Alamut (60 page)

Sweat beaded on Halef’s forehead. He began swallowing so much that his mouth was soon dry.

“How should I know what’s come of your messenger?” he said, his voice trembling. “I was just given an order and I’ve carried it out.”

Hasan acted as though he were deaf.

When the preparations for torture were complete, the executioner spoke.

“Everything is ready, Sayyiduna.”

“Start with burning.”

The executioner took a sharpened iron poker out of the box and began heating it in the fire.

Halef shouted, “I’ll tell you everything I know.”

Hasan still didn’t move.

The poker had become white-hot. The executioner drew it out of the fire and approached the prisoner, who howled when he saw what was coming.

“Sir! Spare me! The sultan cut down your messenger with his saber.”

Only now did Hasan turn to face Halef. He gave the executioner a sign to withdraw.

“So, you’ve regained the gift of speech after all? And the sultan butchered my emissary with his own hands, you say? Bad, very bad.”

This whole time he was thinking how he might outwit the sultan. Now, as he looked at his messenger, a plan suddenly came into focus in his mind.

“Summon the doctor!” he told a eunuch.

Halef was shaking. He could tell that this new command couldn’t be good news for him.

Hasan signaled to the grand dais to follow him into his room.

“We mustn’t be content with half-measures,” he told them. “We have to wound the enemy to the quick if we want to keep him from outpacing us. Let’s have no illusions. From now on the sultan will commit all of his forces to destroying us.”

But what exactly he was planning, he didn’t tell them.

A eunuch announced the arrival of Hakim.

“Have him come in,” Hasan said.

The Greek walked into the room, bowing deeply.

“Did you get a look at the prisoner?” Hasan asked him.

“Yes, he was waiting outside.”

“Go and take another close look at him.”

The Greek obeyed. He came back in a short while.

“Do you know any of the fedayeen who look like him?”

The doctor looked at him, uncomprehending.

“I don’t know what you mean by that, Sayyiduna,” he said. “His face is a little reminiscent of Obeida, peace be upon him.”

Hasan’s eyes flashed impatiently.

“Or maybe … his posture is a little bit like Halfa’s, the one you sent somewhere two weeks ago … Is that wrong too? Or he might resemble Afan? Then I give up … His legs are bowed like Jafar’s … Is that what you were thinking?”

The Greek was covered in sweat.

Hasan laughed.

“You’re a doctor and a skillful barber. How would you feel about, let’s say, turning Jafar into that man?”

Hakim’s face brightened.

“That’s an art I know something about. It’s practiced widely where I come from.”

“There you go, now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Ah, you deign to joke, Sayyiduna. The man waiting outside has a short, curly beard, a slightly broken nose and a large scar on his cheek. It’s a face that was made to be transferred to another. But you must allow me to have the model constantly in front of me when I set to work.”

“Fine. But can you assure me that the similarity will be great enough?”

“One egg couldn’t be more like another … Just give me some time to pull together everything I’m going to need.”

“All right. Go to it.”

The doctor left. Hasan sent for Jafar.

When he arrived, he told him, “I have a remarkable assignment for
you. Once you’ve carried it out, the Ismailis will write your name in the stars. Paradise will be wide open to you.”

Jafar remembered ibn Tahir. He was still being celebrated as a martyr, although he had seen him with his own eyes when he returned to Alamut, and then again when he left, his eyes shining with happiness, as he took back the package he had entrusted to him before his departure for Nehavend. One marvelous and impenetrable mystery after the other.

“At your service, Sayyiduna!”

His face shone with pride.

All this time, Halef was enduring fiendish torments of fear and uncertainty in the antechamber. The executioner stood barely a few steps away from him, his brawny arms crossed on his naked chest. From time to time he cast a mocking glance at the emissary. Now and then his assistants fanned the fire. Otherwise, they played with the rack and provocatively inspected the implements of torture.

The doctor returned with the equipment he needed.

Hasan spoke to Jafar.

“First of all, get a good look at the prisoner in the antechamber. You have to remember exactly his every gesture, the way he speaks and expresses himself, and everything he says about himself while I’m interrogating him. Be careful not to miss a thing! Because you’re going to have to imitate him so well that everyone who comes in contact with you thinks you’re him. In other words, you’re going to become him.”

