Omar Khayyam - a life

by Harold Lamb

  "Ai, wilt show mercy to the afflicted, and aid one who hath no eyes, to his door?"

  "Ay, so," assented Jafarak. "Where is thy house?"

  "It is behind the mosque." The blind man took the cripple's arm and went ahead at a faster pace. "The third door on the left hand, just beyond the well. 'Tis a little way, yet a stone's throw is a league for one without eyes. Ai, me!"

  "The third house to the left," repeated Jafarak, with sudden interest. "Is it not the place of Ibn Atash?"

  The blind man turned toward him, as if to peer into his face. "Ibn Atash? What knowest thou of him, O friend of the afflicted?"

  "I—I seek him."

  "Ah, many seek him." The stick of the blind man tap-tapped on the hard clay, as they rounded the corner of the mosque and entered the narrow street. Jafarak heard the drip of the fountain, and searched out the third door in the darkness. Perhaps, if the blind man knew the secret of the house, he might learn something from him.

  "Ay, the door." The blind man felt of it and tapped rapidly with his stick, until the door creaked back. "Come in with me," he whispered, "O friend of the night, and rest."

  Leaning his weight on Jafarak's arm, he stepped forward. Something moved beside them, and a hand clutched the jester's throat. A flame of agony ran through Jafarak, and he fell forward into utter darkness.

  Ayesha stirred in her sleep and woke. Her keen senses had given warning of something unwonted close at hand telling of danger. Outstretched on the carpet with Omar beside her upon the roof, she listened without moving.

  Then she heard again the slight sound that had roused her—bare feet moving over the tiles. A third person was breathing deep so close to her that her nerves tingled. Paper scraped gently, and a strange smell crept into her nostrils. The girl screamed and sprang up, as a deer leaps from its sleeping place.

  As she did so, she saw a dark outline against the stars. The bare feet pattered away, and Omar, climbing to his feet, was able to catch sight of a man slipping away toward the stair. With a shout, he followed.

  But in the darkness of the courtyard below he lost track of the intruder. Drowsy servants came clamoring from their lairs, and lights were struck. The invader had vanished, although Ishak, who had slept upon the ground by the closed gate, swore by the ninety and nine holy names that the gate had not been opened.

  "Look, my lord," Ayesha called down from the roof, "at what is here."

  When the lights were carried up, Omar found two objects beside his sleeping quilt. A dagger without a sheath, and a roll of fresh baked bread still odorous from the oven. Nothing of the kind had been there when he went to sleep, and he understood that the intruder must have risked his life to lay them there; or perhaps one of his own household had done it. Ayesha was quite sure the knife had not been dropped on the tiles; it had been placed beside his head, with care.

  He examined the weapon and found it to be a khanjur, with a curved blade of fine gray steel. He had seen such knives before, in the girdles of the Fidais at Alamut, and he laid it down thoughtfully.

  "But what does it mean?" demanded Ayesha, who was angry because she had been badly frightened. "That, and the bread?"

  "One gives life," put in Ishak importantly, "the other death. Surely, it is a sign."

  "Verily," Ayesha retorted, "if our lives had depended upon thy watching, O Keeper of the Gate of Snores, we would have been in our shrouds long before. Ai-wah! Thou art never asleep when visitors come with silver for thy hand, but when thieves come in the darkness—where art thou then?"

  "Look!" exclaimed Ishak. "Here is a paper, and there is a writing on it."

  Bending down, he handed a small square of rice paper to Omar, who held it close to a lanthorn. The writing was Persian—a single line without signature. "There is need," he read aloud, "thy tongue . . . between . . . thy teeth."

  "Keep thy tongue between thy teeth," nodded Ishak sagely. "How true is the warning, O master. Without doubt 'twas meant for Ayesha—see the dagger is as pointed as her tongue. Better that she should bake bread and hold her peace."

  But Omar knew the warning was meant for him. And it came, he felt certain, from Alamut, if not from Hassan himself. The paper was the same used by the messenger pigeons of the Lord of the Mountains, and who else would send a missive unsigned? Yet, in Isfahan, Omar had put Alamut out of his mind, and had told no one what he had seen among the Seveners. He wondered why Hassan had sent the bread, and the knife.

