by Harold Lamb
"Then it must be by day, and from the main gate," he assured himself. (The postern was locked shut from sunrise to sunset.)
After that Omar took to dozing on a roof pavilion from which he could watch the gate most of the day. He saw nothing that offered the slightest encouragement. No horses, and no men from outside were allowed within the gate; when villagers brought up stores they left them there for the Fidais to carry in. At times armed groups of Fidais emerged from underground and passed out the gate. In the same way others came in. More seldom a Da'i or two would enter or leave—they were always being sent on missions from Alamut, and returning to report. Hassan did not appear at all.
Yet the master of Alamut passed through the gate daily, unnoticed. Omar would never have suspected him, if he had not been scrutinizing every passerby.
For three days, a little after noon when the glare and the heat were greatest, he observed that the same tall Da'i who had left the postern the first night went out the main gate alone. After a half hour he returned and crossed the courtyard to disappear within the castle. This regularity stirred Omar's interest—as well as a certain familiarity in his walk. When Omar saw his hand lifted to open the inner door, he recognized Hassan in the dress of a Da'i. Hassan kept his eyes lowered and his hands—except for that one moment—in his sleeves, and his face had become that of a Chinese. Even the stoop of his shoulders and his knot of shining black hair proclaimed him Chinese. But he could not alter his hand, and he had not troubled to alter his walk, and Omar had a flawless memory for such things.
"But why does he disguise himself to leave his own gate?" he wondered. "And why does he go forth at the same hour?"
The answers occurred to him at once. The Rafiks had related that the master of the mountain came and went unseen. Evidently Hassan liked to impress his followers with his magical powers. Then Hassan himself had let slip the fact that his messenger pigeons were kept at the village—since he did not wish the men of Alamut to know how he received and sent messages. So he left secretly every afternoon to visit the pigeon-cote in the village.
To the Fidais and laymen outside he appeared to be one of the Da'is, while to the Da'is—Omar smiled as he glanced around. At this hour they were asleep or at work in the lower regions. If they happened to catch a glimpse of Hassan they probably took him for some new member from the outer world.
Omar who had drawn charts of half-seen stars could deduce another fact from Hassan's proceeding. The Fidais could not know all the Da'is, by face and voice.
"The chance of escape," he concluded, "is through the gate in the dress of a Da'i, in Hassan's footsteps."
After noon the next day he set about getting such a dress. Rukn ud Din had asked him more than once about the wine of paradise, and Omar remembered how eagerly Rukn ud Din had grasped a bowl of the drugged wine during the sword dance—and how Hassan had said that the scientists were not permitted the delights of paradise. He asked Rukn ud Din to come to his chamber, and he closed the door carefully upon them.
He did not need to pretend eagerness as he poured wine from the new jar into the bowl. Raising it to his lips, he smiled at the little philosopher.
"The wine of paradise!"
Rukn ud Din came hastily to the jar, his eyes intent.
"Is——is it the same?"
Omar held out the bowl to him. "Try, if it be not the same."
With a glance at the door Rukn ud Din sipped of it and sighed with almost painful relief. In a moment the bowl was empty, and color had come into his plump cheeks. Reluctantly, he surrendered the bowl.
"There is more, if it pleases thee," Omar observed carelessly.
By the time the third bowl was half empty, the little man lay stretched on the quilt, his eyes half closed. And he talked without ceasing, his words beginning to wander. Omar, sitting by him, asked quietly, as if they had been discussing it for some time:
"The gold Hassan hath, and the power, whence cometh it?"
"By fear. By fear of the dagger that strikes, and the dagger that strikes not. He hath taught us that men fear the unknown more than the known. Likewise, he hath the secret——"
Rukn ud Din raised himself to his elbow, and seeing the bowl, seized it and emptied it. "Allah be praised!" he muttered and sank into stupefied sleep, breathing heavily.
In a few minutes Omar had discarded his own outer garments, and had clad himself in the red satin khalat, the low felt boots and the square velvet cap pulled from Rukn ud Din's unconscious form. The coat was somewhat small, but the loose sleeves and the wide skirts looked well enough.
