Alamut

by Judith Tarr

  For all the crush of people, the weight of sun and sanctity, the city-sickness that had beset him since he entered David’s Gate, he was steadier here than anywhere but under open sky. He would have liked to shout it aloud. See! Is there any holier place than this? See how it welcomes me!

  Joanna did not ask him what he wanted. She took a place in the line of pilgrims, and he took his own behind her. She was barely tiring, seeing all this familiarity with eyes made new because he was new to it. The pavement under their feet. The columns that held up the roof. The circle of pillars that rounded the Sepulcher, and over them the rotunda open to the sky. And all about that splendor of God, the splendor of man in mosaicwork: the Virgin; the Angel of the Annunciation; the Apostles; the Emperor of the Romans, Constantine in his glory; Saint Michael of the sword; the prophets; Saint Helena bearing the True Cross; and focus of them all, the child Jesus for whom it had all been made.

  But the tomb was hidden. In all that loftiness, it lay beneath a stone, a low lintel over it, and a priest on guard, directing each pilgrim downward to his heart’s desire. King or commoner, knight or monk, slave or free, here it was all the same. Even human, or not.

  He could have fled. If the priest had known what descended under his brusque and tireless hand... a flicker of thought as it touched: Half an hour more, and Marbod to relieve me, and, God’s bones, if he stands a moment longer between me and the privy — He did not even see the unmasked face, the eyes opened wide to dimness, the green cat-flare of the lamplight in them. Aidan bent them down and crossed himself, and descended into stone-cool darkness. Empty; and for that, they worshipped it. He laid his brow against the stone. Empty. Even prayer was silent here. It simply was.

  He spoke his vow in silence, as he was bound to do. To defend this place with sword, tongue, life. But first, the other. One word escaped him, a whisper in the gloom. “Alamut.”

  “Come,” said the priest, sharp, shattering vow and sanctity. “Time’s up. Out.”

  And if he rose up in a tower of flame, what would this earthbound idiot do?

  He came quietly, head bowed, meek as any proper pilgrim. Joanna was waiting. Her smile flickered. Her hand slid into his, simple as a child’s. She was thinking of wine lately drunk, and of a privy.

  She would never understand why he laughed. Softly; but heads turned. He met glares with a cloying show of humility and devout sign of the cross.

  oOo

  Thibaut was furious. “You went without me. You went into the city, and you didn’t tell me. I went half mad, looking for you.”

  Aidan refused to be contrite. Joanna was disgustingly smug. “So,” she said. “Next time, don’t lie abed so late. It’s your own fault for being so lazy.”

  If Aidan had not been there, Thibaut would have leaped at her. Not that he could ever have won a fistfight — damn her, she was still stronger than he was, and had the reach of him besides — but he was more than half mad, and she was smiling. Simpering. Daring him to do it.

  Therefore, by God’s bones, he would not. He folded his arms till they hurt, and lifted his chin. “I may be lazy, but I’m ready to go to court. You won’t even have time for a bath. You smell,” he said, “like a horse. On a dunghill. In a garlic field.”

  She had no scruples about audiences. She screeched and sprang.

  Aidan pulled them apart with appalling ease. He did not even try to stifle his laughter. Thibaut was embarrassed. Joanna, he was delighted to see, was mortified. She beat a rapid, and seething, retreat.

  oOo

  There was in fact time for a bath, and Aidan took it. It was shocking decadence, good westerners declared, to bathe in hot water, all over, every week. He could happily have done it every day; and did, here where he found indulgence in his madness. Like his cousin the cat, he was fastidious.

  Court dress was at least as complicated here as in Francia, and in the latest fashion besides. But even a prince there might not boast garments of silk so costly as these. Margaret’s gift, and she would not be gainsaid. Black, he was sworn to, and black it was, but black on black in brocade that would not have shamed an emperor. And under a cotte cut brief as all the dandies were wearing it in Paris, a shirt as fine as a spider’s weaving, as white as his own skin; and hose cut exactly to his measure; and shoes of — doeskin?

  “Gazelle,” said Thibaut.

  The cloak was best of all: watered silk, black and glossy as his hair, but its lining was his own beloved scarlet, and its brooch was ruby and gold. “I can’t — ” he began, with tearing reluctance.

