Hasan pushed Miriam away from himself and jumped to his feet. Agitated like she had never seen him before, he began pacing furiously around the pool. There was something almost monstrous about him. It occurred to her that he might be mad. She had a vague intimation of the meaning of his words. She asked him in a timid voice, “So what did you do then?”
Hasan came to a sudden stop. He regained his composure and a smile, part teasing, part mocking, played over his lips.
“What did I do then?” he repeated after her. “I looked for a chance to make the fairy tale come true. I came here, to Alamut. The fairy tale has come to life, paradise has been created and awaits its first visitors.”
Miriam stared fixedly at him. Looking him in the eye, she said slowly, “You could be the one I once dreamt you might be.”
Hasan smirked in amusement.
“So who am I, then?”
“If you’ll permit me to express myself allegorically, the horrible dreamer from hell.”
Hasan burst out in a strange laugh.
“Quite charming,” he said. “Now you know my intentions and it’s time for me to give you specific instructions. Any resident of these gardens who gives anything away to the visitors will be put to death. You will remain silent about everything. I will make no exceptions. I hope you’ve understood me. You must impress upon the girls that for greater reasons they have to behave as though they were really in paradise. This is your assignment for now. Get ready for it. Expect me again tomorrow evening. Good night!”
He kissed her gently, then strode off quickly.
At the river bank Adi was waiting for him with the boat. He got down into it and quietly ordered, “To Apama!”
His old friend was waiting for him in a pavilion very similar to the previous one. One minute she was sprawled luxuriously on the pillows, but by the next, already overcome with impatience, she had gotten up and begun roaming about the room. She kept looking toward the door, talking to herself, growing angry and cursing in a half-whisper, gesticulating as she tried to make some point to her invisible interlocutor. When she heard footsteps, she straightened up proudly and moved a few paces toward the entrance.
When Hasan caught sight of her he could barely suppress a sarcastic smile. She was dressed in her finest silk. The entire contents of her jewelry chest were hanging around her neck, from her ears, on her wrists, hands and feet. On her head she was wearing a magnificent gold diadem studded with glinting gemstones. This was almost precisely the way she had been dressed when he first met her at a dinner given by some Indian prince in Kabul thirty years before. But what a difference between that Apama and this one! Instead of taut, supple limbs, a bony framework covered with faded, darkish, wrinkled skin. She had painted her sunken cheeks a screaming red, and her lips as well. She had daubed black dye on her hair, eyebrows and lashes. She struck Hasan as a living image of the impermanence of everything made of flesh and bones.
She hastily kissed his right hand and invited him to sit down on the pillows with her. Then she scolded him.
“You’ve been with her. There was a time when you wouldn’t leave me waiting long enough to sit down.”
“Rubbish,” Hasan said, his eyes flashing in annoyance. “I’ve called you here on important business. Let’s drop the past. What’s done is done.”
“So you have regrets?”
“Did I say that?”
“No, but …”
“No buts! I’m asking you if everything is ready.”
“Everything is as you’ve instructed.”
“The gardens will be having visitors. I need to depend on you completely.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me, rescuing me from poverty at my age.”
“Fine. How is the school coming along?”
“As well as can be expected with a flock of silly geese sitting in it.”
“Good.”
“I feel I have to warn you about something. Those eunuchs of yours don’t seem dependable to me.”
Hasan laughed.
“The same old story. Don’t you know any others?”
“I don’t mean that you can’t depend on them. They’re too scared for that. But I suspect some of them still have some remnants of manhood left in them.”
Hasan’s mood brightened.
“So have you tried any of them?”
Indignantly she drew away from him.
“What do you think I am? With beasts like that?”
“Then what gave you this curious idea?”
“They’ve been flirting with the girls and it’s very suspicious. They can’t hide anything from me. And there’s something else …”
“Well?”
“Recently Mustafa showed me something from a long way off.”
Hasan shook in silent laughter.
“Don’t be crazy. You’re old and bleary-eyed. It was something else he was shoving your way, just to make fun of you. You don’t really think he’d get hard from just looking at you?”
“You insult me. But just wait until they ruin your girls.”
“That’s what they’re there for.”
“But maybe there’s just one you might feel badly about?”
“Oh, cut it out. Don’t you see I’m old?”
“Not so old you couldn’t fall head over heels in love.”
