Assassins - Ian Watson & Andy West (4 page)

Almost at once the burly fellow arose,
gesturing at the plump woman who was almost white. She stood still
and recited, “I have allowed you.”

He replied, “I have accepted. For a dowry of
thirty dirhams, for one hour.”

As soon as she nodded, he paid the old woman
and followed his temporary wife through red silk to take his
delight.

Although scandalised by this highly
abbreviated legitimisation of imminent copulation, Hakim was
nevertheless glad to know the exact words used. He reminded himself
that the Prophet, peace be upon him, had allowed such formulas, so
that soldiers or merchants or other men far from home might gain
relief.

Naguib stood up and indicated the plump ebony
woman; the same transaction then occurred. As the two remaining
women continued to dance, Abdul eyed Hakim.

“Be my guest,” he murmured, although he
wouldn’t actually be paying. Yes, Hakim should indeed choose, not
allow the choice to be dictated for him. He arose and pointed at
the young woman whose skin was the hue of cinnamon.

Within a small lamp-lit chamber beyond blue silk, its
door now shut, much of the space was occupied by a bed. Incense
smouldered headily. Cinnamon shed her bangles, and turned
provocatively to Hakim.

Apprehension assailed Hakim, not an emotion
familiar to him. His manhood had swollen under his flowing
jellaba
, though only somewhat. If he failed to bed the whore
manfully, Abdul might learn of this even if Hakim later lied and
bragged; though what basis of knowledge could he brag upon? Hakim
strongly suspected that Abdul or Naguib would question him.
Therefore he must
desire
as totally as possible the body
that swayed before him like a supple snake piped from a basket.
Desire must exclude any other distracting thoughts, as with an
animal on heat. Or maybe like a martyr gone to Paradise; yes, here
was Paradise in advance, God’s reward for unknown accomplishments
yet to be achieved. It was paradise that she should surrender
herself to him, his slave so vulnerable, soft and delicate, baring
her breasts, opening wide her legs, to be pierced by his shaft that
now stiffened more.

Her silks were loose and falling. He stared
transfixed at the swell of her thighs, and her cleft crowned by a
dark tuft below her naked, scarcely rounded belly. Oh the little
peaches of her breasts, to gently squeeze.

Yes, surely to squeeze first of all, for he
mustn’t simply impale her impetuously all at once! What had Abdul
said about causing ecstasy in a woman? Abdul might wish to know of
this, by hearing tell of the signs of ecstasy from Hakim’s own
report.

As though aware of his perplexity, or perhaps
impatient, Cinnamon silently slid a finger down her belly to her
cleft, then within so that half of her finger disappeared.
Thrusting forward her pubes, she rubbed herself slowly, as if she
sought relief from itchy worms; yet surely her vagina must be
deeper between her legs. Evidently, she was showing him what he
should do to her, and how. Hakim refrained from speaking in case
what he said was stupid, and she seemed disinclined to speak, as
though mouths were intended for other purposes. Swiftly he shed his
clothing. He was, he
was
in Paradise, blessed by God for
what he had, for what he
would
, achieve!

She must have moistened herself liberally
with an unguent, he decided presently after she positioned his
finger to replace hers. He massaged a small bump, which caused her
to moan, then cry out and toss her head from side to side.

Before long she gripped his shaft and guided
him to where he fitted perfectly. As his weight bore down upon her,
she hoisted her legs to grip him, ankles locking together. How she
gasped at his thrusting, until deliriously he spent himself in
pulsing surges. Too soon his organ was limp and he withdrew,
kneeling between her splayed legs, assessing in the lamplight her
wet, flushed openness.

She chuckled with a kind of patronising
complicity. And quite suddenly a great emptiness was within Hakim,
a hollow sadness as of waste and futility: the waste of some of the
carefully gathered funds of his community. The waste too of the
sheer
tension
, as of a taut bow that had been within him so
recently, all its accumulated potential now lost.

