Alamut (50 page)

“Be patient. Do everything Sayyiduna orders you to do. He’s looking out for all of us.”

He said goodbye to them both.

“We’re fedayeen,” he added, “the ones who sacrifice themselves. We’ve seen the reward, so we’re not afraid of death.”

He would have liked to embrace them one more time. But he mastered himself, waved to them in farewell, and hurried off toward his horse. He leapt up onto it and ordered the bridge lowered. He said the password and the guard let him leave the fortress. From the canyon he turned around to take one last look. Just as he had several months ago, now he saw the two imposing towers that ruled over their surroundings. That was Alamut, the eagle’s nest, where miracles took place and the fate of the world was forged. Would he see it again? A strange melancholy came over him. At this farewell he felt as though he could cry.

He found a concealed location and changed clothes there. He put everything he didn’t plan to take with him in the bag, which he placed in a hollow and covered with stones.

He had a look at himself. Yes, there was no way he could still be the old ibn Tahir. He was Othman, a student at the university in Baghdad, al-Ghazali’s student. Black trousers, a black jacket, black headgear. This was the color of the Sunnis, infidels, enemies of the Ismaili faith. He carried the book and the letter with the dagger in his billowing sleeves. Over his hip he carried a water bag and a satchel with provisions.

He set out toward the south. He rode the whole day and half the night until the moon came out. Then he found a place to bed down amid some rocks. The next morning from atop a ridge he noticed a large encampment in the valley—the vanguard of the sultan’s army. He steered clear of them and by evening arrived in Rai.

In the tavern where he was planning to spend the night, he learned that emir Arslan Tash was finally getting ready to attack Alamut after all, and that the whole army was marching toward the mountains—this at the sultan’s order, to avenge the shameful defeat of the Turkish cavalry. About the grand vizier he learned nothing.

He could barely wait to go to sleep. With trembling hands he untied the bundle and took out of it the first of the pellets that Hasan had given him for the journey. He swallowed it and waited for it to take effect.

Once again the mysterious power appeared. This time he no longer felt the same weakness as he did the first time. He thought about Miriam, but completely different images drew his attention. Before him he saw gigantic square buildings with tall towers. They glinted in their blinding whiteness. Then they began to melt, as though an unseen hand were crushing them into their components. New cities emerged and round cupolas shone in vivid colors. He felt as though he were the omnipotent ruler in control of it all. The climax came, followed by fatigue and sleep. He woke up late the next morning, feeling as though his arms and legs had been crushed. Oh, why hadn’t he awoken like the first time?

“I have to get going. Fast!” he told himself.

He took a detour around his native town. He was afraid of the memories. His head felt heavy and the sun was beating down hopelessly. His thoughts were dull, only his destination and everything connected with it were clearly visible ahead of him. He had just one wish: to find a place to spend the night as quickly as possible, stretch out, swallow a pellet and yield to its miraculous power.

Outside of Hamadan he caught up with a detachment of armed horsemen. He joined their quartermaster wagons.

“Where are you coming from, Pahlavan?” a sergeant asked him.

“Isfahan. Actually, I’ve been sent from Baghdad with a request for the grand vizier. But in Isfahan I learned that he’s set out down this road after the sultan.”

“You’re looking for His Excellency Nizam al-Mulk?”

The sergeant immediately began to show more respect.

“Yes. I have a request for him. There are other men in Isfahan.”

“Then come with us! His Excellency is in Nehavend, where there’s a military camp now. They’re assembling units there. Word is he’s going to march on Isfahan itself.”

“In the capital I almost fell into the hands of that other one. Completely by accident I learned in a tavern that His Excellency had left for somewhere else. Isn’t there some conflict involving some infidels?”

“Do you mean the Ismailis? They aren’t dangerous. Emirs Arslan Tash and Kizil Sarik will take care of them. There are more important things at stake.”

Ibn Tahir maneuvered his horse right up to the sergeant’s.

“I don’t know what more important things you mean.”

