Omar Khayyam - a life

by Harold Lamb

  '"Would you like this?" she said faintly, when he had exhausted the misdemeanors of the moon.

  "What? Oh, that! Why——" He took it in his fingers and smelled it. "It is yours?"

  "But I want you to take it," she said urgently, "and keep it."

  (Once her sister had thrown such a rose from the lattice of the balcony, and Yasmi had seen a youth of Baghdad pick it up and press it to his heart.) The son of Ibrahim merely looked at his rose; his mind was off somewhere with the moon. Yasmi brought it back to earth and herself again.

  "When you have your observatory——" Yasmi thought it must be something like the round tower of the Castle. "I——I will be glad."

  Then Omar smiled. "How old are you, Yasmi?"

  "Almost thirteen," she whispered. She had heard her mother and the other wives say that a girl could be married at thirteen.

  "When you are thirteen I will send you roses, lots of them."

  He went away then, wondering how he had come to say so much to that child in the striped dress with the hungry eyes. But Yasmi sat where she was, her eyes dark with excitement. Her whole body ached with delight. She heard the jingling of donkey bells and the cries of men as if from some remote place. All the street had altered, all these men were strangers. And she had a feeling deep within her that they would never change back to ordinary things again . . . She did not mind when the women slapped her for dawdling with the water at the fountain.

  After a while she ran out and picked herself a rose from the same hedge, and she carried it with the gray kitten to her sleeping quilt that night.

  "It is time," one of the women observed the next day, "that Yasmi wore the veil and kept to the anderun. My soul—she was seen hanging around a beardless student for an hour at the fountain."

  "No longer shall she wait in the shop," her mother agreed.

  Yasmi said nothing. This was to be expected. At last she would wear the veil of a marriageable woman. She felt sure that walls and lattices would not keep her love penned up.

  But Omar went away.

  A serai in the mountains by the great Khorasan road, three weeks' journey of a laden camel train to the west of Nisapur.

  No one slept during the first watch of the night, because no one could sleep. Fires of thorn bush crackled in the open courtyard; camels grunted and sighed in their kneeling places; horses munched dried grass in the corners, while beggars went about with their bowls and their endless "Ya hu ya hak!"

  Around the empty stew pots men sat licking the last of the grease and rice from their fingers, pausing to toss dried fruit or copper coins into the beggars' bowls. They were in a charitable mood because they were bound on a journey, a dangerous journey, and the giving of alms was a pious propitiation of fate.

  The serai keeper alternately cried out that he was not Moses to provide water where the last of the water had been used up, and counting the coins in his wallet on the sly. These were hectic days for the resthouse on the Khorasan road; even now, in midwinter, hundreds were riding in daily, all bound west to join the army.

  Men had spread their sheepskins upon every foot of the covered gallery around the courtyard. Some were burning charcoal in braziers and the glow lighted up rings of bearded faces. Khorasanis, Persians, and Arabs huddled in quilted coat or furs, smiling and arguing—glad of the rest after enduring the bitter mountain wind. Only the smooth Turkish faces with small eyes and high cheekbones were impassive. Cold was nothing new to these hardy riders from the steppes of mid-Asia; they were accustomed to war and wandering, and they talked little in any case.

  Rahim Zadeh, son of the Nisapur landowner, fortunately possessed a brazier, and he kept himself warm in a fine khalat lined with sable skins.

  He had heard the cry of a fanatical Hanbalite one night in Nisapur when he had been drinking wine behind a locked door, and it had seemed to him to be a voice of warning. Rahim, usually indolent except where amusement was to be had, felt that he must draw his sword in this war, and he had come with his milk-brother Omar of the Tentmakers and a score of armed retainers to join the armed host of the Sultan, Alp Arslan, in the far west.

  "At least,' he observed, "it will be more exciting than chasing antelope on the plain."

  Rahim's family belonged to the old Persian nobility, the Iranian aristocracy, more ancient than the Greeks. He had faultless manners, a taste for sugared wine. He played backgammon and polo well but he soon tired of a game.

  "Aiwallah," murmured one of his followers, "it is cold."

