Alamut (48 page)

The tale went on, but the words seemed now but shadows, the cavern a dream. Reality was the slender gliding figure, the lamp in her hand, the dipper, the jars standing woman-high against the wall.

“She lifted the lid of the first, and lo! there was no oil in it at all, but under a mat of palm-leaves, a man, and the glitter of weapons deep within. When he saw that the jar was opened, he hissed up, ‘Is it time? Shall we rise and kill the thief?'

“But the slave was quick of wit, and she had not liked the look of her master's guest. She hissed back swiftly, ‘Not yet. Wait, and have patience.'

“And so she found in each jar, and so she spoke, until the last, and that, indeed, was full of oil. She drew not a dipper but a whole great pot, and set it to simmering over the kitchen fire. And when it was bubbling handsomely — it was excellent oil, and
the imam swooned
had won much praise from the men at their dinner — she brought it back into the courtyard, and filling her dipper, poured the boiling oil down upon the head of each man in his jar. And so they died, and their master never knew, dining at his ease with the man whom he intended to slay.

“But the slave, whose name was Morgiana, contrived an ambush of her own. It was her custom, when her master entertained guests, to dance for them after they had eaten. One dance in particular was a favorite of her master's, a dance of edged blades, with a dagger in her hand.

“This is the dance which she danced.”

Now there was only the music, and the dancer in the light and the shadow. He had seen that dance before in the markets of the east, in the courtyards of the caravanserais, in the aftermath of banquets in Damascus and Aleppo. In its way it was like the sword-dance of his own people, but that was a man's dance, swift and thrusting-fierce, with a harsh, angular grace. This was made for woman's strength: curving, sinuous, the she-cat hunting, the serpent closing on its prey, The music wound about her; or was it she who was the music? The dagger flashed as she whirled, a wicked, living brightness. The bells sang high and sweet; the coins chimed in her headdress. Her body was an arc of ivory in a mist of green and gold.

His heart beat to the music, swifter, swifter. She spun closer. He could see the sheen of sweat on her cheek, her throat, her breast beneath the bodice. Her scent dizzied him. Her hair whipped free of its bindings, wound with silk and gold, lashing like a panther's tail.

The music swelled. She swooped over him. He lay still, head back to meet her eyes. His throat lay bare to her blade.

Silence.

Her dagger rested, lightly, lightly, where the great vein pulsed with his life's blood.

“And thus,” said the voice of the tale, “was the false guest slain, who was neither merchant nor stranger, but the captain of the thieves.”

There should have been more of it. Perhaps there was. He saw only the face above him, and the death in it, inexpressibly beautiful. It came down and down. Her lips were burning sweet.

His arms wound themselves about her neck. She gasped and stiffened.

She was afraid of him.

He dared not laugh. She? Afraid of him? She was infinitely older than he, infinitely more powerful. She held him inescapably prisoner. She was as beautiful as she was deadly. She could dance the stars out of the sky.

“Or a witch-prince out of his coldness?”

His hand had a will of its own. It stroked the length of her back, gently. Her skin was child-soft. “God and my dead forgive me, I can't hate you.”

Her face was buried in his shoulder. Tautly; as if she wanted it to desperation, but she had to think about it, hard, as a lesson learned but never practiced.

“Never?”

She struck him hard enough to snap his head back. His arms dropped; he sat still. His jaw throbbed.

“
Never!
” she spat at him.

She wanted him to laugh, doubt, call her liar and whore. Then she could hit him again, and drive him away; and he could not touch her where she wanted, and dreaded, to be touched.

He nodded, somber. “It's hard, when one is what we are. The wanting comes so seldom, and when it does, so all-encompassing. And when the other is of our blood...”

She tore off her headdress, flung it jangling into the dark. “It's easy for you. You have lovers.”

“Not so many. Not so often.”

Her lip curled. “Only once in a season.”

“Twice in a score of years, and by God's mockery, twice at once.”

She started, stilled. “I've seen the Frank. Who is the other?”

“You.”

Her head shook hard enough to rock her on her feet. “Don't lie. I can't stand it. I promise I won't kill her. I'm done with killing.”

