The Waste Land

by Simon Acland

  The rush of guards shattered the stillness. My hands and feet were untied. I was pulled down to the ground where I struggled to hold myself upright as the blood pumped painfully back into my extremities. My arrival obviously provoked excitement and consternation, for a heated gesture-laden conversation took place between the broken-legged leader and the watch. Then I was led into that silent keep, through an empty hall, and up a spiral staircase to a small stone room. There I found a platter of fresh flatbread and the spiced paste that I had eaten before, fat grapes, an ewer of water with a goblet and a bowl, and a clean set of clothes. The ewer and bowl, in fine white-glazed earthenware scratched with brown patterns of flowers, stood beside the food on a little wooden table intricately inlaid with bone. The clothes lay on a low couch, which doubled as a bed.

  My room was set in the outside wall. The slit window was much too narrow to allow a man to pass, but gave a fine view down into the valley. In the distance behind, sharp snow-covered mountain ranges sliced the sky. I was impressed by the comfort of my prison; it was more civilised by far than the dank oubliettes beneath the castle at Bouillon, but prison it surely was, for I had heard a bolt slide home, and shake the door as I might there was no give at all. Famished, I tore the bread and wiped it in the paste, gulping it down with draughts of water. The dark grapes were sweet and juicy. I then tasted a small lump of some waxy perfumed sweetmeat, only to recoil, finding that it stung my tongue and dried my mouth. Fearing poison, I took some more water to rinse my mouth and noticed that it foamed, a little like the liquid soap I had seen the Abbot use to wash his hands at Cluny on special occasions when he allowed himself small luxuries. I stripped, grateful at last to shed the heavy mail coat that had chafed my skin for so long, and tested the scented waxy soap on my skin with a little water. The smell and the sensation were good and I vigorously rubbed myself over, creating a white foam on my body, which I wiped off with a cloth. The garments left for me were robes in Arab style, fine white cotton, loose and flowing. I donned them tentatively but found them very comfortable after my rough undershirt. Thus restored and reinvigorated, intrigued by the sophisticated civilisation of my prison, I lay down on the couch to wait.

  I was not kept for long. The bolt grated back, the door swung open, and four dark gaolers stood there indicating that I should follow them. Two in front, two behind, all well-armed with short spears fashioned from a strange white wood, they escorted me back down the little stairway, and through a wide doorway on the far side of the hall. I supposed my fate was about to be decided, but for all that I felt strangely calm as I followed along winding passageways, up twisting stairs and then down again. I lost my sense of direction utterly in that labyrinth, spending my attention instead on the outlandish nature of the decorations and furnishings. At last a wide corridor led to a closed wooden door, covered in the finest carvings the castle had to offer. In the middle gleamed a bronze knocker shaped like a hand, hinged at the wrist. The first guard swung it three times so that the tips of the fingers tapped on a brass plate beneath. From inside, a dark voice gave the guttural command to enter. The guard opened the door with nervous respect and gestured to me that I should go forward.

  I found myself in a narrow space, the walls on either side lined with precious books. I moved on into the perfect proportions of an oval room. On all sides were shelves, packed with volumes whose leather gilt-stamped spines gleamed gently. This spectacular library was interrupted only by a massive stone fireplace, which reached right up to the dark vaults of the cedarwood ceiling. The floor was laid with fine carpets patterned with medallions and arcane symbols whose meaning was obscure to me. Four lamps set on beaten copper tables spread pools of warm light, but most illumination was provided by a window at the far end of the room, of four arches, pinched at the shoulder in the same way I had seen before, held up on three slender columns. Silhouetted against the light, gazing out at the same mountains visible from my chamber, stood a tall figure, robed and turbaned. This ominous form turned slowly round. His white robes hung down behind like the wings of some vast snowy owl. A cruel hooked nose beaked from his face between two hooded black eyes. I faltered and then continued my approach. I was chilled to see that the black centre of each eye was ringed by a bizarre yellow circle inside the iris, accentuating the whole impression of some great bird of prey.

  “Welcome to Alamut, the nest of the eagle.”

