“Better a live dog than a dead king,” Abu Ali muttered.
“Dog or king, they’ll both have to die. Better to go as a king.”
“Since you’ve assumed that power, you can say that you rule over life and death,” Buzurg Ummid said. “But I’d rather be a dog in the road than die like your two fedayeen did.”
“You haven’t understood me,” Hasan replied. “Has anyone prescribed that sort of death for you? Your situation is infinitely remote from theirs. What was the summit of happiness for them would fill you with sheer horror. And can you be sure that whatever is the ultimate happiness for you wouldn’t be sheer terror for somebody else, or viewed from a different perspective? None of us can have an overview of our actions from all perspectives. That was the exclusive province of an all-seeing god. So grant me that everyone is happy in his own way!”
“But you intentionally deceived the fedayeen! Where did you get the right to treat people who are devoted to you like this?”
“I take that right from the knowledge that the supreme Ismaili motto is right.”
“And you can speak of an all-seeing god practically in the same breath?”
At this, Hasan straightened up. He seemed to grow by a full head.
“Yes, I did speak of some all-seeing god. Neither Jehovah, nor the Christian God, nor Allah could have created the world we live in. A world in which nothing is superfluous, in which the sun shines just as gently on the tiger and the lamb, the elephant and the fly, the scorpion and the butterfly, the serpent and the dove, the rabbit and the lion, the blossom and the oak, the beggar and the king. Where both the just and the unjust, the strong and the weak, the smart and the stupid fall victim to disease. Where happiness and pain are blindly strewn to the four winds. And where the same ending awaits all living beings—death. Don’t you see? That’s the god whose prophet I am.”
The grand dais instinctively stepped several paces back. So that was the core of this strange man, that was the “madness,” that burning conviction that had unerringly led him to the point where he now stood? So he secretly really did see himself as a prophet? And all his philosophizing was just a decoy for the minds of doubters? And maybe for himself as well? So that in his faith he was closer in spirit to his fedayeen than to the Ismaili leaders?
“So you believe in a god?” Buzurg Ummid asked in an almost timid voice.
“As I have said.”
An enormous abyss opened up between them.
The grand dais bowed in parting.
“Carry out your duties. You are my successors.”
He smiled at them in farewell, as a father smiles at his children.
Once they were out in the corridor, Abu Ali exclaimed, “What material for Firdausi!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“That brings the fourth act of our tragedy to a close,” Hasan said to himself when he was alone again.
That evening he summoned Obeida, Jafar and Abdur Ahman to see him. Abu Soraka conveyed his order to the three of them.
This occasioned a ferment throughout the quarters of the fedayeen. When Obeida heard what awaited him, his brown face went ashen. He looked around like a wild animal seeking a way to escape from some looming danger.
Abdur Ahman was afraid too.
“Why on earth has Sayyiduna summoned us?” he wondered.
“Most likely he’s planning to send you to paradise, now that Suleiman, Yusuf and ibn Tahir are gone,” ibn Vakas replied.
“Are we going to have to jump off a tower or stab ourselves too?”
“You’ll have to ask Sayyiduna that.”
Jafar received the order with calm obedience.
“Allah is master over our life and death,” he said. “And Sayyiduna is his representative.”
Abu Ali met them in front of the building of the supreme command and led them up the tower to Hasan.
After Abu Soraka informed the fedayeen of their appointment, he anxiously sought out Manuchehr. He found him atop the wall, in the midst of inspecting some pitch vats. He called him aside.
“What do you think, Emir, about the death of the two fedayeen?”
“Sayyiduna is a powerful master, my friend.”
“Do you agree with what he’s doing?”
“That’s something I don’t think about, and I advise you to do the same.”
“But are these methods going to make us a match for the sultan’s army?”
“Only Sayyiduna knows that. All I know is that we couldn’t hold out against them for long with just the forces at hand.”
“All this still makes me shudder.”
“Somebody else may be experiencing the same shudder. Emir Arslan Tash, for instance.”
“So you think Sayyiduna achieved his goal?”
“Something tells me we can put our trust in him. The things we experienced today at Fortress Alamut have never happened before in all of history.”
Abu Soraka left him, shaking his head. He went looking for the doctor to ask his opinion too.
First the Greek looked around to make sure no one was close by. Then he stepped up to Abu Soraka and whispered to him.
“My dear, venerable dai! Today I cursed the moment I was released from a Byzantine jail. Because everything we saw in this castle today with these eyes of ours goes far beyond any Greek tragedian’s most fervid fantasies. The scene that our supreme commander deigned to show us this morning was served up with such exquisite horror that it could be the sincere envy of the Prince of Hell himself. Ice goes down my spine when I think that I could have been the recipient of his heavenly delights on the other side of Alamut’s walls.”
Abu Soraka went pale.
“Do you think he’s going to send us into the gardens behind the castle?”
“How should I know, old friend? In any case, the knowledge that the gates to that paradise of his are open night and day should be cold comfort for any of us who have the honor of living in this fortress.”
“It’s horrible! It’s horrible!” Abu Soraka murmured, wiping the cold sweat from his brow with his sleeve. “The one good thing is that our families are with Muzaffar.”
“Yes, indeed,” the Greek nodded. Abu Soraka didn’t notice him sneering behind his back as he walked away.
In the gardens everything had long since been made ready for a second visit. When the girls heard that this evening had been chosen for it, they grew festive. Yes, now they knew what their purpose was. Love was their calling, and that didn’t at all seem like the worst thing that could happen to them. Far from it.
Their only worry was for Halima. She cherished her memories of Suleiman with true devotion. She saw him as her master, and in private would ask just him for advice in all kinds of matters. She grew solitary. Alone, she could feel his presence and talk to him. Many times the others heard her whispering to herself, and a few times they saw her laugh charmingly or with abandon, as though she were actually having a conversation with someone else. At first they tried to persuade her that Suleiman might not come back. But when they realized that she thought their hints were motivated by meanness or mischievousness, they let her keep believing.
When she learned that youths would be coming that night, she shook like a reed in the wind. The color left her cheeks. She fell to the ground and passed out.
“Good God!” Miriam exclaimed. “What are we going to do with her?”
“Sayyiduna gave you permission not to be with the boys,” Zuleika told her. “Ask him to make the same exception for her.”
“She’ll think we’re intentionally trying to separate her from Suleiman,” Fatima objected. “Then she’ll really do something to herself.”