The warden of the gate of Masyaf looked out upon the mom- ing. The mountains marched away before him, bleak and bare.

Below lay the fields that fed the castle, fallow now with the harvest's ending but bearing a memory and a promise of green.

They had suffered in the sultan's war; wind and the autumn rains had begun to blur the remnants of the siegeworks.

He would not come back. Allah, and Sinan, had seen to that. The warden murmured a prayer of thanks, secure in hisfaith and his righteousness. Was he not the guardian of the Gate of Allah? Was he not a.s.sured of Paradise?

A black bird flapped down amid the stubble of a field. It was very large and most ungainly, staggering and struggling as if it bore a wound. And yet there was no archer in the fields, nor had any shot from the walls; and the bird flew alone, It blurred and shifted in the watcher's sight. Large, indeed.

Man-high, and a tall man at that. Its wings shrank to tattered robes. It raised a white face, eyes enormous in it, black-shad- owed; black hair in a wild tangle, black beard, nose curved fiercely and keenly enough but patently no bird's.

Even yet, the warden hesitated to call it human. Human- shaped, certainly, and male beyond a doubt. But as it struggled toward the castle, it grew more strange and not less.

It-he-was quite evidently and quite starkly mad. The sreepness of the slope drove him to his knees. As often as he fell, he dragged himself erect again, inching toward the gate.

His robe was torn; blood glistened on it. His face was serene, even exalted.

The gace was shut. He swayed on the edge of the ditch, smiling. For an instant his eyes seemed to meet the warden's, though that could not be: the warden was hidden in the shadow of the battlement. He raised his long white hands, still smiling, and smote them together. The gate rocked; stilled.

The faintest of frowns marred his brow. Had he expected the gate to fall? His eyes rolled up. Gently, with dreamlike slow- ness, he crumpled. 285.

The warden would have left him to die, if he was capable of it, but the Master would not have it. They brought him in and tended him. He was filthy, battered, worn to a shadow; he desperately needed water and sleep. But he was in no imminent danger of death. They saw that he was no Muslim. They sur- mised that he was no mortal.

Sinan contemplated him with great interest and no little wonder. The physician offered him the proof: the eyelid lifted, the eye rolling senseless but, when the light struck it, perform- ing its office. A grey-eyed man who was no human man- Thc Master of the a.s.sa.s.sins could not wait by a stranger's bedside, however intriguing that stranger might be. He posted guards and bound them with his commands, and returned to duties more pressing, if never so intriguing.

Aidan woke in rare and perfect clarity. He knew where he was. He knew, and guessed, how he had come there. He knew that he was nothing approaching sane.

The bed was hard but the coverlets warm and soft. He was clean; his bruises ached, his cuts srung, but gently. Worse was the ache of his sore-taxed power. He had demanded all that itcould give, and then as much again. And it had obeyed him.

It throbbed like a wound. Even to shield it was pain.

He did not care. He was in Masyaf.

He sat up gingerly. Muslim modesty had clothed him in shin and drawers; they were plain but well sewn, and they fit not badly.

The chamber was small but not ascetic: walls of stone soft- ened with silk, a good carpet, even a window. The door was barred, with a seal like a star set in the lintel. The window looked out upon a precipice.

There was a low table, and a jar, and in it clean water; beside it a plate of cakes, a cheese, a pomegranate. He remembered an old lesson among the monks, and smiled.

Under the window stood a chest of ccdarwood, beautifully carved. There were garments in it: white and, like his shirt, plain but of excellent quality. a.s.sa.s.sins' garb- He put them on.

The room was cold and he was mad, but he was no fool, to refuse warmth when it was offered.

He ate, drank. The cakes were a.s.sa.s.sins' cakes; they were good to the taste, without blood to taint them. The pome- granate spilled its jewels, staining his fingers scarlet.

He raised his eyes to the man who stood in the door. He did 286 not know what he had expected. An old man, yes. Old and strong, worn chin with years of austerity. His beard was long and silver, his eyes dark and deep. Perhaps it was not beauty that he had, but it was a strong face, cleanly carved, a face out of old Persia. His kind had waged war against the west for twice a thousand years.

There was no softness in him. Mercy and compa.s.sion, his face said, were for Allah. He, mere mortal man, could not aspire to them.

He came unarmed and alone. Wise man. Guards, blades, violence, Aidan could have met in kind. This fierce harmless- ness held him rooted.

"I have had your message," said the Master ofMasyaf.

Aidan had to pause to remember it. "And the messenger?"

he asked.

"Dead," said Sinan. Of course, his tone said.

