He looked past her with his eyes wide open, as though he were looking at indescribable wonders.
Insane devil, Miriam thought at that moment.
“Where is ibn Tahir?”
Hasan lowered his eyes.
“Did you send him to your ‘bosom foe’?”
Now he fixed his eyes on her, his gaze taking her in completely.
“Didn’t you once say that you didn’t believe in anything in the world and that you were afraid of nothing? Where is your strength, now that you have to endure the actions whose weight I bear? You have a heart for the small things, but sometimes you need one for the big things too.”
Just then Moad put his boat in at the waterfront. Rokaya hurried to Miriam. She was still trembling all over. She didn’t turn to look at Hasan as she exclaimed, “Halima has jumped into the river!”
Miriam clutched at her heart. She looked at Hasan, as though she wanted to say to him, “This is your doing!”
Hasan was also startled. He asked for the details.
“So when she saw that they’d brought in Obeida instead of Suleiman, she ran away? And you say that Obeida doesn’t believe he’s in paradise?”
He looked at Miriam, who had buried her face in her hands and was crying.
He stood up.
“See to it that everything goes as it should from now on!”
He went to the waterfront, where Adi was waiting for him in the boat.
“Back to the castle!” he ordered.
“I want you to strangle the one in the middle garden,” he told the eunuchs, “once you’re alone with him. Search him and bring me everything you find on him. Then bury him alongside the other two from this morning at the far end of the gardens, at the foot of the mountains. Send the pair from the other two gardens up to me.”
Stern and gloomy, he had himself hoisted up into his tower. Once at the top, he gave the sign that the time had come to leave the gardens. He was glad that neither Abu Ali nor Buzurg Ummid was with him. What did he have left to talk about with them? He would have to leave the world an explanation and apology for his actions. For the faithful, he would need to write a compilation of his philosophy, simply and in metaphors. To his heirs he would need to reveal the final mysteries. There was a great deal of work still ahead of him. But life was short and he was already old.
Exhausted to death, he returned to his room. He collapsed onto his bed and tried to go to sleep, but he couldn’t. By day he was afraid of nothing. Now he saw Suleiman’s face, down to the tiniest details. Yes, he had seemed to be happy. And yet, in the next instant the life was extinguished within him. Great God! What a horrible experiment!
Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. Now he saw ibn Tahir riding toward Nehavend, obsessed with a single thought. Yes, that’s where his mortal enemy was staying. His “opposite principle,” the grand vizier Nizam al-Mulk, that brilliant and illustrious mind who professed everything that mankind saw as great and good. And yet, somewhere beneath it all there was a huge lie in him. He bowed down to mankind and its beliefs against the better convictions that Hasan knew he had. He had won the hearts of the masses and become powerful. He had achieved this through kindness, through generosity, and through more than a few concessions to precious human desires. Was there even room for another who was equal to him? Nizam al-Mulk had beat him at everything. He was more than ten years his senior. What option did he have, but to resort to the “opposite path”? He, smiling, I, grim. He the forgiving one, I the unyielding. He the gentle one, I the terrifying one. And yet he knew that the vizier was also capable of being ruthless and merciless. Even more than he. If I can force him to yield, I’ll be the sole ruler of Iran.
“If only this night would end!” he sighed. He put his coat on and went back to the tower’s upper platform.
He looked down into the gardens. The eunuchs had just turned the lamps down. Then he turned toward the foot of the mountains. Lights were shining there. He shivered. “They’re burying the dead,” he said to himself. A terrifying shudder came over him at the thought that one day he was going to vanish into nothingness.
We know nothing for certain, he thought. The stars above us are silent. We’ve been abandoned to our hunches, and we give in to illusions. The god who rules us is terrible.
He returned to his chambers and looked into the lift. Jafar and Abdur Ahman were fast asleep. He took the sheet off of them. The light from his room dimly illuminated their tired faces. He looked at them for a long time.
“It’s true, man is the strangest creature on earth,” he whispered. “He wants to fly like an eagle, but he lacks its wings. He wants to be as strong as a lion, but he lacks its paws. How horribly imperfect you’ve created him, Lord! And as punishment you’ve given him intellect and the power to recognize his own helplessness.”
He lay back down and tried to go to sleep. But he only managed to drop off as morning broke.
“Ibn Sabbah is a real prophet. He does believe in some god,” Abu Ali said to Buzurg Ummid that evening. He looked at him with bright, almost childlike eyes. Then he continued to confide in him.
“You see, I wasn’t mistaken about him. No matter how godlessly he may have spoken, I always believed that only he could be leader of the Ismailis. Because only he has the greatness of heart that’s needed. Praise be to Allah! We have a prophet!”
“A terrible prophet, indeed,” Buzurg Ummid muttered.
“Mohammed was no less terrible. He sent thousands to their deaths. And yet they all believed in him. Now they’re waiting for the Mahdi.”
“Don’t tell me you’re waiting for him too?”
Abu Ali gave a cunning smile and replied.