He laid his palm against her cheek. It was wet.

She did not pull away. “I wanted to make you want me,” she said. “When you did... O Allah, I am a coward!”

“Not that, I think. After all. Only new to it.”

“And nothing proper or maidenly in me at all.”

“I doubt I would find you so fascinating if you were either.”

She scowled. “Fascinating? I?”

“Utterly.”

“That,” she said. “That is coquetry.”

“Gallantry, I beg you. But truth, too. You madden me. I've hated you beyond reason. But I've never found you dull.”

She was like Aidan when he came to Masyaf. She stood within reach of what she had wanted for so long, and she could not imagine what to do with it.

Her eyes were wide, a little wild. He bent; he kissed her. She shivered.

No less than he. He retreated a step, two. He bowed with careful correctness. “For the dance, my thanks.”

He was half afraid that she would follow him to his bed; half eager for it. But she did not.

33.

Aidan woke to the scent of spices steeped in wine. He drew a deep breath, and sneezed violently.

Morgiana thrust the cup back under his nose. “I have a bargain for you,” she said.

He drank, because if he did not, the hot wine would pour itself down his front. Memory came back, hard-edged yet dreamlike.

There was nothing in her now of the dancer or the maiden. She was all Assassin again, her hair tightly and repressively braided under the turban.

“Not Assassin,” she said, sharp with impatience. “Assassins do not wear green.”

He snatched the cup out of her hand and drained it. “You drag me out of a sound sleep, and you expect me to make sense?”

“The sun rose an hour ago. I grew tired of waiting.” She folded her arms. “I wish to bargain with you.”

“May I — ”

“No.”

He rose in spite of her. He pulled on a garment or two, ran his fingers through his hair. He considered going in search of breakfast, but Morgiana's mood was dangerous. He sat on a cushion, tucked up his feet, and raised a brow. “Well?”

“A bargain,” she said. “I will free you from this place, intercede for you with Sinan, set you thereafter on any path you may choose.”

The breath rushed out of him. “What — why — ”

“Sayyida reminded me of a tenet of falconry.”

She had gone mad. Or — “This is a trick.”

“I do not play tricks.”

“Neither do you give up. Just like that. And offer to win me the whole of my revenge.”

“Why not?”

He clasped his arms tight about his middle. The wine churned there. He could not catch fever, his kind did not, but his head was light; his face burned. “There is a price. Isn't there?”

“Yes.”

His arms loosened a fraction. At last; a glimmer of sense. “What is it?”

“You.”

He stared at her.

“You,” she said again. “In my bed. Until you satisfy me.”

He laughed. She did not. The silence lengthened. He leaned forward. “Until I satisfy you? That's all?”

“It is enough.”

“What ... if ... I won't?”

“Do you mean that you cannot?”

He stiffened, outraged.

“Is it so high a price?” she asked him. “I give you what you most desire. In return, you give me what I have wanted since I saw you in Jerusalem.”

“And if I don't want it? If I'm not to be bought and sold?”

“Then you are a fool.”

He struck the floor with his fists. “
Damn
it, woman! Do you want me to court you or kill you?”

“I know nothing of courting,” she said. “I can only be what I am. Will you bargain?”

“What will a refusal cost me?”

“Imprisonment until you yield. And Sinan goes on with his persecution of your kin.”

He rubbed his jaw. She watched him. He lowered his hand. “Would you give me time to think?”

“Until the sunset prayer.”

She did not grant it gladly, but she granted it, and generously. He could not bring himself to thank her. He finished dressing while she sat there, and left her sitting, eyes fixed on nothing at all.

oOo

He went only as far as the clifftop. She was wise enough not to follow, in body or in mind. He set his chin on his knees. He was aware of Sayyida going about her tasks below, Hasan teaching himself to run. Morgiana was gone. Her absence was an ache behind his eyes.

What in God's name had driven her to offer this bargain? One night of him, in return for so much: his freedom, his vengeance.

Last night she had set out to seduce him. She had gone about it admirably well, until she succeeded. And now, in the morning, this.

