Novel 1984 - The Walking Drum (v5.0) Read online

  They did not call me a liar, for the wine was on the table, and I ordered another leg of mutton. This time I cut a slice for each, and a thick slice for each of those at home. “Now fall to. When you look to your hives tomorrow you must be skeptics indeed if you think you have no honey.”

  Suddenly, there was a tremendous clamor outside, and the maire burst into the room, accompanied by two of the watch. “Seize them!” He pointed at Jacques and Paul. “They are thieves! They have stolen my honey!”

  “Hold!” I lifted a hand and, rising to my feet, stood taller than either of the watch. “Your honey is gone?”

  “All of it! Every bit!”

  “But we have watched the peasants for two full days. Did you not say this day that they had stolen nothing? Did they ever leave the fields? I, too, watched closely, and not until nightfall did they go to their homes or leave their work.”

  “He said they had stolen nothing,” my host said, “that they had not left the fields.”

  The men of the watch looked to the maire who did not know what to say.

  Leaning across the table and putting on my sternest expression, I said, “This is a plot to defraud the lord. By claiming the honey stolen you could keep it all yourself, depriving your master of his just share.” Turning to the men of the watch, I said, “See to it the maire delivers three large jars of honey to his lord, even if he must buy them himself.”

  Gathering my cloak about me, and picking up my gear, I said, “I shall go now, but I shall speak of this matter. It demands investigation. It seems all matters here need investigation.”

  “No!” the maire protested. “I will deliver the honey to my lord.”

  “See that you do, and see that you steal no more from those who work for him.” I leaned across the table. “Think you, my fat friend. You know they did not steal the honey, then is not the hand of God in this? Or a spirit, perhaps? Be wary, my friend. The good man Jacques and good man Paul are men to treat with care.”

  Stepping outside, I drew the door shut after me and started for my horses.

  The maire rushed after me. “But the gold?” he protested.

  Drawing my cloak about me, I said, “A man who will cheat poor peasants and attempt to defraud his master is no man to have for a partner.

  “Moreover”—I almost accidentally held out my hand—“I shall ride to your lord to report this…unless it pays me to take another route.”

  His fat jowls quivered with agitation. “There would be trouble! Much trouble!” He leaned toward me, putting a purse in my hand. “Take another route! Oh, please, take another way!”

  A short distance down the road I drew up before a peasant’s hut. Leaning from the saddle, I rapped loudly. A frightened woman opened the door, and I gave her the purse.

  “This is for Jacques to share with the others,” I said. “Tell him it is from Kerbouchard, the man who commands bees!”

  With that I rode into the night, reflecting on the habits of bees. Busy creatures they are, avid in their search for sweets, flying into every bush, every crevice…every window.

  Busy creatures, indeed, but no fools. They gather nectar from flowers to make honey, but even a bee will not gather nectar if there is ready-made honey at hand.

  Chapter 30

  *

  THE FRANCE TO which I returned was vastly different from Islamic Spain, and I learned to take no part in discussions, yet it went sore against me. We Bretons are inclined to silence, but, nonetheless, Celts have a love for argument. It was hard to be silent, but usually I was.

  The universal lack of cleanliness, as well as the overbearing pride and ignorance of both nobles and churchmen, astonished me.

  For all their effect on the Western world, the Greek thinkers, except for Aristotle, might never have lived. Of Muslim and Jewish thinkers and scientists nothing at all was known, and the practice of medicine was frightening.

  During time past I had become accustomed to the easy give-and-take discussion in Córdoba, to the hot, lazy baths, and lighted, paved streets. Everywhere in Córdoba, Toledo, Seville, and Málaga there was wit, poetry, excited discussion of ideas.

  Yet even in France I found a growing curiosity, a willingness to listen and a desire for learning among the young.

  Here and there in the monasteries scholars such as Peter Abelard were thinking, writing, talking. They were few, and often in trouble, but their number was growing.

  At long last, a month after our leave-taking in Brittany, I rejoined the caravan.

