Judith Tarr - Alamut_玖贝云文库

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AQ(JA BELLA

The sun was gentle in the first hour of its rising. It lay lightly

upon the hills of Jerusalem; it washed with gold the walls of

Aqua Bella castle, and the village huddled beneath them, and

the green that was the great wealth of the demesne: the oaks

that were holy, the olives that were more than holy, and the

glorious tangle that traced the track, of the stream. Women

were washing in it, singing sweet and high, with here and there

a ripple of laughter.

He came by the road that led to the sea, riding all alone, all

his armor and his weapons borne on a dove-grey mule. His

destrier was a fine blood bay, and he a fine high-spirited crea-

ture himself, his grey cloak flung back from a flame of scarlet,

and gold about his brows, and a ruby in the pommel of his

sword. He sang as he rode, setting the charger's pace.

ChevaUer, mult estes guariz,

Quant Dieu a vusjkitsa clamw ,,

Des Tun e des Amomviz,

Ks It untjait tels aeshenors, . . .

The women's singing faltered and died. Safe in their veils of

greenery, they stared out at the wonder: a knight in gold and

splendor, unguarded, unattended. He was a mad one, surely,

or one of God's protected.

His voice was both deep and clear, free and glad and fearless,

calling the air to arms for a battle thirty years won,

AJ ore wot oa Lewis

}a Mar a'enftm avrat pww,

Char sWffu en urt en poms

Od Us angles nostre Segnor.

No fear of hell had ever troubled him, nor any fear of mortal

steel. His stallion danced, shying from the flutter of a veil; he

laughed and bowed to the eyes scaring wide or shy or brightly

4 Judith Tarr

fascinated from the thicket, and never lost the rhythm of his

song.

Alum cmquere Moises,

Ktjffst el munt de Sinai;

A Saragins nel latsum mats,

Ne la verge dunt U fartid

La Kcge Mer tut ad un fais,

Quant Ie grant pople Ie seguit;

E pharaon revint afsres:

JUeli sum jurent pent.

His eyes asked no pardon of Saracen women, nor ever thought

to need it. Among the leaves a smile flashed, or two, or three.

The charger snorted. Its rider bowed again and wheeled about,

cantering up the road to the castle. The women watched him

go. One by one, slowly, they went back to their washing. In a

little while they were singing again. A new song: of morning

and of sunlight, and of a spirit of fire on a Prankish charger,

singing the conquest of their people.

The road and the song ended together. The knight hailed

the guard at Aqua Bella's gate, light and glad, offering his lone

and splendid and most assuredly Christian self to a stare both

narrow and wary. The wariness was Outremer, embattled king-

dom that it was, with the Saracen snapping at its throat; and

people always stared at him. "Tell your lord," he said, "that his

kinsman comes to greet him."

The eyes narrowed to slits. The bay charger stamped, tasting

darkness under the morning's splendor. The knight shivered in

the sun. His gladness was gone, all at once, irretrievably-

"Brychant!" Young, that voice within, but breaking with

more than youth, though it tried to be steady. "Brychant, who

comes?"

No one, the guard was going to answer. The knight watched

the thought take shape. Now was no time for guesring fools,

fresh off" the boat from the look of this one, white as a lily in

this sun-tormented country, riding alone and all begauded like

a lure to every bandit in the east.

The guard's mouth was open, the words coming quick and

harsh. But the speaker within had come up beside him. A boy,

slender, dark as a Saracen, with eyes like a wounded fawn- They

took in the stranger, once, quickly, and again more slowly,

ALAMUT 5

going impossibly wide. "Prince?" the boy whispered. "Prince

Aidan?" He gathered himself with an effort that shook his nar-

row body, and bowed, all courtesy. "Your highness, you honor

us- You must pardon Brychant, we are all amiss, we—"

Prince Aidan was out of the saddle, Brychant still glowering,

suspicious, but bellowing for lads to tend the stallion and the

mule. The prince spared no thought for anything but the child

who was so perfect a courtier, and who struggled so fiercely

against the flooding tears. "Thibaut," said Aidan, taking him

by the shoulders. "You would be Thibaut." He was shaking.

Aidan stroked calm into him. "What has happened?"

The tears burst free, and knowledge with them. "No," said

Aidan very sofrly. "Oh, no."

The boy was past hearing. The guard and the servants were

nothing and no one. Aidan's arms gathered the child; his mind

followed where the darkness led.

They had laid him out in the hall. A priest muttered over

him. People hovered. They were not, Aidan noticed, either

nulling or keening. Their grief smote him, but their fear was

stronger. It choked him.