She would have been a scandal in Carcassonne.

He was smiling. He bit his lip. He ought to be raging. Was he a Damascus whore, to sell his body for any price?

Even this.

The Church would call it mortal sin.

The Church called him a witch and a child of the devil.

He clutched his head in his hands. Thinking was an art which he had never mastered. He was too much better at doing.

His head tossed. No. He must think. Joanna — Joanna whom he loved, who bore his child —

Joanna who was another man's wife.

Was there nothing in this world that was either clean or simple?

He summoned up her face, the feel of her flesh under his hands, the scent of her as she took him to her bed; the brightness of her blood that sprang beneath Morgiana's blade. Human, all of it. Beloved, and human.

As he was not. Not even half of him. Here in this desert place, in his enchanted captivity, he knew that beyond hope or help. A human man would take what was offered, and turn it to his own ends, and never trouble that he had betrayed his lover. Had she not already betrayed her husband?

She would understand. Not forgive, maybe; she was not as much a saint as that. But she would see the logic in this bargain that Morgiana proposed. Women were appallingly logical creatures; even women who were human.

And he — what he wanted —

He wanted them both.

Yes. Even Morgiana. Beautiful, deadly, implacable Morgiana, whom he had forgotten how to hate.

But to take her as she commanded; to let her take him...

He flung himself into the sky.

oOo

As the sun sank, he came walking back to the cave. There were a few more tatters in his robe; the wind had made elflocks of his hair. He limped a little. He paused to drink at the spring, matching glares with a desert hawk that rested in the fig tree.

There was food waiting for him as always, but Sayyida laired in the kitchen with Hasan and would not come out. What she thought of matters, he did not want to know. He bathed as always, tugged and cursed the tangles out of his hair, deliberately put the torn and dusty robes back on again. He had no desire to eat, but he drank a cup of wine. He filled it again, and once again.

Just when the sunset prayer should have been finished, he looked up, and she was there.

He had resolved to make her wait; to let her suffer for the suffering she had cost him. Then, sharp and final, the blow. No, he would say. No, I will not. I am not your whore.

“Yes,” he said.

Her expression did not change.

“For my freedom,” he said. He was dizzy, but not with wine. “For Sinan's ceasing his assaults against the House of Ibrahim. And one thing more.”

She waited.

“You will not again or in any way harm the Lady Joanna or the child she carries.”

Her eyes glittered. For an instant he knew. She would do it for him. She would refuse.

She bowed her head. “As you will,” she said.

There was a silence. He raised the cup to his lips, hesitated, set it down. Her head was bowed still. He could, if he peered closely, see that she trembled.

She was weeping, and not with joy. Her desolation blew cold in him. She had wanted it so much, and now she would have it, but it was an empty thing, a merchant's bargain, bleak and loveless.

She raised her head. “But I will have it! If this is the only way, then so be it. Allah has written it.”

He swallowed painfully. Her face was stark. He leaned forward, took it in his hands. She shivered at his touch. “Lady,” he said. “Morgiana. I don't hate you.” Her lips tightened; she tried to pull away. He held her. “I don't know... I'm afraid... I think that I could love you.”

She did escape him then; she seared him with her anger. “I told you not to lie. Even to comfort me. Especially to comfort me.”

He shook his aching head. “I'm not lying. I wish I were.” He caught her again, by the hands. They were cold. “Don't you think it would be better for us all if I could come to this coldly, as a man to a marriage of state? Dear God! You are infidel and Assassin, and I have taken the cross. Our faiths and our people are at war. Even Joanna with her husband and her kin and her inescapable mortality, is a better match for me than you.”

“We do,” she said, “agree on very little.”

If there was irony in that, it was too subtle for his senses.

She drew a deep, shaking breath. “But it doesn't matter, does it? We've begun to live in one another's skin. I, and an infidel. A Frank. Enemy of enemies. You eat of unclean meats; you drink wine. You pray to three gods when there is only the One. You know nothing of holy Koran.” She reached up to trace the sweep of the brow over his eye. “Barbarian. Unbeliever. Worshipper of devils.”