Alamut Part 23

If he died because Ishak had not warned him . . .

That was not a man with him, though she was as big as a man, and ugly in an inescapably Prankish fas.h.i.+on. And shame- less. Stroking him, here, in the very house of G.o.d.

Franks had no decency at all.

He s.h.i.+vered. His stomach clenched tighter even than his fists. People said that Franks were too pallid to have any pas- sion, all their fiery humors chilled and quenched by their cold northern climate and their taste for unclean meats. Not these two, he could well see. They were unseemly.

But, like animals, oddly beautiful. They knew no better.

Aidan knew steel. Ishak's father would say that that was enough.

He was avoiding thinking of what he ought to be thinking 177.

of. He should escape, now, while they were occupied; before they saw him.

He swallowed hard. He had not tome so far, to turn coward and slink away.

He drew himself up, tugged his coat into order, smoothed what beard he had. With his best face forward, he went to break his given word.

The woman was not so ugly, close up. Merely plain. She was modest enough to s.n.a.t.c.h for her veil when she saw him com- ing, Frank enough to shrug and give it up since he had already seen what there was to see. She had bold eyes. He blushed under them, and could not even begin to pretend that he had come here by chance.

He could at least pretend to ignore her. He greeted Aidan with none of his usual lightness, squatting within the circle of mamluks, who knew him and did not try to stop him. But once he was there, he could not say what he had come to say. He could not even circle round to it. He scowled at his boots instead, and let them c.h.i.n.k him impossibly rude.

Aidan touched his shoulder, lightly, as if to bolster him.

"Come, sir. Yew knew I'd be leaving as soon as I could."

Ishak nodded, swallowing. "It's not-I-" He gathered him- self under those eyes like his father's steel, rippling like it, daz- zling him, and said as levelly as his body's trembling would lethim, "Sir Prank, it's not that you must go. I understand; it's no pleasure, but I accept it. It's what you go to. I don't think you understand what the sons of knives are."

"I "think I may," said Aidan, but not as if he had taken of- fense. "They're very subtle, and very deadly. They almost never fail to kill where they are commanded. Except with your sul- tan."

"Allah's hand was on him," Ishak said.

"And it can't be on me, because I am a Christian?"

Ishak shook his head until his turban rocked on its moor- ings. "No, no, no! Allah defended him: kept the Old Man from using his strongest weapons. Nothing but human force went against the sultan."

Aidan, for a wonder, seemed to be listening to Ishak, and heeding what he heard. "He said something to me of that, That not all the Has.h.i.+shayun are human men."

"Ya Allah! Don't name them!" Ishak caught his voice before *What . . .

178.

it spiraled into hysteria.

their magic?"

what do you know of "Little," said Aidan. "They're masters of stealth. They're mad-bewitched, some say, or drugged. They live to die and pa.s.s to Paradise."

"Nothing more?"

"Is there more?"

Those eyes were too d.a.m.nably keen. Ishak fixed his own on his feet. "They have magic, prince. Devil-magic. And they are mad. What law or reason or sanity can any man compel, on folk who care only to kill and then to die?"

"Then," said Aidan with such lightness that Ishak groaned in despair, "I'll have to be madder than they."

"Can you be stronger, too? And deadlier?"

"I can try."

"Youll still die," Ishak said. "Unless you have magic, too."

Aidan smiled. "I have magic."

Ishak's chin snapped up. "Are you first cousin to Iblis?""I've been accused of it," said the Frank.

Ishak ground his teeth in frustration. He wanted to burst out with it, all together, all bare. And he could not. His throat clenched when he tried to speak; to name her. To warn this innocent of the Old Man's devii-b.i.t.c.h.

Magic. What could Franks know of true and high and deadly magic? They were hardly more than savages.

Even this one, who looked like an eastern lord. He smiled at Ishak, thinking no doubt to calm a child's fears. Child that he was himself. What power did he have, to face what laired in the Mountain?

Ishak could not-could not-speak of her. The spell's shape was as distinct as bit and bridle, as a shackle on his tongue. He cursed her to blackest h.e.l.l, but he was silenced.

He rose without grace, choking on tears as much of rage as of grief for a friend. "Prince," he said. "Prince, if you will not be wise, at least be warned. Trust no one. No one, do you understand?"

"Not even myself?"

Ishak tossed his head. "Allah! You would drive a saint to murder." He thrust the words out one by one, with all his strength of will and wit. "You are hunted. Your life is worth no more than a pebble in the desert. Pray your G.o.d to watch over you. No lesser power can defend you."

