Alamut Part 27

"You brought my son-into-"

"My son," she said with pointed emphasis, "and my friend, whose name is Morgiana, and who is admittedly rather eccen- tric, are on the best of terms. I see no objection in it. A woman, after all, should understand babies, for when she has her own."

"A woman? That?" Maimoun folded his arms tightly across his chest, as if to keep himself from hitting her. "What do you take me for? That is Bahram the eunuch, who came this mom- ing for a dagger with a silver hilt. He has a predilection for them. As, it would seem, for men's wives."

Between frustration and plain tiredness, Sayyida almost burstinto tears. "She docs not! She is my friend. She has been my friend since I was a child."

He went white, and then scarlet. "You are lying."

Maybe he lacked somewhat of conviction. She was too far gone to care. "I do not lie. That is Morgiana. Morgiana is my friend. I will not be held guilty of a sin which I have never committed, nor wanted to commit."

Maimoun swallowed visibly, and pulled at his beard as he always did when he was caught in the wrong: as if to a.s.sure himself that he was still the man; he was still her lord and master.

As he was, as Allah had willed it. She was finding it very hard to be a good Muslim. She kept wanting to d.a.m.n all boys and their idiocies.

"Morgiana is my friend," Sayyida's temper said for her.

"Laila is corroded with envy. What kind of man are you, that 207.

you believe a known and notorious twister of the truth, over your own wife?"

Maimoun snapped erect- She had gone too far. Soon, she was even going to care. "Hereafter," he said, "hereafter, you will keep to the house; you will attend to your duties; you will not idle your days away in the garden with creatures of dubious gender and still more dubious reputation. Do you hear me, woman? I forbid you to see her. I forbid you to speak with her.

I forbid you to hold converse with any but your most immedi- ate kin. Do you understand me?"

"I understand you," she said- Hasan began to howl in car- nest. She jogged him on her hip, to small effect. "Will my lord permit his humble slave to depart for the duties to which he has confined her?"

He had to know that he was being mocked; but he was male, and glorious in his lords.h.i.+p over the lowly female. He raised his chin. "Go," he commanded her.

Maybe Iblis had a hand in it. Sayyida could not make herself regret what she had said. Any of it.

Maimoun did not know how right he was, to forbid her Morgiana's company. Morgiana made her think at angles; made her forget that she was woman and wife. She had never disobeyed Maimoun, however strangling-close he kept her, ex- cept for Morgiana's sake.

Some things, even her husband was not wise to touch.

He had called her a liar. She had sins in plenty to her ac- count, but lying had never been one of them. Even he should have been able to see that."Arrogant," she muttered to Hasan in the stifling room that would, if Maimoun had his way, be her prison. "Pompous.

Self-righteous. Child. Everything must be his way and no other. The Prophet-may Allah bless him-said that my hus- band musr be my protector. He never said anything of my being my husband's slave."

Hasan, nursing with vigor, took no nonce of his mother's, troubles.

"No, and what should it mafter to you? You're blessed of Allah. You can do and be whateer your soul conceives of. And if it suits your whim to rule your wife's every utterance . . ."

She wound her fingers in his hair, tugging very lightly. "Youll not do that, at least. Not if I can help it. Tou will trust your wife; you will let her bear the weight of her own honor. She 208 can, you know. She's a woman, and maybe she has neither faith nor reason, but she does understand plain good sense. If," she said, "she is allowed."

And if she was not, then she would do as she pleased. It was no more than a man did; or a woman whose man had any sense of his own.

It was possible, without being overly conspicuous, to avoid going near Maimoun at all. Since Sayyida grew big with Hasan, and then while she nursed him, Maimoun had slept apart from her, except when he simply wanted to be with her. She did not want to remember how pleased she had been, to see how often he came and lay beside her and did not try to do what men did with their wives: holding her, only, and Hasan warmly content between them. Now, she kept the door shut, and if he knocked, she did not hear. And since Shahin and Rafiq were sufficient to wait on guests, Sayyida did not see need to wait on her father and her husband when they were alone. She had duties enough elsewhere.

She told herself that she hardly missed him. What had he ever done but bind her with caprice, and call it duty and honor?

Tonight he did not knock. He came in as if he had a right to trespa.s.s, and not as if he tried to be circ.u.mspect about it.

Sayyida had her back to the door; she stiffened it. Hasan had been slow to fall asleep. Now that he was quiet, she had no desire at all to wake him for his father's sake.

She felt Maimoun come to stand over her. He smelled of rosewater. She throttled a sneeze.

"I know you're awake," he said.

He knew altogether too much for anyone's comfort. She thought of defying him, but it was late, and she was tired, and her hold on her grudge was slipping. She turned to face him.He looked almost as contrite as she would have liked, with sriffness over it, for after all he had his pride. He chewed his lip, not quite looking at her. It was too dim to be sure, but maybe he flushed. "How is the baby?" he asked, after a long pause.