Aidan could not prevent himself from regretting that. A lit- tle. His quarrel was with Sinan, and with Sinan's tame demon.

"A pity," he said. "He was useful."

"Not," said Sinan, "once he was unmasked." He regardedAidan with the shadow of a smile. "Come," he said. "Wilk with me.

He was not without fear. Aidan scented it, faint and acrid.

But Sinan would be one who reveled in terror; whose greatest pleasure lay in defying it. He walked as a man walks who thinks to tame a leopard, not touching Aidan, not venturing so far, but walking well within his reach. He was a middling man for a Saracen, which was small for a Frank, and thin; Aidan could have snapped his neck with one hand.

They walked seemingly without destination, wandering through the castle. It was small after Krak, but the feel of it was much the same: a house of war, consecrated to G.o.d. Its people moved in the silence of those whose purpose is known, and firm. They greeted Sinan with deep reverence and his compan- ion with brief incurious stares. One did not ask questions here, or think them; not before the Master. What they knew or guessed, they kept to themselves.

Sinan said little, and that to the purpose: the use of a cham- ber, the choice of a turning. Ws have no secrets, his manner said. See, it is all open, no hidden places, no shame kept chained in shadow.

Yes, Aidan thought. Sinan needed no secrets here. Those were all in the world without, among his spies and his servants. 287.

The garden was fading coward winter, but in its sheltered places the roses bloomed still. Under a canopy of white and scarlet, Sinan sat to rest. "Is it true," Aidan asked him, "that in Alamut the roses never fade?"

"Wauld you like it to be true?"

Aidan bared his teeth. "In my city there is such a garden. But she who tends it is no mortal's slave."

Did the a.s.sa.s.sin tense? His face wore no expression. "No slave in Alamut has such a power."

"And in Masyaf?"

The thin hand rose, plucked petals from a blown blossom, fct them fall- "In Masyaf, death and life pa.s.s as Allah has or- dained."

"Or as you choose to command."

"I bur serve the will of Allah."

"You believe that," Aidan said. He was not surprised. A cynic, or a hypocrite, would have been less perilous.

"And you? What do you believe?"

"That Allah is a goodly name for one man's avarice."Sinan was unoffended. "So? What do you call your own?"

"I have none. My sins are pride and wrath. I call them by their names."

"Proud," said Sinan, "indeed." He cupped a single blood-red petal in his palm, regarding it gravely. His eyes lifted. "What would you have of me?"

Directness was an artifice, in a Saracen. Aidan showed him directness bare. "Surrender."

A lesser man would have burst into laughter. Sinan said, "Is there perhaps some doubt as to who is in whose power?" He gestured: a flick of the fingers. Out of the coverts and shadows of the garden and round its comers stepped men in white.

Every one bore a strung bow, every arrow fixed unwaveringly on its target - Aidan smiled. "Oh, no," he said. "No doubt at all. You asked what I would have. My heart's desire would be your life, but that would not bring back my kin. I would rest content with your surrender; with your solemn oath that you will cease to torment the Lady Margaret, and the payment of reparation for the lives which you have taken."

The Master of Masyaf looked at him with the beginning of respect. "Ah, sir. I see that you are a civilized man."

"Hardly," Aidan said. "The price I set will not be low. And 288 you must abandon forever any hope of gaining power in the House of Ibrahim."

"There are other houses."

"Merchant houses. And merchants have no love for would- bc kinsmen who resort to the crudity of murder. No," said Aidan. "With your tactics in this battle, you have lost the war."

"That supposes that I intend to surrender. What if I should simply seize the lady and compel her?"

"She'd die first," Aidan said. "And you might find that I am a larger obstacle than I look."

"Large enough," said Sinan, measuring his inches, "and strong, certainly. Yet Allah has made your kind subject to cer- tain compulsions." He took from his coat a small thing: a circle of iron on a chain, engraved with a star of six points*, written about in Arabic and in what must surely be Hebrew. With a small shock of recognition, Aidan recalled the carving in the lintel of his cell.

"The Seal of Suleiman." said Sinan, "with which he bound the races of the jinn. I have set your name in it.""But," Aidan said, "I am not a Muslim."

"Nor was Suleiman."

Aidan plucked the Seal out of Sinan's hand. The archers tensed, but none loosed an arrow. He fumed the thing in his fingers. There was no power in it but the cold stillness of iron and the heat of human wishing.

He weighed it in his hand. Weighing pretense; weighing the usefulness of the truth. Sinan did not know that he had, for the moment, no more power than any mortal. Until it had restored itself, Aidan had nothing but his wits and his bodily strength to sustain him. That, and the fear his kind roused in human men.