"I understand," said Aidan. The light mad mockery, at least, 179.

had left him. "I do, Ishak. How much have you risked, to tell me this?"

Ishak's blood ran hot, and then cold. His shoulders hunched. "It doesn't matter. My father-makes knives-for-"

His voice died. His throat throbbed and burned. He was dizzy, sick.

The Frank caught him before he toppled. He leaned against that slender strength; but only briefly. He willed himself erect.

"I have to go," he said. "Go-go with G.o.d. May G.o.d defend you."

The boy all but fled, head down, stumbling as if he had gone blind. Aidan started afrer him, stopped. There was power on him. To break it, or to pierce it, might break his mind.

The cold that had struck when the sultan spoke of magic, had sunk to the bone. It was real; it was true. And Aidan had never seen. He had held in his hand a blade of Farouk's forg- ing, stained with Thibaut's blood, and he had never under- stood, nor remembered.

There was a power in Masyaf. Stronger than he, perhaps;older; less human than he could ever be.

He had never had to contemplate such a thing. They had always been human, all his enemies. His own kind were his own kind. They did not mm on one another. That was a mor- tal madness.

Memory quivered. The Saracen, the cat-eyed beauty, Morgi- ana. If he could find her-if she knew what was in Masyaf- perhaps- Would she aid a Frank? Others had, Ishak not least of all; but Aidan would never presume on Saracen charity. Perhaps she would not even know what demon answered the call of the Master of the a.s.sa.s.sins.

If he ever saw her again, he could but ask.

He turned back to Joanna. She reined in her fear, but it was rising, draining the blood from her face, the light from her eyes. He drew her up and kissed her. "I'll defend you," he said.

She clung as briefly as Ishak had. But she knew more of him than the boy had been allowed to see. She let herself believe him.

IV.

ALEPPO.

18.

Alcppo was white. White as chalk, white as bone, white as the blindness of sun on snow. The rock of its citadel loomed up to heaven, dazzling in the glare of noon; the green of poplar and cypress blurred to a shadow beneath it.

This was a starker beauty than Damascus. Its people were less languidly graceful, its orchards less inviting. The flow of its speech was deeper, harsher, closer to the stone on which it stood.

Even its lords.h.i.+p was different. Saladin was not sultan here.

The child al-Salih Ismail, whose father had been sultan in Da- mascus before his death brought the upstart out of Egypt, ruled with his regent, Gumushtekin. That he ruled by Saladin's sufferance, mattered little to a city which had weathered years of siege against the interloper. Which had, above all, set the a.s.sa.s.sins on him, until he made his own peace with them.

The House of Ibrahim was a city within the city. Here at last even a western n.o.bleman could see what power was in a king- dom of trade: in its hand upon the'caravanserais, and its hold- ings in the city, and its strength to rule as it chose without regard to the one who held the citadel. Where the caravan pa.s.sed, no one presumed to hinder.

Yet the house itself, though large enough, did not ape a palace. It had begun as a simple dwelling, a house of a single court with a garden at its back. Years and need and the swellingof its dependents had stretched its boundaries, until its wall enclosed a fair half-dozen lesser houses and their gardens. But its heart was still the house of Ibrahim the seller of spices, Abraham the Jew as he had been then, before the dawn of Islam.

For Joanna it was another face of home. Hakim the porter was at his post as he had always been, a shade greyer, perhaps, a shade more dry and sinewy, but still the guardian of the gate.

The gap in the arch where one of the cousins had proven his prowess with a sling had never managed to get itself mended.

The broken-backed pomegranate tree still shaded the first court, laden now with fruit, with a boy to drive away the birds.

184 There was, as always, a cat on the fountain's rim and a servant or three trotting from sun to shade, and a gathering of cousins escaped from duties to see who had come.

They had an eyeful: twelve mamluks in scarlet with hands to weapons, and a Irankish prince in the robe of a Damascene emir, and Joanna with her maid as drab as peahens in the midst of them.

This time, she knew without asking, Aidan was going to be difficult. On the road he had been no more restive than he ever was; he had seemed as glad as she, to be free to ride together by day and to lie in one another's arms at night. But since Aieppo came in sight, he had been as twitchy as a cat.