  They were at Cambrai. Difficulties had arisen at Bruges and Lille, and those fairs had been avoided. Business had been good, and I returned to find our silk sold but for a few bolts and our money invested in the cloth of Flanders. We turned southeast to Châlons-sur-Marne, and six weeks later went on to St. Denis, near Paris.

  It was at St. Denis that Safia said, suddenly, “Mathurin, I shall leave you here.”

  She had been quiet since my return, and I knew she had problems she did not confide in me, nor did I question her. As long ago as Montauban she had received a message from her old associates, and now she would resume where she had left off.

  “I shall miss you.”

  Her eyes held mine. “Do you still wish to find your father?”

  “More than anything.”

  Her eyelids seemed to flutter a little, and I knew she knew more than she cared to tell me. “It would be better if you did not think of him again.”

  “He is dead?”

  “No, but he is beyond your reach. I fear for your life if you persist.”

  “I have no choice.”

  She was silent. We were in a small grove on the banks of the Seine. Tomorrow we would ride into Paris and say our good-byes there. We had been good friends, with mutual admiration and respect. She was a shrewd, intelligent woman, one of a network extending through the Islamic world, and there were several such, working for different ideals, different causes, and there was war between them, a war unseen, untalked of, but a vicious, deadly war nonetheless.

  Finally, she asked, “Have you ever heard of the Old Man of the Mountain?”

  “Of the Assassins? Yes, I know of them.”

  “He has a fortress high in the mountains, beyond the Caspian Sea. There are several castles, as a matter of fact, but only one concerns you. It is the fortress of Alamut.”

  “My father is there?”

  “He is a slave there, and, Mathurin, nobody—and I mean nobody—enters that castle unless he is one of the Assassins.”

  “You are sure he is there?”

  “Our spies are everywhere. This word has now come to me. All I know is that as of three months ago, he was still well and strong.”

  “But a slave?”

  For such a man to become a slave seemed impossible. His fierce strength, his sharp intellect, his indomitable way—I could think of no man less suited to slavery than he.

  Of the Assassins I knew only what was generally believed. They were a Persian sect, a branch of the Ismaili, who in turn were a branch of the Shi’a, one of the great divisions among the followers of Mohammed.

  A young Persian Shi’ite, Hasan ibn-al-Sabbah, joined the sect in 1071 and became the first Grand Master of the Assassins, the first “Old Man of the Mountain.” He turned murder into a political weapon, making himself feared throughout the Islamic world and even in Christian Europe.

  From the stronghold of Alamut, Assassins were sent out, doped with hashish to kill enemies of the Old Man of the Mountains or to attack caravans and bring their goods to him. From his fortress he sent orders to kings and sultans, and more than one, under threat of assassination, complied with the wishes of the Old Man.

  There was a legend to the effect that Hasan-ibn-al-Sabbah, Omar Khayyam, and Nizam-al-Mulk, as young students, had entered into a pact. All studied with the same master; all were talented, and it seemed certain that at least one of the three would rise to power. It was agreed among them that whoever won success would share equally with the ot
her two.

  Nizam-al-Mulk became vizier of the mighty Seljuk empire, and Omar, the scholar, mathematician, and poet, chose a pension that would provide support while he pursued his studies. Hasan, on the other hand, insisted upon a position at court where he soon became rival to Nizam-al-Mulk himself.

  Finally, outwitted and disgraced, he fled from the empire and established himself at Alamut, from which point he directed the assassination of Nizam-al-Mulk.

  A story was told of the Garden of Alamut, a secret valley in the mountains nearby where all manner of delicious fruits, gorgeous flowers, and shading trees were grown. There were fountains that flowed with wine or milk, and all about were beautiful, sensuous women.

  Youths from desert tribes were invited to Alamut, drugged and transported into this interior valley. For a few days they lived as they had never lived upon the harsh and infertile desert.