  I started, for the harsh voice had spoken a Latin that was passable, if strangely accented.

  “I,” he continued, after a pause as if for effect, “am Hasan-i Sabbah, Grand Master of the Nizaris, Lord of the Assassins, known by some as the Old Man of the Mountains.”

  I bowed low. Determined not to be outdone in the matter of languages, I replied with words that I had picked up on my journey, “Salaam Aleikoom. I am Sir Hugh de Verdon, knight of the Cross, at your service.”

  Hasan-i Sabbah’s eyes glinted. “Wa Aleikoom Salaam. I see you are more cultivated than some of your kind. Most of you appear to think that we are ignorant barbarians simply because we do not share your religious beliefs. As you can see,” and he gestured at the great shelves of his library, “some of us have just a little learning. Are you one who knows only how to ravage, pillage and kill, or can you read too?” he continued with harsh mockery in his voice.

  “My lord, I have had the honour of being a novice at the great monastery of Cluny. I have studied Latin, as you can tell,” for my lack of Arab vocabulary now forced me to revert to this familiar tongue, “but also Greek. At Cluny we had a famous library which is perhaps…” I was about to use the words ‘even greater’ but another glance round the room revised my choice, “almost as great as this.”

  Hasan’s strange eyes now drilled into me with an almost physical force. “So you read Greek, do you?” he said with sudden sharp interest. He stroked his neat pointed beard pensively.

  “I hear you spared the life of my son. Maybe you even saved him. For that reason alone you have been spared in turn and brought here. You are the first Franj soldier ever to see the inside of Alamut. I had not planned that you should live to tell others about it. But now perhaps…perhaps Allah has brought you here for other reasons too. Great is His wisdom. I could perhaps use you, my Greek-reading Crusader knight, to further my plans.”

  “My lord, I am hardly a Crusader knight any more. I am an outcast from my own people. I killed two fellow Christians in a vain attempt to save the lives of foreign women and children. I ran from my fellows. I can never return. At Cluny I failed to complete my novitiate. I never became a full monk. Now I have also failed my test as a Knight of the Holy Cross.”

  Hasan smiled sardonically again. “What do you mean – Knight of the Holy Cross? How is it possible? If I understand your Bible correctly, your god teaches that all killing is wrong. He teaches that you should turn the other cheek when your enemy strikes you. Your Saint Augustine worked hard against that creed to justify your wars in the name of God. But personally I find the writings of Saint Basil so much more convincing, with his arguments that even for a soldier to kill is a sin. Perhaps this accounts for the greater civilisation of the eastern church.”

  I understood the mockery behind this erudite display of knowledge of my own culture, but my desire to interrupt was quelled by Hasan’s fierce gaze and I could only listen quietly as he continued.

  “Why, after all, we Moslems revere Jesus the Christ as a prophet. All we challenge is your absurd belief that he is the Son of God – for what father would be so cruel as to condemn his only son to agonising death when that son is loyal and obedient? And when it is within his power to prevent it? And as for his death and resurrection. Well, perhaps there is some truth in that part of the story. My religion, you see, is the true Islamic faith. We too believe in resurrection. For Nizar, the rightful Imam, will be reborn. They killed him treacherously in his prison in Alexandria. But he will return. He will return as the Mahdi. To accomplish his return is my life’s work, for then even the most fanatical Sun
ni will have to acknowledge the true Shi’a faith, and all the Shi’ites will be united with us Nizaris.

  “From the days of my boyhood I have felt love for all branches of learning. I have always been a seeker and searcher for knowledge, always on a quest for truth. It was thanks to my learning that I won control of this castle. Have you read your Virgil? The Roman poet tells us how poor Queen Dido struck a bargain to buy all the land that could be fitted inside an ox’s skin. They laughed at her but she cut the hide thinly round and round into a great rope to enclose the site of her city. As if to Carthage then I came, I struck the same bargain for Alamut. I bound this castle round with strips of hide from one buffalo. I even went one better than Aeneas’s queen, for the three thousand dinars of my bargain were paid for me by another. He was too scared to resist my command. Thus I won control of this castle.

