Yet, what choice had I? Behind the walls of Alamut my father was held prisoner, a slave. If he was ever to be free, it lay in my hands. “In all honor, Khatib, I must go. But do you remain here, for the future is uncertain, and I go into great trouble.”
“Were there no wind, would the leaves tremble? There is reason for fear, Master. When the Old Man of the Mountains sends gifts, prepare your shroud … a knife follows.”
He paused. “But go with you I shall. How many lands have I seen, Master? How many seas? How many cities? But I have not seen the inside of Alamut.”
For the moment we had forgotten our beauty from Hind, but she had not forgotten us.
Her slave stood before us, bowing. “O Eminence! My lady begs forgiveness that she was not aware of the presence of such distinguished company. She requests you to join her at her table, my lady, Sundari Devi!”
My hesitation was only brief enough as not to seem precipitate. I arose.
“Khatib, see to my presents, and see to the horses, also. It is said that in Qazvin they make most excellent bows and arrows; see that I am supplied. We shall soon,” I suggested, “be crossing a desert where there are bandits. “Also”—my voice lowered—”see that hidden within our packs there is a length of rope, strong enough to hold a climber.” An instant I hesitated, then added, “I think you had best secure these items.” I handed him a slip of paper. “This”—indicating an item—”you had best collect yourself from the walls of old stables or the manure of animals. Do get me a supply of this. If there is curiosity, simply say your master is an alchemist who tests all things. He is crazy, of course, but what can you do?”
Crossing the room, I stopped before her table. “I am ibn-Ibrahim.”
She gestured to a place at the corner of the table to her right. “I had no idea we were in the presence of so renowned a scholar.”
Bowing again, I said, “My shadow is small before the sun of your beauty.”
“You are a physician?”
“That, too. Sometimes a soldier, sometimes a reader of the stars … many things.”
She looked into my eyes and asked, “Ibn-Ibrahim, what do you read in the stars for me?”
And out of me in a voice that scarcely seemed my own, I said, and was surprised by it, “That you shall someday be my wife.”
There was a moment, a moment when neither of us moved or spoke, but simply stared at one another, mutually astonished by the words. It was a moment when time seemed arrested, and then she spoke quietly, “You must look again at your stars, Wanderer, for I fear they have misled you.”
“You go now to Hind?”
“To Anhilwara, to my home.”
“You are a Rajput?”
“My father was, my mother is Persian. Lately, I have visited with her family in Isfahan. Now I return.”
Abruptly, she changed the subject. “Did I not hear you were going to the Castle of Alamut? Is it not a fortress of the Assassins?”
“They have many castles.” I gestured toward the north. “There are others in those mountains. Yes, I go at the invitation of Rashid Ad-din Sinan. We shall have much to discuss, I believe.”
“Is it not true that only an Assassin may enter or leave? Are you then an Isma’ili?”
“I am many things; but I take no part in religious disagreements. The technicalities of religion have no place in the mind of Allah. It is the spirit, I think, that is important.”
Pausing briefly, I added, “When I return from Alamut I shall come to Hind, to Anhilwara.”
“Do you know my city?”
“Until you spoke of it, I had never heard of it.”
Her eyes fell to the table while the servants filled our glasses. Did they speak Persian? “You must not come.”
“But if I wish to see you again?”
“The Moslems who have come to my city have come as enemies.”
“Then I would be considered an enemy? If necessary, I could come as a Christian, a Hindu, a fire worshiper, or simply a worshiper.”
“It would not do.”
“What can the will do when the heart commands?” Across the room musicians began on the qitara and the kimanja, and the soft music lingered in the room. “The music of your beauty,” I said, “stirs among the leaves of my heart.”
She lifted her eyes to mine. “But I am slender, Scholar, and no such plump beauty as the Turks prefer.”
“But I am not a Turk, Sundari, nor even a Persian.”
“So what kind of beauty do you prefer? That of … what was her name? Valaba? Suzanne?”
“A man who has not known many women cannot appreciate the value of one.”
Her eyes sparkled with laughter. “You do not seem so … helpless. When you spoke with your servant I was distressed for you. All those girls taking advantage of you! Are you not afraid I will do the same?”
“I tremble … with anticipation.” She laughed. “Ibn-Ibrahim, you go to Alamut, and I to Anhilwara. It is an end. We shall not meet again.”
“But there is tonight?”
She looked into my eyes again as if surprised by the thought.
“Tonight I sleep; tomorrow we travel.”
“And tonight,” I said, “I shall walk in the garden, walk under the trees watching the fireflies scattering sparks in the night. Yet I shall not be alone, for I shall have my thoughts of you.”
She arose gracefully, and looked back at me, her eyes pools of darkness where beauty lived. How like a flower were her lips! How soft her cheek! How delicate her skin!
“Good night, Scholar. Look again at your stars.”
“Their message is clearer when read by two.”
She started to turn away as I arose, but pausing, she said, “I go to Anhilwara, and thence to Kannauj, and in Kannauj I shall be married to a friend of the king.”
So … Before me lay a black gulf of desolation and emptiness.
“Tonight,” I repeated, “I shall walk in the garden.”
51
Moonlight’s pale hand caressed the garden gate, and where shadows lay among the trees a nightingale sang, but my heart was a cavern of loneliness down which echoed the voice of Sundari.
Alone, cloaked in a mantle of shadow, I walked where jasmine filled the air. A leaf rustled, then was still. Where was Sundari?
Now I, who had been invulnerable, was so no longer, for now I knew what love was, and knew too late. That sound! A sound like the beat of the walking drum, that was my heart beating out sadness from the emptiness within me.
Alamut waited with moonlight on its hardback peaks, but here was a season of grief. Here within the space of a single night I had found and lost what I most desired. Sadness lay upon me, but no sword could cut the thread of love, no dagger pierce the disaster that lay upon me.
Would Sundari come? Would she come to me in the moonlight when the nightingales sang? Were the Rajput soldiers her protectors or her guards? And if they found her with me … ?
How like years are minutes when waiting for one you love! Where was Sundari … where?
At each ghostly sound I swiftly turned, my arms ready to welcome, lips to kiss, but only the leaves stirred, only leaves brushing their pale green palms, brushing their pale lips.
I was a fool! She would not come. Why should she come to greet me? She was Sundari Devi, a Rajput of the royal line! A girl who could marry a king or the friend of a king!
Who was I? A scholar some called me, but only I knew the true depths of my ignorance. I, a physician, mountebank, merchant, vagabond … a landless man with a sword. Who was I to expect her to love me on the instant as I loved her? I was a fool, a paltry fool, a miserable fool, a fool who marched to the sound of an empty drum he called destiny.
I, who dared think of rescuing a slave from the walls of Alamut, I had made a slave of myself to dark eyes and long dark lashes, to a slim waist and graceful hands!
Yet, why not? If slave a man must be, why not, then, be a slave to these? Who can be called a slave who holds a sword? Should I let her be taken away to India? Or take her from her Rajput guards?
Twenty of them? Or twice twenty? The prize was worth the blood! Yet, a cool breath of sanity entered my fevered brain. If I knew anything, I knew fighting men, and those Rajputs were such. I need be a fool indeed to attempt such a thing.