A glance from the embrasure showed Omar that it was not yet midafternoon. Probably Hassan had returned from the village.
Throwing the voluminous khalats of the erstwhile Bokharan horse dealer over Rukn ud Din, for the benefit of anyone who might look in the door, Omar folded his arms in his sleeves and stepped out into the corridor. In the distance he could hear voices, but no one approached the corridor.
Running silently, Omar gained the door into the courtyard. Through this he walked without haste, his head lowered as if in meditation. His skull felt strange without the accustomed turban. The glare of the limestone courtyard dazzled his eyes.
A pair of slaves passed him, carrying jars. Ahead of him the gate was empty, except for the guards. Omar's pulse quickened as he drew nearer.
The leader of the Fidais, who had a sword in his girdle, looked toward him casually. No one stirred, or showed any concern. Heat, reflected from the wall, quivered in the air. Four more steps would take him into the gate, Omar thought. One . . . two . . . three . . . four———
"The word of the day, what is it?" the leader of the guards asked irritably, and added, "master?"
Omar caught his breath. He had heard nothing and he had thought nothing of a password. Yet it would not do to hesitate.
"I cannot recall it. Our lord himself hath sent me——" and he searched his memory for a possible reason—"to the village . . . with a message for the pigeons."
He felt beneath the satin robe and drew from his own girdle the unmistakable silver tube of Hassan's pigeon post. "See, it is here, and I must not delay."
The guards in the shadow glanced up curiously, and their captain looked puzzled. He was a man trained to use weapons, not his wits. Quickly Omar thrust the tube into his hand. "Do thou keep it, while I hasten to the house of the pigeons, and bring back a carrier. But take care of the message, or the anger of the master will fall upon thee."
The warrior grasped the tube gingerly, at loss for words. "Y'allah!" he muttered. "Be quick!"
Omar hastened down the path, leaving the guards clustered about the surety for his return, and as he had promised, he wasted no time. Of the village itself he had caught only glimpses from the castle wall—enough to know that horses were kept there, and that caravans came and went by several roads. Inwardly he prayed that he would not meet Akroenos or any one who knew his face.
Passing through hayricks and manure heaps he made for the pigeon house, beneath the circling birds. Only peasants and strange tribesmen sat in the shade along the street. To the first man within the courtyard of the house, Omar cried:
"Two pigeons in a cage, swiftly."
"Ah. Is it pigeons of Alamut the lord seeks, or——"
"What else? 'Tis the command of the Shaikh al jebal."
The man looked startled, either because Hassan was not in the habit of sending for pigeons, or because the name itself frightened him. He lumbered off toward the rows of wicker cages.
"And a saddled horse from the stable. A good horse," Omar called after him urgently. "Send another man."
It was hard to pace idly back and forth, while the keeper of the pigeons shouted to the street at large that a red lord from the kal'eh demanded a fine, swift-paced steed from the stables at once, or calamity would come upon their heads. Drowsy men came to stare in at the courtyard gate, until the keeper ran up to Omar with a small wicker cage and a rope to tie it to the saddle.
&n
bsp; "Here it is as the noble lord commands. See, one feather is clipped square on the inner wing, and also a circle in red ink is here on the tail. By those tokens these pigeons will be told from others, if the lord——"
But a rearing horse was led up then, and Omar cut short all talk by mounting it. He leaned down, picked up the pigeon cage, and—judging that those on the service of Hassan rendered no thanks for aid—tightened his rein and trotted out of the courtyard.
In the main street of the village he turned to the right, away from the river. Akroenos had brought him up the river road, and he remembered the guards posted there. Where the other roads went, he did not know, but they all led away from Alamut, and the only thing he wanted was to put as much distance as possible between himself and Hassan before dark.
Turning into a track marked by the pads of caravan camels, he found himself descending a narrow valley. In a nest of boulders, men rose suddenly with lifted spears. But after looking intently at his robe and the horse he bestrode, they sat down again with a shouted greeting:
"Khoda hafiz!"
"God be with you!" cried Omar.