  Rahim yawned. It was cold enough, and muddy. Moreover, bugs had got into his sleeping skins. He glanced up as the serai keeper appeared at his shoulder and did not go away.

  "May it please the noble young lord," the fellow whispered, "we have women travelers in the house behind the serai."

  The noble young lord gave no sign of displeasure, and the keeper bent closer. "Some of the girls are from Baghdad, very pleasant and well-trained." He dropped the fiction that the inmates of the other house were also travelers. "If the Amir of Swordsmen cares for amusement——"

  Rahim hesitated and then got to his feet. "Say to the son of Ibrahim," he ordered his servants, "that I am gone awhile to—to talk with friends."

  "On my head," muttered the man who was cold.

  Enviously the men-at-arms looked after Rahim as he followed the serai keeper toward the stairs. There were no women here for the common born, but if Allah willed it, after the battle with the infidels, slaves would be hawked about for all. After warming themselves at the brazier they went to sleep.

  It was late when Rahim came back, stepping over the prostrate forms shrouded like the dead. He was tired and out of humor.

  Omar, kneeling on the sleeping robes, fanned the brazier red again and made room for his milk-brother. "Where wert thou?"

  "May the breed of innkeepers go to all the seven hells and burn," muttered Rahim. "May they eat dirt!" He threw himself down, glad that Omar was awake to complain to. "Where wert thou?"

  "Looking about. Oh, there is life upon this road." Omar smiled, because the highroad and above all the desert road always stirred him, who was desert born, with the blood of Arab wanderers in him. "Yonder is a great camp, and in the camp a tent as large as the Nisapur kala't. And the place full of Turks in armor with gold upon their helmets. I understand their talk a little. Some prince halted there the night. I saw him."

  Rahim sighed. Whatever Omar did, he did with all his intensity, plunging into things, getting messed up in them. Warfare was something new to the son of Ibrahim, and he went out of his way to look at strange horsemen, to ask questions at the halting places and even to examine the baggage bales offloaded from the camels. Omar found adventure in crossing a river, whereas he, Rahim, merely got wet. "Who?" he asked.

  "I did not hear. The lord was sitting on a red cloth by the fire in the tent, talking with some doctors of the law, his tutors. He is two years younger than thou, and he wears a white ermine kaftan. The doctors told him that a certain star he had seen was Suhail, but I knew it was not. No man can see Suhail from this spot at this hour——"

  "I know," Rahim lied hastily. "Isn't there a proverb——"

  'That the sight of Suhail is fortunate—yes."

  "Thou hast dared to speak before the Turks? But how?"

  "In Arabic," explained Omar, amused. "The boy tarkhan went from the tent with me, to be shown the constellations. Those doctors were fools, mouthing folly——"

  "Nay, scatterbrain, thou wert a greater fool to gainsay them. Wilt never learn not to deny the word of one who can set his slipper on thy lips?" Rahim was half-provoked, half-fearful. "What said the prince?"

  "He asked if the stars held any portent for the war."

  "Ah, and do they?"

  The young student was silent, tracing signs absently with a dagger sheath in the dried mud. "If we knew, Rahim," he responded quietly, "we would be wiser than the Magi. If we could read human fate! And still——I showed the boy where the planets stood in their houses—�
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  "Thou hast no need to show me," cried his foster-brother impatiently. "How stands the omen?"

  Omar shook his head. "Harken to Zarathustra! Two kings are going into battle and the heavens declare that the destiny of the king in the east is rising, and that of the monarch of the west is falling. But—listen to the prophecy—the portent of death hangs over both of them." Suddenly he laughed. "It's nonsense, to say that. But the lion cub stared as if he had seen a ghost."

  "The lion cub!" Rahim's eyes opened wide. "What——"

  "The prince, the one with the white coat. At least they called him that."

  "My fathers beard!" Rahim sighed. "Hast thou never heard of the Lion Cub?"

  "Nay."

  "May Allah the Compassionate befriend thee. There is but one! He is the eldest son of our Sultan, of Alp Arslan, the Valiant Lion. Thou hast prophesied victory to the prince-royal."

  "I did not know him."

