perfectly clear, ibn Sabbah.”

Hasan dismissed both of the old men. He stretched out on his pillows and once more thought through all of the measures he had just taken. When he was certain he hadn’t left out anything of major significance, he drifted peacefully off to sleep.

All this time the men stood waiting in the courtyard under the baking sun. They watched their senior officers disappearing inside the building of the supreme commander for long periods of time. The soldiers could barely control their impatience.

The novices were assembled in two rows in front of their building. They stood as straight as cypresses, gazing fiercely ahead. The honor of having been chosen to escort the old dignitary still filled them with pride, but gradually their patience eroded too.

Suleiman was first to break the silence.

“I’d like to know what’s going on,” he said. “Maybe there’s going to be an end to this schooling after all.”

“I think you’d like to have a beard before you’ve even got peach fuzz,” Yusuf scoffed at him.

The ranks snickered.

“Well, I think you’re afraid of the fat on your belly melting,” Suleiman shot back. “Which is why you’re none too enthusiastic whenever the drums and trumpet sound.”

“I’m just curious which one of us the enemy will spot first.”

“You, no doubt. With your long shanks you’ll stick up proudly from behind my back.”

“Cut it out,” ibn Tahir intervened. “You don’t even know yet where the lion is that you’re planning to skin.”

“If I were a fly, I could hear what the commanders are talking about now,” Obeida said.

“You’d be even happier to be a fly when the enemy shows up,” Suleiman laughed at him.

“If heroes won battles with poisonous tongues, you’d be first among them,” Obeida replied. “All of Iran would tremble at the sight of you.”

“Hmm, a certain Obeida would also tremble at the sight of my fist,” Suleiman returned.

Sergeant Abuna hurried past. He whispered to the expectant youths, “It looks like things are going to get hot, boys. The sultan’s forces are bearing down on us.”

They fell silent. At first they felt anxious, but gradually that feeling gave way to enthusiasm and wild excitement.

“At last!” Suleiman said, the words coming from the bottom of his heart.

They exchanged glances. Their eyes and cheeks glowed. Now and then one or the other of them smiled. Their imaginations began to work. They saw heroic deeds before them, and they saw themselves accomplishing arduous tasks, earning glory and immortality.

“Damn! When is this waiting going to be over?” Suleiman lost his temper. He couldn’t stand being at peace anymore. “Why don’t they order us to mount and attack the infidels?”

Abuna and two other men led three horses across the courtyard—two of them black, plus Abu Ali’s Arabian.

Somebody whispered.

“Sayyiduna is going to speak.”

The word sped through the ranks.

“What? Who’s going to speak?”

“Sayyiduna.”

“Who says? The Arabian belongs to Abu Ali, and one of the black horses is the captain’s.”

“So whose is the third?”

The guards outside the entrance to the high command stood stiffly to attention and shouldered their arms. The grand dai and other commanders came out of the building. Abu Ali, the captain and dai Ibrahim mounted the horses that the sergeant had brought out. The other leaders headed off toward their various detachments, stood before them, and ordered them about face toward the building of the supreme commander.

Abu Ali and his two escorts trotted out to the edge of the upper terrace. He raised his arm in a call for silence. A deathly quiet came over both of the lower terraces. The grand dai stood up slightly in his stirrups and called out in a powerful voice.

“Ismaili believers! In the name of Our Master and supreme commander. A time of trial and decisiveness has come. With weapons in hand you must now prove your devotion and your love for the holy martyrs and for
our leader. At the sultan’s command, his henchman, the son of a dog Arslan Tash, has set out with a large army to slaughter all of us true believers. Within a few days the trumpets of his cavalry will sound outside of Alamut and the black flag of the dog Abas will flutter in front of our fortress. I therefore now order in the name of Our Master that from this moment on, by night and by day, no one will part with his weapon. Whoever disregards this order will be put to death as a rebel. When the trumpet sounds, you are all to be at your assembly points within the time allotted. Your officers will give you detailed instructions …”

He turned his horse around, looked out toward the novices, and called out to them.

“You who are prepared to sacrifice yourselves, hear the command of Our Master! Tomorrow you will be called to a test. Whoever passes it will be ordained in the evening. I appeal to you: focus your mind and spirit, because for each of you ordination into the fedayeen will be the most illustrious moment of your life …”

He turned again to face the entire force. His voice thundered throughout Alamut.

“Warriors for the Ismaili cause!” he shouted. “Remember the words of the Prophet: battle like lions. Because fear saves no one from death! There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet! Come, al-Mahdi!”

There was a rush among the novices, as though lightning had struck in their midst. The great day of trials had arrived and none of them was ready for it yet. Their faces pale, they looked at each other as they returned to their rooms.

“Now we’ve got the devil to pay,” Suleiman exclaimed. “We don’t know how to do a thing, and it’d be best if we just volunteered for the infantry.”

“Right, let’s all volunteer, and then they can do with us what they want,” Obeida seconded.

Yusuf was the most fainthearted of them all. He kept wiping the sweat from his brow and quietly hoping that some ray of hope would finally shine forth.

