Alamut (63 page)

Instantly his stupor evaporated. This was the tenth day since his departure from Alamut; he had at last arrived at the Baghdad city gates.

He quickly found his footing.

“I am a messenger of His Majesty,” he said gruffly.

The captain of the guard inspected his identification.

“All right, you can go on,” he said.

He passed through the city walls. All he could do was stare. Palaces of pure marble, one more beautiful than the next, lined the streets. These were interrupted from time to time by mosques with gold and green cupolas. Tall minarets swelled to the sky. Squares and bazaars where everything swarmed like an anthill slowed his progress. He had long since lost his bearings, which his double at Alamut had described to him. He felt minuscule. To bolster his courage, he reminded himself, “Jafar! Places a thousand times more beautiful are waiting for you, once you complete your task.”

He came upon a guard patrol consisting of four men. He pushed his way toward it and asked its leader, “Show me the way to His Majesty’s palace.”

The sergeant gave him an astonished look.

“Well, don’t just gape at me,” Jafar lit into him. “Show me the way to the palace.”

“That’s where we’re headed. Come with us.”

One of the men had his horse by the bridle and was pulling it along behind him. They spent a long time wading through an endless sea of houses and mansions. Finally they reached some magnificently tended gardens, at the far end of which stood an indescribably beautiful, white palace.

“That’s His Majesty’s residence,” the sergeant said.

Jafar recognized it from Halef’s accounts. Men were coming out of barracks constructed along the sides of the gardens. He rode ahead to a great entry gate and called out a password.

The guard on duty looked puzzled.

“That password isn’t valid anymore,” he said.

“I am a messenger of His Majesty!” Jafar shouted. “I’ve been to Alamut, and now I’ve returned with messages from there.”

A sergeant came out and eyed the rider in some perplexity. He was caked in grime from the road and he had a barely healed wound across his cheek. His face was totally sunken.

“Let me call the officer on duty,” he said when he heard what the stranger had asked for.

Jafar began to feel ill. His nerves felt like they had been ground between two millstones. He saw the officer approaching him. What should he do? Should he act as though they knew each other? What if this was a new man?

The officer came right up to the gate. He studied the stranger carefully. Then he called out to him.

“Aren’t you Halef, son of Omar?”

“Who else? Just tell the commander of the bodyguard that I’m here. I have to see him immediately.”

The officer shook his head.

“Just get off the horse and come with me.”

Both of them were silent as they walked. The officer examined him from the side. Yes, this was Halef of Ghazna, even if slightly changed and obviously exhausted.

The commander of the bodyguard received him in the palace immediately.

“How did your assignment go, Halef?”

“Precisely as you ordered, emir. But I was treated horribly. They tortured me to find out as much as they could about His Majesty’s plans. I have some important news for him.”

“Did you bring a letter?”

“No, just an oral message.”

“Tell it to me.”

“The Ismaili commander meant for it to be delivered to His Majesty directly.”

“Have you forgotten how things work at court?”

“No, emir. But the blow that infidel commander dealt me still burns on my cheek, and even my bones still ache from it. I have no time to lose. I bring terrible news.”

“What is Hasan ibn Sabbah like?”

“He’s a real killer, an animal in human guise. It’s high time we obliterated him and his brood from the face of the earth.”

“And that will happen. Wait here. I’ll go ask His Majesty if he’ll receive you.”

When he had gone, Jafar quickly swallowed the pellet. He was so used to the substance that it took effect immediately. His confidence and courage swelled under its influence. The now familiar visions returned to him. He resisted them with an extreme effort of will.

“I have to focus entirely on my task now,” he told himself.

It was just before noon on the eighteenth day of November of the year one thousand and ninety-two by our calendar. Sultan Malik Shah had just returned from a brief visit to the harems of his sister, who was now the sole wife of the caliph. At last, through a combination of persuasion and threats, he had managed to get the leader of the faith to designate Jafar, his son by the sultan’s sister, as his successor, and to disinherit his first-born son Mustazir. For the sultan, this was the culmination of long and bitter battles with his brother-in-law. Only after he had banished him to Basra did Caliph al Muqtadi relent, though he had negotiated an extra ten days to think about it.

