A sound? A distant sound … was it a closing door? Or something dropping from a tree in a distant court? Alone in the shadows, breathless, I waited. Would she come? Or was she somewhere inside preparing for bed, laughing to think of me waiting in the garden? Did her eyes promise what her heart feared to give? Or had the promise I read in her eyes existed only in my own mind?
A nighthawk swooped low; somewhere in the orchard a piece of fruit dropped from a tree. Irritably, I paced. What a fool I was to wait! She would not come. Perhaps she had forgotten me within the moment. Or if she wished to come, how could she evade those who guarded her?
The soft wind made a shadow of movement among the leaves. How long had I waited? Should I leave now? Bidding the dream good-bye?
The night told its beads with stars. What was I, a boy with his first love? The moon was low, the garden paths no longer lay white from the moon, and tomorrow I must ride to the mountains, every sense alert, I must ride through the hills to the fortress of Alamut, perhaps even to my death. Enough! Enough of this!
Yet I did not go. I waited, and suddenly she came. She came!
Wearing a black cloak, she came like a floating shadow, a movement of darkness from the deeper darkness, and she came to me. “Oh? You are here! I was afraid … I was so … !”
She came into my arms, and I held her, kissing her tenderly on the lips, for she was frightened now, frightened that she had come at all. “Must you marry him?”
“Yes”—she lifted her eyes to mine—”I must. If I do not marry him, he will come among us with his armies, and my father will be killed, his kingdom taken. Yet it is not only me he wants, he wants what we have and thinks to win it through me.”
“Do you know him?”
“I have seen him. He stands at the right hand of the ruler of Kannauj.”
What could I say to that? I loved her, but had I a kingdom to offer? Or wealth? Or armies to rescue her father? Had I anything but the precarious existence of a scholar and a warrior, a landless, homeless man?
A little I knew of her people’s history, and the Rajputs were proud. Thirty-six noble lines had carried their swords into battle for hundreds of years before any European emblazoned heraldry upon a shield.
Had she been less than she was, or I more, I would that night have carried her away, but to what? To wait in a hovel while I went into the fortress of Alamut from which I might never return? A man must be a greater fool than I to ask any girl to risk such a thing. “I love you, Sundari, more than life itself, but my father is held a slave in the fortress of Alamut, and I have taken a vow to free him.
“This much I can tell you. Tomorrow I go there, and there is a chance, perhaps more than a chance, that they know why I come. Sinan has spies everywhere, even in Europe.
“If I return alive, I shall come to Hind. I shall come to Anhilwara or Kannauj or wherever you are, and I shall find a way to make you my wife. This I promise.
“Delay. Delay your marriage. Wait for me. If I come safely from Alamut, I shall ride to Hind, and to you.”
“You can do nothing,” she said, “nothing. And you must not come. They would only kill you. If you came with an army, you could do no better. Do you realize what forces the ruler of Kannauj can field? Eight hundred fighting elephants I have heard, and eighty thousand cavalry, all armored men … I do not know what else.”
“I shall come,” I insisted stubbornly, “and if there were three times the number of elephants and thrice the armored men, I would come.”
“You must not.”
Again I kissed her tenderly, and we clung to each other. How had this come upon us? From which of destiny’s trees had blown this leaf?
“I shall come,” I repeated, “for today he who rides before an army may tomorrow lie in its dust. I have only a sword, but a strong man need wish for no more than this: a sword in the hand, a horse between his knees, and the woman he loves at the battle’s end.”
“Nobly spoken.”
The voice was behind me, and I turned swiftly, my hand on my sword. “There is no need for that.” He who stepped from the shadows was a Rajput, the one who captained her guard.
He was a tall, powerfully built man, every inch a fighting man. He walked toward us. “Spoken like a Rajput.”
“Rachendra! You followed me!”
“That I did, and could I do less? Although believe me, I like it as little as you. But your father has given me the duty of protecting you, and I only do as ordered.”
He turned to me. “I am sorry for you and for her, also, but there is no other way. I have the feeling you are twice the man she is to marry.
“Now go your way, and do not come to Hind, for you could bring nothing but trouble.”
“If I live, I shall come.”
He turned his head to look at me again, a powerful man with a strong face and cold eyes. “If you do, I may have to kill you myself. This is Sundari Devi, our princess, not to be spoken of in the same breath with a wandering soldier, scholar, or whatever you call yourself. Nor with any Moslem.”
Ignoring him, I said to Sundari, “Delay … I shall not fail.”
Turning to Rachendra, I added, “As you know, I shall come, and I like you, so stay out of my way. I should not like to put a foot of steel into your belly.”
He chuckled. “If I had not the Princess to care for and a long, dangerous journey before us, I would measure blades with you. But go to Alamut. You will find trouble enough.”
He turned toward the caravanserai, but Sundari came to me. She put her hands on my arms and kissed me on the lips.
“Come then,” she said, “and I shall wait for you if I have to put a dagger into him during our marriage.” She turned to Rachendra. “You have been like an uncle to me, but if you fight him, and he fails to kill you, I shall!”
Turning abruptly, she walked past him toward the caravanserai, and the startled Rajput watched her go. “By the Gods”—he spoke softly—”there goes a woman!”
We faced each other, measuring ourselves against the future. He was a man of about fifty years, built not unlike my father, and like him in temperament. “You stand well,” he said, “and I have no doubt you can fight, but heed this: Stay away from Sundari. Her future is written in the stars.”
“In the stars? Or her father’s plans?”
His features were grim. “Not her father’s plans but those he dare not refuse! Stay away. I have warned you.”
His face grew more kind. “I have said to stay away, but if you do stay away, you are a fool.” Then he repeated what I said, ” ‘A sword in the hand, a horse between the knees, and the woman he loves at the battle’s end.’ By the Gods, that was well spoken!”
He strode away, following Sundari, and I faced away from the caravanserai and looked to the mountains. Beyond them lay Alamut. The Talaghan Range and the Alamut Rud—the Alamut River—and nearby the Rock of Alamut and the valleys of the Assassins. Tomorrow I would ride into those hills to fulfill my destiny.
The day broke in a crimson flood upon the storm-shattered hills, massive shoulders of granite thrown out from the fires of the earth’s beginning.
“I shall go in alone, Khatib, but do you wait for me, wait with three horses saddled, for I shall come. Be it a day, a week, or ten years, I shall come!”
“Place no faith in the words of men, Kerbouchard, for all are liars when it suits their purpose. Those on the Rock are loyal to none but their own. Go prepared to die; if so, you may live.”
The trail we took was a trail Khatib knew, for in the depths of his ancient mind there were memories that seemed to reach beyond any experience of his. “It was about here,” he mused, “the tree is gone, but it was already old, we should find a canyon where none should be and a trail where no trail could be. Ah, we have found it!”