Privately Hasan was supremely amused.
“If that were true, you’d have to congratulate me. Unfortunately I feel like an extinct volcano.”
“Don’t pretend. But it’s true, at your age something more mature would be more suitable.”
“Maybe Apama? Come on, old girl. Love is like a roast. The older the teeth, the younger the lamb needs to be.”
Tears welled up in Apama’s eyes, but finally she swallowed the barb.
“Why do you stick to just one? Haven’t you heard that a frequent change keeps a man fresh and active? The Prophet himself set the example. Recently I was looking at one young quail in the bath. Everything about her is firm and taut. Immediately I thought of you. She’s barely fourteen …”
“And her name is Halima. I know, I know. I held her in my arms before even you saw her. It was I who handed her to Adi. But let me tell you, for a wise man even one is too many.”
“But why does it have to be her? Haven’t you had your fill of her yet?”
Hasan chuckled inaudibly.
“It’s been wisely said, ‘Be modest and oat cakes every day will taste better to you than heavenly foods.”
“I don’t see how you don’t get tired of her self-important ignorance!”
“In these matters milky skin and pink lips outweigh even the profoundest erudition.”
“Once you told me, and I remember it perfectly, that you learned more in those three months that we were together than in the previous ten years.”
“Learning suits youth, the pleasure of teaching—old age.”
“But tell me, what is it about her precisely that attracts you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe some vague affinity of hearts.”
“You say that to hurt me.”
“It didn’t even occur to me.”
“Even worse!”
“Oh, cut it out. Spending your old age being jealous?”
“What did you say? Me, jealous? Apama, the priestess of love, before whom three princes, seven heirs apparent, a future caliph and more than two hundred knights and noblemen fell on their knees? Apama is jealous? And of a bumpkin, of a christened slut like that?!”
Her voice shook in fury.
Hasan spoke to her.
“My dear, those times are gone. That was thirty years ago, and now your mouth has no teeth, your bones have no flesh, your skin has no succulence …”
She began to sob.
“Do you think you’re any better off than me?”
“Allah forbid that I think anything of the sort! The only difference between us is this: I’m old and I’ve reconciled myself with it. You’re also ol
d, but you hide the fact from yourself.”
“You came here to make fun of me.”
Large tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Not at all, old girl. Let’s be wise. I sent for you because I need your skills and experience. You just said yourself that I rescued you from poverty by inviting you to my castle. I give you everything you want. I’ve only ever valued the things in people that make them stand out from others. That’s why I deeply admire your knowledge of the arts of love. I’m declaring my complete confidence in you. What more would you want?”
She felt touched and no longer cried. Hasan silently laughed to himself. He bent toward her and whispered in her ear.
“Do you still really want to …?”
She looked at him abruptly.
“I can’t help it,” she said and clasped onto him. “That’s how I am.”
“Then I’ll send you a healthy Moor.”
Offended, she pulled away from him.
“You’re right. I’m too ugly and too old. It’s just so incredibly painful that so much beauty is gone forever.”
Hasan rose and spoke dispassionately.
“Get the pavilions ready for their guests. Clean and scrub everything. Make sure the girls don’t blather or poke around into things. School is over now. Great things are about to happen. Expect me again tomorrow. I’ll give you precise instructions. Is there anything you’d like?”
“No, my master. Thank you. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to try some other one?”
“No, thanks. Good night!”
Miriam returned to her room with a heavy heart. What Hasan had told her that evening had been too much for her to absorb so quickly. She sensed that a terrible intellect was at work here, one for which everything around it—people, animals, inanimate nature—was just a means for fulfilling some grim vision. She loved that spirit, was afraid of it, and little by little was beginning to despise it. She felt a powerful need to unburden herself, to exchange a few words at least with a creature devoid of evil. She approached Halima’s bed and watched her through the murk. She had the sense she was only pretending to sleep.
“Halima!” she whispered and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I know you’re pretending. Look at me.”
Halima opened her eyes and pushed the blanket off her chest.
“What is it?” she asked timidly.
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Of course I can, Miriam.”
“Like a tomb?”
“Like a tomb.”
“If they found out I’d told you, they’d have both our heads. The sultan’s forces are besieging the castle …”
Halima shrieked.
“What’s going to happen to us?”
