The Physician

by Noah Gordon

  Dhan had sealed a removal hole with clay that he now broke away so he could drag out the bloom, which was refined by strong hammering requiring many reheatings in his forge. Most of the iron in the ore went into slag and waste, but that which was reduced made a very good grade of wrought iron.

  But it was soft, he explained to Rob through Harsha. The bars of Indian steel, carried from Kausambi by the elephants, were very hard. He melted several of these in a crucible and then quenched the fire. After cooling, the steel was extremely brittle and he shattered it and stacked it on pieces of the wrought iron.

  Now, sweating among his anvils, tongs, chisels, punches, and hammers, the skinny Indian displayed biceps like serpents as he wedded the soft and hard metals. He forge-welded multiple layers of iron and steel, hammering as if possessed, twisting and cutting, overlapping, folding the sheet and hammering again and again, mixing his metals like a potter wedging clay or a woman kneading bread.

  Watching him, Rob knew he could never learn the complexities, the variables needing subtle skills passed down long generations of Indian smiths; but he gained an understanding of the process through asking innumerable questions.

  Dhan made a scimitar and cured the weapon in soot dampened with a citron vinegar, resulting in an acid-etched, “watermarked” blade with a blue, smoky undertone. Fashioned out of the iron alone, it would have been soft and dull; made only from the hard Indian steel, it would have been brittle. But this sword took a fine edge that could cut a dropped thread in midair, and it was a supple weapon.

  The swords Alā had ordered Dhan to make weren’t meant for kings. They were unembellished soldiers’ arms, to be stockpiled against a future war in which superior scimitars might give Persia a needed advantage.

  “He will run out of the Indian steel before many more weeks,” Harsha observed.

  Yet Dhan offered to make Rob a dagger, out of gratitude for what the hakim had done for his family and the mahouts. Rob refused regretfully; the weapons were beautiful but he wanted no more to do with killing. But then he couldn’t resist opening his bag and showing Dhan a scalpel, a pair of bistouris, and two knives used for amputations, one blade curved and thin and the other large and serrated for cutting through bone.

  Dhan smiled broadly, showing the gaps of many missing teeth, and nodded his head.

  A week later, Dhan handed over instruments in patterned steel that would take the keenest edge and hold it like no other surgical tools Rob had ever seen.

  They would outlast his own life, he knew. It was a princely gift and called for a generous gift in return, but he was too overwhelmed to think of that for the moment. Dhan saw his enormous pleasure and basked in it. Unable to communicate with words, the two men embraced. Together they oiled the steel objects and wrapped them individually in rags, then Rob carried them off in a leather bag.

  Filled with delight, he was riding away from the House of Paradise when he met a returning hunting party led by the king. In his rough hunting clothes Alā looked exactly as he had when Rob had first glimpsed him, years before.

  He drew up his horse and bowed, hoping they would pass him by, but a moment later Farhad cantered up smartly.

  “He wishes you to approach.”

  The Captain of the Gates wheeled his mount and Rob followed him back to the Shah.

  “Ah, Dhimmi. You must ride with me for a time.” Alā signaled that the soldiers who accompanied him were to hang back, and he and Rob walked their animals toward the palace.

  “I have not rewarded your service to Persia.”

  Rob was surprised, having thought all awards for service during the Indian raids long since were past. Several officers had been promoted for valor and soldiers had been given purses. Karim had been praised so lavishly in public by the Shah that market gossip had him soon to be named to any number of exalted posts. Rob was content to have been overlooked, happy that the raids were now history.

  “I have it in mind to present you with another calaat, calling for a larger house and extensive grounds, an estate suitable for a royal entertainment.”

  “No calaat is necessary, Sire.” In a dry voice he thanked the Shah for his generosity. “My presence was a small way of repaying my enormous gratitude to you.”

  It would have been more graceful for him to speak of love for the monarch, but he could not and Alā didn’t seem to take his words to heart, in any case.

  “Nevertheless, you deserve reward.”

  “Then I ask my Shah to reward me by allowing me to stay in the small house in Yehuddiyyeh where I am comfortable and happy.”