He thrust through it. Somewhere he disposed of the boy.

His arms were empty as he stood over the bier: a table in truth,

with a silken cloth on it, and another over the one who lay

there. A man no longer young but not yet old, sun-dyed as

they all were here, but fair under it, bone-pallid now; black hair

early going grey, long nose carved to match the long chin, the

face that had always been so mobile gone suddenly and hid-

eously still.

"Who killed him?" Aidan heard himself say it; he shivered to

hear it. So soft, and so calm, and so very deadly. "Who cut him

down?"

"Who are you to ask?"

He spun. Others flinched. This woman did not. He hardly

saw the shape that held the soul. Here was fire to match his

fire, grief to rival his own, and a will as implacable as all

heaven. His body thought for him. It lowered him to one

knee, bowed his head. "My lady."

"Who arc you?"

She knew. But she needed to hear him say it. "He was my

sistcr*s son." He looked up, into dark eyes. "Who has done this

thing?"

6 Judith Tarr

"If you are what he said you are," she said, "you do not need

to ask."

She was not afraid of him. Even when he stood, tall even for

a westerner, with all the names on him that Gcreint had told

her of. He went back to the bier, bent over it, laid his hand on

the cold cheek. "Child," he said in the tongue of their own

people, richer and darker than the rattle of the tongue d^odl. He

stroked the silvered hair. "Gereint, child, what was it that

could not wait for me?" His hand slid from the head to the stiff

shoulder to the silenced heart. Ten years. So little a time. The

boy had gone because he must. As Aidan had lingered, because

he must. Cares; a kingdom; a little matter of wars and embas-

sies. Gereint had wanted glory, and Jerusalem.

He had had both. And a lady of the kingdom beyond the

sea, and a demesne scant hours' march from the Holy City, and

death in the morning when at last his kinsman came to fulfil!

the promise made before he went away.

Under the pal! they had robed him in eastern silks. But

Aidan was what he was. He saw the narrow wound, so thin to

be so terrible, through which the blade had pierced the heart.

Gereint had never waked to feel it. Asleep beside his lady, he

died, and she slept on oblivious, and woke to find him dead.

And on the pillow between them, a cake. Round, savory, warm

yet from the baking. Such cakes were not made in that house,

nor in any save one.

Hashishayun. Aidan had heard of them, as a legend, a tale to

frighten children. Assassins. Infidels, madmen, fanatics out of

Alamut in the black heart of Persia. They came like spirits in

the night, killed as their masters commanded them to kill, van-

ished into air. If by God's grace a man could catch one, the

murderer turned his weapon on himself and died in a madness

of joy, singing the praises of his unholy god.

Aidan's head came up. He was smiling. Hands flickered.

Someone had crossed herself. His smile widened. Alamut was

mighty, so they all said. Alamut was invincible. But this, he

was willing to wager. It had never had to face the tike of the

Prince Aidan of Rhiyana.

He turned to the woman. Margaret de Hautecourt, he

named her in his mind. Gereint's lady, with whom he had

confessed himself quite besotted, laughing even through the

formal phrases of his letters. No great beauty, she. A little

round dumpling of a woman, older than her husband and

showing it, and no sign in her of her Prankish father. She

ALAMUT 7

could have been fall sister to the women by the stream. Infidel.

Saracen. PuUana as they would call her here, half-blood, pow-

erful and yet despised.

His head shook once, invisible. Not despised. Not she. She

knew what he was, and she understood what it meant, and she

had no fear of him at all.

He spoke to her, measuring each word. "For what they have

done," he said, "they shall pay. By my name I swear it."

She startled him. She touched his hand, she said, "No. This

is my doing. I will not drag you in the mire of it."

"He was more than kin to me. He was my sister-son. I was

with him when he was bom."

More signs of the cross. Margaret turned. Her voice never

rose, but the ogters scattered. The castle woke, shaking off its

shock, becoming again a strong holding.

And all for a few soft words. Aidan let them rule him. He

accepted servants, service, a bath of eastern length and luxury.

The clothing spread for him was stark, black and white, and

rich in its plainness: Arabian silk, and something softer than

linen, finer, miraculously cool. "Cotton," said the man who

waited on him, a Saracen himself, bearded and turbaned and

exquisitely courteous. He offered food, wine. He provided es-

cort to the solar, where the lady sat with one lone, drowsing

attendant for propriety's sake, ruling Aqua Bella with a firm

hand.

