It was light when Adam woke. A man was leaning over him, holding a knife to his throat. Instinctively he reached for his rifle. It was gone. He sat up, cautiously, and two more men came up and looped a thick rope around his body, trapping his arms. Everywhere he looked, other men, the muleteers and guides, were immobilizing his people.
Nobody said a word.
As Adam watched, the muleteers dumped all the arms, rifles, revolvers, grenades, even swords, in a pile with two men to guard them. They herded the shepherds, who were completely unarmed, into another group and set guards on them. Then they started to rifle the baggage of the caravan. Either they were bandits or else they had realized that they would not now be paid, and were going to plunder the caravan instead. It is hard to conceal anything from anyone on a caravan journey. Adam realized that these men probably knew that the gold had been on the lost mule in the ravine.
There did not seem to be any hope. Adam caught Captain Azambai’s eye. He was sitting up, too, some distance away, looking wretchedly at the systematic, practised sorting of the goods and chattels. He rolled his eyes and shrugged. Even if he had been near enough to talk, there was not much to say.
Now the thieves were methodically searching everyone’s pockets and taking watches, any money they could find, and small personal possessions. The burly Nuristanis growled as their crystal necklaces were taken away, but they were helpless, too.
Adam could not see where Noor was. At the angle at which he was sitting, trussed like a fowl, he could not even move to see what might have happened to her, or to Karima.
The sheep people were sitting quietly, philosophically, almost, on the ground, under the guns of their guards. They had probably learned, over the centuries, that it was best to acquiesce in situations like this. They would either be killed or set free. Either way, it was the will of Allah. In any case, there was, surely, nothing that they could do …
There was a Persian saying, ‘Na ba zar, na ba zor, na ba zahr – Not money, not force, nor poison.’ Well, they had no money, no force, certainly no poison. That seemed to be that. They would probably be killed.
The leader of the muleteers, known for some reason as Hairan, ‘the bewildered’, was small, and bent, almost hunchbacked, with a low voice and an unassuming manner. Yet somehow he had become a leader, and the other men, some of them huge and villainous-looking, followed his orders without question. Adam found himself hoping that they would quarrel over the spoils; though how that might help him and his band he could not tell. In story-books, of course, that was one of the possibilities.
It took an hour or more for the looting to be completed, and for the booty to be collected, in neat piles, on the green grass of the meadow. It was all done so quietly, so professionally, that Adam was sure that these robbers had done the same thing many times before. Even if they had not originally been attracted by the gold, he felt, the thieves would almost certainly have tried to rob the caravan.
And the guards, four of them, posted the night before and due to be relieved every four hours, had not raised the alarm. They must have been silenced, somehow. Had they been killed? Adam could not see any of them, or any dead bodies, either, from where he lay.
Hairan had come to some sort of arrangement with the shepherds, who were nodding their heads: the two men guarding them were withdrawn and joined the rest of the robbers, now surrounding their leader. Then Hairan was climbing onto a pile of saddles and boxes, arranged like a platform, around which the loot was neatly stacked. His men positioned themselves in a circle around him, sitting cross-legged on the ground. Evidently the shepherds had promised not to make any trouble when the guards joined the leader’s audience.
Hairan stood, now atop the improvised platform, and addressed his men. He was making quite a long speech, in the archaic form of Dari which was used in these mountains, as Adam could tell from its cadence. But he was too far away to hear what was actually being said. Now and again the listening men laughed, sometimes they shouted.
In the middle of one such shout, rising from the ever more animated leader of the robbers, from whom Adam’s eyes had strayed, there was a rattle of rifle-fire.
It came from a clump of trees, some hundred yards from where Adam was lying, and a hundred and twenty from the robber group.
When he looked back to where the band had been sitting, Adam saw that they were sprawled in heaps, some evidently dead, others struggling on the ground, some tugging at the butts and barrels of rifles from the arms pile, trying to get them free to shoot at their attackers.
He looked back towards the trees again. Some twenty men, dispersed in open array, were running, very fast, towards the robbers, stopping every now and then to fire into the mass.
Nobody from among Hairan’s men had been able to get a shot in before the newcomers were among them. Rapidly they formed a circle around their prey, first shooting at them and then covering them with their guns at the ready, as all those who were on their feet – and some lying on the ground – raised their arms in surrender.
The raiders were dressed in furs and leather trousers, with wide leather belts and crossed bandoliers. On their feet they wore soft, curly-toed Turkoman boots, and three or four of them, who seemed to be the leaders, had wolfskin, Mongol-type caps with flaps on their heads.
Adam was trying to work out the meaning of this event when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He jumped, half turned around and was surprised to hear Noor’s voice. ‘Stay still, or you’ll get hurt.’ He felt her knife slash through the ropes which bound his arms.
He stretched himself, wondering how she had done it – and what to do next.
Putting his finger to his lips, he signalled her to be still, in case the new arrivals saw her.
She laughed. ‘Don’t worry! They’re friends of mine.’
‘Friends?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you mean, friends? Where are they from? Who are they? How do you know them? What’s been going on?’