They followed him into the antechamber. He signaled the executioner to be ready. Then he began questioning the prisoner.

“What is your name and where are you from?”

Halef tried to collect himself again.

“I am a messenger of His Majesty …”

Hasan flew into a rage.

“Executioner, ready your equipment!… I’ll warn you one last time to answer all my questions precisely. I’ll tell you now that I’m going to keep you at Alamut. If any one bit of information you give us turns out to be wrong, I’ll have you drawn and quartered in the courtyard below. Now you know where you stand. Speak!”

“My name is Halef, son of Omar. My family is from Ghazna. That’s where I was born and spent my youth.”

“Remember this, Jafar!… How old are you and how long have you been in the sultan’s army?”

“I’m twenty-seven years old. I’ve served in the army since I was sixteen.”

“How did you join the army?”

“My uncle Othman, son of Husein, who’s a captain in the bodyguard, recommended me to His Majesty.”

“The names of the places you’ve been stationed?”

“I went directly to the court at Isfahan. Then I accompanied His Majesty as his messenger throughout the realm.”

He named the cities he had traveled through or had spent any length of time in, then the caravan and military roads they had traveled. As the interrogation continued, he revealed that he had two wives, each of whom had borne him one son. Hasan demanded more and more details. Next came his superior officers, their habits and personal affairs; and then his colleagues, his service and how he spent his time. He described how he got along with one or the other of them, how many times he had spoken to the sultan, and what his relationship to him was like. He told him where his quarters were in Isfahan and Baghdad, and what he had to do if he wanted to be admitted to see His Majesty. He described the precise layout of the sultan’s palace in Baghdad and the approaches to it, and he provided a detailed rundown of court ritual.

In this brief time Jafar discovered an entirely new life and tried to imagine himself leading it.

Finally, Hasan ordered the prisoner to describe his journey to Alamut in detail. He had to list all the stations where he had changed horses or stayed overnight. Then he ordered the executioner to remove the prisoner’s fetters so he could undress.

Halef shuddered.

“What does this mean, sir?”

“Quickly! No dawdling! Don’t force me to use other means. Take off the turban too.”

Halef moaned.

“Anything but that, sir! Don’t shame me like this!”

At a nod from Hasan, the executioner seized him by the neck with one firm hand. One assistant handed over the white-hot poker, which his master slowly brought close to the prisoner’s bare chest. Even before it touched him, the skin sizzled and was scorched.

Halef howled uncontrollably.

“Do whatever you want. Just don’t burn me!”

They took all his clothes off and bound his hands behind his back.

Jafar watched all of this without batting an eye. He was in full command of himself. This fact secretly made him very proud.

“Now it’s time for your skill, doctor,” Hasan said. “Prisoner, how did you get the wounds on your body?”

Still trembling from his recent fright, Halef told about a fight he had had with one of the sultan’s eunuchs. In the meantime the Greek set out a number of thin, sharp blades, a long needle, and various liquids and ointments. Then he told Jafar to bare himself to the waist. He rolled up his
sleeves like a true artist. He ordered one of the executioner’s assistants to hold a box that was full of all kinds of remedies. Then he set to work.

First he applied an ointment to the corresponding area of Jafar’s body, onto which he then drew an outline of the scar and a birthmark. He ordered the other assistant to hold the blades and needle in the fire. Then he used these to etch and pierce the skin.

Jafar pressed his lips tight. His face paled slightly from the pain, but when Hasan looked at him, he smiled back, as though it were nothing.

Now Halef slowly began to realize what Hasan’s plan was, and he was horrified. If the transformation was successful, this Ismaili youth would gain unhampered access to the sultan himself! And the murder of the grand vizier was eloquent testimony to what would happen then.
I’ll be cursed for having been an accessory to such a crime
, he thought.
Subdue your fear!
something inside him commanded.
Think of your duty to the sultan!

His feet were unbound. He waited for the instant when the doctor began to make an incision on Jafar’s face, then he leapt at him and gave him a powerful kick to the gut.

Under the impact of this blow, the Greek dragged the blade halfway across Jafar’s face, which was instantly covered in blood. He himself was thrown to the floor. Halef lost his balance and toppled onto him. His mouth collided with the doctor’s elbow, which he instinctively bit into with all his might. The doctor howled with pain.