  "Would any one believe? And more, thou hast foretold the death of his father, which"—Rahim's agile mind delved into possibilities—"no soothsayer in his senses would do, in public, anyway. Still, it means the throne to the Lion Cub. What said he?"

  "He asked my name, and I told him. He asked whom I served, and I said no one, being a student of the Nisapur madrasse."

  "Hmm. Well, if I know these Turks our masters, and if Alp Arslan dies, thou mayest go to this same Lion's Cub and claim the post of astrologer to the King. Then appoint me thy carpet spreader, at a rich salary."

  Omar shook his head.

  "I think," Rahim insisted, "the making of a fine soothsayer is in thee, scatterbrain. Everyone believes thee. Oh, Yarmak——" He kicked at one of his sleeping servants. "Yarmak, fetch me the jar in the leather case. A goblet."

  It was wine that Yarmak poured out into the cup that Rahim held. Forbidden wine. Rahim, who craved it, whispered that such a small sin would not count against the sanctity they would attain by fighting in the holy war. Omar, who cared little for it but who loved his foster-brother, would not gainsay him.

  "Still," he pointed out as he took the cup, "we may lose the battle."

  "Not we," cried Rahim. "Our Turkish Sultan may be a common soldier, but he wins all his battles. That, at least, was a sound prophecy."

  The sweet wine refreshed him and he took a second cup. He fancied himself at the battlefield, riding recklessly in advance of the Sultan's red banner, mounted on his big black horse—sweeping forward between the lines of the two armies, and meeting hand-to-hand a chosen hero of the Christians, some knight in splendid armor. He visioned himself cutting down the infidel champion, while the Moslems shouted his praise. He thought of taking the head of his enemy and casting it down before the horse of his Sultan . . .

  "Hark to this, Omar," he urged.

  But the milk-brother lay rolled up in the camel hair rug, sleeping as soundly as though combat and glory and royal favor did not exist.

  The valley of the Arsanas River within sight of the blue Lake Van in the Armenian mountains, five weeks' journey of a laden camel to the west of Nisapur. Early spring of the year 1071 of the Christian calendar.

  Jafarak, the King's jester, sat in meditation upon his white donkey. His short legs projected on either side the donkey's ribs. A scarlet cloak covered his wizened body. Only his clear brown eyes moved restlessly from side to side.

  For Jafarak, who did his best to keep near that grim Sultan, his master, was aware that this would be no ordinary battle.

  They had told him to wait by the baggage train, with the assemblage of mullahs, the priests of Islam. That, they had said, would be the safest place. But Jafarak had said, no. 'The safest place," he had retorted, "is behind my master's back, for the Moslems will send no arrows there and the Christians will never see it."

  This had pleased his master, the Sultan Alp Arslan, the Seljuk, Lord of the World, and King of the East and the West. So Jafarak kept his place by the red standard and the imperial parasol that was held by armed slaves over the head of Alp Arslan. Alp Arslan no longer laughed, in these last days that tried the patience of the Moslem warriors.

  For Alp Arslan had planted his standard near the head of the valley, beside the walls of the town of Malasgird. In front of him stretched the rolling, fertile valley. Up this valley was advancing the host of the Christians, of the accursed Roumis, the host commanded by the Emperor of Constantinople himself—the Emperor whose ancestors had been the arch foes of Islam for four centuries.

  Until now Alp Arslan had contented himself with making inroads far into the dominion of the Emperor—thrusting spearheads of horsemen into the vitals of Asia Minor, so long the stronghold of Asiatic Rome. These spear thrusts had wounded and angered the Roumis, until at last the Emperor had assembled all his power to strike back at the wary Turk who had challenged him so boldly, whose ancestors, sons of Tokak the Bowman, had emerged from the fastness of mid-Asia to ride victoriously almost within sight of Constantinople. Now the Emperor was advancing with his mailed cavalry, and his heavy infantry, his mercenary Bulgar archers, throngs of fierce Georgian swordsmen and friendly Armenians fighting to defend their land against the advance of Islam. A huge, slow-moving host, hybrid as the array of Sennacherib. Seventy thousand souls, men said, crawling up the valley after the retreating Turks fifteen thousand strong.

