Alamut (61 page)

Now Fatima assumed Miriam’s position, except that she was in contact with Hasan only through Apama. There were no feuds between the two of them. Apama had become quite solitary. She was often seen hurrying eagerly down the paths, gesticulating excitedly and talking aloud to some invisible person. Maybe one or two of the girls smiled at her on these occasions. But when they were standing before her, they still felt the same old fear. Her skill at eliminating the consequences of their nighttime visits had only limited success. Zuleika, Leila and Sara could feel the new life growing inside them, and were eagerly impatient. Jada and Safiya were the most excited of all. They couldn’t wait for the appearance of a new generation in the gardens.

Hasan sent two new companions to replace the two they had lost. They were both quiet and modest, but at least they brought some change to the eternal monotony.

“It’s autumn already and soon winter will be pressing down upon us,” Hasan said to Apama. They were strolling through one of the uninhabited gardens. “We have to make the most of the warm evenings left to us. I’ll need to send some new youths to the gardens. Because the rains will come, and then the snow and cold after that, and at that point there won’t be any time left for heavenly delights.”

“What are the girls going to do then?”

“You have plenty of camel and lambs’ wool. And silk. Have them weave, knit and sew. Have them practice all their arts. Because Alamut requires everything.”

“What about the school?”

“Do you have anything left to teach them?”

“No, except for the art of love, which they’re incapable of learning anyway.”

Hasan laughed again for the first time in a long while.

“Well, they know plenty for our purposes. You see, I’ve got the same problem as you. I don’t have anyone I can leave my legacy to.”

“You have a son.”

“Yes. I’m waiting for him to be brought to the castle any day now. I’m planning to shorten him by a head.”

Apama looked at him carefully.

“Are you joking?”

“Why should I joke? Does the scoundrel who murdered my brightest right-hand man deserve any better?”

“But he’s your son!”

“My son?! What does that mean? Maybe—maybe, I say, because you know how cautious I am—maybe he’s my physical offspring, but he’s never been my spiritual son. Before I was exaggerating just a bit. Maybe there is somebody after all who will be able to assume my legacy. Except that he’s far away somewhere wandering the world. His name should be familiar to you. It’s ibn Tahir.”

“What did you say? Ibn Tahir? Isn’t he dead? Wasn’t he the one who killed the vizier?”

“Yes, he killed him. But he came back alive and well.”

He told her about his last meeting with him. The story strained her credulity.

“And it was you, Hasan, who released him?”

“Yes, it was me.”

“How is that possible?”

“If you really knew my heart, you’d understand. He had become one of us. My son, my younger brother. Every night I track his progress in my thoughts. And I relive my youth in the process. I worry for him. In my mind I see his eyes being opened, I see him making discoveries, I see his view of the world and his character being formed. Oh, how powerfully I feel with him!”

Apama shook her head. This was a thoroughly new Hasan for her. When he left, she said to herself, “He must be very lonely to have seized onto someone so tightly. Yes, he’s a terrible and a good father.”

The next day the caravan from Gonbadan delivered Hasan’s son Hosein, bound, to Alamut. The whole garrison turned out to see the murderer of the grand dai of Khuzestan with their own eyes.

Shackled in heavy irons, Hosein stared grimly at the ground before him. He was slightly taller than his father, but bore a striking resemblance to him otherwise, except that there was something wild and almost beastly
in his eyes. Now and then he cast sidelong glances at the men surrounding him. Each man caught in that glance felt his flesh crawl. It was as though he would have liked to leap at them and tear them into little pieces. Having the chains prevent him from doing that clearly tormented him.

Manuchehr received him as a prisoner.

“Take me to my father now!”

Manuchehr acted as though he didn’t hear him.

“Abuna! Take six men and throw this prisoner in the dungeon!”

Hosein frothed at the mouth.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?”

Manuchehr turned his back on him.

Hosein gritted his teeth. Even though a chain bound his legs together, he managed to kick Manuchehr from behind.

Manuchehr turned around instantly, his face flushed with rage. He swung his arm and landed a blow to Hosein’s face.

