‘I came for something else completely. The officers of the Nizamiya have decided that you must die. When you wound the lion, they say, it is wise to finish him off. I took on myself the task of putting you to death.’
Khayyam suddenly became calmer. He would keep his bearing up to the end. How many sages had devoted their whole life to reach this peak of the human condition! He did not plead for his life, but on the contrary, he felt his fear wane by the second and he thought above all of Jahan. He had no doubt that she too had kept her bearing.
‘I would never have pardoned those who killed my wife. My whole life I would have been their enemy, and my whole life I would have dreamed of seeing them impaled! You are absolutely right to rid yourselves of me!’
‘It is not my opinion, master. It was up to five officers to decide your fate. My companions all wanted your death and I was the only one to oppose it.’
‘You were wrong. Your companions seem to be wiser.’
‘I often saw you with Nizam al-Mulk. You were sitting down conversing like father and son. He never stopped loving you in spite of your wife’s schemes. If he were here with us, he would not have condemned you. He would also have forgiven her, for your sake.’
Khayyam took a close, hard look at his visitor, as if he had just now discovered his presence.
‘If you were against my death, why did they choose you to come and execute me?’
‘It was I who offered myself. The others would have killed you, but I planned to leave you alive — otherwise why would I have stayed talking with you?’
‘And how will you explain this to your companions?’
‘I will not explain anything. I shall go away. I shall follow you.’
‘You announce it so calmly, as if it were a long-standing decision.’
‘It is the very truth. I do not act impulsively. I was the most faithful servant of Nizam al-Mulk — I believed in him. If God had allowed it, I would have died to protect him. However, long ago I decided that, if the master should disappear, I would serve neither his sons nor his successors and I would forever give up the profession of the sword. The circumstances of his death have forced me to use it one last time. I was involved in the murder of Malikshah and I do not regret it: he had betrayed his tutor, his father, the man who raised him up to the summit; he thus deserved to die. I had to kill, but that has not made me a killer. I would never have shed the blood of a woman, and when my companions outlawed Khayyam, I understood that the time had come for me to leave, to change my life and to became a hermit or a wandering poet. If you want, master, collect some belongings and we shall leave this city as soon as possible.’
‘To go where?’
‘We shall take whatever path you wish. I shall follow you everywhere, as a disciple, and my sword will protect you. We will be able to return when the tumult has died down.’
While the officer was readying the mounts, Omar hurriedly gathered up his manuscript, his writing case, his flask and a purse bulging with gold. They rode right through the oasis of Isfahan to the suburb of Marbine toward the West without being troubled by the numerous soldiers. One word from Vartan was enough for the gates to be opened and the guards to stand aside respectfully. The servility shown to Vartan did not fail to intrigue Omar, who nevertheless avoided questioning his companion. For the moment he had no choice other than to trust in him.
They had been gone less than an hour before a seething crowd came to pillage Khayyam’s house and set it on fire. By the end of the afternoon the observatory had been laid waste. At the same moment, the lifeless body of Jahan was interred at the foot of the mulberry tree which bordered the palace garden.
There would be no tombstone to show posterity her place of burial.
A parable from the Samarkand Manuscript:
‘Three friends were taking a walk on the high plateaus of Persia. A panther sprang out at them with all the fierceness in the world.
‘The panther looked at the three men for a long while and then ran toward them.
‘The first was the oldest, the richest and the most powerful. He cried out: “I am the master of these districts. I shall never allow a beast to ravage the lands which belong to me.” He had with him two hunting dogs and set them on to the panther. They managed to bite it but the panther only became stronger, overwhelmed them, jumped on their master and ripped out his intestines.
‘Thus was the fate of Nizam al-Mulk.
‘The second man wondered: “I am a man of knowledge, everyone honours and respects me. Why should my fate be decided by dogs and a panther?” He turned tail and fled without waiting for the outcome of the fight. Since then he has wandered from cave to cave, from hut to hut, convinced that the wild beast was always at his heels.
‘Thus was the fate of Omar Khayyam.
‘The third was a man of belief. He walked toward the panther with his hands open, with a dominating demeanour and an eloquent words. “You are welcome to these lands,” he said to the panther. “My companions were richer than I and you despoiled them. They were prouder than I and you have laid them low.” The beast listened, seduced and subdued. The man had the advantage over the panther, and managed to train it. Since then no panther has dared to approach him and men keep away.’
The Manuscript concludes: ‘When the time of upheavals arrived, no one could stop its course, no one could flee it but some managed to use it. Hassan Sabbah, more than anyone, knew how to tame the ferocity of the world. He sowed fear all around him in order to make a tiny piece of calm for himself in his redoubt of Alamut.’
No sooner had he gained control of the fortress than Hassan Sabbah undertook actions to assure that he was sealed off from any contact with the outside world. His first priority was to render impossible any enemy penetration. With the help of some clever building he thus improved the already exceptional quality of the site by blocking off the slightest passageway between two hills.
However these fortifications were not enough for Hassan. Even if an assault was impossible, the besiegers would still hope to starve him out or cut off his water. It is thus that most sieges end. And it was on this point that Alamut was particularly vulnerable, having only meagre stocks of drinking water. The Grand Master found the answer. Instead of drawing his water from the neighbouring rivers, he had an impressive network of cisterns and canals dug in the mountain to collect rainwater and the melting snows. The visitor to the ruins of the castle today can still admire, in the large room where Hassan lived, a ‘magic basin’ which filled itself up with as much water as was taken out from it, and which, by a stroke of ingenuity, never overflowed.
For provisions, the Grand Master had storage shafts fitted out for oil, vinegar and honey, he also stockpiled barley, sheep fat and dried fruit in sufficient quantities to get them through an almost total blockade — which, at that time, was far beyond the capacity of any besiegers, particularly in a region which had a harsh winter.
Hassan thus had an infallible shield. He had, one could say, the ultimate defensive weapon. With his devoted killers, he also possessed the ultimate offensive weapon. How can precautions be taken against a man intent on dying? All protection is based upon dissuasion, and we know that important personages are surrounded by an imposing guard whose role is to make any potential attacker fear inevitable death. But what if the attacker is not afraid of dying, and has been convinced that martyrdom is a short-cut to paradise? What if he has imprinted in his mind the words of the Preacher: ‘You are not made for this world, but for the next. Can a fish be afraid if someone threatens to throw it into the sea?’ If, moreover, the assassin had succeeded in infiltrating the victim’s entourage? Nothing could be done to stop him. ‘I am less powerful than the Sultan but I can harm you more than he can,’ Hassan wrote one day to a provincial governor.