Once he was out of sight of the outpost, he lashed his horse into a gallop, leaping rocks and swerving among giant pine trees. Suddenly he burst out laughing.
In that message tube held for him at the gate of Alamut there lay the written words that he had found there in the first place. "Omar the Tentmaker is upon the road to Ray."
At dusk, on a lathered, limping horse, he left the last foothills behind him and came out into the plain. There was light enough to see the white ribbon of a road where the trail ended, and beside it a broken-down tomb, by the lighted huts of a farm.
Dismounting by the first fire, he asked for the elder of the farm and demanded a fresh horse. "I ride upon the service of the Shaikh al jebal" he said, suspecting that these people at the end of the mountain road would have served Hassan's men before now.
"The one," the old peasant asked, "who is above?"
"Ay, in Alamut."
After whispering together the peasants went away from the fire, leading Omar's horse. Out of the shadows came a small girl and seated herself by the pigeon cage when she was sure the strange man did not notice her. She put her finger into the cage and touched the birds' wings.
Omar sat with his head in his hands, too weary to think of food. He had got away from Alamut, but he was not hopeful that he could escape the reach of Hassan's servitors.
"How," asked a child's voice, "did you make them go into this wicker house?"
When Omar looked at her, she drew back in fright. Still, she did not want to leave the pigeons. "I see them," she whispered, "flying up there, high in the air. Sometimes they sit in the trees but when I come they go away." And her voice drooped miserably.
"They eat grain in the fields, but they will not wait to play with me," she announced after a while.
"Would you like them," Omar asked suddenly, "to come down and walk around your feet here?"
"Oh, yes," she breathed, and clapped her hands softly.
Omar had reached down into the wet clay beneath his feet. There was a pool close at hand and the ground had been trodden by animals coming to drink. Taking a double handful of the clay he pressed it together upon a short stick and modeled the body and head of a pigeon. The girl-child drew closer to watch with fascinated interest.
Then Omar stuck two smaller sticks into the clay pigeon for legs, and set it aside. "Wait," he told the child, "and after the sun has dried this tomorrow, put it near the water. The others will come down out of the air to talk to it. But you must sit still, and not run after them."
"Ai, it is like them," the girl said with conviction.
When the peasants brought up a fresh horse, Omar noticed that it was no farm animal. He stretched himself and took up the wicker cage.
"Will it come soon," the elder whispered, holding his stirrup, "the day that is not yet come?"
"Neh mi-danam; Khoda mi-danad. I do not know; only God knows."
Omar rode through the night. When he came to a walled city that he recognized as Kasvin, he circled it and found the great Khorasan road again beyond it, for the riders from Alamut might well be in Kasvin looking for him by now.
When the first light touched the distant mountains, and the shadow of the plain gave way to gray hillocks, irresistible drowsiness came over him. Holding to the saddle horn, he began to nod, and the tired horse slowed to a walk. Omar Khayyam, his mind assured him, was on the road to Ray, the long Khorasan road that Rahim had traveled, leading nowhither. Clay pigeons walked over the desert plain, and why did children accept miracles as a matter of course until they were taught suspicion by old and stagnant minds? The clay pigeons were swooping through the air carrying messages of warning. Their wings drummed and drummed in his ears——
Hoofs thudded about him, and he woke with a start when a voice cried in Arabic, "What man art thou?"
Dust swirled in the full sunlight; scores of riders in the loose robes and head rings of desert men were passing by him, and some had stopped to stare. Omar also stared down at his dusty red satin.
"A wayfarer," he answered. "A wayfarer from beyond the Roof of the World, seeking the court of the great Sultan Malikshah."
"O Master Omar!" a familiar voice rang out. A bent man flung himself from the saddle to seize Omar's knee in frantic joy. "Knowest not Jafarak?"
"But," Omar smiled, "Jafarak is at Kasr Kuchik."
"Nay," the jester laughed, "the army came. Malikshah's riders came back from Samarkand, and so I joined them to seek thee in Ray——"
A passing camel halted and knelt, rumbling protest, and from its closed litter a woman climbed, running between the horses to Omar.