Instantly Abu Ali, Jafar and the executioner began to pummel and kick Halef mercilessly to get him to release his victim. But it wasn’t until one of the assistants set a white-hot poker to the prisoner’s back that the latter relented. He howled, writhing on the floor and trying to grab at his injury.

Now Hasan ordered, “Put him on the rack!”

Halef resisted with all his strength, but iron fists soon subdued him. Within a few moments he was bound, spread-eagled, to the rack.

With much groaning, the Greek managed to collect himself in the meantime. He had the wound on his arm washed, treated, and bandaged. Jafar, covered in blood, waited patiently for his transformation to resume.

“The scoundrel has ruined everything,” the Greek moaned when he examined him more closely. “What can I do with this huge wound on his face?”

“Just clean it for now,” Hasan said. “We’ll see what can be done.”

Then he commanded the executioner, “Begin the torture. He’ll be useful again when he’s unconscious.”

The machine started stretching the prisoner’s limbs. His joints popped and his bones creaked. Halef howled in agony.

Hakim was shaken. He himself was a surgeon, but he had never before heard such bestial wailing.

He quickly cleaned Jafar’s wound. Hasan inspected it, then spoke.

“Jafar! You’ll say that the commander of the Ismailis inflicted this wound on you at Alamut as His Majesty’s messenger. That the sultan’s letter enraged him so much that he slashed at you with his saber. Do you understand me?”

“I do, Sayyiduna.”

“Doctor, finish your work.”

All this time Halef had been howling at regular intervals. These became progressively shorter, until the howls merged into a continuous mad roar.

The executioner suddenly stopped the rack. The prisoner had lost consciousness.

“Good,” Hasan said. “Finish your work without us.”

He and the grand dais climbed to the top of the tower.

With a skillful hand the doctor transformed Jafar into Halef, His Majesty’s messenger.

A few hours later, transformed and dressed from head to toe in the prisoner’s clothes, Jafar stepped before the supreme commander. Hasan flinched, the similarity was so great. The same beard, same mustache, the same old scar on his cheek, the same broken nose and even the same birthmark next to his ear. Only the long, fresh wound across his face was different.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Halef, son of Omar. My family comes from Ghazna …”

“Good. Have you memorized everything else too?”

“I have, Sayyiduna.”

“Now listen well. You’re going to saddle your horse and ride toward Baghdad along the same road that the sultan’s messenger used to come to Alamut. You’ll be taking His Majesty a verbal reply from the master of Alamut. You know the stations and the inns along the way. Keep your eyes and ears open. Find out if the sultan has already set out against us. Demand at all costs to be admitted to see him. Do not relent in this! Keep insisting that you can only relay the response to the sultan personally. Tell them how poorly treated you were at Alamut. Do you understand me? Here are a few pellets. Do you recognize them? Take them with you on your journey. Swallow one each night and save the last one for the moment before you’re admitted to see the sultan. Here’s an awl. Hide it on your person carefully, because the slightest scratch could mean death. When you’re standing before the sultan, you know what you have to do to earn paradise for yourself and immortality among the Ismailis in this world. Is everything clear?”

“It is, Sayyiduna.”

Jafar’s cheeks burned feverishly.

“Is your faith strong?”

“It is, Sayyiduna.”

“And your determination?”

“Steadfast.”

“I have faith that you won’t fail me. Take this coin purse. I give you my blessing for your journey. Bring glory to yourself and the Ismailis.”

He dismissed him. Alamut had launched yet another living dagger. Hasan left for the gardens.

Ever since Miriam and Halima had so sadly departed this life, the mood of the garden’s inhabitants had been unrelentingly low. Not just the girls, but the eunuchs and even Apama were affected.

Miriam had been buried in a small clearing amid a grove of cypresses. The girls planted tulips, daffodils, violets and primroses on her grave. Out of a piece of rock, Fatima had carved a handsome monument depicting a woman in mourning. But she couldn’t bring herself to inscribe it with anything. Next to her grave they had marked off another parcel of land, onto which they set the stone image of a gazelle, also the work of Fatima. All around they planted flowering shrubs. This they did in memory of Halima. Every morning they visited this spot and mourned for their lost friends.