To let Sinan think that this bauble and not Aldan's own weakness bound him . . .

Aidan dropped the Seal in Sinan's lap and sighed. "So. You have me. Are you going to bargain with me?"

"Perhaps. A slave is useful, but a free man who works for his wages has greater will to do well. Suppose that you, in yourself, could turn my mind away from the House of Ibrahim. Would you do it?"

"I won't kill for you."

Sinan smiled faintly. "Do you think that that is all I could wish of you?"

"What more is there?" 289.

"How can I know that, until I know more of you?"

"What is there to know, save that I am what I am?"

"But that," said Sinan, "is hardly simple; and, open secret though it may be, it remains a secret. All that is known of you is rumor and whisper only, save what any mortal man may claim: rank, wealth, prowess in the field. I need none of those.

From pride and wrath I might profit, if they were turned to my purposes." He stroked his beard slowly, reflectively. "It is early yet for bargains, or for the trust which must seal them. Yet I tell you this. If you would give yourself to me wholly, for a term which I shall set, then I would consider the granting of your demands."

"Only consider them?"

"I should have to know that I may trust you."

Aidan stiffened.

"W- know Prankish faith," said the a.s.sa.s.sin. "An oath sworn to an infidel is no oath."Aidan did not spring. Nor was it the archers who restrained him. Pride, indeed; and wrath. But if he was a young demon, he was old in the ways of humankind; he knew baiting when he suffered it. He bared his teeth in a tanged smile. "That may be.

But the oath I swore to win recompense, I swore to my suffi- ciently Christian self."

"You will be given ample s.p.a.ce for proof." Sinan raised a hand. Two of the archers lowered their bows and came for- ward. Big men, those; giants among the Saracens. One was taller than Aidan, and easily thrice as broad.

"You will wish to rest," their master said, "and to reflect on what we have spoken of." He nodded to the guards; they took station by the prince, one on either side.

Aidan looked from one to the other. Neither would meet his glance. He raised one shoulder in a shrug, turned on his heel.

They wavered transparently between dragging him back and letting him go.

He walked calmly toward the gate. Sinan did not move to call him back. The guards hastened in his wake.

The choice should have been easier than it was. Either Aidan would surrender himself for his oath, or he would defy Sinan and win his vengeance by another path. He could kill if he must, and though he die for it. Certainly he would have the life of Sinan *s instrument, the liar, the traitor to her kind.

It should have been simple. Better defiance and death than 290 Judith Tsar servitude. Tfet he could not make the certain and inevitable choice. His mind kept wanting to be subtle. To enter the a.s.sas- sin's service; to make himself indispensable; to displace the she- devil. And then, when she was wefl out of favor and he deep in it, but with his term of service drawing to its end, to destroy them both.

He knew that it was not in him to be so subtle for so long.

He was no intriguer, and he was no man's slave. But the voice behind his eyes refused to be silenced. Defy him, and perhaps he strikes again at Joanna. Certainly he wUl move on her son. The lady willsurrender then: even she cannotresist such persuasion. b.u.t.t/you seem to yield, if you win/row him a promise to make no move while you prove your good faith, what have you lost but your impatience^.

"My self-respect," he snapped, stalking the length of his prison and back again. "My life, when I break. As I must. Then he will be all the more implacable in persecuting my kin."

Ton may be stronger than you think.

He snarled, flinging himself down on the mat. He was trapped. He could admit it. He had thought of nothing but reaching Masyaf. Now that he was here, he had no plan and no sensible purpose.He was captive, emptied of magic, robbed of his mamiuks, stripped of his sword, all in the a.s.sa.s.sin's power. He was not even certain that he could play for time until his power came back. And if he could, what then? There would still be Sinan, and Sinan's demon, and their debt of death.

Perhaps he should kill them both, and let the consequences settle themselves. Killing was simple; it was final. It put an end to all one's waverings.

He cast off the garments that reeked of a.s.sa.s.sins, and lay naked in cold that could not touch him as it touched a mortal man. He shivered once, in memory of his father's blood. But the fire burned strong in him. He wanted Joanna, suddenly: not for l.u.s.t, not so much, but to fill his arms; to be warm against him, and to love him, and to be woman to his man. He had left her in a madness of grief, abandoned her in her pain.

What must she be thinking of him now?

If she was wise, she would be hating him.

He lay on his face. His eyes wept, independent of the rest of him. Only a little; only briefly. He sighed and lay still, His back p.r.i.c.kled. There were sounds enough without, from the keen of the wind to the distant echoes of human presence.

Within, the silence was absolute. 291.

He was not alone.