“The masses have never waited for someone in vain. Believe me. History bears it out. Whether good or terrible, he’ll come, because the wishes of thousands and thousands of hearts will demand it. That’s the great secret of mankind. You don’t know when or where he’ll come from. All of a sudden, he’ll be here.”
“It looks like a form of madness is getting the better of you too. You believe! Even though you know that mankind lives on delusions.”
“If he believes, why shouldn’t I believe too?”
“I’m beginning to think that’s what all of you have always wanted.”
“The dais don’t trust us, because they think we’re the commander’s men. He has the key to the fedayeen. We have to go back to him.”
“All this shifting back and forth doesn’t feel right to me one bit. But you have a point. The dais have nothing to offer us. We don’t have our own people. So, then, our place is with the commander.”
At that moment, back in their residence, the girls were crying disconsolately for Halima. They assembled around the pool, and like a hawk attacking a flock of doves, Fatima told them how everything had happened. They timidly hung their heads and mourned their lost companion. The girls from the two far gardens also returned that night. The horrible news made them feel as though they were all one family.
“Halima was the best of all of us.”
“It’s going to be lonely and sad in the gardens without her.”
“It’ll be awfully boring.”
“How are we going to get by without her?”
Miriam sat alone to one side. She listened to what the others were saying and felt twice as bad. She realized that she was powerless and that nothing bound her to life anymore. Why should she even bother? As dawn approached, she told the girls to go to bed. She went to find a sharp blade, entered her bath, undressed, and lay down in the basin. Then she opened the veins in her wrists.
Now she felt calm as the water gradually began to turn red. As her blood flowed out, so did her life. An enormous exhaustion overcame her. “Time to sleep,” she said to herself. She closed her eyes and sank into the water.
The next morning, when Fatima came to her bath to look for her, she found her pale and dead in the water, red from her blood. Her scream reverberated through the entire building, and then she fainte
d.
At about the same time, a soldier of the sultan’s army came to the river to water some horses and donkeys. Caught among tree branches in a small inlet he saw the naked body of a young girl. He pulled it to shore and couldn’t help exclaiming, “What a beauty!”
Then, somewhat farther down, he noticed the body of a large animal. Some kind of leopard, he thought. He managed to get it to shore too.
The animals neighed in fright.
“Easy now … I’ll go report this to my commander.”
The emir’s men came to the river bank in large numbers to look at the strange find. An old soldier said, “This is a bad sign. A leopard and a maiden in the embrace of death.”
A captain ordered them buried side by side.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Over the following days the emir’s army continued to bombard Alamut steadily. The Ismailis grew inured to the crash and rumbling of projectiles against the castle’s walls. Hasan’s prediction turned out to have been right on target. The soldiers posted atop the walls would watch the incoming projectiles and ebulliently evaluate each one of them, laughing and jeering wildly at the bad ones, or loudly exclaiming their admiration for the good ones. None of them were the slightest bit fearful anymore. They used signals to communicate with the enemy. Ibn Vakas, who had taken the late Obeida’s place as leader of the scouts, soon found in these good relations a convenient opportunity to reestablish direct contact with the emir’s army. He sent out one of his own men together with one of the prisoners. The prisoner related that his fellow prisoners back at the castle were doing well and that the Ismailis treated them with respect. The Ismaili asked the emir’s men whether they were interested in trading with Alamut. There was plenty of money in the fortress, and overnight a thriving black market came into being that linked the men on both sides.
The news that ibn Vakas intercepted through this conduit was invaluable for the besieged castle. First of all he learned that the emir’s army no longer amounted to thirty thousand men, but barely half that number. Then, that even those remaining were short of provisions and that, as a result, the men were constantly grumbling and pressing for them to withdraw. Emir Arslan Tash would have liked to send another five thousand men back to Rai or Qazvin, but given the reports of the Ismailis’ fanatical determination and skill, he was afraid of losing his advantage and meeting with the same fate as the commander of his vanguard.
Little more than a week had passed when a messenger came rushing into the emir’s camp and reported the horrific news that some Ismaili had stabbed the grand vizier in the midst of his own army at Nehavend. Arslan Tash was thunderstruck. In an instant his imagination conjured a disguised murderer trying to get at him. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
“Call Abu Jafar here!” he ordered.
The captain arrived.
“Have you heard?” he asked him worriedly.
“I’ve heard, Excellency. Nizam al-Mulk has been murdered.”
“What was it the master of Alamut said?”
“That he knew something about the grand vizier that Your Excellency would only find out about in six or even twelve days. And that when that happened, Your Excellency should remember him and his message.”
“O Allah, Allah! He knew everything already. It was he who sent the murderer to Nehavend. But what did he mean by saying I should remember him?”
“Nothing good for you, I’m afraid.”
The emir drew one hand across his eyes. Then he leapt toward the entrance like a deer.
“Commander of the guards! Quick! I want you to increase your forces tenfold. No man should ever be without his weapon. Put guards everywhere. Don’t let anyone through, except for my officers and individuals whom I’ve summoned personally!”