Even in the few moments between surrendering his horse to a groom and facing the uncle who had come to give them formal greeting, he could not stand still. He prowled to the pomegranate tree and back, pausing to exchange stares with one of the youngest cousins, gathering up the cat that had come to weave about his ankles. He was a lodestone for cats, always. He came to stand at Joanna's back, as the cousins scat- tered and their elder advanced like a s.h.i.+p in full sail: Uncle Karim, no less. They were being honored.

Though Aidan might not think so. She willed him to keep quiet, co stand still, to let her do the talking. Uncle Karim was not an easy sight for Prankish eyes, n.o.bly rotund as he was, attired as always in the extremest height of fas.h.i.+on, with a beard dyed blacker than any natural beard could be and curied extravagantly, and a turban of truly astonis.h.i.+ng dimensions.

One's first impulse was always to goggle, and then to laugh aloud.

People who laughed at Uncle Karim usually lived to regret it. He had a mind like a Damascus blade, and a propensity for repaying slights in the purest unadulterated gold coin.

Aidan was not laughing, that she could hear. She could not in courtesy twist about to see if he was grinning. Those of his mamluks whom she could see, seemed to have frozen in mid- goggle. She could not, unfortunately, see the two she was most afraid of. The Kipchak imps were behind their master, doing G.o.d alone knew what.She was free at least to accept her uncle's greeting, all of it, in all its intricacy. But it was heartfelt; his embrace had a quiver in it, and while his tongue ran on, his eyes took in every travel- weary inch of her. And her escort. And, narrowly, her prince.

Then at last she could turn. Aidan was not grinning. His 185.

face was marble-still, his voice soft and careful in acknowledg- ing his host. The cat was on his shoulder, purring thunder- ously. It made him no less alarming to look at.

She hardly heard what they said to one another. Will had met strong will, and found its match. Grey eyes and dark crossed, clashed, disengaged.

Uncle Karim smiled. The slight inclination of his head had more respect in it than all the bowings and effusions before it.

"Come," he said, "if you will, and rest, and take refreshment.

All that is here, is yours. May your sojourn with us be long and blessed."

Aidan did not want to go where the plump hand beckoned.

She could not touch him, not under all these eyes, but she said, "Go. It's safe. I promise you."

He shook his head tightly, lips set. Her heart constricted.

Not a battle; dear G.o.d, not here.

He seemed to catch her thought. He went stiffly where he was led, but he went without argument.

Her breath left her in a long sigh. She loved him; she ached with wanting him. But he was not a comfortable companion.

If he ever took it into his head to run wild, nothing in the world would stop him.

He was close to it now. She almost broke away from the women who were leading her to the harem and its bath, and ran back to him. But she mastered herself. She would only make it worse.

Even with all her troubles, the bath was heaven. The aunts and the cousins were all there to spoil her, to hover about her, to make her feel loved and pampered and protected. They had all the gossip ready for her: who was married and who was pregnant and who was at odds with whom, both within the harem and out of it. It was all a warm and steady stream, like the water, the soap scented with roses, the oil rubbed into her skin.

Languid, at peace, with fear driven deep into the shadows of her consciousness, Joanna could look at herself and see what she had been blind to for so long. She was surprised. She had a shape again. Her waist would never win back its maiden small- ness, but it was less thick than it had been. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were tender still, but their milk had dried; though their high round firmness was gone, this new fullness was not unpleasant to see.Her hair had darkened, gone from oak-gold to bronze, but it 186 had won back its l.u.s.ter; it tumbled about her face, softening the long strong lines of check and jaw, widening her eyes and deepening their cloudy blue to misted violet. She stared at herself in the silver minor, astonished. She looked like a woman with a lover.

She hid her flush behind the curtain of hair, attacking it with a brush until someone interfered. She looked into the withered face of the oldest aunt, and eyes that saw all there had ever been to sec. A gnarled finger prodded her breast. When she flinched. Aunt Adah grinned, baring her toothless gums. "So, little one. Is it another baby well be raising for the House?"

Joanna's teeth clicked together. No. Oh, no. "No! I had one. He was taken away from me. I'm still-not-entirely-"

Aunt Adah nodded altogether too willingly. "Yes. Yes, of course. Poor little one. Franks are barbarians, to take babies away from new mothers and leave them all alone."

Slowly Joanna's heart stopped trying to leap out of her breast. She was not deluding herself. She was being sensible.

Her courses had not begun yet: her body was still off" its bal- ance after Aimcry. She was not carrying another child. Which could not possibly be Ranulfs- Which would not likely be human at all.

And if she were ... if she were . . .