by Dan Davis
My own blood ran cold. “You say it is not just Hulegu who is immortal but other lords at his court also? How many others?”
“We have been unable to determine this precisely,” Hassan said, apologetically. “His keshig bodyguards may number ten or so. And his chief captains may be half as many. But what does it matter how many? Unless you also believe in this blood magic?” He looked closely at me but continued when I gave him no response. “Our people have been meeting with increasing resistance from Hulegu’s court for years. We have sent a number of men to kill Hulegu but all who have tried to carry out their mission have been killed. There is an inner circle of five or so senior captains around Hulegu, each a great lord of Mongols in his own right. The keshig bodyguards are great individual warriors, honoured with a place at Hulegu’s side, night and day. With William a key figure at the court, we would expect his presence to be resented by the Mongols, and yet he is respected. Feared, even.”
“They are right to fear him,” I said.
I felt my plan crumbling beneath my feet. I felt confident that I could cut my way through a number of mortal men, even trained warriors such as Hulegu would have in his ordus, and protecting his ger. But a dozen or more with the power of our blood would be a terrible danger. I recalled with horror the efforts it took to bring down John Little the former bailiff of the Sheriff of Nottingham. He was a huge man but was not a trained fighter, and he had almost killed Eva, even though he had received a sword thrust to the hilt up into his guts from his rear end.
Hard to kill. Even harder to kill quickly.
What is more, the Mongols were on their guard against attacks by the Assassins. The precise method of attack that I intended to use to kill my brother was the one that they would be most prepared for. To infiltrate the camp in the night without being detected.
“I am deeply sorry. These were not the answers you wished to hear,” Hassan said. “You are to be executed tomorrow, I believe. A very sad state of affairs.” He spoke lightly, barely even attempting sincerity. “You wished to seek clemency from your brother?”
“I swore an oath to kill him. I cannot allow myself to be killed before I fulfil my oath.”
“And how will you kill him, sir?” Hassan was amused but growing impatient. He and his men were ready to leave. “Even a hundred of our finest men could not reach Hulegu, nor any of his captains. Or, perhaps, you, in fact, claim to have the same blood magic as your brother?”
He knew. This Assassin lord knew, just as the Great Khan Mongke had known, that I was immortal, that I had the power that William my brother claimed.
The Assassin was sceptical, of course. But he wanted something from me, or else he would not have granted me so much of his time.
“I have no wealth,” I said. “I cannot bring you men or fortresses. But, yes, I do have the blood magic, as you call it. I do not age. I am stronger than any mortal man. My body heals wounds that would kill any other man. Perhaps these things would be useful to you. After all, the Mongols have chosen your people for destruction, have they not? Surely, you could benefit from such power.”
Hassan raised his black eyebrows. “You claim to have the strength of ten men?”
I shrugged. “I never truly tested the limits of my strength. Ten men? Two or three, certainly. Perhaps more.”
He smiled. “In Acre, and in Tiberius, I have watched Frankish knights training in war. You have this contest which is called grappling, do you not?” As he spoke, he called out to his men and waved two of them forward.
The biggest two.
They dropped the loads they were carrying and strutted over. Both were well-built. One was thick-set and older and the other younger and wiry but with big hands and wide shoulders. Perhaps they were cousins or an uncle and nephew. Both listened while Hassan explained what he required of them.
“Grappling, yes,” I said. “We engage without striking blows, and without weapons.”
“As do we.” He reeled off a few terse words at his men, who nodded and stepped forward. Hassan, smiling, stepped back. “No blows, no weapons.”
Everyone else in the room hastily scrambled to the edges of the space.
The burly Assassins launched themselves at me with considerable enthusiasm. They each took a hold of me, one on each arm and shoulder, and tried to force me backwards, then the other way, and then they tried to throw me down to the floor. It took discipline to resist striking them both.
I planted my feet, bent my knees, and resisted. They held on and twisted and heaved against me, our shoes slipping on the tiled floor.
Pushing into their grasp, I snaked my hands up to the top of their arms, squeezed their shoulders with my fingers, digging them in hard, and heaved down. Both men gritted their teeth and the fat one growled but neither could resist my strength. One man after the other, their legs buckled beneath them and they fell to their knees.
They attempted to pull away and get up but I held them there and turned to Hassan. “I could demonstrate my strength further by tearing their arms from their shoulders?”
The Assassin lord was not pleased. “Release them, sir, if you please.”
They glared at me as they stood but I smiled at them. “You have seen my strength. Now you must believe what they say about my brother and I.”
Hassan pursed his lips. “Some men are born with great strength and perhaps you are one of those. And yet you claim also that your body heals wounds that would kill other men?”
I sighed, seeing where these tests were heading. “I am able to resist great wounds and heal quickly, yes. But the effect is far greater when I drink a man’s blood after I am wounded, and that wound will heal so rapidly that one may witness the flesh restoring itself even as you look upon it.”
“Well, this is something we must see with our eyes, is it not? This is a thing that would give credence to your words, no? We must cut you open.” He drew a wickedly curved dagger from the sash about his waist. “And then, once you are dying, we will blood for you to drink?”
