The fedayeen were overcome with fatigue from their examinations and the excitement of their initiation. Following Abu Soraka’s advice, early that morning they had wrapped themselves in horse blankets, which they had brought with them, and tried to sleep. Over the last two days they had become so used to surprises that the impending battle didn’t particularly disturb them. Some of them went right to sleep. Others extricated themselves from their blankets and began poking the fires, which had almost gone out.
“Praise be to Allah, we’re done with school,” Suleiman remarked. “Waiting for the enemy at night is a whole different thing from spending your days polishing your butt on your heels and scratching at tablets with a pencil.”
“I just wonder if the enemy’s going to come at all,” ibn Vakas worried. In school he had been one of the quietest and most unobtrusive, but with danger looming, battle fever suddenly awakened in him.
“That would be just great,” Yusuf said. “So all the preparation and all the excitement would be for nothing, and we wouldn’t even get a Turk within sword’s length.”
“It would be even more entertaining if, after all your work and effort, they got you within sword’s length,” Suleiman joked.
“Our fate is written in the book of Allah,” Jafar remarked indifferently. He had drawn the lot to become flag bearer. He tried to subdue the vanity that threatened to show through in him with his submission to fate.
“But it would be stupid if we struggled so much in school, just so the first savage who comes along can do us in,” Obeida added.
“Cowards die a thousand times, a brave man only once,” Jafar pronounced.
“Do you think I’m a coward just because I’d prefer not to die right away?” Obeida said angrily.
“Stop going at each other,” Yusuf said, trying to pacify them. “Look at ibn Tahir staring at the stars. Maybe he thinks he’s looking at them for the last time.”
“Yusuf is becoming a wise man,” Suleiman laughed.
Several paces away, ibn Tahir lay wrapped in his blanket, staring at the sky.
“How wonderful this life of mine is,” he said to himself. “Like the fulfillment of some distant dreams.” He remembered his childhood in his parents’ home and how he would listen to the conversations of the men who gathered around his father. They would discuss the issue of the true caliph, refer to the Koran, refute the Sunna, and talk to each other in whispers about the mysterious Mahdi from the line of Ali, who would come to save the world from lies and injustice. “Oh, if only he would come during my lifetime,” he had wished back then. He envisioned himself as his defender, just as Ali had been for the Prophet. Instinctively he kept comparing himself with Mohammed’s son-in-law. He had been the Prophet’s most ardent follower and had fought and bled for him from his early childhood, and yet, after his death he was deprived of his legacy. When the people finally elected him, he had been treacherously murdered. It was for these very reasons that ibn Tahir had come to love him most. He was his shining example, the paragon on which he most tried to model himself.
How his heart beat when his father sent him to Alamut to enter Sayyiduna’s service! He had heard that this man was a saint and that many people regarded him as a prophet. From the very beginning, something had told him: this is your al-Mahdi, this is the one you’ve been waiting for, whom you’ve been longing to serve. But why didn’t anybody see him? Why hadn’t he initiated them into the fedayeen? Why had he chosen as his intermediary that toothless old man who resembled an old woman more than a man and a warrior? Until now, until this moment, it had never occurred to him to doubt that Sayyiduna was really in the castle. In this instant of illumination he felt terrified at the thought that he may have been living a delusion, and that Hasan ibn Sabbah wasn’t at Alamut at all, or that he wasn’t even alive anymore. In that case Abu Ali would be the one leading the Ismailis, and all of the dais and commanders would have some secret agreement with him. Abu Ali, a prophet? No, someone like him couldn’t be, shouldn’t be a prophet! Maybe they invented Sayyiduna, unseen and unheard, precisely for that reason, in order not to repel the faithful. Because who would want to recognize Abu Ali as the supreme commander of the Ismailis?
The castle concealed a great mystery, this much he sensed. At night, this night, it began to distress him as never before. Would he ever be given the chance to remove the veil from it, to look it in the face? Would he ever see the real, living Sayyiduna?
He heard the clatter of horse hooves. Instinctively he reached for his weapons. He got up and looked around. His companions were asleep, wrapped tightly in their blankets. A messenger had arrived. He could see him communicating in whispers with Abu Ali. A brief order followed and the guards put out the last remnants of the fires. The enemy was approaching.
A quiet peace came over him. He looked at the stars glimmering above him, small and sharp. He became aware of how small and lost he was in the universe. And that awareness was almost pleasant. Eventually, I may get to paradise, he thought. Oh, if only I could! he fervently whispered to himself. Heavenly maidens with dark eyes and white limbs will be waiting for me there. He recalled the women he had known: his mother, his sisters, and other relatives. The houris must be completely different, he thought, in a way that makes it worthwhile to shed blood for them in this world.
He tried to imagine himself actually arriving in paradise and entering through an iron gate grown over with ivy. He looked around and tried to find all the things the Koran promised. He pulled the blanket more tightly around himself. Now he really was in paradise. A beautiful maiden was walking toward him. He was half aware that he was dozing off and starting to dream. But it was pleasant and he was afraid of breaking the delicate threads. And so, at last, he fell asleep.
The sustained sound of a trumpet called them to battle. Drums began beating and the army jumped to its feet. The fedayeen hastily put on their sword belts, fastened their helmet straps, and grabbed their spears and shields. They stood in formation and, without having yet quite awakened, looked at each other questioningly.
“A messenger has just announced that the sultan’s forces are approaching,” said ibn Vakas, who had taken the last watch.
Abu Soraka stepped before them and ordered them to get their bows and quivers ready. Then he led them to the top of the hill and had them assume positions on the ground next to the guardhouse. For a while they waited with bated breath, but when no enemy appeared, they reached into their knapsacks and pulled out dried figs, dates and pieces of hardtack to chew on.
The horses had stayed at the foot of the hill, with two soldiers keeping watch over them. From time to time they could hear them whinny and neigh restlessly.
Daybreak came. The fedayeen looked toward the hillside where the rest of the army had camped. Abu Ali had assembled the horsemen behind some of the overgrowth. The riders stood next to their horses, holding their lances or sabers, a foot in one stirrup. On top of the hill the archers crouched with their bows drawn.
The grand dai inspected his units for their readiness. Behind him walked a soldier leading his horse by the reins. At last they reached the fedayeen, and Abu Ali climbed to the top of the tower.
Soon afterward a tiny white dot appeared on the horizon. Abu Ali came flying out of the guardhouse and, out of breath, pointed it out to Abu Soraka.
“Ready your bows!” the dai commanded.
The white dot grew visibly larger and a lone rider emerged from it. They could see him wildly spurring the horse on. Abu Ali watched, blinked, and squinted. Finally he called out.