That had been five days ago. During his visit, his sister assured him that the caliph had essentially agreed to the demand. Now the sultan was contentedly rubbing his hands as he sat on a dais amid pillows. He was a man in his prime, quick-witted and healthy. He loved wealth and luxury and was a friend of the sciences and arts. Anything that was creative or exceptional gave him pleasure.

He thought to himself,
Is there anything more I could want? The boundaries of my empire extend farther than ever before. Kings and princes pay me tribute. My cities rise up out of the desert and my roads gleam in the sun. The peoples of my realm are prosperous and honor me. And now I’ve even subdued the leader of the faith. My own flesh and blood will occupy the seat of the Prophet’s regent. I’ve achieved anything I’ve ever aspired to. I really am at the height of my power
.

A scribe announced the commander of the bodyguards. The emir entered and performed the required ceremonial, then spoke.

“Majesty! Halef, son of Omar, has returned from Alamut. He has a wound on his cheek. He says that the Ismaili leader had him tortured to find out your intentions. He has an oral message for you and he humbly requests that Your Majesty receive him.”

The sultan grew pale at first, and then furious.

“What? How dare he torture my messenger? What a vile, inhuman
trick! But call Halef in. Let’s hear what he hast to say about what he saw at the castle.”

The emir left and soon returned with Jafar.

The feday prostrated himself before the sultan.

“Get up, son of Omar!”

When the sultan saw Jafar’s face, he exclaimed, “How are you, Halef? But speak, speak! Tell me how the murderer of the mountain received you. What message did he give you for me?”

Everything was blurring before Jafar’s eyes. The objects around him were assuming monstrous shapes. The hashish had him fully in its power. “I have to carry out my order,” he told himself. “The houris are waiting for me.”

He remembered what Halef had said about how to speak to the sultan.

“Majesty! Glory and joy of the realm!” he stammered. “I have been to Alamut. Their leader attacked me …”

He felt for the dagger concealed in his sleeve. He let it drop down into his hand, took firm hold of it by the handle, and with a supreme effort of will lunged straight at the sultan.

Instinctively the ruler drew back. He shook all over. An arm swung at him and a sharpened writing implement scratched him behind the ear. Jafar raised his arm again, but at that instant the emir’s sword split his head open.

The scribe shrieked.

“Be quiet!” the emir commanded him. He helped the sultan, colorless and still shaking all over, to lie back down on his pillows.

“The man was obviously mad,” he said then. He bent down over the dead man and wiped his bloody saber on his clothing.

“He was out of his mind,” the sultan observed, his voice shaking. “Everything that comes from Alamut is either criminal or insane.”

At the scribe’s shriek several guards and courtiers had come into the hall. The sultan drew one sleeve across his sweaty face, then discovered blood stains on it.

“What is this?”

Crazed fear showed in his eyes.

His scribe leapt to his side.

“His Majesty is bleeding! His Majesty is wounded!”

At this point the emir discovered the sharpened writing implement on the floor. He picked it up and inspected it closely. He remembered the murder of the grand vizier and a shudder coursed through his bones. He looked back at the dead man lying in a pool of blood in front of him. The blood had dissolved the glue on his face. The emir pulled at his beard and mustache, which came off into his hand.

“This wasn’t Halef,” he whispered.

The sultan looked at him and understood. An indescribable horror
seized at his heart. The murdered vizier came to his mind, and it dawned on him that he would also have to die.

Everyone gathered around the corpse.

“No, this really wasn’t Halef,” they whispered.

They called the sultan’s personal physician. When he arrived, the emir whispered to him, “I’m afraid he’s been wounded with a poisoned weapon. Work fast!”

The physician examined the sultan.

“It’s not a large wound,” he said, trying to comfort him. “But it’s a good idea to burn it out in any case.”

“Are you sure it isn’t fatal?”

The sultan’s voice was as scared as a child’s.

“Let’s hope for the best,” the doctor replied.

He sent for his assistant, who brought him his equipment. Everything was ready quickly.

By then the emir had fully assessed the situation, and he gave an order.

“No one who is in the building may leave, and we will let no one in. We must all keep quiet about everything that has happened here. I am assuming command.”

Guards carried the dead body out of the room. Servants quickly removed the bloodstains.