  Soon after daybreak he learned the explanation. One of Tutush's spies came to the house and salaamed with long-winded greeting.

  "What is it?" Omar asked impatiently.

  "Who knoweth where his grave is dug? O Shadow of the Sultan, behold, at the first light we, who patrol the streets without ceasing, found one of thy household slain in the gutter. Lo, we have brought him."

  Descending into the courtyard, he led Omar to a stretcher in the shade, beside which several of his followers squatted. The form on the stretcher was covered with a cotton sheet.

  With a steady hand, Omar drew aside the sheet—and staggered back, choking down the nausea that rose inside him.

  The body was Jafarak's, the face almost black, and the throat slit beneath the chin. Through this slit Jafarak's tongue had been pulled, until it must have been torn from all but its roots.

  "Alas, Magnificence," sighed the street guard, "I have never seen one slain like this before. Yet he was old and misshapen."

  Omar replaced the sheet and drew a long breath. But he remembered that the agent could not be blamed for this. "Thou art Tutush's man? Then send thy master to me, swiftly."

  So rapidly did Tutush appear, that he must have been waiting for his men around the corner. Without a word the Tentmaker led the chief of the spies to a corner where they could not be overheard. Tutush wiped his cheek with his turban end, and clicked his rosary nervously—he had not forgotten how this same Jafarak had drawn Omar's wrath upon his head years before. Covertly he studied the face of his host, and drew no encouragement therefrom.

  But Omar was thinking only of the slain Jafarak. With the death of the faithful jester the last tie that linked him with the carefree days of Rahim had been severed.

  "Who would have done that?" he demanded. "He had no enemy—ah, God, he was harmless as a child."

  Tutush almost touched the floor in a salaam. "By your Excellency's leave—'tis indeed a mystery of the blackest. By the beard of Ali, he talked with me that evening near the Jami Masjid, and I warned him—may Allah do more to me if I lie—against wandering in the streets. Nay, I escorted him to a safe place—" as he pleaded, real misery crept into his words, because Tutush feared the wrath of Omar more than fire or sword—"and left him unharmed. I swear by——"

  "Where did you find him?"

  "It was one of my men, in a street near the river, far from the mosque. He was not slain there because no blood stained the dirt. Will your Excellency hear me, when I swear by Hassan and Hussayn, the blessed martyrs——"

  "Be silent!" Omar clenched his teeth. Hassan! Hassan, son of Sabah. Hassan had just now warned him to keep his tongue between his teeth. And Jafarak's tongue had been pulled half out of his body last night. For what reason—for what earthly reason? Unless Hassan's men had thought he was spying on them. What had Jafarak been occupied with these last days? Nothing but that accursed miracle which fairly reeked of Alamut. The dead man who told tales of paradise, in the house of Ibn Atash, in—Omar frowned, straining his memory—yes, it was near the Jami Masjid. In the street behind the Jami Masjid, on Friday-eve. That was it.

  Jafarak, then, had been slain probably near the mosque, and his body carried to a distant place.

  "What knowest thou of a certain house of the Son of Fire (Ibn Atash) in the alley behind the mosque?" he demanded.

  "Naught—the name I have never heard."

  Omar half rose, to start off to the house in question and find out what it had to tell. Then he settled down again on the carpet, and Tutush breathed again. Useless to
search the dwelling of murderers if they had just committed a crime. By now they would probably be praying with the dervishes in the mosque.

  "Only one thing I know," he mused. "Last night a thief left a writing beside my head, warning me to keep my tongue between my teeth."

  Tutush's jaw dropped, as he thought of Jafarak's death.

  A voice from behind the distant lattice work interrupted them, "Thy forgiveness, my lord—tell him also of the dagger and the fresh baked bread." '

  "Ayesha," said Omar quietly. "Go back to the harem."

  A rustle of garments, then silence.

  "A loaf of bread!" cried the chief of the spies.

  "Yes—what of it?"

  "Y'allah! And a knife?"

  "Thou hast heard."

  For a moment Tutush pondered. Then he explained how five men of mark had disappeared some days after finding the bread beside their pillows.

  "I think the bread was put by me after they slew Jafarak," Omar said slowly. "Surely it was the work of the same hand."

