by Ian Watson
“At last the day has come,” the Doctor said solemnly, “as willed by God long ago, when my inspired and blessèd predecessor created and preserved the waters of death, and of life, for our use when time and our God-given skills became ripe…”
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, Cambridge, Massachusetts: May
When the phone rang Abigail was glad of a break; she’d been so intensely absorbed in books on early Ismaili culture and poetry, as recommended by Kamal, that she felt dizzy when she raised her head. The caller was Paul Summers, in theory to tell her about reader’s letters regarding the mosque surveillance piece, but really sniffing for a deeper story as well as sniffing out an eligible female. She smirked. Nice to be chased again, even if she wasn’t interested. Paul made a polite query about Kamal.
“Kamal’s being incredibly helpful towards my research, considering how busy he is.”
“You’re a very persuasive woman, Abi.”
“I don’t think woman has anything at all to do with it.” Though did it? Could it conceivably?
“Sorry. Person. But since you’re a woman too, may I take you out to dinner?”
“Journalist’s ulterior motive? You want to pump me for more about my medieval mystery?” She’d known at the funeral that he’d ask sooner or later. A funeral was the wrong moment though, and besides the revelation about her Papa had seemed to intimidate him. Not the first time that had happened! In Paul’s case this didn’t matter; no romance at stake.
“I’m deeply hurt, but anyhow haven’t I earned the right?”
Abigail smiled. He had. Then something occurred to her.
“I’d love to be taken, but can I choose the place?”
“Hmm… unusual rules, but I’m a flexible guy.”
“The Sabra restaurant, Eliot Square off J.F.K. Street. Middle Eastern, shawarma and shish-kebab on the menu. Won’t break the budget.”
Paul readily agreed, and they hung up.
She’d been thinking of the Sabra for a reciprocation with Kamal. Though at just five or six dollars for dishes, he’d be slumming it! The waiters wouldn’t be butlers. Despite modest prices, the invitation could be a charming gesture, and proof she wasn’t a parasite. Now she could test the place in advance. If it seemed mediocre to her, Kamal would find it dire. Yet if it seemed good, or even great…
Sabra restaurant, Cambridge, Massachusetts: May
At seven that evening the Sabra was bustling, though it was the kind of bustle where you could be private at your own little table due to all the conflicting noisy chatter.
“Baba Ghanoush sounds interesting,” commented Abigail to Paul. “Puréed smoked eggplant. Says it’s exotic.”
“The exotic isn’t necessarily nice.”
“Aphorism of the day? Well, I think I’ll try it. Drinks? Oh, there’s no wine.”
“Or beer. Homemade lemonade for me. I don’t think I need zesty carrot juice.” Paul wrinkled his nose, rabbit-like, but then suddenly he was serious. “Look, Abi, my newsman’s nose says there’s a whole lot going on with you that I don’t know about, and maybe you’re out of your depth.”
“I can cope.” returned Abigail. But could she? Men like Jack didn’t just give up.
“Who in ICE is hassling you, and why? Why is that old poem such a big deal?” His questions sounded like entreaties. He gazed at her earnestly, like a loyal dog.
Abigail wavered. “He’s called Jack Turner. He seems a big-size fish, in Boston at least, but… misguided.”
“I already helped you, Abi. Maybe I can help you again?”
The Press was a powerful ally, and Paul could make a good friend. It was as if a dam burst inside Abigail. Safiyya’s fragment. Eagle Teacher. The insights that sweet gentle Walid had given her… until his untimely death. The Assassins of Alamut. Paul had swiftly pulled out his smartphone as well as a notebook, setting the former into audio record mode. “Hang on, go back,” he’d interrupted. “Don’t know if our voices will pick up too well with all this background…” He scribbled valiantly. ‘Hospitaller have pity’. Holy Water. Jack Frost’s crazy notion about a terrorist plot…
Their food and lemonade arrived, and he could cope with listening and eating and note-taking all at once. Abigail was mostly neglecting her puréed smoked eggplant, and Paul didn’t care to interrupt her flow.