‘One thing at a time.’ She was enjoying the moment. As Adam stood up and tried to get his circulation going again, Captain Azambai came up, rubbing his wrists. With him was a tall, Mongol-capped figure.
Adam shook the grinning newcomer’s hand, almost automatically, as he said, ‘When is someone going to tell me what is going on?’
‘I just went and collected these men to help us,’ said Noor.
‘Where did you find them, and anyway, how did you get away from the camp?’
‘Last night I couldn’t sleep. I saw Hairan giving a hot drink to the watch, after stirring something into it. He gave some to all the men on guard. I guessed it was either poison or dope. I was scared and made quietly for the trees, to decide what to do. I ran into some of these men. They turned out to be friendly.’
‘You’re obviously the only intelligent person among us!’ said Azambai, perhaps relieved at not being the only one to have blundered. ‘Those fellows shouldn’t have taken the drink. Must have had chars, hemp, in it.’
‘Why did you wait until dawn?’ Adam asked.
‘To catch them at a moment when they were distracted.’
‘I am Tourzan, which means “brave” in Pashtu,’ said the leader of their rescuers. ‘That’s the name my parents gave me.’
‘He prefers to be called Farid,’ said Noor.
‘We are most grateful for your kindness and owe our lives to you and your men, shaghali, mister, Farid,’ said Adam, remembering his manners.
‘It is my duty,’ said Farid, happily. ‘We live beyond those trees, there, in a group of villages. These simple folk don’t have much to do with us, as we collect taxes from them, for the Zinda-Mir, the Living Prince, our chief. “Living”, of course, also means “very great”. That is his title.’
‘Well, who are these robbers?’ the captain wanted to know. ‘They seem pretty experienced to me.’
‘Oh, yes, they are indeed. The Mir has been after them and others like them for years.’
‘Did you
say years?’ Adam asked.
‘Yes, years. They are professional thieves. Their ancestors were known as the Assassins. They are sort of licensed killers. Legend has it that they originally followed a terrorist chief called Hasan, son of Sabah, in Persia. He sent people out to kill, for political reasons. They sometimes call themselves “People of Truth”. The founder, and his successors, are supposed to be incarnations of a deity, a sort of god.’
Azambai said, ‘That was the Old Man of the Mountains, wasn’t it, Shaikh al Jabal?’
‘That’s right. There are still pockets of them in Afghanistan, though not all of them are killers. A lot of them are respectable grocers and bakers, things like that. Some believe in murder, others say it’s a heresy started by a splinter group centuries ago.
‘I’ll tell you more when we’ve had a little food.’
Farid led them to a spot beyond the tree-screen where his men had spread a feast such as the travellers had not seen for a long time. The villagers had brought out loads of cooked meat, fruit, cheeses, any number of vegetables and sauces.
‘What are you going to do with the robbers?’ Azambai asked.
Farid said, ‘That is nothing to do with me. Our men have already taken them to the Prince. He may kill them or let them go, or do anything he wants to. We must leave things like that to him.’
‘No trial, or anything?’
Farid looked at him as people do when someone has made an improper remark. ‘Perhaps there will be a trial. Perhaps not. It is for the Living Prince to decide.’ That obviously disposed of that.
‘As to the killing and robbing by these Assassins,’ Farid said, ‘it is all very simple. Their leader, the great Imam whom they follow, is the incarnation of deity in their eyes. Therefore everything on earth belongs to him. If you or I have anything, it still belongs to him. So his followers can take possession of it.’
Adam knew that branches of the Assassins were said to have terrorized whole nations in antiquity, but this persistence of their nests in Afghanistan was new to him. He said, ‘People like that are undoubtedly a pestilential nuisance, to put it no higher. But what a weapon, used against the Russians.’
To Adam’s surprise, Farid took this seriously. He touched Adam on the arm. ‘You ought to be a politician! I’ll certainly mention it to the Prince. He might well agree to your suggestion.’
‘But how could you keep control over them, if you let them loose among the people again?’
‘Use the Russian method, of course. Take and keep hostages. Why, High Serai is full of people we could pick and choose from. It’s just that for all these years we did not know that they were Assassins.’
‘It’s definitely something to think about.’
Desperate remedies for desperate circumstances? Adam was glad that he did not have to make the decision.
4 We must cross Black Mountain …
Qala Kavi
Central Mountains
JULY 12
The Living Prince’s palace, beyond the screen of trees which surrounded the lush pasture of Tutabad, clung to a mountainside which at first seemed like a sheer wall. As the travellers approached, however, they saw that the wall was a mass of natural terraces, perhaps carved by glaciers. The grey fortifications, walls, turrets and embrasures, all rested on stone: no different in texture from that of the mountain itself.
At the foot of the mountain, amid running streams and cherry orchards, protected by the huge castle above, lay the group of villages where Noor had found Farid, the chief of the Prince’s advance guard.
‘The Prince,’ Farid said, after a man had approached, riding a splendid Turkoman-Arab horse, and spoken in his ear, ‘would like to see you. We had better go at once.’
‘What about the animals, the baggage, and the Assassins?’ Noor asked.