Nevertheless, Hakim revisited the brothel twice more
with Abdul and Naguib, choosing a different woman each time for
comparison. After successfully establishing his ‘normality’, he
allowed himself to become privately more friendly with Sadiq, not
so that others would remark on this. As a result, Sadiq seemed
almost to fall in love in a spiritual way; their friendship was to
be special and confidential. Then Hakim focused upon mightier
matters, his mind cleansed, not least because by now his studies in
medicine had shown him many grotesque examples of disease and
malignancy, both externally and also internally. He knew full well
that anyone’s body, even the fairest, could become hideous.

He immersed himself in the great medical
texts by Ibn Sina, ar-Razi, Jabir ibn Hayyan, and Abu al-Qasim
al-Zahrawi. A lecturer pointed out that ancient Greek doctors made
claims based on insufficient observation, claims which ar-Razi
disproved. Controlled, systematic experimentation was essential.
Commissioned to choose the best site for a hospital in Baghdad,
ar-Razi had famously hung up meat throughout the city to discover
where it decomposed least quickly, thus to pinpoint the most
hygienic place. Animal testing was important, even though a drug
might not affect a dog in the same way as a human being.

Hakim paid particular attention to theories
of contagious disease, to Ibn Sina’s idea of bodily secretions
being contaminated by foul foreign bodies, and that water could
carry such bodies, as well as garments too. These foreign bodies
were far too small to be seen, though their serious effects belied
the size of the cause; therefore patients with similar serious
symptoms should be kept separate from others. Mercurial compounds
and sulphur and pure alcohol were surely efficacious, Hakim
reasoned, because they destroyed or hindered that which could not
be seen by any gaze less acute than God’s, Who saw all.

Hakim couldn’t but note ar-Razi's insistence
that a doctor's aim is to do good, ‘
even
to our
enemies’
. Yet if those enemies were also accursed antagonists
of Allah, surely this didn’t apply!

Dissections of abandoned or unclaimed corpses
needed to be carried out from time to time, otherwise how could one
truly learn anatomy? By pretending that a dead pig is a human
being? Ay, the vital work was carried out in utmost secrecy, in
case the religious authorities heard that the body of a servant of
Allah was being abused! A doctor soon learned to keep secrets.

It was the duty of a doctor to heal, if
possible. To bring relief. To limit suffering. This he solemnly
swore when he was finally granted his licence to practise
medicine.

Yet below a calm exterior, always a tempest
of ambition raged within Hakim…

To be a doctor was to practise the art which
brought one closest to God. Surely God wished the world purged of
those who denied and offended Him, such a host of infidels and
heretics!
Surely
it would be Godly to use not the clumsy
sword forged by Man, but the subtle instruments created and
therefore legitimised by God Himself, if those could be
sufficiently understood and applied. The ultimate instrument, for
instance, of plague…

Armies had catapulted corpses over the
battlements of besieged cities, yet no general had ever used
disease itself in his armoury with any true understanding. Sickness
often trailed behind the ravages of war. Why should disease not
precede, and itself ravage enemies, thus sparing many faithful
servants of God from being sent to Heaven prematurely by their
infidel enemies? A doctor who could assist in this would be saving
lives. Hakim dreamed of a future when war might be fought not with
swords but with deadly sickness, to the glory of God and the
salvation of the faithful, so that true faith might dominate the
world, and its higher initiates might unlock the secrets of
creation and apprehend the mind of God. Surely for this higher
purpose God granted him exemption from his licence, the writ of
well-meaning but limited men…

Radcliffe
Institute for Advanced Studies, Cambridge, Massachusetts:
April

Two days after Jack Turner’s visit, Abigail was
winnowing a crop of almost uniformly negative replies to urgent
emails she’d sent to colleagues and contacts all over the world,
requesting any further information whatever on Safiyya bint Yusuf
al-Ballisiyya. The only glimmer of light came from an old friend
now resident in Oxford, England.

Abigail, how’s the new book coming on? How
is your charming bartender? Has your masterful father done away
with him yet?

I have a snippet for you. Not much I’m
afraid, but hard-won after mining the Bodleian, so you owe me!

It turns out that the long-term lover of
Safiyya bint Yusuf al-Ballisiyya was one Sinan al-Din ibn Nasir. An
Ismaili and a man ‘of rank’ apparently.

