The Book of Saladin (27 page)

“There is another surprise awaiting you today. I think it will please you, and that, too, is the result of an order issued directly by the Sultan. If you see the chamberlain on your way out, he will provide you with the details. Your welfare concerns the Sultan. He must be pleased with you.”

Was there a slight touch of envy in the way he spoke those last words, or was it just my imagination? I had little time to think of Imad al-Din and his sensitivities, for the chamberlain’s news stunned me into such speechlessness that I had to sit down and drink some water. The Sultan’s motives were pure, but I wish he had consulted me in advance.

My wife and daughter, together with all our possessions and my library, had been transported from Cairo to Damascus. A small house, not far from the citadel, had been provided for our use, and a retainer was leading me in its direction. I walked in a daze, like those who have inhaled more
banj
than their bodies can contain. The retainer from the citadel left me just outside the house. The door was open and the courtyard glistened in the afternoon sun.

It was Maryam who saw me first from a window and rushed down to hug me. I had not seen her for nearly four years. Tears wet my beard as I held her close to me and then pushed her gently away so I could see how she had changed. She had matured, but not beyond recognition. For what I saw before me was a beautiful young woman of sixteen, her eyes the colour of honey. Her pitch-black hair nearly touched the ground. I had seen this before.

She was the exact image of her mother Rachel when I had first espied her walking with her friends to fetch water from the well. As I drank in the sight, I felt a touch on my shoulder, which burnt me. I turned to embrace Rachel. She had aged. Her face was lined and there were streaks of grey in her hair. My heart missed a beat, but all the poison had gone and I kissed her eyes. It was wise of the Sultan not to have asked me before sending for them. I might have refused and suffered a great deal as a consequence.

It would be strange living in a house again. I had become accustomed to the luxury of the citadel, where all my elementary needs had been satisfied. The permanent proximity to power had stimulated me. Yet I was not displeased with the opening of a new phase in my life. Maryam would be married soon. Rachel and I would be alone again as we had been for four years, before Maryam was born. In those days we were so desperate for children that we fornicated at every possible opportunity. All that labour had produced only Maryam. A son was denied me. What would we do after Maryam had left home?

It was strange that this question arose in my mind so soon after Rachel’s arrival, but I was distracted by a messenger from the citadel. I was to return immediately. Rachel smiled patiently.

“It will be just as it was in Cairo. Go, but do not stay long. It is our first night together for many years, and last night in the desert caravan I saw the most beautiful crescent moon.”

I did not return home that night. I had been summoned to Shadhi’s bedside. The old man lay dying. He smiled weakly as I entered his chamber.

“Where is my Salah al-Din? Why is my boy not with me in these last hours?”

I held his hand and stroked it gently.

“The Sultan is fighting the Franj, my good friend Shadhi. Please don’t leave us yet. Just a few more months.”

“Allah has finally summoned me, but listen to me now. Just listen. When al-Kuds falls and you enter the gates next to my boy, think of me, Ibn Yakub. Imagine I am riding next to the Sultan, whispering encouragement in his ear just as I did when he fought his first battle. It was not granted to me to see my boy’s victory, but I am sure it will come. As sure as I am that I will not be there by his side. His name will live forever. Who will remember Shadhi?”

“He will,” I whispered, the tears cascading down my cheeks. “And I will. We shall never forget you.”

He did not reply. His hand went cold in mine. My throat was tight with fear. Shadhi had gone. This old man in whose company I had spent countless hours, who had enriched my life immeasurably, was dead.

I remembered our first meeting. I had been a bit frightened of him, not knowing how to respond to his disregard for authority. Yet even on that day, at the end of our first conversation, I was praying for a second one. I had realised that he was an invaluable source for the secret history of Salah al-Din and the House of Ayyub.

Shadhi was no longer with us, but he would live inside me. There could be no permanent separation. I tried to peer into the future. His voice, his laughter, his mocking tones, his spirit often clouded by arrogance, his refusal to tolerate fools or pompous religious scholars, his bawdy jokes and the tragic story of his own love. How could I ever forget him? I would hear his voice as long as I lived. Memories of him would guide me as I completed the chronicles of the Sultan Salah al-Din and his times.