‘I have already given orders that your goods be brought to the castle in carts,’ Farid told her. ‘As for the robbers and their animals, that is for the Prince to decide, if you remember. They are under arrest.’
Farid, riding between Adam and the Turkestani captain, told them about the palace. ‘It is called Qala Kavi, and was built as the central stronghold of the Arabs who came here over a thousand years ago. They say that the great conqueror, General Kutaiba himself, designed it. The idea was to hold, from here, the entire mountain area of the northern Hindu Kush.’
‘I suppose that the word kavi comes from the Arabic for “strong”?’ Azambai asked him.
‘Wrong. Kavi is the ancient Persian word for a mystic priest, one who knows secrets, mysteries of the other world. These people were often kings as well. You probably know that Zoroaster started one of the great religions in Balkh, to the north-west of here, parallel to where you are going, in Afghan Turkestan. It spread through Iran, and influenced many other religions. Well, Zoroaster made his start when he converted a kavi, about two thousand five hundred years ago.’
‘So this place dates from that time?’
‘According to legend, the castle was taken from the followers of Zarathustra, which was his real name. That means in the ancient tongue, by the way, “camelman”. We still use the word. The building was probably only enlarged by Kutaiba.’
The castle was entered, like so many in Central Asia, by tunnels, with large quantities of rocks piled in shelves above them, which could be rolled down, blocking the entrances, in time of war.
The horses, clearly knowing the way, walked straight into the large openings and plodded up the long inclines, lined with boxes and barrels, stored supplies, which were stacked on either side of the long corridors hewn from the rock. ‘The passages twist like this,’ said Farid, ‘so that they can be defended easily. If anyone got through before we could block the entrances, each passage could be held by as few as three soldiers.’
The whole way was lit by rushlights, projecting from the walls.
Eventually the horses emerged into broad daylight. Adam and Noor, followed by the captain and then the rest of the caravanners, blinked and peered at the unexpected sight of a garden, full of flowers in full bloom, with fountains playing. Twenty or thirty men, dressed like Farid, were sitting and standing in groups, as if waiting for something.
The entire garden was built on an enormous parapet, a ledge with crenellated walls, jutting out from the mountainside.
Farid led them to the edge, from which they could see the orchards and the villages through which they had passed earlier, hundreds of feet below.
‘This garden,’ Farid told them, ‘is quite artificial, in the sense that all its soil has been carried up here and is several feet thick. Beneath that there is only rock.’
A giant’s window box, Noor thought. It must have been the size of several football pitches, with a pavilion at one end, climbing roses, jasmine, fig trees growing in barrels, and the smell of flowers everywhere.
They walked along a marble path, with fountains on either side, to the pavilion, built of honey-coloured translucent stone, a type of alabaster which is not uncommon in Afghanistan. There were some strikingly beautiful carpets on the floor, and incense was burning in a golden-domed censer, studded with semi-precious stones, the smoke rising through small star-shaped holes in its upper surface.
A semi-circle of long, fat cushions was arranged before a red and green lacquered wooden throne. Farid motioned to the three – Noor, Azambai and Adam – to sit. The rest of the party, craning their necks like yokels at a fair, were seated at a greater distance from the area of authority.
They were served with a drink of rosewater and musk, and handed small agate bowls containing sugared almonds, tiny green raisins and nuts. Farid passed the time, while they were waiting for the Prince, by telling them about the principality.
The Prince was a great landowner, and also had enormous herds of sheep, horses and cattle. This place, Qala Kavi, was nothing less than an independent domain. It was the centre of a series of valleys and fertile tablelands, two to five thousand metres above sea level. Noor realized, rememberi
ng her geography lessons in England, that the valleys themselves were as many as fifteen times as high as what would qualify as a mountain in the West. Fifteen mountains high …
Farid did not know how many people there were in the principality, which covered more than three days’ journey in any direction from the castle. He was the wazir, chief minister, of the sovereign, but this involved more than ceremonial tasks: supervision of the army, collecting taxes, judging law cases and keeping the Prince informed about ‘everything of importance’.
As they talked, green tea was served, made from water boiled in a samovar. In this thin air, it took over half an hour, and a great deal of glowing charcoal puffed with bellows, to get the water hot enough.
They must have been sitting there for over an hour when Adam, accustomed to the ways of feudal chiefs, recognized the soft, slowly rising beat of a single drum which signalled the potentate’s approach. He could see, looking down the marble pathway, people rising to their feet, guards raising unsheathed swords, and a general air of expectancy as more drums took up the rhythm.
A small group of men, courtiers young and old, dressed in wide-sleeved robes of the padded, bright coloured Bokhara kind, filed in and arranged themselves behind the throne.
Two or three minutes later, preceded by a herald with a massive, gold-bound stick, the sceptre of office, the Prince padded softly into his pavilion.
He was between forty and fifty years of age, tall, with typically Afghan features: an aquiline nose, black eyes and long head. His curly hair was cut short, and his head was bare. Over trousers of white cotton, and a long blouse secured by a red sash, he wore a long woollen robe of dark blue, closed in front by a gold sword-belt, studded with smooth diamonds. There was an immense polished Badakhshan ruby gleaming on the buckle.