“The rumor is there’s a bitter battle going on over the succession. Nizam al-Mulk wants the first-born, Barkiarok, to be designated the sultan’s heir. But the sultana has been pressuring His Highness to promise the succession to her son Mohammed. The army and the people are for Barkiarok. I once saw him. There’s a real man for you. A soldier from head to foot. What Mohammed will be like, no one can know. He’s barely out of the cradle.”

Before they reached Hamadan, ibn Tahir had found out everything that the people and soldiers were saying about intrigues at the court. In the city he heard that the sultan had already left Nehavend heading for Baghdad. He left the sergeant and the quartermaster wagons, spent the night once again at an inn, and then changed horses and rode farther on toward Nehavend.

From the four corners of the realm, units were arriving at the military camp near Nehavend. Several thousand tents had been pitched on the broad, sun-scorched plain. The horses, mules, and camels chomped on dry grass, chased each other around the camp in herds, dug into the earth, and fled from guards on horseback. Thousands of head of cattle, goats and sheep were being kept in huge pens. In the mornings, shepherds would drive the herds into the hills, where pastures remained green. Detachments of soldiers rode from village to village collecting and plundering fodder for the livestock and anything that was in the least bit edible.

There was a large empty space in the middle of the camp. That was where the sultan’s tents had stood just a few days before. The trampled ground and the large beds of ashes left over from the campfires that the emperor’s escort had lit and tended testified to that.

Only one tent was left. A large, sumptuously green tent, the dwelling of the grand vizier.

These last months since falling out of his master’s favor, Nizam al-Mulk had aged considerably. Although he was already past seventy, he had still been exceptionally healthy and robust right up to the end. Everyone admired how firmly in the saddle he still remained. He had held the reins of state in his hands for more than thirty years. The current ruler’s father, sultan Alp Arslan Shah, had named him vizier and never regretted it. As he was dying, he recommended the vizier to his son and heir. One of the titles the latter conferred on him was
ata beg
, or “king’s father.” The vizier established peace at the borders, criss-crossed the country with roads, built cities, mosques and schools, regulated taxes, and raised the level of safety and well-being in the country to an unprecedented degree. He enjoyed the ruler’s unqualified trust, until he quarreled with the young sultana about
the succession to the throne. Even before then his rivals and detractors had tried to blacken his name with the emperor. But the sultan didn’t listen to them. He granted his vizier the wealth he had accumulated in his service. He also let Nizam al-Mulk place his twelve sons in the highest positions in the land. But Turkan Khatun eventually succeeded in demonstrating to the sultan how capricious the vizier’s actions had been, how he had treated him, his master, like a schoolboy, and how ruthlessly he abused his power. The most obvious instance of this willfulness of the vizier’s was seen in a certain action taken by his eldest son, Muad-u-dolah. The sultan had advised him to accept a certain Adil into an area of his service. The vizier’s son refused, claiming the man was not suitable for the position. “Am I really such a complete zero in my own country?!” the sultan exclaimed. He immediately ordered the vizier’s son deposed and appointed in his place the very same Adil whom the son had rejected. This behavior offended the vizier deeply. He let slip some bitter words about the thanklessness of rulers. These words were brought to the sultan’s attention and made him even angrier. He threatened to take away Nizam’s quiver, pen, ink and brush—the symbols of the vizier’s rank. “I’ll be glad to hand over my quiver and brush to the sultan,” the vizier said bitterly. “The peace and prosperity of this country are my doing. While the sea was still stormy, His Highness honored me with his trust. Now that the waves have been calmed and the sky is clear, he listens to my critics. But he stands to realize very soon how closely the quiver and brush in my hands are connected with his crown.” These words put the sultan in an even worse humor, until the vizier’s own admission that he had misrepresented Hasan’s abilities so wounded the sultan’s pride that he deposed the vizier in a fit of extreme anger.

Now that they had made peace again in the face of the danger threatening the state, he was gradually becoming his old self again. He set two goals for himself: toppling his rival Taj al-Mulk and destroying the latter’s ally, his own mortal enemy Hasan. If he could achieve those two goals, he would once again be the unlimited master of all Iran.

