“Didn’t you sleep at all?” Apama asked her.
“No. And you?”
“Me neither.”
“Yes, yes, it’s a strange life we have.”
She had wanted to say “terrible,” but Apama had understood her even so.
Soon Zuleika and her companions arrived back home. They ran to dress themselves and get rid of the last traces of the night. By the time of the third prayer everything was back to normal. Their everyday life had resumed.
In mid-afternoon Hasan arrived unannounced, accompanied by four mace-bearing guards. Once again, the girls assembled in a semicircle. He wanted to hear details of the previous night. They answered him with trembling voices.
He pulled the gold bracelet out from under his robe. He showed it to the girls and asked them, “Whose is this jewelry?”
Halima recognized her property immediately. She practically dropped to the ground in fright. She was unable to utter a single word.
The others were frightened too. Miriam looked from one face to the next. When she came to Halima, she immediately understood everything. She looked at Hasan imploringly. The mischievous smile on his face put her at ease.
“So this bracelet doesn’t belong to any of you? Then that means the feday lied to me.”
He gazed at Halima intently.
Tears came welling up out of her eyes. She was shaking so badly that her teeth chattered as she cried. In her mind’s eye she could already see herself setting her head down on the block, the axe rising above her.
“A fine thing, Halima. Do you realize I should have you beheaded? And I would do it remorselessly, if this thing had betrayed our secret to the boy. This time I’ll grant you your life. But if it happens again, your head will not escape the axe.”
He put the bracelet back under his robe.
Miriam nodded to Halima, who ran up to Hasan, overjoyed, and fell to her knees before him. She wanted to thank him, but she couldn’t produce a single word. She just kissed his hand.
“I want you all to try harder next time,” he said, bidding them farewell. “Last night you gained some experience which should be useful to you in the future. Be ready at any time, day or night.”
He nodded to them and called for Miriam to accompany him.
“Expect me tonight. I have a lot to talk to you about.”
“As you say,” she replied. For the first time the prospect of meeting with him didn’t cheer her in the slightest.
Toward evening the girls gathered around the pond and chatted about the previous night. They shared their impressions from the various gardens. Halima sat off to one side, wordlessly listening. For the first time she felt a real desire to be alone. She bore a great secret in her heart. Nobody knew about it, and she wouldn’t have dared to reveal it to anyone. She loved Suleiman. She loved him to distraction. An ominous question had been weighing down on her spirit. For a long time she didn’t dare ask it. At last she turned to Fatima.
“I didn’t quite understand. Are the same visitors going to come next time?”
Fatima looked at her. She understood everything at once. She felt sorry for her to the bottom of her heart.
“Nobody knows, dear child.”
Halima stared at her with curious eyes. She sensed that Fatima was evading her. Was she really not going to see Suleiman ever again? Doubts had plagued her all night. She hadn’t been able to sleep. Now she had her own grown-up worries. She had ceased being a child.
On that same day news spread throughout the fortress that Hasan had opened the gates to paradise for three fedayeen, and that they had spent the night there. Abu Soraka came to see if Suleiman, Yusuf and ibn Tahir had come back. He found them asleep, but their comrades told him what they had learned from them.
Abu Soraka broke out in a sweat. He immediately reported to Abu Ali, telling him what the fedayeen were saying.
A mischievous smile crossed Abu Ali’s face.
“If that’s what they’re saying, then that’s what must have happened. Why should we try to hide the truth?”
Abu Soraka bowed in fright. He sought out the doctor and told him the news.
“I think Hasan invented this as a trick to intimidate us,” he said. “But I wonder how he bribed those boys to start lying so baldly, since they’ve always been so dedicated to the truth until now?”
“I’m afraid there’s something far more dangerous lurking behind this,” the Greek suggested. “Do you remember our conversation about the harems behind the castle? What if he created them for these boys?”
“But why hasn’t he confided in us? He must know that the less we’re informed, the more we’re bound to speculate.”
“Would you like to hear some wise advice, my dear dai? Drop the speculations and forget what you’ve heard. Otherwise I’m not sure your head will be worth very much. Because it’s not in him to trifle with the commanders, much less with those crazy, young fanatics. I’ve seen a few things in my lifetime. But there’s something in ibn Sabbah that surpasses my understanding and my experience.”
Agitated, Abu Soraka left to attend to his business. However much he resisted, in his thoughts he constantly came back to the three boys’ strange nocturnal tale.
Dai Ibrahim’s reaction to the news was entirely different. At first he was also taken by surprise. Then he clarified everything in his mind. “Sayyiduna knows what he’s doing,” he said. “We serve him, and if he chose not to share his plan with us, then I’m sure he has good reasons.”
Discussion of the matter was all the more animated in the barracks. The sergeants and some of the men who served meals to the fedayeen overheard them talking and returned with news of this unprecedented miracle. Because no one who believed what the fedayeen said had any doubt that the threesome’s visit to the gardens of paradise had been a miracle.
“Our Master must be a great prophet if Allah gave him so much power,” they said.
“But what if the fedayeen invented the whole thing?” a doubter worried.
“Out of the question,” insisted one of the men who had listened to the fedayeen. “They’re all still obsessed with what the three had to say.”
“Then that’s the best proof that only Ismailism is the true faith. Only a criminal dog would still doubt in Sayyiduna’s mission after miracles like that.”
“From now on I give no leeway to infidels. I’ll hack in two anybody who refuses to recognize Sayyiduna as a great prophet.”
“Now it’s going to be a real pleasure to fight those infidel dogs. Let them all perish by our sabers.”
Emir Manuchehr walked in. For a time he listened to the conversations without speaking. Then he had them tell him everything from the beginning.
The soldiers watched him attentively. But not a muscle on his face moved. When he saw they expected a statement from him, he spoke.
“If the fedayeen claim that they were in paradise by the grace of the supreme commander, and he doesn’t contradict that, then it’s our duty to believe and act accordingly.”
But when he returned to his rooms, his brow was deeply furrowed. He also wondered why the commander hadn’t informed him of his plans. He was even more disturbed by the wild fanaticism that he had observed among his men. He didn’t doubt there was some deception lurking at the bottom of this, but he couldn’t quite imagine what that might be. He could just feel that his old, experienced soldiers were turning into herds of wild fanatics who no longer looked to him as their most immediate commander, but were instead falling more and more under the invisible influence of the leader of the faith. There didn’t appear to be any alternative but for him to adapt to this new trend himself. Hasan had named him emir, but this was more of a religious distinction than a military one. Now the inexorably functioning machine that Hasan controlled had absorbed him entirely. He had become a part of it, one of the cogs in Hasan’s institution.