  Until this experience these desert youths had known nothing but dates, camel’s milk, and goat’s flesh. Suddenly they were surrounded by all manner of luxuries and permitted to enjoy the company of women of such beauty as only appear in dreams.

  They were doped again, taken back to the outside, and told that the Old Man had transported them to Paradise and could do so again, at will. Furthermore, if they died in his service they would be returned to Paradise.

  Then these young men were sent to slay the enemies of the Old Man, and because they were given hashish to make them fearless, they became known as hashishans, or assassins.

  Stories were told of the Old Man and those he had slain. Every death of a possible enemy was attributed to him, no matter how it came about.

  And now my father was a prisoner in Alamut. Somehow I must go there, enter the fortress, and get him out. I said as much.

  “I knew you would want to go there, but there is nothing I can do to help you, nothing at all.”

  “I expect no help. The task is my own. I now know he is alive, know he is in health, and the rest is up to me.”

  “I need not warn you, Mathurin, but the Old Man has spies everywhere. If you speak of your intentions, he will know. Even here he may have spies, so tell no one of your plans.”

  We listened to the rustle of the river, and the stirring of the leaves. “Safia? You are sure you will be all right now?”

  “I have friends, Mathurin, but I will need money. If you agree, I will take what cash we have, and you keep the goods, and the horses.”

  “It is unfair. The value of the goods and the horses far exceeds what we have in gold.”

  Behind us the camp was stirring. Guido was singing, and we could hear the laughter of Johannes. “I shall miss them, as I shall miss you. We were fortunate to find them when we did.”

  “And I was fortunate to find you when I did,” I said. “Do you remember that night, Safia? I had no place to turn and enemies everywhere.”

  “You have been a good friend to me.” She looked up at me. “Mathurin, I wish…”

  What she wished I was never to know, for at that moment there was a call from camp.

  The Hansgraf and Peter awaited me, with them were Lucca and Johannes. “We need your advice. Safia informs us that you have much knowledge of the science of lands, and even maps?”

  “I have such knowledge.”

  “East of here? Do you know the lands of the Magyars and Petchenegs?”

  “I have read Marvazi, and others. They offer little.”

  “Do you know Kiev?”

  “It is a large market town, the largest in northern Europe, but the way there is dangerous, and the Petchenegs are a savage people.”

  “No matter. Our two caravans, Peter’s and mine, will muster more than one hundred and fifty fighting men.”

  Having heard much of the fierce steppe tribesmen, I was worried about the idea. The Hansgraf listened gravely to my objections. “We have missed the fairs at Bruges and Lille while the fair here at St. Denis is a small one. There will be trading at Lagny and Provins, but if we go eastward, there are fairs at Cologne and Leipzig. It seems to me if we take the cloth of Flanders to Kiev and sell it there and buy furs to take to Constantinople, we will make good trade.”

  There had been rumors of restlessness among the steppe tribes, and I was disturbed. Safia was awaiting me, and I told her of what was planned and what I feared.

  The deep sea can be fathomed, but who knows the heart of a woman? We had known each other for many months, and she was always disturbing to me, yet there is a moment in the acquaintance of a man and woman and once that moment is passed it may never be recaptured. Not at least with the same essence.

  We had met as equals, rarely a good thing in such matters, for the woman who wishes to be the equal of a man usually turns out to be less than a man and less than a woman. A woman is herself, which is something altogether different than a man.

  “I shall escort you into the city. It is not well that you should ride alone.”

  “All right.”

  Silence fell between us, and I searched my heart for a key to the silence and found no words.

  Paris was no such city as those to which I had become accustomed, but a shabby little place with muddy streets and a people suspicious of strangers.

  My father told me how fishermen had settled an island in the Seine and started a town called Lutetia, raided many times by the Vikings. Finally, the Count Eudes and Bishop Gozlin fortified the island and organized the townspeople to fight off the Vikings, who then went downstream to settle in the land named for them. Normandy. The Northmen came to be known in the Frankish lands as Normans.

