by Noah Gordon
“No one now living can remember a runner who finished in less than thirteen hours,” Karim said. “Alā Shah has announced that if a man finishes in twelve hours or less, he will be awarded a magnificent calaat. In addition he will earn a reward of five hundred gold pieces and an honorary appointment as Chief of the Chatirs, which carries with it a handsome annual stipend.”
“This is why you’ve worked so hard, run so far every day? You think you can win this race?”
Karim grinned and shrugged. “Every runner dreams of winning the chatir. Of course I would like to win the race and the calaat. Only one thing could be better than being a physician—and that is being a rich physician in Ispahan!”
The air turned, becoming so perfectly moist and temperate that it seemed to kiss Rob’s skin when he left the house. The whole world seemed in full youth, and the River of Life roared day and night with snowmelt. It was foggy April in London but in Ispahan it was the month of Shaban, softer and sweeter than the English May. The neglected apricot trees in the little yard burst into whiteness of stunning beauty, and one morning Khuff rode up to Rob’s door and collected him, telling him Alā Shah wished his company on a ride that day.
Rob was apprehensive about spending time with the mercurial monarch, and surprised the Shah had remembered his promise that they would ride together.
At the stables of the House of Paradise he was told to wait. He waited a considerable time; eventually Alā came, followed by such a retinue Rob could scarcely credit it.
“Well, Dhimmi!”
“Majesty.”
Alā Shah waved off the ravi zemin impatiently and they were quickly into the saddle.
They rode deep into the hills, the Shah on a white Arabian stallion that fairly flew with easy beauty, Rob riding behind him. Presently the Shah settled into an easy canter and waved him alongside.
“You are an excellent physician to prescribe riding, Jesse. I have been drowning in the shit of the court. Is it not pleasing to be away from all people?”
“It is, Majesty.”
Rob stole a look behind them a few moments later. Far back, here came the entire world: Khuff and his guardsmen, keeping a wary eye on the monarch, equerries with spare mounts and pack animals, wagons that rolled and clanked as they were dragged over the rough open ground.
“Do you wish a more spirited animal to ride?”
Rob smiled. “It would be a waste of Your Majesty’s generosity. This horse is suited to my mastery, Excellency.” Actually, he had grown fond of the brown gelding.
Alā snorted. “It is clear you are no Persian, for no Persian would lose an opportunity to better his mount. In Persia riding is all, and man-children emerge from their dames with tiny saddles between their legs.” He dug his heels exuberantly into the Arabian’s flanks. The horse sprang past a dead tree and the Shah turned in the saddle and fired his enormous longbow over his left shoulder, roaring with laughter when the great bolt of an arrow missed its mark.
“Do you know the story behind this exercise?”
“No, Sire. I saw it done by horsemen at your entertainment.”
“Yes, it is often performed by us, and some are excellently skilled at it. It is called the Parthian shot. Eight hundred years ago, the Parthians were just one of the peoples of our land. They lived east of Media, in a territory that was mostly terrible mountains and an even more terrible desert, the Dasht-i-Kavir.”
“I know the Dasht-i-Kavir. I crossed a bit of it to come to you.”
“Then you know the kind of people it would take to live on it,” Alā said, reining the stallion strongly to keep it by the gelding’s side.
“There was a struggle for the control of Rome. One of the contenders was the aging Crassus, governor of Syria. He needed a military conquest to equal or surpass the exploits of his rivals, Caesar and Pompey, and he decided to challenge the Parthians.
“The Parthian army, one-quarter the size of Crassus’ dread Roman legions, was led by a general named Suren. It consisted mostly of bowmen on small, fast Persian horses and a tiny force of cataphracts, armored horse soldiers wielding long, deadly lances.
“Crassus’ legions came straight at Suren, who retreated into the Dasht-i-Kavir. Rather than turn north into Armenia, Crassus gave chase, plunging into the desert. And something wonderful happened.