So who exactly was Sinaldin? And where did he get his Holy Water from? And what exactly was his Holy Water? And did the Hospitaller Guy de Dieulefit leave any records or legacy or just even a tomb, to find more out about him? Safiyya likewise? What did all this have to do with plague? Finally, Abigail gulped lemonade.
“Wow,” said Paul. “But Mrs Lincoln, did you enjoy the Baba Ghanoush?”
Abigail noticed her toyed-with meal. “I don’t know,” she said. “How about yours?”
“Great. Succulent. And the feta in the salad went well.”
“That’s all right, then.” She could safely invite Kamal.
Drawing a line under serious matters, they made small talk during dessert, Abigail consuming hers with more enthusiasm than her main dish. But later as they parted company at Harvard station, Abigail insisting she could walk the rest of the way home on her own, she felt a stab of guilt. Paul couldn’t imagine she was romantically encouraging him, could he? So was she just using him?
Boston, Massachusetts: May
As Paul travelled homeward towards his eventual destination of Revere Beach in the north-east, he pulled out his notebook, intending to make additions while Abi’s tale was still fresh in his mind. But his pen soon faltered and he found himself wondering why on earth he’d told her explicitly that he lived with a Retriever and a dad. Sure, this showed he was unattached, but you wouldn’t think he was a hot-shot journalist accustomed to honing his phrases. Just as well he hadn’t also blurted out the dog’s name – Rudolph. Rudolph the Retriever, like some kiddies’ cartoon character. Abigail would’ve laughed, though she mightn’t be so amused by his home environment. Three males, one of them canine, in a house without womanly presence; piles of old mags and newspapers on the floors, all the higgledy-piggledy books! Tidying would ruin their highly informal filing system. Which didn’t mean you could tell Rudolph: “Good boy, fetch me the atlas.”
Each time he met Abigail, it seemed he admired and desired her more. He would turn cartwheels for her. No, that would make him look like a clown. He’d help her all he could. That tumbling golden hair and those intelligent greeny eyes; her assertive chin; her figure of a cushioned slimness; breasts evident though far from trying to burst her clothes. Ideal, really.
Should he mention to Abigail that his mother ran off with a charismatic and seductive preacher, of all people? Apparently the pair were now making a tidy income from their crusade in Kansas. Or mention that his desolated, insulted dad did his best, and never brought another woman near their home? Although Paul had done so a couple of times. No, no. That would all sound as if he was trying to push a sympathy button.
He was normal. Just, things never lasted… The relationships were too shallow. Yet Abigail… for better or worse, Abigail was deep. In those depths she was hiding things, maybe even from herself. So would it be appropriate concern, or obsession, if he looked into more than just her medieval mystery? Walid’s death niggled. Inappropriately timed, as regards Abigail’s research! Or not? Great though it had been to see her at the funeral, odd connections and coincidences always bugged him. Would it be naked jealousy to check out Kamal al-whatever?
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Downtown Boston, Massachusetts, May
Jack seethed. That damn journalist had gotten hold of his name. A call from Paul’s mobile to his editor: they were thinking of revealing his identity in print. Could only have come from one place; Leclaire and Summers were closer than sardines in a can! He’d have to lean on the Globe.
Jack took out the Bible from his desk drawer, shut his eyes and opened the book at random, then jabbed his finger at a page. Only then did he look: Psalm 57. T
he words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart…
Maybe he ought to have been smoother with Mam’zelle Abigail: that could be the meaning. However, war was in his heart. Precisely! The war against America and the war against God. The ultimate war. In his experience, opening the Bible always yielded a truth, although sometimes the words might turn out later to bear a different interpretation.
His phone rang.
“Brother George? Great to hear from you!
“…Fact is, I’m dithering about going to the IAAT thing next week. There’s a lot of extra workload at the moment, and I’ve a feeling the you-know-what investigation here might break open any time.