Then he rejoined Abu Jafar.
“Assemble the drummers! Get all of the men battle-ready. Anyone who has the slightest contact with Alamut will be beheaded on the spot.”
Even before Abu Jafar had a chance to carry out this order, an officer came dashing into the tent.
“Mutiny! The catapult teams have saddled their horses and mules and fled south. The sergeants who opposed them were beaten and bound.”
Arslan Tash clutched at his head.
“Oh, you dog! You son of a dog! How could you let this happen?”
The officer angrily stared at the ground.
“They’re hungry. They don’t want to fight against a powerful prophet.”
“Well, what do you advise me to do?”
Abu Jafar replied dispassionately. “The grand vizier, the mortal enemy of the Ismailis, is dead. Taj al-Mulk is in power. He’s sympathetic to the master of Alamut.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“The men who know how to operate the siege equipment have fled. What purpose is there in continuing to surround Alamut?”
Arslan Tash relaxed visibly. Out of duty, more than for any other reason, he shouted, “So you recommend that I run shamefully?”
“No, Your Excellency. It’s just that the situation has changed significantly with the vizier’s death. We have to wait for orders from the sultan and the new grand vizier.”
“Well, that’s different.”
He called an assembly of the officers. Most of them favored retreat. The men were opposed to fighting the Ismailis.
“Fine,” he said. “Let’s strike camp and have the whole army get ready to withdraw in absolute silence.”
The next morning the sun shone down on an empty and desolate plateau. Only the trampled ground and the ashen beds of countless campfires remained as evidence of a huge army’s presence there just the day before.
Ibn Vakas’s sources had immediately let him know about the death of the grand vizier.
“An Ismaili has murdered the grand vizier right in the middle of his own camp! The sultan’s army outside of Alamut is disintegrating!”
The news traveled through the entire fortress in an instant. Ibn Vakas reported the news to Abu Ali, who went looking for Buzurg Ummid.
“Ibn Tahir has carried the order out. Nizam al-Mulk is dead!”
They both went to see Hasan and let him know.
From the moment the supreme commander learned that Miriam had slashed her wrists in her bath, he had withdrawn even farther into himself. His machine may have worked according to his plan, but in the process its claws were also devouring people for whom it wasn’t meant. One victim led to another, which led to yet another. He could feel that it was no longer entirely under his control, that it was reaching past and above him, and that it was beginning to destroy people who were dear to him and whom he needed.
Here he was now, alone and frightening even to his own people. He perceived Miriam’s suicide as the loss of the last person to whom he could reveal his true self. If only he had Omar Khayyam with him now! What would he have made of his actions? He wouldn’t have approved of them, for sure, but he would have understood them. And that’s what he needed most of all.
The grand dais entered his chambers. From the solemnity of their behavior he could tell they were bringing him important news.
“The emir’s army is running high-tail. Your Ismaili has killed the grand vizier.”
Hasan shuddered. The first of the threesome that had once pledged to their mutual cause was no more. The road was clear now.
“At last,” he whispered. “The death of that devil is the beginning of good fortune.”
The three of them remained silent for a time. Then he asked, “Have you heard what happened to the one who did it?”
Buzurg Ummid shrugged.
“We haven’t heard. What other possibility could there be, but one?”
Hasan looked them in the eyes, trying to read their thoughts. Abu Ali’s face showed loyalty and trust. Buzurg Ummid’s expressed approval verging on admiration.
He relaxed.
“Tell the Ismailis that from this day forward they’re to revere ibn Tahir as our most illustrious martyr. In addition to his name,
they should also mention Suleiman’s and Yusuf’s in their prayers. This is my order. From here on, our path leads relentlessly upwards. All of the besieged castles will be liberated. Send a messenger to Gonbadan immediately. Husein Alkeini must be avenged. As soon as Kizil Sarik retreats from the fortress, have them send a caravan with my son in it here to Alamut.”
He dismissed them and went to the top of his tower, where he watched the emir’s forces retreating.
The next morning messengers were dispatched at a gallop to all the Ismaili fortresses. Ibn Vakas’s assignment was to reestablish contact with Rudbar.
As the day began to incline toward evening, a breathless Abu Ali came running in to see the supreme commander.
“Something incredible has happened,” he said when he was still a long way off. “Ibn Tahir has returned to the castle.”
The night after his attack on the grand vizier was the most horrible night in ibn Tahir’s life. Beaten and battered, his arms and legs bound, he lay chained to the tent’s middle pole. Desperate thoughts gnawed at him. He thought he could hear the mocking guffaws of the old man of Alamut. How could he have been so blinded that he didn’t see through the deception from the very start? Allah, Allah! How could he have ever guessed that a religious leader, whose devoted followers all thought he served justice and truth, could be such a vile fraud! Such a cold-blooded, calculating cheat! And that Miriam, that creature of angelic beauty, could be his helper, ten times more despicable than he, because she exploited love for her vile purposes. How limitlessly he despised her now!