"My lord!" Ayesha cried. "Allah hath preserved thee. In the market of Ray they told us—thy fools of swordsmen told us—thou wert carried off by invisible devils." She caught Omar's stirrup. "They have changed thy shape—what hath befallen thy beard?——"
"Master!" Ishak the gatekeeper cast himself on his knees. "How could I prevent? This young person would not abide at the kasr. She egged Jafarak on to follow thee, riding unashamed on the public road. I said to myself, 'Truly it rests upon thy head, Ishak, to protect the honor of thy lord.' At Ray she would not be stayed—she went to the commander of these Arabs, and he went to our Sultan, upon whom be the blessing of Ali and Abu Bekr, and our Sultan said, Tind Omar Khayyam, if he be in the snow mountains or upon the sea itself——' "
"Be still, waggle-tongue!" hissed Ayesha, who suffered from no embarrassment at appearing before so many men—the Arab troopers had turned their backs modestly at sight of her—"It is by no doing of thine that our lord is restored unharmed. Thou wouldst have been yet picking thy nose at the gate post and pocketing the silver of spying eunuchs——"
"Peace!" said Omar sternly, for the officer of the cavalry clan was approaching.
Even Ayesha turned her veiled head away, when the young rais touched breast and forehead in salutation, looking curiously the while at Omar's strange garb.
"Say," he demanded, "art thou truly the Kings astronomer?"
"Ay so," Omar assented, wondering how to explain his appearance. "I have been wrestling with magicians in those mountains yonder, and I came away in their garments."
"Wallahi! This is a time of marvelous happenings." The Arab's curiosity changed to veiled alarm, and he reined back a pace. "Now hear the command of the King. Thou art to go with me direct to the presence."
"As the Sultan commands." Omar had hoped to return to the House of the Stars at Nisapur. "Where is his camp, O rais?"
"He rides to Isfahan, and we will follow."
When he was ensconced in the camel litter, at Ayesha's urging and the insistence of his own drowsiness, the Arab girl put aside her veil, and sighed comfortably. "Now thou seest——this is how a journey should be made, with a thousand swords to guard thy back, and the Sultan's favor to open the way to thee. . . . Were any women among those magicians of the
mountain?"
Omar closed his eyes. "Only a demon girl, weeping upon a boat that floated on the lake of paradise."
"Paradise! Hast thou been carried out of the world to where the houris are?"
"It was only a dream, Ayesha. Verily the true paradise would be a moment's rest upon this road of life."
Ayesha was silent, pondering. Then she put her arms about him, and pressed her lips to his ear. "Nizam al Mulk is dismissed from his post. That is why the Sultan calls for thee."
Omar thought the girl must be mistaken. Nizam, who had administered the empire of the Seljuks for two ordinary lifetimes, dismissed from office!
"It was because of a letter," she added, seeing his incredulity. "Thou knowest how mighty Nizam had become, who placed even his grandsons as governors of cities. Well, someone wrote to the Sultan, 'Is Nizam thy Minister, or the partner of thy Throne.' And Malikshah, in anger, said to Nizam that verily henceforth he who wore the crown would rule without him who wore the turban."
A thought passed through Omar's bewilderment. If he had obeyed Nizam at the very first and had written long ago to Malikshah that the stars foretold misfortune if the Sultan returned to Khorasan, then Malikshah might not have dishonored the aged Minister.
"The letter," Ayesha went on, "was brought by a pigeon coming from those mountains."
After she said that Omar became silent. When they halted at the first walled town upon the Isfahan road, he descended from the litter and asked Ishak for one of the pigeons from the wicker cage he had entrusted to the care of the gatekeeper. When writing materials and a message tube had been brought him, he wrote upon a small square of paper:
"I have made decision. Thy road will not be my road, but concerning what was seen in thy house I shall say nothing, so long as no harm befalls those of my house."
This message without greeting or signature he rolled into the tube and tied the tube upon the claw of the pigeon, after satisfying himself by the clipped feather and the red mark that the bird was one of the Alamut pair. When he tossed it into the air it swooped up and circled the town once. Then it darted off to the north, toward the distant mountains.