  “Since I became its master, I have not once left this room. Here I stay, surrounded by my books and my knowledge. I sleep little, for why waste time that can be used for study? I eat and drink only what I need to stay alive. What do I care for worldly treasures? What do I care for silver or gold? All that matters is wisdom, knowledge, and the power that they bring.

  “If I need something done in the world outside, I send my da’is, my Assassins, to complete my mission. My da’is give me absolute obedience. They will die for me without question. They can bring me anything I require. Indeed, the group which you encountered were entrusted with such a task. How important their mission, you can judge from the fact that it was led by my own son Mohammed. As I said, it is to your good fortune in saving him that you owe your own life.”

  While we had been talking, the sky outside had grown dark, and now the only light in the room shone from the four lamp-lit tables. Hasan moved towards one of these and lifted an ancient volume bound in tattered hide. The lamp lit his aquiline features from below, casting deep shadows up his sinister face. A shudder ran up my spine, as if a breath of cold air picked my bones in whispers.

  “This is what they brought me. This is what they brought me back from Georgia, the ancient land of Colchis. I first heard of this book many years ago on my travels to the north. At first, I thought it mythical, but then I had word that a copy lay in a hermitage at Nokalakevi on the Black Sea. My da’is had to get there before Georgia’s new King David won his land back from the heretic Seljuks and made such journeys as good as impossible for my people. They achieved their end only just in time; those feeble Turks have now been crushed there just as at the other end of Asia Minor by your comrades.”

  But my attention had been caught by the book which had previously been covered by the old volume in Hasan’s hand and now lay revealed on the table. As I read the title – ‘P. Ovidi Nasonis – Metamorphoses’ – a sharp flash of painful memory shot through the scars left by those thirty-six lashes across my buttocks, transporting me back to my punishment and humiliation at Cluny. Hasan’s sharp eyes, shadowed black from below in their deep sockets, fixed me and read my expression.

  “I see you know that book. Just as Virgil’s tale of Dido helped me to win Alamut, so there is truth behind some of the old legends retold by other ancient poets. Not of course in Ovid’s silly tales of girls raped and transformed into nightingales and swallows, but in the stories he tells of ancient lore and medicine, yes.”

  Hasan began to recite in his strange Latin, and the rhythm of those well-remembered lines made my heart beat faster:

  “Interea validum posito medicamen aeno

  fervet et exsultat spumisque tumentibus albet.

  illic Haemonia radices valle resectas

  seminaque floresque et sucos incoquit atros;

  adicit extremo lapides Oriente petitos

  et quas Oceani refluum mare lavit harenas;

  addit et exceptas luna pernocte pruinas

  et strigis infamis ipsis cum carnibus alas

  inque virum soliti vultus mutare ferinos

  ambigui prosecta lupi; nec defuit illis

  squamea Cinyphii tenuis membrana chelydri

  vivacisque iecur cervi; quibus insuper addit

  ova caputque novem cornicis saecula passae.

  his et mille aliis postquam sine nomine rebus

  propositum instruxit mortali barbara maius,

  arenti ramo iampridem mitis olivae

  omnia confudit summisque inmiscuit ima.

  ecce vetus calido versatus stipes aeno

  fit viridis primo nec longo tempore frondes

  induit et subito gravidis oneratur olivis:

  at quacumque cavo spumas eiecit aeno

  ignis et in terram guttae cecidere calentes,

  vernat humus, floresque et mollia pabula surgunt.

  quae simul ac vidit, stricto Medea recludit

  ense senis iugulum veteremque exire cruorem

  passa replet sucis; quos postquam conbibit Aeson

  aut ore acceptos aut vulnere, barba comaeque

  canitie posita nigrum rapuere colorem,

  pulsa fugit macies, abeunt pallorque situsque,

  adiectoque cavae supplentur corpore rugae,

  membraque luxuriant:”

  “And so the caldron with the potion in

  boils furiously and foams about the brim.