Hosein howled with rage.

“Oh, if I were free! I’d rip the guts out of your belly, you dog and son of a dog!”

Abuna and his men seized the prisoner and dragged him off to the dungeon beneath the guard tower, the most notorious one in Alamut. They shoved him roughly into a cell. He staggered and fell on his face.

“You wait! When I get free, I’ll slaughter you like mangy dogs!” he shouted as they locked the door on him.

For two full months he had been in chains. He felt like a wild cat that’s been caught and put in a cage. He came to hate the whole world. He felt that if he were let free, he would strangle the first person he laid hands on. He felt no remorse for having killed Husein Alkeini, nor did he fret for his fate or his life. Even as a child he had terrorized everyone around him. He had an unbridled and violent temper. His father had left him when he was still a small child. Like Khadija and Fatima, he had been born to Hasan’s second wife. He lived with his mother at her parents’ home in Firuz Kuh. His grandfather tried to tame him with the rod and strict fasts. But Hosein was relentless. He defied his grandfather and anyone who got in the way of the pursuit of his passions. His grandfather was also the first person to earn Hosein’s fatal enmity. Once he waited in ambush for him and killed him with a heavy stone. From that day forward his relatives and the whole neighborhood really came to fear him. He refused to work in the fields or even tend the livestock, preferring to spend his time with soldiers and ride their horses.

When they told him that his father had returned from Egypt to the north of Iran, he immediately decided to go looking for him. He knew nothing about him at that point. He had merely heard that he had traveled a great deal and lived a tumultuous and unsettled life, so he imagined that
the two of them together would have colorful adventures and enjoy a life of aimless, unpressured vagabondage. But barely had the two met, when he realized how far off the mark he had been. His father demanded precisely those things of him that he most detested and despised: study, obedience and diligence. He quickly came to hate him. At first he managed to hide it somewhat. But soon it exploded from him with full force. “Studying is for idiots, and obedience is for your underlings. I’m not interested in either. Studying stinks and I despise obedience!” “Fine,” Hasan replied. He ordered him bound to a pillar and lashed in front of the entire garrison. Then he handed him over to Husein Alkeini as a foot soldier, to break his spirit. At Gonbadan he rebelled against the grand dai, and when the latter tried to imprison him at Hasan’s order, Hosein killed him.

He hadn’t given much thought to whatever punishment might await him for that murder, nor had it been clear to him how great a crime he had committed in the estimation of the Ismailis. The fact that Husein Alkeini had intended to throw him, the supreme commander’s son, in chains had struck him as so great an injustice that he couldn’t have responded to it in any other way. Moreover, he believed that by dint of his distinguished parentage it went without saying that he was permitted more than others. If only he had been able, he would have done the same thing to sheik ibn Atash, who finally put him in chains. Now he was furious that they had thrown him in this cell instead of immediately taking him to see his father.

Abu Ali notified Hasan that his son had been delivered to the fortress.

“Good. I’ll talk to him. Have them send him to me.”

Abuna and his men came to get the prisoner.

“Get up! Quick! Sayyiduna will see you.”

Hosein grinned wildly, showing all his teeth.

“Praise be to Allah! Soon I’ll be lashing all your backs to ribbons.”

Outside the building of the supreme command Abuna turned him over to the men of Hasan’s bodyguard. A strange, instinctive fear came over him. He could see that since he had left, life at the castle had changed greatly. He could feel a cold, iron discipline everywhere. Everything indicated that the castle was ruled by a firm and powerful hand.

The giant eunuchs in the corridors and at the doorways evoked his distrust. The enormous mace bearer who stood motionless at the top of the stairs, yet whose eyes followed his every movement, struck him as some kind of evil portent for his cause. He would never have thought his father would protect himself so forcefully.

He entered Hasan’s room but remained standing stubbornly near the doorway. His father was sitting on a raised divan and was clearly immersed in studying some documents. Only after a while did he look up at his son. He
stood up. He nodded for the guards to withdraw. Then he inspected Hosein from head to foot.

“First take these chains off of me!”

Hosein’s voice was full of defiance.