"Asleep," she answered. It was not precisely friendly, but neither was it hostile.

He knelt beside her. He knew better than to touch Hasan; he was not ready, yet, to touch Sayyida. Her hand, which had 209.

no pride, wanted to wind itself with his, and kiss the square clever fingers, and smooth the scar on the back where, in the folly of his apprentices.h.i.+p, he had caught a spatter of molten steel.

She kept her hand where it belonged, knotted by her hip.

He would never apologize. She did not intend to.

It felt strange, that obstinacy. Light and hollow, and yet immovable- She had never refused to give in before. Nor on anything that mattered.

Maybe he would not ask her to- He ventured a smile, a brush of fingers over her hair. "You look pretty tonight."

She could be that, with a little effort- Not now, rumpled and scowling and hollow-eyed with too much Hasan and not enough sleep.

Men had no sense. "You're flattering me," she said. "Do you want something?"

This was certainly a flush. "Maybe I want my wife. Is that too much to ask?"

"It depends on what you're asking for."

"You've been avoiding me."

"I've been obeying you. Keep to the house, you said. Attend to my duties. Talk to no one but my closest kin. None of that leaves much s.p.a.ce for lesser things."

"I am a lesser thing?"

"You are my husband. You command, and I obey."

"But I never-" He stopped. "Now see here. If your con- duct had been honorable to begin with-"

She rose in a white heat. Because of Hasan, she did not scream, or spit in his face. "When have I ever been anything but honorable? When?"

"You are defying me now."She gulped air. "There. There it is. Honor is whatever vou choose to call it. I have none; I can have none: no matter what I do, you tell me that I do it wrongly, and without honor. You don't want a wife, Maimoun- You want a slave."

"At least a slave would pretend to be obedient."

. "Oh?" she asked with vicious sweetness. "It's not the truth you want, but pretense? Is it as simple as that?"

His voice rose with his hands. "You know it's not!"

"Hus.h.!.+" she hissed at him. "You'll wake the baby."

He was remarkably in control of himself: he shut his mouth.

*er a moment, much more softly, he began, "Sayyida." He 210 swallowed as if it hurt him. "Sayyida, this is ridiculous. We've always got on so well. Why have you taken so against me?"

She stared at him, incredulous. "I, against you? Who was it who started it all?"

Clearly he was trying to be wise, and prudent, and magnani- mous. He must have spent days working up to it. "You must admit that that . . . woman ... is hardly fit company for a young mother of good family."

"She was good enough for me when I was only a child of middling good family."

"That was when you were a child." He reached for her.

"Sayyida." Her name sounded rather pleasant, the way he said it. Even when she was ready to hit him. "A man and his wife should live in harmony. No?"

"Yes." His hands were on her, not doing much, simply being warm and solid and inescapably there. She did not know why she should think of shackles. He smiled at her, and she had no power over herself; she felt her lips twitch in response. It was not even that he was a handsome man. He was not. Pleasing, that was all, in youth and smooth skin and clear brown eyes, and in that he was hers.

She sighed a little. Her arms had found their way about him.

His solidity was familiar, the way his bones fit beneath the skin, the scent of him under the sweetness of new bath and rosewa- ter. Her heart swelled just so when she held Hasan. Or, no, not quite so. Her body knew very well the difference between her son and her son's father.

They lay down. She did not know which of them thought of it first. When he set hand to the cord of her drawers, she did not stop him. Perhaps she should have. She spared a glance forHasan, who slept oblivious. Maimoun's face came between; he had the look he always had in these moments, a t.i.ttle strained, a little abstracted, as if he had forgotten that she was there.

If he had meant to extract a promise from her, he never came to it. In fact he never finished what he had been leading up to at all; and she was not inclined to remind him.

When he slept as men did when they had satisfied them- selves, cradled on her breast as heedless-heavy as Hasan, she held him and played a little with the curls of his beard, and stared into the dark. Her body was at peace with itself, aching a little, perhaps, bur a pleasurable ache. Her mind had s.h.i.+fted not a hair's width. "I love you," she said very softly to the weight on her breast, and she meant it, though she had just 211.

begun to know it. "I'll obey you in everything you ask, if only it stays within the bounds of reason. I'll be your wife and your servant, and be glad. But some things, even you can't touch.

Some things go too deep."

Some things were too simple. That was all there was to it; all there needed to be.

"Someday you'll understand. You'll see that I can be myself, and guard my own honor, and still belong to you." She paused. "Allah willing," she said.

21.