And ruling herself. For an hour she had forgotten every-

thing but death. Now she remembered who she was. She

greeted Aidan as a great lady should greet an outland prince,

veiling grief with courtliness. "I regret that we must meet un-

der such a shadow," she said in that sofr voice which made him

think of silk over steel. "Gereint was like a boy, waiting for you

to come. Every morning he would say. Today. Maybe it will

be today.' And laugh, because he was a man grown and a baron

of the High Court of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and he was

eager as a child to see his beloved kinsman again."

"And before I passed your gate, you grew most heartily sick

of me."

She laughed, startling herself. "I did wonder that any man

could be such a paragon. Greatest knight in the west of the

world, and sweetest singer, and fairest and most courtly of

men, and—"

"Lady, stop! I cry you mercy!" He was laughing, through

tears, as she did. "Where Gereint loved, he loved immeasur-

8 JwUth Tour

ably- I have some little fame, and of fortune enough, but I am

a man like any other."

"Not quite," said Margaret, soft again and steady.

He looked at his hands. Long hands, too slender for their

strength, too white and too smooth and too young. He raised

his eyes. -Margaret was looking for truth. He gave it- She did

not flinch from it. "My father was mortal," he said.

"Ifour mother was not."

"Her daughter was."

"And her daughter's son." There was no bitterness in Marga-

ret's voice. "Gereint was proud of his lineage, though the

magic had passed him by. He was the kin of white enchanters;

he carried splendor in his blood. And yet, he said, he was glad

to be mortal. He was not made to bear the greater burdens.

The beauty, or the deathlessncss."

"We can die," said Aidan. "If the blade be keen enough. If

the heart be torn, or the spine severed. We can be slain."

"As easily as he was slain?"

His head came up. "It was a mortal man who killed him."

His throat closed. He was cold, suddenly. Tell me why."

He thought that she would not. Her face had gone stark.

She fixed him with eyes that were beautiful in the round

plain face. There was no softness in them. Such eyes had faced

him across bared steel, and at the council table, and in the

courts of kings. They were, at least, human. His own were not.

"Tell me," he said-

"It was none of his doing." She did not wring her hands like

a weak woman. They were fists in her lap; she studied them as

if they fascinated her. "Did he tell you all that I am?

Hautecourt of Aqua Bella, yes. Baroness bom in Outremer.

But born also on the other side of the wall. My mother was a

daughter of the House oflbrahim. In the west that is nothing;

a merchant house, and infidel besides. But in Aleppo it is as

close to nobility as makes no matter. Among the kingdoms of

trade, my mother was a princess, the daughter of a queen. The

House of Ibrahim is known wherever caravans go; it has kin

and allies and servants from London to Samarkand, from

Genoa to Byzantium, from Rus to Nubia. The silk roads, the

spice roads, the roads of gold and salt and furs—it has power

over them all.

"And power, as you who are a king's son know, begets jeal-

ousy. Children of the House have always traveled far to seal

alliances, and sometimes have forsaken the Faith of the Prophet

ALAMUT 9

for the House's sake, as long ago they forsook the faith of

Moses. So did my mother do.

"I was her only child. She raised me in two worlds; and my

father allowed it. He was an odd man, my father. Much older

than his lady, and a rough soldier to look at, a famous fighter,

and yet he had been a monk. Not even a fighting monk; a

Cluniac, a cloistered ascetic. He left, none of us ever knew

why; came Crusading; served the King of Jerusalem, won his

demesne, took a wife from the House oflbrahim. People said

he had gone infidel. I think it was only that, at heart, he was a

civilized man." She looked at her guest, new come from the

wildest west, and shook her head once, sharply, as if to clear it.

When she began again, she seemed to be speaking of some-

thing else altogether. "What do you know of the

Hashishayun?"

She said the word calmly, without the hiss of hate and fear

that Aidan had always heard in it. As if it were only a name.

It was sublimcr than contempt. Aidan gave it what tribute he

could muster. "They arc the Assassins. Madmen, drugged or

possessed, trained to kill in utmost silence and with utmost

dispatch. They believe that murder is their path to Paradise.

They obey a mad king, or kings. There is some doubt that they

are human."

"They are quite human," said Margaret with only the barest

hint of irony. "They are schismatics, heretics as Christians

would say, fanatic followers of one whom they call the Lost

Imam. Their heart and center is in Aluh Amut, Alamut, the

Nest of Eagles in Persia; but they are strong through the lands

of Islam. They are very strong in Aleppo, where is the House

oflbrahim. And they are strongest in Masyafin Syria, so that

some are calling that fortress Alamut the lesser, or simply

Alamut.