I am not taking a mortal wound for you, Saracen. I am desperate but not utterly witless.
“I will cut my flesh superficially, and you shall watch it heal.”
“I have seen too many conjurors’ tricks to allow you to administer a wound yourself,” Hassan said, in an apologetic tone. “I shall do it, with my own knife, and then I shall know it to be true.”
It was not so simple a thing to receive a wound anywhere other than my face, as I was bundled up in a coat and clad in my hauberk. But I stripped them off quickly and pulled up the sleeve of my gambeson and undershirt and indicated that he should perform a shallow cut into the meat of my forearm.
The Assassins all stopped their preparations and gathered around Hassan. I felt extremely vulnerable, and especially when turning my back on them to hand my sword to Stephen, who trembled so much he had trouble taking it from me.
One of the servants held a wooden bowl under my arm while Hassan held my wrist in one hand and placed the cold blade of his dagger against my bare skin with the other.
Then he paused, his face close to mine. The scented oils in his beard filled my nose.
“Do you feel pain?” he asked.
“Oh yes.”
His cut was deep. Far deeper than I had indicated and his dagger sliced down, through the skin, and through the muscles, down almost to the bone. I winced, sucking air through my teeth and watched as my blood welled out and ran down my arm, dribbling into the bowl beneath. Hassan recoiled and let go of my wrist before any reached him.
Another of Hassan’s men sliced open his own palm and squeezed his blood into a cup.
I glanced at Abdullah and Stephen, who were so close they were practically clutching at each other, united in their horror of what they were witnessing.
The smell of the Assassin’s blood was intoxicating and when he passed it over I drank the contents of that cup like I was dying of thirst. It had been some years since I had consumed blood. It was like coming home aft
er a long absence. Like embracing an old friend. It was fire in my stomach, dull ache and a burning warmth that spread and spread through my body, up my neck so my face flushed and down to my fingers and toes.
Hassan and the others around me muttered and stirred, staring at my forearm. A servant poured water over my wounded flesh and swiped away the blood with a cloth.
When the blood was cleaned off, the wound beneath was already closed, leaving just an ugly pink line.
“This scar will soon fade into nothing,” I said, quickly pulling my hauberk back over my head and wriggling into it.
Hassan stared at me. “The reports of this William’s blood magic. I had always thought it to be a conjurer's trick.”
“Now you know,” I said. “And this blood surely has value to you.”
“How is this possible?” he asked. “What did you do to gain this power?”
I hesitated. “I did nothing that I am aware of. Certainly, I did not ask for it. Perhaps I was born this way. Whether it was through the seed of my father or by the hand of God, I know not.”
He was suspicious, believing that I deceived him even though I spoke sincerely. The Saracens, and the Assassins most of all, were well versed in deceit and because it was in each of them, they saw it in everyone else, also.
Hassan pointed at the bowl of my blood that one of his servants held. “But if I drink this, I will become like you?”
“No. Not like me. And there is a cost.”
“I will pay any price.”
“Not that sort of cost. You must first be drained of much of your blood, and at the point of death, you must drink down a pint of mine. It takes half a day or so to bring you back from the brink of death and not all men survive. You may die. If you come back, you must yourself then drink the blood of men, or women, every two or three days, else you will become weakened, then ill, and then you will lose your mind in raving madness. And you will never be able to father a child, no matter how often you lay with a woman.”
“A heavy price.”
I nodded, taking my sword and other things back from Stephen.
“And you, Richard, you must drink blood every three days?”
I hesitated, for I was giving my secrets to an enemy. But if I did not take drastic action then William would seize me come morning and then I would be no more. Besides, all I would have to do to keep the secret would be to kill every man in the room.
“No. Not me and not William, either. We are different. We are stronger.”
“Why? Tell me, good sir, what made you as you are?”
“I do not know,” I said. He still thought I was lying. “Truly.”
“The tasks that my men could achieve, if they had this power,” he said, looking through me into a future only he could see. “We might even resist Hulegu’s assault.”
“I want you to help me kill my brother,” I said.
He snapped back to me. “In exchange for your blood? We can do this. Yes.”
“Tonight.”
He gaped at me, then spoke to his men in a bust of rapid guttural words. They all laughed, and he allowed himself a smile.
“Tonight, truly, sir? It cannot be done.”
“We could kill Hulegu, also.”
“We certainly would. But such a thing is not possible.”
“I will do it myself, then,” I said.
Hassan al-Din, the Assassin lord, and emissary, hesitated. I could see that he was weighing up a series of choices. One of which was surely to simply kill me, and the two men with me. He could deliver me to Mongke or to Hulegu or William, in exchange for favours from those men.
“Perhaps I might suggest a different course of action? You should come with us, Sir Richard. Back to Alamut. We leave at sunrise.”
“Mongke’s men would bring me back and punish you all. Kill you all for such an affront.”
