The Black Rood (29 page)

“I am not surprised. Although they are perhaps more plentiful here,” allowed Nurmal modestly. “The Arabs place a high value on their animals, and breed the best in the world. Yordanus and I have concluded our bargain. All that remains is for you to choose.” He gestured toward the horses, inviting our inspection.

“I will be more than happy with any of them, I am sure,” I replied casually.

“You are too easily pleased,” he said. “But that will not do. Any man who must trust life and limb to his mount would be well advised to take a moment's sober reflection over the choice.”

So, I stepped closer and subjected the animals to a more thorough inspection. They stood on long, slender legs, their handsome heads high; their manes and tails were full and long, their necks finely curved and powerful. I ran my hands over their glossy coats, and I could almost feel the surge of those solid shoulders and the earth speeding effortlessly beneath me.

In all, they were magnificent creatures, clearly beyond my own small capacity to judge; aside from the color of their lustrous coats, there was not a whisker's difference between them that I could see. So, I chose a gray with a speckled rump because it made me think of the mist rising over the moors back home.

The others chose their mounts whereupon Nurmal announced, “Now then, my friends, we are to ride to my home where you will stay tonight. You will dine with me and tomorrow we will set off for Anazarbus.”

“You mean to go with us?” asked Roupen. I could tell he thought ill of the idea.

“Indeed, yes, my lord. You need a guide and I must look after my horses, no?” Nurmal's smile was broad and handsome.

“Trust this man as you would trust me,” Yordanus said. “I have already told him of your need for haste and secrecy.”

“That is why it is best for you to stay with me tonight rather than in the town,” Nurmal explained.

Roupen frowned, unconvinced.

“At least it hurries us on our way,” I told him, “and in a better fashion than we have enjoyed so far.”

Whatever misgivings he might have had about the arrangements were soon swept aside in the exuberance of mounting such excellent horses: spirited, intelligent, compliant without being dull, they were indeed a joy to ride. It had been a fair while since I had been on the back of a horse, but I know I had never sat astride one half so responsive and well-mannered.

We struck off along an old road leading up behind the town and into the quiet hills. The dusky air was cool and heavy with the scent of broom and sage. The sky grew slowly dark, and the moon rose. We rode along, content to remain silent as we passed through the night-dark land, climbing higher into the rough, empty hills until we came to a large walled villa tucked into the fold of a shallow valley and surrounded by stables and yards.

We dismounted in the yard and Nurmal made us welcome, saying, “Tomorrow we embrace the rigors of the trail. But tonight,” his smile was a glint of white in the moonlight, “we eat and sleep like kings. Come, the table is prepared. Want for nothing, my friends.”

Thus, we entered a house of such effortless liberality and friendliness that within the space of a simple, wholesome meal we each became monarchs of vast domain, and rose from the table refreshed and renewed for the journey ahead. As we went to our beds, Padraig confided, “If hospitality was the saving of men, then I have no doubt that when the angels called us to the heavenly banqueting table, we would find Nurmal of Mamistra sitting at God's right hand.”

“Amen,” I replied happily. “With Nurmal beside him, God could not ask for a more amiable dinner companion.”

I
T WAS STILL
dark when we left that homely house. We stopped at sunrise to take the first drink of a long and thirsty day. The night sky grew milky gray, then yellow, and finally blue. Even as we watched the pale fingers of sunlight stretch along the valleys and separate the dark mass of rough hills one from another, we could feel the heat of the day spreading in waves over the land. We mounted up again at once and pushed on so as to get as far as possible along our journey before we were forced to stop and wait for the sun to set.

As I rode along, I thought of all those I had left behind in Scotland—of my mother and father, Abbot Emlyn, and the others—and you, dearest Cait, were foremost among them. I knew Murdo and Ragna were watching over you as well, nay better, than I would if I had been there. Still, I felt a pang of guilt for leaving you, and wished that I might have been a gull or an eagle that I could swoop down and see you and know, if only for an instant, what you were doing at that moment. I held you in my mind, and tried to imagine how you might have grown since I had last seen you. And then, my heart, I held you before the Throne of Grace and asked the High King of Heaven to send three angels to surround you and watch over you day and night until I could return.

Yes, on that rough road into those ragged, dusty, sage-covered hills, my thoughts turned toward going home. And I
felt the gnawing agony of what Padraig calls the
hiraeth
, the home-yearning. I felt it like a sharp, clawing ache in my heart, as if a rip had opened up in the fabric of my soul and a blast of cold, bitter wind rushed through. For the first time since leaving Caithness, I wished I was on the homeward trail.

It was after midday before we found a place to water and rest through the long, hot wait until evening. The trees were short and scrubby little thorn-covered oaks large enough for one or two to squat beneath; the flies liked them, too, and worried us incessantly, but at least the dense, leathery leaves kept the sun off our heads. We tethered the horses to graze on whatever they might find to nibble, and then retreated to the shade.

