by Judith Tarr
She said the word calmly, without the hiss of hate and fear that Aidan had always heard in it. As if it were only a name.
It was sublimer than contempt. Aidan gave it what tribute he could muster. “They are the Assassins. Madmen, drugged or possessed, trained to kill in utmost silence and with utmost dispatch. They believe that murder is their path to Paradise. They obey a mad king, or kings. There is some doubt that they are human.”
“They are quite human,” said Margaret with only the barest hint of irony. “They are schismatics, heretics as Christians would say, fanatic followers of one whom they call the Lost Imam. Their heart and center is in Aluh Amut, Alamut, the Nest of Eagles in Persia; but they are strong through the lands of Islam. They are very strong in Aleppo, where is the House of Ibrahim. And they are strongest in Masyaf in Syria, so that some are calling that fortress Alamut the lesser, or simply Alamut.
“Their faith is simple enough. They wait for the return of their Imam who was lost long ago. They live by strictest laws. All other faiths are false, and false believers are their prey. They work their will through terror; murder is, indeed, their road to salvation. They have slain caliphs and sultans, lords of Islam and of Christendom, priests and mullahs and ascetics: any who has set himself against their mission or their lord.
“The greatest of their chieftains in Syria is the lord of Masyaf. Sinan is his name. Sinan ibn Salman ibn Muhammad, who calls himself Rashid al-Din; whom others call Sheikh al-Jabal, the Old Man of the Mountain. He professes loyalty to the lord in Alamut, and yet it is an open secret that he serves himself foremost. The Assassins of Syria pay lip service to Alamut and do the bidding of Masyaf. In Aleppo they do not even trouble to bow to Alamut.
“You know what power is,” said Margaret. “Never too sweet, and never enough. Sinan bids fair to command all his sect, and through it to sway most of Syria and Outremer to his will. But most is not all. He would have more. In order to win it, he needs eyes and ears in every city; he needs allies, servants, slaves. He thinks,” said Margaret, “that he needs the House of Ibrahim.”
While Margaret spoke, Aidan left his chair and began to prowl. It was his way; he could sit still, if he must, but stillness robbed him of his wits. In the silence he spun on his heel, facing the lady, waiting.
She smiled very faintly at a memory. Gereint, warning her: “He can never sit for long, except in the saddle. He can’t help it. He was born restless. God’s mistake. His brother got all the quiet; he got all the fire.”
“That’s not strictly true,” Aidan said. Suddenly he grinned. “But true enough.” His head tilted. “Sinan wants a web of loyal spies. I can understand that. Why precisely your mother’s family?”
“It is the greatest,” Margaret answered. “And it has something which he wants.” She met his eyes. Sea-grey, Gereint had said, like his own: northern seas and northern stone. They put her in mind of fine steel. When he shifted, the strangeness flared at her, cat-green. “I was a widow when Gereint came here,” she said, “a ruling lady with two young children, and men enough to defend me, and Aqua Bella mine by right. My husband had been a vassal of the Prince of Antioch; he left other sons than Thibaut to inherit his lands. It had not mattered to me. I had Aqua Bella. And I had my share in the House of Ibrahim.
“Sinan asked for me. For me, not for one of my cousins, because I was both Frank and Saracen. My Christianity was no impediment. I am, after all, a woman, and a woman is what her man commands her to be. He wanted my House and my place in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Perhaps, a little, he wanted me. I was not so ill to look at when I was young.
“I refused him,” she said. “He persisted. He could not understand that I was my own woman. I had taken one husband for duty and to please my father. I chose the other to please myself. Then, I thought, Sinan would let me be; and I wedded my daughter to a baron in Acre, lest he turn his mind to her.
“But Sinan is of the people of Alamut. He accepts no will but the will of his master, and since he reckons himself master, that will is solely his own. He granted me some little peace. Then he commanded me. I would set aside my Frankish boy; I would accept his suit. My answer had no words. Only laughter. I was proud of it. I was a very perfect idiot.
“I grew more perfect with time’s passing. Sinan, having commanded, turned to threats. He slew my best hunting hound; he slew the mare I had raised from a foal. I gave him only defiance. Then he let me be. I thought that I had won. I lowered my guard. And when the new message came, I defied it. Yield, it said, or truly I resort to force.
“I defied it,” she said, “and for a long while again no blow fell. I was wise, I thought. I took great care to guard myself. I thought that he would abduct me; I took every precaution against it.
“But he is an Assassin. His force is deadly force. He did not take me. He took my lord.”
Aidan was still. A quivering stillness, like a flame where there is no wind.
“So you see,” said Margaret, “it is all my doing. I will not surrender the House of Ibrahim into that man’s hands.”
“Indeed you shall not.”
His face and his voice between them brought her to her feet. “You have no part in this.”
“Your enemy has made certain that I do.”
“Then you had best slay me, for I have been your kinsman’s death.”
Aidan considered the logic of it. He could do that, even in the white heat of rage. His teeth bared. It was not meant to be a smile. “You know what your folly has won you. That is revenge enough. No, my lady; your suitor owes me a blood debt. He will pay it in his own person, if I have to pull down Alamut stone by stone.”
“Masyaf,” she corrected him, cool and fearless.
“Masyaf, and Alamut, and every hut and hovel which owes fealty to the Hashishayun, if need commands it.”
“All for a single human life?”
“He was my sister’s son.”
She touched him as if she thought that he would burn. Her hand was cool and steady. He caught it. It did not try to escape, even when his grip woke pain. “So strong,” she said. Observing only, interested. “Do you truly mourn for him? Or are you glad to have found so mighty a battle?”
He could kill her. Easily. One effortless blow. Or he could break her mind. She was a mortal woman. She was nothing before his power.
She knew it. She cared not at all. She could do naught but what she did; she would yield for no man, nor ever for a white he-witch whom grief had driven to folly.
He let her go. “I will do what I will do,” he said.
She bowed. It was not submission. “Will you see your kinsman laid in his tomb?”
“I have time,” he answered her.
“Indeed,” she said, “you do.” She sat again, called for her women.
He was dismissed. That was novel enough, and he was bemused enough, that he let her have her will. Later she would pay his price. If he chose to ask it.
