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Guardian
correspondent laid out his own military
experience and stated that the surprise element could turn out to be decisive.
Fazel brought the debate to a conclusion.
‘I am still not convinced, but, as no other action can be envisaged I will not
oppose Howard’s plan.’
The attack was launched the next day, 20 April, at three in the morning. It
was agreed that if by five o’clock the position had been won, operations would
take place at multiple points along the front in order to prevent the enemy
pulling troops back for a counterattack. However, within the first minutes the
attempt seemed in jeopardy: a barrage of fire met the first sortie, led by Moore,
Baskerville and some sixty other volunteers. Apparently the enemy was not all
taken by surprise. Could a spy have informed them of our preparations? We will
never know, but the sector was guarded, Liakhov having entrusted it to one of
his most adept officers.

---

Fazel sensibly ordered the operation to be halted without delay and had the
signal for a withdrawal given – a lengthy bird-call. The fighters rushed back.
Several of them, including Moore, were wounded.
Baskerville was the only one who did not return. He had been felled by the
first salvo.
For three days Tabriz would live to the rhythm of condolences. There were
discreet condolences at the Presbyterian Mission and noisy, impassioned,
incensed condolences in the districts held by the sons of Adam. My eyes were
red as I shook hands with people whom I mostly did not know, and I listened to
endless tributes.
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.

---