I had not spoken to Yordanus privately for several days, and I had questions on my mind. So, I joined him as he reclined beneath his tree. He welcomed the company and we began to talk. “There is something I have been wanting to ask you since leaving Famagusta,” I told him.

“An unanswered question is like a toothache that only heals with asking,” he said, turning his face toward me. “What is vexing you, my friend?”

“Why are you doing this?” At his puzzled glance, I added, “Ships, supplies, now horses—all this. Why are you helping us?”

“Ah, well,” he replied. “Cannot a man help a friend in need?”

“Forgive me, Yordanus, but there must be more to it than that.” It came to me then that perhaps
I
was not the friend he meant. “It is de Bracineaux,” I suggested. “He sent us to you knowing you would do this. But why? What is between the two of you that you should take such personal interest in this affair?”

He sat with his back to the gnarled little bole, resting his head against the crinkled black bark and staring out across the narrow brown valley shimmering dully in the heat haze. The buzzing of the flies grew loud in the silence. I did not press him, but let him come to it in his own time.

At last he drew a long, low breath and said, in a voice full of mourning and melancholy, “I am doing it for my son.”

“You mentioned him before,” I said, trying to make it easier for the old man to speak. “I can see you loved him very much.”

“Julian was his name,” said Nurmal. Having overheard the beginning of our conversation, he had come to join us, bringing a water skin and a wooden cup. “May I?”

“Please.” Yordanus nodded and patted the ground beside him, and Nurmal sat down. “Julian was everything a father hopes for in the child who will carry on the family name and lineage,” Yordanus continued, pride edging into his voice. “He was my hope and my joy.”

The old trader went on to describe the unhappy events of their last days in Damascus. The trouble all began, in his estimation, with the fall of Jerusalem, which shocked the Seljuqs and Saracens beyond all measure. Overnight all previous certainties collapsed and the world was pitched headlong into unimaginable turmoil. Out of the chaos new, and often dangerous, alliances emerged. Everywhere the rulers and potentates of the old order made the best bargains they could with anyone who offered the barest hope of protection from the burgeoning multitude of dangers, perils, and threats arising almost daily.

“It was no different in Damascus,” Yordanus told me. “Atabeg Tughtigin held out as long as he could. In his prime he had been an able and fair-minded ruler, but in the end his age and health began to tell against him. He made alliance with the Fida'in.”

The word pricked my attention, and I recalled what Sydoni and Roupen had told me about this shadowy sect.

Yordanus saw that I recognized the name and said, “You have heard of them, I see.”

“Sydoni mentioned them; she called them murderers and said they held a hidden faith, but she did not say what that faith might be.”

“They are Muslims,” Yordanus explained, “but of a very strict and overzealous stripe. It is their all-consuming desire
to unite the Muhammedans in a single observance of the Muslim faith. To do this they are willing to dare all things—even martyrdom.”

“Dangerous men,” I observed.

“Murderous,” Nurmal corrected. “All the more because of the
hashish
.”

“The hashish?” I had never heard the word before, and asked what it might be.

“Oh, it is a very potent herb that can be used in various ways. The Fida'in eat it, or smoke the dried leaves in pipes. It is a powerful essence, and it makes them foolishly courageous. When they are in the grip of the hashish, they fear nothing,” declared Nurmal. “For this reason some call them the Hashishin, a name they hate.”

“It is true,” affirmed Yordanus. “Death holds no terror for them, nor the life hereafter. They sacrifice all to their faith in the belief that they are instruments of God used to bring about divine justice.”

“By murdering their enemies.”

“By slaughtering
anyone
who opposes their schemes,” Yordanus insisted. “They are everywhere now, and everywhere loathed. Like God, they see and hear every deed and every word; and, like God, they hold all men to judgment.”

“And their judgment is always the same,” added Nurmal. “Guilty.”

“Sadly, it is so,” agreed Yordanus, nodding sagely.

“You said they came to Damascus,” I suggested, gently prodding the tale back to its beginning.

“Yes, and it was the worst evil ever to befall that admirable city. They were granted refuge in Damascus in return for helping in its defense. Why old Tughtigin ever agreed to this bargain, I will never understand. No doubt he thought it best to have them inside the tent pissing out rather than the other way. I cannot say.

“But as anyone might easily have predicted, the decision was disastrous. Once settled inside the walls, the Fida'in began to worm their way into every corner of the government. Within a few months they had taken control of the wazir's office and were exerting heavy influence over all state af
fairs. Tughtigin became a ghost in his own palace; unseen, unheard, he roamed the corridors moaning and fretting with remorse over his foolishness. But the damage was done. The Fida'in would not be moved.

“The people endured as best they could. Trade was difficult and unimaginably complicated. For example, if the Fida'in did not like the color of the cloth you were selling, they declared it unclean, confiscated it, and imposed a heavy fine on you for selling it. If a man stopped in the street to speak to a woman, they fined him. If a woman ventured outside with her head uncovered, she was fined. If they found your turban too tall, or your beard too short, they fined you. If you could not pay these fines, they threw you in prison.