“The cataphracts attacked the Romans before they had a chance to complete their classic defensive square. After the first charge the lancers withdrew and the archers moved in. They used Persian longbows like mine, more powerful than the Romans’. Their arrows pierced Roman shields, breastplates, and greaves, and to the amazement of the legions, the Parthians kept loosing arrows accurately over their shoulders as they retreated.”
“The Parthian shot,” Rob said.
“The Parthian shot. At first the Romans kept their morale, expecting the arrows soon would be depleted. But Suren brought in new supplies of arrows on baggage camels, and the Romans couldn’t fight their customary war at close quarters. Crassus sent his son on a diversionary raid and the youth’s head was returned to him on the end of a Persian lance. The Romans fled under cover of night—the most powerful army in the world! Ten thousand escaped, led by Cassius, future assassin of Caesar. Ten thousand were captured. And twenty thousand, including Crassus, were killed. Parthian casualties were insignificant, and since that day every Persian schoolboy has practiced the Parthian shot.”
Alā gave the stallion his head and tried it again, this time shouting with delight as the arrow slammed solidly into the bole of a tree. Then he raised his bow high in the air, his signal for the others in the party to come up.
A thick rug was carried to them and unrolled and over it soldiers quickly raised the king’s tent. Soon, while three musicians softly played dulcimers, food was brought.
Alā sat and motioned for Rob to join him. They were served breasts of various game fowls baked in savory spices, a tart pilah, bread, melons which must have been kept in a cave through the winter, and three kinds of wine. Rob ate with pleasure while Alā tasted little food but drank steadily, all three wines.
When Alā ordered the Shah’s Game a board was brought at once and the pieces set up. This time Rob remembered the different moves but the Shah had an easy time defeating him thrice in succession, despite having called for more wine and quickly dispatching it.
“Qandrasseh would enforce the edict against wine drinking,” Alā said.
Rob didn’t know a safe reply.
“Let me tell you of Qandrasseh, Dhimmi. Qandrasseh understands—wrongly, wrongly!—that the throne exists principally to punish those who overstep the Qu’ran. The throne exists to enlarge the nation and make it all-powerful, not to worry about the mean sins of villagers. But the Imam believes he is Allah’s terrible right hand. It is not enough that he has risen from being the head of a tiny mosque in Media until he is Vizier to the Shah of Persia. He is distant kin to the Abbasid family, in his veins flows the blood of the Caliphs of Baghdad. He would like one day to rule in Ispahan, striking out from my throne with a religious fist.”
Now Rob could not have answered had the words been there, for he was stricken with terror. The Shah’s wine-loosened tongue had put him at highest risk, for if Ala, sobering, should regret his words it would be no great task to arrange the witness’s swift disposal.
But Alā showed no discomfiture. When a sealed jug of wine was brought, he tossed it to Rob and led him back to the horses. They made no attempt to hunt but simply rode through the lazy day and grew hot and nicely tired. The hills were bright with flowers, cuplike blossoms of red and yellow and white, on thick stalks. They weren’t plants he had seen in England. Alā couldn’t tell him their names but said each came not from a seed but from a bulb like an onion.
“I am taking you to a place you must never show to any man,” Alā said, and led him through brush until they were at the ferny mouth of a cave. Just inside, amid a stench like slightly rotting eggs, was warm air and a pool of brown water lined
with gray rocks blotched with purple lichens. Already Alā was undressing. “Well, do not tarry. Off with your clothes, you foolish Dhimmi!”
Rob did so with nervous reluctance, wondering whether the Shah was a man who loved the bodies of men. But Alā already was in the water and assessing him unabashedly but without lust.
“Bring the wine. You are not exceptionally hung, European.”
He realized it would not be politic to point out that his organ was larger than the king’s.
The Shah was more sensitive than Rob had credited, for Alā was grinning at him. “I don’t need to be made like a horse, for I can have any woman. I never do a woman twice, do you know that? That is why a host does not hold more than one entertainment for me, unless he gets a new wife.”
Rob settled gingerly into hot water odorous with mineral deposits, and Alā opened the wine jug and drank, then leaned back and closed his eyes. Sweat sprang from his cheeks and forehead until the part out of the water was as wet as the portion of his body that was submerged. Rob studied him, wondering what it was like to be supreme.