We buried him early the next morning. The Sultan’s oldest son, al-Afdal, led the mourners, who had been restricted to the Sultan’s immediate family. Amjad the eunuch and I were the only outsiders. Amjad had looked after Shadhi, tended his needs during the last few months. He, too, had fallen under his spell and was sobbing uncontrollably. As we comforted each other, I felt close to him for the first time.

I had not slept all night. After the funeral prayers were over I went home. I thanked my stars for having my wife and daughter in Damascus. It would ease the pain of Shadhi’s loss.

Rachel knew what Shadhi had meant to me. I had talked of him often enough during the first weeks of my employment in Cairo. She knew that he had been my only true friend in the Sultan’s entourage. Words were unnecessary. I fell asleep weeping in her lap.

T
EN DAYS AFTER SHADHI’S
death, Salah al-Din returned to Damascus. A courier had informed him of the event, and since receiving the news he had, uncharacteristically, not spoken to anyone after giving the orders to lift the siege and return home. He insisted on being completely alone when he stopped to pray at Shadhi’s grave before entering the citadel.

I was summoned to his chamber in the afternoon. To my amazement he hugged me and wept. When he had recovered his composure he spoke, but in a voice heavy with emotion and barely audible.

“One night during the siege the sky grew dark and it began to rain. As we covered our heads with blankets, several soldiers approached me holding a tall, dark man captive. The prisoner, who was groaning, had insisted on pleading his case before me. My men had little alternative but to agree to his request, since my battle orders are very firm on this question. Any prisoner condemned to death has the right to appeal directly to the Sultan. I asked them why they were intent on killing him. A short soldier, one of my best archers, replied: ‘Commander of the Brave, this man is a Believer. Yet he betrayed us to the enemy. If it were not for him we would have taken Reynald’s castle.’

“I looked at the prisoner, who stared down at the earth. The rain and the wind had stopped, but the evening was still black. No stars had appeared in the sky. I looked at his bloody, bearded face and became angry.

“‘You are an apostate, wretch. You betrayed the jihad, you betrayed your fellow-Believers to this devil, this butcher who has killed our men, women and children without mercy. You dare appeal to me for your life. By your actions you have forfeited my grace.’

“He remained silent. Once again I asked him to explain himself. He refused to speak. As the executioner was preparing the sword to decapitate him, the traitor whispered in my face: ‘At the exact moment that your swordsman removes my head from my body, someone very dear to you will also die.’

“I was enraged and walked away, refusing to dignify his death with my presence. I am told, Ibn Yakub, that Shadhi died that same evening, leaving us alone to count the empty days that lie ahead. He was more than a father to me. Long years ago he never left my side during a battle. It was as if I possessed two pairs of eyes. He guarded me like a lion. He was friend, adviser, mentor, someone who never shied from telling me the truth, regardless of whether or not it gave offence. Now he has fallen victim to death’s cruel arrow. Men like him are rare and irreplaceable. I wish we could bring him back to life with our tears.

“How had that blasphemer, punished before the eyes of Allah, known that Shadhi, too, would die? It was as we were riding back to Damascus that one of the soldiers told me that the prisoner we had executed had turned to treachery because Reynald had raped his wife before his eyes and had threatened to invite a hundred others to do the same before he killed her. Naturally I was sad on hearing this tale, but I did not regret the punishment. During a war, good scribe, we have to be prepared for every sacrifice. And yet I respect him for not recounting his wife’s ordeal himself. Reynald, too, will be punished. I have taken an oath before Allah.

“Death has become a garland round my neck.

“I want to be distracted tonight, scribe. Send for Usamah and let him entertain us or, at the very least, stimulate our brains. A session. Let us have a session tonight after sunset. I do not wish to sleep. Let us remember Shadhi by doing something that always pleased him. He loved testing his wit against that of Usamah. Is the man in Damascus or has he deserted us for the delights of Baghdad? He’s here? Good. Send a messenger, but please eat with him on your own. I am not feeling in a mood to watch him devouring meat like a wild beast. You look relieved.”

