The effect of all these rivalries was to limit our freedom. We were not permitted to ride alone. We were barred from exploring the city after dark. We were warned never to enter the wine-cellars. My father threatened to flog us in public if we violated this last injunction.
It was the forced company which drove me to playing chogan. Given that my brother al-Adil and I had several guards, we decided to make use of them. Every day we would ride out of the Bab-al-Djabiya at sunrise. First the soldiers would perform their duty and teach us the art of swordsmanship. Then, after a short rest and some refreshments, we were shown how to fight on horseback. At the end of our training session, we entertained ourselves by teaching the soldiers how to play chogan.
It is a strange fact, is it not, Ibn Yakub, that the more one exerts oneself, the less tired one gets? After riding for two hours, I could easily ride the whole day. Yet on days when it was not possible to leave the house, I felt listless and exhausted, just like today. My physicians praise Allah and tell me that it is all to do with how the blood flows through the body, but do they really know?
The Sultan fell silent. Assuming that he was deep in thought, I made some small corrections to the text, but when, quill poised, I looked up at him to resume our work, his eye was firmly closed. He was fast asleep.
I have not previously drawn attention to the fact that Salah al-Din ibn Ayyub was possessed of only one working eye. He had not yet told me of how he lost the other, and Ibn Maymun had warned me that this was an extremely touchy subject. Under no circumstances should I raise it myself. Being a disciplined scribe, I had cast all curiosity out of my mind. To tell the truth, I had become used to his infirmity, and rarely gave it much thought. Yet seeing him like this, fast asleep, with his bad eye wide open, created the impression that he was half-awake, an All-Seeing Sultan.
It gave me a strange sensation. I wanted to know how and when he had lost his eye. Was it a childhood accident? If so, who had been responsible? How did it affect his bearing in war? My mind was flooded by questions.
How long I would have sat there, gazing on the sleeping Sultan, I do not know. A gentle tap on my shoulder alerted me to the presence of the ubiquitous Shadhi. He placed a finger on his lip to demand silence, and indicated that I follow him out of the chamber.
As we sat in the courtyard, enjoying the winter sun, dipping bread in labineh and munching radishes and onions, I asked Shadhi about the eye. He smiled, but did not reply. I persisted.
“Salah al-Din will tell you himself. It is the one subject we never discuss.”
“Why not?”
No reply was forthcoming from the old man. Instead he wiped the yoghurt off his drooping moustache and belched. Perhaps, I thought to myself, he is in a bad mood. Something has upset him. But I was wrong. It was only the forbidden subject of the missing eye that had silenced him.
He asked me whether Ayyub and his family had reached Dimask in the chronicles I was transcribing. I nodded.
“Then,” he said with a lascivious smile, “the Sultan has told you of his youthful escapades?”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet, not yet!” he mimicked me and roared with laughter. “He will never tell you. The memory of great men is always faulty. They forget their past so easily, but fortunately for you, my good scribe, Shadhi is still alive. Let us first eat some lamb, and then I will tell you tales of Damascus which our great Sultan will never remember again.”
After we had finished our meal, the old man began to speak.
“I won’t bore you with stories of our first visits to the Umayyad mosque, where the great Caliphs preached the Friday sermon and where long ago the congregation trembled in silent rage as Muawiya held up the bloodstained shirt of the murdered Caliph Uthman. I will leave all that to the Sultan.”
Shadhi laughed loudly, as if what he had just told me was an almighty joke. He was given to laughing a great deal at his own remarks, something to which I was now accustomed, yet it never failed to irritate me. Outwardly I smiled and nodded politely, to neutralise the intense gaze to which I was subjected following such outbursts. After drinking another cup of buttermilk, and noisily wiping the residue off his lips and moustache, he began again to tell his story.
“It was a hot summer afternoon. Everybody was resting. Your Sultan was fourteen years of age, perhaps not quite fourteen. Taking advantage of the hot weather, he defied his father’s instructions and went to the stables. He found his favourite horse, mounted it bare-backed, and left the city all on his own. It was foolish of him to imagine that he could leave the gates without being recognised. Dangerous, too, since his father had enemies in the city. But who can restrain the wildness of youth?
“The guards stationed at the gate were intrigued. They knew that the children of Ayyub were not usually seen out on their own. One of them rushed to the house and reported his departure immediately. Ayyub was woken up and informed of what had taken place. Curiously, he appeared pleased rather than angered by his son’s disobedience. I saw him smile.
“He asked me to ride after Salah al-Din, but without any trace of panic. My instructions were to follow him, to observe where he went, but to keep a careful distance. In other words I was to be a spy. Naturally, I did as I was asked.
“It was not difficult to pick up his trail. Just outside the Bab al-Djabiya, as you will see when the Sultan takes you with him, there is a very large maidan, bisected by a river. When you stand on the ramparts of the citadel, the light of the setting sun can play strange tricks with your eyes. The maidan becomes a giant green carpet made from the finest silks. It was here that Salah al-Din and his brothers played chogan. It was here that they raced horses and learnt to wield the sword and the bow and arrow. The river is surrounded by a large grove of poplar trees.
“In the distance I could see him galloping ahead, his head uncovered and without any protection. I saw him rein in his horse and dismount. I did the same and tied my horse to a tree. Then I walked towards the boy, making sure he did not see me. Soon I had found a suitable position behind some bushes, and there I could observe him quite clearly without being seen in return. You’re getting impatient with this old fool, Ibn Yakub, but I’m almost there.
“Salah al-Din had taken off his clothes and jumped into the river. He was swimming first with the flow and then against it. I laughed to myself. What a strange boy. Why had he not told us that all he wanted was a swim? Some guards would have come and kept watch till he had finished. End of story.
“I was about to walk to the bank and hail him, when suddenly I saw a woman who must also have been watching him walk towards where he had left his clothes. She picked them up and folded them. Then she sat and waited for him to finish. He swam to the shore and said something to her. I couldn’t hear the words since, on glimpsing the woman, I had once again taken my distance. She was laughing and shaking her head. He was insisting. Suddenly she jumped up, discarded her clothes and jumped in with him.
“She was a mature woman, Ibn Yakub, at least twice the age of the boy. The rest you can imagine. When they had finished their swim, they dried themselves in the sun, and then that sorceress mounted our boy and taught him what it was like to be a man. Allah be praised, Ibn Yakub, but they were shameless. There underneath the clear blue sky, under the gaze of Allah in his heaven, they were behaving like animals.
“I waited patiently, making a mental note of everything as I had been ordered to do by the master. She left first. She just seemed to disappear. He lay there for a few moments and then dressed himself. At this stage, as you can imagine, I was tempted to declare my presence. This would have been my revenge for that episode in Baalbek, but I had my orders. I rode back to the city, not waiting for young Salah al-Din to regain his composure. Back at the house, I reassured his father that all was well.