“…Yeah, I realise if I go to the Omaha gabfest I’m only an hour away from you. You really feel it’s so important I meet up with the Elders?
“…I know how important it is to the Lord! I used the wrong word. I mean, is it essential, just at the moment?
“…Okay, I’ll book flight and hotel, and you’ll send a car. I guess it’s another tick on my career profile.
“…and God bless you too, Brother George.”
Thoughtfully Jack cradled the phone, then lifted it again to summon Chronicles. The staff did his bidding more faithfully if he looked them in the eye.
Dan Siegel came soon enough, to be told, “Look, I’m off to Omaha for an IAAT meeting next Monday.” Aye Double-A Tee, was how he said it.
Siegel looked momentarily blank.
“Inter-Agency Action on Terrorism. Are you with me now?”
“Ah, it sounded like some medical conference, I dunno, International Association for Alzheimer Therapy…”
“Did it indeed. In total I’ll be gone four days. Regarding Dr Leclaire, there’s still no proof of a medieval connection to Eagle Teacher, or any proof yet that she’s involved in anything, but my gut tells me both are true.” Jack drilled his gaze into Dan. “So you keep alert to any hints via the Paul Summers taps while I’m away!”
The Nile: November 1158
They slipped down the Upper Nile, the raucous dawns of lush jungle far behind them. Hakim sat by the bow and listened to the ripple of water, which gave him hope of a swift return to civilisation, hope of progress. The new sun rose into a purple sky, a vast silk tent anchored left and right at distant black banks like sleeping dogs stretched out. The boat sliced through burnished water, its single sail engorged on the dawn breeze.
Much later in the morning, Hakim observed bleached villages trying to hide under scattered palms. The boatmen ate bread and fish. Hakim didn’t associate much with them. Like many people outside the major towns of Egypt they were Sunnis, despite two centuries of Ismaili dominance under the Fatimid dynasty. It was in this very country, in Cairo, that the Ismaili cause itself had faltered, when some sixty-five years ago the light of the one true Imam had flickered out. That light was championed now only by the Nizaris of Mid-Syria and Persia, while a puppet Caliph, a false Imam, was virtually imprisoned in the Fatimid palace by his own army.
Cairo was a necessary stop-over. His old colleagues at the university would provide him with clothes and a little money. He could earn more by doctoring for men of rank. He would rewrite his damaged journal that was still tucked beneath his robes, organise his knowledge from its precious medical notes. But he could invite no official assistance for his mission. What, put such power into the hands of a degenerate pretender? Nor could he expect help from the religious leaders, the da’is, whose feet had strayed along the wrong path.
He pitied the people of this land, following their leaders into darkness. Once, they were the people of graduation, ahl al-tarattub, acknowledging the truth if not fully perceiving the spiritual reality of the Imam. Now they’d drifted away from the truth, perhaps unable to be rescued. Consequently, they were the people of opposition, ahl al-tadadd, and doomed.
The boatmen made many stops and haggled incessantly over goods and shipping fees. Days had become weeks. Yet finally the great river was approaching Egypt’s beating heart, whose lifeblood it was. Traffic steadily increased. Barges and dhows and clumsy rafts, and even dainty pleasure boats for the rich, all plied the massive artery that nourished this ancient, wealthy land… which throughout history had leaked plague into the Mediterranean as if from a giant bottle with a loose stopper.
By the time the first slender minarets arose above the wooden wharves and hotchpotch warehouses of a major port, Hakim had his plan clear. This would require enormous amounts of money, no less of faith from those not blessed with his own vision and hard-won knowledge. To obtain backing, he must purify his spirit and rise in the religious hierarchy of his Syrian birthplace. He must become one of the super-elite, akhass-i khass. Only thus could he eventually approach the Master of Alamut himself, for there was no one higher in the whole Ismaili world, no other nearer to the hidden Imam, nor to Allah.