I smiled as I bowed myself out of the royal chamber. Not sharing the Sultan’s meal was indeed a relief. I dispatched the chamberlain to fetch Usamah ibn Munqidh as the Sultan had directed, but I wondered whether the old man might not be too tired for a sudden exertion. Usamah was born not long after the Franj first came to these lands. He was ninety years of age, but as well preserved and as solid as ebony. He showed no trace of infirmity, though his back was bent and he walked with a slight stoop. He spoke in a deep, strong voice. I had last seen him in Cairo in the company of Shadhi.

He had been in his cups while we had sipped an infusion of herbs, pretending to keep him company. Usamah had consumed a whole flask of wine, all the while smoking a pipe filled with
banj.
Despite the stimulation he had not taken leave of his senses and regaled us for most of the night with anecdotes relating to his Franj friends, who were numerous. They often invited him to stay with them and Usamah would return with a sackful of strange and wonderful stories.

That night in Cairo he had discussed the Franj’s filthy habit of not shaving their pubic hair. He described a scene in the bath when his Franj host had called in his wife to observe Usamah’s clean-shaven groin. The couple had marvelled at the sight, and there and then summoned a barber to shave off their unwanted hair. “Did not the sight of a naked woman, having the hair below her belly removed, excite you, my Prince?” Shadhi had asked. The question appeared to have puzzled him. He puffed on his pipe, looked straight at Shadhi and replied: “No, it didn’t. Her husband was far more attractive!”

Shadhi and I had roared with laughter till we saw his surprise at our mirth. Usamah was in total earnest.

Usamah was a nobleman with an ancient lineage. His father was the Prince of Shayzar, and so the son was brought up as a gentleman and a warrior. He had travelled widely and was in Cairo when Salah al-Din became Sultan. The two had become friends from that time onwards, but all of Salah al-Din’s attempts to draw on Usamah’s age and experience to acquire an understanding of Franj military tactics ended in failure.

The Sultan was genuinely perplexed, till one day Usamah confessed that he had never fought in a single battle, and that all his training had come to nought. He was, he said to the Sultan, a traveller and a nobleman, and he liked to observe the habits and customs of different peoples. He had been taking notes for thirty years and was working on a book of memories of his life.

Later that evening I was still recalling the past, when Usamah arrived and greeted me with a wink. I had been waiting to eat with him, but he had already taken his evening meal. I gave up mine and we walked slowly to the Sultan’s audience chamber later that evening. His stoop had become more pronounced, but otherwise he had changed little over the last few years. He acknowledged Imad al-Din’s presence with a frown—the two men had always disliked each other—and bowed to Salah al-Din, who rose to his feet and embraced him.

“I am sad that Shadhi died before me,” he told the Sultan. “At the very least he should have waited so that we could go together.”

“Let us imagine he is still with us,” replied Salah al-Din. “Imagine him sitting in that corner, listening to every word you utter with a critical smile. Tonight I really need your stories, Usamah ibn Munqidh, but no tragedy, no romance, only laughter.”

“The Sultan’s instructions are difficult, for there is never a romance that is not preceded by laughter, and why is a tragedy a tragedy? Because it stops laughter. So with great respect I must inform the Sultan that his desires cannot be fulfilled. If you insist simply on laughter then this tongue will fall silent.”

It was a useful opening move by the old magician. The Sultan raised his hands to the heavens and laughed.

“The Sultan can only propose. Ibn Munqidh must dispose as he chooses.”

“Good,” said the old storyteller, and began without further ado.

“Some years ago I was invited to stay with a Franj nobleman, who lived in a small citadel near Afqah, not far from the river of Ibrahim. The citadel had been constructed on the top of a small hill, overlooking the river. The hillside was a cedar forest and the whole prospect afforded me great pleasure. For the first few days I admired the view and relished the tranquillity. The wine was of good quality and the hashish even better. What more could I want?”

“If Shadhi were here,” muttered the Sultan, “he would have replied: ‘A pretty young man!’”

Usamah ignored the remark and continued.