Amin Maalouf - Samarkand

‘And how do Sultana’s die? Poisoned, smothered, strangled! Or in childbirth! Pomp will not help you to escape human misery.’

They looked at each in silence for a long while. Jahan drew close to Omar and placed on his lips a kiss which she wanted to be impassioned and sank into his arms, but he pushed her aside, not able to bear farewells. He begged her one last time:

‘If you still attach the least value to our love, come with me, Jahan. The table is laid on the terrace, a light wind from the Yellow Mountains will blow over us and within two hours we will be drunk and we will go to lie down. I shall tell the servants not to wake us until Isfahan changes master.’

That evening the wind from Isfahan carried a sharp perfume of apricot. But how lifeless were the streets! Khayyam took refuge in his observatory. Usually he only had to enter it, look at the sky, and feel in his fingers the graduated disks of the astrolobe in order for the worries of the world to vanish. Not this time. The stars were taciturn, there was no music, not a sound, no secrets. Omar did not rush them for they had to have good reason for remaining silent. He decided to go home and walked slowly holding a reed which sometimes hit against a tuft of grass or an unruly branch.

He was now stretched out in his bedroom with the lights out; his arms desperately held an imaginary Jahan, his eyes were red from tears and wine. On the floor to his left were a carafe and a silver goblet which he seized from time to time with a weary hand in order to take long pensive drafts of disillusion. His lips held a dialogue with him, with Jahan, with Nizam but above all with God. Who else could hold together this universe which was crumbling?

It was not until dawn that an exhausted Omar, his head clouded, finally gave himself over to sleep. How many hours did he sleep? The sound of footsteps woke him up. The sun was already high, and, pouring through a slit in the tenting, forced him to shield his eyes. He was able to make out in the doorway the man whose noisy arrival had disturbed him. He was big and wore a moustache. His hand was tapping the sheath of his sword with a maternal gesture. His head was bound in a bright green turban and on his shoulders was the short velvet cape of the officers of the Nizamiya.

‘Who are you?’ Khayyam asked with a yawn. ‘Who gave you rights over my sleep?’

‘Has the master never seen me with Nizam al-Mulk? I was his bodyguard, his shadow. They call me Vartan the Armenian.’

Omar remembered now and it hardly reassured him. He felt as if a cord were being knotted from his neck to his gut. However, if he was afraid, he did not want to show it.

‘His bodyguard and shadow you say. So it was up to you to protect him from the assassin?’

‘He had ordered me to stay away. Everyone knows that he wanted to die like that. I could have killed one murderer and another would have sprung up. Who am I to intercede between my master and his fate?’

‘And what do you want?’

‘Last night, our troops slipped into Isfahan. The garrison rallied to us. Sultan Barkiyaruk has been rescued and this city belongs to him from now on.’

Khayyam sat bolt upright.

‘Jahan!’

It was a shout and an anguished question. Vartan said nothing. His worried air jarred with his martial bearing. Omar thought he could read in his eyes a monstrous admission. The officer muttered:

‘I really wanted to try and save her. I would have been so proud to present myself to the illustrious Khayyam, bringing to him his spouse, unharmed! But I arrived too late. All the people of the palace had been massacred by the soldiers.’

Omar went toward the officer and punched him as hard as he could without even succeeding in shaking him.

‘And you have come here to tell me that!’

The officer kept his hand on the sheath of his sword but had not drawn it. He spoke calmly.

‘I came for something else completely. The officers of the Nizamiya have decided that you must die. When you wound the lion, they say, it is wise to finish him off. I took on myself the task of putting you to death.’

Khayyam suddenly became calmer. He would keep his bearing up to the end. How many sages had devoted their whole life to reach this peak of the human condition! He did not plead for his life, but on the contrary, he felt his fear wane by the second and he thought above all of Jahan. He had no doubt that she too had kept her bearing.

‘I would never have pardoned those who killed my wife. My whole life I would have been their enemy, and my whole life I would have dreamed of seeing them impaled! You are absolutely right to rid yourselves of me!’

‘It is not my opinion, master. It was up to five officers to decide your fate. My companions all wanted your death and I was the only one to oppose it.’

‘You were wrong. Your companions seem to be wiser.’

‘I often saw you with Nizam al-Mulk. You were sitting down conversing like father and son. He never stopped loving you in spite of your wife’s schemes. If he were here with us, he would not have condemned you. He would also have forgiven her, for your sake.’

Khayyam took a close, hard look at his visitor, as if he had just now discovered his presence.

‘If you were against my death, why did they choose you to come and execute me?’

‘It was I who offered myself. The others would have killed you, but I planned to leave you alive — otherwise why would I have stayed talking with you?’

‘And how will you explain this to your companions?’

‘I will not explain anything. I shall go away. I shall follow you.’

‘You announce it so calmly, as if it were a long-standing decision.’

‘It is the very truth. I do not act impulsively. I was the most faithful servant of Nizam al-Mulk — I believed in him. If God had allowed it, I would have died to protect him. However, long ago I decided that, if the master should disappear, I would serve neither his sons nor his successors and I would forever give up the profession of the sword. The circumstances of his death have forced me to use it one last time. I was involved in the murder of Malikshah and I do not regret it: he had betrayed his tutor, his father, the man who raised him up to the summit; he thus deserved to die. I had to kill, but that has not made me a killer. I would never have shed the blood of a woman, and when my companions outlawed Khayyam, I understood that the time had come for me to leave, to change my life and to became a hermit or a wandering poet. If you want, master, collect some belongings and we shall leave this city as soon as possible.’

‘To go where?’

‘We shall take whatever path you wish. I shall follow you everywhere, as a disciple, and my sword will protect you. We will be able to return when the tumult has died down.’

While the officer was readying the mounts, Omar hurriedly gathered up his manuscript, his writing case, his flask and a purse bulging with gold. They rode right through the oasis of Isfahan to the suburb of Marbine toward the West without being troubled by the numerous soldiers. One word from Vartan was enough for the gates to be opened and the guards to stand aside respectfully. The servility shown to Vartan did not fail to intrigue Omar, who nevertheless avoided questioning his companion. For the moment he had no choice other than to trust in him.

They had been gone less than an hour before a seething crowd came to pillage Khayyam’s house and set it on fire. By the end of the afternoon the observatory had been laid waste. At the same moment, the lifeless body of Jahan was interred at the foot of the mulberry tree which bordered the palace garden.

There would be no tombstone to show posterity her place of burial.