'An unanswered question is like a toothache that only heals with asking,' he said, turning his face towards me. 'What is vexing you, my friend?'
'Why are you doing this?' At his puzzled glance, I added, 'Ships, supplies, now horses-all this. Why are you helping us?'
'Ah, well,' he replied. 'Cannot a man help a friend in need?'
'Forgive me, Yordanus, but there must be more to it than that.' It came to me then that perhaps I was not the friend he meant. 'It is de Bracineaux,' I suggested. 'He sent us to you knowing you would do this. But why? What is between the two of you that you should take such personal interest in this affair?'
He sat with his back to the gnarled little bole, resting his head against the crinkled black bark and staring out across the narrow brown valley shimmering dully in the heat haze. The buzzing of the flies grew loud in the silence. I did not press him, but let him come to it in his own time.
At last he drew a long, low breath and said, in a voice full of mourning and melancholy, 'I am doing it for my son.'
'You mentioned him before,' I said, trying to make it easier for the old man to speak. 'I can see you loved him very much.'
'Julian was his name,' said Nurmal. Having overheard the beginning of our conversation, he had come to join us, bringing a water skin and a wooden cup. 'May I?'
'Please.' Yordanus nodded and patted the ground beside him, and Nurmal sat down. 'Julian was everything a father hopes for in the child who will carry on the family name and lineage,' Yordanus continued, pride edging into his voice. 'He was my hope and my joy.'
The old trader went on to describe the unhappy events of their last days in Damascus. The trouble all began, in his estimation, with the fall of Jerusalem, which shocked the Seljuqs and Saracens beyond all measure. Overnight all previous certainties collapsed and the world was pitched headlong into unimaginable turmoil. Out of the chaos new, and often dangerous, alliances emerged. Everywhere the rulers and potentates of the old order made the best bargains they could with anyone who offered the barest hope of protection from the burgeoning multitude of dangers, perils, and threats arising almost daily.
'It was no different in Damascus,' Yordanus told me. 'Atabeg Tughtigin held out as long as he could. In his prime he had been an able and fair-minded ruler, but in the end his age and health began to tell against him. He made alliance with the Fida'in.'
The word pricked my attention, and I recalled what Sydoni and Roupen had told me about this shadowy sect.
Yordanus saw that I recognized the name and said, 'You have heard of them, I see.'
'Sydoni mentioned them; she called them murderers and said they held a hidden faith, but she did not say what that faith might be.'
'They are Muslims,' Yordanus explained, 'but of a very strict and overzealous stripe. It is their all-consuming desire to unite the Muhammedans in a single observance of the Muslim faith. To do this they are willing to dare all things-even martyrdom.'
'Dangerous men,' I observed.
'Murderous,' Nurmal corrected. 'All the more because of the hashish.'
'The hashish?' I had never heard the word before, and asked what it might be.
'Oh, it is a very potent herb that can be used in various ways. The Fida'in eat it, or smoke the dried leaves in pipes. It is a powerful essence, and it makes them foolishly courageous. When they are in the grip of the hashish, they fear nothing,' declared Nurmal. 'For this reason some call them the Hashishin, a name they hate.'
'It is true,' affirmed Yordanus. 'Death holds no terror for them, nor the life hereafter. They sacrifice all to their faith in the belief that they are instruments of God used to bring about divine justice.'
'By murdering their enemies.'
'By slaughtering anyone who opposes their schemes,' Yordanus insisted. 'They are everywhere now, and everywhere loathed. Like God, they see and hear every deed and every word; and, like God, they hold all men to judgement.'
'And their judgement is always the same,' added Nurmal. 'Guilty.'
'Sadly, it is so,' agreed Yordanus, nodding sagely.
'You said they came to Damascus,' I suggested, gently prodding the tale back to its beginning.
'Yes, and it was the worst evil ever to befall that admirable city. They were granted refuge in Damascus in return for helping in its defence. Why old Tughtigin ever agreed to this bargain, I will never understand. No doubt he thought it best to have them inside the tent pissing out rather than the other way. I cannot say.
'But as anyone might easily have predicted, the decision was disastrous. Once settled inside the walls, the Fida'in began to worm their way into every corner of the government. Within a few months they had taken control of the wazir's office and were exerting heavy influence over all state affairs. Tughtigin became a ghost in his own palace; unseen, unheard, he roamed the corridors moaning and fretting with remorse over his foolishness. But the damage was done. The Fida'in would not be moved.
'The people endured as best they could. Trade was difficult and unimaginably complicated. For example, if the Fida'in did not like the colour of the cloth you were selling, they declared it unclean, confiscated it, and imposed a heavy fine on you for selling it. If a man stopped in the street to speak to a woman, they fined him. If a woman ventured outside with her head uncovered, she was fined. If they found your turban too tall, or your beard too short, they fined you. If you could not pay these fines, they threw you in prison.
'In no time at all half the population was walking around with debts they could not pay, and the other half was in prison.' Yordanus shook his head ruefully. 'And should you be so unwise as to protest your innocence, you simply disappeared. Sometimes, if you were lucky, someone might find your head nailed to the city gates. Otherwise, you were never seen again.'
'I suppose Christians suffered the worst of it,' I mused.
'So you might think,' Yordanus allowed. 'But no, the perpetrators of this disaster were exceedingly equitable. Oh yes, they favoured all citizens-rich or poor, young or old, Christian, Jew, or Muhammedan – with the same infernal impartiality. Each year it became worse – for the merchants and moneylenders no less than everyone else. Good trade depends not only on a reliable, healthy ebb and flow of goods and services, but a fair expectation of progress and a modest hope for the future. Let these springs dry up, however, and like a river in the desert, all trade swiftly disappears.'
Nurmal poured water into the cup and passed it to Yordanus. 'We endured as best we could for as long as we could,' he said, draining the cup and passing it back. 'In the end it became intolerable.'
'Is that when you decided to leave?' I asked.
'If only it were so,' Yordanus murmured, 'Julian would still be alive.' His mouth twitched in a smile of such sorrowful regret that I could not bear to see it and looked away quickly. 'All is vanity,' he said softly, 'and nothing more so than the heart of man.'
Seeing his friend in such distress, Nurmal quietly moved the conversation onto a less painful subject, and I was left with more questions than when we first began. As soon as the heat of the day began to fade in the desolate hills, we moved on. I thought about what Yordanus had told me, turning the pieces of his tale over in my mind. It seemed to me that Julian and his sorry fate lay at the heart of the mystery and, thinking I would get no more from the father, I decided to ask the sister. But I did not have a chance to speak to her alone that night, nor all the next day. Indeed, it was not until well after dark when we had stopped for the night and everyone else was going to sleep that I was able to get her alone.