The first steps had not been bad. He had portrayed the defeat of the Turkish vanguard outside of Alamut—that insignificant scratch against the cavalry—in such a way that he undermined the sultan’s faith in Taj al-Mulk. The sultan remembered all too well how much the sultana and her secretary had tried to keep him from taking any action against the Ismailis. Now the vizier persuaded him that he had to move decisively against those apostates if he wanted to keep the respect of his own citizens. And so the ruler gave the vizier the authority to deal with Alamut once and for all. Nizam felt it was high time for this. Legends of miracles in the castle, of fanatics who said that Hasan had shown them paradise, were reaching his ears too. Even though he viewed all these reports as pure nonsense, he didn’t underestimate their potential
effect on the masses. He knew too well that they were not just gullible, but took a particular delight in hearing and succumbing to tales of miracles.

Now the military camp near Nehavend became a kind of provisional chancellery for him. People came to him from all directions with requests and complaints. While he had been grand vizier instead of Nizam, Taj al-Mulk had fired a large number of old bureaucrats and appointed his own people to replace them. When the former bureaucrats learned that the sultan had reinstated his old vizier, they either came rushing to see him or sent their confidants with the request to accept them back into service, seeing as how they had lost their positions on account of their loyalty to him. Nizam al-Mulk received his petitioners and made promises. At the same time he was assembling an army to force his rival, protected by the sultana, to step down.

One morning his master of ceremonies announced that a certain Othman, a student of al-Ghazali, was requesting an audience. Apparently his teacher had sent him from the Nizamiyah in Baghdad with a petition that he would like to present to him.

The grand vizier was reclining on a heap of pillows. Beside him was a gilt platter of raisins, sweetened nuts and other delicacies. Now and then he reached over and picked up this or that morsel to savor. He would pour himself some mead into a cup from a copper decanter and slowly sip it. He had already dealt with a large number of petitions and visits, and his two assistants, who sat to either side of him, writing, had their hands full.

“What’s that? Al-Ghazali’s student, did you say? Bring him in! Bring him in!”

It was much easier to get to the grand vizier than to the Ismaili supreme commander. That day ibn Tahir found this out for himself. He had come across a guard outside the encampment. He showed the commanding officer the sealed letter from the university in Baghdad and explained he had brought it for the grand vizier. He was allowed to pass. They showed him Nizam’s green tent.

He was remarkably calm and focused. He didn’t stutter when he said what he had come for. He couldn’t feel any effects from the pellet yet. He remembered paradise and Miriam and smiled a childlike smile. He hadn’t been thinking of her particularly at all these past days. Now suddenly he became aware that she was waiting for him as a reward for his action, so he would have to summon all his might to carry it out successfully.

A guard drew back a curtain, revealing yet another room. In fact, the vizier’s tent was a veritable edifice. He bravely passed through the opening to find himself once again standing before some armed men. One of them, carrying a silver mace over his shoulder, was especially well dressed in a jacket woven with silver and gold, broad red trousers, and a brightly colored turban
sporting a long bird’s feather. This was the vizier’s master of ceremonies. He sized up the newcomer sharply and asked him what he wanted.

Ibn Tahir bowed deeply. In a clear voice he explained who had sent him. He showed him the letter and the seal on it. The master of ceremonies nodded to a soldier, who frisked the newcomer. All he found was al-Ghazali’s book and the coin purse.

“This is our custom,” the master of ceremonies said apologetically. Then he stepped around a curtain to announce the visitor to the vizier.

Those were the most tense moments of all for ibn Tahir. The poison in his body had begun to take effect. He began to hear voices and tried to make them out. An eerie feeling down his spine caused him to shudder. He thought he could hear Miriam’s voice.

“O Allah!” he said to himself. “Sayyiduna was right. I can already hear the murmur of paradise around me.”

The master of ceremonies had to call his name twice before he heard and came through the entrance, where a soldier had drawn the curtain aside. He caught sight of a splendid old man sitting among his pillows. Everything about him bespoke benevolent majesty. Ibn Tahir had the impression he had said something to him, but the voice seemed to be coming from a great distance away.

He bowed deeply. When he stood back up, everything around him was changed. “The pavilion in paradise!” he exclaimed to himself.