“In no time at all half the population was walking around with debts they could not pay, and the other half was in prison.” Yordanus shook his head ruefully. “And should you be so unwise as to protest your innocence, you simply disappeared. Sometimes, if you were lucky, someone might find your head nailed to the city gates. Otherwise, you were never seen again.”

“I suppose Christians suffered the worst of it,” I mused.

“So you might think,” Yordanus allowed. “But no, the perpetrators of this disaster were exceedingly equitable. Oh yes, they favored all citizens—rich or poor, young or old, Christian, Jew, or Muhammedan—with the same infernal impartiality. Each year it became worse—for the merchants and moneylenders no less than everyone else. Good trade depends not only on a reliable, healthy ebb and flow of goods and services, but a fair expectation of progress and a modest hope for the future. Let these springs dry up, however, and like a river in the desert, all trade swiftly disappears.”

Nurmal poured water into the cup and passed it to Yordanus. “We endured as best we could for as long as we could,” he said, draining the cup and passing it back. “In the end it became intolerable.”

“Is that when you decided to leave?” I asked.

“If only it were so,” Yordanus murmured, “Julian would still be alive.” His mouth twitched in a smile of such sorrow
ful regret that I could not bear to see it and looked away quickly. “All is vanity,” he said softly, “and nothing more so than the heart of man.”

Seeing his friend in such distress, Nurmal quietly moved the conversation onto a less painful subject, and I was left with more questions than when we first began. As soon as the heat of the day began to fade in the desolate hills, we moved on. I thought about what Yordanus had told me, turning the pieces of his tale over in my mind. It seemed to me that Julian and his sorry fate lay at the heart of the mystery and, thinking I would get no more from the father, I decided to ask the sister. But I did not have a chance to speak to her alone that night, nor all the next day. Indeed, it was not until well after dark when we had stopped for the night and everyone else was going to sleep that I was able to get her alone.

“Sydoni,” I said, moving close to where she sat by the dying campfire, “I would speak to you.”

She looked up at me, the glow of the embers bathing her face like the rosy light of a far-off dawn. “Sit beside me,” she said, her voice charming and low. Her long hair was upswept to keep it off her shoulders, but small tendrils had escaped and now curled around her ears and along the slender, shapely column of her neck. I wondered what it would be like to wind one of those curls around my finger.

“I asked your father to tell me about what happened in Damascus,” I said, dropping down beside her on the ground.

“And did he?” She regarded me with the same unnerving directness as the first time we met in the villa courtyard. This time, however, there was less defiance in her glance, and more appraisal.

“He told me a little,” I replied. “He told me about Julian.”

“Then he told you much,” she corrected, turning back to her contemplation of the embers.

“I asked him why he is helping us, and he said he is doing it for his son—for Julian.”

She seemed to consider this, and then rejected it. “No,” she said thoughtfully, “whatever the reason it is not Julian.”

“Vanity, then?” I asked. It was the last thing her father had said, and I hoped she might know what he meant.

“Perhaps,” she allowed. “You see, my father would have been the Governor of Damascus.” She glanced sideways at me. “I see he did not mention that.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“It is true. Julian did not approve. He urged Father on numerous occasions to leave the city, but Yordanus refused to go because he coveted the exalted position.”

“He blamed the Fida'in,” I pointed out.

“Of course,” she replied as if this was manifestly self-evident. “None of this would have happened if not for them.
They
were the ones who wanted him to be Governor.”

This made no sense. “But I thought the Fida'in were Muhammedans,” I pointed out. “Yordanus said they were ruling the city.”

“Shh,” she hushed, “keep your voice down, or you'll wake everybody. Be quiet and I will tell you how it was.” Drawing up her long legs, she wrapped her arms around her knees and, staring into the embers as into the still-glowing past, she began to describe their last days in Damascus.

“The atabeg—”

“Tughtigin?”

“The same. He was a sick old man, and getting weaker all the time. The wazir was a vacillating bootlick named al-Mazdaghani, who sided with the Batini—the Fida'in by another name. The day came when the atabeg could no longer rise from his bed. Seeing he was about to die, Tughtigin gave his title to his son, Buri. The amirs were happy to approve the choice because Buri had vowed to rid the city of the hated Fida'in. And that,” Sydoni declared emphatically, “is when our troubles really began.”

She spoke with quiet candor and I found listening to her a pleasure—and one I had not experienced in a woman's company for a very long time.

“The Fida'in considered themselves the only true Muslims,” she said, “and in their eyes Buri and the amirs were faithless and unbelieving. As Tughtigin grew weaker, his son
took over more and more of his father's power, and began taking steps to eradicate the hated cult. This alarmed the Fida'in, who had imagined they might control the new atabeg as they had controlled his father.

“The more Buri exerted his growing authority, the more the Fida'in feared losing the only place they had ever been welcomed. They soon discovered themselves hunted and harassed at every turn, and in desperation went looking for a protector who could ensure their survival. In secret—the Fida'in are masters of secrecy—they sent an envoy to Edessa—”