  The Shah looked hard at him. Finally he nodded. “Leave me, Dhimmi.” He dug his heels into the white horse and the stallion sprang away. Behind, his escort hastened to gallop after him, and in a moment the horse soldiers were streaming past Rob with a pounding and a clatter.

  Thoughtfully, he turned the brown horse and made his way homeward again to show the patterned steel instruments to Mary.

  63

  A CLINIC IN IDHAJ

  That year winter came hard and early to Persia. One morning all the mountain peaks were white, and the next day huge chill winds swept a mixture of salt, sand, and snow into Ispahan. In the markets the merchants covered their goods with cloths and longed for spring. Bulky in anklelength sheepskin cadabis, they huddled over charcoal braziers and kept themselves warm with gossip about their king. Though much of the time they reacted to Alā’s exploits with a chuckle or a wry, resigned glance, the latest scandal brought a pinched gravity to many faces that was not a result of the raw winds.

  In the light of the Shah’s daily drinking and debauchery, the Imam Mirza-aboul Qandrasseh had sent his friend and chief aide, the mullah Musa Ibn Abbas, to reason with the king and remind him that strong drink was an abomination to Allah, forbidden by the Qu’ran.

  Alā had been drinking for hours when he received the Vizier’s delegate. He listened to Musa gravely. When he perceived the subject of the message and caught the careful admonishing tone, the Shah stepped down from his throne and approached the mullah.

  Disconcerted but not knowing how else to behave, Musa continued to speak. Presently, with no change of expression, the king had dribbled wine over the old man’s head, to the astonishment of all present—courtiers, servants, and slaves. Throughout the remainder of the lecture he had dripped strong drink all over Musa, wetting his beard and his clothing, then dismissed him with a wave of his hand, sending him back to Qandrasseh sodden and totally humiliated.

  It was a show of contempt for the holy men of Ispahan and was widely interpreted as proof that Qandrasseh’s time as Vizier was coming to an end. The mullahs had grown accustomed to the influence and privileges Qandrasseh had given them, and next morning in every mosque in the city dark and disturbing prophecies were heard concerning the future of Persia.

  Karim Harun came to consult with Ibn Sina and Rob about Alā.

  “He isn’t like that. He can be the most unselfish of companions, merry and lovable. You saw him in India, Dhimmi. He is the bravest of fighters and if he is ambitious, wanting to be a great Shahanshah, then it is because he is even more ambitious for Persia.”

  They listened to him silently.

  “I’ve tried to keep him from drinking,” Karim said. He looked miserably at his former teacher and his friend.

  Ibn Sina sighed. “He is most dangerous to others early in the morning, when he awakens with the sickness of yesterday’s wine in him. Give him senna tea then, to purge the poisons and take the ache from his head, and sprinkle ground Armenian stone in his food to rid him of melancholia. But nothing will protect him from himself. When he drinks you must stay out of his presence if you can.” He regarded Karim gravely. “You must also take care as you go about the city, for you are known as the Shah’s favorite and are generally regarded as the Qandrasseh’s rival. Now you have powerful enemies with a great stake in stopping your climb to power.”

  Rob caught Karim’s eye. “You must take care to lead a blame
less life,” he said meaningfully, “for your enemies will pounce on any weakness.”

  He recalled the self-loathing he had felt when he had made the Master a cuckold. He knew Karim; despite his ambition and his love for the woman, Karim had a basic goodness and Rob could guess at the anguish he felt in betraying Ibn Sina.

  Karim nodded. As he took his leave he grasped Rob’s wrist and smiled. Rob smiled back; it was impossible not to respond. Karim still had his handsome charm, though it was no longer carefree. Rob saw great tension and restless uncertainty in Karim’s face, and he looked after his friend with pity.

