“You?” He was astonished. “I thought you some young wastrel of a nobleman.”
“Lastly, I was a merchant trader.” Pointing off toward the mouth of the Dnieper, I said, “We were wiped out by the Petchenegs.”
“I heard of it …a bad business.” My horses were stabled amidships, and I went to stand with them and feed them bits of vegetables. Ayesha nuzzled my side, and the stallion nipped at my sleeve in a friendly way. Finally, I went forward and lying down with my cloak about me, I slept.
In the gray dawn I awakened. The sea was picking up. Spray blew against my face, and I liked the taste of it on my lips, bringing back memories of the far Atlantic coast and my home.
The Levantine came forward. “There is danger from the Turks,” he said. “We are going further to sea.” The Byzantine Empire held Greece and as far north as the Danube, west to the Adriatic, and, under Manuel I, the coast of the Adriatic including Dalmatia. On the mainland of Asia they held the coast to a short distance below Antioch and for some distance inland. The Black Sea coast as far as Trebizond was theirs, and so also were portions of the Crimea.
Inland, Anatolia was held by the Seljuk Turkish Empire with their capital at Iconium. These Turks were a fierce group of nomadic tribes from Central Asia who migrated south and fought their way into their possessions. The citadel of Trebizond stood on a tableland between two deep ravines that, when heavy rains fell, emptied their floods into the sea. In the foreground as we approached we could see wharves, warehouses, and resorts for seamen, shops selling supplies to ships and fishing craft. At the foot of the tableland as well as atop it were the walled homes of wealthy merchants, their walls a riot of vines.
Beyond the walls of the citadel were the towers of Byzantine churches. It was late afternoon when we landed in a driving rain. I had changed to a birrus, a capelike cloak of deep red, heavier stuff, and worn for wintry or rainy weather. It possessed a hood that slipped over my helmet.
When we came ashore a ramp was run out, and I led my horses down. Several dockside loafers paused to watch, and I was uneasy, for they were magnificent animals and likely to cause comment.
The shores even on such a dismal day were crowded with heaps of merchandise, camels loading and unloading, and throngs of merchants. Mounting Ayesha and leading my other horses, I chose a narrow street leading inland. Glancing back, I saw a man standing alone in the street, watching me go.
There would be spies, and thieves, everywhere.
Aside from my sword and dagger I carried a bow and a quiver of arrows. Riding east, I passed several camel caravans bound west for Trebizond. At midnight I rode off the trail and camped in a wadi among some willows.
There was grass for my horses, a small area screened by a hill and the willows. Gathering fuel, I roasted mutton and ate, enjoying the stillness. It was near this place where Xenophon’s Ten Thousand, retreating after the death of Cyrus, ate of the wild honey that drove them mad. All who ate the honey had attacks of vomiting and diarrhea and were unable to stand upright. Some who ate but little seemed drunk; others were temporarily insane, and a few died. The honey was made, I learned from an Armenian, from the azalea, and contains a narcotic.
Drawing from my pack fresh clothing, discarding the Byzantine costume except for the coat of mail and the cloak, I donned a burdah or undercloak bound with a sash, then put on the aba or long outercloak. Under the sash was concealed my old leather belt, my only possession from home other than my Damascus dagger. Then I resumed the turban of the scholar, adding the taylasan, a scarf thrown over the turban with one end drawn under the chin and dropped over the left shoulder.
The taylasan was worn by judges and theologians, offering a measure of security from questioning or attack, and suited the identity I was adopting, that of ibn-Ibrahim, a physician and scholar. It was no haphazard selection, for the one way in which I might open the gates to Alamut was as a scholar. Yet once inside those gates I would be surrounded by fanatics, ready to tear me to bits at my slightest mistake.
Hunched over my small fire, I felt the cold hand of despair. What sort of fool was I even to hope that I might accomplish the miracle of entering Alamut?
Again and again I reviewed all I knew and found no help. My only hope lay in the remote possibility of an invitation from Rashid-Ad-din Sinan himself, a man noted for his intuitive gifts and said to be interested in alchemy. Of this I knew nothing but bazaar gossip, and I must stop in Tabriz and establish myself as ibn-Ibrahim in that city. There the spies of the Old Man could observe me at their leisure.
Once I got within the gates of Alamut, if I was so fortunate, every second would be one of danger. Aziza in the castle of Prince Ahmed, Suzanne in Castle Saone, Valaba in the salons of Córdoba, did they think of me now and then? Yet who recalls the wanderer who appears but for a fleeting day or two and then is gone? My passing was that of a shadow in a garden, and who would remember? Or why should they? Would it be always so for me? Was I but a passerby?
If one returns and stands again upon the same ground, is it he who stands there or a stranger? Armorica would still be Armorica; the sands of Brignogan would still be the sands of Brignogan, but Kerbouchard would be … what?
The memory of the great oar in my hands, the stench of the filth beneath me, the arms of Aziza, the books of the great library of Córdoba, the bite of a sword through bone … or that rain-swept cliff in Spain. How much of me remained there, in those places, and how much had brought me here, perhaps to my death?
How much of me lay on the blood-soaked turf where died the Hansgraf with his White Company of traders? How much of me in that muddy clearing where I had been knocked down, humbled, beaten, helpless to resist?
Was it anything more than luck that my bones did not lie back there to be picked over by wolves and vultures? A stick fell into the fire, sparks flew up. Would I ever find a place where I belonged? Or was I destined to drift across the world like a disturbed spirit? Would I find that someone I sought? Someone more important to me than anyone or anything else?
Hah! Was I a child to dream so? I was lucky to be alive, and if I freed my father and escaped alive, I must be even luckier. And what of the walking drum? Would I hear its beat again? And if I did, would I pick up my pack and follow?
And the Hansgraf? Where he was did he hear it? That drum marched us across Europe and into Asia and right to the very gates of death.
48
Who shall deny the excitement of entering a strange city for the first time? Or going ashore in a strange port? And the beauty of Tabriz? To north, south, and east were reddish, orange-shaded hills, brilliant in contrast to the lush green of orchard and garden. Tabriz was a jewel of a city, watered by streams flowing down from the mountains.
To this city had I come, I, Mathurin Kerbouchard, now known as ibn-Ibrahim, physician, scholar, pilgrim to the holy places of Islam. More than ten miles around were the walls of Tabriz, entered by ten gates, and outside the walls lay seven districts, each named for the stream that watered it.
My pace slowed, for I was a scholar and must proceed with dignity as befitted my position. What happened here might open the gates of Alamut. Yet as I drew closer, it was my stallion and mares that drew attention, for no Arab lived who did not know the great breeds. The horses did not fit my role as scholar but did much to establish me as a man of wealth and importance. Wars had been fought over such mares as these, and I had three, and a stallion.
Glancing neither to the right nor left, I rode into the streets and through the great bazaar of Ghazan, one of the finest on earth. Wherever I looked were throngs of colorfully dressed people, and each trade was situated in a different corner of the bazaar. Reaching the bazaar of the jewelers, I found such a splendid collection of gems that I paused to gaze, and not only at the gems but also at the beautiful slave girls who displayed them.