“Shh. Be quiet. Sayyiduna is looking after us. From now on every act of disobedience means a death sentence. There are difficult trials ahead of us. So you know: no matter who asks, you mustn’t tell anyone where we are or who we are.”
She kissed her on both cheeks and climbed into her own bed.
That night neither one of them closed her eyes. Miriam felt as though mountains were revolving inside her head. The whole world was perched on a knife’s edge. Which direction would it tip in the days to come?
Halima shivered with delight … What a marvelous adventure this whole life was! The Turks besieged the castle and Sayyiduna defended it from them without anyone ever seeing or hearing a thing. And still they were in the grips of great danger. How mysteriously beautiful it all was!
CHAPTER SEVEN
Early the next morning the youths mounted their horses and with their instructors flew out of the fortress. Two by two they thundered across the bridge in perfect order and then raced through the canyon in unbroken formation. Those riding closest to the river’s edge were no more than a few inches away from a steep escarpment. Yet no one slid into the stream.
On the plateau Manuchehr brought them to a halt at the foot of a low-lying, gently sloped hill. The novices shivered with feverish tension. Their disquiet communicated itself to the horses, which began neighing impatiently beneath them. Finally, Abu Ali came riding up, accompanied by dai Ibrahim. He spoke briefly with the captain and then rode with the other dais to the top of the hill.
Manuchehr gave an order and the two battle lines went flying off in different directions. Both of them made difficult and complex turns, then attacked and evaded each other, all in a highly coordinated way and without any mishaps.
From the hilltop, sitting on his shaggy white Arabian horse, Abu Ali observed the maneuvers taking place below and gave instructions to the dais.
“Manuchehr has done a fine job of training them,” he said, “I can’t deny that. But I’m not sure if this Turkish approach is suited to mountainous terrain. In the old days we used to attack individually and take down whatever came under our swords, then scatter again in a heartbeat. We’d repeat that kind of assault two or three times until there was no enemy left.”
During the next exercise, when the boys changed their method of attack by breaking the lines and going at each other individually, his eyes shone with satisfaction. He stroked his straggly beard and nodded in recognition. He dismounted, led his horse down the shady side of the hill, stopped and spread a carpet out over the ground, and lowered himself down onto it so that he sat resting on his heels. The dais, who had followed him, gathered around.
The captain had given another order. The novices leapt off their horses and took off their cloaks to reveal light, scaly armor. In place their of turbans they pulled on tight battle helmets. They let down their lances and reached for their shields and spears instead.
As foot soldiers they proved themselves just as capable. The captain shot a discreet glance at the grand dai and caught him quietly smiling.
Next came the individual military arts. They set up targets at a suitable distance and archery practice began. Out of ten shots, ibn Tahir and Suleiman missed only one each. The others fared almost as well.
Then they competed in spear throwing. Just as they had all been sitting on pins and needles at first in the grand dai’s presence, wordlessly carrying out their commands, now that he had begun nodding approval, they gradually relaxed and grew more enthusiastic. They began to gibe and encourage each other. Each of them wanted to stand out and give his very best. Yusuf outdid them all with his powerful throwing arm. Suleiman refused to be defeated. His whole body was taut with exertion.
“Leave some strength for all the other oxen you’re going to have to kill,” Yusuf taunted him.
Suleiman compressed his lips, drew the spear back and sprinted forward. The weapon went darting through the air. But he didn’t outthrow Yusuf who, at his next throw, surpassed himself.
“Outstanding,” Abu Ali praised him.
But no one was a match for Suleiman at sword fighting. They were matched up in pairs, and whichever of the two was defeated dropped out of the competition. Ibn Tahir defeated Obeida and ibn Vakas, but then succumbed to Yusuf’s more powerful assault. Suleiman forced his competitors out, one after the other. Finally, he and Yusuf had to square off. He hid behind his shield, with his eyes looking out over it, mocking his opponent.
“Now show you’re a hero,” he taunted him.
“Don’t rejoice too soon, my fleet-footed grasshopper,” Yusuf replied. “You didn’t do so well at spear throwing.”
They faced off. Yusuf knew that weight was his advantage, so he lunged at his competitor with all his might. But Suleiman, with his long legs, had planted his feet far apart and was able to evade the attacks by shifting his torso without losing his footing. With a sudden feint he was able to trick his opponent into moving his shield to the wrong side, at which point he dealt an elegant blow to his rib cage.