Sorry, no other details. Hope it’s
useful,

Love Jen XX

Abigail smiled. Jen admired older men,
especially those with power and money. When introduced five years
ago or so, Abigail’s own father had evoked a blush in her friend’s
cheeks just by his presence. Typically, Jen hadn’t even offered a
polite denial of her attraction.

Rising, Abigail gazed at the vibrant
inspiration of tulips, mulling over Jen’s snippet. This could
indeed be useful. The once powerful Ismailis formed a sect within
the Shi’a wing of Islam, recognising Ismail son of Jafar as-Sadiq
as the disputed seventh Imam, the seventh divinely inspired and
infallible religious guide for Muslims after the death of the
Prophet. Ismailis had spawned a rich poetic tradition of their own.
Maybe Safiyya al-Ballisiyya had borrowed from them some convention
whereby a
teacher of many lessons
would indeed be an Imam,
which might in turn explain the religious context in which death
swells and overflows
.

This was off the edge of her field. She’d
need help. The Ismaili connection teased her memory, touching upon
something unsavoury at the edge of recollection.

Movement in the yard below caught her
attention. A young man, black coat, grey scarf, ducked into a
doorway. Sudden fire flashed over Abigail’s cheeks as cold wrapped
her spine. Had that ICEman prick set a watch on her? Her logic
dismissed the idea as ludicrous, but her anger was alight and not
so easily doused. The young man didn’t reappear.

Centre for
Middle Eastern Studies, Cambridge, Massachusetts: April

The reception was boring. Abigail usually found them
so. This one was a CMES do, the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies
at Harvard, thrown to welcome a new associate to its heart. A free
buffet though, inclusive of plonk.

The beaming professor being honoured was
taking over a regular seminar series,
Islam in the West
. So,
when the ring of eager admirers thinned, she hoped to make contact.
He’d astutely combined the CMES event with a PR push for his book,
Guilt, Manipulation and Misunderstanding: the Hand of The West
in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
.

Pending access to the worthy professor, she
sauntered about like a thief spotting for opportunities, wielding
her smile like a crow-bar to break into the most promising of other
people’s conversations. Sadly, a great deal of schmoozing was
necessary to remain afloat in the treacherous ocean of academia.
Conscious of staying sharp and with a busy afternoon ahead too, she
sipped her wine slowly. She spotted that reporter guy from the
Boston Globe
, Paul Summers, talking into his phone, though
not with the usual animation people have when chatting to someone
else, so he was probably just confiding audio notes. She had no
wish to hobnob with him right now and hoped he wouldn’t recognize
her. Crazily, he was wearing a long white kaftan over blue jeans,
as if out of solidarity with the occasion. Or maybe not so crazily.
CMES boasted a healthy ethnic range of participants: Mediterranean
and North African, Arab and Turkic and Anglo-Saxon and more,
dressed in Western suits and brightly coloured robes, T-shirts and
hijabs and silk scarves and baseball caps.

Of a sudden there leapt out at her an urgent
hiss;
eagle-teacher
. She whirled in a desperate attempt to
discover who’d said that, and her wine flew in a wide arc, her
glass smashing spectacularly on the floor. Most conversation
ceased. Abigail felt terribly exposed under the glare of lights and
the glare of those nearby, although Paul Summers was grinning
sympathetically at her across the room; maybe he was a connoisseur
of social gaffes. A postgrad she’d seen around before, a South-East
Asian who sported a puckered old scar just like a supplementary
eyebrow, looked shocked and angry; maybe the wine had splashed him.
A handsome, well-groomed, middle-aged Arab gentleman next to him
smiled quizzically; he probably thought Abi was drunk. She lamely
explained to the room in general that she’d lost her footing, then
said sorry a lot as one of the catering staff came to clear up the
mess. Did Jack Turner have someone snooping around here, asking the
same improbable questions of other targets within CMES? A sense of
unreality gripped her, a feeling of being adrift on an unknown
sea.

Get some perspective, girl.

Her gentle history tutor back home in
Montreal had said she should never reprove herself like that.
Girl
revealed disbelief in her own maturity. She circled as
discretely as she could, hoping to hear the phrase again; but in
vain. After making such an exhibition of herself, she decided this
mightn’t be the best time to approach that professor.