  "Without doubt." Tutush considered and nodded. "Also, Jafarak waited of nights by the mosque, near which three of them were lost to sight."

  "Then it must be the work of the Fidais," Omar said.

  The words had a strange effect on Tutush. His mouth opened and closed again, and the skin beneath his turban visibly crawled. "Of—of what—" he stammered.

  "The Devoted Ones, the drug eaters, the dagger bearers of the Lord of Life and Death, Hassan ibn Sabah. He is master of Alamut and is often called master of the Seveners."

  Imploringly Tutush lifted his hands, glancing about in sudden fear. "Do not speak that name, Excellency."

  Omar stared at him in silence. "Then thou knowest the Seveners, and that this is their work?"

  "Oh, Master of the Stars, I know naught. Only, some tales. People fear the name of the one thou—your Excellency hath mentioned."

  "And now, you will tell me what you know of these Seveners."

  It was no easy matter to make Tutush tell what he had in his mind. His dread of the Seveners seemed to be as great as his fear of Omar. At last he spoke in broken whispers, eyeing the distant lattice as if it concealed serpents behind it.

  Nizam had ordered the search made, he insisted, because Nizam believed Hassan's followers were heretics. Nizam had written about the secret order that had invaded Persia from Egypt in his book, and sealed the chapters until after his death. He, Tutush, was only a servant, who obeyed orders—he said this last in a loud, clear voice.

  Hassan, they had discovered, gained power by inspiring fear in faithful Moslems and servants of the throne. He threatened rich merchants until they gave him large sums. His method of doing it was to have his Fidais leave the fresh baked bread by the sleeping victim, as a sign that he must make payment to the lord of the mountains. Then the next day a beggar would come to the door, asking for bread from the hand of the master of the house. Instead of bread, the beggar would take away a sack of gold, and the giver would be free from menace.

  "Yet we know not if it be Hassan's plan, or the work of others who serve him. We have tried to grasp him and hold him, in vain. Yea, he dared enter the Dar al Kuttub at Ray and sit down to talk with Nizam—no man knowing his face—and speak his own name. When we searched his lodging, he had vanished like snow on the desert's face."

  Only recently had the people of Isfahan been threatened. And Tutush could discover nothing about the five who had not paid tribute and had disappeared. It was more terrifying to think of them simply snatched away from the very streets than to find their bodies, even slain like Jafarak. He thought the Assassins had a stronghold in the city, but he could not be sure.

  "What did you call them?" Omar asked.

  "Assassins—hashishin in Arabic—users of hashish. That is the drug that fires them to evil deeds."

  Omar thought of the wine he had drunk in Alamut, and of the three Fidais who had leaped from the rampart into space. Yes, the men of Alamut were assassins, servants of hashish.

  "Perhaps today," Tutush went on, "will come the dervish to beg. It—it would be wise to keep silence and give up a little money."

  "I do not think they will ask me to pay them."

  "Nay—I had forgotten. Already that man of affairs, Akroenos, hath made away with the goods and profits of your Excellency's caravans. He hath taken toll of your wealth. Still, they may desire more."

  "It is they who will make payment, for Jafarak's death."

  Tutush sighed, while his plump fingers played up and down the rosary. "Better to cover the embers of wrath with the water of discretion. What can your Excellency do, to oppose them? Preachers and great men of affairs have spoken in public against the Seveners, the Assassins. And then, in a little while they have become silent, except for praise of the Seveners. Who knows why—or how? Who can find a snake hiding i' the jungle? These assassins go about in the guise of camelmen, merchants, dervishes. By now at least one is working as a servant here, in the house of your Excellency."

  Omar remembered the eunuch who had haunted Kasr Kuchik, and he wondered if one of his many servants had not placed the bread and the dagger with the message by him last night.

  "Already," resumed Tutush, "they hold the mountain region behind Kasvin and Ray in the grip of fear. Their emissaries have come to Nisapur. And here in Isfahan they have been seen in the ruin of the ancient fire temple on the hilltop of Dizh Koh. And how did these five men of Isfahan vanish? My soul! If I could know! They were not slain openly, as others have been; they raised no outcry; no word has come from them; they did not leave the gates of Isfahan, yet no sign of them remains. 'Tis a fearful thing to happen. Be wise, Excellency, and molest not these men of Ha——of the mountain:

  "They make use of magic and trickery. So, there is one way to strike through their armor of secrecy."