Whatever the sacrifice, his rise needed to be swift. He was only a lowly rafiq, a comrade in the Ismaili faith. His medical skills and knowledge of plague had taken years of dedication, leaving no time to gain even the lowest ranks of the da’i.
Yet he had his burning faith, his keen mind, and his grand vision of plague as the ultimate weapon against the enemies of Allah, a vision he now knew was realisable. At times he felt Godlike. God grants the gift of life, and in accord with His purpose also takes it away. The taking away is as necessary for God’s design on Earth as the giving. So God’s will permits diseases as well as their cures, and by way of a devastating disease the world might progress towards a state of perfection when everyone’s belief in God would be true and all men that survived would be enlightened. The mirror of mankind would at last reflect God’s forbidden face, which is all-consuming radiance. Then the world would cease, its purpose at last fulfilled.
At last he came to bustling Cairo. As the solid ground rocked under Hakim’s legs that were used to the river, he presently came across a commotion in a busy square. A veiled lady lay on the cobbles. A panicky eunuch companion was supporting her head and shoulders, while a tubby black-clad servant woman called her name and pinched her arm. Two guards stood uncertainly by.
“I can help,” asserted Hakim confidently.
Reluctantly, the guards allowed him near.
“May I lift the veil?”
“I shall,” said the servant woman.
Quickly Hakim assessed the lady’s signs, then fished some potent smelling salts out from his pouch, one of the last two medical items he still possessed, the other being a vial of poppy extract.
In moments the lady’s eyes opened. Her pupils focused. The companions expressed relief.
“Who are you?” she asked.
Hakim smiled.
“I am the doctor appointed by Allah, and I will cut out the canker of unfaith from the world.”
Her veil swiftly restored, the eunuch raised his lady to a sitting position, then gratefully gave Hakim two dinars.
“Let her sit for five minutes longer.”
“Where do you reside?” the eunuch asked.
“I’m newly arrived from Upper Egypt, although I studied at the university here.”
“Hmm, I have a problem of some delicacy… Might I escort you to a lodging I know after we have seen my lady safely home?”
Truly, Allah provided.
Sabra restaurant, Cambridge, Massachusetts: May
When Abigail had phoned Kamal, it transpired he was working at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies up in Cambridge all day long. So of course her invitation to the Sabra for the evening, couched in tones of mock apology, made perfect sense.
When Abigail and Kamal entered the restaurant, the same waiter greeted her with, “Hullo again, Madam! Two nights in a row. We must be doing something right.”
Kamal looked at her enquiringly, and Abigail wasn’t sure if she blushed as she quickly whispered to him, “I thought I’d test this place in case it mightn’t be up to your standards. Though maybe it isn’t.” She hoped the waiter didn’t hear.
Seating her courteously, and then himself, Kamal surveyed the Sabra appreciatively, perhaps amused. “It has… character.” A man two tables away was actually reading a newspaper while waiting for his food. “Oh, I read a letter to the editor in the Globe that was very supportive of Paul Summers, regarding his ICE surveillance article. Do you know Mr Summers well?”
“Actually, hardly at all.” Keep your options open girl! No need for any unnecessary male complications. “In fact we just met to make that story.” She couldn’t help a slight smirk. “I was the main source of Paul’s information.”
“You? Goodness. But how were you privy to ICE operations?”
“I’m not. They’ve been hassling me, and it slipped out during…” She remembered her shock and then fury at Elephant Walk, Jack’s steely pressure. “During an interaction.”
“Do you mean to say these ICE people have been pressuring you in some way?”
“And how. But they can go jump in the sea.”
“Yet why would they…?” Kamal spread his hands, wide-eyed and lost for words.
“Oh, they imagine there’s a connection between the ancient Assassins of Alamut and some modern nefarious plot, goodness knows what. They think Safiyya’s fragment is a link.”
Kamal picked up a menu and fanned himself.
“How absurd and bizarre.”