“My men are all prepared for death. None of us truly expected to leave here with our lives and if we do not return then our master shall know the outcome of our embassy just as surely as if we told him with our mouths. But perhaps they would allow us to leave? The Mongols are truly evil and yet they value greatly the role of ambassador and seek always to deliver envoys safely through their lands, even if they are emissaries from mortal enemies. That is also why we are not closely guarded within Karakorum, even though my master has sent four hundred individual men to murder Mongke in any way that they can. I would gladly risk the lives of my men to bring you and your blood magic away from this place.”
“No, that would not be successful. I have delivered myself into my brother’s hands, like a fool, and he will not let me go.”
“Emissaries are used to negotiating terms,” Hassan said. “What do you have that William might want? Or do you have something that Hulegu may want?”
“Nothing,” I said because it was true.
Hassan tilted his head. “Is there anything that you can get that William might want?”
“I have no idea what he wants,” I said. “I have not seen him for decades, and I never knew him well. I have no way of knowing what he needs now. Neither him nor this Hulegu, who I have only heard of recently. How could I have anything that he would bargain for?”
Abdullah, standing against the wall, raised his voice. “You do.” Every face in the room turned to him and he trembled, lowering his head. “Forgive me, my lord, your pardon, sir, your pardon.”
“Spit out your words, Abdullah, for the love of God.”
“The girl,” he said. “The girl who was Hulegu’s wife. The young woman we saw in the palace who ran away only to be captured. She is to be killed tomorrow, too. Hulegu wants her, does he not? And also, might she not know Hulegu’s needs? And, if William and Hulegu are as close as they say, might she not know of your brother, too?”
Interesting.
“You just want to feast your eyes on her again,” I said.
“Oh, no, my lord,” Abdullah said. “I am thinking only of your interest, my lord.”
I looked at Hassan, who was stroking his beard. “They are being held in a house on the southern road,” he said. “Guarded, of course. We will not be allowed to see the prisoners.”
“I will kill the guards,” I said. “Seize her and force the girl to tell me Hulegu and William’s secrets.”
“Even if she does tell you something of use.” Stephen stepped forward, lowering his voice. “You will not have time to act upon that knowledge before you yourself are seized. They let us go from the palace but only because they knew where you were. What if Mongke’s men come for you at the ger tonight, and find you absent? A search of the city would not take them long. And even if Mongke washes his hands of it, you will be taken to Hulegu’s men come tomorrow. You must secure an escape, and the only possible chance you have is with these Assassins. Then, you can take the girl when we flee and question her on the road. Hulegu will want her and will pursue her but you could throw her off your horse once you were done with her and Hulegu’s men would find her again, then kill her as they intended.”
“Impossible,” I said. “There is nothing I have to offer the Mongols to stay their hand.” I looked at the servant holding a bowl of my blood. One thing I could do was promise to stay at Mongke’s court and turn him and a number of his own captains into immortals, as William had done for his brother. But the thought made me sick to my stomach. I would be making myself a slave in exchange for my life. “In exchange for letting us go free, I have nothing that I can offer them.”
“But he does,” Stephen said, pointing a finger at Hassan.
***
My breath frosted in the air. Night proper had fallen when I approached the door where the young Mongol woman was being held. It was a house, the same as the others around it, but the Assassin leading me—assigned by Hassan al-Din—pointed it out. Abdullah and Stephen followed behind.
The door was not barred. As I opened it and stepped through, the heat from inside poured past me out into the freezing night. A single large room fi
lled with lamplight, with steep stairs up to the floor above on one side, and a door on each of the other walls. A small dung-fuelled fire smouldered in the central hearth, and the air was thick with smoke.
Hassan had suggested there would be a single guard inside, perhaps two.
Four men sat around the hearth, drinking together. They fell silent as I stood there in the doorway.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” I said, cheerily, and clapping my hands together. “Is this the Karakorum brothel-house?”
They jumped to their feet, their hideous faces twisted in anger at my intrusion.
Quite suddenly, my own days and hours of frustration and fear rushed up to engulf me in a murderous rage. I was on the first man before he had time to recoil, and my dagger punched him in the neck, up to the hilt. Shoving him down before me, I leapt into the next man, who was caught between drawing his own blade and retreating. As he turned from me, I grabbed his long, greasy hair and stabbed the side of his throat. I thrust the blade out of the front of his neck in a shower of blood and the gristly mass of his severed windpipe slapped onto the floor.
I sensed an attack coming from behind and ducked as a sword blade was thrust toward the back of my neck. As I twisted away, it caught the back of my head and cut a gouge into my skull. The attacker might have expected me to retreat in panic, so I turned low enough to place my offhand on the tiled floor and leapt up at him, close enough to hug him while I slammed my dagger up beneath his chin. As I followed him down I drew the blade out and jammed it through his eye.
The fourth man had been expertly dispatched by Hassan’s Assassin, who nodded at me while he wiped his curved blade on the Mongol’s coat.
In the doorway, Abdullah and Stephen stood with their mouths open at the sudden horror before them.
The delicious smell of blood filled the air and my mouth watered.
“You are injured, sir,” Stephen said, raising a shaky hand at my head.
I felt it. It seemed to be pouring with hot blood over my fingers.