“Will it really be that bad?” he asked timidly.

“You’ll croak for sure, you make such a good target,” Suleiman grinned at him maliciously.

Yusuf sighed piteously and buried his face in his hands.

“But what are we going to do?” Naim asked.

“Why don’t you jump into Shah Rud? That’d be the best thing for you,” Suleiman said to him.

Then ibn Tahir spoke.

“Listen, fellows. Do you really think Our Master chose us as novices so that he could humiliate us now by putting us in the infantry? We’ve got
some skills! My suggestion is that we grab our notes, get together, and review everything we’ve studied so far.”

“You tutor us! You lead the review for us!” the novices called out one after the other. Ibn Tahir suggested they go out on top of the building. They sat down on the rooftop, each with his tablets and notes in hand, and ibn Tahir asked them questions, explaining whatever they didn’t understand. Gradually they calmed down, though now and then one or the other of them shivered when he remembered the coming day. Somewhere deep down, they all still felt trepidation at the prospect of their test. They all forgot about the approaching enemy.

On the lower terrace, next to the left-hand guard tower, concealed by dovecotes, poplars and densely planted cypresses, stood the harem building. Abdul Malik swooped in among the women and children like a hawk, urging them to get ready for immediate departure. Cries, shrieks, wailing and mindless commotion followed his command. The eunuch guards observed all this with indifference until the dai made them start helping the women with the move.

In the meantime a dozen drivers had led camels and donkeys up to the building. Husbands came to bid farewell to their wives and children.

Abu Soraka had two wives in the castle. The first was the same age as him, an elderly and toothless little woman. She had borne him two daughters who were married and living in Nishapur. The dai had been attached to her since his youth, and he needed her like a child needs its mother.

The second was younger and had borne him a daughter and a son, which he kept in his harem with Hasan’s two children. He loved this wife tenderly and, now that she was leaving, he suddenly realized how much he was going to miss her. He fought hard to keep from showing his feelings.

Al-Hakim had a beautiful Egyptian wife, whom he had brought with him from Cairo. She hadn’t given him any children. The word in the harems was that before her marriage she had led the life of a woman of the streets. He liked to describe her beauty to other men, cursing his enslavement to her and her power over him, but each time a caravan stopped at the castle, he would look for some exquisite gift to buy her. An old Ethiopian woman did all the work for her, while she lay amid her pillows, applied her makeup, dressed in silks, and spent whole days daydreaming.

Captain Manuchehr had a single wife at the castle, but he had brought along three children from his two former wives. Now he briefly bade farewell to all of them. He was afraid of losing his edge if he lingered with them too long.

And so the men with wives and children in the castle took leave of their families and returned to their manly duties.

Abu Soraka and al-Hakim ran into each other along the way and had a brief conversation.

“Now the castle’s really going to feel empty,” Abu Soraka commented.

“I have to admire the philosophers who claimed that, next to food and drink, the pleasures of women were the only worldly good worth striving for,” the Greek replied.

“But our supreme commanders get by without them,” the dai answered him.

The physician frowned scornfully.

“Come on now, you’re talking like a schoolboy.”

He took Abu Soraka by the sleeve and spoke to him now in the barest whisper.

“What on earth do you think our masters have got hidden behind the castle? A litter of cats? Come on! They’d be stupid not to take advantage of it. You and I have never had such plump geese as they’re raising down there.”

Abu Ali came to an abrupt stop.

“No, I can’t believe that,” he managed to say at last. “I know they’re up to something down there, but I’m convinced it’s for the good of us all, not for their private enjoyment.”

“So don’t believe me if you don’t want to,” the doctor replied, almost offended. “Just keep in mind that the master always saves the best pieces for himself.”

“I’d almost forgotten something,” reis Abul Fazel said when he came to say goodbye to Hasan toward evening. He winked knowingly and continued.

“I have indeed brought you something, though not a cure for madness. I think it might cheer you up. Can you guess?”

Hasan smiled, at a loss. He looked first at the reis, and then at Abu Ali, who was standing to the side.

“I really can’t imagine,” he said.

“Ah, but I won’t hand it over until you’ve guessed,” the reis teased him. “You have riches aplenty, you disdain finery. All of your needs are modest, except one. Can you guess now?”

“You’ve brought me a book.”

“Good shot, Hasan. It’s something written. But by whom?”

“How should I know? Maybe one of the ancients? Ibn Sina? No? Then is it a modern writer? It’s not al-Ghazali, is it?”

“No, that’s not what I’ve brought,” the reis laughed. “He’d be just a little too pious for you. The writer whose work I’ve brought is much closer to you.”

“In Allah’s name, I have no idea who you mean.”

Abu Ali smiled and asked, “May I try too?”

“Go ahead, I’m curious,” Hasan said, his courage flagging.

“I’d wager that the reis has brought you something written by your old friend Omar Khayyam.”

The reis nodded, smiling broadly. Hasan slapped his forehead.

“How could I not remember!” he exclaimed.

“I’ve brought you four poems that an acquaintance of mine copied in Nishapur from Omar Khayyam himself. I thought they’d give you pleasure.”