“When did you lose your maidenhead?” Alā asked, eyes still closed.
Rob told him of the English widow who had taken him into her bed.
“I, too, was twelve years old. My father ordered his sister to begin to come to my bed, as is our custom with young princes, very sensible. My aunt was tender and instructive, almost a mother to me. For years I thought that after every fucking came a bowl of warm milk and a sweetmeat.”
They soaked in contented silence. “I would be King of Kings, European,” Alā said finally.
“You are King of Kings.”
“That is what I am called.”
Now he opened his eyes and looked directly at Rob, an unblinking brown stare. “Xerxes. Alexander. Cyrus. Darius. All great, and if each was not Persian by birth, they were Persian kings when they died. Great kings over great empires.
“Now there is no empire. In Ispahan, I am the king. To the west, Toghrul-beg rules over vast tribes of nomadic Seljuk Turks. To the east, Mahmud is the sultan of the mountainous fasts of Ghazna. Beyond Ghazna, two dozen weak rajahs rule in India but they are a threat only to one another. The only kings strong enough to matter are Mahmud, Toghrul beg, and I. When I ride forth, the chawns and beglerbegs who rule the towns and cities rush outside their walls to meet me with tribute and fawning compliments.
“But I know the same chawns and beglerbegs would pay the same homage to either Mahmud or Toghrul-beg if they should ride that way with their armies.
“Once in ancient days there was a time like now, when there were small kingdoms and kings who fought for the prize of a vast empire. Finally only two men held all the power. Ardashir and Ardewan met in single combat while their armies watched. Two great, mailed figures circling each other in the desert. It ended when Ardewan was bludgeoned to death and Ardashir was the first man to take the title Shahanshah. Would you not like to be that kind of King of Kings?”
Rob shook his head. “I want only to be a physician.”
He could see puzzlement on the Shah’s face. “Something new. All my life no one has failed to take an opportunity to flatter me. Yet you would not exchange places with the king, it is clear.
“I have made inquiries. They say that as an apprentice you are remarkable. That great things are expected when you become hakim. I shall need men who can do great things but do not lick my arse.
“I will use guile and the power of the throne to stave off Qandrasseh. The Shah has always had to fight to keep Persia. I will use my armies and my sword against other kings. Before I am through, Persia will be an empire again and I shall truly be Shahanshah.”
His hand clamped Rob’s wrist. “Will you be my friend, Jesse ben Benjamin?”
Rob knew he had been lured and trapped by a clever hunter. Alā Shah was recruiting his future loyalty for his own purposes. And it was being done coldly and with forethought; clearly, there was more to this monarch than the drunken profligate.
He would not have chosen to be involved in politics and he regretted riding out into the country that morning. But it was done, and Rob was very aware of his debts.
He took the Shah’s wrist. “You have my allegiance, Majesty.”
Alā nodded. He leaned back again, into the heat of the pool, and scratched his chest. “So. And do you like this, my special place?”
“It is sulfurous as a fart. Sire.”
Alā was not a man to guffaw. He merely opened his eyes and smiled. Eventually he spoke again. “You may bring a woman here if you like, Dhimmi,” he said lazily.
* * *
“I don’t like it,” Mirdin said when he heard that Rob had ridden with Alā. “He is unpredictable and dangerous.”
“It’s a great opportunity for you,” Karim said.
“An opportunity I don’t desire.”
To his relief, days went by and the Shah didn’t summon him again. He felt the need for friends who were not kings and spent much of his free time with Mirdin and Karim.
Karim was settling into the life of a young physician, working at the maristan as he had before, save that now he was paid a small stipend by al-Juzjani for daily examination and care of the surgeon’s patients. With more time to himself and a bit more money to spend, he was frequenting the maidans and the brothels. “Come with me,” he urged Rob. “I’ll bring you to a whore with hair black as a raven’s wing and fine as silk.”
Rob smiled and shook his head.
