“Yusuf? He was your friend?”
“He knew nothing of me, and I knew little of him, yet toward the end of my stay I met his son, Abu-Yusuf Ya’kub. We did become friends, very good friends, I believe. We met at the house of Valaba.”
“Valaba? Of her I had heard much. She is very beautiful, I think?”
“Very!” I spoke with regret. “Very beautiful, indeed.”
“But thin?” He spoke sadly. “I have heard it said.”
“Not for my taste, but Turks, I hear, like their women well rounded, on all sides. Is it true?”
“A Turk likes a woman with a belly,” he said emphatically. “Those Persian women … bah! They are thin, too thin! Breasts, buttocks, and belly, all fat! That is the way a Turk likes his women! And thighs! She must have thighs! Allah!” He shook his head. “I cannot see what you Moors and Persians see in those women who are thin as herons!
“Would you believe it, ibn-Ibrahim? In the last three Persian towns we took, there was not a single woman taken by force? It was unbelievable! Were it not for the fact that I understand their distaste for thin women, I would believe our army had lost its manhood!”
He filled a glass and pushed it toward me. “Kumiss. If you have not tasted kumiss you have not lived.” He refilled his own glass. “It is our custom,” he explained, “when capturing a town to treat all captured women to a taste of Turkish victory. It has done much for the generations that follow.” Then he scowled. “But if it continues, we shall be fighting our own sons.”
“At least you will be assured of a good fight.” He glanced at me. “I did not know that scholars were warriors.”
“And until I met you, Mas’ud Khan,” I said quickly, “I did not know warriors were scholars!” My reply pleased him. He was pleased by the compliment; I, because I had evaded what might have been a trap.
He changed the subject. “You mentioned alchemy? You can make gold?”
My smile was sardonic. “Is it so easy, then, to make gold? Many try … it is whispered some have succeeded. But other things are more precious than gold. Life, for example, or the means to take life.
“It is true,” I added, “that I have delved into the elements of things, into all aspects and combinations of minerals, and I seek when I can the company of others who learn, for who knows when my knowledge combined with theirs might prove the answer? Each man learns a little, but the sum of their knowledge can be great.”
Ibn-Haram was here! Would he know me now? Several years had passed, and I had grown older and stronger, yet that and the suffering had changed me but little. Yet I dare not risk it, for if it was revealed that I was not what I claimed, I would be in serious trouble. And ibn-Haram hated me for defeating him in the matter of Aziza.
Decision was mine. I could not afford to remain in Tabriz. “I shall pass on,” I said, “I have been too long without means to study and work. I shall go to Jundi Shapur.”
The idea appealed to me, for the fame of that great school, particularly in the field of medicine, was everywhere acknowledged. It was logical that I should go there, logical that I should have made this journey to get there. It accounted for my presence here.
How much power ibn-Haram possessed, I did not know. He must have overreached himself in some plot while in Spain and fled that country. Yet he was a deadly enemy who could bring disaster upon me.
Slaves came suddenly into the room, bringing three splendid silk robes, three new outfits of clothing, and a heavy purse of gold. They brought a fine saddle, bridle, and saddlebags. These gifts were magnificent indeed, but any traveling scholar, at almost any town in Islam, could expect the same. Wisdom was revered; whereas in Europe he might be burned as a heretic.
With no word of Alamut, I mounted my horse, and followed by slaves bearing the gifts, I returned to the hospice. Riding away, I glanced back. The eyes of Mas’ud were upon me, cold, measuring, shrewd.
Riding away, I could not throw off a premonition of danger, and my every instinct warned me to not even spend the night, but to take Khatib and fly. Yet that might draw upon me even worse danger, for it would arouse immediate suspicion.
Morning came with a babble of voices as other travelers prepared to leave. Khatib entered, and my resolve was formed on the instant. “Pack,” I said. “I shall ride the new saddle, use the new bridle. Let us go at once.”
We were fortunate in our time of departure, for a large caravan was leaving at the same time, and we promptly overtook and fell in with them, and riding with them, we conversed.
Among the Franks many believed that Cathay did not exist, yet here I found those who had traveled to Hind, to Cathay, and all the lands that lay between. The region through which we traveled was fertile and prosperous, growing some of the finest pears and pomegranates I had eaten, and there were groves of olives. Stopping beside the way, many hours later, we made a lunch of cheese from Dinavar and pears of the district while seated beneath tamarisk and chinar trees.
Several of the muleteers stopped with us, and as they had shown no inclination to stop until we did, I suspected them of spying. It was a lazy, sunny afternoon with a few scattered puffballs of cloud drifting in the sky. Lying upon the sand, I stared up at the sky and again tried to think out a solution to my problem.
Brave as I might seem to others, I knew I was no more brave than any other man. It was not willingly that I went to the fortress of Alamut, but my father was there, and we two were the last of our line. He was all that was left to me, and I could only try to be as good a son as he was a father.
No slave was ever sold from Alamut, nor allowed to leave for fear he might reveal the secrets of the fortress and its fabled gardens of paradise. If by some chance I myself was permitted to enter, my every move would be watched. Depression lay heavily upon me, for if I entered, how then could I leave? And how could I free my father? A man must be a great fool to attempt the impossible, yet my father was my father, and it was easier to risk my life than to think of him as a slave.
Al-Zawila? Who could he be? Why this hatred for my father?
“Master … ?”
Two men stood near me, one of them displaying a large and obviously painful boil. After lancing the boil, bathing it, and prescribing a renewal of the poultice I put on, I prepared to leave and rejoin the caravan, but already other patients were coming.
Treating several wounds and prescribing for others, including ground bone for a child reported to have convulsions, I explained to them that it was a theory of a renowned physician that such convulsions were due to lack of calcium in the system. They listened out of respect, but in their own minds, I knew, they believed it was an evil spirit that caused the trouble.
The last man wished an arrowhead extracted that had been embedded in his arm for several days. The arm was in bad condition, but when I had finished with him there seemed no reason to doubt that he would recover without further help. It was dark before we rode on, riding swiftly that we might camp with the protection of the caravan.
In Córdoba, while studying at the mosque, I had frequently practiced surgical operations under the guidance of a physician. It was the custom to practice making incisions using pumpkins, bottle gourds, melons, or cucumbers. Superficial incisions were practiced upon leather bags filled with slush, sewing was practiced on two pieces of delicate leather, scarification upon leather covered with hair.
Qazvin lay at the foot of the Elburz Mountains from which passes led across the mountains to Tabaristan and the edge of the Caspian Sea. The town itself covered at least a mile. It was the chief fortress against the fierce infidels of the Daylam Mountains.
“Tomorrow,” I whispered to Khatib, “invitation or no, we go to Alamut.”
“Speak no word of that, Mighty One,” Khatib warned, “for this town has many Isma’ilis.”
The courtyard was crowded with horses and camels, for another large caravan had just arrived, obviously the retinue of some important person, for both camels and horses were richly caparisoned and a number of tall, finely built soldiers stood about. They were big, bearded men with handsome black eyes, immaculately clad and well armed, every man of them fit and strong. Obviously these were picked fighting men.