Amin Maalouf - Samarkand

Among the throng of visitors was the English consul. He took me aside.

‘It will perhaps be of some consolation to you to learn that six hours after your friend’s death I received a message from London informing me that the Powers had reached agreement on the question of Tabriz. Mr Baskerville will not have died in vain. An expeditionary force has already set out to relieve the city by bringing in provisions, as well as to evacuate the foreign community.’

‘A Russian expeditionary force?’

‘Of course,’ Wratislaw admitted. ‘They are the only ones who have an army in the area. However we have obtained guarantees. Constitutionalists will not be troubled and the Tsar’s troops will withdraw when their mission is completed. I am counting on you to convince Fazel to lay down his arms.’

Why did I accept? Perhaps I was overwhelmed or exhausted, or maybe a Persian sense of fatalism had worked its way into me. Whatever the reason, I did not protest and let myself be persuaded that I was the one who had to carry out this loathsome mission. However, I decided not to go to Fazel’s straight away. I preferred to escape for a few hours — to Shireen.

Since our night of love I had only met her again in public. The siege had created a new atmosphere in Tabriz. People were always speaking of enemy infiltration. They thought that they saw spies or sappers everywhere. Armed men patrolled the streets and guarded the access of the main buildings. There were often five, six, or sometimes more men at the gates of the empty palace. Although they were always ready to greet me with beaming smiles, their presence effectively prevented a visit being discreet.

That evening everyone’s vigilance was relaxed, and I managed to wend my way as far as the princess’s bedroom. The door was ajar and I pushed it noiselessly.

Shireen was sitting up in bed with the manuscript open on her knees. I slipped to her side, shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip. Neither of us had any thought for caresses, but that night we loved in a different fashion, immersed in the same book. She guided my eyes and lips. She knew every word, every painting; for me it was the first time.

She would often translate into French in her own way the ends of poems which dealt with a wisdom which was so accurate or a beauty so timeless that one forgot that they had been uttered for the first time eight centuries earlier in some garden in Nishapur, Isfahan or Samarkand.

The wounded birds hide so they may die.

There were words of heartache and consolation, the touching monologue of a defeated and dignified poet:

Peace to man in the black silence of the beyond.

But there were also words of joy and sublime unconcern:

Some wine! Let it be as pink as your cheeks

And my regrets as light as your locks.

After we had read aloud the very last quatrain and gazed admiringly at each miniature, we turned back to the beginning of the book to go through the chronicles written in the margins. First of all we read the one by Vartan the Armenian which covered a good half of the work, and thanks to which that night I learnt the history of Khayyam, Jahan and the three friends. There followed the chronicles written by the librarians of Alamut — father, son and grandson — each chronicle being thirty pages long arid telling, the manuscript’s extraordinary fate after it was stolen from Merv and its influence on the Assassins as well as a concise history of the Assassins up until the invasion of the Mongol hordes.

Shireen read out the last lines as I could not make out the handwriting very easily: ‘I had to flee Alamut on the eve of its destruction, toward Kirman, my place of birth, carrying the manuscript of the incomparable Khayyam of Nishapur, which I have decide to hide this very day in the hope that it will not be found until there are men fit to hold it and for that I put my trust in the Almighty. He guides whom he wishes and leads astray whom he wishes.’ There followed a date, which according to my reckoning corresponds to 14 March 1257.

This set me thinking.

‘The manuscript ends at the thirteenth century,’ I said. ‘Janialadin was given it in the nineteenth. What happened to it in the meantime?’

‘A long sleep,’ said Shireen. ‘An interminable oriental siesta. Then it was jolted awake in the arms of that madman, Mirza Reza. Wasn’t he from Kirman, like the librarians from Alamut? Are you so shocked to find that he had an ancestor who was an Assassin?’

She had got up and gone to sit on a stool in front of her oval mirror with a comb in her hand. I could have stayed hours just watching the gracious movements of her bare arms, but she brought me back the prosaic reality of things:

‘You must get ready if you do not wish to be caught in my bed.’

In fact daylight was already flooding into the room, as the curtains were too light.

‘It is true,’ I said wearily. ‘I almost forgot your reputation.’

She turning toward me, laughing:

‘Exactly. I have my reputation to maintain. I do not want it told in all the harems of Persia that a handsome stranger was able to pass a whole night at my side without even thinking of taking his clothes off. No one would ever desire me again!’

After placing the manuscript back in its box, I placed a kiss upon my beloved’s lips, and then I ran down the corridor and through two secret doors to dive back into the turmoil of the besieged city.

Of all those who died during those months of hardship, why have I singled out Baskerville? Because he was my friend and compatriot? Most probably. But also because his only ambition was to see liberty and democracy triumph in the rebirth of the orient, which for all that was foreign to him. Had he given his life for nothing? In ten, twenty or a hundred years would the West remember his example, or would Persia remember his action? I chose not to think about it lest I fall into the inescapable melancholy of those who live between two worlds which are equally promising and disappointing.

However if I limit myself to the events immediately after Baskerville’s death, I can make myself believe that he did not die in vain.

Foreign intervention, the lifting of the blockade and a food convoy all happened. Was it thanks to Howard? Perhaps the decision had already been taken, but my friend’s death quickened the rescue effort and thousands of gaunt townspeople owed their survival to him.

It can be imagined that the prospect of the Tsar’s soldiers arriving in the besieged city did not thrill Fazel. I did my best to talk him into accepting the situation.

‘The population is no longer in a state to resist. The only gift that you can still give them is to save them from famine and you owe them that after all the hardship they have put up with.’

‘To have fought for six months only to end up under the thumb of Tsar Nicholas, the Shah’s protector!’

‘The Russians are not acting alone, they have the mandate of the whole international community. Our friends throughout the world will applaud this operation. To resist it or to fight it would be to lose the benefit of the enormous support which has been lavished upon us so far.’

‘But to submit and lay down our weapons now that victory is in sight!’

‘Is it me that you are talking to, or are you just inveighing against fate?’

Fazel recoiled and gave me a look of deep reproach.

‘Tabriz does not deserve to be so humiliated!’

‘I can do nothing about it, and neither can you. There are some times when any decision is a bad one and we must choose the one we will regret least!’

He seemed to calm down and gave the matter serious thought.

‘What fate is in store for my friends?’