"Their faith is simple enough. They wait for the return of

their Imam who was lost long ago. They live by strictest laws.

All other faiths are false, and false believers are their prey. They

work their will through terror; murder is, indeed, their road to

salvation. They have slain caliphs and sultans, lords of Islam

and of Christendom, priests and mullahs and ascetics: any who

has set himself against their mission or their lord.

"The greatest of their chieftains in Syria is the lord of

Masyaf. Sinan is his name. Sinan ibn Salman ibn Muhammad,

who calls himself Rashid al-Din; whom others call Sheikh al-

Jabal, the Old Man of the Mountain. He professes loyalty to

10 Jwiith Tmr

the lord in Alamut, and yet it is an open secret that he serves

himself foremost- The Assassins of Syria pay tip service to

Alamut and do the bidding of Masyaf. In Aleppo they do not

even trouble to bow to Alamut.

"You know what power is," said Margaret. "Never too sweet,

and never enough. Sinan bids fair to command all his sect, and

through it to sway most of Syria and Outremer to his will. But

most is not all. He would have more. In order to win it, he

needs eyes and ears in every city; he needs allies, servants,

slaves. He thinks," said,Margarec, "that he needs the House of

Ibrahim."

While Margaret spoke, Aidan left his chair and began to

prowl. It was his way; he could sit still, if he must, but stillness

robbed him of his wits. In the silence he spun on his heel,

facing the lady, waiting.

She smiled very faintly at a memory. Gereint, warning her:

"He can never sit for long, except in the saddle. He can't help

it. He was born restless. God's mistake. His brother got all the

quiet; he got all the fire."

"That's not strictly true," Aidan said. Suddenly he grinned.

"But true enough." His head tilted. "Sinan wants a web of

loyal spies. I can understand that. Why precisely your mother's

family?"

"It is the greatest," Margaret answered. "And it has some-

thing which he wants." She met his eyes. Sea-grey, Gereint had

said, like his own: northern seas and northern stone. They put

her in mind of fine steel- When he shifted, the scrangencss

flared at her, cat-green. "I was a widow when Gereint came

here," she said, "a ruling lady with two young children, and

men enough to defend me, and Aqua Bella mine by right. My

husband had been a vassal of the Prince of Anrioch; he left

other sons than Thibaut to inherit his lands. It had not mat-

tered to me. I had Aqua Bella. And I had my share in the

House of Ibrahim.

"Sinan asked for me. For me, not for one of my cousins,

because I was both Frank and Saracen- My Christianity was no

impediment. I am, after all, a woman, and a woman is what her

man commands her to be. He wanted my House and my place

in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Perhaps, a little, he wanted me. I

was not so ill to look at when I was young.

"I refused him," she said- "He persisted. He could not un-

derstand that I was my own woman. I had taken one husband

for duty and to please my father. I chose the other to please

ALAMUT 11

myself. Then, I thought, Sinan would let me be; and I wedded

my daughter to a baron in Acre, lest he rum his mind to her.

"But Sinan is of the people of Alamut. He accepts no will

but the will of his master, and since he reckons himself master,

that will is solely his own. He granted me some little peace.

Then he commanded me. I would set aside my Prankish boy; I

would accept his suit. My answer had no words. Only laughter.

I was proud of it. I was a very perfect idiot.

"I grew more perfect with time's passing. Sinan, having com-

manded, turned to threats. He slew luy best hunting hound;

he slew the marc I had raised from a foal. I gave him only

defiance. Then he let me be. I thought that I had won. I

lowered my guard. And when the new message came, I defied

it. TieU) it said, or trufy I resort tofwce.

"I defied it," she said, "and for a long while again no blow

fell. I was wise, I thought. I took great care to guard myself. I

thought that he would abduct me; I took every precaution

against it,

"But he is an Assassin. His force is deadly force. He did not

take me. He took my lord."

Aidan was still. A quivering stillness, like a flame where there

is no wind.

"So you see," said Margaret, "it is all my doing. I will not

surrender the House of Ibrahim into that man's hands."

"Indeed you shall not."

His face and his voice between them brought her to her feet.

"You have no part in this."

"Your enemy has made certain that I do."

"Then you had best slay me, for I have been your kinsman's

death."

Aidan considered the logic of it. He could do that, even in

the white heat of rage. His teeth bared. It was not meant to be

a smile. "You know what your folly has won you. That is re-

venge enough. No, my lady; your suitor owes me a blood debt.

He will pay it in his own person, if I have to pull down Alamut

stone by stone."

"Masyaf," she corrected him, cool and ieariess.