Merchants, thought Aidan sourly. Aleppo was crawling with them. Most seemed to have a hand in Sinan's pocket, or to owe him loyalty of one sort or another. Though every one owed his first loyalty to his own house.

It was hard to be a Frank here, and a n.o.bleman, and a witch.

Damascus was alien but enchanting, like the music of the east.

There was no enchantment in Aleppo. Its walls closed in like prison walls. The need to wait on provisioning, on the finding of mounts and pack-camels, on the propensity of easterners for taking their leisure about anything that did not seem to them to be deathly urgent, wound him about in coils of frustration.

Only Joanna kept him from riding out alone and bearding Sinan in his lair. He was allowed to see her every day, for as long as either of them could stand it. There were always atten- dants. The black eunuch, inevitably. Often her maid. Once or twice a veiled and swaddled aunt of impeccable probity. None of them ever said anything. They were simply there, watching, listening with bland patience.

At night she was guarded like a sultan's treasury. He dared not even come to her in dreams.

He prowled instead. About the house; in the gardens. Even in the city, though his old horror of walls and crowding hu- manity had come back fullfold. It was still better than waiting, endlessly, for the House of Ibrahim to loose him on Masyaf.Or for his own will to muster itself to leave Joanna- . There was the truth. He could not bear to leave her. Even 212 the maddening little he could have of her, here, where her kin stood so strongly on guard over her life and honor.

One more day, he told himself, more than once. One more day, he would tarry. Then he would go, and be d.a.m.ned to them all.

He was thinking of it as he came back to his chamber after a wretched few moments with Joanna. She had been unwell, pale and tired, a t.i.ttle green about the edges; and unwontedly sharp with him when he asked if she were ill- Her denial was nothing short of fierce. But worse than that was her visible and palpable rejection of him: of the touch he ventured, guards be d.a.m.ned; of the touch that was more than touch, of which none but she could know. All she wanted of him was his absence.

He was too shocked to do aught but give her what she wanted. Too shocked at first even to be angry; still less to wield his power, and discover what had turned her so against him.

The anger was beginning to rise now. He turned in the room, swirling the Bedu robes she was so fond of. Arslan was nowhere about. This morning's guardhounds, Tuman and Zangi, had prudently drawn off to the balcony. A moment more and he would throw off sparks.

Someone was at the door. A servant, with a summons. He was wanted. He must come. And yet, the man said with eyes and tone and face, he should not.

Because it was not anyone in the House who desired his presence. It was the atabeg, the regent of Aleppo. The one who had set the a.s.sa.s.sins on Saladin- The ally of Sinan.

His messenger had ample escort. Nubians, huge and demon- black, bristling with steel. No less a force than Karim endeav- ored to hold them off.

Aldan greeted them with his sweetest smile. "I am wanted?"

he inquired.

His mood had lightened marvelously. Even when it was made clear that he was to come unarmed and unattended. Even when they searched him to be certain, and were neither gentle nor respectful. They could not object to his leaving his weap- ons with his mamluks, although they would have liked to. It was the mamluks who raised the protest, which he quelled with a single level glance.

He was not bound. But, they made it very clear, they would do what they must, to keep him from escaping.

He had no such intention. Here was danger; it worked inALAMUT 213 him like wine. Karim thought him bereft of his senses. So he was. He always had been.

His guards knew only that he was wanted; it was not their office to wonder why. But he could guess. He had made no effort to proclaim abroad who he was, and where he had come ftom, and why he was here, but neither had he made a secret of it. Any spy worth his wages could have discovered that the House of Ibrahim harbored a Frank sworn to bitter enmity against the Master of Masyaf.

They set him on a mule, which was not a compliment: it was a small mule, and headstrong even for its kind- He could do little to lessen the length of his legs, but he could come to an accommodation with the beast. It carried him with only the essential minimum of disgruntlcment. He hooked his knee over the pommel and took his ease, and let the atabeg's ser- vants conduct him to the citadel. His insouciance, he was pleased to see, was fraying their tempers alarmingly.

"Franks," one of them muttered.

Another spat, just aft of the mule's tail.

He showed them his fine white teeth. He let it dawn on them that it was not a human smile. There were too many teeth, too white and too long and too sharp.

If the citadel had been a few furlongs farther than it was, he might have had the atabeg's dogs in a truly splendid state. For, once they had counted teeth, they "would take note of the cast of a face, the pallor of its skin, the gleam of its eyes. And what those eyes were . . .

As it was, their own eyes were rolling white, and they were beginning to remember older G.o.ds than Allah. They came up the last of the steep winding way, breathing hard with more than exertion, and surrendered him with heartfelt gladness to the guard of the citadel. Turks, all of those, in black livery. He went as quietly as a tiger on a chain. Fear might have been wise, or apprehension at the least. But he was not a wise crea- ture.