  “You shall,” said Margaret.

  He turned to face her. She granted herself no such dispensation as her will forced upon him. She was all severity, swathed and coifed as relentlessly as a nun. She had trammeled all that was left of her beauty. But for a moment, as she looked at him, it glimmered in her eyes.

  It was that to which he yielded, and not her soft command. It gave her joy to see him: a pure joy, as in a fine horse or a rare jewel. And yet to her he was neither beast nor oddity, but simply himself.

  He bowed low and kissed her hand. “As my lady wishes.”

  oOo

  Joanna did not, after all, come with them. She pleaded weariness after her morning in the city. True enough; but Aidan knew that it was more than that. She was no more healed of her wounds than he, and less practiced in ignoring them. Later, he told his memory of her, hardly knowing what he promised.

  It was a very little distance to the palace, but they rode it, because they were what they were. A lady of the High Court must show her pride, even in mourning. She led her men-at-arms, her ladies, her son and her guest, as she had led them from Aqua Bella. Under the stark grey wall, in the shadow of the carven gate, Aidan lifted her down from the saddle. She was calm, unruffled by the clamor of the courtyard, where every lord’s retainer in Outremer seemed to jostle for precedence. On Aidan’s arm, with Thibaut a respectful step behind, she found her path cleared, the clamor muted. People whispered, as they must. A widow in this kingdom, ruler by right of her own demesne, was a valuable commodity. A widow on the arm of a handsome young stranger was fascinating, and more than faintly scandalous.

  Aidan was not precisely born to courts: he had not even known what a city was until he was old enough to be a page. Yet it was in his blood, and in a lifetime of being son and brother to kings. As he entered the wide glittering halls, strange with their eastern carpets and their scents of musk and sandalwood, he felt as if he had come — not home. But to a world which was, at its center, his own. These sun-stained people shimmering in silk, these dark-eyed women, these men with their air of mingled languor and ferocity, were courtiers; and courtiers, he knew. The dart of eyes, the whispers, the eddyings about power that was or power that wished to be, woke senses which the months of pilgrimage had lulled into sleep. It was like battle, but subtle. And, though his reputation would have died the death had he admitted it, in its way it exhilarated him.

  Lady Margaret drew an eddy of her own, of a size to raise his brows. She was not, in strength of arms or in size of holding, by any means one of the great ones of the kingdom. Yet she had power: the power of her presence, and the power of her empire of trade. The Constable of the Kingdom himself bowed over her hand, and the Marshal had condolences which seemed sincere. More to the point, the ladies accorded her respect, without open sneers at her breeding. Others were not so fortunate. They kept to themselves; veiled, some of them, in Saracen fashion, with dark eyes and plump ivory fingers fretting jewels as rich as any there.

  Thibaut was as tense as a hound in a new kennel, and carried himself the haughtier for it. There was, Aidan noticed, a certain division among the young as among their elders: tall and fair by tall and fair, and dark and small lingering side by languid silken side.

  The pullani were hardly infidels. Most were Syrian-bred, or Armenian: Christian on both sides. Thibaut was the odd one. His blood was true Saracen, and they all knew it. His mother they did not touch. But in quiet places away from e
lders, in the courtyards among the oranges and the pomegranates, he was fair prey.

  Aidan laid a hand on his shoulder, saying something, it did not matter what, and bared a gleam of teeth. Let them touch him now. It would be a pleasure to teach them tolerance.

  Thibaut’s wits were quick: he knew what Aidan was up to. He scowled. “Here, my lord. Don’t. It’s not fair.”

  “Are they?”

  “They’re beneath you. Look, you’ve better quarry waiting, like those knights in Acre.”

  That was true, and the boy wanted to fly on his own wings. Aidan was a falconer: he pulled him briefly close, and let him go.

  Names and faces blurred past. Later, when Aidan needed them, they would come clear. Today he was the lady’s shadow. That was accepted. They had had his name and his titles at his entrance, in the herald’s strong voice; they could see in his face that he had been kin to the lord who was gone. It was a little disappointing that he was not, after all, a scandal; but worse that though he was a royal prince and thus a rarity, he was a prince without an army. He could at least, he heard someone mutter, have brought a man-at-arms or two.