The doctor heated up a steel blade. As he brought it close to the sultan’s neck, the sultan asked, “Will this hurt very much?”

“Your Majesty should drink several cups of wine. Then it will hurt less.”

A servant quickly brought it to him, and the sultan fell into a stupor.

The doctor touched the wound with the white-hot blade. The sultan howled in pain.

“Patience, Your Majesty,” the doctor pleaded.

“I’ll have your head if you keep torturing me like that.”

“As Your Majesty wishes. But the wound has to be burned out.”

The sultan gained control of himself. The doctor finished his work.

“That hurt a lot,” the sultan sighed. His face was waxen.

Servants carried him into his bedroom on a litter. The doctor offered him something to help him regain his strength, then he ordered the curtains drawn, and the sultan fell asleep, exhausted.

His entourage withdrew to an antechamber. From time to time the doctor checked in on his patient. Each time he came back out, the worried eyes of those in attendance met him.

“It doesn’t look bad,” he said several times.

Then, suddenly, he came back looking panicked.

“His Majesty has a fever, a very high fever. He’s beginning to rave.
I’m afraid the poison has made its way into his circulatory system, despite everything.”

“Allah, what a disaster,” the emir said in a whisper.

The sultan began shouting out loud.

The emir and the doctor rushed into the bedroom. They threw the curtains aside, so that some light shone into the room.

The sultan briefly regained consciousness.

“Save me! Save me!” he moaned. “It feels like I have burning coals running through my veins!”

He slipped back into his delirium. Everyone who had been waiting in the antechamber surrounded his bed. They looked at each other, their faces pale.

The patient began to sing. Everyone present knelt down and touched their foreheads to the floor.

“Terrible, terrible,” they murmured.

The sultan lifted himself up on his pillows. He looked around, confused, and tried to get up.

The doctor restrained him. He nodded for the others to leave.

In the antechamber, the emir said, “When he regains consciousness, we have to ask him who he wants to succeed him. There’s still some time. Mohammed is barely four years old, and there’s no way he can rule over the whole empire at a time like this.”

“Let’s wait a while longer,” an old courtier suggested.

The scribe warned, “It wouldn’t be good for the sultana and Taj al-Mulk to gain power.”

“But we mustn’t let the sultan see that we’re anticipating the worst,” one nobleman said.

“The fate of Iran hangs on it,” the emir replied grimly.

“We should bring his sister here. He doesn’t have any other relatives close by.”

“We’re not going to let anyone see him who isn’t already in this building,” the emir said firmly. “No one must find out that the sultan has fallen victim to an Ismaili dagger. If it comes to the worst, we’ll announce that he died of a fever. Because if all of Iran finds out that the sultan, like the grand vizier, has fallen victim to another killer from Alamut, then not only will we all have to answer for it, but the people will be so terrified of these murderers that no one will agree to fight them anymore.”

All that night until morning the sultan’s entourage kept watch over him. His fever steadily rose. The emir tried in vain to raise the question of the succession. Eventually the sultan lost consciousness completely. As dawn came, his death throes began and lasted until second prayers. Then the doctor confirmed that his heart had stopped beating. They all burst out crying in despair. Iran had lost its most powerful ruler.

Baghdad—thriving, dynamic Baghdad, which had been in a festive, happy mood until the previous day—suddenly fell silent and sank into mourning. But news of the sultan’s death hadn’t yet reached the furthest outskirts of the city when the courtiers began fighting over the successor to the throne. Express messengers galloped in all directions with the sad news. The commander of the bodyguard sent his men to see Barkiarok, thinking that he was still campaigning on the border with India, and to the sons of the murdered grand vizier. Mohammed’s supporters sent their men to Isfahan, to see the sultan’s widow and Taj al-Mulk. Obedient princes from Syria and other neighboring provinces who had just gathered in Baghdad to honor the sultan raced home at breakneck speed, hoping to exploit the opportunity to shake themselves free of Iranian rule. The caliph himself, who had just decreed a half year’s mourning for the deceased, was secretly pleased at this turn of events. Now he was free to choose a successor as he pleased, and once again he designated his first-born son. The confidants of all the many kings, princes and grandees sent messengers to their masters with the news.