  The Emperor of the Christians, a fine soldier, was impatient to come to grips with the Turkish horsemen who had eluded him for so many months. And now, to the surprise of his own officers, Sultan Alp Arslan had planted his standard in the ground, and had quartered his cavalry regiments across the valley, to await the coming of the Emperor.

  It seemed a strange thing to Jafarak that fifteen thousand should sit down to wait when they were pursued by seventy thousand.

  He heard some of the amirs say, when they thought no one was listening—no one except the Court fool in his motley—that even the veteran Turkish cavalry could not withstand the charge of the heavier Roumi mailed lancers. And still Alp Arslan waited there with his cavalry, while the advancing standards of the Christians came nearer, moving slowly over the muddy fields. Jafarak knew that many officers were afraid of being penned up; they were accustomed to attack and pursuit, or swift retreat.

  "That will not be," Alp Arslan said in his deep, slow voice. "The camp of the Roumis is already placed far down the valley. They have pressed on to overtake us, and we are here. It is decided, it is written. And what is written will come to pass."

  Jafarak, who was sitting by the eldest prince, noticed that the boy glanced toward his father as if frightened by these words.

  Perhaps, thought the jester, the issue of the morrow's battle was already decided, as the pious mullahs proclaimed and as the learned astrologers prophesied. He thought of the impatience of the great Christian Emperor, of the muddy, bare fields, and the motionless horsemen of the Seljuk Turks who had never known defeat in battle. Perhaps it was decided, after all, and on the morrow they would only move hither and yon like pawns in a game foreordained.

  But Alp Arslan did not sleep that night.

  Before the first light Rahim was up, shivering with cold and excitement. He gave his sword to Yarmak to sharpen for the dozenth time, and set other men to grooming his black charger. Hastily he gulped down some dates and barley soaked in water. Now that the hour had come, it was not at all like the start of an antelope chase.

  Nor was it in the least as Rahim had fancied it would be. Instead of being summoned to saddle at daybreak and rushing forward with a shout, Rahim could do nothing except fidget about his horse for hours, while the curtain of mist around him thinned away, and his men squatted down and threw dice. When he mounted his horse he could see the heads and lances of riders passing by at a walk. At times he heard a sound like wind rushing through a forest far away, and once beyond the haze in the valley a loud murmur rose, like the crowd pressing about the mosque of Nisapur on a feast day.

  When a strange rider trotted by, Rahim cried out to him for news of the battle. The
man, a Turk, merely looked at him and went on. Then, beside himself with impatience, Rahim trotted off to his commander, an amir who had the volunteer swordsmen of Nisapur gathered around his standard.

  "Send us forward," he urged eagerly, "or we will not see the first blows struck."

  To his astonishment he learned that fighting had been going on for hours down the valley. The Khorasanis had heard strange tidings. The Christians had sent demons encased in iron against the Moslems ... a whole regiment had been drowned in the river . . . the Sultan had gone off to the mountains on the right, where hordes of Georgians and Armenians were pressing forward . . . the valley, for leagues, was full of Christians.

  "But no," cried someone, "there is our lord the Sultan. Look, yonder!"

  Rahim rose in his stirrups and stared. He saw a cavalcade of horsemen trotting across a mound beside him. The leader of the cavalcade rode a white horse—a broad, powerful man with mustaches that curled up on either side his lined brown face, beneath a towering black sheepskin hat. He held a white ivory baton in his rein hand, and a bowcase flapped against his hip as naturally as if he had been an archer of the palace guard.

  "Where is the Sultan?" whispered Rahim, peering among the officers.

  "Wallahi, that is he—there, the first one."

  Rahim had expected to see silk robes fluttering in the wind of a headlong gallop— plumed helmets—a banner—drums beating— he did not know what. Deep disappointment filled him at beholding these ordinary quiet men, with a dwarf on a white donkey trotting after them. He went back to his place in silence.

  At noon, when he felt both hungry and weary, Omar called him.

  "The battle is coming nearer, Rahim. I have been watching from the mound, with the Turkomans. Come!"