  Thibaut’s sentiments, almost to a word. Aidan smiled and glanced about. The boy had wandered, freed, and found a companion or three who seemed disinclined to tan his infidel hide for him. The eddies had altered again. Margaret seemed quite content to discuss needlework with a cluster of ladies, matrons all and not remarkably interested in her pretty shadow.

  He was not unduly dismayed. The glamour was its own defense. He leaned back against a wall hung with a carpet like a field of jeweled flowers, and watched the currents of the court.

  There were, he took note, a goodly number of women both handsome and more than handsome. These had their attendants: young, most of those, and much given to the fashion for silken indolence. And, his nose told him, for perfumed curls. Henna seemed much the rage for the darker gentlemen; the fairer, perhaps, assisted nature in their quest for perfect gold.

  He was a fine peacock for Rhiyana, but scent was past his limit. Curls... He shook a not-quite-straight, most unabashedly black lock out of his eyes, and smoothed his new beard. Very new, alas, and grievously out of fashion.

  His eyes crossed another. Dark, that one, and buried deep in admirers. The lady well deserved them: she was young, slender and tall, and very beautiful. And, from the set of her full and lovely mouth, very discontented. Something about her made him think of Joanna.

  Joanna would not have looked well in the cloth of gold that so splendidly adorned this lady, but the cut of the gown would suit her. Aidan smiled, thinking of it. The lady returned his smile.

  That had not been wise. Aidan shrugged under his mantle. What was wisdom, in a court? He sketched a bow. The lady’s eyes began to dance. Without her edge of discontent, she was breathtaking.

  And bold. Her lips pursed, miming a kiss. Her finger crooked, which was brazen. If no one yet had seen what passed, and with whom, he soon would.

  Aidan left the wall, wandering with apparent aimlessness, keeping his quarry at the edge of his eye. She knew what he did, and was amused. It gave her time to watch him.

  An elegant person in an archdeacon’s gown gave him her name. “Sybilla,” the man said. “Princess Sybilla. The king’s sister.” The elegant personage had a keen eye and a ready tongue. “Poor child, it’s not an easy life she has, with her brother so grievously afflicted, and no heir possible but through her. She must marry, and marry supremely well, for the kingdom’s sake. But the first man chosen for her proved a fool and a libertine, and shamed her beyond swift healing. Now the envoys quest through Francia, seeking another fit, if God ordains, to be our king.”

  “But your king lives,” Aidan said.

  “And for how long?” Grief shadowed the archdeacon’s eyes, deep and lasting. “He has been a leper since he was nine years old. It worsens as he grows out of boyhood. If he lives to be a man, he’ll not live much longer than that. And our kingdom needs a king to follow him without delay, a strong one, or surely it will fall.”

  “It’s fragile, this realm of yours.”

  The archdeacon nodded. “This is the sword’s edge. All Islam waits beyond us, crouched to spring. Saladin has sworn to drive us into the sea; to hound us to our lairs in the west, and scour us from the earth. Let him settle his differences with his own kind, and let us lose the strength of our crown, and surely he will keep his vow.”

  Aidan drew a breath. It was sweet, that tang of danger, that bright edge of fear. He smiled. “I think he may have to wait a while. It’s not so weak, this blade you’ve forged.”

  “God willing,” said the archdeacon. “I come from Tyre, which held even against Alexander. Our king is not remarkably less than he. Maybe he’ll live as long.”

  “You know him well,” said Aidan.

  The archdeacon shrugged. “I’ve been his tutor. I was the first to know that he was ill, and how. He played, you see, with the boys of his age, and you know how they are. They’ll test one another. One day they tested courage, pinching to see who would howl first with the pain. Our Baldwin had his arm pinched till the blood sprang, and he never made a sound, nor even flinched. That was rare fortitude, I thought, and fittingly royal.

  “But,” the archdeacon said, his eyes filling though he must have told this tale a thousand times in the years since it began, “he denied that it was courage. ‘I don’t feel anything,’ he said with perfect innocence. ‘Truly, I don’t.’ And truly he did not. His arm and hand were dead to any torment I dared inflict.