“What is a criminal without chains?”

“And when has a son ever had to stand before his father in chains?”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“You’re afraid of me.”

“Even mad dogs have to be tied up until they’re put to sleep.”

“What a wonderful father!”

“You’re right. Now I have to expiate the sin I committed when I begat you.”

“So you don’t intend to free me?”

“I don’t think you have any idea what’s waiting for you for your crime. I’ve established the laws, and I’ll be the first to honor them.”

“Your threats don’t scare me one bit.”

“You idiot! You oaf!”

“Call me names. I don’t care.”

“O heavens! Do you still not realize what sort of crime you’ve committed?!”

“Nobody puts me in chains and gets away with it.”

“So for that you murdered my closest friend and assistant while he was trying to carry out my order?!”

“Does a friend mean more to you than a son?”

“Alas, I’m afraid so.”

“All of Iran can be proud of such a unique father! What are you going to do with me?”

“What sort of punishment have I prescribed for the murder of a superior?”

“I haven’t studied your laws.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you myself. The law calls for cutting off the culprit’s right hand, then beheading him in front of the faithful.”

Hosein was dumbstruck.

“You don’t mean to say that that’s going to happen to me?”

“Do you think I wrote my laws just for fun?”

“It’s true. The world will shudder at a father like that.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I guess I don’t.”

“You’re still just as insolent as ever.”

“What do you expect? Like father, like son.”

“I don’t have time to waste on your witticisms. Tomorrow you’ll face a
trial before the dais. You know what awaits you. You won’t be speaking to me again. What shall I tell your mother?”

“Thank her for giving me such a model father. Any animal would treat its offspring better.”

“Which is why it’s an animal. Human beings have intelligence and strict but just laws. Is there anything else you want to say?”

“What else is there to say? Do you really think I believe you’d do away with your only son and heir? Who would be your successor then?”

Hasan laughed uproariously.

“You, Hosein, my successor? You can’t really think that you could ever lead this institution, which is built on the supremacy of the mind and on pure reason? You, who don’t understand anything except how to bridle a donkey? Since when have eagles begun leaving their lofty kingdoms to calves? Is that why you think you can do anything you want?”

Hosein tore him apart with his eyes.

“Dogs beget dogs, bulls beget calves. Like father, like son.”

“If that were really true, then you’re not my son!”

“Do you mean to shame my mother with that?”

“Not at all. I just wanted to show that your claim may hold for dogs and bulls, but not for human beings. Otherwise kingdoms that fathers found with their intelligence and courage wouldn’t collapse from the stupidity and ineptitude of their sons.”

“All right. But the world has never known a sultan or a shah who has left his kingdom to a stranger when he had a son of his own flesh and blood.”

“I’ll be the first in that respect too. So do you really have nothing more to ask me? No requests for your mother?”

“Only the one I already made.”

“Fine.”

He called for the guards.

“Take the prisoner to the dungeon!”

Hosein gritted his teeth.

“Just try to have your lackeys put me on trial! I’ll shout your disgrace so the whole world hears.”

The next morning the high court of the dais was convoked. Abu Ali was its chair.

“Examine the laws and then judge strictly according to them.” This is what Hasan had ordered.

Once they were all assembled, guards brought Hosein in.

Abu Ali charged him with two counts: first mutiny, and then the murder of his superior. The punishment for both was death.

Abu Ali asked him, “Do you admit your guilt, son of Hasan?”

“I don’t admit any guilt. All I admit is that I did what you accuse me of doing.”

“Fine. Mutiny alone calls for a sentence of death.”

Hosein flew into a rage.

“Don’t forget that I’m the son of the supreme commander!”

“The law knows no exceptions. You were a common foot soldier under Husein Alkeini, and that is how we accuse you.”

“What? You’re trying to tell me that just anyone can put me in chains?”

“As you see, you’re already in them. Do you really have no defense?”

“What kind of defense do you want from me? Alkeini informed on me to my father behind my back, so he could throw me in jail more easily. I refuse to let anyone treat me like that! I’m not just anyone. I am the son of the Ismaili commander!”