  In it she cooks a potent brew of flowers;

  juices with magical, mysterious powers;

  roots dug up in the vales of Thessaly;

  Orient stones; and sands washed by the sea,

  its ebbing tide; frosts gathered by the light

  of a full moon; wings now bereft of flight

  once a fell screech-owl’s, and its carcass too;

  the entrails of a dubious werewolf, who

  is able to transform his aspect grim

  into a man’s; she adds the scaly skin

  of a Cyniphian water-snake; also

  the liver of a long-lived stag; a crow

  nine generations old bestows its head

  and eggs. When these, and others left unsaid,

  countless in number, all were in the pot

  to form the Eastern witch’s magic plot,

  she took an olive branch, withered and dry

  and stirred and stirred the mixture thoroughly.

  And as the dry stick stirred the steaming brew

  first it turned green, then quickly from it grew

  green leaves, and in a another trice it bore

  a load of bulging olives. Furthermore

  wherever from the fiercely boiling pot

  froth was flung upwards, on whichever spot

  the hot drops landed, there the ground turned green

  and blooming flowers suddenly were seen

  amid fresh grass all soft and lush with life.

  On seeing this Medea took her knife

  and in the old man’s throat she made a slit

  letting the blood out and replacing it

  with potion. And as Aeson took it in

  through mouth and wound, his hair, so white and thin

  before, turned thick and black, as did his beard

  while all his former leanness disappeared

  and with it, too, his bloodless, pale aspect

  and general demeanour of neglect;

  his wrinkles vanished and his flesh became

  quite firm and full, his frail limbs strong again.”

  “…Aeson miratur et olim

  ante quater denos hunc se reminiscitur annos,”

  I completed,

  “He looked on wonderingly and seemed to know

  himself when young, full forty years ago.”

  Hasan-i Sabbah’s eyes flashed with wild excitement.

  “For you see, in my hand here I hold…I hold the recipe used by Medea to give Jason’s father Aeson new life and vigour. A dangerous procedure indeed, for we know Pelias’s subsequent sad fate. But now Allah has sent me the perfect subject on which to test this experiment. Tomorrow we shall try Medea’s medicine out on you.”

  Aghast, I struggled for words.

/>   “But you must be mad. Quite mad. How can you believe that such pagan magic could possibly work? Anyway I am not old.”

  Hasan cackled with laughter.

  “I see you do not understand what this magic can do. I am searching for knowledge. Medicinal treatises I have in number, for my race is learned in that science.” Hasan gestured towards one section of his shelves. “I wish to know whether this book,” – he shook the slender volume in his right hand – “whether this book should be added to the section of my library on medicine, or shelved over there amongst my ancient myths and legends.”

  He gave another bitter, cruel laugh.

  “You will need a good night’s sleep. You will need all your strength for tomorrow. I want my subject to be as fit as possible to withstand the treatment.”

  I was speechless in amazement and horror as I tried to absorb what was going to happen to me. Hasan must have given some secret sign, for the doors opened and I was marched back down the labyrinthine corridors to my little wall-bound space. More food and drink had been left and I did it such justice as I could manage before lying down in an effort to sleep. I spent half the night contemplating my fate, trying to pray, passing through my mind the events of my life, unable to think of anything stranger than the interview I had just experienced. Soon at least I would be sent to join Blanche. Eventually I fell into a troubled, restless dream-filled sleep.

  Did I wake from those dreams? Or did I fall deeper down into them? The door of my chamber – my cell – opened, and the impassive guards led me away, their white spears at the ready. They fell in behind two more guards carrying great gold candleholders worked with enamel, each holding at least ten candles, and followed through the dark labyrinth to Hasan’s library. Again they tapped the brass fingers on the carved wooden door and again I passed fearfully inside.

  A vast bronze cauldron was now set before the library’s great fireplace. It must have recently been taken from the fire, for fumes seethed from it and filled the room with strange synthetic perfumes. The heady scent made me drowsy and weakened my knees. Unstoppered vials of ivory and coloured glass were laid out on a table whose top was so finely fashioned that it looked to be one single piece of bone held up by legs of hard black wood. But above all, my attention was drawn to the great golden dish, a shallow grail, set upon that table.