"Masyaf, and Alamut, and every hut and hovel which owes

fealty to the Hashishayun, if need commands it."

"All for a single human life?"

"He was my sister's son."

She couched him as if she thought that he would bum- Her

hand was cool and steady. He caught it- It did not try to

12 Judith Tarr

escape, even when his grip woke pain. "So strong," she said.

Observing only, interested. "Do you truly mourn for him? Or

are you glad to have found so mighty a battle?"

He could kill her. Easily. One effortless blow. Or he could

break her mind. She was a mortal woman. She was nothing

before his power-

She knew it. She cared not at all. She could do naught but

what she did; she would yield for no man, nor ever for a white

he-witch whom grief had driven to folly.

He let her go. "I will do what I will do," he said.

She bowed. It was not submission. "Will you see your kins-

man laid in his tomb?"

"I have time," he answered her.

"Indeed," she said, "you do." She sat again, called for her

women.

He was dismissed. That was novel enough, and he was be-

mused enough, that he let her have her will. Later she would

pay its price. If he chose to ask it.

2

The baby was teething, and fretful with it. Whatever he

wanted, it was not what anyone could give. When his grand-

mother rocked him, he wailed for a sugar tit; when the aunts

tempted him with a sugar tit, he howled for his mother's

breast; when she gave him the breast he struck it hard enough

to bruise, and screamed in earnest. His mother was tempted to

scream with him, if only to drown him out.

"A proper little prince, he is," said Laila, who resented him.

She had been the most junior wife until he was born, but at

least she had had Sayyida to be superior to: a mere daughter of

the house, youngest and last to be married, and that to a fa-

therless nobody. But Sayyida had done what Laila had never

been able to do. Given her husband a son, and so become a

person of note within the limits of their world.

"A prince," Laila repeated, hands pressed prettily to her ears.

"His whim is our law. Why, I've hardly slept since—"

Sayyida set her teeth before she said something regrettable.

ALAMUT 13

Her breast throbbed. She ventured to dance Hasan on her

knee. His screams modulated to a hiccoughing roar.

"Here," said someone new. "What is this?" She swept Hasan

into her arms.

The silence was so abrupt that Sayyida reeled. For a long

moment she simply sat and luxuriated in it. Then she opened

her eyes and stared.

Hasan had met his match. His fists were tangled in the most

wonderful hair in the world. He had, improbably, begun to

laugh.

Laila loosed a little shriek. Stout comfortable Fahimah had

the wits to go in search of food and drink as the laws of hospi-

tality demanded, but she would not look directly at their guest.

Mother—to Sayyida she was always and irrevocably that—sat

very erect and very still. She would not go so far as to express

dislike, but her disapproval was cold enough to bum.

Sayyida did not care for any of them. "Morgiana!" She Hung

herself upon her guest, baby and all. Hasan did not even

frown. He was quietly and blissfully fascinated. "Morgiana!"

his mother cried. "0 miraculous! Would you care to adopt a

son?"

Morgiana smiled and shook her head. She was as indulgent

with Sayyida's exuberance as with Hasan's fierce tugging at her

hair. "Peace be with you," she said, "and with all this house."

That put Sayyida in mind of her manners. She bowed as

politely as she could when she wanted to dance with delight.

May the peace of Allah be with you, with your coming and

your going; and may that going be late and blessed." She

sucked in her breath. "Moywna! When did you come? Where

have you been? How long can you stay? Did you know about

Hasan? Have you—"

Morgiana laughed. "In order, 0 impetuous: I came Just

now, I have been where I have been, I can stay until the eve-

ning prayer, and yes, I knew both about Maimoun and about

this handsome son of his."

Laila made a sign against the evil eye. It was not directed

entirely at Morgiana's boldness in trumpeting Hasan's virtues

to every demon that could hear. "This worthless girlchild," she

said, "has been driving us to distraction."

Morgiana hardly glanced at her. Sayyida swallowed a grin.

Laila not only knew that she was pretty; she made sure that no

one else remained unaware of it. But beside Morgiana she

shrank to insignificance. Morgiana was wonderfully, outra-

14 Judith Tarr

geously, exhilararingly beautiful. Her skin was ivory. Her eyes

were the clear green of emeralds; or, Laila had said more than

once, spitefully, of a cat's. Her hair was rich enough to kill for:

beautiful, improbable, the color of the dark sweet wine which

no good Muslim should touch, pouring to her knees. She

glowed as she sat on a cushion in the worn familiar room, amid

the clutter of four women and a baby; even in plain respectable

Judith Tarr - Alamut

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