  The city of Paris, if such it could be called, was actually three cities. On the island where Lutetia had been and where Notre Dame now was were the seat of government and the palace. The bishop lived on the island. On the right bank, separately administered, was the Town, the shops, markets, and the six great guilds. There were the money changers, goldsmiths, and bankers. This area was ruled by the Provost of Paris. On the left bank, only beginning, were the “schools” with their own laws, administrations, and customs. The Bishop of Paris was himself a feudal lord, a great landed proprietor with as much power as the king himself.

  The ancient site of Lutetia was called the “Isle of the City,” but the king and the bishop who lived there had less to do with what was called government than members of the guilds or even the argumentative and often ribald students of the university. The Romans, I noticed, had not kept themselves to the island, for there were the remains of an amphitheatre and a few arches of an aqueduct on the left bank.

  Safia and I parted at the bridge, for I had no desire to cross into the realm of officialdom. The further one can remain from the powers that be the longer and happier life is apt to be. Moreover, prolonged leave-takings made me uneasy.

  “You will be all right?” I asked.

  “Only this can I tell you. I shall be here for some time. Some friends, it does not matter who, plan to introduce silk manufacture to Paris.”

  “It is a good idea, Safia. Times are changing. Only a few years ago towns lacked importance. They have ceased to be merely places of refuge and have become markets. You have seen it. Traveling merchants are ceasing to wander and settling in the towns. You are wise. Where there are women there will be a market for silk.”

  We said no more, but parted with one last, lingering glance. I rode away, unhappy as was she.

  The old Roman road to Lyon led me toward the edge of town, but I turned aside, seeing a gathering of young men. Walking my horse closer, I paused to listen. A group of young men sat about on bundles of straw listening to a lecture. This was the place of the Fouarres, and one of the first schools in Paris.

  Some glanced askance at me, sitting my fine Arabian horse but wearing battered armor, sword at my side, bow and arrows slung on my saddle. No doubt they wondered at such a man being interested in their discussion.

  The lecturer, a thin man with a sour face, was expounding upon Bernard’s condemnation of Abelard for his application of r
eason to theology, and praising Bernard for his sentence against Abelard, whom he called a heretic.

  “Nonsense!” I said irritably. “Bernard was an old fool!”

  Every head turned, and the teacher stared, aghast. “How dare you say such a thing?” he demanded.

  “I dare say anything,” I replied more cheerfully, “because I have a fast horse.”

  Several of the students laughed, and one shouted, “Well spoken, soldier!”

  “Have you no reverence?” the teacher demanded.

  “I have reverence for all who ask questions and seek honest answers.”

  “A philosopher!” laughed a student.

  “A wanderer in search of answers,” I said, then to the teacher, “You asked if I have reverence? I have reverence for truth, but I do not know what truth is. I suspect there are many truths, and therefore, I suspect all who claim to have the truth.”

  Walking my horse a few steps closer, I added, “I have reverence for the inquirer, for the seeker. I have no reverence for those who accept any idea, mine included, without question.”

  “You are a heretic!” he threatened.

  “I am a pagan, and a pagan cannot be a heretic.”

  “You ride an infidel horse.”

  “My horse has never committed herself, but judging by her attitude on a frosty morning, she is an unbeliever.”

  There were subdued chuckles, and the teacher’s eyes narrowed. “You ridicule the Church,” he threatened.

  “Who mentioned the Church? On the contrary, I have great respect for religion. My objection is to those who are against so many things and for so little.”

  “What are you for?” a student called out. “Tell us, soldier.”

  “What am I for? Being a man, it is obvious. I am for women.”

  This drew a burst of laughter.

  “My only trouble is, I am unacquainted in town.”

  “Stay the night, soldier! We will introduce you to Fat Claire!”

  “It is a theory of mine,” I countered, “that as a seeker for truth I should find my own answers, and my own women.”

  “Tell us, soldier, in your travels have you discovered if the world is round or flat?”