  “Of course I knew. We all knew. We tried to prove it false. We summoned every doctor east of the sea. We subjected him to tortures, to make him whole. Useless, all of them. God has made him what he is; God has no intention of letting him go.”

  And Sybilla, sulking amid her sycophants for that her new admirer had let himself be waylaid by her brother’s tutor, was God’s instrument for the continuance of the dynasty. “God’s ways are a mystery,” Aidan said. “I understand you’ve found a candidate for the lady.”

  The archdeacon was taken aback; then he eased. “Ah. Of course. You’re new from the west. Was he on your ship, our messenger?”

  “On one that came in just after it: and joyous he was, too. Not that he breathed a word,” Aidan said, “but rumors flew, as they will. He didn’t deny them.”

  The archdeacon shrugged slightly. “What can a messenger do?”

  “Lie,” said Aidan.

  The other laughed. Suddenly he looked much younger. “No, there’s no doubting it: you are a prince.”

  “You weren’t convinced?”

  “There are princes,” said that most worldly churchman, “and there are princes. You’ll do well here.”

  Aidan bowed an ironic degree. “You flatter me.”

  “I give you your due.” The archdeacon paused. His voice changed subtly. “Since your knowledge is so complete and your wisdom so evident, I forbear to ask your indulgence in the matter of the lady. She is young; she has been raised, if I dare say it, somewhat less than wisely. She — ”

  “She is headstrong, and willful, and not excessively inclined to reflection.” Aidan smiled at the archdeacon, who could not in propriety do other than look affronted. “I had a mare like that. She’d been let run wild, except when she was bred. Her foals were splendid, but they needed a strong hand. We were always most careful which stallion we chose for her.”

  It was hard for the poor man, to hear the truth so, and to be unable to rebuke the one who uttered it. Aidan was almost abashed. He spoke a little softer, with rather more care. “There, I overstep my bounds. She’s a fair lady; I pray her new lord is good to her. Under a wise hand, she’ll grow into wisdom.”

  The archdeacon accepted the apology for what it was. For that, Aidan not only liked him; he admired him.

  They understood one another. Aidan moved a little, away from the lady. The archdeacon cast eyes on a man with whom he needed to speak. But paused, first, as if at last he had made
up his mind to it, and said, “I heard you sing in Carcassonne, twenty years agone. I saw your temper then. I see it now.”

  “Headstrong, and willful, and not excessively inclined to reflection.”

  “So you would have us think. Be gentle with the child, prince. She’s no match for you.”

  “May I sing for her?”

  “At her wedding,” said the archdeacon, “with my blessing.”

  “Then, if I can, I shall.”

  The archdeacon bowed and sketched a sign of the cross. Aidan bent his head. Their eyes met briefly, before the archdeacon turned away.

  Aidan shivered a little. It was not so terrible, to be known here. This one neither hated nor, unduly, feared him. And in that last glance had been a bargain. For the princess’ safety, the archdeacon’s silence. Not from Archdeacon William of Tyre would Outremer discover that the prince had been a troubadour in Carcassonne, somewhat before he could, from the evidence of his face, been old enough to sing.

  A thread of melody wound through his head. Domna, pouois ne me no.us chal... “Lady, since you care not for me, and cast me away...” His own, that one. Someone else was claiming it of late; he was welcome to it. Aidan did not cling to his mind’s children, once they had grown and gone away.

  The lady was unhappy, now that he seemed to have forgotten her. The faithful would suffer for her pique. But Aidan had struck a bargain. He let himself be drawn toward the safer harbor of a circle of young knights. One had been at Acre, and one or two were new in Outremer. Those looked rough and raw and sun-scorched, and slightly stunned by the wonder of it all. “Here,” they greeted him, eyeing his elegance. “How do you do it? You look like a pullani born.”

  If it was an insult, he did not intend to notice. “First,” he replied, “a bath.” They looked appalled. “Do you know what they have here? Soap! Scented, by Our Lady’s sweet white breast, and soft as her kiss. With a dusky maiden to administer it, and another to wield the sponge, and...”

  oOo