  Little Rob’s blue eyes regarded the world fearlessly. He had begun to make crawling motions and his parents rejoiced when he learned to drink from a cup. At Ibn Sina’s suggestion Rob tried feeding him camel’s milk, which the Master said was the most healthful food for a child. It was strong-smelling and had yellowish lumps of butterfat but the little boy swallowed it hungrily. From then on, the woman Prisca no longer suckled him. Each morning Rob fetched camel’s milk from the Armenian market in a stone crock. The former wet nurse, always holding one of her own children, peered from her husband’s leather stall to watch for him every morning.

  “Master Dhimmi! Master Dhimmi! How is my little boy?” Prisca called, and she gave him a luminous smile each time he assured her that the child was fine.

  Because of the bitter air, patients in number came to the physicians with catarrh and aching bones and inflamed and swollen joints. Pliny the Younger had written that to cure a cold the patient should kiss the hairy muzzle of a mouse, but Ibn Sina pronounced Pliny the Younger not fit to be read. He had his own favorite remedy against the affliction of phlegm and the rigors of rheumatism. He carefully instructed Rob to assemble two dirhams each of castoreum, galbanum of Ispahan, stinking asafetida, asafetida, celery seed, Syrian fenugreek, galbanum, caltrop, harmel seed, opopanax, rue gum, and kernel of pumpkin seed. The dry ingredients were pounded. The gums were steeped in oil for a night and then pounded, and over them was poured warm honey bereft of froth, the wet mixture then being kneaded with the dry ingredients and the resulting paste put into a glazed vessel.

  “The dose is one mithqal,” Ibn Sina said. “It is efficacious if God wishes.”

  Rob went to the elephant pens, where the mahouts were snuffling and coughing, dealing less than cheerfully with a season unlike the mild winters they had known in India. He visited them three days in a row and gave them fumitory and sagepenum and Ibn Sina’s paste, with results so indecisive he would have preferred to dose them with Barber’s Universal Specific. The elephants didn’t look splendid as they had in battle; now they were draped like tents, festooned with blankets in an attempt to keep them warm.

  Rob stood with Harsha and watched Zi, the Shah’s great bull elephant, cramming himself with hay.

  “My poor children,” Harsha said softly. “Once, before Buddha or Brahman or Vishnu or Shiva, the elephants were all-powerful and my people prayed to them. Now they are so much less than gods that they are captured and made to do our will.”

  Zi shivered as they watched, and Rob prescribed that the beasts be given buckets of warmed drinking water to heat them from within.

  Harsha was doubtful. “We have been working them and they labor well despite the cold.”

  But Rob had been learning about elephants in the House of Wisdom. “Do you know about Hannibal?”

  “No,” the mahout said.

  “A soldier, a great leader.”

  “Great as Alā Shah?”

  “At least as great, but from a time long gone. With thirty-seven elephants he led an army over the Alps—high, terrible mountains, steep and snow-covered—and he didn’t lose an animal. But cold and exposure weakened them. Later, crossing smaller mountains, all but one of the elephants died. The lesson is that you must rest your beasts and keep them warm.”

  Harsha nodded respectfully. “Do you know that you are followed, Hakim?”

  Rob was startled.

  “That one there, sitting in the sun.”

  He was just a man huddling in the fleece of his cadabi, seated with his back to the wall to hide from the cold wind.

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes, Hakim, I saw him follow you yesterday too. Even now, he keeps you in his sight.”

  “When I leave here can you follow after him cleverly, so we may discover who he is?”

  Harsha’s eyes gleamed. “Yes, Hakim.”

  Late that evening Harsha came to Yehuddiyyeh and tapped on Rob’s door.

  “He followed you home, Hakim. When he left you here, I followed him to the Friday Mosque. I was very clever, O Honorable, I was invisible. He entered the mullah’s house wearing the ragged cadabi and after a short time emerged clad in black robes, and he went into the mosque in time for Final Prayer. He is a mullah, Hakim.”

  Rob thanked him thoughtfully and Harsha went away.

  The mullah had been sent by Qandrasseh’s friends, he was certain. Doubtless they had followed Karim to his meeting with Ibn Sina and Rob and then had watched to determine the extent of Rob’s involvement with the prospective Vizier.