“What kind of woman do you want?”
“One with hair red as fire.”
Karim grinned at him. “They don’t come that way.”
“You need wives,” Mirdin told them placidly, but neither of them heeded him. Rob turned his energies to his studies. Karim continued his solitary womanizing, and his sexual appetite was becoming a source of merriment to the hospital staff. Knowing his story, Rob was aware that within the beautiful face and the athlete’s body was a friendless little boy seeking female love to blot out terrible memories.
Karim ran more than ever now, at the start and end of each day. He trained hard and constantly and not only by running. He taught Rob and Mirdin to use the curved sword of Persia, the scimitar, a heavier weapon than Rob was used to and one requiring strong, supple wrists. Karim made them exercise with a heavy rock in each hand, turning the rocks up and down, before and behind, to make their wrists quick and strong.
Mirdin was not a good athlete and couldn’t become a swordsman. But he accepted his clumsiness cheerfully, and he was so endowed with intellectual power it scarcely seemed to matter that he wasn’t fierce with a sword.
They saw little of Karim after dark—abruptly, he stopped asking Rob to accompany him to brothels, confiding that he had begun an affair with a married woman and was in love. But with increasing frequency Rob was invited to Mirdin’s rooms near the House of Zion Synagogue for the evening meal.
On a chest in Mirdin’s home he was amazed to see a checkered board such as he had seen only twice before. “Is it the Shah’s Game?”
“Yes. You know it? My family has played it forever.”
Mirdin’s pieces were wooden, but the game was identical to that Rob had played with Alā, save that instead of being intent on swift and bloody victory, Mirdin was quick to teach. Before long, under his patient tutelage, Rob began to grasp the fine points.
Homely Mirdin offered him small glimpses of peace. On a warm evening, after a simple meal of Fara’s vegetable pilah, he followed Mirdin to wish six-year-old Issachar a good night.
“Abba. Is our Father in Heaven watching me?”
“Yes, Issachar. He sees you always.”
“Why cannot I see Him?”
“He is invisible.”
The boy had fat brown cheeks and serious eyes. His teeth and jaw already were too large and he would have his father’s inelegance, but also his sweetness.
“If He is invisible, how does He know what He looks like?”
Rob grinned.
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, he thought. Answer that, O Mirdin, scholar of oral and written law, master of the Shah’s Game, philosopher and healer …
But Mirdin was equal to it. “The Torah tells us He has made man in His own image, after His likeness, and therefore He does but glance at you, my son, and sees Himself.” Mirdin kissed the child. “A good night, Issachar.”
“A good night, Abba. A good night, Jesse.”
“Rest well, Issachar,” Rob said, and kissed the boy and followed his friend from the sleeping chamber.
49
FIVE DAYS TO THE WEST
A large caravan arrived from Anatolia and a young drover came to the maristan with a basket of dried figs for the Jew named Jesse. The youth was Sadi, eldest son of Dehbid Hafiz, kelonter of Shīrāz, and the figs were a gift symbolizing his father’s love and gratitude for the plague-fighters of Ispahan.
Sadi and Rob sat and drank chai and ate the delectable figs, which were large and meaty, full of crystals of sugar. Sadi had bought them in Midyat from a drover whose camels had carried them from Izmir, across the whole of Turkey. Now he would drive the camels east again, bound for Shīrāz, and he was caught up in the great adventure of travel and proud when the Dhimmi healer requested that he carry a gift of Ispahan wines to his distinguished father, Dehbid Hafiz.
The caravans were the only source of news, and Rob questioned the youth closely.
There had been no further sign of the plague when the caravan had departed Shīrāz. Seljuk troops had been sighted once in the mountainous eastern part of Media but they appeared to be a small party and did not attack the caravan (praise be to Allah!). In Ghazna the people were afflicted with a curious itching rash and the caravan master would not stop there lest the drovers lie with the local women and contract the strange disease. In Hamadhān there was no plague but a Christian foreigner had brought a European fever to Islam and the mullahs had forbidden the populace from all contact with the infidel devils.