  "You——you will make search for them?"

  "Nay, they will reveal themselves."

  Tutush rose in haste. It was true, he reflected, that Omar the Tentmaker had a secret power, and Omar could oppose magic with magic. But Tutush wished to be far off from such a conflict. "Excellency," he whispered, "already is my life in pawn for saying what I have said this hour. I——I have naught to do with hidden powers. Grant me leave to go!"

  When the sunset faded to full starlight that Friday-eve, Omar left his house. He went out by a postern door, and only Ayesha of all the household knew that he had changed his shape. The man who crossed the great square with the swinging pace of the desert-born wore the black jellaba of an Arab of the Khoraish clan. The loose wool robes hid his figure and the short curved sword in his girdle, while the head-cloth veiled his face. Even his voice had taken on the harsh gutturals of the tribesmen.

  By the hour of full starlight—in time for the last praying— Omar was in the Jami Masjid, with some hundreds of the faithful. Going out with the crowd, he turned aside, seeking the alley behind the mosque. Other figures went ahead of him, in the near-darkness, and he slowed his pace until he could be certain that they turned into a door on the left of the alley.

  A man was seated by this door who lifted his head in the manner of the blind, holding a staff in his hand. Abreast him, Omar stopped and spoke.

  "I seek the house of Ibn Atash."

  "O companion of the desert, it is here. What hast thou to do with Ibn Atash?"

  "I have heard talk of one who knoweth paradise."

  The blind man rocked on his haunches, chuckling. "Ay— ay, of paradise."

  Since he said nothing more, Omar felt his way into the dark entrance. Near at hand a voice was chanting, but he could see nothing. His outstretched hand brushed a heavy curtain, and he drew it aside. A candle was thrust close to his face, and a lean dervish peered at him. Apparently the scrutiny was satisfactory, because the dervish motioned toward a curtain behind him, and Omar advanced into a large room filled with seated figures, all facing a heavy rug hung upon the far wall.

  Before this carpet a majdhub stood, revolving slowly
and wailing as he beat his chest—a half mad wandering dervish whose bleared eyes gleamed from a pockmarked face. As he turned, he chanted his mourning for Hussayn, one of the martyrs of Persia.

  "How did Hussayn die? Oh, how did he die? He was slain with a sword and the earth drank his precious blood. Oh, believers, have pity for Hussayn—yes, for Hussayn. Lo, I strike my breast for Hussayn!"

  The chant was familiar to Omar, and as he edged his way forward to a place near the majdhub, he scrutinized the crowd. No sign of the Assassins was apparent, anywhere. The listeners were townspeople, men-at-arms, even a few mullahs from the mosque—all afire with expectancy. Some of them beat their hands together in time with the majdhub's howling.

  Incense curled up from a small brazier, filling the air with pungent scent. The light came from two great lamps on the floor by the chanter.

  ". . . have pity for Hussayn, yes, for Hussayn!" murmured the throng.

  The room was packed by then, and suddenly the majdhub ceased his revolving.

  "Lo," he screamed, "the voice of the dead speaks."

  Reaching up, he jerked the rug aside. Sliding upon a long bar, it revealed an archway opening into an alcove. Upon the floor behind the lamps lay a great brass basin, half filled with blood. In the center of the basin rested a human head, its eyes closed, its skull shaven smooth.

  Exclamations broke from the crowd. Save for its pallor this head, erect upon the basin, seemed to be that of an ordinary man.

  "Be still!" cried the dervish.

  And then the eyes opened in the head. They looked from right to left. There was no need to quiet the throng now, because utter silence held the room.

  The lips of the head in the basin moved, and it spoke. "Oh, ye faithful ones! Hear the tale of that which is beyond sight."

  "Oh, Allah!" breathed a mullah beside Omar.

  While the low voice of the head spoke on, revealing one by one the secrets of paradise, Omar—unlike the others—watched rather than listened. The voice, he felt certain, came from the throat of the thing in the basin, and beyond doubt that was a living head, without sign of a body.