  Perhaps they concluded he was harmless, for next day he watched carefully but could see no one who might have been trailing after him and, so far as he could tell, in the days that followed he wasn’t spied on again.

  It remained chill, but spring was coming. Only the tips of the purplegray mountains were white with snow, and in the garden the stark branches of the apricot trees were covered with tiny black buds, perfectly round.

  Two soldiers came one morning and fetched Rob to the House of Paradise. In the cold stone throne room small knots of blue-lipped members of the court stood about and suffered. Karim was not among them. The Shah sat at the table over the floor grille through which oven heat drifted. After the ravi zemin was out of the way he motioned for Rob to join him, and the warmth trapped by the heavy felt tablecloth proved to be pleasant.

  The Shah’s Game was already set up, and without conversation Alā made his first move.

  “Ah, Dhimmi, you have become a hungry cat,” he said presently.

  It was true; Rob had learned to attack.

  The Shah played with a scowl on his face, eyes intent on the board. Rob used his two elephants to do damage and quickly gained a camel, a horse and rider, three foot soldiers.

  The onlookers followed the game in rapt, expressionless silence. Doubtless some were horrified and some delighted by the fact that a European nonbeliever appeared to be besting the Shah.

  But the king had vast experience as a sneaking general. Just as Rob began to think himself a fine fellow and a master of strategy, Alā offered sacrifices and drew his enemy in. He employed his own two elephants more adroitly than Hannibal had used his thirty-seven, until Rob’s elephants were gone, and his horsemen. Still Rob fought doggedly, calling upon all Mirdin had taught him. It was a respectable time before he was shahtreng. When it was over, the courtiers applauded the king’s victory and Alā allowed himself to look pleased.

  The Shah slipped a heavy ring of massy gold from his finger and placed it in Rob’s right hand. “About the calaat. We now give it. You shall have a house large enough for a royal entertainment.”

  With a haram. And Mary in the haram.

  The nobles watched and listened.

  “I shall wear this ring with pride and gratitude. As for the calaat, I am quite happy with your Majesty’s past generosity and I shall remain in my house.”

  His voice was respectful but it was too firm and he did not turn his eyes away quite fast enough to prove humility. And all who were present heard the Dhimmi say these things.

  By the following morning, it had reached Ibn Sina.

  Not for nothing had the Chief Physician twice been a vizier. He had informants in the court and among the servants at the House of Paradise, and from several sources he heard about the rash stupidity of his Dhimmi assistant.

  As always in time of crisis, Ibn Sina sat and thought. He w
as aware that his presence in Alā’s capital city was a source of royal pride, enabling the Shah to compare himself to the Baghdad caliphs as a monarch of culture and a patron of learning. But Ibn Sina was also aware that his influence had limits; a direct appeal would not save Jesse ben Benjamin.

  All his life Alā had dreamed of being one of the greatest Shahs, a king with an undying name. Now he was preparing for a war that could take him either to immortality or to oblivion, and it was impossible at this moment for him to allow anyone to obstruct his will.

  Ibn Sina knew that the king would have Jesse ben Benjamin killed.

  Perhaps orders already had been given for unidentified assailants to fall upon the young hakim in the streets, or he might be arrested by soldiers and tried and sentenced by an Islamic court. Alā was capable of political craft and would use the execution of this Dhimmi in a manner that would serve him best.

  For years Ibn Sina had studied Alā Shah and he understood the workings of the king’s mind. He knew what must be done.

  That morning in the maristan he summoned his staff. “Word has reached us that in the town of Idhaj are a number of patients too sick to travel here to the hospital,” he said, which was true. “Therefore,” he told Jesse ben Benjamin, “you must ride to Idhaj and hold a clinic for the treatment of these people.”

  After they discussed herbs and drugs that must be taken with him on a pack ass, and medicines that could be found in that town, and the histories of certain patients they knew to be ill there, Jesse said goodbye and left without delay.

  Idhaj was a slow, uncomfortable three-day ride to the south, and the clinic would take at least three days. It would give Ibn Sina more than enough time.